The countdown is on: our son Dylan and his college roommate, Jack, are preparing to drive cross-country from the San Francisco area to Durham, NC – for the purpose of bringing Jack’s car to campus – and for FUN!  Dylan’s got his one-way ticket already, he’s working down the checklist of things for the trip prepared by Mom, and he’s getting antsy – shall we say. The route is through Texas and Oklahoma – more southerly than what I suggested, due to heat/drought, etc.  But they have their own ideas, have made their own itinerary, and after they hit the road, there’s not much I can do.  I have some trepidation – not that it’s inherently unsafe, only that even for two bright guys with GPS and cell phones, the unexpected can always happen. And weather.

And yet, I did it, at 21, and lived to tell the tale.  Like the two guys, I left from the San Francisco area and traveled at the end of summer, headed out through Nevada into Utah, stopping at Salt Lake City.  But I was a bit older and a college graduate. Plus, Greyhound was doing the driving, on a 3-4 day schedule, rather than the 7-8 days the boys are giving themselves. I had no cell phone, and not a lot of common sense. The bus followed Route 80 most of the way, changing drivers a couple of times, and at least one planned change of bus – in Cheyenne, WY.  Or was that Laramie?  I remember two buses meeting at the small station: one destined for San Francisco; the other, New York City; it seemed so improbable. Only a handful of riders stayed the distance: an older woman I remember, and a dad traveling with his sweet, dressed up little girl.

An adventure it was.  I remember weaving through the dry, golden hills of California into the night, hoping the brakes would not fail.  A couple times, the driver apologized as bags overhead shifted and fell into the aisle.  Then a stop somewhere in Nevada, where we drank coffee in the early morning hours watching players at the casino stare like zombies at slot machines while bells and whistles filled the air.  That place, too, we picked up large metal containers of milk to deliver elsewhere.  Then, in daylight we approached the Great Salt Lake, full of birds, reeds and salt; and Salt Lake City, gleaming like Oz in the middle of the desert.  Downtown, the city could have been anywhere USA with people who looked a lot like me, but I knew they were not – they were Mormon.

We traveled on, the Big Sky country of Wyoming, with the ever looming Shoshone mountains in the distance. A stark, deserted feeling, empty – like those millions of buffalo should still have been roaming.  At our bus transfer, another other-worldly scene:  the man traveling with his 5 or 6-year old, golden-haired daughter asked me to watch the sleeping girl as he went to do a couple errands. As we sat, in the middle of the night in a dimly lit room, a couple of Indian men came by.  Not traveling, I don’t think, but drinking, it seemed – singing, swaying a little. But when they got to the little girl, they stopped, and bent over, whispering. Two seats away, I watched, not really alarmed; they didn’t touch, but gazed at her, and then bowed, before moving on.

The long stretch of Nebraska; and then came trouble – in the form of sciatica. It developed gradually, as I shifted side to side, trying to get off my bum. But it spread down my leg, and it hurt.  An older woman across the way offered me pills. Pretty desperate, I said yes.  She took out a bottle, and shook out a handful – all types, all colors.  “Should be a couple of aspirin in here,” she said, giving me ten or twenty – none clearly labeled.  “Try a few; see what happens.” So, like Alice in Wonderland, I swallowed some mystery medicine, hoping for the best.  Still not enough. In Iowa City, I couldn’t take it any more. When the bus driver got off, to be replaced by another, I followed him to a hotel down the block, and spent my last $30 on a room and a bed. Just so I could get off my back and sleep on my stomach.

After that, the home stretch.  At Chicago, the bus filled up again, and we had to share seats.  Toward the back, I got a 6’6’ college basketball player, black, who went to college somewhere in Indiana, I believe, where many of the children had never seen a black person; and some of them ran in fear at a tall one.  He was the son of a minister, returning to Wash. D.C. for a few days before starting the semester. He talked easily, and I think he was happy to have an attentive, curious listener.  A nice young man, with good prospects, and I wished him well when we parted ways. How ironic that my destination was rural Maryland where I would end up working at a hotel/restaurant where I was in many cases the only white person among a large kitchen staff of black people.

Honestly, I think everyone should make a trip across this country, the good old USA, at least once in their life, if they can do it. Preferably when younger. The ride is at the same time numbingly boring and totally mind-altering.  Surprising, mundane, diverse and homogenized. Some parts of the landscape are horrifyingly scarred, denuded or just plain ugly. In others there is poverty or urban blight. But there is so much beauty – in the long distance horizons and in cute, cozy small towns.  To love your country, I think you should know something about it, first hand, get your own impressions.  And the different kinds of people in it. 

I expect that my son and his friend may run into a few problems – most likely not the ones I could ever imagine ahead of time. But it will be their trip, their time, their adventure.  I’m happy they will see this great country, and hope they will conduct themselves like good citizens. So, boys, enjoy the trip – but don’t forget to call home. And a postcard would be nice.