Nineteen years old, hair freshly rid of at least ten inches, and weeks to go until university is back in session.
My friend and I pack up his eggplant GTI with some clothes, some food, and a map plotting our route to southern California. We are ready to go.
Flying down the freeway with the bass pumping (ironically, I’m hearing Atmosphere singing “90 East towards Chicago, all the way to Cincinnati…” which would be the opposite direction we were going…), we whiz down 35 and and then I-80. Nebraska is a blur save for a few Old West Tourist Traps, and by the following morning we have cleared our backpacks out of the random Ogalalla motel and are just inches from Colorado.
We sort of have the ideas in our heads that Iowa and Nebraska are throwaway states, and that the real beauty will begin when we get to Colorado, so we are psyched. (This, by the way, turned out to be pretty accurate). As we plunge into the foothills in the easternmost part of the state, I am suddenly convinced that we are in the “old west.”
Soon after, I learn the meaning of the sign “truck slide.”Neither this, nor the signs in the western part of the state informing you of no gas or civilization for hundreds of miles, have me any less concerned about our safety in the mountains… and people drive through here in the winter? With ice on the roads? Incomprehensible!
We stop in a small mountain town to get gas, and stretch our legs. Soon, we drive past a scenic overlook, and for the first time (of many more in the next few days) I screech “OOOH, PRETTY! LET’S STOP!”
We need to stop for a snack anyway, so we pull over, and feast our eyes on the deciduous scenic glory and fresh mountain air. I bet the tap water tastes like diamonds out here…
With a picnic of peanut butter jar and grocery store bread (not gourmet bread, mind you, but college student sale bread) we take in the scenery and stretch our legs. Pretty incredible to behold, the mountains in the summer air.
We went on through the duration of our adventure from the diners, drive ins and dives of Utah, past suicide turns in the mountain gorges of Nevada, past Native American markets and the Grand Canyon. We sampled the southwest and drove up through the Kansas Turnpike. And of course, there was the 3 or 4 days we spent at his brother’s apartment in Huntington Beach. But I still remember my first glimpses of America’s west…
A vast and incredible country seemingly untouched by civilization (though the freeways running through it would suggest otherwise). No one for miles and miles, and nothing to see except incredible vistas and colors.
A truly beautiful and incredibly diverse country we live in!
What kind of road trippin’ experiences do you all have? Do you get that exhilarating rush when you enter the great unknown?
Meri
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