It’s hard to believe that, within the hour, the three of us will be embarking on a transcontinental caravan
Co-pilot #1, my older sister, is currently scooting down the neighborhood with a doggy stroller because “Mr. Pancakes hates to get his feet wet”. Co-pilot #2, my older brother, has arguably just woken up. He’s performing his morning routine of snorting and spitting snot into the bathroom sink while rinsing his retainer in cold water. Afterwards, he’ll pour himself a bowl of Great Grains and begin packing.
It’s noon and I’ve just deposited four pairs of winter gloves into the trunk – gifts from my mother. If it were up to her, the whole trip would be canceled as we’re “headed straight into a blizzard” but I’ll get there if I have to crawl on my hands and knees. My younger brother is acting as an extension of the computer, and if he has any awareness of the event at all, it is with short glances from the upstairs window.
It’s no small miracle I got this far, only a peculiar one
After the microwave fried our answering machine, it became taboo to answer the house phone. Gradually the only calls we ever got were from automated salesmen and debt collectors, and the phone would ring for hours. Sometimes it was my Dad who would address us all as “friend”.
One day I came home and thoughtlessly answered the phone 45 minutes late for a scheduled job interview. The man on the other line was a firm believer in the Tao of Pooh, and apparently didn’t mind. I was offered the job a couple days later on a disconnected pre-paid phone. It was from New Hampshire, but I accepted anyway.
Now I start the car with the caution of building an emergency fire with the last match
I’m still getting used to driving a vehicle that isn’t totaled, constantly overheating, and leaving puddles of motor oil wherever I park. It still has both side mirrors, the paint isn’t peeling off, the speedometer isn’t melted into a curly fry, the AC vents aren’t busted out, the dashboard isn’t cracked, melted, and sagging, the steering wheel isn’t disintegrating and leaving rubber boogers in my hands after every time I drive, the seatbelt isn’t dangerously frayed, and the gas gauge and sound system work.
Best of all, it doesn’t smell like deer estrogen, the neighbors don’t complain when I park outside, and the cops don’t follow me anymore. I sold that truck to a Guatemalan for $350 after years of getting notes on my windshield every few days saying “I buy your truck”. I kept the Spiderman floormats.
At under 100k miles, she’s new to me. I changed the timing belt, got a full inspection, and was told she was travel-ready. The day before leaving, I got an oil change from a different mechanic who replaced the brakes and told me they would’ve gone out before Tennessee.
My sister squeezes into the backseat between a tower of Frommer’s travel guides and two kinds of alcohol to be consumed along the way (mostly in Arkansas). I take good note of where we put the brownies. My brother is somehow stuck between the house and the car looking confused. I yell at him in the most diplomatic way possible.
So our journey begins
We roll three-quarters of the way around the cul-de-sac before stopping. I step outside the car and into my neighbor’s driveway. The big, dark, bear of a man is standing there facing me. Looking through me he boldly declares:
“Son, I always knew there was something special about you. I could sense it. You’re a warrior. Now the road you’re headed on – it’ll get rough in patches. But you’ll make it through alright. Don’t you ever give up. I’ve been watching you. You’re going to do great things. You’re a warrior, and I mean that!”
We start the drive again, making our way steadily down the old neighborhood. From the side mirrors, I watch my life slowly fade away. I que the music – a mixtape my coworker gifted me for the occasion. The introduction is a dedication to “all the warriors out there”…
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “the Message” bumps as we pass the old High School
It was the sight of so much confusion and terror on my part. Just a couple weeks ago my buddy and I were back at it again over there, like a couple of idiots, smashing bottles with baseball bats and nearly falling after climbing the stadium lights. We tried tricking everyone into thinking that we were fighting, and then we actually starting fighting before the cops came.
Now I’m off to spend my first winter outside of Texas living in an old Civilian Conservation Corps cabin with no electricity or running water in a state park called Bear Brook. I’ll be interning first as an environmental educator and later as a park ranger starting January 2, 2011, which gives me exactly one week to get there. At the moment, the sixth-largest snowstorm in New York history is raging along the northern part of the route, so we’re in no hurry.
We enjoy what’s called a podcast on the way to Dallas, passing Mother Neff State Park, and then hitting traffic over Lake Ray Hubbard. My sister Rachael suggests we tour the Deep South on the return trip, but I’ll be continuing west from New England and on to Alaska. The vegetation begins it’s shift to pine forest as the sun creeps below the horizon. We make a break in Texarkana for a mean buffet.
We clamber through the potholes of Arkansas in total darkness, later spying Memphis and Nashville from afar
I mistake the Appalachians, at first, for low-lying clouds while my brother Chris suggests we make a four hour detour to Fort Knox. It’s three in the morning and we are all starting to feel it. I ask him what he wants to do there when everything is closed, and he says, “Go see where they keep all the money.” We opt out, which is fine by him as long he gets a cannoli at some point in the trip.
Meanwhile, I’m beginning to have doubts about our current trajectory, crawling from stop sign to stop sign along an eerily deserted stretch of Dollywood towards Great Smokey Mountains National Park and the nearby Qualla Boundary – where our paternal roots supposedly lie. Sure enough, at the park entrance we’re forced to backtrack after hitting a roadblock due to heavy snowfall, and suddenly Chris’ proposal doesn’t sound so absurd. “What did I expect to accomplish here, anyway?” I ask myself as dawn approaches.
We make it to a Starbuck’s at morning light, somewhere outside of Gatlinburg, where I sneak one of the brownies. Somewhere in Virginia, we finally stop at a Hotel, after fully 21 hours of being on the road. Chris and Rachael go to bed, like normal people while I float on my back in the swimming pool and stare up at the ceiling for what feels like a very long time.
The next morning we set out like bears out of hibernation to scale McAfee Knob along the Appalachian Trial
After the first mile and a half of post-holing, the temperature drops, the wind picks up, and my jeans become a wet towel in the knee-deep snow. Suddenly, the biting wind and my hunger pains collude like a swarm of mosquitoes to drive me running all the way back to the car without saying a word. I blast the heat, scarf down another couple brownies, and find out that I was just within sight of the famous overlook.
Checking into our hotel in D.C., the receptionist gives us a free upgrade in the same breath as insulting our home city of Austin. I ride my first subway, and am immediately jealous of how much riffraff the youth (dressed like Lego characters) have access to. I’m overtaken by the Roman imperial vibe.
Strolling along the outskirts of the National Mall, I’m blown away by the immensity of everything. The White House appears quite humble in comparison – a fact that I appreciate. Statues and monuments typically leave me unimpressed, but the Lincoln Memorial is deeply moving. The Washington Monument looks exactly like how it is depicted in the movies.
The next morning, we head straight to the National Mall to pay a visit to the National Museum of the American Indian
The amount of things to see and do within the National Mall proper is unbelievable, especially considering that almost all of it is free! Later we make our way over to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, which houses a limitless collection of displays that truly exceed my highest expectations. I even locate my doppelgänger on display as a conquistador. “It’s been wonderful”, I think to myself in front of the Capitol Building, duly noting that it is, in fact, separate from the White House, “but I feel like I’ve seen enough for one day.”
I narrowly avoid entering the building by reasoning that we better finish seeing everything we want before it all closes. A move from Rachael to see the Library of Congress is met by fierce resistance from me. “What could possibly be there that’s any more important than what we’ve already seen?!” I reason. “The Constitution.” she replies.
That evening, I immediately fall in love with Philadelphia, “the City of Brotherly Love”, and it’s pervading sense of contempt for fellow man
The dichotomy in Center City, between the angelic statue of William Penn crowning Philadelphia City Hall and the drivers down below verbally assaulting and playing bumper cars with each other in the streets, is extraordinary. The honking, gesturing, and yelling, gives me a better understanding of my ex-girlfriend…and not a moment too soon. We’ll be staying with her in her grandmother’s townhouse for the next two nights.
We eat dinner at a phenomenal Israeli restaurant. Later we wait outside while she assures her Grandma that we won’t be stealing anything. There isn’t much more than air mattresses to be stolen. The upper-level views of snow coming down among the old red brick buildings is priceless. I’m confronted with accepting the reality of a version of America that in many ways is more historically authentic than the one that I brought with me.
In the morning we drop off my siblings at Independence Hall, while we cross over into Camden, N.J. to pay a visit to a beloved relative of my ex’s, who is suffering from terminal brain cancer. Speechless, she gasps at my approach, while deep despair grips me at the thought of her not recognizing me. An earthly angel, she gently rocks herself from side to side with a wet wipe draped across her sweet forehead.
The next morning before pushing on towards New York, I drop into a local corner store to pick up a box of tampons for my ex. The place is packed with a gritty-looking bunch who dote on me for the act of chivalry. We thank our hosts for having us, and complete our stay with a real Philly Cheese Steak.
There’s something quintessentially American about arriving in The Big Apple with everything you own on New Year’s Eve
Something quintessentially New Yorker is having the receptionist at the hotel refuse to let the three of us share the $230 closet-sized room we reserved, on the grounds that it would be a fire hazard. We convince him that I’m staying with friends nearby and that only my brother and sister will be staying.
At a local pizza joint someone holds open the door for us. I find everyone to be surprisingly polite. The air is positively electrified at Times Square, where I feel a buzzing throughout my entire body.
I have a bad feeling about the receptionist. We manage to sneak back into our room unseen, and I tell my brother and sister to go watch the ball drop without me. Sure enough, right after they leave, he calls the room. I answer to reassure him that I’ll be leaving soon to meet up with them later, and then going home with my friends afterwards. While the rest of the country ushers in the New Year with the ball drop playing on TV, I’m a few blocks away from the action, fast asleep, having nightmares about my discovery by the nosey hotel receptionist.
On New Year’s Day I try chicken’s feet at a Chinese place. We ply the streets of Manhattan, still littered with remnants of last night’s celebration, to see the Ground Zero memorial, the Flatiron and Woolworth building, and the Brooklyn Bridge. I’m most fascinated by the incredible diversity of the New Yorkers themselves. It really is the entire world in one city. Chris brings up the cannoli and we shut it down. We stop by another branch of the National Museum of the American Indian, and set off for the final destination along the megalopolis: Boston.
The long-awaited journey is finally coming to an end
Speaking mostly to myself, I say out loud “If there’s one thing I get out of this, I hope that its a sense of self-respect.” My brother replies, “If I get anything out of this trip, I hope that it’s a cannoli”. I assure him that this will never happen, as we pull into our hotel outside of Boston and call it a night.
The morning comes quickly, and we bide the rest of our time together in the room until it’s finally time for me to drop them off and finish the last leg alone. Due to my notoriously horrible sense of direction, Rachael offers to let me hold on to the GPS and send it back later per mail. I decline, knowing full well that this could be a terrible oversight. I look the route over with my brother, and retain none of the information whatsoever. As we leave the room, I notice that the bag of brownies is down to the last two. I greedily scarf them down.
I drop them off near a loading dock, waving goodbye. I’m sad to leave them, but need to concentrate now. I drive until I see a highway route marker signaling north, south, and west. Naturally, I turn north and continue driving for some time, until I realize that I’m heading east along the coast. “I’ve got plenty of time” I tell myself, “I’ll just turn around and start over”.
An hour from when I first started, I find myself at the exact same loading dock as before
It’s now 1pm. Orientation is scheduled to start at 5pm. If it takes an hour and a half to get there, I can still afford to remain lost for about another two and a half. I really hope that it doesn’t come down to it, but I’m beginning to think it was a really good idea that I budgeted an extra three and a half hours to get there.
I make it to the same route marker again, and figure that south would never get me north to New Hampshire, so I head west. Again, I continue driving for another tense thirty minutes, before accepting that this cannot be the right way. I start to lose patience with the situation. I take exits and merge lanes, almost at random, just to find a way north. Eventually, I find myself at the same loading dock, for a third time now.
My head is swimming, either from the frustration, anxiety, brownies, or all three, and when I come to the highway marker for a third time, I conclude that the first time I headed north, I must’ve unwittingly taken an exit that I shouldn’t have. I give it another try. Again, I begin approaching Salem and try to force a way north. It’s only a matter of time before I’m back at the same damn loading dock again.
It’s pushing half past three. I know it’s my last chance at making an entrance like a normal person. When I approach the route marker, I do the unthinkable and head south. Miraculously, I find myself headed due north for the first time since I left my siblings at that wretched loading dock.
Cities become towns, and then villages, while the forest grows in it’s vastness
It’s finally beginning to feel like what I had imagined it would. I feel an overwhelming relief at knowing that I am closing in on my goal. I call the program center, and the same man who waited 45 minutes for the phone interview gives me specific directions in getting there.
A fog rolls in. I’m driving along an empty road. I turn into Bear Brook State Park, and even the sky seems to give way to the thickness of the woods. I park outside a locked gate, when a car pulls up behind me. As I step out onto the icy road in my cowboy boots to unlock it, I make extra sure not to slip and bust my ass.
I know I’m close
The road continues deeper still, winding it’s way to an opening and what looks like the edge of a pond. Around the next bend, the road dips down past a cluster of small cabins, and a flood of excitement overcomes me as I notice groups of people my age shuffling in and out of them. I have arrived. Suddenly, a weaselly-looking older man comes rushing towards me, imitating a charging bull with his fingers up like horns. He is the program director. Little do I know that I will grow to hate him very, very deeply.
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