The Great American Road Trip Part I

Road trips are an American pastime. In our culture, the car and the open road are not just symbols of freedom and adventure; they deliver both of these things, in spades, in real life. To take a cross-country road trip is almost a rite of passage, necessary if you ever want to truly appreciate not only our country’s size and geographic diversity but also its weird, amazing inhabitants.

Pete, my lifelong friend, and I embarked on a Great American Road trip from Connecticut to California in June of 2019. Our plan was tenuous, hashed out in my dining room a day or two before we left, using an old school road map. Seven stops, seven nights – a sprint through what has sadly become known as “flyover” country: all the rural counties in the middle of the country considered unequal to coastal metros. Anyone who lives in or has visited “flyover country” knows that these lands are among the most beautiful, intriguing, and wistful in America, that the people there are among the most kind, generous, and weird – in the best possible way – that this country has to offer. You miss a whole lot when you fly over.

Seven stops, seven nights, a National Park summer pass, and no time for real tourism, but time enough to see parts of the country we hadn’t seen before. Our plan was slapped together with some thought – we had a few stops firmly locked in – but not too much. We wanted some leeway for all the weird experiences and weird interactions that turn trips from Point A to Point B into adventures. Our mantra, however, was unwavering. In the words of Hunter S. Thompson, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”