I Found America! It Was Behind The Couch This Whole Time.
I was in my late 20s when I really got into the unconventional road trip. Had I had the good sense to monetize it at the time, I would have been in the first wave of people writing about rediscovering a lost[1] America in its scenic byways and pre-Interstate vacation roads- and of course also finding themselves, because that’s the sort of thing people do in their 20s. This is not that book, and I am grateful.
There are no mystical secrets to a life well lived by means of the road trip, no Real America ™ hiding in backwater towns that were bypassed and choked off, or just plain flattened, 50 years ago, for shining asphalt lanes of progress and consumption and speed. The fact that my father spent 6 hours in a ’38 Buick to get from Sturbridge to the shore in Rhode Island, and I spent 4 hours squashed between my cousins to get to southern Maine, and my kids can just pop down to the beach on a weeknight, means that they’re a couple of lucky little freckled twerps. And if my father had any interest in the ocean after spending time in the Navy, I bet he’d rather get there in an hour than in 6, too.
About 10 years ago we let my daughter, raised on the 3 rules of the road (no highways, no chains, and trust in neon), pick the route for our first Real Honest To God Family Vacation That Wasn’t Also A Business Trip Or An Extended Weekend On A Shoestring Budget. She asked if we could “Do 6.” In her defense, it was at least 8 hours into Pennsylvania before we regretted saying yes- and she was so excited, because everywhere you went, civic boosters and chambers of commerce had posted the signs urging tourists to bypass the interstates in favor of spending their money along scenic US-6, and we were going to really do the whole entire thing! (She is a completist, much like her mother.)
Oh, it’s pretty, don’t get me wrong. Even on Labor Day weekend, when the leaves are all still the same color, there is nothing to match the views as you climb through any of the approximately one million mountain ranges. We saw the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania, which was dubbed vertigo-inducing by me, “Huh,” by my nonplussed copilot, and “maybe it would be cooler if it were filled with mist like the pictures” by the still enthusiastic pre-teen. She still talks about the supermarket that time forgot — they had Pokémon cards that were at least 2 years out of date, meaning before her obsession started, and so were new to her and a highlight of the trip.
But it was also almost 10 pm before we even saw signs for the Ohio border. That was the point when my husband looked at me and said “Go to sleep now. I’ll wake you up when I fall asleep.” (Presumably by a gentle nudge, and not by crashing the car into something. One hopes.) As soon as she was out cold he hit the interstate and went as fast as is reasonably legal through Ohio. I stirred vaguely somewhere after midnight in Detroit, where he came out of what I later learned was the 5th gas station he had to try before he could find a diesel nozzle for cars, proudly bearing two cans of Red Bull because he had seen commercials and thought we might need some. (We did.) I took over somewhere along I-75 north of Flint. We traded back and forth a few more times before the sun came up, and the rest of the drive was a sleep-deprived and confusing blur. Sometime the next afternoon I pitched a tent with my last remaining brain cells, bravely stayed up until almost 8pm, and spent the rest of the vacation completely lost as to what day it was.
Today I am a veteran of the New Jersey-to-Michigan commute, having done it no less than 6 times in a single month during the move, and I have a grudging fondness for I-80 and the fact that it is more than twice as fast as any other way across the top of the state, barring accidents or sudden ice squalls or construction.
Scenic byways make great destinations, and I’m not just saying that because I’ve racked up almost 1/3 of the Lincoln Highway and have designs on the entire length of US-15 someday. What they don’t make are fast journeys, which can be a problem if you’re not independently wealthy and retired. The America that I see tearing ass down I-81 in the dark may be repetitive, generic and mostly charmless, but at the same time, shit, I made it from Connecticut to Florida in less than a full day’s drive. Do you have any idea how awesome that is?
[1] NB: the author is aware of the politics of race as they intersect with placement of interstate highways. The actual America that was lost to eminent domain and paved over in the 1960s and 70s is not at all what people talking with misted eyes about a bygone, simpler time miss. It is a subject worth acquainting yourself with, if you have asphalt in your veins.
