FRIDAY, AUGUST 16th
I jolt awake around 5:30. Net three-ish hours of sleep. Great idea before a six-hour drive through the desert. The sun rises over Los Angeles. I watch as the sun drapes the Paramount water tower in an early morning shade of pink, too rich for bleary eyes. I should start packing.
After my last day of work, I have one last In–N–Out. I wish it wasn’t as damn good as it is. How dare an LA thing not be overrated. It offends my delicate New Yorker sensibilities.
The road is long and wide and cuts a swath through first hills, then desert, then mountains, then desert again. Tonight I’m headed to Vegas.
I turn on the playlist that is to be my trusty companion for the next six-ish days. MIKA tells me that maybe he’ll be himself when he’s somebody else. I step on the gas.
I am baking underneath the August sun. Window down, radio up, A/C off so that my engine doesn’t overheat and I don’t find myself stranded in the Mojave, easy vulture bait. I’m not sure I could hold my own against a carrion bird. Sunglasses only do so much to protect my eyes. Plus, they make me look like a douche.
I speed out of California.
The sun is starting to set, and with it it brings a shade not unlike the Paramount water tower pink I saw fifteen hours ago. The Sierra Nevadas are a rich purple, their craggy peaks jutting into the sky, bruising it deep blue. I stick my arm straight out the window, trying to high-five the horizon.
The Strip looms out of nowhere, a great machine of phosphorescence and brand deals that runs on gambling addicts and Adele’s residency. I park at Excalibur and immediately purchase an overpriced frozen drink in a novelty glass. I spend an hour or so getting appropriately drunk and losing about twenty bucks on the casino floor before I drag myself to the elevators and throw myself across a fifth-floor bed. It’s late. I’m making the same mistake I made last night. An omen for my behavior for the rest of the trip, to be sure, though I try to pretend it’s not.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 17th
The morning brings headache-inducing sunlight and an expensive breakfast. It’s 102° in Vegas, and it steadily climbs to a punishing 112° in the desert separating me from Salt Lake City. I roll down my windows, my left arm glowing pink, sweat slicking the place where my sunglasses press against my sticky, sunscreen-slathered forehead. I turn on a mix of music that I can tear my throat out screaming along to in the dry Southwestern heat. Bikini Kill, Paramore, the Ramones, Fall Out Boy. Got my heart broken in the dorms of the Ivy League. We all try to deafen the rumble of tires burning against asphalt and gale force winds buffeting metal tanks whose speedometers tick closer to 100 the farther away from a city they get.
Gradually, Nevada becomes Arizona becomes Utah, and the sandy brown landscape surrounding me is streaked with red, then dotted with green, then the Rockies jut out, pointing skyward like the spires of the Temple in Salt Lake City. Rain falls. I stick my tongue out, tasting rain for the first time in months. I’m not as fond of California weather as everyone else seems to be.
I get a drink in Salt Lake City. It feels apropos.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 18th
I’m awake before seven and in the car before eight. I’m exhausted, and the one-hour timezone shift is fucking me up more than it has any right to do. I turn on music to belt to so I can keep myself awake. I may or may not listen to the entire Be More Chill soundtrack.
I stop at a rest stop called Little America where I get diner food and a 75-cent ice cream cone before noon. An ugly shot glass for my ugly shot glass collection and a fridge magnet for my best friend get unceremoniously tossed in my glove compartment. An older man with an owl, a handlebar mustache, and an AC/DC t-shirt waves at me in the parking lot as I shift into drive. There is nothing in sight for miles except for cow pastures and Sinclairs.
Wyoming is relentlessly, brutally flat. Every once in a while a butte will skate past on my left, streaked with red, a child’s drawing of the Wild West. Actual bales of hay line the road. I find myself alone on the interstate for two hours, no other cars in sight. My only companions are markers telling me I’m on the historical Oregon Trail and twenty-foot billboards telling me that my mother was pro-life, so I should be, too.
I cross into South Dakota and marvel at all the trees around me. They’re maybe coniferous or deciduous or some other -oussian tree taxonomy that I haven’t seen since I left Philadelphia in mid-May. I am slowly but surely creeping east. I visit Mount Rushmore, and head early (10pm) to my hotel.
MONDAY, AUGUST 19th
I drive East straight into the sun for an hour before I hit Wall Drug, a massive tchotchke store where I buy my brother an ironically hideous mug. Next is the Badlands, where I hike across blown-out, bone-dry, Martian-looking terrain. A severe-sounding Russian lady in a tacky Texas themed t-shirt takes pictures of me for me to send my parents. The wind is howling.
I fly past roadside attractions — a skeletal dinosaur, the World’s Only Corn Palace. South Dakota feels like it will never end. I call my mom as the sun sets, due towards Iowa.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 20th
The only thing I do today is drive. For eight and a half hours, I drive. I see Iowa’s Largest Frying Pan, and the World’s Largest Truck Stop. I’m spending the night in Michigan.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21st
Ann Arbor is adorable. I meet a friend for coffee, and I hate that I have to leave after only an hour. I eat up daylight hours and inch towards the Canadian border, alternating between Spotify’s autogenerated Floaty Mix and the last of The Magician’s Land, the final book in a series I’ve been listening to for my entire drive.
I cross the Canadian border on the phone with my roommate. The call drops as I enter international territory, and I roll into a 60km/h zone in silence. Ontario is flat, Midwestern-ish, and dotted with shops. It’s about two hours to Toronto. I spend most of it listening to my travel playlist. When America by Simon and Garfunkle comes on, I consider it for a moment, and then skip it. Time and place, and all that.
Toronto is a somewhat heavenly escape. Parking in Chinatown is a nightmare, but I don’t care. I’m just happy to be back in a big city. I have about two hours here, and I spend them as wisely as I can, gorging myself on dumplings and wandering around a fantastically graffiti-decorated city. I could cry at the sight of a tram. I really could.
I’m back in my car before sunset and make it to Niagara Falls by ten. It is Vegas 2.0, and I am too fucking tired for it, but I rally. I walk around the falls for half an hour, snapping pictures of the falls lit up at night, then retreat to the balcony of my motel where I watch the tourist-trap-y center glitter up at me. A shitty substitute for the light-pollution-hidden stars.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 22nd
I jolt awake around 5:30. I spend about an hour and a half walking around the falls, watching the sun rise. An old man on a scooter pulls up and tries to convert me to being a Bills fan. Sorry. Go Birds.
There’s that pink in the sky again, that sort of transitional temporal pink that’s followed me as I’ve trekked across three time zones and three thousand miles. It floats above the falls, above the infinite gallons of pouring water that splatter me the closer I get to the edge. It’s just barely being overcome by pale blue when I get back to the car and book it towards the border.
New York — I’m home. It’s so green. I’m nowhere near the city, but I can feel the anticipation building in me. I pull over at a diner and have some of the best jam I have ever eaten in my life. I drive for eight hours straight, only stopping once out of necessity when my car flashes its harsh nearly-empty signal at me. I need to get home like I need air. I miss NYC with a ferocity that scares me.
I’m home for about three hours. Parking is a circle of hell I would not wish upon my worst enemy. I see my family, hug my dog, toast goodbye to the place we’ve lived in for my entire life. My mom carries a bottle of champagne down the block to the sushi spot around the corner.
An hour later, I’m back in the car, with my mom, tipsy and opining about my music taste, in the passenger seat. Two hours to Philly. Five days til I’m back to school.
