“…Americans were charting the vast wilderness around them and, in the process, asking questions of themselves (and making discoveries) that weren’t so common….In real American travel writing…there’s something at stake, inwardly as well as practically; the American traveler is generally looking for something, and it may be something as profound, as essential, as himself or his salvation.”
–Pico Iyer, Introduction to “The Best American Travel Writing 2004”
My constitution is a strange one, for many reasons, but let’s focus on the apparent dichotomous nature where I simultaneously loathe change, but consummately desire movement; a change of scenery. On the one hand, I can sit and read a book all day or code at work for 12 hours without taking a single break. However, when not completely focused on a task, I am constantly antsy. I am always looking for the next place to visit, trying to find the next adventure, never satisfied with where I am now. Stagnation. It’s a feeling that is amorphous and almost indescribable. Sitting at home staring out the window with all the world in front of you, but feeling like there is not a single thing to actually do. Feeling the need to move, but mentally feeling like your legs are stuck in quicksand. No matter how much you want to get up and go, anywhere, nothing can motivate you off that couch. How many weekends seem to just vanish without leaving the house? For me, stagnation is akin to the scene in the ‘Neverending Story’ (the book by Michael Ende, not the movie; I love the latter but adore the former, go read it NOW!) when Atreyu meets Morla (the giant nihilistic turtle and oldest citizen of Fantasia; probably one of the top characters in any book I would like to go have a drink with, I imagine he is a bourbon consumer) and becomes entrapped in the swamp of sadness. As he watched his beloved horse slowly sink and die in the mud, he begins to lose hope and give in to the Nothingness. But (Spoiler Alert!), at the very last he finds that motivation to MOVE, to get up and go, to do something about it all–to spurn the stagnation in those swamps and never look back.
Similar to 2/3rds of the world (Note: like Trump, this blog is not fact-checked), I grew up in a small town and eventually decided I wanted to see something else. After going to school in another small town, I thought I wanted to be a part of a city. I wound up in the burgeoning metropolis of New Bedford, MA for grad school–a city that reached its zenith somewhere around 1800 when Herman Melville was attracted there by the delightful scent of whale carcasses, and it has been slowly decaying (much like those dead whales) ever since. Much like Ahab, I struggled with a few of my own white whales through those boarded up New England mill town streets. After surviving 8 years of decay (most weekends spent carousing in Boston), I finally graduated and took a job in Miami–I thought I had finally gotten to the big city that I had always wanted.
Funny thing (warning cliche ahead), it turns out where you live matters little compared to the friends you make, but its hard to realize until you’ve wasted most of your life bar and party hopping. Within a few years the novelty of city life had worn off, the paint began to peel, and I could feel that inner anxiety telling me it was time to move, to go. And so here we are, sitting on top of a mountain in New Mexico on our way to Alaska, partaking in the great American tradition of migration. A country founded by immigrants that is constantly on the move.
And so begins our great Alaskan road trip. We are moving from the stagnant (only because man diked the greatest wetlands on earth to better enjoy the mosquitoes and humidity of Florida) swamp lands of Miami to the (semi-) wild rainforests of Juneau, Alaska. 5,000+ miles of America to be covered, seen, explored, and (mostly, probably) disappointed by. Our goal is to get ‘into the wild’ so to speak, but every American adventure we take tends to illustrate just how little wilderness is really left. Although Edward Abbey tended to be a bit of an old crank, he had some strong arguments in ‘Desert Solitaire’, perhaps best summed up by the Black Crowes’ line ‘they paved paradise to put up a parking lot’. Abbey predicted that by making America’s great places more accessible, we would simultaneously destroy what made them great: their wildness. Any visit to a National Park during the summer proves his view–lines of cars backed up for miles; hot, angry Americans complaining about the lines for the bathroom, the lack of sugar in their coffee, or how they are being coerced into taking the shuttle through the park instead of being able to drive their own car; ‘Ain’t this Amurrica?’ The animals have long skedaddled or, like Morla, given in and become nihilists–zoo animals in their own backyard. Of course, the ability for more Americans (not just the privileged middle class like us) to get out and escape their lives and overcrowded cities is a positive for humanity, so one cannot complain too much. But, when one has to sign up for a waiting list 6 months in advance for the right to throw on a backpack to hit the backcountry, one begins to wonder what is happening to nature.
The most useful lesson I have learned from traveling is that the top-rated destination or activity is never as good as advertised and the second, third, and tenth best options are likely 97% as good and less trampled by complaining humans. There are a few things that I hate: humanity, waiting in line with humanity, ineptitude, any credit card travel commercial where someone packs like 10 suitcases for their vacation, pre-measured shots, and people. Going to popular travel destinations involves basically all of those things in one place along with endless complaining. Why not seek out similar, but less popular options and enjoy silence? The National Parks might be the most ‘grand’ places in America, but that grandeur is easily negated by masses of humanity. I think that there is a certain herd-like mentality involved with travel where people see the top rated destination on TripAdvisor, Yelp, or Instagram and blindly follow the lines to it, waiting impatiently for their turn to take a picture of it, and post a photo. For us, there is a certain grandeur in silence (and having a small section of forest or mountaintop to ourselves, if just for a few minutes). That isn’t to say we won’t blindly follow the herd to the next National Park, queue up for our chance to take a picture of the Grand Canyon, and be disappointed by Americans. But, hopefully, we will follow that up by visiting a little known National Forest, wander down some unknown forest road, and enjoy a walk to nowhere and lunch under some lonesome, never before photographed pine tree listening to the silence (or lack thereof) in nature.
A cross country road trip has been a lifelong dream that we have both shared. America has an endless array of ever changing scenery to explore and get lost in. Kristen was lucky enough to see America once while moving from Seattle to Virginia, but didn’t get as much time to enjoy it as she would have liked. I have been waiting ceaselessly for a chance to make the oft-envied (among my friends at least) ‘cross country move’. Just the words espouse a certain amount of freedom, adventure, and self-assurance; not to mention the implication of ‘starting fresh’ in a new town half a world away. Being ‘On the Road’ inspires images of free-spirited navigation, a Kerouackian freedom. Unknown adventures to be had. Like any liberal arts attending book nerd, I’ve always loved the careless spirit of Kerouac and wished for my chance to just get in the car and go, anywhere–as long as it was far away. However, my favorite scene from ‘On the Road’ is not some drunken bar-room (often dumb or crude) debauchery, but the simple description of how he used to while away the endless hours of nothingness driving across the endless space of America. Mainly, he would imagine holding an endless blade that could be used to mow the grass across the plains aside the car, and how he would pick it up or bend it as obstacles (like telephone poles or broken down tractors) came and went. I remember as a kid doing this exact thing as I would try to while away the innumerable hours in the backseat of our family Ford Taurus station wagon on the way to camping in Acadia National Park in Maine or visiting friends in Buffalo, NY. It is funny how so simple a distraction can be so effective, but, also, how strange and seemingly unique an imagined mental construct can be simultaneously so ubiquitous. It is not always the immense and grand places that we remember and which make up our everlasting memories, but the small details and ‘in-between’ times that give life to our lives.
And so now it is our turn to cross the country. However, one interesting monkey wrench thrown into our road trip is the grand pandemic crossing the globe. We had originally planned to hit the road in March after returning from our trip to Cuba, but we were greeted with a total world shutdown. Four months later as restrictions began to be eased we decided to seize the opportunity and hit the road. However, due to the general American ‘me-first’ attitude and the prevailing ‘get your grubby government hands off my freedom to choose’ sentiment, most of the states we planned on visiting began to see huge spikes in coronavirus cases (not to mention Florida, the state we were trying to escape was also becoming the new US epicenter). Only two days into the road trip and we find ourselves in a brave new world of isolation, fear of out-of-staters, and a constantly changing landscape of closures and restrictions, which no one seems to understand or be able to keep up with. Overnight new regulations are implemented, parks are closed, self-quarantine rules are emplaced, and campgrounds are kicking us out. Our prevailing sentiment is that we are happy that states are becoming more proactive and erring on the side of caution (albeit a bit late), but the lack of consistency across states, counties, and even towns is perplexing, while the lack of any centralized guidance or lists of what is opened is frustrating.
At the same time, there is no better time to get out into the wilds and escape the zombie apocalypse. It also presents a unique opportunity to explore the spatiotemporal fluctuations in the American psyche. What was once just another road trip has become, in many ways, a sociological study of American politics and thought. Similar to Steinbeck’s ‘Travels with Charlie’, 5 weeks traveling America during a pandemic seems like a once in a lifetime chance to understand the fundamental and superficial divides in an increasing fractured society.
Unfortunately, I am no Steinbeck. Instead, over the coming weeks I will be posting a series of random thoughts on cute animals that we see and the trials and tribulations of being personae non gratae in our own country. I am certainly no great American travel writer, but I am, indeed, always searching for something, as the opening quote notes, even if it is just an escape from stagnation. There will be no great epiphanies, but, hopefully, maybe a humorous anecdote or two will pop up. At the very least, we should have some neat pictures of the great American west, not all of which will be parking lots.
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