The cross-country road trip...a perfect transition

Corner of Oklahoma, Kansas and Colorado

 

As teens, the biggest adventure of our imaginations was driving across the U.S.  This journey was glorified in the movies, literature and music of the day. I made my first cross-country trip by car in 1977. It was an eight-week adventure filled with so many “firsts” that even now it is outstanding in my memory.  These included my first view of the Rockies, the first time I ate catfish, the first time I saw a slot machine, my first sighting of the Parthenon in Nashville and so much more.

At this point in my life, I drive cross-country annually. The trip westward generally follows the same route south to the intersection of Virginia and Tennessee, and then westward on I-40.  The return journey eastward varies with many stops at museums and historic sites, and visiting friends and family along the way.

Either direction, it is always an adventure. Each evening, my husband and I hunt out locally-owned eateries to get a flavor of the community in which we’ve stopped. We’ve experienced amazing meals and colorful characters at many of these establishments. This year, we ventured into Brown’s Catfish in Russellville, Arkansas.  We enjoyed meeting proprietor Al Brown and feasted on a great diversity of offerings including delicious seafood gumbo, fried okra, catfish and ribs. We topped it off very indulgent cinnamon rolls.

I love heading west and seeing the country unfold before us. Each day, the sky seems to get bigger and the landscape opens.  I count the rail cars passing on the parallel tracks. I check out all the vehicles and wonder where the other drivers will end their journeys. We watch for windmills and mountain ranges in the distance, and look for recognizable shapes in the clouds.

Each year, this road trip offers a wonderful pause that helps me get reoriented to the scale of our continent. In my opinion, it provides a perfect transition from one place to another.