The US West 2006

s: In a youth I glibly call "misspent"" I stuck out my thumb and criss-crossed this country, these amazingly dis-United States. Long before they were painted red and blue, I passed through a thousand colors, listened to hundreds of drivers, saw trillions of megapixels of visual information, and registered mere billions of it in my 13- to 18-year-old mind. The US interstate system in those years was as well-worn to me as the lines on my palms are now. I learned the U.S. Interstate numbering system, and could tell from the three-digit number (and perhaps one or two letters) where I was, what direction I was going, and what connections I could expect to make ahead. I crossed this country on Interstates 10-80 east to west, and 5 through 95 north to south. "I rode in cars with people," might be a good generalization of my adolescent/teen experience. These were days when one's car might be as intimate and telling (and spacious!) as one's living room.

In my modern adulthood, I find my horizons, oddly, more constricted than in my youth; I measure my days within a 10-mile radius of (roughly) Cotati, California, and the rare ventures out of that radius constitute "travel" for me.

So it greatly appealed to me that I would get to revisit, and take Terrie on, one of the main arteries—the Aorta, if you will (and I know you won't!)—of America: Interstate 80. Stretching from San Francisco to New York, I-80 is America's waistline; encompassing all of it, distorting its appearance a little. I traveled this road MANY times; I've stared down its barrel, picked up its detritus, sat on its guardrails, cried on its shoulder. I accumulated such knowledge as I now treasure from its signs, its twists and turns, its business loops, its promised rest stops, and its fellow-travelers.

And America? Well, one thing you can say about America is that there's a LOT of it. And it's never been more voluminous than in the last five years.

America, land that I love, seems to have assumed the profile of a sports team, one that might play a little dirty, such that people profess to love America the way they love the Oakland Raiders. How much difference, really, between the Silver & Black and the Red White & Blue?

Yet it still and always has its places that defy that kind of miniaturization. We saw the good and the bad of America on this trip, and the best overcame both—a country larger than any of its hype could possibly be, and yet with all the comforts of home! We bought fresh-caught salmon in a Moab, UT supermarket, and it was perfectly del.ici.ous, and where else can you get fresh seafood that far inland? Many countries don't even have an inland--you leave the beach and ten minutes later you're at the other beach!

So, all this blah-blah to kinda set the scene for this vacation. In nine days, we needed to get to Colorado Springs to visit my grandma, mom, and sister, and we needed to try and have some fun and see some sights there and everywhere along the way.

It's an interesting packing challenge, to pack for a part-car-camping, part-family-visit vacation. I like to be prepared for anything and yet travel light, opposing forces that somehow fight their way to a resolution in the trunk and back seat. Steve and I do a trial run with the larger camping items on Sunday, a week before our trip, and are delighted to learn that everything we absolutely need will fit. And everything we absolutely need has grown with age...I absolutely need a pillow and a sleeping pad.

I choose two books for vacation reading, both favorite reads from the past that I want to re-read: Desert Solitaire (Edward Abbey's classic memoir of his days as a park ranger in some of the areas we'll visit) and The Snow Leopard, one of my favorite travel/nature narratives. And of course we'll take The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Western North America. As usual, my pack is too heavy with books. But they fit!