America by car: Part One

My mother and I have arrived in New York City after a two and a half day drive from Nebraska. Why we drove, I’m not entirely sure, especially since my father flew in by himself a couple of days later. I assume it was an effort to save money, although we ended up having to pay for gas and hotels along the way, so that theory may not be waterproof. Whatever the reason, we drove the 1300 or so miles without many complications, and arrived safely for my sister’s wedding, which is on Sunday.

We left on Tuesday, arrived on Thursday, and in between we saw America. Or at least the bit of America that is directly adjacent to the interstate. We laughed a lot, enjoyed playing with the dual climate controls in my mother’s new Lexus, and stopped to pee about every 30 miles.

Some things of note from Tuesday:

• We passed our first rest area about 25 miles into our journey. My mother asked me if we needed to stop, or if we could hold out until the next one, 36 miles down the road. I was feeling optimistic, and told her to wait until the next one. 10 miles later, I turned to her and said, “I misjudged the whole rest area thing, just so you know.”


• As we drove through the wide, flat expanses that were the fields of Iowa, the morning mist clung thickly to the ground and reflected the slanting rays of the rising sun. It was beautiful. We set the radio blaring to Garth Brooks and sang at the top of our lungs. When I think of Iowa in the future, this is what I will think of.


• A bizarre phenomenon occurred in Iowa. As the morning sunlight slanted through the tall grass on the side of the road, it illuminated morning dew that had clung to millions and millions of spiderwebs strung up between the tallest blades of grass. For miles and miles, all we could see was a dense forest of delicate webs. As soon as we passed them, the critical angle of the sunlight would change, and the webs would disappear, as if they had never been there. It was amazing. Remind me never to walk barefoot in Iowa grasses.


• I had brought a duffel bag full of stuff to keep us amused during the trip, which I named the Bag of Fun. Unfortunately, my mother kept referring to it as the “Fun Bag.” Invariably, this made me giggle like a third grader because the last time I had heard the phrase “Fun Bags” used was in reference to a woman’s breasts.


• At 10:35 on Tuesday morning, we passed a sign for the Fun Valley Ski Area in Iowa. My mother promptly looked over at me and said, “Fun Valley. That’s the place between the Fun Bags, right?”


• My mother tried to explain to me the reason she was having trouble reading the dash display: “I can’t see because of the glare from my Polaroid glasses.” From now on, her polarized lens glasses will be referred to as her Polaroids, without a bit of irony.


• At lunchtime, we drove through a very small town called Geneseo, Illinois. We passed an inexplicable sign outside the American Legion which simply stated “NO MORE BREAKFAST.”

America is a funny place when you view it from the highway.