13 Ways of Looking at a Road Trip: 8, Collection

Sometimes--well, rather often--others say what I need to say far better than I can. 

I have been so many places I must be sunlight. I have been diffused by clouds. To hike to the top of the mountain, I must spend the afternoon facing the steep slant of earth, my hands in brambles. Only once I am high enough can I turn and see the tin roofs and straight beds of flowers, dropped to an Euclidian flatness. Where have I been? Listen, I have been diffused by clouds, by everyone who has touched me, and just like you I am a radiation destined for the earth. --from Syzygy, Beauty by T Fleischmann

 This could be the very minute I'm aware I'm alive. All these places feel like home. --from "Chocolate" by Snow Patrol

I wrote about Kansas, I wrote about Illinois, I wrote about Indiana; wherever I was. And if I moved tomorrow I'd write about where I showed up, no matter where it was. And so my attitude is this: where you live is not crucial, but how you feel about where you live is crucial. --William Stafford

I love it here. I love the curtains, the ruffles. I love being in the window and off on our own. --my mother, at Carolyn's Essenhaus for lunch in Arlington, KS, with my grandma Lentz

If I ever get around to living, I'll take the end of every day, tie it up to every morning, and sail away. --from "If I Ever Get Around to Living" by John Mayer

We have never held hands before; I have simply reached for his in the dark and held him while he holds me. I want to see our hands on the rough floor, but they are only visible every block or so when the car passes beneath a streetlight, and then, for only a flash. Ben is my closest friend because he lives next door, we are the same age, and we both have little brothers who are babies. I wish he were in the same kindergarten class as me, but he goes to a different school—one where he has to wear a uniform all day and for which there is no school bus. --from "First" by Ryan Van Meter

You are the bravest girl in the world. --my grandma Jackson, when she opened the door to me upon my arrival in town

I toured the light; so many foreign roads for Emma, forever ago. --from "For Emma" by Bon Iver

Where friends of mine once lived,
and I came there to understand: it was like
seeing, and knowing amid what you see.

A meadowlark brought me back,
just flying its road and singing,
being alive. I brought home this tumbleweed.
--from "A Gift for Kit" by William Stafford

Rollin' through these hills I've known I'd be comin' / Ain't a man alive that likes to be alone / Been a while since I've seen my lady smile / Have I been, have I been away so long? --from "For the Summer" by Ray LaMontagne and the Pariah Dogs

But when you go out and put yourself in real relation to real people, or even just real animals, there's a very real danger that you might end up loving some of them. --from "Pain Won't Kill You" by Jonathan Franzen

13 Ways of Looking at a Road Trip: 9, Waking

My grandparents shape my writing, are always present if not by name. I'm always writing about them, the way their stories have formed my own relationships, the way I could still watch hours of Lawrence Welk if I knew when it was on.

But to write for them, that's another story. Here's what I wrote over a year ago when I tried to compose something for my grandma Lentz.

I have to start at the beginning. Her hair. White yellow perm. Slack earlobes never pierced but never bare. Clips, elaborate. Her feet, in slippers, in slip-ons. Her pants, cotton. She moves slowly now, with help. Push number 2. That's where she was. Push number 2 and feel the elevator take its lift, after a dip, a rise, and brief fall. 2, and turn right. 2, and she's there, on her feet, in a skirt, selling children's clothes. I want to hear her speak, hear her laugh, hold her hand.

Where do I start? The Sound of Music. I see Grandma when I see or hear Julie Andrews. I see Grandma longing to sing, be free. I see the bubbled out walls, the falling ceilings, the Aussie banners, the koala clock. She kept Queensland with her, though I don't know where it all came from. She surely didn't bring it in her one trunk. Her family came, sent, brought. They sent her Vegemite, calendars of ocean. She couldn't even see wheat from her window.

All I get are fragments, memories that I can't form into any tribute. I hug her, and she makes the sound of love. I hold her elbow as she eases down steps, every movement a waterfall. I see her shake as she tells us she watched the sycamore in her yard split in two and crash into her window in the dark, like the earth falling in.

On a twin bed, she sleeps under a quilt my grandpa had picked out, floral squares with a pink border. I used it for a while in grad school, the weight just right for the heat of summer, but took it back home when I found something more my style. Its edges skirt the floor in full coverage; my grandma is blanketed in memory, though sometimes, now, she forgets what she has told you.

One morning in Hutchinson on the trip, after only two hours of sleep and the physical sickness that comes with its lack, I asked my grandma if I could take a nap on her bed while she showered, while my mother ran errands. I curled up on the quilt, on her pillow, and tried to shut my eyes to the tv in the other room, to the plant with four leaves that I gave her several years ago, to the clock beside the door ticking toward noon. I tried to sleep and kept thinking of the return of things: of her to a single bed, of me to my home, of treetops to ground. I remembered mornings at her house as a child, after sleeping over, and climbing into the warmth of my grandparents' bed, Grandpa already up tending to cats and applying Ben-Gay. Grandma and I, we would push down the floral bedspread and raise our legs against the pink walls to do the bicycle. Pump, she would say, to get our hearts going. Our legs ran circles in the air, peddling nowhere and everywhere, so we would be ready to walk. Her nightgown bared her lower legs, English white like mine, and we giggled, together riding into another day.

Grandma Lentz and I, from several years ago.

***

My memories of my grandma Jackson (or, Grandma Over-the-Bridge, as I knew her when I was young), are less physical but intimately tied to care: the way she hemmed up my pants, always 4" too long; the way everything was always in its place at their house, so you could depend on the constant of family; the way she slips coupons and dollars into my pocket; and the food--the food!

I remember her always sitting last, at the kitchen end of the table, spooning sides onto her plate after everyone was half into theirs. She never complained, just kept watch over everyone else's satisfaction. I sat near her, always, and the men farther down. I sat near her because I didn't know her as well as my grandma Lentz and because I wanted to, because I could see her strength and love for everyone that would come through in those small moments.

Sometimes she and my grandpa would take my brother and I home with them after church on Sundays, where she'd fix lunch and we'd play pool or computer games that we didn't have at home. I only remember sleeping over once or twice, and the shadow of the spider on the wall next to the bed that led me to spend the rest of the night on the couch leering at dark corners. But it was a good memory, after all. All good. And her specialty, which I even knew at the time was special, was her grilled cheese sandwich. She buttered the bread so evenly, sliced from the block of Velveeta so cleanly, browned each side so perfectly. I have tried and tried to make grilled cheese sandwiches as good as hers over the years (which is especially special because I generally can't eat cheese like that) but have failed.

I must not have told her, though, how much care I felt in her grilled cheeses because, later in the day of no sleep and attempted nap, when I returned to my grandparents' house where I was staying for the first time in many, many years, when she asked if she could make me something to eat and suggested a grilled cheese sandwich, I said, "Would you really?"

She looked surprised. Why would my face light up from amid the nausea and exhaustion, when just a few minutes ago nothing sounded good, at the thought of a mere sandwich?

"Your grilled cheese sandwiches are the best I've ever had," I told her. "I would definitely eat one right now and love it."

So she did. She made another perfect grilled cheese sandwich. Even fixed tomato soup on the side. And I felt better.

Each morning of my stay, she set out a plate, napkin, knife, fork, spoon, juice glass, and coffee cup for me. She sliced fresh zucchini bread and opened the English muffins, butter, and three kinds of preserves. I gave her a hug each morning when I left, something I wish I could have done more when I was young. It was always goodbye then, until the next time when my parents would take me "over the bridge" to their house in South Hutchinson. This time, it was goodbye until later in the day, until the next morning and the next hug. She's smaller than me now, and I wish I could bring her fresh-baked breakfasts so she could rest. Wheat-free breakfasts, because I know she's allergic. I wish I could give her the opportunity to sit first, to save her troubled back, to not worry about her young ones out in the world.

I slept in her former bedroom while I was there, and she in my great grandma's former room down the hall. The first morning, she quietly made the bed while I was in the shower. The last morning, after I had been away for two nights, I found she had washed the clothes from the first half of my trip, and they were stacked neatly on the bed. Every night I turned on the fan for extra white noise and wished Scooter to stay quiet until daylight so she could sleep, so I would make as little impact as possible, so she could stay in bed until after we woke and walk into the kitchen fresh from dreams.

Grandma and Grandpa Jackson and I, from several years ago.

13 Ways of Looking at a Road Trip: 7, Leaves

Man has created some lovely dwellings--some soul-stirring literature. He has done much to alleviate physical pain. But he has not ... created a substitute for a sunset, a grove of pines, the music of the winds, the dank smell of the deep forest, or the shy beauty of a wildflower.

--Harvey Broome, naturalist, on a roadside marker in North Carolina

As a frame, from the Appalachian Trail.

As shadow and definition, from Highway 441 in Tennessee.

As high as they can get, on the Konza Prairie.

As wild and quiet in the wind, at Sandhills State Park.

As destruction during a storm, at my grandmother's house.

As sparse and striving for green, off the highway in Oklahoma.

As expanse and relief, in Houston.

As a view, outside hotel window in Biloxi.

As a singular entity against the storm, on the beach in Biloxi.

13 Ways of Looking at a Road Trip 6: Frontage

On my many trips across Kansas over the years, I've taken note of a handful of Frontage Roads. But it wasn't until this trip, until seeing dozens of Frontages across 14 states, that I finally looked it up. Why Frontage, world?

A frontage road is a local road running parallel to a higher-speed limited-access road. It is a road that allows those living off a highway to get safely to their homes, beginning at interchanges and branching to driveways, farms, stores.

Frontage gets you home.

Day 2 of the trip was the first long day, from Knoxville to Indianapolis, and it was hot. I was already sunburnt, mostly on my left arm and shoulder, from the first day's drive and sun pelting through the open window, my arm rested on the door for ventilation. Scooter was in the back panting, sleeping, burying his nose in the corner of the seat. I needed to stop. I needed to wander. I needed water.

Near London, Kentucky, I saw a sign for lakes, for recreation areas, and so I exited. I curved down country roads, listened to "Queen of California" on repeat. I didn't know how far it was to the lakes, but I told myself I would drive for ten minutes. Before ten minutes passed I saw more signs and decided to keep going, to arrive at some body of water in a place I had never heard of. It only seemed appropriate, going off the map and even off the grid, as there was no cell phone signal out there. The road curved. The houses moved back from the road. The trees closed in, and we entered Daniel Boone National Forrest. The road curved past broken boats and white shacks stenciled with BREAD on the side.

It was about 19 miles to Laurel Lake, the first, and the parking lot of the marina was packed on Memorial Day weekend. I changed to flip flops, put Scooter on the leash, and walked the length of the pavement to a ramp down to the water. People, boats. No beach. We looped the ramp back up stairs and beyond the marina to a little dirt trail down to water. No beach, but at least the water would be at our feet in a few more steps down. Scooter hung back, eyed the lapping water, moved into pointer position at a boat just beyond. And he barked. He barked like the boat, the water, what we had come for, was a monster, and he scrambled to go back, up.

I laughed because of course Scooter was afraid of boats and water in the ninety-some-degree mid-afternoon. We left without so much as a finger in the water, a small splash on our baking skin.

Yesterday I took Scooter and my Little Sister Geana to the Cottonwood Trail in Spartanburg. Geana wanted to get her feet wet, so we waded and watched as Scooter ran the length of the sandbar and back, trying to figure out how to get to us in the middle of the water. One foot in. Two feet. I could tell he wanted to join us, to feel what we felt, to lick our sweaty hands. He went ahead, leaped from one sand heap to another over 6" of water. He kept going to one point, looking 15 feet beyond at another larger sandy spot, and tip-toed out to his knees. He looked back, for reassurance. We said go! He backed up and ran toward us, leaping again. He will only go so far, even with encouragement.

In Hutchinson, Scooter and I explored Sandhills State Park for the first time. It's only 10 minutes from the home I grew up in, but I had never been there. I asked my mom why she never thought to take us there, why there was this 1100 acre preserve in our backyard that I had never explored. She said she thought it didn't even open until I was in high school, but it's been there since 1974. I got off the highway onto a bumpy dirt road and parked, discovered new land. No trail maps, but I followed the green of the Prairie Dune Trail through short trees and out into the open prairie, my shoes absorbing grains of sand.

Scooter and I were alone on the Wednesday morning. I let him off his leash to make his own way, trusting him to come back. He cut paths through low bushes, bounded through tall grass, paused to inhale berries covering the ground in black dye. We looped through more trees, a Kansas version of the woods I know in South Carolina, and back out. Shade, then full sun. More berries, then all sand and green. We climbed a hill, steep and slippery with sand, for perspective of our path. Though I couldn't see it, I knew the highway back to Hutch was less than a mile west. There, on that hill, I felt more at home in Hutchinson than I had since I was a young teenager and still in awe of the little creek cutting along the Sunflower Trail, my bike parked on  a little summit and the water black and pooling below. Then, all I wanted was to follow it out of its constraints. I wanted to empty with it into the Arkansas and trickle, however slowly, out of Hutchinson and south, to something larger, more.

But sometimes all paths you follow lead back where you started, changed, with an understanding of other landscapes. And it's not the highway that brings you back.

13 Ways of Looking at a Road Trip: 5, Illegal

I thought having a dog on a road trip was the most natural thing. I thought stops along the way would always be friendly. I thought we'd have adventures in the mountains, at rivers, on the beach. But I ran into some problems with this woman/dog adventure dream.

1. Oconaluftee Islands Park, Cherokee, NC

The first day was built for backroads and experiencing the Smokies. I drove up 40, then up 441 to get the center of the mountains. I drove with the windows down, without an air conditioner, which was bearable in the higher elevations and shade of smaller roads. When I passed the Oconaluftee Islands Park, though, with dozens of people splashing and picnicking and chasing the ducks, I pulled back around and parked.

Scooter is not a fan of water, generally, but I wanted him to cool off. I wanted to cool off, wash down my legs and neck. I wanted to sit in the shade and watch the ripple of water for a few minutes before returning to the sweat of my car.

But dogs are not allowed at Oconaluftee Islands Park, and so we just watched the ducks from afar and then walked back across the dusty parking lot to the car.

2. Appalachian Trail on the NC/TN state line

Though I had picked out the trail I wanted to hike in the Smokies a month prior to leaving, I didn't realize until the night before that it was not recommended for dogs. So I picked up a $1 Smokies trail map at the rest stop outside Waynesville, NC, and saw that the Appalachian Trail crossed the highway between Cherokee and Gatlinburg. It was decided.

I'm rather in love with the whole idea of the Appalachian Trail, first after reading one of my favorite books of all time, A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, and then from hiking a 5 mile section with friends my first November in the South. I wanted to slowly build up my AT mileage in small sections. I would hike an hour in and then back because I had been traveling slow through the mountains, stopping often to gaze and read roadside markers, and because I wanted to make it to Knoxville at a reasonable hour.

The trailhead was a significant landmark, and dozens of cars were parked at the state line/lookout. After a quick reconnaissance to make sure it was indeed the trailhead and seeing the sign with a person walking a dog, I retrieved Scooter, buckled my pack, and we set out. The air got cooler; we took our time. It didn't matter how far we went, only that we were walking. I stopped and looked at flowers, plants, fungi, along the way thanks to my friend Helen Correll's teaching me to actually look.

About 30 minutes into the hike, after passing maybe a dozen other hikers, an older man comes down some rocks and stops where Scooter and I have pulled aside for him to pass.

"Do you have that dog for protection?" the man asks.
"Well, no," I say.
"Dogs aren't allowed in the backcountry." He walks just past me and looks back.
"But there was a sign at the trailhead," I said, confused.
"Someone must have tampered with it. I'm surprised no one stopped you. You can just claim it was a misunderstanding if someone catches you."

He goes on, and I am suddenly nervous. Why no dogs in the backcountry? There are dogs everywhere in the backcountry of the Blue Ridge. I pull out my trail map and search for any mention of dogs. None for, none against.

I go on for another ten minutes before turning back, after only 40 minutes instead of the hour I had planned. No one says anything on the way back. No one says anything when we emerge from the trail back at the busy lookout.

But I check that sign again, and, sure enough, someone had removed most of the red strip crossing out dogs. So this official photo of me and Scooter on the Appalachian Trail? It's illegal.

3. Harrison County Sand Beach in Biloxi, MS

The trip was supposed to end with me camping on the beach in the Gulf. I have never camped alone, and I had never been to the Gulf. But a massive storm hit me on my travels East from Houston, and I was too late to find a spot on the beach anyway. I drove into Gulfport, MS, around 7:30 in a rain so heavy that I couldn't see that I'd found the ocean until I sped up my windshield wipers and turned onto Beach Blvd. All white, all water.

I drove on down the road, following the coast, until I found a trusty Motel 6. I had stayed at them twice along the trip already with fine and cheap experiences but shifty clientele. And Scooter did not like these motel rooms. But this was a Motel 6 on the beach--on the beach!--and for cheap, so I figured it was the next best way to spend the last night of my trip.

But it turns out Motel 6s on the beach cost twice as much as Motel 6s anywhere else in the country. It turns out Scooter doesn't even like a hotel room that costs twice as much as it should and looks like it was designed with a discounted IKEA in mind. Scooter didn't like the rain, didn't like the cork floor, didn't like the single mattress bed.

So after another (this time expensive) sleep-deprived night, we were up by 7am and ready for a morning on the beach before the storms returned. We crossed the street, Scooter tested out the sand, I took off my sandals, we stared at the surf that wasn't as scary as I'd remembered the Atlantic, and then I saw the sign that said NO DOGS.

I couldn't believe it, so I googled "dog friendly beaches Mississippi." It turns out there are none. No, to have my dog on the beach I would have to drive to the Gulf Islands National Seashore off Pensacola, Florida, where I had originally hoped to end up. But I looked west and saw only black sky.

 So I took our illegal photo from the sidewalk and documented Scooter's illegal footprint in the sand he so badly wanted to dig in.

And then I put Scooter in the car (where he felt calm and safe) and went back across the street on my own to at least stand in the water, to at least feel the pull I had come for, to at least in some way complete my journey that had started at 5,000 feet and ended at sea level. And then I cast off for home.

13 Ways of Looking at a Road Trip: 4, Faces

The face I left at home.

The faces of two adventurers ready for weeks on the road.

The faces of friends with the same name after a year apart.

The faces of family, of women I love.

The faces of a decade-long friendship in a place we love.

The face of a dog who loves views nearly as much as I do.

The face of someone who wishes she'd spent more time on the Konza Prairie when she had the chance.

The face of a happy rider.

The faces of parents who fell in love with a dog.

The face of a mother who wants us closer.

The faces of two generations with with same birthday and so much love.

The face of a dog running free in the Sandhills.

The face of a brother happily going 80 in his new Mustang.

The faces of siblings in our own front yard.

The face of a dog smelling the ocean for the first time.

The face of a woman near the end of one journey and the beginning of another.

But there are other faces unrepresented here. Like those of friends who helped shape me as a writer, a booklover, a student, a professional, a confident woman. Friends who knew me before any of that, who knew me as a girl just entering the world and believed in me when I didn't know what to believe in, who answered questions that I should have known much earlier, who challenged me to think beyond the simple future I had anticipated. Friends who have stayed with me even though we had lost touch. Friends who will forever touch me in more ways than they know. Friends who I hope will be in my life forever, in distance or close at heart and home.

Thank you to everyone who welcomed me back into their lives on this trip and to more that I didn't get to see this time around. This trip was about going forward by going back, and it proved true beyond anything I could have hoped for.

13 Ways of Looking at a Road Trip: 3, Sky

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 1

Somewhere in Missouri, Day 3

Konza Prairie outside Manhattan, KS, Day 4

Sunset over I-70 in Kansas, Day 4

Sunrise over South Hutchinson, Day 5

The reverse of the sunrise over South Hutchinson, Day 5

Sandhills State Park in Hutchinson, KS, Day 6

The road to Sandhills State Park in Hutchinson, KS, Day 6

Driving into Houston, TX, after a storm, Day 12

The Gulf of Mexico off Biloxi, MS, Day 15

More Gulf, Day 15

More Gulf, Day 15