The Long Road Home

The Great American Road Trip has ended. My mom keeps asking if it was everything I expected, which was hard to say because I'm not really sure what I was expecting. But it was a great trip, I am so glad that I had the chance to do something on my own. I think that was the best part, to be able to plan the trip on my own, to be alone, to prove that I can be independent. To drive through a storm and hydroplane and not let the car get out of control. To change the CD, or plug in my i-pod without crashing the car. To drive with my knees while I put my hair up. To have the windows down as much as I wanted and the music up as loud as I wanted. I feel like a long road trip is also just the kind of thing that one ought to do once graduated from college. Isn't that in the great American dream somewhere? I wanted to have time to spend alone, to think and process, although I feel like there wasn't as much of that as I expected. If I have learned anything in the past few months, it's that although you can resist repressing your emotions, you really can't force them to surface when you think you're ready to handle them. They hide. They resist control. They'll let you face them when they're ready, and not before. Besides which, how do you begin to understand such a huge change? College is over for good. I can never go back to that life again. Hmmmm...words, words, words.

As to the trip itself, there's not much to say and there are a million things to say that I could never record. How do you put down hundreds of miles of our great nations landscape into a few electronic lines? I know that my words will not be sufficient. Well, I think Pennsylvania and Ohio win for the most construction zones and the most roadkill. I think Kentucky was my favorite traveling over all, not at all what I expected: horse farms and low hills and the whole bit. It was actually a lot more big wooded hills and misty valleys. The whole state looks pretty much like my idea of Sherwood Forest. I got stuck in inexplicable traffic outside of Little Rock, Arkansas, which is not my idea of the most happening town. All of a sudden we were locked up, not moving, bumper to bumper, for about half an hour, and then all of a sudden we started moving again. So, what, a herd of cows perhaps? Big storms outside of Nashville and then another classic Texas thunderstorm once I got back in the state. Way to welcome me home, Mother Nature.

Now the part that everyone has been waiting to hear about, the shady Motel 6 that I ended up staying in. I was going to be staying in a hostel in Nashville, but I ended up staying with a family friend unexpectedly, which was great. So I pulled in to the Motel 6, which was in a fairly nice neighborhood. The first thing that happened was that I ended up being in line for a very long time behind a very angry contractor who was trying to rent about 10 rooms for guys he was working a job with. He kept pulling out his cell phone and swearing at his guys because they couldn't find the motel or because they accidentally checked into the wrong one. By the time they were through working on all the paperwork and getting the right rooms (smoking or non-smoking? first floor or second floor? double-room or single?) I had been waiting there for about 20 minutes. When I finally got to the room, the first thing I noticed was the smell. I have learned that at Motel 6, it hardly matters whether you choose smoking or non-smoking because I feel like the room would smell the same regardless. I was on the first floor, and the door opened right onto the parking lot, which made me rather nervous in thinking about spending the night there...fast asleep...vulnerable and helpless...yeah. The other brilliant thing I did was spend the evening watching Mission Impossible II on the TV. This was kind of dumb to begin with because I haven't even seen the first Mission Impossible, but I was bored and everything in the vicinity was closed at 8:00 at night. Now, keep in mind, I don't usually have a problem with scary movies. I can pretty much watch whatever I want without being troubled. Unfortunately, I did not take into account that I was staying all by myself in a strange place that was kind of creepy to begin with into the bargain. So, for the first time in my life, I found myself really kind of wanting to just turn the movie off, but feeling trapped because if I didn't find out how it ended, I would be haunted for the rest of my days, wondering if Tom Cruise's little woman died from that chimera virus. I made it through to the end, but I feel pretty well satisfied not watching any more Mission Impossible for awhile.

Until the next adventure (and it won't be long!),
S.