“The
road journey is an epic quest, a pilgrimage, a romance, a ritual that helps
explain where Americans have been and where they think they might be going
(Primeau).” I believe that this is the truest statement yet about travel. Think about a time when you have been on a
family trip. Even if you have not I am
sure you have seen at least one of the Griswold’s family vacation movies. My family vacations usually consist of miles
and miles spent on the interstates. They consist of gas station stops,
breakfast on the road, and those “you had to be there” jokes. The grumbling of
my sister asking, “Are we there yet? “ “I have to pee? “ “I need to stretch?”
will be permanently recorded in my mind until my own children mumble it in the
backseat of the car. I can remember the long trips to Iowa visiting
family or even the once in a lifetime trip to Mexico. Both of these trips included endless hours in
the back seat of my Mom’s latest addition Honda and my sister asleep on my
shoulder, drooling. I was always the kid
(I am still to this day) that was always wide-awake the entire trip. My favorite part is the arrival, it is like
this excitement that builds up inside me that I cannot wait to reveal. I am always observing. I am waiting for the scenery to get
mountainous, maybe for things to look dry and dead, or maybe for it to look
like the place I left before. I am
constantly awaiting the arrival to see where I end up looks as what I imagined.
However my favorite part about traveling, especially on the highway is when you
reach silence. That point in the ride
when I can no longer hear my sister’s breath screeching across her teeth. The constant rocking of the 80’s classic hair
bands on the radio have finally been hushed by your mind, when you finally hit
the silence of the road and can begin feeling your travel. My favorite part of traveling, especially on
the highway, is when I finally arrive to a sacred place within my surrounds,
when perceiving the world around you becomes the focus of your mind.
The idea of traveling being a sacred place to
traveler is not a new idea, not by a long shot.
We first get glimpses of this idea through writers such as Mark
Twain. In his book, Roughing It, Twain highlights a his stagecoach trip with his brother Orion Clemens, the newly
appointed secretary of the Nevada Territory, from Missouri to Nevada. From the beginning,
Twain talks about his jealousy of his brother.
Orion has had so many opportunities, but Twain was going to experience traveling
with him! He jumps into writing about his expectations of what he will see when
he is miles and miles away. He writes,
“Pretty soon we would
be hundreds and hundreds of miles away on the great plains and deserts, and
among the mountains of the Far West, and would see buffaloes and Indians, and
prairie dogs, and antelopes, and have all kinds of adventures, and maybe get
hanged or scalped, and have ever such a fine time, and write home and tell everyone
all about it, and be a hero.”
I
think that throughout Twains journey he experienced many of the things we think
about traveling. Though Twain didn’t jump on interstate 80 to begin his trip,
he was experiencing many of the same emotions; the excitement of arrival. Twain may have had the most authentic traveling
experience ever written about. He chose
to travel an unpaved path across the United States into areas where there was
very little, if any, civilization at all.
Can you imagine the sensory overload he was flooded by? I can only
imagine a sense of calmness, focusing your mind on the world around you, a
sacred place.
