Song of the Open Road

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune—I myself am good fortune;
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing

Strong and content, I travel the open road.

I recall that during past winter solstices at Parochial College in the South, I was able to curb my wanderlust with the thought of an imminent, two-week road trip that would begin the first week of January. Seven or eight students and I would begin by reading “Song of the Open Road” on the steps of the college, then we would point our rented van west and be gone. It has been four years since I have been able to travel during or after solstice, and I could feel the road pulling at me all last week. I had hoped to get some work done over the break, but I could tell that wasn’t going to happen, so I began to think about being up and gone. I had agreed to watch a colleague’s house for a few days and to help my new employee find a place to live, and I did that. So on Tuesday morning I got up early, checked on my colleague’s house for the last time, and pointed Penelope east toward Joshua Tree National Park. I am still getting used to the idea of the road heading east since I have lived all my life with it to the west, but I adjusted just fine as I turned off the 10 and north onto California 62.

What a day. Crystal blue skies expanding forever like a sea above me. Light traffic on the freeway and none in the desert. I was strong and content, the embodiment of good fortune. East of 29 Palms, Route 62 follows the northern edge of Joshua Tree, and the road is yours. Penelope stretches her legs and runs up to triple digits without even trying. It is a traveler’s road, a scenic byway for California, and the desert mountains dot the landscape. If the universe is a road, as Walt says, and we are souls traveling on the road, then these mountains must be the stories we tell: ancient, unmoved, and rich with life. They mark our journey by their uniqueness, and they measure our memory by connecting us to place and time. I love all landscapes, but mountains are my muse. I grew up in their shadow and hiked all over them in Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Now I live in the west, where mountains are young and proud. In Coolville, I look out my window to see an 11,000-foot peak covered in snow. I myself am good fortune.

Coming out of the end of Joshua Tree, the iPhone beeps to let me know I have service again. There’s a voice mail from Lukas who is calling to wish me a Merry Christmas. “What are you doing?” he asks. I say I’m about to head down into the Colorado River gorge at the Arizona line. “Had to get on the road again, huh?,” he says knowingly. My family is understanding of my wanderlust, but St. Judy wants me to check in and St. Jerry didn’t want me to go at all because “you shouldn’t be alone during the holidays.” I understand the sentiment and appreciate the concern, but this is precisely the time I want to be alone, and on the road. I enjoy traveling when others aren’t, and I really love traveling in winter when the summer tourists are at the mall or watching football. During my conversation with Lukas, St. Jerry calls. I call him back, and he’s on the phone with St. Judy. Jerry and I have a warm conversation before I lose him at the Colorado River. He got the job at my alma mater and starts January 7. What a year. What a &^%@#ing year. I will be glad when it’s gone, though I have to say it has been an amazing year as well, full of light and hope and grace. All the same, allons!

The Colorado River valley contains mountains that are painted various colors of red and take interesting shapes that stand out against the open, blue sky. I would guess you could blind-fold me and drop anywhere along the Colorado River, and I could probably tell you where I was. It is a distinctive landscape, and the blue of the river sounds a lovely bass note to complement the major chord of the mountains and the minor chord of the surrounding desert. There is no place like this on earth.

North through Lake Havasui City and then to Kingman, then due east to Flagstaff. Wilco plays on the iPod, and I contemplate Jeff Tweedy’s strange but beautiful lyrics. The iPhone rings, so I must have service again. It is Vivien from Alaska. “Hi Slayer; Merry Christmas.” “V!” I say happily, “what are you doing?” “I’m making pies and watching it snow here in Anchorage. What are you doing?” I tell my friend I am heading east toward Flagstaff, and she asks why. “The road was calling,” I say, “and I try to answer when she does.” She laughs, and I ask what kind of pie she is making. “Pumpkin and apple and blueberry,” she says. “Tell them that you have to peel the apples, and you can’t cut the slices too thin, and you can’t let the seeds fall into the slices,” I say, reminding her of her instructions to me on Thanksgiving. She laughs again, and I ask her if she knows the Patty Griffin song “Making Pies.” “No,” she says, “but I’ll download it right now and play it.” She tells me Merry Christmas, and I tell her to go outside and play in the snow. Whitman: What gives me to be free to a woman’s or man’s good-will? What gives them to be free to mine?

After I hang up with Vivien, I put on Patty Griffin to hear “Making Pies.” A sign indicates that there are no services for the next eighty miles. I glance at Penelope’s fuel indicator and see that she’s got about one-third of a tank. No worries. I sing along with Patty and cruise at 85 on the desolate road to Flagstaff. But cruising at 85 takes a lot of gas, especially when you are climbing several thousand feet into a strong head-wind. As Patty sings “It Don’t Come Easy,” I watch the gas gauge drop like it never has before. Hmmmm. Not to worry. Seligman is only about forty miles away. I ask Penelope if there is a gas station there. She says no. The nearest one is forty miles back. Hmmmm. No point going back; the only way out is through. I figure I have traveled over forty-thousand miles on the backroads of this country and England and Scotland. I have never had an accident, never had an injury, and never run out of gas. That is about to change.

Patty sings “If you break down, I’ll drive out and find you,” and I realize suddenly that it is Christmas day, so even if I find a gas station, it may not be open. After Seligman is Ash Fork, and Penelope tells me there is no gas there either. I am down to the last little square indicator on the gas gauge, so I turn off the cruise and drop it down to 65. The speed limit is 75, so I can’t go much slower and be safe. Penelope says that Williams is the nearest gas, fifty miles away. If she’s right, I’m screwed. The last indicator goes away, and my tank reads empty. Seligman is still 25 miles, and I’m still climbing into a head-wind. I’m not going to make it. Okay. It’s Christmas day, and I’m about to run out of gas on one of the most isolated roads in America. I’m still 25 miles from a town where Penelope says there is no gas anyway. There are a few trucks and cars on the road, but I’ll need to hitch a ride with one on Christmas day, go at least twenty-five miles, possibly double that, find a station that is open, buy a container, fill it, and hitch a ride back the twenty-five or fifty miles to the car. This is not good. Furthermore, It’s around 3:30 now, so it’s going to be dark in about an hour. The temperature is 25 degrees, so it’s probably going to drop into the teens or single digits, and no one is going to pick me up in the dark, if they could even see me. I decide I will laugh about this once it’s over, but I’m not laughing at all. In fact, I’m pretty worried. I begin packing up the iPod and other valuables. I will carry my backpack with the MacBook, iPod, and iPhone so I have all that with me, but that may just be making it easier for the person who picks me up and robs me on Christmas day in the middle of nowhere in Arizona. Still, it’s better than leaving these things in the car to be stolen.

I ask Penelope to count down the miles to Seligman, even though she insists there is no gas there. She’s sometimes wrong, and I’m hoping she is again, but this is all I can do. I shift into neutral on the downhill and watch Penelope’s MPG meter peg out at 100 miles per gallon. Then I have to re-engage the transmission, and I nervously watch my MPG go to about 25. I’m running on fumes, but I wonder what happens when a hybrid runs out of gas. Will it keep going on the battery alone until it runs out of juice? I guess we are about to find out. While I am frantically calculating how long I’ve been on empty and how far there is to go, I am also thinking of how stupid I am. I have traveled the west for many miles, and I know better than to push the gas tank. This happened to me this summer in Utah where I climbed the mountain in the Dixie National Forest, and found myself near empty at the top, but then I had twenty miles of downhill where I used no gas at all and was able to fill up at the bottom. Well, I guess it had to happen eventually, and I sure picked a terrible time and place for it. Shifting in and out of neutral as much as I can, I approach the exit for Seligman, which is itself a couple miles off the interstate on the old Route 66. The sign says that there is a gas station there, so thankfully, Penelope was wrong. Now I have to see if we can make it there, and if it’s open. We do. It is.

Such is life on the open road: henceforth I ask not good fortune; I myself am good fortune.