Over my lifetime I have taken more trips than I can remember. Still, there is one adventure that remains a favorite. Not my solo trip at 18 when I schlepped across Europe on a Eurail pass. No — I was lonely on those trains and European streets, miserably pining for the man I’d met on my first day of travel. I went on carrying that torch by myself all the way to Greece and back to Limerick 4 months later – and too late.
No, my favorite trip was one I took with friends a few years after. While traveling alone is an adventure and a time to discover things about one’s self, I prefer to share travel, laughter and meals. I learned that from the cross-country journey I made with Paula and Jane.
Paula and I had sublet an art studio in San Francisco for a month in the summer and would drive there from where we lived in Kentucky in a car we’d get through a drive-away service. Jane would come along for the ride and fly from there, home to England. We’d all been studying with a sculptor in Kentucky for the past few years and knew each other well and liked each other a lot. When a VW Rabbit Cabriolet to Los Angeles came through as an option, we were excited to have a convertible and took it. However, the cute little red car had a glove compartment sized trunk space already packed with the owner’s stuff. And it was stick shift which meant Paula did all the driving. Jane offered to be in the back seat and happily curled up with all our luggage, towering beside her.
Most details are now blurry from the decades gone but the delight I felt each day in seeing the magnificent landscape of this country, still feels vivid. I have only about a dozen 1980s quality prints, mostly taken at the Grand Canyon, of course. The three of us look so happy though windblown and burnt by the hours spent under the sun of all the states we passed through.
My memory of our journey exists as short clips in my head. I needed to refer to a map to place the clips in my mind according to the route we took. First sight of the Rockies in the distance – sweating in the late morning sun across Colorado as we sped towards the snow topped mountains. We stayed the night in Boulder and my head ached with the altitude. Breakfast outside at a cafe in the woods was a gigantic bowl of yogurt and fruit surrounded by the most beautiful mountain scape I’d ever been in. More flashes of memory include the profound space and silence of the Grand Canyon, tumble weeds, the road blocked by real cowboys moving their cattle, desolate areas marked as reservation land. And the surprise of Utah – first lush mountain roads and pine forests and then the expanse of Painted Desert (where we cranked up Brian Eno music) all in one day.
We drove to Santa Fe, New Mexico where Paula fell in love with something about the place – the air, the landscape. Even in Kentucky where Paula still lives along the river, before even visiting the Southwest, she painted in the colors of the desert. The pull was so strong for her that decades later, she’d return multiple times, before finally buying a house there.
Paula and I insisted that we stop in Las Vegas. In 1981, still a sleazy gambling spot – not the glamorous tourist destination it is today. English Jane did not understand the appeal and said she’d be happy to skip it. She was right. We made one stop in a casino, full of smoke and sad characters lit by the light of slot machines, used the bathrooms and carried on.
The relentless blazing heat of the desert – as we drove through Death Valley – aptly named because it felt like we might die there. I think it was on that last stretch we finally put the top up and ran the air conditioner. Seven days after our departure with incredible landscapes to digest, we arrived in Los Angeles.
We were sad to give up the road and the cute little car. Drop off was to a Mrs. Goldbach who lived near UCLA. We drove to an unassuming house with some children playing in the driveway. As we pulled up, a woman – perhaps the age I am now – came out of the house and greeted us with a New York accent. She was from Queens. I identified myself as originally from the Bronx and introduced Jane and Paula. Noting Jane’s accent she gestured to the children and said, my grandchildren are visiting from England. She agreed the car looked in fine shape and invited me to follow her into the house so she could return my $100 security deposit. As she was writing her check I noticed a picture of Ringo Starr on the mantelpiece with his arms around a beautiful woman. Back out on the street, I shared this cherry on top of our road trip with my fellow travelers as we walked away from the house. Our cross country trek so packed with cliches was complete – even with a kind-of celebrity sighting.
I ponder why this trip remains a favorite – even more than my exotic honeymoon to the Seychelles or so many other exciting journeys I’ve taken. I remain dear friends with both gals. On that trip, we were wonderful travel companions – comfortable with long silences, easy with laughter and happy to sing to the radio. I was mesmerized by the road and curious about what was around each corner. Twenty-two year old me felt loved and free and ready for the world.