Crossing America
If you have the chance to drive across the enormity of America, grab it!
Traveling the expanse is as educational as anything could ever be, including sitting in a classroom the two weeks it takes to do it right. From Washington you cross the greenness of Virginia and the ancient Appalachians. The view from Skyline Drive, looking west as early settlers did, with meandering rivers and lush valleys, takes your breath away. The flatness of the next states strikes your eye with high-power wires making slow loops between mighty stanchions across the land. Columbus had the same view watching the tall-ship masts over the horizon. It meant the earth was round. The first-time crosser of America has the same sense of excitement at traveling to the ever-receding horizon. It puts the distance of your trip—and your life—in perspective.
The bustling of Chicago thrills, its river weaving through skyscrapers and the stark shoreline of Lake Michigan. Westward, flatness marches toward St. Louis where corn is to the left and right, and never takes a break, even after you pass the magnificent silver arch across the Mississippi, our “Gateway to the West.” If you are fortunate to reach this spot by late afternoon, pull over and smell the rose-red sunset.
The Great Plains take an upward slope. Several hundred miles of swirling golden hue make you understand it is “the breadbasket of the world.” Only blips of monstrous grain elevators mark that you are moving.
The Rocky Mountains come into view and you are in awe. But these are only foothills, and the mist beyond conceals the real show. When you see them, you need to see them closer. They leave the smooth and round Appalachians a distant memory, for these are mountains, straight up and jagged, giving new meaning to the word “granite.” You see why they are “The Rockies,” and they enrich your soul.
The Southwest peels back from the mountains. The looming stretch of desert will always get less press, but is no less impressive with its unique fauna and flora, Petrified Forest, and eternally frozen eruptions that are Monument Valley. The last miles through the woods from Flagstaff, Arizona, anticipation bubbles in your belly, telling you, hidden not far away, is the biggest pit of all, since before the dinosaurs called it home.
The Grand Canyon is its own throne. It is nature in italics, underscored and with an exclamation point. You have to dip beneath the rim and switchback down through layers of geology to the floodplain and view the violent carving of the Colorado River still far below. Do a slow pirouette, surrounded by canyon walls, to experience the majesty, and finally...you are satisfied.
Next is the West Coast, the Sierra Nevadas and the deep Pacific, where the climate is unrivaled. A narrow swath of land, the fringe of Southern California, is warm when most of the country is cold, and cooler when the rest suffer unbearable summer heat. Few are the days the temperature goes above eighty-two or below sixty-five. The congestion and gargantuan sprawl of Los Angeles have not reached their tentacles to the Mexican border, because San Diego won’t let them.
Plantation, FL
May 29, 2006