trip

www.thebiblog.net, controversial, february 15, 2010

view out of the car window of the nevada landscape

in the summer of 2010 i drove across country, from new york city, to los angeles. a close friend was starting life anew, re-birthing, and my task was to guide them through the amniotic fluid of america with the aid of a gps, a road map, and a copy of "hamburgers across america". the view driving across the goethals bridge, from staten island into new jersey, provided our last glimpse of the atlantic ocean. we had technically left the east coast, and it was only a half hour into our journey. that afternoon we stopped for lunch, and consumed our first hamburger of the trip, at a mcdonald's at the side of the highway.

for the remainder of the trip, all 5 days, we searched for hints that we were getting closer to the west. we started to place bets on when we'd see the first sunflower, the first mountain, the first cactus. while the changes were subtle at first, slowly the scenery shifted: hilly green pastures in kansas, dry open expanses in collorado, and fiery orange mountains in arizona. It wasn't until we became completely disoriented by the sights that surrounded us, that we realized that we had at last reached the west. but reaching the west, we wanted nothing more than the familiarity of the east. we stopped for lunch at burger king, kept our radio tuned to npr, and slept at the same hilton garden Inn's that we had frequented in kansas city and columbus.

as we entered las vegas we got braver with our surroundings, taking time in the desert heat to admire the fountains at the bellagio, rising and falling to celine dion's power ballad "my heart will go on". we abandoned our familiar eastern fast food burger haunts for an all you can eat vegas buffet. having driven across nothing but desert for two days straight, their sights were now more familiar to us than the verdant landscapes back east. as we approached los angeles, our west coast transition was almost complete. pulling off the highway in hesperia california, we stopped for our final road trip meal: an in-n-out burger, animal style.