A Little Jaunt by Rose Haag

If cross-country road-trips are about meandering across the countryside and “finding yourself,” then my drive home last May was an anti-road-trip. It was just Zoë and me. We drove around the clock, saw practically no scenery, and made it from Claremont to Philadelphia in under two days. Besides the gas and coffee stops, we only pulled off the road twice: in Flagstaff, AZ we submitted our final exams, and in Mulberry Grove, IL we went for a run.

We left on Thursday.

Zoë had been up all night working on a paper, so I drove first.

We only made it four hours out before the sun started going down and we settled in at a Motel 6 somewhere in Arizona.

By ten o’clock the next morning, our papers were finished and suddenly we looked around to find we were in Flagstaff, and finished with sophomore year of college.

We bought Dramamine for the backseat, coffee for the front, and by noon, we were off!

I took over the wheel as it was getting dark and drove through Texas. I couldn’t see much. I do remember a huge cement cross by the side of the road, and a gas station where the coffee was 10 cents cheaper if you brought your own cup.

Zoë took over as the sun came up. I slept through the Missouri rest-stop, where the coffee was free and the cashier pointed out that Missouri offers far better hospitality than “those Arkansas rest-stops.” I was looking forward to seeing the Mississippi River, but all I remember is waking up, looking around, seeing the bridge, and going back to sleep.

We tried to only spend money on gas and coffee. I had somehow acquired sardines and canned spinach, and we took some staples from the dining hall before we left: bread, hard-boiled eggs, and apples. I also recall some Hershey’s and a huge jug of V-8.

By the time we hit Illinois on Friday afternoon, we were starting to feel strange from too much sitting, too much coffee, strange interactions between caffeine and Dramamine, and all those sardines. We pulled off because the name “Mulberry Grove” sounded cool.

We parked in the church parking lot, put on our running clothes and ran down the dirt road past fields and farmhouses. The first half hour was refreshing; after that, we were nauseated and dehydrated, and unfortunately still had to run back.

It was miserable, but we made it back to the church. The priest was waiting for us; he let us rinse off in the bathroom. Before we left, he gave us a copy of the New Testament, written in “plain English, without the thees and thous.” Signed, Randy of Mulberry Grove.

Ohio’s gas stations were the sketchiest. I was driving and it was past midnight on Saturday. The doors to the convenience store were locked, and we went to three different stations before we found a usable bathroom.

I was wired so I kept driving into the morning, way past the end of my six-hour shift. I have this incredible hazy memory of that dawn, of the pink sky and the gray clouds and the mountainous, windy roads of Western Pennsylvania. I’d been sitting in stale air for hours, but I felt like I was riding down a hill on a bicycle with crisp air blowing through my hair.

By the time we were trying to navigate city streets in Philadelphia, I was a zombie. Somehow, I stayed awake for the final three hours down I-95. I walked in my front door on Sunday afternoon, a full day before my sister’s birthday.

Zoë posted on my Facebook wall a few days later:

“Phone conversation between me and a Concerned Older Brother:

Me: Hello?
A: Mom?
Me: No, it’s Zoë.
A: Oh hey, wait, why are you home already?
Me: I decided to drive.
A: Yeah we discussed this on Thursday and you hadn’t even left. How did you do that so fast?
Me: just well planned use of zoom control.
A: Zoom control? hmmm, I think someone needs to lay off the Jack Kerouac.”