Corn and crosses

Okay, I admit it, it's been 4 months since I drove across the country to get here, home, to Maryland. I haven't written a lick of blog since the first week or two that I have been back. I have some photos and a brief journal, and here I am thinking that I will try to capture some of the rest of the trip, at least for the sake of having a bit more of a record.

But there was a specific question I really wanted to answer with this last trip across the country. Poised to me by a friend from Kansas. I told her I really didn't enjoy driving across the midwest. The corn belt. The bible belt. I told her about the time I drove from Maine to Mendocino, back in 2003. The time that I camped in western Tenessee. I saw a sign for a state park campground as I drove down the highway. I pulled in. It was very late. Quiet. Dark. I pulled my sleeping bag out and slept on the grass next to my car. I woke up early, and decided I hadn't really spent enough time at the campsite to pay the fee, so I left. I watched the sun rise in my rear view mirror as I crossed the border into Arkansas. I saw three crosses standing by the side of I-40, and I decided that this was to be the day that I quit quitting smoking again. I bought a pack of Marlboro Reds at a gas station, planning to chain smoke, if necessary, to get across Arkansas, Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle that day. It was a long drive, but I made it, throat ragged and gas tank near empty, to a rest stop just inside the border of New Mexico.

What bothered me so much about driving through the midwest? Why did I feel the need to just get it over with? Based on my reaction to the crosses and my desire to smoke (maybe I was just looking for an excuse there), it wasn't just a question of the distance, of putting a big chunk of the country behind me. It was something else. Something specifically related to that particular area. A stereotype I had.

My car has bumper stickers. At the time it probably had a bumper sticker that said "Think Larger, buy Smaller - Not Everybody Needs an SUV". I drive a Honda Civic. It definitely had a sticker that said "Bread not Bombs", and certainly there was a sticker on it that said "Work Buy Consume Die".

I was almost certainly sporting a beard. A couple guys at a gas station in New Jersey (the same guys who were filling my tank and cleaning my windshield) had seen me with my beard and called me Osama Bin Laden. Funny. I thought about shaving before my trip. just to avoid drawing attention from folks who might be looking to get in an argument about the looming Iraq war, or terrorism, or freedom, or my bumper stickers, or about whether or not it was okay for John Ashcroft to use taxpayer's money to buy the Crisco he anointed himself with. But I was too lazy to shave. And for the record, I would have been smoking American Spirits, or Camels, but all they had was Marlboros.

So I did, eventually, make it across the US that time. After a night spent at that rest stop in New Mexico, I drove to Flagstaff, AZ, and stayed in a hostel. I met some really great folks there. I cannot say enough great things about the four or five times I have passed through Flagstaff. I am always just passing through, but I always seem to meet great people and have interesting conversations. I first did Karaoke in Flagstaff, in the bar in the basement of a haunted hotel. The Monte Vista, I think.

While settling in at the Flagstaff hostel, I met an extremely beautiful girl. She was not beautiful in any way that I typically find beautiful - she had no quirks. She was a billboard. She was a magazine cover. She was what the majority of people think is beauty, perfection, etc. She was not the type of girl I would typically try to talk to, yet alone hang out and have dinner and a drink with, but she and I just happened to be in the living room at the same time, feeling hungry and thirsty. We went out, just the two of us, to get liquored up and to eat. I couldn't believe it. (Yeah. I know my self esteem needs some work, but that's another blog entirely). There had to be a catch. There was a catch. Apparently, this girl was from a bit of a radical right wing Christian upbringing. She seemed innocent enough at first - ex-boyfriend a pro snowboarder, she was waiting to catch a bus to the grand canyon so she could work at a hotel there, she believed the war in Iraq was a complete and total necessary jihad to wipe the muslims off the face of the earth, she really missed her dog...wait. What? Seriously? This was March 2003. The war was on my mind. I expected to be talking to people about the ridiculousness of it while I was in Flagstaff. She didn't make fun of my beard though. We didn't make out, either. On a note unrelated to politics, I met another girl the next morning who I sat and talked with for an hour, and managed to fall in love with before saying goodbye. She was not billboard, or magazine, but more farm, or music fest. Deep brown eyes and that certain something that so many people have when you meet them, as your paths cross, heading in opposite directions.