I40..at 40..

A few months ago I made a discovery. It was one I suspected, but never thought I would have the opportunity to find out..for real. My life was stale. I had stopped living, and was just..existing. In part this was due to a marriage long gone bad, but in part..it was where I lived. To tell the truth, the places I have lived have shaped my life as much as my family did. The people I came in contact with on a daily basis..I never seemed to fit in with. The towns I lived in were expensive places that required you to constantly be relying on others. It lead me into a safe..but dead end, a loveless lonely life where I had a home and my bills were paid..and I would have remained there till I died, dreaming of what it might be like to be elsewhere, had someone else not died first.

In this case it was my Step Father. His death was not unexpected, but it left my mother sounding very confused, something that was unexpected..to me. My mother was always a bit confused in my eyes, but this was something more than that. I had to question if she was starting to really lose her memory..and it scared the hell out of me. I didn't know what you were supposed to do in these situations..and to make matters worse, she lived across the country from me, and I am terrified of flying.

Prior to this moment in time, I would never have considered just leaving my home and driving across the country..even though it always had been a dream of mine as an adventure I wished I could have,..but now, suddenly, it became something I had to do. My Mother needed me, I could tell..and I had to be there for her. So..I threw some cloths in some plastic bags, made a few peanut butter and jelly sandwichs and tossed them in a cooler with a six pack of diet coke.

I took $500 from my husbands checking account..this was all I had to make it there. I had no idea what the trip might cost, or whether or not my beloved Hyundai with it's 120,000 miles..would be able to make it there, but none of that mattered at that moment. Armed with nothing but a Walmart USA road atlas, I started out from my little Jersey shore home..bound for Cottonwood, Arizona.

The first inkling of my discovery came about one minute into my trip, as I turned off my street and out to the main road. I..,me.., I was about to drive across the United States..alone. Completely Free. It was.. the
adventure I had dreamed of..and even though it was for all the saddest possible reasons..here it was, at last.

My eyes watered..and I broke into a smile. It was an overwhelming feeling..one that stayed with me for the rest of the trip.

Until that day, my world rarely extended past the borders of my town. Once I had made a drive down to Florida with my kids in tow, when they were young teens, both unenthused and having boredom down to an art, it was a trip that seemed more a chore than adventure. I couldn't remember the last time I was out anywhere on my
own..going where I wanted to go, doing what I wanted to do..all on my own timetable. In hindsight, I don't think I ever had.

This trip was more than a drive to help my mother. It became, one minute away from my home, a drive to help
myself. I stopped and bought a disposable camera, and turned onto Route 70. The first day of the trip was
fueled by my excitement. Every farm house, every cow, every mountain and valley and lake brought a new smile to my face. I took pictures of road signs and bridges, and of each city I passed through. The further I got,
the further I wanted to go. The first night of my trip, at 11pm at night, I pulled over and slept in my car in
a hotel parking lot. I remember the last thing I thought to myself before I fell asleep. This was heaven.

The second day of my trip was as exciting, but there was the truth. Not all of America was interesting to drive through. Cities I couldn't wait to see came and went. I drove right past Nashville, Memphis, Little Rock..and through some grueling stretchs of repetitive green landscape. Farm houses and cows became a blur out my window. My car radio got pressed into use, and finding music that would keep me awake..but it was all part of the wonderful experience. I still managed to go 12 hours that day, and since my money seemed to be holding up just fine, I got a $40 hotel room in Oklahoma City, and slept like a rock for 10 hours.

The next morning I was back in my car, refreshed and ready to roll at 7am. It only took me five minutes to
gather my things and leave. That was one of the really great parts of being out on my own. I didn't have to wait on anyone. My life was streamlined. It amazed me just how fast and far I got when I was by myself.

The third day of my trip was the true discovery though. There were places and things that looked nothing like I expected. I saw some things I had never seen before in Texas. The World's Largest Cross..The 72oz Steak..and
real Oil Rigs. These Wind Power things, for lack of a technical term to describe them, were probably the
coolest looking things I've ever seen, and there were like thousands of them. Fields full of them. It was almost sureal. Infact, it WAS sureal. The fact that I was even here, making this trip..was sureal.

I had a picture in my mind of Amarillo..mainly from a song I used to hear George Strait crone on the country
music stations..Amarillo by Morning. I expected this old small lazy brown Texas town surrounded by a handfull of little ranchs and a few men in tall hats on horseback. I was..a bit off.

As I entered the Amarillo city limits..Texas disappeared, and was replaced by the world's largest really cool place. "South of the Border" is a road side attraction between North and South Carolina that has a few small amusements, some tourist trap stores and a motel. Amerillo made me think of that..except it was an entire city. I40 passed like three water parks, an amusement park, several massive malls, dozens of restaurants and hotels and stores all decked with colorful blinking neon lights and bright hanging banners and all kinds of flags and murals on the sides of their overpasses, and even a zoo, and it was all under the bluest sky I had ever seen in my life.

I stopped at a Stuckeys for gas at the New Mexico border around 11:30am. My trip meter read 1907 miles here. I filled the tank, checked the tires, bought some ice for my cooler and a few big bottles of water.. because I
was headed into the desert. I assumed once I got into 'the desert'..that the temperatures would soar to the 100 degrees I had heard about and imagined. Turns
out it was cool in February in the desert..and I was oddly disappointed. I was wanting the sweaty dusty
Thelma and Louise thing. Instead, I was turning on my heat.

New Mexico was a jaw dropping state to me. The desert was nothing like I imagined, but I loved it. The mesas
and the mountains were glorious, and there's not a picture in the world that can do them justice. If you don't ever see them with your own eyes, you're missing out. Driving through this state..I realized. How different my life would have been had I grown up anywhere else, and I just knew that had I grown up here, in this beautiful place, I probably would have been a lot happier. I also realized that I wasn't going to want to go home.

I managed to reach Arizona late that afternoon, and since there was no point in stopping at that point, I
drove the last stretch of my trip in the darkness, reaching Cottonwood at just past 10pm. My Mother, to my
great relief, sounded better to me. Infact, she sounded just fine. My worries about her state of mind turned
into worries about my own. How could I ever return to my life after a trip like this, and if not, how was I
going to survive? The thing that helped lessen some of these fears was that I also started to ask myself..
where? I had seen America. There were a lot of towns out there, and if I was about to start over on my own, I
could at least have my choice of any of them.

I think every person should have the chance to drive across America on their own. I think it teachs you something, both about the world around you, and about yourself. There may just be better places to live, and
no one should ever feel stuck where they are. It only cost me $300 to drive to Arizona, but it changed my
outlook on life forever. I even decided to challenge myself, and a few weeks later, confident of my mother's
wellbeing, I got back in my car, and drove someplace I thought I would never see in my life. California. I
stood on Mission Beach in San Diego, with my feet in the Pacific Ocean, and then I laid down in the sun and
started dreaming of where I wanted to go, and what I wanted to do with my life. Except this time they weren't
just dreams. I knew,..if I could do this..I could do anything.