I love how vast America is. I love that it will take me five days to drive from Wyoming to Virginia. Of course, this is Day One. Ask me how I feel on Day Five.
I left Wyoming a little before nine o'clock this morning, heading east. The plan is to front-load the trip with lots of miles the first two days so that I can more leisurely explore the states through which I'll be travelling toward the end of the week. Today I logged in excess of 600 miles and am spending the night near Grand Island, Nebraska.
Driving from Sweetwater Station to Muddy Gap, I was unexpectedly flooded with memories: Stopping at Mad Dog and the Pilgrim to purchase an old book, talking with my dad and having him refer to Jeffrey City as "Jeff City" (of course, he has also been known to refer to the president of the Confederacy as Jeff Davis, as if he knows him personally), and stopping to take a photograph of the Ferris Mountains back when H was an undergrad at the University of Wyoming. Amazing how that lonesome (some might consider desolate) 60-mile stretch of highway holds such vivid images for me. Imagine how I'm struggling to compartmentalize the millions of moments that represent the 15 or 30 mile radius from my home over the last 13 years.
I raced through Rawlins and along I-80 to Laramie and Cheyenne, names synonymous with the Old West, and that I take for granted.
I didn't stop until I needed gas and something to eat. I had reached Sydney, Nebraska and had started to see the country of Willa Cather and Bess Streeter Aldrich. My Antonia and A Lantern in Her Hand were among my favorite books growing up, and the fields of corn and alfalfa that I saw along the Interstate brought those stories back to me. I identify with the uniquely American experience of pioneering in the West, of making do with less, of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. When you come from humble beginnings, you tend to appreciate the opportunities that America provides. This is why, for me, joining the Foreign Service is an extraordinary honor.
I didn't stop until I needed gas and something to eat. I had reached Sydney, Nebraska and had started to see the country of Willa Cather and Bess Streeter Aldrich. My Antonia and A Lantern in Her Hand were among my favorite books growing up, and the fields of corn and alfalfa that I saw along the Interstate brought those stories back to me. I identify with the uniquely American experience of pioneering in the West, of making do with less, of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. When you come from humble beginnings, you tend to appreciate the opportunities that America provides. This is why, for me, joining the Foreign Service is an extraordinary honor.
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