The Great American Road Trip?

From a very young age I have been drawn to journeys. Physical journeys. Intellectual journeys. Journeys of self-discovery, duty, reformation, or familial obligation. I am most often attracted to such journeys through the medium of the road trip. The “great American road trip” has a rich literary and cinematic history and I was introduced to it at an early age. Like many others, I immersed myself in some of these fictional coming-of-age trips during adolescence. The road trip can sometimes seem like a quintessentially American phenomenon and in many ways, it is. Yet, as I’ve gotten older and I think back on the depictions of journeys that made the deepest impression on me and my understanding of the road trip, it requires a far more expansive and nuanced definition of “road trip” that transcends geography and automobiles on a highway. Why am I thinking so much about road trips? Because I am about to embark on a journey myself.

I have been fortunate to take some road trips in my life and certainly feel that I have gone on many-a journey, be it geographical or spiritual or political, but I have never driven west. The idea of “heading west” looms large in the American psyche and I have always wanted to personally experience this most “American” of rites. This summer, in June and July 2022, I will finally make a trek “out west” and on this road trip I also intend to take a journey. I cannot predict whether it will answer existential questions about my purpose in life or illuminate mysteries about parenting or provide a glimpse into the future of American politics. But, I expect something. Some journeys are embarked on with the intention of finding answers to specific questions, while others are approached as ends-in-themselves. For me, this road trip may be a little bit of both.

As I just mentioned, I am open to a variety of “journeys” along the way, but I am also consciously going to be pondering the future of my children. Y’all, shit’s crazy right now. The pandemic and the radical right have taken a sledge-hammer to the public-school system. We’ve got politicians and parents more concerned about banning LGBTQ books from school libraries than the AR-15s that are used to kill students in their classrooms. We’ve got a bunch of nonsense standardized testing and laws forbidding teachers from talking about “controversial” current events. There’s the poison of social media. Climate change. Abortion is about to be illegal in half the country. Will contraception be next? Will same-sex marriage come under attack too? Do I seriously want to raise my daughters in what Texas is poised to become over the next 5–10 years? I don’t know what my options are even if I could answer that question, but it is an overarching concern that I will be deeply contemplating on the road this summer. Are things any better in Colorado? New Mexico? Arizona? California? I mean, I get that things are also just difficult everywhere, right? But, maybe, my travels will offer a new perspective on things. Maybe I will come back to Texas with some clarity about my home state, or the state of my country.

I keep thinking about my favorite road trips and journeys of fiction. Where does my upcoming adventure exist on the spectrum? What kind of journey am I on? The first road trip I can remember immersing myself in was The Land Before Time. (I told you I had an expansive definition of the term “road trip.”) Growing up in Louisiana, the swampy opening scenes of Little Foot’s birth and childhood reminded me of the bayous I might see while riding in the car. Little Foot and his friends are ostensibly heading west in search of the great valley (California?). As you may recall, natural disasters forced their families to flee and many were separated in the chaos. Dinosaurs who previously would have stuck to their own herds were now a “melting pot” of collective action in search of a land of plenty and opportunity where everyone would live in harmony. I honestly haven’t read any scholarship on The Land Before Time (assuming some exists?), but I’ve always interpreted the film as a metaphor for the American spirit’s embrace of adversity and diversity. While I may be heading west, and may have some “stubborn Saras” in the backseat, I don’t think my journey will have much in common with Little Foot’s.

Another classic journey from my childhood is Homeward Bound. I promise that we’ll eventually get to human road trips! Shadow, Chance, and Sassy (two dogs and a cat) decide to attempt an epic journey home through the wilderness. The setting for their journey is, of course, the American West. Their humans are traveling to San Francisco, but the pets don’t understand that they intended to return for them. The entire trip is predicated on a misunderstanding between family members (of different species), but is nonetheless full of self-discovery and self-reformation. For me, the scenes from the film of the family driving through California in their Jeep Cherokee came to symbolize the family “road trip.” Road trips took place in SUVs and there were mountains outside your window. As my own family made annual drives from New Orleans to Texas (also, in a Jeep Cherokee!) we were heading west, but there were no mountains in sight. I doubt that my family road trip will have much in common with Homeward Bound either. Unlike the main non-human characters, I am not seeking to return home. I am instead going to visit family in Colorado and California. I certainly hope that our dog, a 12-year-old terrier-dachshund mix, doesn’t attempt to come find us because I can guarantee you she wouldn’t have any heart-warming “Shadow-esque” homecoming.

The first human adventure that made a lasting impact on me was Elijah Wood’s journey down the Mississippi River in Huckleberry Finn. This kid was wild. At the time, the notion of traveling by boat down a river actually made a lot of sense since kids couldn’t drive cars. Huck’s medium of escape seemed accessible to me. Living outside of New Orleans, the notion of the Mississippi River as the site of a “road trip” was also intriguing. I thought to myself, I drive over that river all the time. Now, unlike Huck, I am not running from an abusive father or stifling social conventions or helping another individual gain freedom. Furthermore, I will be traveling via Subaru Outback instead of a raft. On his journey, Huck does come to a deeper understanding of injustice and how he himself might be implicated in it. Who knows, maybe I will gain a new perspective on my role and place in society too?

Speaking of history, discrimination, and the American South: Forrest Gump, y’all. What a journey. What a road trip. This guy doesn’t need a raft or river. All he needs is a pair of Nikes! (Yeah, we’re still not in a car yet.) Like me, Forrest Gump didn’t necessarily have a specific purpose for taking his trip. Unlike me, what prompted his coast-to-coast journey was the death of his mother. I will be traveling to California to see my mom and dad. But, wow, those images on the road! That song! “Running on Empty” by Jackson Browne. I honestly despise running. I started playing indoor soccer to make myself exercise. But that scene, and that song, were always enough to make me think to myself, “Hey, I could just walk to California right now…” And sometimes, especially as a senior in high school, I would want to. Obviously, Forrest Gump’s journey is far larger than his running phase. He travels to Vietnam, to a Black Panther party, and out to sea. Not to mention the emotional rollercoaster of pursuing Jenny, losing friends and family, and then meeting his son. Again, being a kid in Louisiana, there was just something about that film that I could connect with. Will my journey this summer have anything in common with Forrest Gump’s? I doubt it, but I wouldn’t mind crossing paths with Barack Obama or Joe Biden somehow along the way!

The film that really took the “road trip” to the next level was Field of Dreams starring Kevin Costner. Yes, much of the film takes place on a single farm in Iowa, but when Ray climbs into that old Volkswagen bus to drive to Boston in search of Terrence Mann it becomes a classic road trip. What a vehicle! What a purpose. This was a journey with cosmic significance. Here is an individual following his heart, gut, and intuition on a completely irrational trek. It was so exciting. They even picked up a hitchhiker who ended up being one of the “ghost” baseball players who was finally able to receive closure in the afterlife by playing baseball again on Ray’s field. Truly, what a film. For me the takeaways were crystal clear and permanent: baseball is good, book banners are Nazis, and cross-country road trips are best completed in VW vans. For many years, it was my dream to purchase an old VW and travel across the country. Who knows, once the all-electric VW bus comes out maybe my dream will come true. Will my journey have any parallels with Kevin Costner’s? He invested immensely, and irrationally, in his home and then took a journey to understand why he did so. In this sense, our road trips may end up having something in common. Is there a purpose for me in Texas?

If the previous films were from my childhood and early adolescence, then Easy Rider is the point of departure for my adult conception of the road trip. Motorcycles. Music. Politics. Drugs. And, again, being from Louisiana, the film had a special resonance given the role of New Orleans as the destination of trip. This film was a college curiosity for me and I can’t say that it had a lasting impact on me. Like Forrest Gump, the film dramatized discriminatory aspects of the American South in a critical manner that I learned to identify with. Growing up in the South it is easy to drink the “Southern Pride” Kool-Aid, and I had begun to sip it in middle school, but through films and books I was fortunate to arrive at a place where I had great affection for Southern culture broadly-speaking and disdain for the history and legacy of white supremacy. I suppose this was one of my most important intellectual journeys. As the bigotry, violence, and provincialism of the South refuses to die, and even threatens resurrection, I am increasingly concerned about my family’s place here. Our road trip through the Mountain West to the Pacific Ocean may be just a needed break from the heat of Texas summer and politics, or it could illuminate deeper truths about the future and what’s best for my children. Easy Rider ends with an idiot in a pickup truck shooting someone just because they look different and there seems to be too much of that still today.

In college, my “deep dive” into the literature of the road trip took place in the pages of On the Road by Jack Kerouac, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. Two of these books now have film adaptations. Like Easy Rider, Kerouac was a college phase and I can’t say I owe much of my worldview to the Beats. After graduating from college, I got married at 23, moved to the suburbs, and started a teaching career. My life is about as antithetical to the lives depicted in counter-culture novels as possible. I remember having very conflicted feelings about Into the Wild (I also get the book and movie mixed up now). The book tells the true story of Christopher McCandless, a recent college grad who walked away from society and family on an epic journey through North America. What was he seeking? Presumably, answers about the meaning of life.

For me, his “road trip” was not strictly-speaking a positive journey of self-discovery, but also a reactive avoidance of unpleasant realities. It seemed that he was running away from things at least as much as he was trying to discover himself. In my twenties, I viewed his journey as a selfish cop-out. On the one hand, the romantic and surfer in me related very deeply to the turn away from society’s seemingly intractable problems in favor of an escape into nature and self-discovery. On the other hand, the idealist and activist in me maintains a strong sense of social obligation to affect change and even looks harshly on those who retreat into their own life-style cultivation. To me, it smacks of privilege and narcissism to prioritize your own enjoyment and interests absent any civic or social commitments. Like, what if every well-educated and somewhat jaded youth just turned their back entirely on politics to “explore” the world? Where would that get us? There needs to be a balance, right? “Moderation in all things”? Now, in my mid-thirties, having lived through the Trump presidency, January 6th, the pandemic, the shootings, the natural disasters, the rigging of Congress and the Supreme Court, maybe walking away and getting out is the rational response. Why waste good faith effort within a corrupt system captured by fascist trolls? I don’t want to take my family to Alaska and die in the wilderness like McCandless, but maybe we could just stop in Canada on the way there and never leave.

Another epic road trip doubling as a spiritual/intellectual journey is Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The philosophical discussion is as memorable as the scenery as the author and his son travel around the Northwest on a motorcycle. I won’t pretend to understand everything in the book, but I have revisited it after more than a decade and it still offers plenty to think about. Given that the author is traveling with his son, I may have something in common with him since I will be traveling with my kids, as well. The author, however, struggles with mental illness associated with a breakdown and I have no desire to get to that point. Hence, my own journey to escape, if just briefly, like McCandless did from the seeming futility of politics. So, unlike these literary road trips, I won’t be embarking on a listless Beat journey across America (I will be going to Denver though), or seeking solitude in the wilderness (I will be hiking with a toddler on my back!), or trying to recover from a mental breakdown and repair a damaged relationship.

Is the road trip truly an American phenomenon? Obviously, the broader concept of a “journey” is not. World literature abounds with epic journeys across entire continents and oceans. The United States didn’t invent roads! There is a long history of pilgrimage and the common routes believers would take to arrive at their holy destinations. If anything, and I haven’t read any scholarship on this topic, the modern “road trip” might be something pioneered in America due to the mass production of affordable automobiles and the construction of a national interstate highway system in the early and mid-twentieth century. However, regardless to what degree the “road trip” conceived as a car on a highway is an American “invention,” the modern road trip took root all over the world.

Two films that expanded my geographical assumptions about the road trip were Motorcycle Diaries and Everything Is Illuminated. The former is a dramatization of Che Guevara’s memoir about his motorcycle journey across South America. A medical student, Che’s trip has a profound impact on his politics and launches him on his revolutionary trajectory. I found the story incredible and related to it deeply. On his trip, Che is moved by scenes of suffering and injustice. He becomes aware of his own privilege when he meets a husband and wife traveling to find work. The story is very powerful and provides some helpful nuance to assumptions about what attracted people to communism. The closest I would come to being a revolutionary communist was writing online political commentary for the Occupy Wall Street movement and becoming a Bernie Sanders delegate at the 2016 Texas Democratic Convention.

The film Everything Is Illuminated is an adaptation of the novel written by Jonathan Safran Foer. Elijah Wood plays an American Jew who travels to Ukraine to uncover mysteries about his family history. It is a classic “American” road trip, but the setting is Eastern Europe. The film is amazing and will make you fall in love with Ukraine. The soundtrack is epic. There are also powerful scenes depicting American cultural ignorance and the importance of humility and self-awareness (something too many Americans lack when traveling abroad). Whereas Che’s journey through South America produced a transformation that resulted in him looking beyond his homeland to affect change, Elijah Wood’s character went abroad to understand himself and his family more deeply. I don’t expect my family road trip to produce any radical changes in my worldview or self-identity, but I hope I can begin to instill a love of travel in my 7-year-old that will set her up for her own journeys of self-discovery later in life.

I am acutely aware that my entire experience and understanding of the “road trip” is that of a white male. Obviously, the premise of traveling alone or otherwise as a female involves inherent dangers such as sexual harassment or assault. Traveling as a person of color also involves possible threats that a white person will not face. On a very basic level, a white person is far less likely to ever be pulled over by law enforcement on their road trip or have their vehicle searched. English language proficiency. Citizenship status. There are many things about one’s identity that can turn the carefree “self-discovery” road trip of a white person into an anxiety-ridden, life-threatening enterprise for someone else. It is also not lost on me that, apart from Che Guevara (and the non-humans!), all the road trip narratives I mentioned were from the perspective of a white male. Is the notion of “heading west” just a tourist version of Manifest Destiny? Is the freedom of the open road experienced by white people just a legacy of white supremacy? Is my interest in and longing for the “great American road trip” just a symptom of white, male privilege? On some level, I think so. But, as social progress is made little by little, certainly the lure of adventure is felt by all people and the space within which anyone can travel with a basic sense of security and equality expands. At least, that is my hope.

So, where does this leave me as I prepare to load up my Subaru Outback for the long-dreamt-of road trip to California? If I don’t see many parallels between my upcoming journey and the road trips that serve as my reference point, then what can I reasonably expect to find out there? Revisiting all these epic narratives makes me realize that my lifelong dream of “going west” may come up far short of any expectations I’ve allowed myself to imagine. After all, I will be hitting the road with a 7-year-old and a toddler. Hell, it could be a total shit-show at times! The beautiful scenery is a guarantee. The solitary self-reflection and carefree conversation with my wife may be harder to come by. In fact, reaching our daily destination on time without me losing my temper ought to be considered a triumph.

Alas, my “great American road trip” may not have anything in common with the journeys of self-discovery I have appreciated on screen and in print. No major transformations are to be expected. This is no coming-of-age story! But at the end of the day, the trip isn’t about me at all. It’s about my children. How can I take my fascination with the “road trip,” wrapped up as it may be in historical injustice, and share it with them? What does it mean, in 2022, to “go west” with your kids? As we visit national parks it means talking to them about climate change and conservationism. As we drive near reservations it means explaining to them in honest terms what the creation of this nation has entailed for indigenous peoples who have lived in North America since before European settlers arrived.

My daughters might not relate to many of the “road trip” narratives that I saw myself in as a kid. I recently watched Hook with my 7-year-old daughter and she enjoyed it, but at the end she asked two questions: “why is Maggie only in a few scenes?” and “why aren’t there are any Lost Girls? Girls exist, you know.” Indeed. It is clear that embarking on this “great American road trip” with my daughters is not about passing on my idea of the road trip, but helping them construct their own vision of the road trip; one that centers their identity and also recognizes the interrelated nature of society. In other words, my “classics” might not be theirs, but new “classics” can be created to reflect a deeper and more nuanced understanding of our history. For example, as we travel through New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and California my 7-year-old will read some Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder, but she will also read The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich and the Josefina American Girl books.

I may not be able to change the past, but I can definitely help determine the future by teaching my children how to participate in the making of a society where everyone can possess the means and the certainty to hit the road, explore this beautiful country, and discover something new about themselves, other people, and the world around them. The truth is, I no longer care about trying to live out the road trip narratives of my boyhood. Now, I am more concerned with helping to construct a narrative that includes my daughters. A narrative that includes all of us.