Immeasurable. Vast. Unbounded.
There is something infinite in a drive—the type of drive that will reclaim blinded eyes and liberate constrained minds. Our journey started from the other side of the country, where things began to blend into their surroundings a little too well and banalities became a daily occurrence. But at last, one fine morning, we escaped the consistency of our small south Jersey town and embarked on an eye-opening vacation out West.
We drove with wide eyes through California, making our way up through Oregon. This was no ordinary vacation. You wouldn’t see us stopping at Dino Land or Funtopia. We were in search of the real thing—the natural wonder of our country.
The road was open and I was soaring, even if it was from the back seat of our rental car. The blur of lush grass out the window as we whizzed past the rural pastures was art within itself—almost as if a painter was revealing the strokes of some past or present painting to me in some mystic way. The baby blue sky was dotted with clouds in just the right places. This was our vacation, nothing too fancy. My dad likes to take trips that lead us, as he likes to phrase it, “off the beaten path”. With more cattle than people, Fort Klamath, Oregon followed his vacationing preference without a doubt.
This wasn’t our only destination, though. The road was inevitable, as was beauty. There is a certain experience obtained from looking out a car window that you truly cannot get anywhere else. Getting lost in some small valley town, I watched young boys bask in their adolescence riding in the back of pick-up trucks and playing street side basketball under the stifling heat of the clear night sky. It was the essence of all-American adolescent boys and I couldn’t help but think that I was watching a chapter of the best times of their lives unfold.
In the midst of all this visual discovery I took the time to pay homage to the beauty of the drive itself. The rhythm it possesses is unlike the cadence of any other. The wheels spin an unfathomable number of times. The whirring of the pavement below becomes background music. And the stops made along the way are like the welcoming rests we get to take in life—those weekends and getaway trips. Then it’s back on the road.
Hitchhikers and hippies littered the highways. A whiff of horse manure would wander up my nostrils once in a while. And the mountains were always visible just beyond the horizon, purple and majestic. I looked out the window for the umpteenth time. It never got old. A new picture was painted every second. This is America. I let my thoughts wander and I realized that what I was seeing was all mine. I could paint it, draw it, explore it, live it.
Immeasurable. Vast. Unbounded.
The possibilities are never ending.
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