Thursday - August 3, 2006

Today was a day I'd dreaded. We had to drive eight hundred miles, from the eastern-edge of Missouri to Colorado. Mostly we would ply I-70 in an effort to avoid the smaller roads that otherwise are much of the pleasure of these summer trips. When planning this trip, Jenny and I both sighed at the length of this day's drive. But we knew that our deadline must be Sunday, there would be no room for error, in order that Vienna could attend Girl's Camp and I could have a day to prepare my own departure for Asia. Hoping for a few hours in Utah's Arches National Park, we knew we would have to sacrifice this day to the cult of speed.

Our beginning was hardly auspicious. We rolled into Hannibal, Missouri, home of Mark Twain and numerous stores, cafes, and tourist traps dedicated to the great American humorist, and we enjoyed a huge breakfast at the Mark Twain Dinette just minutes after agreeing to wait for a cheap drive-through breakfast-lunch once we got to the interstate. It's amazing how quickly our plans turn when we spot a nice looking diner. A satisfying and inexpensive meal later, we returned to the road, a bit sad that we could not stay longer. Today there would be no white picket fences, no statues of Tom and Huck, no chance to visit the nearby cave where storytellers recount tails of "injuns" and buried treasure. Today would not be dedicated to travel or even tourism. Today we could only make time.

The steady downward arc of the gas gauge marked the passing miles. These days, a gallon of gas runs between $2.85 and as high as $3.35. So our stops are a real sock to the wallet. Each fill-up, we engage the process automatically: swiping the card, inserting the dispenser, filling in our mileage journal, and maybe grabbing a snack. Blinking our eyes as if from a light slumber, we return to the car and count off another 350 miles before the next stop.

The afternoon took us across the four hundred-mile length of Kansas, with miles marked by billboards and the occasional porn shop and truck stop. The hours stretched on drowsily and we were forced to entertain ourselves with Simpsons trivia and selections from our iPods. Vienna drove most of this stretch, listening to Green Day's American Idiot album. We stopped, we started, we drove, and we counted the miles down to the Colorado border. Jenny and Vienna compared American Idiot and Pink Floyd's The Wall and I re-read entries of this journal. It feels like the events I've described took place a million years ago. I remember planning them - we'll go to Montreal, we'll then head for New York... Now those stops are part of a past that lives only in words, pictures, and souvenirs.

To pass the time, we pulled up the photograph of the Gettysburg Address taken when Vienna and I visited the Lincoln Memorial a few days ago. With nothing else to do and hundreds of miles before our stop, Jenny, Vienna, and I commenced to memorize the speech. It's been a long time since I've done something like this and I struggled with this task, particularly when Lincoln seems to utter the same sentiment that we should dedicate ourselves to the unfinished work and then somewhat redundantly to the great task sought by those who died on the battlefield. We completed about two-thirds of the speech by Denver and I wondered if I'd be able to finish my own great task of memorizing the next day. Vienna, to my continued amazement, had no problem with this challenge. She could recite the speech within an hour, I'm sure. But our family stayed together, working line by line, with me as the weakest link. At length, we passed alongside downtown Denver and pulled into our motel on the westward end. Jenny and I stayed up a bit, talking and planning, before we settled in for the night.