A Road Trip Into America's Soul

Drive along the state roads until you find that mystical place where the road sign says “Swea City 5; Lakota 7; Blue Earth, Minn. 24 miles.” It exists.

Photo by Waldemar at Unsplash.

You may pass through Iowa on the federal highway as though you were driving through just anywhere. But I beseech you, if you travel through Iowa, to turn off that path and into America’s breadbasket. Drive north along the state roads until you find that mystical place where the road sign says “Swea City 5; Lakota 7; Blue Earth, Minn. 24 miles.” It exists. Stop your car and wait as it creaks, groans, and whines as its parts settle. You will hear the wind blowing through the cornfields of Iowa, the dust settling in the grass, and the insects singing in their own world, never wondering about yours. Heaven above will show you a blue that blankets the sky. There you will hear the quietest quiet and perhaps you will feel peace.

Your car will call you, because you must go on, ever so eager to arrive, but never quite sure where you’re going or why. And so you continue through flat Minnesota and into the rolling red hills of South Dakota. Sweetest smells tickle your nostrils – of the farm and the tractor and newly bailed hay, smells of an America you had only dreamed of. In the distance, you see a ball of tumbleweed rolling across the highway. But as you come closer, it begins to take shape, to move deliberately, and so you brake and bring your car to a stop in the middle of the lonely road. Before you, a mother duck leads her ducklings across. Nature has blessed you by exposing herself, and you smile. You would take a picture, but you know that this moment will be with you forever, as long as the cords of memory strengthen.

On to the Plains where Custer met the Sioux at Little Bighorn. Over the hills and the rivers and into the Badlands, where millions of years have left Nature a palette of radiant colors. To Mount Rushmore, where you spend an hour at daybreak. You want more time, but you must go farther, you must arrive, wherever it is you’re going. In Wyoming, you roll down your windows, and again sweetness fills your senses. You can see 100 miles into the distance. Cattle graze where buffalo once roamed untethered by forces they would only later meet. 

To Denver, the great outpost of the West, and to Santa Fe, where you bask in the sun, marvel at golden aspens, and eat green chile. You write a love letter you never send while sitting in the Plaza. You go to the Indian Market and Taos Pueblo and are reminded of another America, in another time, but also of now. In Arizona, you stop at a cattle ranch and meet real cowboys, who brand real cattle. Cowboys today don’t all wear boots, spurs, or cowboy hats; some just wear jeans and an iron-on T-shirt. Don’t be fooled, however, for they have generations of ranching caked behind their ears, under their fingernails, and in their soul. You drive north again toward Flagstaff. Behind you, you see the rain chasing you from miles away and then it is upon you. You are alone. You must think and this will scare you.

You reach the California border, where you are questioned. “No, Officer, I’m only carrying my uncertainty, and I don’t know where I’m going or why, but I sure am eager to get there.” Overnight to Northern California, where many have come before you, some looking for Gold, many from the East or the Far East, looking for a new, better life. In Silicon Valley, you see progress as thousands of entrepreneurs develop new ideas that will revolutionize the world. 

In the Redwood Forest, you crane your neck to see treetops caressing the heavens. On into Oregon. But if in Wyoming and Arizona, you could see for miles, in Oregon, from the highway, you cannot. All around you, the greenest trees line the road and countryside. Green everywhere. Through the forest until you reach the City of Roses—Portland—at the confluence of two rivers, the Columbia and the Willamette, not far from the base of snow-capped Mount Hood. You walk along her tree-lined streets, cyclists passing you by. The women wear no makeup to hide their beauty. The Columbia Gorge, with its majestic views and waterfalls. In nearby Washington, you climb to the top of Mount St. Helens, where you hear rocks falling. But listen again, your ears deceive you, for in fact lava bubbles ever so quietly until man is reintroduced to the world that lies beneath. From her summit, you behold three giants – Hood, Adams, and Rainier. Surely you have arrived; surely you must be there.

Yet something brings you back and like so many travelers, you end up where you began. You return to California and then quickly across her belly to Salt Lake City; Kearney, Nebraska; and Indianapolis, home of the great Motor Speedway. Finally, on the last day, you are near home. And you think of South Dakota and of Wyoming and of Oregon. But in Leesburg and Manassas and Middleburg, Virginia, only miles from home, you see some of the most beautiful countryside in America, and again sweetness fills your senses and your soul is your pilot.

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