I had no trouble getting out of bed that cold December day. I started the car so it would warm up while we packed a few last items and waited for the coffee to brew. I am normally a beast in the morning, but not that day. I was looking forward to the long drive. There is nothing I find more relaxing than a road trip. It is a sort of forced meditation. I am forced to focus on where I am, where I am going, where I will be. One can always make extra stops and take detours, but the final destination will always be reached. A certain selection of CDs. Bottled water, fruit, and chocolates. There is something comforting about having limited resources; of knowing that you must make due with what you have, even if what you thought you wanted yesterday is not what you really want now.
Susana found two travel mugs in my cabinet and filled them up with creamy coffee. We laughed at how both of my travel mugs had been left at my apartment by ex-boyfriends. She got the Scott mug. I got the Eric mug. We put the CDs and snacks in the front seat and put our bags in the back. The ice on the windshield had melted. We were ready to leave.
We did not make a lot of stops this time; we only stopped for gas. It was impossible to romanticize I-57, like Highway 101. Rural Illinois and Missouri were more a reminder of what we had escaped from. Gas stations full of overweight women wearing sweat pants and baggy T-shirts. Pork rinds. The mullet. The landscape was not new to us; we were accustomed to the flat, dreary landscape of the Midwest in the winter. For hours we listened to music and talked as we drove past the dormant fields and trees without leaves. Our excitement lay in the fact that we would be in Memphis before the sunset. It was only 4:00 when we arrived.
We normally stayed at hostels when we traveled to cities, but Memphis did not have one. We wanted to be near the center of town, so we splurged and stayed in a nicer hotel. When we got out of the car we were excited that it was warm enough to be outside without our coats. We spent only twenty-four hours in that city. I knew that the Beale Street bars and clubs we went to were there for tourists and that I was not really going to understand this city’s essence on my first visit. Some cities are secretive like that. We listened to some blues, saw an Elvis impersonator, and then saw a cheesy cover band at the last club we went to. I was too drunk to care that they were cheesy. I kissed some guy who was also visiting from another city. The next day I had a horrible hangover.
Our road trips were an effort to explore America the way people did when there was still something to explore. Before every U.S. city started to look the same. Before Wal-Mart and Denny’s. We would always drive around hungry until we found a restaurant that was not a chain restaurant. I’m sure Jack Kerouac did not have to do the same. We went out of our way to make our travel experiences authentic. That morning we had had trouble finding somewhere to eat. In my hung-over grouchy state I was getting agitated, but Susana insisted we keep driving. We finally found our perfect Memphis diner and had omelets with hash browns. Living in Chicago and Portland we were used to having our choice of cheeses in an omelet. I was a swiss girl; she was chedder. Nothing made us happier than to learn that the only kind of cheese they had was orange American cheese. We were in Memphis.
One thing that really struck me about Memphis was the amount of Pawn Shops. Susana had wanted to learn guitar and I had told her that a pawn shop is a good place to find a used guitar. We decided to split up for the day. I went to Graceland. Susana took the car to go pawn shopping. The orange cheese omelet had not been a sufficient remedy for my hang over. I really felt awful. It was hard to enjoy all the fringe and carpeted ceilings. Of course, I would not be learning any sort of lesson. I would do this to myself again and again.
No comments:
Post a Comment