you know how that goes

Liz wrote a really nice entry yesterday about the drive from Denver to Tacoma, where she went to college. I was sitting in Steve’s living room when I read it and he told me I was crazy because I kept laughing and talking to the screen. I tried to write a comment, but there was just too much I wanted to say, so I decided I should just write my own post about the drive, because I too made it many, many times.
The first time was in Liz’s red Camry in the summer of 1998, when she drove me to college in Portland for my freshman year. That trip stands in my memory as the best road trip of my life. We took all kinds of crazy back roads and minor highways and made many stops along the way. We told lies to indifferent waitstaff and winked at roadside flaggers who shouted “you’re beautiful!” as we drove away. Liz and I can still throw each other into fits of laughter by saying the word “Banff” the way the slack-jawed ten year old in Boise did when he told us about the dinosaur festival there. It’s funny. That trip was one of the few times when I was aware, at the time, that I was living one of the Major Moments of My Life (for lack of a less-cheesy term). The first What the Heck Fest was another. It was like a blessed three day oasis between the sadness of leaving home and the scariness of starting life in a new city. I still remember every single moment of that trip, even though I’ve made the same drive a dozen times since.
Most of my trips to and from Denver were with Liz and one or another of her college friends, but some were with boys in my white 1990 Dodge Colt. It looked like a Geo Metro, only boxier. Like a boxy egg. Her name was Lucy. My friend Travis and I did the drive together a couple of times. Once in winter he lost control on a patch of ice and skidded to a stop mere feet from a surprised trucker who had been chaining up his semi, but abandoned to task and sprinted toward his cab when he saw us careening toward him. Wordlessly, Travis and I switched places and I drove the rest of the way to Twin Falls in silence.
Another time my high school boyfriend flew to Portland to make the drive home with me. In retrospect I realize that he was still in love with me and probably came to tell me so. But I was in full on party-mode when he arrived and was literally making out with some dude when Noah arrived at my dorm. He didn’t talk to me for the two days he hung out in Portland, and he didn’t talk to me for the two day drive back to Denver. He just chain smoked and played his gutter punk tapes at high volume. I’m pretty sure he threw my Rushmore soundtrack out the window when I was sleeping, but he never confessed. The night we arrived back in Denver his friends threw him a 21st birthday party, and then, full of booze, he started talking. He went on and on to the assembled skater dudes about how my life in Portland was a joke, and my college was full of Trustafarian hypocrites. His friends kept trying to get him to shut up, but he went on and on. It was humiliating. So later that night I shot him in the foot with his BB gun. And then we didn’t talk for a year. But we’re cool now.
The last time I made the drive was 2 years ago when I was moving back to Portland fro Dublin. It was a total “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” trip. I flew to NYC, spent a month with Liz and J, then met Heather in Massachusetts where we hopped on a train bound for Denver. We documented our trip with photos and audio recordings, and one of these days we’ll create a rad art installation with the material. Anyway, in Denver I met up with my friend Peter who runs a “Man With a Van” business. He used said van to transport me and all of my childhood furniture to the City of Roses. We stopped for a night in Salt Lake City to visit Sweet Lucy. It was an extended, awesome homecoming.
Now even though I have a car I still just fly home when I need to make a visit. It’s easier, I guess. But I miss the open road. I miss the talking and the not-talking, the peaks and the plains. I miss the practical jokes and the cooler full of snacks (Liz packs the best snacks). The closest thing I’ve had to a road trip since moving back to the Northwest was last summer’s trip to Anacortes for What the Heck. Beautiful and fun, but not quite epic.
If this were a chick-flick I would get breast cancer and Liz and Heather would fly here to move me back to Denver, and along the way we would reminisce about coming-of-age together and one of us would decide to leave her husband, and one of us would decide to quit her job, and one of us would get an abortion, and then when we got back to Denver I would die. I’m glad this isn’t a chick-flick.