Crossing America alone can be a spiritual experience. It's a vehicle thing. Driving the highway stretching the width of the continent in a solid-built car is at the core of this nation's experience. You cannot understand the USA, unless you have gotten behind the wheel of a vehicle, poured a massive cup of coffee, lit a cigarette, turned some Rock n Roll on your stereo and settled in for a no-stop-except-to-pee-and-gas-up Road Trip of no less than 1200 miles (each way). Has Hollywood ever gotten it right? Jack Kerouac got it right. Bruce Springsteen got it right. Actually, on this leg of my trip between Nashville and Santa Fe, I didn't drink coffee, I didn't smoke cigarettes and I mostly listened to Michael Kott's Cellegie and other stuff, like Kraftwerk. I even pulled over briefly at about 3AM somewhere between Oklahoma City and Memphis.

Maybe my experience of cross-country wheeled forced marches is unique. I don't know. I do know that the world becomes a very eerie blend of corporate logos and raw nature. Carcasses, twisted metal, decaying buildings, bug spatters (depending on the year) and a hundred other signs of lost dreams and violent ends: these are the ever-present visual mementos of the Road. The counter-balance to this grim Toll is the rhythm of the migrationist movement that one enters via the Ramp. It's an homage to Everything that moves according to Laws. It's a refiner of one's sense of patterns, as determinants for survival.

For example, I don't stop at Rest Areas, if at all possible. This policy is informed by a series of National Geographic specials, the subject of which was the herd runs of wildebeests. I correlate a Rest Area stop with a wildebeest for whatever reason breaking off from the pack. If you've watched these shows, you know what happens next. Enter the croc or the lion or the savage hyenas. Blood and fur fly. Now, I realize that human predators have not yet managed to turn a pee-stop at a Rest Area into a clear-cut case of traveler death-wishitis. The percentages just don't back up the fear. I didn't say my policy was rational. It doesn’t have to be. I'm free to develop my own Road Rituals, according to my own predilections and preferences. That's the Crux: Freedom.

Don't be fooled by the trucks or Texaco or McDonald's or the suburb hell visible from every urban loop in the US. The American Highway is a song about Freedom of movement. And although Hollywood, in its pecuniary adherence to fight or fuck demographics, can't seem to get it right, the moral drama playing out 24/7/365 on our Roads is probably as powerful and meaningful as any ever imagined by us two-leggeds. The secret of the American Dream is somewhere found among these fetishes: A purchase of the current Atlas, a pre-trip perusal of Weather.com, an ATM visit, and a check of the oil. Another major indicator of one's Road Mind would be a review of the phone conversations one has prior to leaving on one's Trip.

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