We left Bangor, Maine in our Transit Connect cargo van a few days after Trump was elected 45th President of the United States. It was purely coincidental, really. Before laving, we would joke about what kind of American we would be driving across depending upon the outcome of the election.
But it’s the same America. And it’s already great, but (of course) it still needs work.
After hours and hours of driving to get to my American Studies Association conference in Denver (staying in somewhere, NY; Avon, OH; St. Louis, MO; middle of nowhere Kansas; and Westminster, CO), we spent a week traveling through state and national parks and camping in Utah and Nevada. We saw big cities and small towns, developed toll roads and interstates and America’s Loneliest Highway across Nevada.
But it’s the same America. And it’s already great, but (of course) it still needs work.
After hours and hours of driving to get to my American Studies Association conference in Denver (staying in somewhere, NY; Avon, OH; St. Louis, MO; middle of nowhere Kansas; and Westminster, CO), we spent a week traveling through state and national parks and camping in Utah and Nevada. We saw big cities and small towns, developed toll roads and interstates and America’s Loneliest Highway across Nevada.
The view from my hotel room in Denver
After my conference, we car camped and visited many places including: Colorado National Monument, Arches National park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion National Park, and Great Basin National Park before arriving in Lake Tahoe on the California/Nevada border. These are amazing places with dramatic heights and depths where the signs of wind and water and time remind visitors how tiny and temporary we are.
These National Parks are our legacy. A project of our past that looked forward to our future. They are tightly controlled and highly managed. They offer amazing vistas and unfathomable beauty as well as a glimpse of the tourist industry and packaging of nature—the best and worst of America.
Because that is what we are. We are both sides of the coin. We are the good, the bad, and the ugly. We are contradictory. We are principled and visionary and blind to our own weaknesses.
Because that is what we are. We are both sides of the coin. We are the good, the bad, and the ugly. We are contradictory. We are principled and visionary and blind to our own weaknesses.
This quote, from a sign in Bryce NP says it all!
But between these highly managed spaces preserved for posterity there are wild spaces and neglected spaces. The National Parks are surrounded by National Forests, State Parks, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recreation areas, small towns, isolated houses, farms, and tiny little Indian reservations.* There are government testing areas (some sharing borders with the Indian reservations), tumbleweeds, cows, expansive private estates, shacks, resorts. These contradictory places are all American.
We are the house in shambles in Lebenon, Kansas—the geographical center of the United States—that displays a Trump/Pence sign a week after the election. I felt it was wrong to take that picture; my heart was breaking. We are also the well-to-do, Asian American teenage boy in a Trump/ence shirt goofing around with his siblings at the Arches visitor’s center. Both of these constituencies feel neglected by America. Making America great again is a call to narrow ideas and privileges of the past as well as a call to the future.
We are the house in shambles in Lebenon, Kansas—the geographical center of the United States—that displays a Trump/Pence sign a week after the election. I felt it was wrong to take that picture; my heart was breaking. We are also the well-to-do, Asian American teenage boy in a Trump/ence shirt goofing around with his siblings at the Arches visitor’s center. Both of these constituencies feel neglected by America. Making America great again is a call to narrow ideas and privileges of the past as well as a call to the future.
Perhaps he most famous arch in Arches NP. It was all uphill to see it!
Just outside of Great Basin NP.
South Utah desert.
Just before our last leg to Lake Tahoe, we finally found a place to camp somewhere in Nevada. We woke up to at least an inch of fresh snow. The rest of the drive was just like being in Maine again!
Also coincidentally, our trip was planned to return home days before the inauguration. Anything could happen before then! In the meantime, we’re going about our plan that began long before the election madness—a trip across and around the United States with only a rough itinerary. Some time away from Maine—with old places and new, rarely-seen family and very old friends, work and play, and whatever comes our way. Always plenty of work to be done, especially if we are going to make America great again. .... We might need a metaphorical geographical center or some kind of re-centering on this journey....
My "room with a view." This part of the trip ended with several days in Lake Tahoe, working and taking care of family business.
h*My trip across America (Maine to New York to Ohio to Missouri to Kansas to Colorado to Utah to Nevada) coincided with the “Thanksgiving” holiday. Passing through the deep red, green, blue, purple, and yellow natural landscapes of America’s National parks and state parks, scanning or old-school atlas (yes, the thing printed on paper, not that Google maps thing!) that shows small pink squares designated as Indian reservations, is a sobering reminder of the legacy that this holiday obscures.
I always put this holiday into quotation marks, often to remind my students to use their critical thinking skills. When we “break” for “Thanksgiving” I often ask students to reflect upon this holiday in relation to our course materials. Not always coincidentally, the work we do the week before this holiday break makes a direct connection to the ongoing lives and legacies of Native Americans. So, as we drove I was thinking about my students reading Shadows Cast By Stars, a YA dystopia novel that centers an indigenous girl. And I listened to a CD of the Burnnurwurbskek Singers, a Native American drum group, given to me by one of my students.
And I also thought about how, not far north of me, the battles over land and water and indigenous rights and the future of our planet rages on….but this is a subject that deserves far more than my little side note....
I always put this holiday into quotation marks, often to remind my students to use their critical thinking skills. When we “break” for “Thanksgiving” I often ask students to reflect upon this holiday in relation to our course materials. Not always coincidentally, the work we do the week before this holiday break makes a direct connection to the ongoing lives and legacies of Native Americans. So, as we drove I was thinking about my students reading Shadows Cast By Stars, a YA dystopia novel that centers an indigenous girl. And I listened to a CD of the Burnnurwurbskek Singers, a Native American drum group, given to me by one of my students.
And I also thought about how, not far north of me, the battles over land and water and indigenous rights and the future of our planet rages on….but this is a subject that deserves far more than my little side note....
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