September to November, 1993
Includes Great American Cities- Los Angeles, CA and Las Vegas, NV
Amy and I had the travel bug and parents that let us do what we wanted. We’d gotten into but somehow out of a lot of trouble along the way. We had wanderlust, only a few boundaries and we decided, at the ages of 16 and 17, the same day our senior year of high school was to start, to take a cross-country road trip to California. Amy had a friend there (the Air Force guy from SC) and we could crash with him. We packed up clothes, a boom box, a television and a few stuffed animals in the Cavalier and embarked on our adventure.
We traveled on US Route 30 West to Interstate 71 South and into Columbus, Ohio. We caught Interstate 70 West and headed toward Indianapolis, driving under a huge ‘Good-bye Ohio’ sign. The only thing I really remember about Indianapolis was the road construction. If the Cavalier blew a tire (a fear we carried with us ever since our excursion to SC), there’d be no place to pull over. Another thing we noticed in Indiana
and Illinois was the abundance of anti-abortion signs along the highway. We drove into St. Louis, Missouri at around 1:am. The Arch was prominently displayed and was our first major site! Amy and I were ready to pass through on our westward journey. We slept in the car with sheets rolled up in the windows somewhere in Missouri that night.
We caught Interstate 44 West and headed toward Tulsa, Oklahoma. The scenery had changed. The topography was flatter and the soil was darker and deeper red. We passed under a McDonalds that spanned the highway, a water tower pr
oclaiming the town was the birthplace of Garth Brooks and lots of signs for road-side Native American attractions. Even though our hometown in Ohio boasted a large buffalo farm, we still loved the sight of them grazing. In Oklahoma City, we took Interstate 40 and into Texas. Night had fallen by that point and storms had started. The flat topography and blowing dust and debris was much different than the storms we’d experienced back home! It was a scary and exhilarating experience! A rest stop in Amarillo, Texas was where we slept that night.
The farther we went the more excited and surprised we were! Farm land had turned to the distinctive southwestern landscape we’d only seen in photographs and television before. Cacti, rock formations, deep earth colors- we were blown away. Albuquerque, New Mexico was one of the best cities we passed through. We got lost in the inner-city and needed help finding the highway. We were offered help by what could only be considered to be thugs by a couple of teenage girls from rural Ohio- but they were the nicest guys ever. We blew out a tire (a reoccurring theme in our travel, apparently) on our way out and a road crew worker changed it for us. The people of New Mexico were welcoming, helpful and polite. We loved it there! We followed Interstate 40 West into Flagstaff, Arizona and slept in a motel.
The biggest mistake of our trip was not detouring to see the Grand Canyon. We decided to see the Painted Dessert instead and it was beautiful. We periodically got off the interstate to drive on stretches of Historic Route 66. We stopped at roadside stands. We were finally close and we enjoyed a day of leisurely driving through the southwest. We arrived in Victorville, California that night. Victorville, CA is a small desert town in San Bernardino County. The landscape is filled with Joshua trees. There are mountains in the distance.
For the next few months, Amy and I lived freely. We didn’t have much money, ate a lot of ramen noodles and potatoes and had a blast. We visited Los Angeles, California- we saw a taping of Love Connection, walked on Hollywood Blvd. at 3:am, visited sex shops, drove up Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, jumped in the ocean and climbed huge boulders in the mountains. We loved every day of low 80°’s F weather with no rain but experienced a few small earthquakes- a fault line literally ran through the back yard.
A Cali guy and I drove to Las Vegas, Nevada a few times and although I was still a teen, I enjoyed the atmosphere of the casinos. He threw dice while I drank drinks with OJ and we ate for about $5. We walked up and down the strip and visited Excalibur, the Mirage, Caesar’s and a bunch of other casinos in downtown. He won enough Black Jack to score a room with lights around the bed. I flirted with an older Texan with a giant hat and he gave me some money. Porn was scattered around the streets and people who looked broken congregated around the casino entrances. Las Vegas was different than any place I’d experienced before. It was easy to blend in at a place like that.
We finally decided to come home after a few months of scraping by and missing family. We did the drive home in two days. We went back to high school. I finished up in summer school.
I value the memory of our cross-country trip from Ohio to California and back. Seeing the country change before my eyes really inspired me. I loved experiencing the different cultures of the various places we visited along the way. Colorful local experiences in restaurants, seeing things we’d only heard about and experiencing a level of freedom were all things that changed my perspective on the world and the way I travel.
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