West on I-80.

This week,

my dad and I drove

across the country together.

Sixteen-hour days

of flying down I-80

at 75 miles an hour,

passing trucks

that lumbered along

like great ships crossing the ocean.

I was worried

that I would hate

Nebraska and Wyoming and Iowa.

But I should have known better.

I loved every minute of it.

We started west through Pennsylvania,

which was a lush jungle.

We drove through tunnels

that cut through hills.

We shared the street with Amish buggies.

And we got to slip through

a tiny piece of West Virginia,

which pleased me.

In Ohio,

we drove in and around and through

a little town called Barnesville

at 10:30 pm,

where all the lights were off

in all the houses.

We passed row houses

on the outskirts of a city

that reminded me of where

Rudy Ruettiger

might have grown up.

In Indiana,

I thought about Pawnee and Eagleton.

We skirted around Indianapolis,

where there were signs for the Speedway.

We happened to stop for gas in Illinois

in the town that was the site of

the Lincoln Douglas debates

and Carl Sandburg's birthplace.

And I was thrilled.

We ended up driving through

the University of Iowa campus,

and it was everything that a college campus

should be.

My new dream is to get a PhD there.

The rest stops in Nebraska

were gorgeous,

with little pools of the bluest blue water

lying next to them,

and the ceaseless gales

blowing over the prairie.

It wasn't boring for one second,

even when the landscape grew harsher

as we pushed west.

Then I fell in love

with southeastern Wyoming.

We stopped at the rest stop

at the highest elevation on I-80,

where there's a 13-foot bronze

Abraham Lincoln head

towering over the highway.

There he is.

The clouds were misting around us

and the wind was whipping

and it was cold

and we were up

nearly in the sky.

The rest of Wyoming

twisted and turned,

until we hit Utah,

where I made my way carefully

through the Rockies

in the dark,

blinded by the light of train locomotives.

And on the other side of the mountains

burst forth I-15

and the endless towns and cities

and cars and people.

And here I am again.