Gillette

Good ol’ Google Maps

Another vignette from when my brother, Ben, and I drove around the US in the summer of 1991.

This trip was my first true adventure as a young adult. On hindsight still a kid, really. Also my first real time exploring this vast, bountiful country.

A few days into the journey we already hit Mt. Rushmore, Devil’s Tower, and the Badlands, and were working our way through Wyoming, stopping in the tiny town of Gillette to get some gas. While Ben went to hit the head I dug my acoustic guitar out of the back. I sat near the car and began plucking away. Anything to help to break up the current monotony of the road.

Suddenly I heard a voice. A woman saw the New York plates and asked where I was headed. I said my brother and I were sight seeing around the country and winging it as we slowly worked our way toward the Pacific Northwest. She was from North Carolina, aiming for Los Angeles but taking a scenic route herself.

Given we were both in the midst of similar odysseys we immediately felt a bond. While having a pleasant friendly chat about life on the highway, and what we’ve seen thus far going from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the gravity of the moment hit me. In all my few years on earth thus far, there I was, having a real conversation with a total stranger in a strange place.

Mostly all my experience in life up to that moment was suffocatingly safe. Every situation was locked in time: school, classes, rehearsals, dates, work shifts, parties, sleep. And every person I ever knew came from some orderly, bounded, functional subset of humans: family people, or school people, or work people. Yes, I’ve had small talk with randos before, but I’m shy and the impulse has always been to get out of any and all conversations as soon as possible, especially with those I have nothing in common.

But to be in this completely unfamiliar locale a thousand miles from home, in some unscripted transitory state, connecting with somebody else as our separate emerging life paths crossed... this was new. The world suddenly felt bigger and more rich with potential. Is this what they mean to be “living in the moment?”

“Let’s go!” Ben snapped as he returned. I guess we’re leaving. Inexperienced in such matters I had no idea how to dismount from this conversation so I quickly and clumsily said bye and safe travels and that was that. I know not who you are or where you went, but thank you for saying hello, fellow traveller.