Part One - Tire Pressure

Having done my duties as a sister, daughter, aunt, and cousin on Easter Sunday, I went home and tried to follow my cousin's advice to get eight hours of sleep before my drive to Arizona from New Jersey the next morning.

Sleep would not come. I was too excited and eager. I sat up and said out loud "I was trying to shove sleep down my throat." This was followed by a decision to start loading the car and leave when done.

Outside it was still dark and I heard my name called. It was my neighbor, Diane. "Have a safe trip" she said. I blew her a thank you kiss because I was afraid I would cry if I said anything. I didn't have time to cry.

At 7:03 a.m. Monday morning April 5, I drove out of the driveway, something I had done for eleven years. This was the last one.

I went to the gas station next door and checked my tires. The right side tires had shown some melancholy lately. I filled them with air by looking at healthier tires. Did I say I prayed before leaving the driveway?

The night before, a friend from California told me to have my tires checked before leaving because his tire blew once because of overpressure. I wish he hadn't told me that. I had no time to have them checked. I wanted to leave. And I left. I wish he hadn't, because I was incredibly worried that if I have put the wrong amount of air, the tires would blow up. And I saw signs on the road throughout my travels. Pieces of blown up tires all over the asphalt. Every couple of hours, I would see one and if I had forgotten to think about my tires for a couple of minutes, they came to remind me to stay worried. "Is this my tire acting up or is it the road?" was a constant until it would stop. It was the road most of the time.

I even looked for a tire specialist or tire store or an auto repair shop the next morning when I was in Streetsboro, Ohio. The guy I asked had approached me with a request for a dollar so he can buy bread. I told him to either tell me where I can find a tire store or check my tire pressure himself to earn his dollar. He said that I could buy a pressure gauge across the street. I said that I didn't need a gauge, I needed someone to check my tire pressure thinking a gauge was a complicated thing and needed extreme intellectual abilities and would be expensive. He said that if I had a gauge he would check it himself. I decided that was the end of it and gave him a dollar for wanting to help.

Again, I filled the tires with air by approximating them with tires that had diplomas and continued on. A nine hour drive going south in Ohio, passing through Cincinnati and smack right in the middle of it entering Kentucky (I am saying the Welcome to Kentucky sign is in downtown Cincinnati), visiting the Ohio River in Louisville (first picture above) and just west of Louisville finding a Motel 6.

It was green, so green, the next morning, the view from my window (second picture above). The grass spreading on rolling hills with a cluster of houses far away. Just like country. I was in the country. Halfway through Ohio, it had started looking like this. Kentucky was the greenest state. The grass is so green that it is almost blue. That's probably why they call it the Bluegrass State.

It had been 90 degrees the two previous days but this morning the sky was overcast and the air cooler. I drove to the gas station not far from Motel 6 which I had chosen because it was the one advertised in the Atlas of the U.S.A. and Canada that I had had and studied for ten years with something like this in mind. Why not? It was clean, comfortable, and it had a beautiful view. It was not a motel as we know in the east coast. It was a hotel masquerading as a motel.

At the gas station, I found out there is an auto repair shop in the back. I was thrilled. I drove to the back and as I was parking the car I noticed all the cars had Indiana license plates. I must be very close to Indiana I thought. A very kind young man helped me and used his own pressure gauge to check my tires' air pressure. While he was doing that I was concluding that it must not be very expensive to buy one. When I told him my problem, he calculated that it was a very small leak and checking them every time I buy gas would be enough to get me to my destination. I inquired about a place where I can buy a pressure gauge and I bought one.

Now not only am I pomping gas but I have a gauge. For a very long time I used to pronounce gauge as gowge. Now, I even have one. I was getting more excited by the day.

As I drove away I decided to stop at the first rest area to make phone calls, take my vitamins, etc. This tire business had me so worried that I had forgotten everything else.

At the rest area a huge sign said Welcome to Indiana, Crossroads of America (third picture above). This was the pinnacle of my excitements so far. I think I called someone and told them where I was. In fact I did that every time I was in a state, I called someone and told them. "I am in Oklahoma" was the best. Part of my excitement was due to the fact that I could for the first time take a picture of a welcome sign. The others so far appeared when I was driving.

I had slept in Indiana without knowing that I was sleeping in Indiana. I found this out when I was checking my hotel receipts a week later in Arizona. The Motel 6 was in Georgetown, Indiana. The town I bought my gauge from.

There you go, part one of Crossing the U.S.A.