By Barrett White
Times are tough. How many times a day do you envision taking an indiscriminate exit on the highway and seeing where it takes you? And then the next turn. And the next. And the next.
Next thing you know, it’s been nine days and you’ve driven to Massachusetts.
I recognize the privilege from which I write this (an adventure of this kind simply isn’t possible for many people, so I won’t pretend to suggest that everyone should do it!). But from this unique standpoint comes a journey that was fueled by a manic demand to get away, and was grounded back into reality by my responsibility to make it back home to an incredible roommate, a boyfriend who loves me more than I love myself, and the furry companion who would ride shotgun.
I’m a writer. My job only requires GoogleDocs, which I can access on the road if I can find Wi-Fi. This 25-year-old who loves a good adventure couldn’t help but turn to his two–year–old husky-shepherd mix and ask him, “Hey Wolfgang, you want to live out of our Ford Focus for two weeks?”
He didn’t respond.
With a few bags of clothes, hygiene essentials, and a big bag of dog food, I drove Wolfgang to the top of our parking garage. We said goodbye to Washington Heights, with the iconic Houston skyline just ahead of us. By noon, we were eastbound on Interstate 10 to New Orleans.
The Crescent City was alive on Good Friday. So many drunken tourists stopped to love on Wolfgang. With the sunset long behind us, it was time to find a place to sleep, which is when I encountered my first problem—parking meters. Some don’t allow overnight parking. Some require residential parking passes. Some limit you to two hours. I started to get the sense that the next two weeks might be rough.
We found a spot at Washington Square Park at Dauphine and Elysian Fields Avenue, parked, put up the sun visor, and curled up in the back atop the folded-down backseat—and it was surprisingly comfortable. Wolfgang curled up without complaint next to me and the chill of the night set in during the abnormally long winter.
I recognize that, like a lot of what I do (not that I’m proud of this), I planned this without really knowing if I could pull it off. Was this just good on paper, or would it actually work in practice? Wolfgang ate breakfast beside me while I brushed my teeth and thought, “We’re actually doing this.”
Just outside of Virginia, my maps app stopped loading. Just a blue highway line extending into the gray. I was propelled into Appalachia without a guide. We pulled off the highway and sat for a moment. I let Wolfgang take the lead. He stared out into the expanse of land ahead of us. Okay. I took a breath and stared at the rocky cliffs along the side of the highway. The summits in the distance, lost to the fog. The soft breeze that was gently dusting frost across my cheeks and Wolfgang’s nose. A river in the distance beneath us sparkled in blue. Mother herself—the mother—was telling us to take a moment and breathe. I checked the maps app again. The blue directional was back up, leading the way to our next city.
I walked the streets of Roanoke and thought about how generations before me had grown up here. My grandparents are from Virginia, and my grandmother specifically from Roanoke. There is great distance between us as a family, but I shot her a text. “Where did you go to high school?”
I spent that evening catching glimpses of my family’s past. Before bed, I had seen her high school (now a performing arts venue), her childhood home, and the elementary school she would walk to each day, which is still in operation. The “city girl who wound up in the country,” as she describes herself, became a little more visible to me. I slept in a river of pathos that night, parked underneath a fire escape adjacent to an alley in the heart of downtown.
My grandparents met while working at National Geographic in the 1960s. Perhaps apropos considering the night before, I was in Washington, D.C. by sunrise. I promised Wolfgang he could poop at the National Mall, so I kept my promise to him before we posed for selfies at every building and monument.
As the sun set, my best friend (who had briefly lived in D.C.) texted to offer his former roommate’s shower. I love to camp and I’m completely capable of staying hygienic while doing so…but it had been four days. I met his former roommate in her modest basement apartment under a mid-rise that must have been built in 1900. I took my first real shower in almost a week, and Wolfgang and I retired to a church parking lot for the night.
In Philadelphia the following day, I was surprised to see that a friend from college, a successful queer playwright, had a few free moments to see us—in her dog-friendly theatre, no less. We took a selfie for a mutual friend in California before I settled in for the night under the drizzle and haze of nightfall, yet again, sleeping parked under some person’s fire escape.
What? I think they’re cool. We don’t have those in Houston.
The next day, Wolfgang and I parked the car and plucked essentials for our stay in New York. It was four hours before my Airbnb would be ready, which meant we had prime time for selfie taking. We hit all the stops between the East Village (where I was parked) and the Upper East Side, where we would be staying.
I have a love affair with this city. We spent days exploring coffee shops and parks, and on our third day in New York, Wolfgang and I took the day to walk from the Upper East Side to Greenwich Village and back. After a well-deserved shower, I noticed that my sweet-as-sugar middle-aged Czech hostess had left a cup of tea for me. Earl grey with lemon. Wolfgang and I melted into the bed, lulled by the chorus of voices, sirens, horns, and subway rattles, and let the day thaw away.
Wolfgang explores Central Park in New York City. Photo by Barrett White.
I left Wolfgang to sleep while I conducted an interview at a coffee shop in Flatiron. When I returned, the hostess was there, loving on my furry son, elated that I allowed him to stay with her that day. “I shared an egg with him,” she said, smiling. She then proceeded to tell me about the dogs she had in Prague before moving to the States to see her daughter through NYU.
I made it to my brother in Boston, where I ate the cannolis I’ve only ever dreamt of. I thought our adventure was through until the topic of blueberry milk came up. Without hesitation, we were northward bound to New Hampshire to catch their favorite farmers’ market before it closed.
My mood was in the stratosphere…until I checked my bank account.
You ever see a number you’re not expecting? Like when a forgotten bill hits? A bill that, aside from being unexpected, is much bigger than you can afford? Ever have that happen when you’re on the other side of the country? Looked like it might snow.
A twinkle caught my eye. Hanging from my mirror was a Tiffany silver cross. An ex-friend had given it to me years ago. I come from a family of limited means. To say he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth would be putting it lightly. Years later, he would go on to pretend that he didn’t know me, blowing me off when I tried to reconnect because he “left people in the past because old friendships hold no purpose.” Yikes.
I plugged “pawn shop” into my maps app. Six minutes later, I was on the outskirts of Boston, Tiffany silver in hand. The appraiser’s eyes bugged when he saw it. “Tiffany?” he asked.
Roughly an eternity later, he came back and handed me the cross. “It’s a stainless steel replica,” he said. “Sorry buddy. We get lots of those.”
Fake as the boy who gave it to me.
Time to head back south. I checked my gas. I separated my remaining cash. On a road trip two years prior, I drove to Chicago and back, returning with a tattoo. This time, I looked at my budget (the one that I just tried to pawn silver over, in case you forgot) and wondered if I could squeeze in another souvenir. Should I? I weighed the options (there really were none, but I weighed them anyway). A paycheck was due to come in. I could make it last, right? I’m young and irresponsible, but usually land on my feet, right?
Long story short, they allow dogs in the waiting area of a tattoo shop a block away from the Stonewall Inn, and I walked away with pierced ears. Mom always said to make memories. I spent the night in D.C. again, same church parking lot.
Richmond and Raleigh were colder than I thought they would be, and two separate people asked me how I fared during Harvey. Confederate statues still dominated the parks, but the coffee was better than good. In Myrtle Beach, I reached a “zen” I hadn’t felt before.
Wolfgang smelling all the smells at Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. Photo by Barrett White.
Only days from now, I would be home. Back to normal. Nothing new happening to me. Articles to write, people to interview. But for this moment, I let the relentless Atlantic breeze brush over me. Wolfgang spent a lot of time with his nose to the sea, sitting, eyes closed, sniffing away. While this adventure was for me to see things, it was for him to smell things. What bliss.
I budgeted to have $11 of untouchable money specifically for a South African meal at Zunzi’s (where the motto is “Shit yes!”) in Savannah. After dinner, my doting boyfriend, the lovely human that he is, wanted me to shower. Shower off the stress, shower off the salty sea air, shower off the layers of adventure, which, at this point, had lasted 14 days. He offered to book me a hotel room as a gift. Fine, I said, if it was under $40. We found one for $33.
Now, I wasn’t expecting the Shangri La for $33. Especially not out of a Scottish Inn, notoriously known as “hookup hotels” and crash pads for starving musicians on tour. But I’ve never spent the night in a hotel that made me Google what the CEO looked like.
The bathroom was yellow, but not painted that way. It just…became that way. I saw two holes in the wall, and I had to unplug the TV to go to bed because there was no remote. There was a place where the iron used to be. In my search for a pen and paper, I noticed that the bible was gone too. I found this funny for some reason (no pen and paper either).
The following morning, I went downstairs to the lobby and to my surprise, there was breakfast! Seven stale mini donuts, four of which still had powdered sugar on them. Half a loaf of stale bread haphazardly tossed beneath the tray of donuts. A bowl of jellies. Cereal, but no bowls or milk. I grabbed two mini donuts and giggled all the way back to my room. It was $33, you guys. Of course I wasn’t upset.
The way back to Houston from Savannah is muddled by how quickly it went. In three days, we passed through Atlanta, Birmingham, and Jackson. I made it back to Houston on a Sunday afternoon.
For a moment, in the midst of the happenings of the world, my headspace was clear, my dog was happy, my boyfriend was in my arms, and an adventure was behind me. I return to my regular schedule. I wash my earlobes. I love on my dog. I picture what the next adventure will be.
Blueberry milk is the nectar of the gods, by the way.
Barrett and Wolfgang can be found on Instagram at @ebearw.
