On Wednesday night (the first day of my road trip) I drove into Marshall, Texas, after 9 and a half hours of driving and passed their house in search of groceries. In true form, my two GPSs took me on wild goose chases until Mary Beth called and asked where I was. I explained I was looking for a grocery store and she chuckled: “There’s a Kroger’s a mile up the road.” I noticed the added ‘s’ in Kroger. I wanted to bring them flowers, or dessert, or something. I realized that a gas station might have to do the trick. I pulled up to a Texaco but there was a decorative gate around it (odd) that appeared peculiar until I read the sign posted… (see below). It was a MODEL RECREATION of an old-school Texaco. I felt like an idiot. (In my defense these vintage cars weren’t present as that MAY have tipped me off but I can’t be sure after 9.5 hours of sitting in a car….)

Eventually I stopped at a corner store, Abraham’s, where the cashier had a full-blown conversation with me. I looked down at the phone book, as she offered me a free one, I politely declined but commented on the name of one of the towns featured on the front: Uncertain, Texas. She said: “Yes, there’s a t-shirt that says ‘Where is Marshall, Texas’ and I told a lady: ‘That t-shirt should say: “Where is Uncertain, Texas’!” This is the longest conversation with a stranger that I can remember having (in the US). In Santa Clara I wouldn’t have made it out without being asked where I was from and what I was doing there. I thanked her, stuck the receipt in my bag as a souvenir and returned to my vehicle.

The ice cream was surprisingly cheap: 1.80 each. Don’t trust cheap ice cream, my taste buds have reported back, but I suppose I had to learn again.

Waze took me all over until I pulled up to a house of strangers, a married couple with grandchildren and the aunt and uncle of my high school bestie. This is what brokeness necessitates: awkward knocks on doors asking for shelter. I met Mary Beth and her husband Kent who were sitting down to a dinner of pork chops, rice and salad. They invited me to join them and I helped myself to salad and a petite bread roll. You can tell so much about a couple by sitting down to dinner with them, like peering through a window into their lives, their relationship, their home, their pets… diet, everything. I was picking up a strong Americana vibe here in this 1940s house where they raised their three children and host their three grandchildren.

They had the cutest dog who was so well trained she didn’t even come into the kitchen and beg. She sat at the threshold staring over at us. If I had to guess, her name was Macy. But it’s purely a guess. Dinner conversation led us to what we had in common, which started and ended with my bestie, and I answered their questions as, in their true southern form, they asked me questions about myself. It was like Mary Beth had them all primed in a dispenser. “And what did you do in Guatemala?” “And how many siblings do you have?” “And what will you be studying?” “And how long is the program?” “And what do you miss most about Peace Corps?” I tried to turn the attention from myself and referred to my bestie’s newborn. I said: “She is so cute!” making that face that you make when you talk about babies.

I brought my things in, both of them offering to help which I politely declined, and really wanted nothing more than a shower and a pillow. I was very confused by the bedroom doors. The guest room I stayed in had a door which led to a hallway and the other to the living room, so I sat in the bedroom while Kent sat, calmly, watching the evening news on low volume with the company of Macy-Sadie-Puppy McGee. I was there purely because they were doing me a favor, and I wasn’t sure how to be grateful enough. Should I strip the sheets the next morning? Write them a thank you note and leave it on the counter. I’ll mail them a postcard once I get to Arizona. That’s what I’ll do. I already have their address, I am in their address.

Is this my new normal? Well it would appear to be so, seeing as my next three stops are homes of complete strangers. This is forcing me to be open to a new side of myself in my country, the side that relies on the kindness of strangers. I’ve always had the support of my family, or my own money to pay for a place. But this is a new chapter, and I am peeling a new layer: being vulnerable in my own land.

At 10am Kent closed my door and said: “I’ll close this so that I don’t bother you in the morning when I leave.” I let out a sigh of tiny relief once I was enclosed in the four walls, out of view. I hope I was social enough… It’s a hard thing to be hosted in someone’s house and want to only be alone, a bit tired from the drive and disoriented from the place and sluggish from the weight of goodbye and equally overwhelmed by the weight of transition.

The next morning I got stuck in a dream. Malaria prevention meds… There is such a thing as Malaria dreams. PCVs who lived in endemic areas have to take the pills all two years of their service and they say they have the most vivid dreams. So I woke up in a weird haze after I finally snapped out of a dream and hit the road later than I wanted. Destination: unknown. Odessa, Texas. Lodging thanks to Couchsurfers.

I drove through Texas as the pavement unfolded a cloudy day. You know what it’s like to walk on a treadmill with no change in elevation for 8 hours? That’s what I did, but driving. There was no variation in scenery, nothing of culture to note except the height of semi-trucks looming large over me as they passed me like a lesser being. Me encogió, close to the ground in a small, white hatchback with all of my belongings of relevance in my backseat. These truckers are moving irrelevant merchandise, I am moving my whole self. We are opposites. We pass without introduction, acknowledgement. Our only common ground is the passing pavement and the exchange of the empty sounds of highway: air whirring through and over us like wildflowers with motors.

I have no emotion, that I can name. I am not sad or happy or curious or angry or restless, just a little bit bored. I am calm.

I don’t make many stops, combining bathroom and gas and water breaks together which is only something a person can orchestrate while traveling alone. Imagine if a child, or an adult person, or a pet were with me? Stops at every two hours. The bummer of this day is that there are no new State signs to look forward to. It is Texas all day. The reason why that singer’s ex’s live in Texas isn’t because she had a penchant for Texans, it’s because Texas is so wide that odds are, everyone has at least one ex in Texas amiright?

Conde Nast describes a Texas road trip as follows: “What we’re going to tell you is not surprising: Texas is a big state. By the time you drive from east to west, you could have passed through five European countries. But as diverse as France is from the Czech Republic, South Texas is from West Texas. From national parks to wineries, hip art centers to classic rodeos, Texas just about has it all (including some of the best food around).” But I didn’t experience any of this. I was highwaying the whole way through.

When I left the Walmart parking lot, gas tank full and dinner ingredients purchased for my anfitriona desconocida, I passed a homeless pair with two cardboard signs that read: “Homeless, Hungry, Poor” and I thought about the ranch-flavored Wheat Thins box. It had been opened, which I forgot to preface as I extended it out to him and asked: “Do you guys like Wheat Thins?” and he said: “Yeah sure!” He had thin black tattoos across his face and long hair. Pre-Peace Corps me wouldn’t have stopped. I would have felt guilt, discomfort, and then convinced myself that it’s not safe to help them. They might pull a gun out on me, or rob me or go off on me. But now I know that most people just want food and a place to sleep and don’t want to shoot me. And the chances of being shot and robbed are just as likely to happen from an interaction I don’t invite at all, by a stranger in a public place (see: My Thoughts on Gun Control by asking me).

And more than anything, Peace Corps just made me slow down, pause and think a little more about people. So I try to do that now. If I can do it in Guatemala in a second language, can’t I try to do it in my country?

I’m not patting myself on the back, please know that I just want to acknowledge the foundational change that the Peace Corps experience encouraged in me. A mostly full box of Ranch Wheat Thins isn’t that much, but it represents something deeper.

When I arrive to Odessa, Texas at 6:30pm, I am tired and feel positively indisposed. When you are young(er) you can travel without looking like time marched across your face but when you are old, without access to your secret weapons like creams and clothes and makeups and hair gels, you look like a panhandler when you get out of the car. No shade on panhandlers. I had been wearing (and sleeping) in the same pants since my trip started but all of my other pants are buried in my car. I accepted it and was glad just to have deodorant on and a fresh pair of underwear from the morning. (TMI?)

I texted my Couchsurfing host and was relieved to find that she appeared very normal and seemed nice. She was doing a maternity shoot of her friend at her photography studio at her college. I read a book on a Palestine art exhibit from 2004 as I waited for her to finish up. We left for her house and I followed her home. She showed me where I’d be sleeping and introduced me to her hyper Boston Terrier, Gizmo. I threw together a dinner with the rotisserie chicken and salad stuffs I picked up from Walmart. But before we ate we went to Walgreens to buy dressing and she even bought me cold medicine and marshmallows to help my throat. I thought that was so sweet!

Marina told me this was the first time she’d hosted. How brave to take someone in with her boyfriend on the road. He works in the oil rigs in Odessa, she tells me, and works two weeks on and one week off. She told me about her future plans for school, her job as a bartender in Odessa, and the time her dog recently bit her showing me her lip scar still visible. I told her a little bit about Peace Corps but not too much. I looked at her recent photo shoots and marveled at her new Mac computer with a panel with disappearing control buttons at the top. What will technology think of next?

I was so tired that I dissolved into the memory foam mattress, the blanket with Boston Terriers wearing sunglasses printed across it, the cold medicine encouraging a hard and heavy sleep. I woke to the smell of cinnamon rolls and brushed my teeth and took my retainers out. Gizmo growled at me until he started to shake his butt, happy to be petted. Marina walked in the door with grocery bags and brought me a health shot of ginger for digestion and a coffee drink (since I mentioned coffee the night before). I was overwhelmed by her generosity, buying me the flu meds and the treats in the morning… without even knowing me. My own thoughts of the coldness of the USA were being challenged by the opening of doors to me by strangers across the country (and there is more to come!). God Bless Couchsurfers, God Bless the USA (did I think I’d ever say that?) and Good Night.