Road trips that start with traffic aren’t fun, but it’s also the name of the game when you live in the city: it takes a while to get away from it all, and that’s part of the allure of getting away. Once you settle into wandering the great wide open, the never ending horizons bring the feeling of possibility.

So crank up the Americana and reflect on all that is the United States as you cross the continent; there’s something uniquely American about hitting the road and collecting mile markers. The technology to do so has existed for decades, so there’s something fundamentally unchanged about the whole experience.

Today it’s teaching me to take the bad with the good, to slow down and settle in (to my American heritage). Here’s to expanding landscapes and perspectives.