For last two years of my marriage, I was lost.
We had moved from my home just outside Washington DC to her adopted home of Minneapolis. I came to love the city, but for some reason had a hard time finding my way. I could locate the dry cleaners at one end of our street, the lake at the other end, the grocery which was that way on Hennepin Avenue, and the coffee shop which was the other way. That was about it.
In my car I had an old Rand McNally book of state maps. I had bought it when I drove up to my new home. The Minnesota state map had a small insert for Minneapolis, and after the move I consulted it often. On the first page of the book (two pages really, across the fold) there was a map of the entire country.
Maybe you know this, but I didn’t at the time. The Federal Highway system uses even numbers for highways going east-west and odd numbers for highways going north-south. The largest east-west interstates have numbers that end in zero. I-90 is the northernmost of these highways.
I-90 passes about 100 miles south of Minneapolis, extending in almost a straight line to Yellowstone, then on to the Pacific Ocean. That line on the map called to me, even after the divorce and I left Minnesota and moved back to Washington DC. I-90 for me was The Road Not Taken.
So I thought about that Rand-McNally map and that line that led to the far ocean. And I formed a plan. My plan was not to plan. I would drive wherever I-90 and my 1992 Teal Blue Chevy Cavalier took me.
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