Webster word entries are too short for accurate definitions.

Does any of this make sense, Kate? I think I audibly sighed with relief by the conclusion.

The daunting task of blogging about a road trip was weighing on me; I felt some kind of obligation to write about this event, but knew neither where to begin, end, or how to fill in the spaces. Too much space. Ironic, as I woke up centimeters from you day after day for a week, and sat maybe a foot from you hour after hour of a driving day. From your post, it seems we shared many sentiments. Also ironic, as, despite the collective nature of the trip - and the surprising moments of self-disclosure - with the dearest of friends, a great deal of it felt intensely personal.

Ponderance: either we read Kerouac and frame ourselves to have that experience, or, perhaps, the road trip simply is a universal experience. Kerouac didn't create it, just wrote it. Should there be something wrong with that? We spend so much time wanting to separate, distinguish ourselves from the other, maybe a common ground isn't such a thing to fear.

This is one of a few topics I returned to again and again while journaling on the open road, the (American?) romanticization of travel, of the road. Concrete (literally, cement) and tar representations of freedom? Access to change or newness? I wasn't necessarily looking for answers as we set out West on a Tuesday night. Which is good, because by the time we headed East, I was steeped in question and caked in wonder.

Just a few short days from driving the last mile, I am still in processing and I'm certainly not very articulate in expressing the feeling of feeling so much feeling. Goddamn, it was just wheels on a road, signs and signs and gas stations and gas stations! But in transit, I found myself rather emotionally labile.

I cried a bit behind my dirty, smudged sunglasses when Ranger John Bruce had us look at our hands the last time. I couldn't even wipe my eyes with those dirty, dusty hands, but I was so grateful that they were, in fact, so dirty and dusty.

I swelled with victory through my cardiac laboring as we returned to the ridge rim top from our hike down Gooseberry Mountain. Sweaty hugs all around somehow led to a calm that seemed nostalgic. But when before did I feel so calm?

In a few days, I bounded along the emotional spectrum, was angry and heartbroken and in love and grateful and sullen and sappy and happy and silly and mean and cold and warm and encouraging and distant and present and...am still in processing.