road tripping across the states
Google, play Hit the road Jack! by Ray Charles
Hiiiiiii,
It’s been a minute! I finally decided to move back to DC to live with my mom for a while. I say finally because last year was tough and I’d been thinking about it for some time. Not wanting to feel defeated, I kept trying to make it work in LA, wanting to stay near good friends and the ocean. I grew a lot during my time in Los Angeles: I started this blog, got a new name, new haircut, and some might say I’m famous now (me and who?)… But after the New Year, it sunk in that I know how I want to spend my time, and paying premium prices for rent in LA was getting in the way of that. If I’m lucky enough to like my family (more often than not) and be able to lean on them while I organize my business and tune up my engine, why not take advantage of that? So that’s where my attention and actions have been focused.
But we are back, baby! I am sorry I missed a New Years Resolution with y’all this year. I read back this one from last year and it’s nice to see how much hope and faith I had. Then this past year was a real kick in the head and played out a little differently than expected…external forces were a bit louder and more destructive, both on a personal and a national level, forcing me to play more defense than I had originally intended. But you know what they say? “Defense wins championships!” So three weeks ago, with my sights set on a fortified 2025, I set out on the Interstate-10 E, charging forward across this massive country we call the United States of America.
Please enjoy this panoramic view of Goosenecks State Park in Utah. Though traveling is exhausting beyond measure, it’s cool to be reminded that there is stillness in nature. It’s not reacting to every little thing that it hears or sees. The San Juan has flowed steady and over the years cut through layers and layers of rock, now revealing rocks that are were formed over 300 million years ago. You must respect it!
I travelled alone from the I-10 to the I-40, and scooted up through Utah on some back roads, until Sommers (my mom) joined my journey in Colorado.
Because she’s a huge politics nerd, our next stop was in Abilene, Kansas to see the presidential library of Dwight D. Eisenhower. (Thanks for the roads, my guy!) As we planned our driving day from Colorado to Kansas, my Google maps suggested something a little different. THE WORLD’S LARGEST BELT BUCKLE. Squashing the Montana Silversmith’s dreams and their Guinness record, Abilene unveiled their contribution and newest tourist attraction in 2022.
I like to pretend, but a cowboy? I am not. This find feels so random and for that I’m so grateful. I was unaware that Kansas had such a winning cowboy culture, but now I’m aware of TWO belt buckles made for giants. Thank god the algo understands my love of costume and alerted me of this, because in these trying times, it’s the little things that help.
Anyway, it was a short but worthy stop. The Eisenhower museum itself was pretty inspiring, and left us with a very relevant warning:
But we will get back to this.
Abilene, you were very kind and had great pizza. Continuing the road trip, we took the southern route, enjoying some backroads through Oklahoma, and Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama.
On our way up the east coast and by a fabulous recommendation from my Aunt Eve, we stopped at the Atlanta Botanical Garden for a brief respite.
First of all, love a botanical garden! Peaceful, idyllic, and calm. Gotta love PLANTS. There were many greenhouses featuring different climates like the rainforest, desert, or high altitude. A whole educational center studying orchids. Once again, nature come through with the ancient and diverse beauty!
This particular botanical garden in Atlanta was huge. They had a sick Alice in Wonderland exhibit, and though it wasn’t in bloom, the statues themselves were gorgeous. Lastly, this is an (unsponsored) plug for The Longleaf, one of the restaurants inside garden. Finding good food on the road is difficult and generally you just grab something quickly, so this was a welcome moment to chill in the beautiful interior space, and I ate the best risotto I’ve ever had. Thank you for the southern hospitality! The whole experience gave us new life for our continued journey.
Driving through the city we could see Atlanta is lively with a lot of young people and colleges. We found the queer part (the crosswalks were painted rainbow), and on our way out to catch I-20, I got a sign from the universe (I saw some graffiti that I’m taking to heart).
So swinging back to Eisenhower’s warning about “unwarranted influence whether sought or unsought by the military industrial complex,” let me quickly tell you that before he was elected president, he was an army man. Dwight D. Eisenhower was a General and key organizer in leading the invasion of Normandy in 1944, an extremely consequential win against the Nazi’s in WWII. He understood the consequences of war, and therefore did not handle it lightly.
As much as I want to ignore the political situation in this country, it’s becoming increasingly hard to. I now once again live seven blocks from the Russian Embassy where I saw a protest start the other day. This guy was banging on a car’s window as it exited the gates. Good on him, could not be me, I got the fuck up out of there! But I’m sure y’all are feeling something similar, some type of out of control, confusion, and fear. Probably because that’s the intention of this Daddy’s Bootstraps team. It’s devastating to see power used so viciously against humanity like recognizing the humanity in others around us isn’t what makes life worth living. Like do you fancy yourself a hyena bro? Maybe once in a while on Halloween, but it’s hard to see people so depraved of kindness reach such heights, and then down so low. You’re not a mountain lion, stop terrorizing our park rangers!
I’m not saying Dwight D. Eisenhower would have known what to do in the internet age, where hand guns are more of a threat to children than a useful weapon in battle. But he respected his duty as an American, through ‘til the end, something I’m still trying to conceptualize. All I want to do is touch beautiful fabrics and find ways to stop polluting our oceans with fashion waste, a future that feels increasingly more possible outside of America. But escaping feels naive too, like there isn’t political tension brewing all across the globe.
So, here’s another quote from the Eisenhower museum that made me tear up, obviously I have to share it with you guys:
Hilariously, I was the youngest person in this museum by twenty five years. Any teary-eyed credit goes to Sommers for sharing her interests with me.
Okay, so back on the I-77 we drove, up to I-81, then finally, when we hit I-66, I could feel my blood rushing when Maryland drivers started appearing out of nowhere with little regard for the rules of the road. We had made it to the DMV. Eleven days after I set out from the west coast, I crashed in my mom’s basement on the east coast, happy to be safe, in one piece, and staying put for a while. Thirteen days after, I got a kitten.
DC is a cool city (sorry, federal district) and I’m really happy to be here. I stick out in my mom’s neighborhood with my hair and baggy clothes, but just like LA, DC is a town full of transplants, and so far I feel seen and generally welcome into the conversation. There’s lots to explore.
I want to say thanks again for being here in this tiny corner of the internet. It’s got a short reach, but it means a lot to me that you choose to spend your time reading the words I string together, especially when there are so many other options. The 85 of you who consistently read this have already changed the trajectory of my life, (I’m in tears) thank you. So here’s to more writing, reading, designing, and making good trouble during this wild time. I’ll try to be consistent with posting again this year. Good luck to us all!
Carson xx
Google, play Tomorrow by Shakey Graves
