I’m ten. Maybe eleven. I’m sitting at our family computer—a Macintosh SE.
It has smiley faces and lives in our family room.

I am attending to very important business.

I am a master detective and I am trying to capture a henchman.
Her name is Carmen San Diego. She is on the loose—all over the United States!

It’s my job to catch her.

I do this by answering clues.

She’s spotted by a large arch.
She’s in St. Louis!

She’s in the capital of Texas.
Austin! (Not Dallas. We hate Dallas)

She’s by a red bridge.
San Francisco!

I catch her!

I am so good at this.

—

I remember the first time I saw her.

I was behind the wheel of a blue Mustang convertible, top down, heading west on Interstate 40 out of Amarillo, Texas. Belly full of Waffle House hash browns. Bandana securing my hair, shades on. My friend Micah to my right. 

Half the country is already behind us. 

After breakfast he tossed me the keys.
I climbed into the drivers’ seat. 

I always took the daytime shift. I liked to see where I was going.

He loved to drive at night. We’d keep the top down and turn up the heat. Me, curled into the passenger seat in a hoodie—hood up, hands tucked into the sleeves—the endless stars and smears of the Milky Way above us—driving through canyons and across landscapes we could not see. 

We listened to the audiobook of On the Road—because, of course. 

And here I was on my first cross-country drive.

Micah had asked me to come with him just ten days earlier. He was moving from our home state of Maryland to Los Angeles for film school. Why he hadn’t secured a road-trip partner sooner was beyond me.

But regardless, I figured this was exactly how it was supposed to be.
It usually is.

We met for Thai food and spread a paper map across the restaurant table, traced the interstate lines west—and a little south to skip Kansas. We weren’t interested in boring.

I had ten days to rearrange my work schedule. More importantly, I had only ten days to burn CD mixes for the drive—crafted by region, not genre. I stayed up late getting them just right, matching songs to landscapes I hadn’t seen yet—the south, the desert—DJing what I thought would feel right. 

This particular morning, I slid one of those mix CDs into the Mustang’s CD player—the player still a novelty—it gently slurped the disc, cuing up what would be the perfect soundtrack for the day. 

This one, as we moved further west, held Manu Chao, some of the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, and something expansive and instrumental I can’t quite remember now—just that it matched the land. A whole vibe, before that was even a thing.

Outside of Amarillo, the road dipped—then stretched, and stretched, and stretched. You couldn’t see where it ended, but you could see where the heat lifted off the asphalt—shimmering upward like a small cosmic dance.

And then, all around us—there she was.

The desert. My first time.

Pinks and shades of tan and coral and deep sierra reds spread to the horizon in textures and patterns like someone had rolled a paint-by-number canvas to the horizon and beyond. The sky wide and impossibly blue. In the distance, storms released rain that hung in the air like jellyfish tentacles, gently grazing the ground below.

I remember thinking:
I am such a small part of this world.

And this is exactly the kind of small I like to feel.

That day, the direction was simple.

Just head west.

And we did.

Micah had called when I was sitting at a desk listening to Jurassic Five or The Postal Service or Death Cab for Cutie—something from the soundtrack of that summer. I was likely editing a Livejournal post on my Apple Powerbook. 

He said he needed a favor.
The answer was yes before I even knew what the favor was. 

It was that kind of friendship.

“I need you to drive cross country with me in 10 days,” he said.

No problem. I’d make it work. After all, when would I ever get a chance to drive cross-country again?

Except the next summer, when Micah did the same for me after he convinced me to move to Los Angeles too. 

“I need you to do me a favor,” I said to him. 

The answer was yes before I told him what the favor was.

This time we took my car—-a bright blue Chevy Cavalier—and we went north, through the high plains, avoiding Kansas. Again. 

I was behind the wheel of the car—day-shifting again—when it broke down on a mountain in Wyoming, a short distance from the only Chevy dealership for hundreds of miles. 

We spent the afternoon in a small roadside bar. There was a dog. We ate popcorn, drank beer, and played darts until my car was fixed and ready. 

We spent the evening sitting at a different bar—this time in Big Horn, where we’d stay the night. The bartender was named Kate and she worked with her friend Jericho. There was a horse. Inside. At the bar. Because, of course. 

I spent the next year in Los Angeles, writing.

A blog, mostly.

Not screenplays.

No one understood.

It didn’t take long to figure out Los Angeles was so not “me.” So, I sold my car and flew back east.

I’d do three more cross-country drives in my life—one with a girlfriend, two with my ex-husband. He always drove. The whole way. Both times.

Over the next twenty-two years I’d check off state after state—even Kansas—until only two remained:

North Dakota. Montana.

—

I don’t remember when I started to feel dead.

Everything just bled together. 

—

I wake up. I’m alone in bed.

My husband has gone to work. His post-military civilian job. The beginning of our next chapter. The part where it’s supposed to get better.

I stare at the ceiling. We painted it ourselves—Benjamin Moore’s Sea Salt. A “nuanced neutral.” Not grey. Not beige. A better choice. More “me.” 

I blink. I feel nothing.

My eyes slide to the sliding glass doors. We replaced all of them. All the doors. All the windows. The whole house.

“Someday we’ll add a deck,” I hear his voice. “With a hot tub. Right off the bedroom.”

I blink. Nothing.

I look out to the forest in our backyard. 

There’s a dead tree. It needs to be removed. 

I blink. Still nothing.

I roll over. I stare across the newly refinished floors. Oak. Original. Beautiful.

We redid all of them.

I blink.

Nothing.

I close my eyes.

The rooster crows.

The flock was supposed to be all girls.

A memory flashes.

Buy the fixer upper. We’ll have land. We can have chickens. It’ll be fun. You can make the house whatever you want.

I can make the house whatever I want.

We had everything we needed to make it work. My mother, an interior designer. His father, endlessly savvy with all things home. He, too. I, a skilled project manager.

The only thing missing was me.

Where did I go?

—

Moving Day. Late morning.

I was driving on the Capital Beltway from Accokeek to Annapolis, Maryland, listening to Taylor Swift’s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department. It had been released the day before.

Auspicious? Perhaps.

My husband and I had just sold the fixer-upper. We had cash in the bank. No debt. 

We were going to rent for a year. Maybe two. See what felt right, where we wanted to land.
No pressure. No projects.

A fresh start—like that home purchase was supposed to be.

The one we sold because I couldn’t live there anymore.
The one that took us to couples counseling.

“I can’t live here anymore,” I said, sobbing—unable to say what we both knew that meant. It was his dream home. I was miserable. I had to go.

Would he come with me, or was this the end of our marriage?

“I love you more than I love this house,” he said. “We’ll sell.”

And we did.

And then a car to my right veered into my lane at 65mph—missing my front bumper by inches. 

My breath caught. My hands locked on the wheel. My heart raced. 

When it settled, I thought:

Please don’t let me die now.
We’re just getting started.

Taylor Swift kept playing in the background.

This isn’t the soundtrack I would have chosen.

But it’s the one that was playing.

—

“You need to see this one,” my husband told me.

I had been working and sent him to an open house.

“I really like it,” he said.

He took me to dinner in the neighborhood that night. To check out the area. To see if it felt “me” enough. It would do.

We saw the house together the next day.

It seemed right.
Maybe perfect? 

I wasn’t sure.

It had a pool for our senior dog. A yard that wouldn’t require too much maintenance. An office with a view that brought tears to my eyes—big windows overlooking the water. A small dock. 

Only one or two small projects.

Tight on the budget, but we could make it work.

Offers were due that evening.

We had tickets to the Commanders game that afternoon.

He drove.

“What do you want to do?” he asked.

I didn’t answer.

We were late. He weaved his Volkswagen GTI in and out of traffic.
Zippy. Close to the ground. 

I pulled the seatbelt tighter across my chest.

“I… I just need a minute,” I said.

I looked out the side window. I couldn’t look ahead.

I started to cry.

“Why can’t you just tell me what you want?” he said. “Just tell me what it is you want, Alli.”

“I don’t know what I want,” I choked. “I don’t know.”

I feel so small.

By the time we got to the stadium, it was jammed. Cars inches from the bumper.

We were late to our seats.

I told him I’d have an answer at halftime.

My eyes red, I said, let’s do it.

We settled on a price that night and submitted an offer.

We didn’t get the house.

He moved out eight weeks later.

The month our divorce was finalized I bought two plane tickets.

One way: Washington, DC to Bismarck, North Dakota.
One way: Kalispell, MT to Washington, DC.

I rented a car. 

The flight was delayed so I arrived in Bismarck after dark. I hate driving in the dark.

They also didn’t have the small SUV I had reserved. I like sitting high. I like to see where I’m going.

“I have a Suburban,” the 20-something behind the counter said.

There was no way I was driving a Suburban along tiny mountain roads.

“Or a sedan.”

I hate sedans. Too close to the ground. Not as much visibility.

But I took it. It would be ok. I would be safe.

I hauled my bag out to the car and tried to set up Apple CarPlay. Everything worked except the navigation feature. Strange. I’d deal with it in the morning.

I picked up my phone, opened Spotify, and selected Fleetwood Mac Radio—my soundtrack for that summer.

Rhiannon was the first song to play.

Perfect.

The next day, I headed west. 

Mile after mile of North Dakota’s secluded west side flew by my windows. I stopped at Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I hiked into a canyon and alongside prairie dogs and kept going, one foot in front of the other, until I looked up and saw the familiar big-sky thunderstorms and headed back.

I remember this.
They don’t mess around out here. 

And I am alone.

I drove into town and ate a bison burger. I wandered into some small shops. I bought a coaster with a North Dakota landscape on it—this state being worth remembering too.

I climbed back into the rental, ready to drive into my 50th and final state—Montana. I picked up my phone, opened Spotify and hesitated. 

How do you DJ this moment? I remember thinking. 

I turned on Polo and Pan Radio and let it ride. It would sort itself out.

As I headed west I was flooded with snapshots of memories. My bandana. Bryce Canyon. A horse in a bar. The wind on my face. The color of Oklahoma dirt. Gas station cheese curds. Waterfalls in Maui. A seaplane in Alaska. The sunrise in Maine. The beaches of North Carolina. Crawdads in Louisiana. A sign with my name on it in Austin–the capital of Texas. Carmen San Diego.

My eyes filled with tears. My breath deepened. 

I have had such a big life. I am so lucky.

And there she was in the distance. The sign. On the right side of the road. 

“Welcome to Montana.”

I slowed from 80 and pulled to the side of the road—Polo and Pan still playing. Their song Canopee. Because, of course.

No one was around as far as I could see. I grabbed my phone and stepped out of the car. I walked to the sign and stared up at it. I checked the time:
5:01PM MST
Wednesday, July 23, 2025. 

23 years after my first cross-country drive.

My 50th state.
I did it. 

I held up my phone and snapped a selfie.

I stood there for a few more minutes, overcome. 

I walked back to the car and climbed into the driver’s seat.
I shut the door.

I pulled up the picture and texted it to the first person who had to know: Micah. 

I did it, I said.

I plugged my phone back in—Car Play now fully functioning—slipped the keys in the ignition, and kept going.

 

---

 

To listen to an audio version of this on Spotify, click here. To listen on Apple Podcasts, click here.

And, because I seem to always be writing about music, click here to listen to Lumps & Humps – The Soundtrack.