Renaissance

“Don’t mess with Texas.”

We spotted the road sign right after our car crossed the New Mexico border and entered Texas near El Paso. We still had nine-plus hours to drive through the unknown wilderness of West Texas to reach our final destination, Austin. But the clever anti-littering sign instantly put us at ease. Texas definitely has a sense of humor! (I later looked up and found that the slogan is a registered trademark owned by the Texas Department of Transportation.)

It was ‘Day Four’ of our four-nights-five-days exclusive mother-son road trip from Cupertino, California to Austin, Texas. My son Jyotishko (I refer to him as J in this blog) is starting his college life at the University of Texas at Austin this Fall. Though the campus is close to downtown Austin and students can totally manage to live without a car, we thought it made no sense to keep his Mini Cooper sitting idle at Cupertino. Of course we could have shipped the car to Austin and fly ourselves there, but I always had this dream of super-long road trips when my son is old enough to drive. And what could have been a better opportunity than this! We had 1750 miles to cover! So with equal amounts of trepidation and hope of adventure in mind, we packed all the stuff that J was going to need in college in the car, and hit the road the day after he turned eighteen. We knew we would be crossing the deserts of Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas in the peak of summer in August, where temperature hovers steadily above 100 degrees Fahrenheit during the day. We knew the car has a small tank (11.6 gallon capacity) and we might not find gas stations for long stretches during our journey. So we packed 4 gallons of spare gas and plenty of water in the trunk. We downloaded offline maps and packed dry fruits and nuts for survival. The packing itself made me feel like Clint Eastwood! I could almost hear the famous soundtrack of “Good, Bad and Ugly” in my head, which was apparently the inspiration behind the background score of the timeless Bollywood Classic “Sholay.”

Our plan was to not drive too long each day to exhaust ourselves. After all the main purpose was to extend the farewell. After the first day of driving went smoothly and we landed at this iconic Wigwam Motel (the motivation behind the “Cozy Cone Motel” in the Disney classic movie “Cars”) along the historic Route 66 at San Bernardino, California, we realized that six-to-seven hours of driving was not too strenuous and we could add some detours to our itinerary. So on the second day, we added Joshua Tree National Park on our way to Phoenix, Arizona. Once we entered the park, J was so energized that he went rock climbing at high noon! “There could not have been a better transition to adulthood than this!” he exclaimed, dripping in sweat, but with the widest smile on his face! We could not believe when we saw 114 degrees Fahrenheit on our car dashboard at one point, and our little Mini was still giving us 32.5 miles per gallon with AC on full blast and carrying a full load of passengers and luggage. Cars are just amazing! They give you this little cocoon of safety with its own microclimate and musical immersion while still carrying you towards your destination.

By the second day, we became more ambitious. In addition to the detour plans, we added another daily goal—we decided to eat something for dinner each day that represents the local cuisine. J is a foodie and cooks well himself. So tasting local food (not necessarily fancy food) along the way was all but natural. At Phoenix, we tried “Fry Bread”, a Native Indian dish, and totally enjoyed it. Conveniently for us, right in front of the eatery, two brothers were selling Native Indian jewelry. I bought silver earrings with Hopi designs. J bought a seed bracelet with Navajo Indian designs---apparently a good luck charm. We knew it might be just a sales pitch, but when you travel, this willing suspension of rationality feels so liberating.

J decided to drive the whole time. I offered to share the driving, but first time I sat on the driver’s seat, we realized that we would have to adjust the seat position back and forth every time we switch driver. The car was so optimally packed that moving seat position would create imbalance and the packed stuff, some of them fragile (like J’s computer monitor), may be damaged. So we reached an agreement-- if J would feel too tired to concentrate on the road, only then we would switch driver. Turned out that eight-ish hours on the wheel was no big deal for an eighteen year old kid who loves driving. “You want the bragging rights to truthfully say that you drove all the way, right?” I said with a mind-reader’s confidence. “Yes,” he said with a sheepish grin. “Plus the driver gets to choose the music. Ha ha.” That was the mood the whole time. The more the road trip progressed, the more carefree we started feeling. It was not a parent-child equation anymore. We were just two buddies on a shared mission. Each time we were coming close to crossing a state line, I would be ready with my camera to take a picture of a big road sign, and J would move to the right lane and slow down as much as possible to make it easy for me to take the shot. Our album is full of pictures showing “Welcome to Arizona”, “Welcome to New Mexico,” “You are leaving New Mexico,” “Edge of Texas” etc. Since J was driving the whole time, I kept myself occupied by taking pictures of local vegetation and using Google Lens to identify them and sharing the knowledge with J. We became quite the experts on xerophytes---the desert plants that need little water.

The 1750 miles distance between Cupertino and Austin became 1900-plus miles with the addition Joshua Tree National Park in California on Day Two, Saguaro National Park in Arizona on Day Three, and White Sands National Park in New Mexico on Day Four. I never ever imagined hitting three national parks in three days, that too with impromptu planning. But it felt completely normal. Each national park was totally worth the visit—they were unique in their own ways. We tasted the ruby red prickly pear cactus fruits at Saguaro National Park. I hummed a song while J kept driving through the myriad varieties of cacti on both sides of the road, some as tall as an Oak tree. We deliberately did not follow the signs while hiking on the all-pervasive white sands at the eponymous national park, embracing the risk of getting lost in the desert, but confident in our heart that we wouldn’t get lost. J forgot his sunglasses in the car during the hike on the sand. I had mine on. So we kept time-sharing my sunglasses to save ourselves from being blinded by the glare from the white sands. It reminded me of the recent adventure on the glaciers at the Jasper National Park in Canada two months back. It was the exact same scenario. J forgot his sunglasses that time too. The whiteness of the glacier was blinding and mama had to share her sunglasses with the kiddo. As they say, you share when you care—from the glacier at the Canadian Rockies to the white sands in New Mexico.

Our last two stops en route to Austin were cities that we have never heard of before--Las Cruces at New Mexico and Ozona at Texas. Both are in the middle of nowhere and provided excellent opportunities for stargazing, as there was very little light pollution when we drove just a few miles outside of the city limits (guided by an app that shows the geographical light map for stargazers) around 10 pm after dinner. I do not have the power of words to be able to express how it felt to witness millions of stars and the contours of the faraway galaxies in the pitch-black ambience with the chorus of nocturnal creatures—owls, insects and frogs—as the background music. It’s a cliché, but looking at the stars makes you realize what a minuscule part you are in this vast universe, and how meaningless it is to be bogged down by your mundane existential crises. J said, in the tone of an epiphany, that whatever little worry he had about the upcoming changes in his life, completely vanished in those powerful peaceful moments of stargazing.

By mid-day on Day Five we reached Austin. Once we were close enough to Austin, we thought there was no point in carrying the spare gas anymore. So we stopped at a random spot by the roadside and J was emptying the gas cans into the tank. From a distance it did look like our car had stalled. Within 10 minutes, two good Samaritans, one after another, came by with their pickup trucks and offered to help. I thanked them and assured them that we were totally fine. Our hearts were filled with gratitude at the large-heartedness of the Texans. We couldn’t have felt more welcome. Once at Austin, the first thing we did was to give the Mini Cooper a premium carwash to celebrate the feat of the “little engine that could”--sustaining a 1900 mile journey with aplomb! The rest was all streamlined. Unloading, moving into J’s new apartment, setting up his room, meeting his roommate and his family, going to Target to buy the essentials that we did not pack in the car---everything got done like clockwork. Glitch-free. We celebrated J and his roommate’s joint birthdays at a fancy Indian restaurant that evening.

This was the longest road trip of my life! Definitely a “bucket list” item. I never imagined checking off three bucket list items in two months---trip to Peru to visit Machu Picchu in early July, the longest road trip of my life in mid-August and attending a Beyonce concert on August 30. At this rate, I need to augment and expand my bucket list. 

I think this summer I am reborn. I kept thinking about what to name this blog. Who knew that Texas girl Beyonce’s “Renaissance” world tour would provide the perfect title for my first blog of 2023. Here’s to “empty-nesting” in style!