This was the golden hour. Windows down. The smell of pine and gas station hot dogs. We found a bootleg Eminem tape in the glove compartment. The stars out here look fake—like a screensaver on an iMac G3. We talked about the future. About college. About whether The Matrix really made sense. We didn't check a single email the entire trip. The internet lived in a dusty computer at the public library, and for two weeks, it didn't exist.
Looking back, 2000 was the last year you could truly disappear. No social media to check in. No tracking dots. Just a paper map, a full tank, and the static hiss of the radio as you searched for a signal between towns. road trip (2000)
The heat was biblical. The Jeep’s AC worked only on setting "4," which sounded like a jet engine taking off. We stopped at a diner where the waitress called us "hon" and the coffee was thick enough to stand a spoon in. On the radio: NSYNC’s "It’s Gonna Be Me" battling Creed’s "Higher." We threw a penny into the Grand Canyon and took photos on a disposable Kodak. We won't see those photos for three weeks. This was the golden hour