Think back on your most memorable road trip.
It was in late October of 2018 when I took my first road trip from the East of the Atlantic Ocean to the West of the Pacific Ocean by bus. I was a would-be Antonia from O, Pioneer by Willia Carter, who wanted to claim better luck this time in the West. I wanted to do it in the original pioneer spirit, having read By Ox Team to California by Lavinia Honeyman Porter and Overland Journey by Horace Greeley. So I took The Hound of Troubadour, aka Greyhound Bus, from Port Authority Bus Terminal in NYC to Los Angeles, Califonia.
What I knew as a non-stop Greyhound to Los Angeles turned out to be six days of transferring to 3 other buses at transfer stops and five nights on the bus without heat in the shivering temperatures of the treacherous Mid-Western climates. I befriended an elderly lady who got on the bus with me from NYC to our mutual destination. So I wasn’t all alone, but those young passengers who constantly talked for two days on the bus were the only carbuncles invading the peaceful orderliness of the bus. Naturally, when they got off the bus to their stop, everyone applauded.
After the arrival at my destination, I felt like Julius Caesar, who said, “Veni, Vidi, Vici.” (I came, saw, and won). And I crossed the Rubicon River on a steel wagon, even if it was not driven by six oxen like Lavinia’s wagon. Following Horace Greeley’s advice on moving to the West in the fashion of Lavinia Porter made me on par with these brave 19th-century souls who had made it thus far to the outpost of their comfort zone. And that’s not the end because I still see the West, particularly California, as the Wild West with all those place memories that envelope the region and possess the inhabitants’ souls. And I am a frontierwoman trying to claim my happiness among the swashbuckling cowboy-wannabes, glittering demimondes, and hostile nomadic dwindlers. ✨⭐️🧚♀️
Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh 
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