You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, car, or bike?
Since I have already crossed the country from New Jersey to California by Greyhound bus, I will choose the Armtrak train on returning trip to New Jersey to enjoy the beautiful scenery across the country without being crammed into a flying compartment on air, not being able to move around for hours at a high price. And forget about driving a car, which may sound adventurous but is dangerous.
Dangerous because what if I happen to encounter some vile group of people who have pledged allegiance to their secret creed of violent belief hell-bent on harming fellow human beings as in the movie “End of the Road,” in which the Queen Latifah character and his family on the road to Texas future from California past encounter series of manacing racist strangers. On the contrary, traveling in the company of people, although strangers, provides me some sense of security and relaxation, freed from maneuvering navigation and driving, which sometimes will prevent me from appreciating the pleasure of watching scenery listening to music, the moody sweets of my spirit.
It was in the same manner that emigrants -not necessarily foreigners but those from the east coast- crossed the continent on oxen-driven wagons as accounted in Horace Greeley’s An Overland Journey from New York to San Francisco in the Summer of 1859 in which the renowned editor of the New York Tribune and once a president hopeful opposite Ulysses Grant. This book inspired me to come to California by bus, which I considered a modern-day equivalent of a wagon. What used to take a good 6 or 8 months for the easterners to arrive at West overland by wagon took me a week to reach California by bus. Notwithstanding any inconvenience in the road trip, it was my version of reenactment of the Oregon Trail in the spirit of frontierwoman to start anew in the Wild West.
A Cat in the Mirror 