A Decade on I-70

The Inaugural Trip: College-bound

The first time I made the journey from my Philly suburb home of Devon to the front range of Colorado, accompanied by my dad, in a black '05 Lexus RX330, I70 didn't carry any significance. It was simply the interstate dominating the route between home and what I hoped would become my new home, as a rising junior at the University of Colorado - Boulder, following a transfer from Pitt. Now, 9 years later, when I tell people that I know I70, because I drive the roundtrip a few times a year, I’m met with looks of surprise and the question, “Why…? How long does that take?”

The why requires a longer explanation, but the journey takes 25 hours, traversing 8 states - Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado, in that order. The drive is largely unaffected by traffic, making the time consistent. We usually make it in two days, going east or west, standard procedure being to frontload a fifteen hour first day. Though for the inaugural trip in August of 2015, my dad and I charted the westward drive in a more leisurely 3 days.

It would be my first trip along I70, and my first time experiencing the vastness and plainless of the Midwest, hundreds of miles without discernible features, only the gradual change of something unremarkable to something slightly different, but also unremarkable.

25 hours provided plenty of space to feel the swirling concoction of excitement, expectation, hope, apprehension, and uncertainty that accompanies major life changes. It hadn’t been a smooth start at Pitt, but I was hopeful the latter half of my college experience would be different. Having lived on the east coast my entire life, I internalized massive expectations that a radical change in geography would inherently change my life. I imagined an easy transition into an idealized college experience, and I70 was the start of that journey.

Two years down the road, having earned my degree, I found myself cruising eastward along the same interstate. The gently rolling hills of eastern Kansas passed by under the warm late-May evening sky, while I relaxed in a slightly reclined passenger's seat, watching the miles unfold. With familiar tunes blasting, windows down, and a close high school friend at the wheel, I felt completely at ease. I was eager to leave Boulder behind and embrace the comforts of home, the aspirations I had pinned on a fresh start in Colorado largely unrealized.

On the Road Again: Brotherly COVID Excursions

3 years later, I was back on I70, heading west with my older brother and his girlfriend, six months into the pandemic. After spending months unemployed, barely seeing friends, stuck inside, we were about to escape the monotony of home to the natural beauty and adventure of the west.

We spent the night in Warrenton, Missouri after a grueling 17 hours, due to the only wrong turn I’ve ever made on the drive, only fully realizing the extent of the detour the next day, a large hump denoted on my travel tracker, denoting a diversion north as we were leaving PA. The route is difficult to actually make a wrong turn on…it’s I76 through PA, then I70 until Denver, with about half a dozen directions sprinkled in, mostly “Stay on I70”.

From time to time, we make brief stops at thrift stores and quirky attractions, like the "World's Largest Easel" in Goodland, Kansas, near the Colorado border. While the easel isn’t anything spectacular, it’s a necessary break from the most dull part of I70, western Kansas to Denver, a few hours of flat, featureless plains, sparsely dotted with windmills and farms.

It’s not all so featureless. Leading up to those plains are the woods and rivers that PA’s I-76 gently winds through, the greener farmlands of Ohio, the mixed commercial/suburban areas along the outskirts of major metros bypassed, and in the case of Topeka, Columbus, and Indianapolis the metro areas themselves.

Heading westward, the bustling rest stops with numerous gas pumps, mediocre dining options (Starbucks, Popeyes, Burger King, Dunk’n and Sbarro) and a spacious sitting area, gradually dwindle in frequency and stature, until you hit Kansas, where the rest stops are bathrooms on the side of the road accompanied by an enclosed pair of lonely vending machines nearby.

A few months later, my older brother and I were on I70 again, our second pandemic escape, this time going all the way to the Pacific coast. It was September, and a particularly bad wildfire season, along with the restrictions of COVID, made exploring difficult. After three, at times tense, weeks, we started back east, doing nearly the entire length of I70, including the Utah and western Colorado parts.

On the way home, we made a short stop in Moab, Utah to say hi to a friend I’d met in Peru. My older brother was coming down with a cold, and clearly felt shitty. We left the eastern Utah desert as the sun was setting. A few hours later, in Glenwood Canyon, a particularly windy section of I70 carving through mountains along the Colorado river (and the last section to be built, due to its difficult geography), we heard a loud, “BANG!” My brother, startled and immediately annoyed, turned to me, “No you fucking didn’t…”. The tire was flat within seconds. The wheel rim was cracked. I tried calling AAA, but the call kept dropping.

I don’t know if someone reported that we were broken down, or if this was by pure chance, but 20 minutes later a CDOT driver spotted us and helped two struggling brothers, in the pitch black canyon, replace the tire on our ‘08 Lexus, before sending us on our way. He informed us that we had hit a giant chunk of asphalt. That night, I drove the rest of the way to Golden, Colorado, on a donut, my brother asleep in the passenger’s seat.

Moving to Denver: I70 Becomes Routine

Over a year later, the next time I’d be driving out to Denver, along what were becoming familiar stretches of I70, would be when I was moving to Denver, car fully packed, my little brother, dad, and 1 year old chocolate lab, Scooby as companions. The latter two would become my most constant companions on the drive, Scooby on every drive, and my dad on most - flying out to Colorado to help me drive back, or driving out to Colorado, spending a few days in Denver, then flying back. We share some interesting conversations, listen to music, and mostly unsuccessfully try to find new podcasts.

I like to imagine Scooby, the unwilling passenger, and ultimately the reason why I do the drive at all, understands what’s happening, or at least recognizes Denver and Philly, grasping the vast distance we traverse between the two. Before realizing we’re doing that drive again, Scooby alternates resting his head on the driver’s right shoulder and the passenger’s left shoulder, looking up at them expectantly, as if to remind them that he’s still here.

Once he realizes he’s in for one of those days, he sprawls across the back seat or rests his two front paws on the center console, a sphinx between two humans. He quietly waits until he feels the car decelerate, at which point he is right back on a shoulder, signaling he’s ready for a stop.

Scooby is a priority. We stop at shitty gas station ‘dog parks’ that are nothing more than a fenced in patch of grass littered with dog poop. These ‘dog parks’ are unjustifiably advertised on billboards 50 miles out in the dead of Kansas. If timing and weather permit - we make the short detour to visit Shawnee Mission Off Leash Dog Park outside Kansas City, allowing Scooby to run, swim, and meet other dogs, before getting back in the car where he’ll continue to cycle between shoulders, the center console, and the length of the backseat.

My younger brother was reluctant. I don’t remember how he got strung along to help move me in, but he didn’t drive a single mile. That’s okay though. My dad and I have never minded driving. Along with my older brother, we seem to have a tolerance for long drives - a fifteen hour day feels alright. There’s a satisfaction to crossing state lines, one state closer to the destination, and a rhythm that takes over after the first few hours. The miles drive themselves until you’re close enough where you don’t even have to tell Google Maps where your starting point is. My mom has yet to do the drive in either direction. She has no interest - very fair.

My little brother asks, “When are we going to stop?” When we start, we typically don’t know where or when we’re going to stop. The itineraries are rarely planned. Rather on day 1 we leave early, powered by a pot of coffee, and we drive until we’re done. Then we google a pet-friendly hotel within an hour of where we are, and that’s that. We used to book hotels before leaving, but it’s a bit constraining - you never know if you’ll make great progress and then end up in Terre Haute, Indiana at 7 PM, walking a deserted college campus in July, nothing to do, wishing you were still plugging miles.

The lack of planning occasionally backfires. On one occasion, Scooby and I were wrapping up an exhausting day. We stopped at a shitty motel, the only one for miles, where the receptionist informed me that Scooby’s stay would cost $75. The room only cost $100…I stared at her, my brain barely processing the massive surcharge, and left. Despite my refusal on principle, I found myself an hour later, at a hotel charging over $100 for Scooby's accommodation. Physically unable to continue driving, I paid.

That move out to Denver was the start of a new chapter, what felt like the beginning of my ‘adult’ life. Freshly 27, I was about to start my ‘career’ at a full-time job and live outside my family home for the first time since college. Denver represented another opportunity to build a life that I felt I’d failed to build in Boulder, six years prior, and in Pittsburgh a few years before that. My third attempt to build a life in a new home.

I didn’t know it at the time I moved out to Denver and I certainly didn’t plan it. But I’d be doing roundtrips on I70 ~3x/year the following few years. As I got settled into my new life in Denver, I built a life I enjoyed. My daily routine settled into spending hours at the dog park, followed by hours playing pickleball, only possible as my first software engineering job was fully remote and required 2 hours of effort a week. I snowboarded more days in that year than the rest of my life combined, enjoying days at Steamboat Springs, Winter Park, Copper, Taos, and Wolf Creek.

Denver was becoming more like home, but simultaneously didn’t really feel like home. Every few months, I’d feel pulled back east. To be there with Scooby for the arrival of my parents’ new chocolate lab, who’d later be named Chase. To attend a music festival or a wedding. To drop Scooby off in the care of my family while I traveled for a few weeks. But more than anything, it boils down to wanting to spend a significant chunk of time around friends and family, in the place that is home.

Solo Drive: A New Paradigm

Eighteen months ago, I did my first solo drive back, with Scooby as my companion. I’d been planning to leave on Saturday, but signed onto work Friday morning, and just felt like being home. I packed the car, ticking off the usual items on my mental checklist - Scooby’s large plastic food container, leash, treats, a few of his favorite toys, and his water and food bowls. My 46 L Osprey backpack stuffed with a week’s worth of my favorite clothes plus extra pairs of socks and boxers, my toiletry kit, a pair of running shoes, a pair of Crocs, my pickleball bag, a 27” 4K monitor, my work and personal laptops, and a few snacks - apples, dried mango, and nuts. And then we left.

A shift was palpable. After a slow first summer in Denver, I found myself needing a change and saying ‘yes’ to life. I’d, somewhat apprehensively, signed an incredible offer at a tech company notorious for poor work life balance. Freshly returned from a visit to the west coast, I was counting down the days to my upcoming trip to Vietnam. (My family would watch Scooby while I was away.) In the midst of the uncertainty of another major life transition, I really wanted to be home, around my east coast friends and family.

Physically, I was coming down with the worst cough I’d ever had. I downed cough drops and cough meds, at one point legitimately concerned that I might pass out in the driver’s seat as the cough’s intensity escalated. I’d take short naps in gas station parking lots when the exhaustion, made worse by the monotony of I70, became overpowering.

Feeling horrible, but running on the desire to be home, I made it in two days, despite a late start the first day. I was greeted with Chase’s infectious enthusiasm upon realizing Scooby and I were the midnight intruders. Then a night spent in my childhood room, waking up to my parents having left coffee in the pot for me to sip in their company. And a laid back morning on the deck, soaking up the sun with my little brother, while the dogs wrestled and nipped at each other in the backyard. A long off-leash run with Scooby in the nearby woods, on the trails we’ve run together since he was six months old. I was home.

Chilled Crossroads: Weighing the Future of the I-70 Saga

This January, on the first weekend of the new year, after spending the holidays in Philly, I didn’t exactly feel ready for the drive back. I also experienced a first in my I70 saga - a failed I70 journey! My friend and I drove two hours, before accepting that the increasingly snowy conditions would make the trip painfully slow. We opted to drive to Colorado the next weekend. In my most uncertain time of if I wanted to keep doing this cross-country drive, it felt like the universe was nudging me to stay back east. The following weekend we tried again…in the midst of an arctic blast.

Leaving Devon, the weather was great for early January, mostly sunny and crisp, but warmer than usual. Though by the time we were in western PA, the temp had dropped into the 20’s, and gusts of wind carried little flurries of snow. Those conditions continued on and off through St. Louis, but luckily the snow didn't stick.

We stopped in Kingdom City, Missouri, at a Holiday Inn Express where I’ve stayed at least twice before. I recognize it by the 20’ by 20’ “off leash dog park” that sits squarely in the center of a parking lot shared by the hotel, a McDonald’s, and a gas station. By the time we arrived, it was -5°F outside. Absolutely brutal. Scooby, as always, was stoked to get out. I don’t know if it was the salt or the raw coldness of the ground, but after a few minutes, he lifted his paw, a concerned expression on his face, and refused to walk. I carried him into the hotel for the night.

Waking up the next morning it was -10°F, the sun rising just enough to make the cold bearable. I let Scooby out again, praying that he’d be able to withstand the cold long enough to actually poop, which he did! We ate a quick hotel breakfast, and got in the car. My Sprite Zero from the night before was a block of ice, and the LCD screen displaying the temperature lagged between the shifting characters, the electronics clearly affected by the cold. At that moment, sitting in the driver’s seat, waiting for my friend to get in, my hands freezing, I thought, “Yea, I might be done with this drive.”

Entering Colorado, the sun was out and we hit a high of 6 degrees. We let Scooby run around outside an abandoned gas station, having stopped under the impression that it was open and we’d be able to fill up. At least it was warm enough out that Scooby was his usual active self.

I was ready for the trip to be over, cruising along the wide-open, empty stretches of I70 of eastern Colorado, hovering around 100 miles an hour. I passed a car on my right, realizing mid-pass that it was a cop, in an unmarked car. His sirens came on within seconds. He approached the car. Scooby greeted him, poking his head over my left shoulder and licking the cop. He seemed to like Scooby. He turned to me, “Wasn’t too smart, was it?”

I responded, “What?” I guess I thought if I didn’t admit to speeding, there was no way he could accurately pin down the speed I was going. While waiting for the cop to come back to the car with a hefty ticket and a few points added to my license, I thought, “Yep. This is really it. I’m fucking done with this drive.”

He came back and asked if we had any weapons in the car. We didn’t. He handed me his card, with his name and department on it, smiled, told me to slow down, and to have a nice day. Finally, a break!

And here I am, writing this in Denver, feeling more unsure than ever that I want to keep doing the I70 drive, my life split between two places, 1710 miles apart, and two desires - the comfort of my childhood home, friends, family - and the adventure of something different, and every opportunity and unknown that comes along with it.

Who knows, maybe I’ll accept the split, embrace the flexibility it affords me, and I70 will remain a part of my life for the foreseeable future. Maybe I’ve only scratched the surface of the number of drives I’ll take on that interstate. Or maybe life is about to change, and the chapter of my life I’ve spent punctuated by long drives along I70 is coming to a close.