In August 2020, we crossed a nation in turmoil in a rented minivan.

Our move to Ohio was not a vacation, and we did not try to trick ourselves into thinking it was. There was no side trip to Yellowstone. No stop at Rushmore for a selfie. Nothing of the sort. The swimsuits we packed never left our suitcases.

We hit the road shortly after 3pm Mountain Time on Monday, Aug. 10, but not before a final, frazzled sprint to tie up loose ends and turn in our keys. The closing was set for Friday, Aug. 7, but we had business to conduct before we could leave Boise, so we negotiated three extra days of occupancy at a hundred bucks a night and became renters in the home of 14 years we had just sold. It was cheaper than a nice motel, and also necessary considering we still had a half-packed Pod in the driveway and a short but daunting list of to-dos to get through before making our way East.

The last bits of moving are the worst, especially when it’s cross-country and not crosstown. It’s a road we’ve been down several times. There’s no caravan of family and friends with trucks, no leisurely back and forth between addresses old and new, no going back a few days later for anything you forgot. Before this move, my wife, Erica, had lived in five states and I had lived in three, but it never gets easier. In fact, one could make the argument that it only gets harder with age. Throw a pandemic into the mix and shrink your timeline by 10 months, and you’ve presented yourself with a considerable logistical challenge. My back still hurts from it.

Timing was everything the week before our departure. Our pickup truck was ill equipped for three humans and two pets to share space for 2,000 miles, so we decided to ship it to Ohio. Our other vehicle, an 18-year-old SUV that a mechanic had described as “tired,” was unlikely to make it out of the time zone, so we donated it to Radio Boise for another tax break. In both cases, the details of the transaction were vague, so rather than tempt fate, we rented the minivan a few days before our departure date so we wouldn’t get stuck without a car. It also gave us time to solve the Tetris of turning a Grand Caravan into a traveling kennel.

Originally, the plan was to make the trip somewhat fun and flexible – not to mention functional – and rent an RV. Our daughter, Magnolia, beamed when we suggested it. With a house cat and terminally ill dog in tow, the extra space would be welcomed by human and animal alike, and we thought the RV would turn a multi-day chore into more of a vacation. More importantly, with the country smack-dab in the middle of the record-breaking summer COVID surge, trading hotels for our own controllable space seemed like a smart approach. We got the idea after a music industry friend had made a short pit-stop in Boise during a family road trip. As with most travel industries, the RV rental business had taken a deep dive at the start of the pandemic, and by June Chris and his family were able to rent a one-way RV at half-price. But it turns out that Cruise America is really picky about its one-way rentals. When I called to reserve the 20-foot compact model, I was told the only available size for our location and travel dates was the largest in the fleet, the 30-foot behemoth, and even that wasn’t guaranteed; in order to rent one-way, the final destination of the RV had to be approved, and the vibe I got from the customer service rep when I mentioned Cleveland suggested our plan would prove to be more pain-in-the-ass than six-wheeled pleasure cruise.

We woke up shortly after dawn on the 10th and set about getting shit done and getting on the road to Salt Lake by noon – wishful thinking, in hindsight. The movers were coming first thing to finish loading the Pod, and the stagers were following close behind to collect their fake plants and emotion-neutral furniture sets. We had beds to dismantle and suitcases to zip up, a cooler to cram and a fridge to clean out. Then the goodbyes. Under normal circumstances, we would have organized a big, drippy bon voyage party; instead, our farewells were clipped, distanced and in most cases, remote. Among our closest friends, we opted for a few intimate evenings outdoors leading up to the move. On departure day, in-person visits were limited to my brother and sister-in-law, a handful of Magnolia’s friends and our neighbors across the street. In all, I hugged less than 20 people in the five months before we left when it easily could have been 200. Leaving the way we did felt like running away, and in fact, “run away” had turned into something like a mantra once we had made the decision to leave Boise. Which wasn’t an easy choice – until it was.

We didn’t move to Boise in the mid-aughts because it was a boom town – in fact, we got there just in time for the bust that led to the Great Recession. But Boise had a job for me and we had family there, and our prospects looked better in a mid-market capital city than they did in the New England mountain mill town where our lives were stuck in neutral. We were itching for a new adventure. Erica had grown up in Colorado and missed the West. We were hours away from any major city and missed music and nightlife. Our careers – if you could call them that at that point in our young marriage – were stagnating. We were ready to take off our training wheels, get into gear and start thinking about growing up.

We moved to Boise with a five-year plan. But what that plan was, exactly, was never defined. And when we didn’t find our people or take to the city right away, we almost took off. Had Magnolia not been born, it’s highly likely we would have bolted well before year five, but in retrospect, we’re glad we stuck it out. The biggest surprise, to us and several others, was seeing Boise blossom post-recession, and not just seeing, but contributing: Layoffs within three months of each other in 2009 inspired career shifts that thrust us into the city’s creative and economic resurgence and gave our work purpose. More importantly, we found our people: a tight-knit, collaborative community of artists, musicians, entrepreneurs and benefactors who turned Boise into an It city with a cultural scene envied by others in larger zip codes.

Inevitably, the “Best Rocky Mountain Secret,” as Outside magazine anointed Boise, became a buzzword in bigger cities, and suddenly the City of Trees started topping the list of every Top 10 this and best-of that. All the attention spurred a population boom – a 23 percent increase in Ada County since the 2010 Census – and ultimately, inflation, particularly with housing. According to Zillow, in the past 10 years Boise’s housing market has tripled in value, putting the city – you guessed it – at No. 1 in the nation. It’s just as bad for renters: In the past year, apartment rents increased 16 percent – also tops in the country – putting Boise on par with major-league cities like Atlanta, Dallas and Minneapolis.

Financially speaking, we were starting to feel boxed in. Like most Americans, we’ve carried toxic debt for most of our adult lives. Any time we were in a position to knock it back, some unexpected expense or dip in income forced us to add to the dogpile. Had we stayed put in Boise, maybe we could have refinanced eventually, but we still would have been stuck in our small house and stuck with our mound of debt. We just couldn’t get over the hump, and all signs were pointing to life in Boise only getting harder for anyone other than the upper class. And while we liked, and in some cases loved, our lives in Boise, it was a hill we were no longer willing to climb, and when we found ourselves in a position to cash out on our house and live the life we were seeking for a fraction of the cost in Northeast Ohio, the choice was easy. With one strategic move, we erased five figures of credit card debt, made a down payment on a house twice the size of our Boise home and had a little left over for a rainy-day fund.

It may have been a no-brainer financially, but leaving Boise was a tough decision otherwise. It was tough to leave my brother. It was tough to leave friends and coworkers. It was tough to leave mountains, the music scene and certain burritos. There are tradeoffs to every decision, and those were big ones. But it wasn’t just about money. Idaho’s prevailing social and political views were at odds with our ideals when we moved there, and in many ways they only worsened. Living in progressive Boise provided a shield, but there were cracks in the armor. That much was evident during Donald Trump’s presidency, and especially in 2020 as the pandemic turned increasingly political and anti-maskers and other self-styled “freedom” fighters descended on downtown Boise. The peaceful rallies held in the wake of George Floyd’s murder were infiltrated by bona fide Nazis.

We also had Magnolia’s well-being in mind. Idaho is dead-last in the nation in per pupil spending, and while the college system in Idaho is sufficient enough, moving to Ohio expanded her options for schools with higher ratings, more programs and cheaper off-campus rent. She’ll also have a life to build after college, and as my brother lamented after sharing another news piece about Boise’s off-the-rails housing market, our kids won’t be able to afford living there.

So yeah, “run away.” As we fixed up our house to get ready to sell, anytime real estate news came across the wire, anytime some alligator brain blew by in a pickup with a Trump flag flapping in the wind, anytime one of the Vampire Children shrieked from the other side of the backyard fence, we knew we were making the right decision. Leaving the bad scene in Boise behind on Aug. 10, we wondered what awaited us on the non-holiday road as we entered the bowels of Middle America en route to Ohio. I absolutely love driving cross-country. There’s no better way to get a feel for the sheer massiveness of the USA than four wheels on asphalt. It’s amazing it’s all the same country. The lack of social and political unity makes sense when you drive through it, with everything you see and everyone you encounter, when you juxtapose a parking-lot lunch in Jerome, Idaho, with a long-ago dress-up dinner in the West Village and try to reconcile the fact those alien worlds share the same border.

We arrived for our first overnight stop in Salt Lake City three hours later than planned. We haven’t spent much time in SLC, but even in a city known for sleepy nightlife, downtown after dark on a pandemic Monday seemed particularly lifeless. Which was fine, because we were comprehensively exhausted, and all we wanted to do was eat and go to bed. We found a nearby vegan restaurant, the Vertical Diner, and had a late takeout dinner in our hotel room. After we ate, I took our ailing dog, Max, for a walk and bathroom break. For the past few months, he had been having accidents inside the house, so before we left we lined the floor of the minivan with plastic sheeting and a blanket. We also added anti-anxiety meds to his cocktail of pharmaceuticals. Max led me on a loopy lap around the hotel with nothing doing, not even a pee, and with little in the way of greenery along our path, he barely stopped to smell the smells. He was confused as hell about everything. Moments after heading inside to head back upstairs, he took a big dump right in front of the elevator. Fortunately, the hotel was nearly empty and no one, employee or otherwise, saw it happen. Using a plastic doo-doo bag, I deftly pulled the mess off the plush, burgundy carpet, avoiding even the faintest of smearing or staining, and led Max back outside to place the noxious bag of hot poop in a trash can far, far away from the lobby.

The next morning after checkout, we went back to the Vertical Diner for a sit-down breakfast. We ate outside on the patio next to the minivan so we could keep the windows rolled down and keep an eye on the animals. The Vertical Diner morning playlist segued from The Smiths’ “The Boy With the Thorn In His Side” into America’s “Sister Golden Hair,” and in response I increased our tip by 5 percent. After breakfast, as we rolled along east into Wyoming, both Max and our cat, Cinder, settled into the rhythm of the road and mostly slept. Passing through the moonlike landscape of southern Wyoming, we were barraged by billboards advertising Little America ahead: 140 rooms! Spotless bathrooms! Playground! 75 cent cones! The only sign not selling something gave a shoutout to the truckers: Thank you! Keep America moving. Little America is a strange, man-made outcropping of travel services designed to resemble a quaint small-town village, but no matter how much you cock your head and squint your eyes, it still looks like somewhere you stop to take a crap and treat your dry throat to a Snapple.

Not even 24 hours into the trip, we were already seeing pandemic politics play out in front of us. City folk seemed far more concerned than hill folk about wearing masks, but after passing a billboard in Rupert, Idaho, demanding GET THE US OUT OF THE UN, we realized there were more pressing concerns in the middle of nowhere than a public health crisis. Against this backdrop, Little America was an anomaly – at least among the staff. A masked worker was stationed outside the gas station/convenience store, opening the door for customers and wiping the handles, and social distancing and sanitized hands were politely encouraged inside. Walking in, my dulled senses were awakened by a blast of cold, recycled air and the sounds of U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” playing overhead. I nearly flinched at the dissonance between the song and my surroundings. Even if I tried, there was no way I could properly contextualize peeing in the barrens of Wyoming while hearing Bono sing about civil unrest in Northern Ireland. “Beautiful Day,” maybe; “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy,” definitely. Back outside tending to Max, he dropped his wobbly hips to pee on a patch of grass next to the minivan and lost his balance, collapsing midstream on top of the steaming puddle of piss. I rolled him to his side and gave him a cheap bath with anti-bacterial wipes and paper towels, then hoisted him back into the van.

Broomfield, Colorado, Erica’s birthplace, was our next overnight. A stop in this Denver suburb was the closest we came to a vacation activity, which consisted of driving by the house where Erica grew up before heading to the hotel a few miles away. We stayed at the Aloft, a pet-friendly boutique chain that gives you a bone-shaped doo-doo bag holder at check-in. The Aloft vibe is chic and modern, built for overnight guests and local scenesters alike. The lobby was decked out in low furniture with sultry curves and moody LED lighting. Innocuous indie rock provided a pillow of sound that suggested a sexy, chilled-out evening could – and should – be had by all. In normal times, these are places where pretty people congregate with cocktails in hand, but on this night the bar was closed and the Broomfield bourgeoisie was nowhere to be found. In fact, the lobby was empty except for the desk clerk who held the keys to the cooler holding the pre-bagged ice, which we took to our room and splashed in the whiskey we sipped from our bed while watching syndicated reruns.

At 4:47am, we were jarred awake by the sound (and smell) of Max shitting on the floor at the bottom of the bed. An hour later, a second round, only this time it was full-blown diarrhea. More diarrhea followed shortly after 8, but at least it was on the linoleum. Before hitting the highway for Omaha, we stopped at a pet store and picked up a bag of pee pads and doggy diapers. I didn’t have “learn how to diaper a dog” on my 2020 bingo card, but here we were. The going, while not quite tough, was definitely getting weird.

The ride through eastern Colorado and Nebraska was calm by comparison, but nonetheless strange. At the Reata Travel Stop in Sterling, Colorado, a group of leathery smokers sitting at a picnic table leered at us as we took turns masking up to use the restroom. Inside, compliance with CDC recommendations was roughly 5 percent. We got in and out quickly. At the combination Shell gas station/Krispy Krunchy Chicken on I-80 in Hershey, Nebraska, the etching on the door screamed NO SHIRTS, NO SHOES, NO SERVICE!, but nowhere did we see signs about masks, hand sanitizer or anything else that would tip a time traveler or extraterrestrial to the raging global pandemic. The bathrooms smelled like tinkle and looked like they hadn’t been cleaned since the Spanish flu of ’18.

Eastern Nebraska was a breath of fresh air in more ways than one. Magnolia remarked that she could smell the humidity; Erica said all the trees were making her blood pressure go down. Our skin felt better. The pick-and-eat corn stalks, the big white barns and the green landscape were welcome sights after the windy slog across the desolate western highways. We weren’t quite back East, but we were getting there; we could literally smell it in the air. At the Aloft in Omaha, the scene was much different than Broomfield – still mellow and vibey, but there were actual people in the lobby, and the pool, bar and fitness center remained open. Erica vocally observed this at check-in and the front desk clerk simply replied, “This is a red state.” I purchased two cans of beer at the bar and took them back to our room to drink in bed. We made it through the night with no accidents and, more importantly, no carpet diarrhea. Cha cha cha.

Iowa greeted us the next morning with a gigantic banner in a corn field that efficiently declared JESUS in all-caps Helvetica bold. At the Subway in Newton where we stopped for lunch, we were the only customers wearing masks. Even the town police officer on his lunch break was maskless and yucking it up with the locals. At least the employees were masked, though the perspiring woman who cut our bread wore hers below the nose. We ate in the car.

Our last night before Ohio was spent in Tinley Park, Illinois, at a cheap chain motel less than a mile off I-80, selected for its proximity to the interstate and Thai food. We were 30 minutes south of Chicago and tempted to take a detour in the morning, specifically so we could go see, per Magnolia’s suggestion, Millennium Park’s Cloud Gate sculpture – otherwise known as The Bean. Upon further review, we decided that piloting a minivan through the third largest city in the country with a caged cat and a diapered dog just to take our picture with a giant, stainless steel bean was not the best idea we had on the trip. We were tired, weary and ready to be done with the road, and besides, Chicago was only half a day away from Hudson, and we had years of new adventures and proper vacations ahead of us. Ohio – and the welcome arms of family we had not seen in nearly a year – beckoned.

East, west… simple directions, right? But when I say them and think them, a flood of imagery and emotions overtakes me. I’m sure there’s a psychological explanation, and probably a physiological one, too, but when we crossed the Mississippi River into Illinois, when we were officially back East, I literally felt it. What I felt specifically, I doubt I could truly express with a sequence of words organized into sentences, but the closest I can come to describing the web of history, sensory stimuli, muscle memory, comfort, relief and excitement that washed over me in that moment, is that I felt home.

Reality got flipped on its head in 2020, and we flipped the script on a year that tried to turn everyone’s lives to shit. Several times in the seven-month lead-up to the move, I felt like an actor playing a part in a fictionalized version of my life, or like we’d stepped into a parallel universe or I was having a prolonged out-of-body experience. Not until that hot August day we left Boise, as we took photos of the empty, echoey rooms in the house that was no longer ours, only then did the move feel real. And surreal. And a little bit sad. As much as I had grown to dislike our house, for the past 14 years it had still been our home, where we guided our only daughter into the world, where we laughed and cried and hurled, where we celebrated and struggled, where together we fought a life-altering recession and years of job insecurity without turning our fists toward each other. That little house where we couldn’t get away from each other even if we wanted to – and we rarely did – turned us into adults. Big time.

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