The Dome 2022

Unexpected Road Trip My father and I had been planning a road trip for years. He always said that the best way to experience the US was a road trip. Throughout my fathers childhood, he took several trips with his father on special occasions. His first year of middle school, first year of high school and when he graduated. Before my grandfather passed away, my father promised to continue the tradition of road trips.

A month before my first day of middle school I turned 12 years old. We celebrated my birthday at home with the rest of my family. My little brother and sister love birthday parties. I remember them waking me up early that morning and singing happy birthday. At the time I was annoyed, but looking back on it I think about how much they love me and how much I miss them right now. The rest of the day was a blur. I think I don’t remember my birthdays very well because I don’t enjoy them. My birthday is one of the worst days of the year.

My birthday passed and I was annoyed, but excited for the trip my father and I had planned for the next 3 weeks. After the party, we packed the last few items into the car, said our goodbyes and hit the road.

Coming from Montana the road trip started slow, lots of fields, oil rigs and empty land. My father and I passed the time by listening to our favorite songs, all the classics. We loved AC/DC. Ever since I was a little kid I remember my dad playing old rock and roll songs in the car and he would make me play guessing games to figure out which band it was. He made me fall in love with music, and because of him I know a lot of music from the generation before me. We sang for hours and my father, like he had done so many times before, would cover the radio screen so I couldn’t see who the band was. He would always give me three guesses before he finally told me. I wasn’t having my best day of guessing and I started to get frustrated, but luckily we needed gas and pulled over to pee, get food and drinks and fill up.

Thirty minutes after we had gotten back on the road, my father noticed a man on the right side of the highway. The man was covered in dirt, tan, leathered and it was very obvious that he had spent some nights outside recently. He carried a dark bag, with letters on it, probably his initials. His clothing was torn, and I could smell it just by looking at it. He wore a hat with words on it that had been worn off, only a few letters remained. The hat appeared to have been red at one point, but the color had worn off. I looked over at my father in the driver’s seat and could see that he was thinking as we approached the man slowly in the car.

My father rolled down the window and said, “Hey there.”

The man replied in a soft, raspy voice, “Hey how goes it”.

My father replied, “Pretty good. Where are you headed?”

The man paused for a moment and stared off into the distance as if he were really thinking hard about the question. As this conversation was occurring I sat awkwardly in my seat, scared and unsure of why my father had pulled over on our special road trip for this weird man. The conversation continued as the man snapped out of the weird mental fog he was in and he replied, 43