The road trip is a historical rite in America. From slapstick movies to the Freedom Riders, pioneers to Thelma and Louise, people in this country have taken to the road to determine the contours of its unfathomable vastness.

The expanse widens across endless landscapes, mountains and plains, rivers and powerful oceans, and across the cultures and identities that reflect the tangled diversity that has always swelled the American dream well beyond its bloodied sutures. We all live here and yet what we’re doing together is dumbfounding. We’ve never been a melting pot and if we are instead a tapestry, as our best selves sometimes contend, we sure the hell are tattered.

There are no inevitable truths in America. Only more questions. Yet, America is going camping this summer and we’re going along for the ride.

“Let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together.

I've got some real estate here in my bag . . .

Cathy, I'm lost, I said although I knew she was sleeping

I'm empty and aching and I don't know why

Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike

They've all come to look for America

All come to look for America.”

Simon & Garfunkel