I am barreling down the perfectly straight and perpetually deserted last leg of Highway 285 in southwestern Colorado. After the dreaded speed-trap ghost town of Saguache, (pronounced "Sasquatch" by East Coast brats working on a ranch for the summer) you can floor it all the way to Monte Vista. The odometer is hovering around 100 mph. I haven't slept in 48 hours.
"Wait, Kate," I say, after a period of thought, to my co-pilot. "I've got it. My million-dollar-idea."
"Let's hear it," she says, maybe rolling her eyes behind her aviators, maybe not.
"Okay, a place where you can rent a room, and sleep in it. Maybe just for an hour, because you need a nap. And they'd be in convenient locations, you know, wherever you might need them. And they'd be clean, and the bed would be soft, and you could just, you know, sleep. We'll call them: Nap Stations."
"Matthew," Kate peers at me over her sunglasses. "I think they call that a motel."
"Oh, my god," I say, laughing deliriously. All around is flat, deserted, terrifying: Ahead to the right are the green San Juan Mountains, where we are heading. Over my right shoulder, in the rear view mirror, is the front range of the Rockies.
"Yeah, well, if I had a Nap Station," I say, after a few dozen more miles have rocketed by, "I would never have thought of a Nap Station. You know?"
The summer after our freshmen year, four of my best friends from Dartmouth and I invaded a tiny mining town called Creede, buried in the San Juan Mountains. We were miles from anywhere two hours from the nearest Wal-Mart. We were working on a fly-fishing guest ranch, as ranch hands and wait staff in the swanky restaurant.
That summer, we were Vikings. "To vike" was a verb. Tires squealing as we hit the road after spending a weekend in another far-flung destination, we'd turn to each other, raise eyebrows or high-fives, yell "Vike!" and start laughing.
The rules of Viking are thus: Get in the car. Start driving. Get out the map. Decide where you want to go. Start calling anyone you know who might live there or anyone who might know someone who lives there or anyone who might have an obscure relative, god-parent or friend who might live there or happen to have a palace there. Inform them that you and your four friends are on your way.
When you arrive, hit the liquor store. From there, take your cues from the Vikings of yore: Pillage, destroy, leave no psyche unscarred. Go rafting, hiking, dancing, drinking or whatever you can find to do until you and everyone in sight is near collapse. Sleep on a floor, in the back of a car or don't sleep at all: Leave at dawn, before there is anyone to say goodbye to, before the hangover hits and head for the next location. Listen to the Kings of Leon til your iPod dies or til you get there. Wherever "there" might be.
In this manner we descended upon the innocents all across the West: From Durango to Denver, Canyonlands, Arches, Moab to Aspen and back again; we left no destination within our imagination's striking distance un-viked.
Now, not even three years later, as a senior, I hardly recognize the 19-year-old I used to be. Looking back at freshmen year and particularly that summer, brings out the usual lamentations ("God, I was so [insert: tan, thin, fun, spontaneous, ragey, whatever] back then") but it also makes me more than nostalgic; it makes wonder if I was really more alive, then.
These days I go around telling everyone "I'm 23 now," as a way of explaining why I prefer to stay in and work on the thesis. I go out less, I sleep more, I accomplish more. Objectively, I'm more productive, and I tell myself I'm more fulfilled. But the thing is, I'm not 23. My old age is self-induced, and I know it. What I don't know is why. I can't pretend I have more responsibilities than I used to, or that there were ever any consequences for my wild years because I don't, and there were not. Have these three birthdays really made me that much older?
I think it is simply that I have been at Dartmouth for the requisite number of years, and it is time to go. I think that in the next place, I'll be young again. I think it's just that I've broken my own rules: Leave at dawn, before there's anyone to say goodbye to, before the hangover hits and head for the next location. Listen to the Kings of Leon til your iPod dies, or 'til you get there.
