The Highways That Carry Us Home

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AFAR.com: The Highways That Carry Us Home

It wasn't until I was well into adulthood when I realized that people went on vacations, actual trips to Disney World or visits to the world's largest rocking chair. Growing up (mostly) as at-large citizens of the Cherokee Nation, whenever we traveled, we went home.

That's what my Auntmom and I are doing this morning, the sun just beginning to peek over our shoulders. It's July of 2021, but my mom's oldest sister has been Auntmom to me since I was a kid. Still is, even though I'm middle aged with a kid of my own. I grew up with an Uncledad and a bunch of powerful Aunties, cousins more like brothers and sisters. I guess it's just our way.

Auntmom and I are headed east through the green peaks and valleys of Central Virginia to Interstate 40. COVID numbers around the country have improved. People are hugging loved ones again, and it's past time we do the same. I-40 will take us all the way back home to the Cherokee Nation in Eastern Oklahoma. There, we'll see my 87-year-old grandmother JoJo who lives in a care facility.

Auntmom and I leave early. Both vaccinated and caffeinated, we're just happy to be in the same space, sharing the same air. She tells me all the family gossip, and, like always, I ask her for old stories about growing up Cherokee and very fundamentalist Christian, stories about what she left and where we're going.

My parents are going to meet us in Oklahoma. They'll drive up from their farm in Texas with my eight-year-old daughter, Cypress, who has been visiting them for the past two weeks. We'll all converge at JoJo's and spend a week together drinking cherry limeades from Sonic, gorging ourselves on Braum's butter pecan ice cream, and taking JoJo on drives through her precious Cookson Hills. When the week is up, my parents will drive back home to Texas. Auntmom and I will load Cypress up with us and head east, back to Virginia where Cypress will start third grade in person.

Somewhere in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, I see a familiar sign of four cascading hearts, red, yellow, and orange–the chain store rest stop of road trips past. "Let's time our stops with Love's,"  I tell Auntmom.

"I love Love's,"  she says.