The Reading Road: Straight from the pages

We were standing in the grass on the edge of the road overlooking the rolling hills of the Dolomite Mountains outside of Chiusa Klausen, Italy. A light rain misted us as we struggled to interpret a bus schedule in a language neither of us spoke.

Then, a midsize SUV came driving up the road toward us. “Let’s hitch,” my traveling companion suggested, as he threw his thumb up into the air.

I immediately envisioned myself as one of my literary heroes, Sissy Hanshaw  from Tom Robbins’  novel “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.” Sissy was a master of the art of hitchhiking. With her giant thumb in the air, she traveled the roads of this country with ease.

I’ve always been envious of the characters in my storybooks. When my father read “My Side of the Mountain” by Jean Craighead George to me as a child, I was convinced that described in those pages was possible for me.

I could run away from home and survive in the mountains, harness a pet hawk and live in a tree. That was never attempted, but I still think about it every time I’m camping.

So this wasn’t the first time I had pictured myself as Miss Hanshaw. The tale of her adventures on a western dude ranch inspired me to pursue my own career as a cowgirl: I actually worked on a bonafied, howdy-y’all-hoot-and-holler dude ranch in the Colorado Rockies in 2009.

The sleek black car pulled up beside us, and the driver rolled the passenger-side window down. I leaned toward them and asked for the town up the road.

We then clamored in the back and off we went, jetting up the side of this mountain with two German-speaking Italians, flying around corners, cutting it close on cliffs and taking it all in.

I bounced around in the back seat, a giant smile cutting across my face, and I thought of the paperback book carefully stowed in my backpack — “On The Road” by Jack Kerouac, a beat writer from the mid-20th century. This scandalous method of travel was straight from the pages of Kerouac’s tale, a story of his numerous trips across the country hitchhiking, driving stolen cars and picking up hobos for gas money.

I pictured myself writing a stream-of-consciousness scroll, just like Kerouac, about this adventure — just letting my thoughts flow, without stopping for punctuation or paragraph breaks. Words just flying along like that crazy mountain road.

They let us out in the parking lot in front of our trailhead, concluding our unforgettable vehicular experience. We would have to hike the rest of the way, our packs on our shoulders, to our lodge 2,094 meters up.

For the first half of the summer, I penned a column from Venice, reporting weekly on my experiences studying abroad in Italy. Now that I have returned to the states, I will continue to report on my adventures as I road trip across the country, comparing my experiences to those of my favorite literary heroes.

I hope to share some tales of real life adventure while also reminding readers of the best books to pick up when seeking a thrill from the comforts of your own home.