What I’m Reading This Month:June

Written By Erica Calhoun

America The Beautiful? One Woman In A Borrowed Prius On The Road Most Traveled by Blythe Roberson

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“I had set off on a Great American Road Trip in the Kerouac tradition, asking what if a woman could find individual adventure too - and found instead the collective. Anything beautiful, in the natural world or in the promises of what America can be, comes from collective action, I’d realized. It comes from a sense of shared responsibility and love.”
— Blythe Roberson, "America the Beautiful?"

Have you ever wondered what would happen if a woman went on a cross-country road trip all by herself?  If you’re thinking that she might be murdered before she crossed state lines, I’m here to dispel that erroneous assumption. Blythe Roberson has single-handedly filled the gap in travel literature by writing about her own experience traveling the U.S. as a single millennial woman on a mission to collect as many Junior Ranger badges as she can.  Blythe Roberson, comedian and author of How To Date Men When You Hate Men, is a midwesterner with a love for hiking and the outdoors.  Roberson put her writing skills to use in this sarcastically humorous travel book that will leave readers wanting to borrow their dad’s beat up “Prius” and travel the continental U.S.  

“On January 17, 2019, Mary Oliver died, and I sat at my office desk ignoring my work to read her poem “Moments,” about actually living your life when you’re alive, about how the lamest thing you can possibly do is be cautious.
Fuck, I thought. I gotta quit my job.
That was the moment I decided, and two months later I did. And then, as you legally must after quitting your job, I went on a Great American Road Trip.”
— Blythe Roberson, "America the Beautiful?"

 This travelog begins with Roberson suddenly deciding to quit her job as a researcher on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.  From there she decides to plan a “Great American Road Trip” to visit most of the national parks in the U.S. that she hadn’t been to before.  Borrowing her step-dad’s prius, she set out from her parent’s place in Wisconsin before winding her way west through the most renowned national parks, down the Pacific coast, east across the scorching hot Southern states, and back to Wisconsin.  On her two month adventure, Roberson aims to enlighten her readers on many profoundly deep questions relating to the problematic history of national parks, climate effects of park visitors, racial disparities, and how a woman can cope without male company for extended periods.  

This book turned out to be a must-read that I never knew I needed.  Travel literature is not a genre I can say I’ve ever been remotely interested in, possibly due to the fact that they were all written by men.  The ability to connect with this book just on the sole basis that the author and I are both women, is a significant testimony to how many gaps we have left to fill in literature, art, and the rest of the world.  This idea connects strongly with Roberson’s theme of women finding freedom in their own sovereignty which has, for the most part, only belonged to men. 

“Women have written fewer books about being free on the road or in nature for the obvious reason that women are less free than men are. A woman born in Thoreau’s time couldn’t have spent two years at her friend Ralph Waldo Emerson’s property, hanging out in a cabin and dicking around.”
— Blythe Roberson

 Roberson experienced the struggles of finding freedom as an individual from the very beginning of her journey.  She was reminded countless times by friends, family, and strangers, who predicted her death, that a solo woman on a journey is likely to wind up as an unsolved murder.  It reminded me of all the times I hid solo trips and plans from family and friends just so I wouldn’t hear the “Don’t go alone, there’s predators lurking everywhere” lecture.  This idea has invaded our culture and keeps women from being adventurous explorers and experiencing freedom the same as men. 

“When I told people I was about to drive around America alone, the first thing each person told me was that I was going to get murdered. Sometimes, very occasionally, they would tell me I was going to get murdered and would instead give a tip for not getting murdered.”
— Blythe Roberson

The sheer amount of social themes addressed in this book is impressive, and I commend Roberson for touching on so many issues. Not only did Roberson address the gender inequality issue of traveling alone, but she addressed the racial disparity in national parks due to minorities not visiting parks as much as their white counterparts.  I have taken up hiking in recent years and have found that I’m usually the only black person on the trails. She also tackles discussions on climate change and the human footprint on the earth due to the amount of visitors to national parks. Some may find Roberson’s touch on these themes to be shallow, but I respect her effort as it shows a genuine care for the societal problems in our country.  Besides, it would take a book as big as the Bible to discuss, in depth,  all of the issues needing to be addressed. 

The most captivating part of Roberson’s travel log is not so much her description of the national parks, but her poetic and humorous tangents of dialogue throughout the book.  A paragraph about the least visited national park can devolve into her telling readers about a man who died of botulism from eating expired canned goods and the history of the moose and wolf populations in a park.  

“Every choice was fraught. Like which of my baseball hats would not mark me as an East Coast elitist? A “New Yorker” hat was an obvious no. My Yankees hat marked me a little less obviously as a New Yorker, or at least marked me a New Yorker who enjoyed “Sports” instead of “Long Articles by Jill Lepore.” I had a Harry Styles hat, a simple black cap that just said “Harry” - this could have gone either way if not for the fact that people who saw me in this hat uniformly assumed it referred to Harry Connick Jr.”
— Blythe Roberson

America the Beautiful? One Woman in a Borrowed Prius on the Road Most Traveled, is not your typical travel book.  1. It’s one of the few travel books written by a woman, and 2. it’s focus is not necessarily the travelers destinations, but the deep social issues uncovered along the journey.  I highly recommend this for anyone with a love for travel, the outdoors, or looking to get some ideas on national parks to visit.  It certainly gives you the itch to go on your own “Great American Road Trip!”

If you liked this selection, then perhaps you would be interested in more books recommend by The Feminist Book Club. By entering the code READMOREWOMEN you can get 15% off your first subscription order from The Feminist Book Club. They sent me this copy of “America the Beautiful? One Woman in a Borrowed Prius on the Road Most Traveled,” as part of my subscription. Each month they will send you a new book of literature written by women. More importantly, a portion of sales from their subscriptions are donated to a different organization each month, such as - Native Women’s Wilderness, Safe BAE, and Rights4Girls. Click here to check out their blog, sign up for a subscription of tantalizing books, or listen to their podcast!

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Erica Calhoun
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