Woman, the Mathematician
On traveling alone.
When I told my aunt I was driving from LA to Sedona for my first solo vacation, she told me to wear a hat. “You’re blonde now, wear a hat.” (I had just dyed my fake red hair an even faker blonde.)
“What, I’m gonna get kidnapped?” I gloated.
“You don’t know about these guys on the highways… Wear a hat.”
Then I remembered this Twitter thread I read last year about a girl driving through Missouri who was maybe almost trafficked by two guys in cars without license plates that followed her every lane switch for over 50 miles. OK, fine, I threw a hat in the car. But I wouldn’t wear it. That would be insane.
The highway was packed all the way through Palm Desert anyway. That’s right around when, if you filled up before you left and you have good gas mileage, you’re at about half a tank and you start planning where you’re gonna refuel. Right around when the buildings trickle out and the raw, gigantic desert seeps out over the horizon. There are a lot of lonely trucks, but you can’t take the HOV lane to get away from them because there mostly isn’t one, and where there is one, it’s just you. It’s just you.
OK, fine, I put the hat on. I was 45 minutes away from the Arizona border and still had another four hours to go. I was accidentally doing 110 when I decided to…
