Roadtrip ‘99 Prelude: Growing up in a Cult
From the ages of 20–29 I traveled the world by myself, eventually getting to all 7 continents, working in Alaska on a salmon fishing boat, hiking the Appalachian Trail, among other adventures. I am publishing the first draft of my travel story as I write it, starting at the beginning, a solo summer road trip. This is the beginning.
Where does a story begin? Where does my travel story begin? I feel like every moment that built up to when I first traveled is part of the beginning.
- That time when I was around 3 and the neighbor kids in the trailer park were teasing me and I told them, “I’m going to run away and then you’ll be sad.” And my shock when that didn’t make them feel bad. In fact they laughed at me.
- That time I was paging through a National Geographic before I could read and I saw pictures of Pompeii and I thought to myself “I want to see that!”
- That time in 7th grade when we surprised Dad with a globe and he traced out the route he would sail if he built a sailboat and sailed the world and I realized other people actually had travel dreams too.
- Listening to Frau O in German class talk about her days backpacking Europe. That’s how I learned HOW you travel cheap, and the fact that traveling had still been going on recently. She had traveled back in the 70’s. Up till having class with Frau O I thought only the richest people traveled and it was basically out of fashion now that the whole world had already been explored.
What would be considered my first trip? Would it be the first one I did without my parents?
- I snuck in the back of our friends’ van so I could go out to the countryside with my brothers. They didn’t have school the next day but I did. We were almost to the destination when I was found out. Snitches.
- When I was 2 and a half I got to spend a week with my grandparents. I was packed and out the door so fast I think I gave my parents abandonment issues.
- My first planned and executed solo trip was when I was 12. I convinced my best friend that we should run away. I just wanted the adventure. I researched wilderness survival for weeks, snuck out of the house at 5:00 one summer morning and made it about 2 miles before I got reported by a neighbor. I had warned my dad a few weeks prior that I was planning on this. He was the one to pull up in the mini van and thwart my 300 mile planned trek. At least he was laughing when he picked me up. “I didn’t think you were actually going to do it!” was his reaction.
- I count my first official trip when I took a 2 month road trip around the Western half of the United States in my 1972 teal VW Bug. I was 20.
People ask me “why?” all the time and I’ve done my best to figure this out. The answer isn’t simple and I think it evolved as I went. Why did I have that first urge? The very first thing was because of adventure and the unknown. Second, I was tired of people telling me the way things are. I wanted to see it for myself. Third, I was trying to be a good Christian and kind of wanted to take the “walk in faith” literally. I wanted to experience what the disciples experienced; to wander aimlessly and be led, to have to fully trust in God to be taken care of and protected. I believe a big influence was being brought up in what some friends like to call a cult since I was 7 years old.
It was SO important to properly follow God. Rules upon rules. The ones I knew best were the dress codes for the women. No makeup, no crosses, no dyeing hair (as if the leaders could actually tell), no cleavage, no bare shoulders, skirts on Sabbath that covered the knee when seated, when wearing nail polish it had to be clear enough that you could see the little moon at the bed of the nail. Sermons lasted at least an hour. Every week I sat quietly drawing, from the age of 7 till 12.
Our church didn’t celebrate any of the holidays except Thanksgiving. We were taught to be separate from the world. Every other month I was bringing a note to class about how it was against my religion to participate in an art project. “I won’t make totem poles out of toilet paper tubes and buttons because they are pagan,” “I won’t make ghosts out of tissue paper and hangers because they are…” I don’t even know what my mother wrote, demonic? Pagan? “I won’t make hearts out of construction paper because they are pagan symbols,” etc, etc, etc.
The teachers didn’t know what to do with me. They gave me the art supplies for the project and told me to “make something”. This was the beginning of my creative independence. For art time I wasn’t part of the class, just like Church had said. I did my own thing and it was accepted. I’m a good girl and rule follower but from the beginning I was given permission to be on my own. I made a car out of a toilet paper tube and buttons. I wrote and performed my own song parody NOT to an x-mas tune when the rest of the class got to form groups to write and sing.
I grew up in central Minnesota. Everything was good and normal till 6th grade when we left The One True Church and we moved out into the country. In one year I lost my classmates and my very best friend from church, her family didn’t allow us to talk anymore because my family was “marked” as fallen members. I was 12. I spent the next few years disliking school more and more, art was my happy place.
We went right into another church, the new One True Church, it had split off of the original church. It was a little more radical than the last church. A little more isolating. The original founder was worshiped as the second coming of Elijah the prophet, and the Great Tribulation was coming by the year 2000. I was encouraged not to have friends in school ie, “of the world” and so I happily obliged. I wasn’t having an easy time anyways and now I had a righteous excuse to isolate myself. When the world is going to end within 10 years school has a low priority. I wasn’t even sure I would make it till graduation. The Tribulation was going to last 3 1/2 years. We would be living out the end times in Petra, Jordan, the Place of Safety. Christ would return after that, so really, things could fall apart in 5 years and still give Christ time to return before 2000 or at most, the Tribulation would start just before 2000 and Christ would return in the middle of 2003? You never know. I was slated to graduate in 1997. That could be right in the midst of End Times.
In 10th grade my art teacher showed me a flier, a call to high school artists to apply to an Arts High School near the Twin Cities, 81miles from home. In that moment I realized something: You don’t have to settle! Settling is only required because of ignorance. I had no idea an arts high school existed. Up until the moment I saw that flier, I was willing to spend the rest of high school miserable in a school I had no interest in. The world is a magical place and I suddenly felt like I had been lied to all this time. You don’t have to “make the most of it,” you can just change it. Explore!
The moment I learned about the Minnesota Center for Arts Education (Now called Perpich Center for Arts Education) my priorities changed. I would NEVER come back to this country school. I decided right there that if I didn’t get accepted into an arts high school I would home school myself for the last 2 years. My teacher helped me curate and round out my portfolio after class hours, I had to do an assignment illustrating 5 words: Expand, Diminish, Spirit, Tension, and. . .color? What was the fifth word?
The tryouts for school entry were on Saturday. Once again, Sabbath Keeper, I got a written excuse to the school and instead of the group try out I had a private meeting with an art teacher during the week. The art teacher gave me 3 markers, a piece of tag board, a pad of post-it notes, and a roll of masking tape, set me up in an empty office and told me to “make something” in 10 minutes. I laughed gleefully to myself as I was left to my own devices once again. It was elementary school all over again. I feel like what I made was rather lame but I only had 10 min. It was a German style house with the crossbeams made of masking tape, the post-it notes for shingles and markers to draw in details.
Anyways, long story short, I cried when I got accepted.
Two years later we had left the Church, I once again lost some friends, and I was deciding my future. Maybe there was going to be an actual future. I applied for a full scholarship to St. Cloud State University. I told God that if I got the full scholarship I would go to college, if I didn’t, I would travel the world. I had 3 goals at the end of high school, travel the world, be an artist, get married and live in a log cabin.
I got half of a scholarship. Runner up. I’ve had 2 life defining phone calls. I still think back on this phone call and when I’m feeling low, I wonder if I made the right decision. The scholarship people told me the news. That the donor liked my art best but my Dad had made to too much money that last year for me to qualify as a student in need but the donor had liked my art so much that he had added to the runner up fund. I didn’t know how much college cost, I didn’t think to ask for time to think about my decision. I thought I had to give an answer right then and there. This was not the clear sign I had asked for but it also wasn’t the full scholarship so with not much of a pause I turned it down. I probably did it in a thoughtless way too. I regret not being a more grateful teenager but in that moment. I had made the decision that I would travel the world. I do not have an art degree or a degree of any kind.
That’s when I graduated, moved home, and worked in a blow molded plastics factory for the next 2 years.
Then the Columbine shooting happened.
Coming up next: 1999, 20 years old, a 2 month long summer solo road trip in my VW Bug. I left home with $400 cash. The most expensive gas was $1.24 a gallon.
Rachael Shores is writing her travel story, one chapter at a time, as a testimony to others that there can be a different way. Normal is overrated. You can follow along with her progress and current travel-art life on Instagram @sparrowshand
Do you know someone who would like to read about a travel adventure? Who could use some ideas and encouragement? Please share. Where does your story begin?