Young in America

Today I hopped in my car with my friend, Olivia, and we just drove. We live on Cape Cod and we left for Provincetown.  We drove with all the windows down even though it was noisy because the AC was not working and neither of us complained
We drove to Provincetown, parked the car, and just walked. We walked up and down Main Street until the heat was too much and we decided that it was the type of weather that demanded a lunch of ice cream and the search for a shady spot. We went into the shops where we liked everything and could afford nothing, but we promised ourselves that we would come back one day and buy it all.  We went into shops where we could afford things, but did not want to buy anything. We walked into stores with items like salt and pepper shakers, garden statues, and tiles that we would not purchase for years.  We went into one store in  which we spent most of our time in a trinket room sitting on the floor trying to befriend a cat.  Olivia agreed to go into a library on a hill with me where the only things we were interested in checking out were the AC and the stairs in order to see how far up we could climb and how far over the harbor we could see. We walked down the middle of the street and almost were run over, and, after a few hours, we climbed back in my car and complained about all the tourists walking in the middle of the street and how they had left their minds at the bridge.
We drove on and we made a couple of three point turns and we tried to never use the GPS and we drove back. Every sign posed the question "Do we want to stop here?". We made a few wrong turns that never felt incorrect going to the North Truro Lighthouse. We decided that $4.00 was too expensive for climbing a lighthouse and we stood on the benches of the observation deck and debated jumping the railing to explore the cliff. We discussed the possibility of being out on the Atlantic we were looking at and looking back at the shore and seeing the curvature of the Earth.  We almost photobombed two monks and then we were off.
We took a left off the main road to go to a beach on the national seashore and decided that we would only go if we could park for free. We wandered down a road that would never stop winding and, when we reached the beach, we stood at the edge of the waves and let the water numb our feet until they hurt too much. We admired the sky and wished everyone would stop talking so that we could just hear the ocean. We discussed how everything at Panera was good and Panera would make really good fries, but they would probably make them healthy or sweet potato fries.
After discovering our craving for sweet potato fries, we drove into town to look for some and hesitated in the doorway of a pub before deciding to try Orleans where we knew we could find some.  As we drove, we contemplated what a long town Eastham was and how we had been driving through it forever.  Olivia found a restaurant that served sweet potato fries and we arrived there for the latest lunch of just fries ever.  We drank the same soda and she drew all the different foods you could make with potatoes while I brainstormed said foods.  We ate until we were full of fries without ever once questioning how healthy they were.
We drove home exhausted from heat, salt air, and summer. We each wore one of my MIT sweatshirts and ventured from my house once more to watch the sunset.  The day ended with pizza, YouTube, and just hanging out.  We arrived home just as the Empty light went on.
The day was not perfect. We were unsure of what to do next sometimes and just "killing some time" sometimes.  It was not wildly exciting. However, the day was Ours.  We might have put on sunscreen too late or not planned ahead well enough, but it was our day to spend and decide.  I like to think that this is what it means to be "Young in America" like Danielle Bradbury's song suggests.  Today was good because it was free. Our mistakes and our successful decisions were our own to make. As Robert Frost suggests, "that has made all the difference".