Look to the East, and Don’t Look Back

SUMMER VACATION planning has begun, and it’s time to choose which parts of the country to avoid—or drive through under cover of darkness—in our hybrid car bearing D.C. license plates, a combination that tends to inflame a variety of tribal prejudices.

Drivers of gas-guzzling cars get peevish when more responsible vehicles pass them on the highway (my Prius is old but moves like the wind!), and the D.C. tags immediately invoke ire. Leaving nothing to chance in its efforts to make residents afraid to leave the city, the District of Columbia also emblazoned the phrase “End Taxation Without Representation” on its license plates. This lets hinterlanders know—if they had any doubt—that we hold the Constitution and its authors in lesser regard. To put it bluntly: We’re whiney. (At this point, I’ll simply note the injustice of having no vote in Congress, although few want to read that in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel.)

Over the years, I have given up trying to reassure incensed people on the road that, whatever their complaint about the nation’s body politic, it isn’t my fault. But they can’t hear me at highway speeds—even when I shout through an open window—and I haven’t perfected my shoulder shrug to communicate, “Hey, I just live there.” Worse still, there is no effective counter to the axiomatic efficiency of another driver’s middle finger.

Nor can I smugly enjoy my car’s smaller carbon footprint, particularly when being tailgated by a Ford 150 quad cab with a gun rack. Feeling superior only lasts until he pulls alongside at a traffic signal. (The Bud Light hat I hastily grab from the glove compartment may confer hinterland authenticity, but the NPR sticker on the back window gives me away every time.)

Fortunately, in our travels we have found national parks to be neutral ground, the formidable beauty sufficient to distract visitors from reading license plates or glaring at people stepping from their electric cars without MAGA hats. So it pains me that one of our nation’s greatest landmarks is now off-limits to self and kin.

Along with natural wonders, I recently learned, Yellowstone National Park also encompasses one of the largest active volcanoes in the world. This was a surprise to me, since it doesn’t look like other volcanoes, the cone-shaped ones presumably filled with baking soda and dangerous only if teenage vandals pour in vinegar.

In Yellowstone, the primary evidence of volcanic activity are geysers, where super-heated water periodically shoots up into the air. What tourists may not realize, as they stand outside the protective rope line, is that the heat is coming from a cauldron of molten rock 125 miles inside the earth—like gassiness from bad Tex-Mex—and has the potential for a burp that could take out half the continental land mass of the United States and spew volcanic ash that could block out the sun for weeks. Which means the protective rope line should probably start somewhere east of Memphis, maybe behind a Cracker Barrel.

IN THE PAST 16 million years, Yellowstone has erupted on average every 600,000 years, and the last eruption spread pulverized rock over what are now the 19 states west of the Mississippi. Not to mention parts of western Canada and northern Mexico. (It would have taken out the wall, too.) Fortunately for us, 600,000 years is a long time, with little bearing on modern life. Except that the last eruption was 630,000 years ago. It was catastrophic, and—I’m pausing here for dramatic music, perhaps some rolling timpani—it’s overdue.

Being a well-read person, you probably already knew about Yellowstone’s volcanic history and may have recently visited despite the risks. A visit no doubt marked by nervous hikes through scenic vistas, rushed selfies, hurried bathroom breaks, and anxious urgings to the kids: “Okay, great geyser, now get in the car!” (“But Dad, I can’t find the dog ...” “LEAVE HIM!”) And then finally exhaling with relief when you crossed back over the Indiana state line. Because when Yellowstone erupts, Indianapolis is about as close as you want to be.

Which is why I’ll be vacationing on the Atlantic coast this summer. Or maybe camping in West Virginia. (Is there an East Virginia? My license plate might get a pass there.)