In the stifling desert heat of an early August afternoon, I had taken the self-guided tour of the University of Arizona's campus in Tucson. I ate lunch at a fast-food joint along Speedway Boulevard and headed out to Old Tucson as a pale orange evening set in. I saw the stunt show, bought a wind chime with a howling coyote and some cactuses on it and had a picture taken of me wearing a dusty cowboy hat, the brim pulled down far on my forehead. The Clint Eastwood effect just isn't the same when you're wearing a golf shirt and a pair of khakis. Satisfied, and fully tourist-attraction-ed out, I headed back to the motel.

It was then about 11 p.m., and I was standing outside the dank laundry room at the Rodeway Inn along Interstate 10 south of Tucson. More than five days of nearly nonstop driving across this vast and spectacular nation of ours will ruin an otherwise clean and fresh smelling laundry bag.

A family of five was swimming in the murky pool across the parking lot. They were not making a lot of noise, but they were splashing more than their share of water out of the pool. Sporadic traffic was buzzing past on I-10 and I was listening to the swoosh of minivans mixed in with the rumble of massive Kenworths and Macks.

The heat was finally down, and thin strips of cloud cover were sliding past overhead, across the otherwise empty sky. On the other side of the pool, the bell rang on the tire strip at a Texaco station. Lost in thought as a mid-desert city saunters through another night around me, I was experiencing a true American moment. My 21st-century cowboy outfit continued to slosh around in the old washing machine. I am growing up. I was having a moment of actualization. Things were getting clearer.

At any given juncture, America is not and cannot be defined as a television show, or a sporting event or a political speech. I realized for the first time, standing there in a dark motel parking lot, that not only was I more than 2,000 miles from home with nothing but a few changes of clothes and some crackers, but also that I was truly and undeniably alive for perhaps the first time in my life.

Life here in central Pennsylvania, and three years of the college experience had, despite all the great things that come along with them, slowly rocked me to sleep in a spiritual sense. And as a member of the first generation not to have a mass identity applied to us by the time we reached 18, I think we might all be in need of a little introspection from time to time.

My example is specific to my outlook the same way that a superb volunteer opportunity may open doors of realization right here in our own backyard for someone else. The point is that along with finding it in the traditional locations, a renewed, or redefined, or even discovered sense of spiritual identity and vitality are well within our reach if we "move" in some sense to get the process started. For me, that was a physical movement, as seen through a shotgun quest across the nation in a Honda Civic to see the Grand Canyon.

The effects of my journey have been far-reaching. I now connect my time in Tucson and the crisp, clean feeling of the desert to my appreciation of music. I don't know exactly why, but Carlos Santana's version of "Oye Como Va" has that driving-through-the-desert-at-90-mph-with-the-windows-down-and-a-great-song-on-the-radio vibe to it for me.

I feel more patriotic too, and I don't say that as an afterthought, having just talked about my renewed connection to Santana music. Maybe I only saw 15 dozen of the same waffle houses along the interstates I traveled, but I feel like I have more of an appreciation for the scope, the breadth and the sheer majesty of the nation now. The Grand Canyon left me speechless for nearly 15 minutes, and I "stood on the corner" in Winslow, Ariz.

Maybe I really don't know any more about my country now than I did before that night, while I looked at the sky trying to pass the time as a load of laundry finished up. Having the facts straight, though, isn't a prerequisite to upstanding citizenship last time I checked. But you do have to care enough to want to question yourself and your surroundings.

In my mind, when I need to "center," as they say nowadays, with myself and/or my country, I watch that Texaco station on the Benson Highway across the parking lot, and the smooth, dark interstate beyond.