We depart Kiptopeke State Park, on the eastern bank of Chesapeake Bay, a little after dawn, the sun a burning penny behind us. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel sends us below and above the waterline intermittently, our hired car descending into the tungsten-lit tubes of the tunnels before ascending again into the blue-grey of the morning. We are in Virginia, where European settlement of the North American continent began, and in less than a week will be on the Pacific coast, where three centuries of relentless movement—westward expansion, manifest destiny, progress, conquest, empire—has led it.
Matthew Clayfield
Matthew Clayfield is a journalist, critic and screenwriter.
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