Jack Kerouac and John Steinbeck on the Californian Coast

By Kat Clay

The moment I saw him I knew he was the man I would marry. A twenty-minute conversation changed my life; in those first moments we both said, “I’ve always wanted to drive across America like Jack Kerouac.”

Five years later, with a diamond ring on my index finger and a mop haired man in tow, we were leaving for the United States, September 1. The USA was the first stop in a two-year journey across the world. We were doing what we dreamed of in that first moment of falling in love.

While I am enamored of On The Road, Kerouac’s most famous novel, I am more partial to the Dharm...