The girl lay in the truck bed, watching highway signs zoom by interminably.  Her long auburn hair whipped in the wind produced by high speeds.  She lay wedged between a camp stove, four suitcases, a wad of blankets, a tarp, and a trunk bungeed to the back of the old pick-up. 

            She lay with a look of extreme concentration tying her face up in a knot of intensity, her hands cushioning the back of her head.  Her eyes followed the exit signs not with conscious effort, but more as a reflex that has been trained in by many, many such days spent on the interstate. 

            Her jeans were acid stained and worn through at the knees, only a few white threads keeping the bony joints in the pants.  A plaid flannel shirt flapped around her, obviously too big, and washed enough to make it soft as down.  A short piece of rope kept her jeans up on her hips.  But even though her clothes begged to be pitied, her entire posture challenged the world to try and mess with her.

            The subtle speech of the beat-up Ford signaled a turn off to a rest stop.  As she stretched, pretending to have just woken up, a tired face appeared above her. With graying auburn hair and a five-o-clock shadow on his face, her father smiled. 

            “Your turn to drive. I’ll meet you back here in fifteen minutes, ok?” The girl nodded and hopped out of the back of the truck.  Since she turned sixteen a year and a half ago and managed to get her license, their nomadic lifestyle picked up pace.

            While most kids had memories of playing tag or catch in the backyard with friends and their parents, her most vivid memories were learning to read from road signs and billboards.  There was a very fuzzy memory of a small blue house with a woman with blonde hair and tinkling laughter.  Fingering a tired looking charm bracelet, the girl walked around the truck, stretching and doing maintenance checks drilled into her.

            For the last fourteen years of her life, she had lived the life of a wanderer of the American Highway system. She had lived in half of the continental states and was working on visiting them all.   The longest she had ever stayed since commencing her journey of the country was seven months in New Jersey where she had broken her cardinal rule: never get close.

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Well, how was that? Annoying, repetitive, a masterpiece? Review!! You know you want to…**flutters eyelashes**

Thanks to Emer for the wonderful summary!