Sal’s journey starts off in New York, where he lives with his aunt. Remi Bencouer invites him to live with him in San Francisco and Sal wants to visit Dean in

The final journey comes because Dean turns crazy again and pulls Sal into his craziness. Dean blows all his savings on a car, drives to Sal in Denver and convinces him to travel to Mexico with him. Their journey through Texas exposed them to huge bugs, land that was all mesquite and wastes, and panhandle grasses. The farther south they went, the bigger the bugs got and the hotter the temperature became. Just before they crossed into Mexico, Sal described the inhabitants of this area as too hot to be doing anything – “cops walking without the swagger, waitresses dirty and disgusting, contraband brooding in the heavy syrup air.” Then they roll into Mexico, the end of their journey through America.

On the third trip, Sal travels to Denver, where he works in the wholesale fruit market for a while – “the hardest job in my whole life.” This time Denver is portrayed as a very ethnically diverse city with blacks, Mexicans and Japanese all trying to find work. But the scene is not one of dreariness but rather taking what one gets. Sal tells of walking by a softball game with the players being all ages and skill levels and everybody having a great time. He even wishes he could be a Mexican or an “overworked Jap.” Feeling sorry for himself and wanting to do something about it, he travels to San Francisco and finds Dean. After getting thrown out of Dean’s house by his wife, Camille, they hitch to Denver, where they party for a few days. His time in Denver this trip directly contrasts with the last trip because of one factor – Dean. When he is with Dean, all they do is party and get in trouble. Denver is now a party town. Eventually they find somebody through the travel bureau that needs his Cadillac driven to Chicago so they take the job and zoom across the country, speeding the whole way and arrive in Chicago with the Cadillac in worse shape than when they got it. Sal tells of Dean doing 80 mph on the curved parts of the road and 110 on the straight parts. They made the trip from Denver to Chicago in seventeen hours with seven total hours of stopping time, with one driver. “Which is a kind of crazy record.” The journey across the heartland of America was full of curves and barren land shooting by, seeing lots of small towns between Denver and St Louis. Every small town looks the same in their eyes. As they arrive in Chicago, Sal tells of seeing hundreds of hobos. As they get farther into downtown Chicago, the reader gets a sense of utter chaos yet at the same time, magnificence. “Screeching trolleys, newsboys, gals cutting by, the smell of dried food and beer in the air, neons winking.” After partying with the Cadillac and then returning it, the two wander into New York and settle down for a while.

On the Road teaches it

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