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To call Erin Hogan a nervous traveler is a bit of an understatement. That is not to say Hogan, director of public affairs at the Art Institute, is an artistic rube. Far from it. She offers — in between fears of her abandoned carcass being picked over by marauding cattle — perceptive thoughts about art and what it means to the average person. But, clearly, the ultra-urban Hogan is hardly a cool customer. Yet, to her credit, she is determined to spend a few weeks on the road, mostly by herself, without any clear idea of where she is going. All she knows is that it will be somewhere out West and will involve land art, including a visit to Robert Smithson's iconic Spiral Jetty (her title is a play on Smithson's work and a reference to her durable Volkwagen Jetta). Most anyone who has traveled alone will identify with the self-deprecating Hogan's sense of paranoia, feelings of vulnerability and "what if" mutterings. "Spiral Jetta" also happens to be one of the funniest and most entertaining road trips to be published in quite some time.
