to the West ends when Sal learns, only 40 miles away, that Route 6 cannot take him across the country. Sal effectively notes that "it was my dreams that screwed up, the stupid hearthside idea" (Kerouac, 10).Despite Sal’s realization of his foolish optimism, he goes on to make the same mistakes throughout his numerous cross-country trips. Before his trips, Sal encourages the reader to think that maybe this time he’ll be successful (Campbell, 455), thinking that he can make his money last by being frugal and not using it foolishly, for example. Instead Sal spends money in bars, wastes money on whiskey and apple pies, and buys booze for other road companions. This leaves him poor, depressed and unlike Campbell says above, turning the reader towards a more pessimistic interpretation of the novel, rather than an encouraging and hopeful one.As Sal continues down the road, his hopes get bigger and the consequences of disappointments grow larger along with those hopes. Late in Part One when Sal, staying in Denver with the Rawlins’, takes a trek to the mountains with a group including his hosts and Tim Gray, aspirations for the short trip run high. Sal notes that "only a few days ago I’d come to Denver like a bum; now I was all racked up sharp in a suit, with a beautiful well-dressed blond (Babe Rawlins) on my arm" (47). He is on top of the world, assuming nothing can or will go wrong with their trip. Again, he is showing this idea that the readers will buy into his story as a positive one, as Campbell would say, encouraging the readers to believe that good things will happen. Bringing him back to reality though, the trip follows the pattern of frenzied excitement to depressing end, when a gang of drunken teenage boys ruins a perfectly good party and a fight in a bar puts an end to an already ravaged evening. In the end, Sal ends up broke and the whole group takes "the sad ride back to Denver again" (Kerouac, 5...
