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Yeah, it’s Raining a Little
In our two months on the road in 1978, whenever things got rough, Joe and I had a little routine. One of us would say, “It could be worse”, and the other would reply, “It could be raining.” It only rained once that summer, and it caught us in Jackson Hole. We found shelter in a shopping center and watched hail the size of baseballs pound down so hard that the parking lot flooded. We were unbelievably fortunate. Well, today, my first day out, it’s raining. I’m holed up waiting for it to blow over. And it could be worse. I’m not on the Andrea Gail. Perfect Storm
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Delay of Game
Blame the list. The list of things to do. A pile of things gnawing for my attention. Most of them were unrelated to the trip. There was a ceiling in bathroom that I’ve been replacing. And a fence at my son’s house that we just got started on. And then there was the five hours spent on the phone with two large multinational companies trying to get the products they sold me to work as promised (yeah, I’m talking about you, Sony.And don’t pretend you didn’t hear me, Intuit.) Which explains why I’m not on the road yet. And why I still can’t get the camera to upload the pictures…
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Mother’s Day
On Mother’s Day, I think back about how bold my mother must have been to drive me and Joe a ways up the Thruway and drop us off to begin our cross-country journey in 1978. And how much worry she had to put aside to support us in this adventure. I imagine that my father had a lot of tears to dry once they got back to Staten Island that day. Given the state of communication in the late 70’s, we spoke only two or three times all summer, and except for those few times we stayed with family, she had no way to know where I was. At the…
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Test Drive
Like every endurance event, this one will require some training and practice. I was out in Colorado for a week in the early spring. Leaves were budding, prairie dogs burrowing, and late winter snowstorms still blew atop Long’s Peak, a few thousand feet higher than where I set myself up – Fort Collins. Somehow I persuaded my graduate-school-age son, Robert, who prefers walking and biking to getting in his car, to join me for a day of hitchhiking. We walked through the campus of Colorado State University, where he does research and teaches about plant biology, with a cardboard sign that read “Boulder” in black magic marker letters…
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Boots, Bugs & Ballads: A Trip to the Attic
There are two old backpacks in the attic, one green, one rust-colored. The rust-colored pack is a large open sack without compartments or frame. The grey and green one has an aluminum frame on back, an upper and lower compartment and zipped pockets all around the sides and top, adornments created to give the illusion that I can keep everything readily accessible and at hand. I think I’ll take the green one. Of the three tents in the attic, two are suited for three, perhaps four people, but one sits low to the ground, weighs very little, and could hold a human and a dog, or two average-sized humans. It’s…
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Keys
It is true that you can’t go home again, but this I know is also true – you can leave home again. So the question is – what are you taking with you and what are you leaving behind? Me, I’m leaving keys. Lots of keys. Multiple times each day I go through the ritual of checking my pockets for keys, wallet, phone. I have so many keys. There’s my car, my wife’s car, the pickup truck that plows my parking lot. There’s the key to the building where I work, and nearly a dozen door keys once I get inside. Keys to my son’s house, my bicycle lock,…
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We’re all on the Road Sometime
Answers to the questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Who? Most people ask me, are you going to do this alone? My reflexive answer is yes, it’s just me. Forty years back, it was Joe at my side, but Joe is in India working and when he gets home he has a high school graduation party for his son and a titanium hip, mild diabetes, and bills to pay. He is too busy. And he loves me but thinks I’m crazy. So yes, I will be hitting the road solo, but I will not be alone. Since I was a young child, I have never felt alone. Wherever I am, I…
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There and Back Again (Maybe)
On or about the 11th of May, depending on the weather and my general state of health, I will step out of my old grey house on the Limestone Creek, built, we have learned, as a cobbler shop for Yankees heading south to fight in the Civil War, and I will make a right turn on Watervale Road. At that point, three miles north of the old Cherry Valley Turnpike, I will turn my backpack toward the south, stick out my thumb, and begin what I expect will be a 10,000 mile journey across the American land. This will be in fulfillment of a plan that came to me some…
