Only Hate the Road When You’re Missing Home

I’m back.

My return journey, including a compelled overnight stop in New Jersey, has deposited me back in Boston, where I’ll have to settle for this boring view from my apartment:

In the past, the return journey has always carried with it a sense of dénouement – gratitude that this happened but disappointment that it’s over. But this time was different. As must as I enjoyed all the sights and experiences of this trip – and I did – when I took that eastbound ramp onto I-70 out of Terre Haute yesterday, I felt nothing but excitement. I knew that in only 2 days I’d be waking up early and once again stumbling down Mission Hill and up Huntington Avenue towards NUSL. I knew that soon I’d be back in my routine of morning classes, afternoon reading, and evening freedom. I knew I’d soon have the chance to complain about classes and professors to people who felt the same way (or who would tell me I was wrong). And most importantly, I knew that soon I’d see my school friends and classmates again and have the chance to share with them more of the “Breakfast Club moments” that made this year so special – and that every mile I drove would bring me closer to that. My speedometer rarely dipped below 80.

Back to the Future

I don’t usually make concrete New Years’ resolutions. I do, however, find some meaning in that moment when the calendar rolls over to the next year. It’s a time to reflect on the past year, put away its baggage, turn the page, and look forward. With all that in mind, while I wanted to add a final chapter to the story of Steve and the Magical Boat, after the new year it just felt strange to cross that line in the other direction. So I was ready to be done with this trip, for blogging purposes at least.

But just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

We’ve discussed this before, but let’s take a moment to revisit one of the purposes of this whole operation I’ve got going on here. As all 3 of my longtime readers know (actually, now that I think about it, there may be more like 6), I’ve always tried to use this space to capture my impressions of an activity, a place, or a time, and to preserve them. That’s why I often stay up far too late just to be able to write an entry on the day its events occur (protip: you can tell how late I stay up by the quality of the writing, which is inversely proportional to the number of hours since I last saw the sun). Even when my computer self-destructed in Kanab, I made sure to write out the day’s entry longhand on a legal pad (why I thought to bring a legal pad on that road trip is still a mystery).

That’s why, when I got home from the Land of the Midnight Derricks and was too tired to write anything coherent, I resigned myself to the fact that the moment had passed and that the last day would just have to remain a mystery, much like the last day at Yosemite (when, by the way, I climbed up 1,000 feet in a mile and a half. There. Now it’s in the blog.).

But apparently my mid-sized sedan full of followers is a vocal bunch. So, since today’s New England sowgasm has left me with an unplanned day at home, I figured I’d give it a shot.

Where did we leave off?

Come Sail Away

And now for something completely different.

Things have changed since our last encounter. The ominous specter of law school became the best decision I’d ever made, as I spent the semester doing intense, yet intensely enjoyable learning and having all manner of new experience. And, in the process, I made what are sure to be lifelong friends. In short, I loved every minute of the past four months.

That said, it’s time for a break. 

We Have Come This Far, Always Believing

What a strange day. It didn’t really have a beginning, since I went right from writing last night’s post into watching breaking news coverage of what at the time looked like a random crime spree around Boston but that was getting national coverage because all the media in the country was already there. When I decided to go to bed around 2:30 that was still all it was.

From there, things got weird. The first important piece of information is that the Motel 6 sheets were made of some strange material that got much warmer than most sheets. The other key piece of information is that the TV in the room had no sleep timer. Combined, these factors led me to wake up several times during the night to adjust the heat, while also hearing a version of the story that was slightly different from the last one. It wasn’t until 8:00 when the alarm went off that Morning Joe proclaimed “it’s all connected, folks.”

A Dog & Her Boy

Unfortunately, nothing particularly interesting happened today (Note to self: Do not start posts with "nothing interesting happened today" if you want people to read it). Which is not to say it was a wasted day. It got me in position to begin my assault on the Blue Ridge parkway in the morning, but more importantly it gave me some valuable information about my travel companion and gave me a general idea of what it will be like to drive another 1,800 miles with her.

Everything Old Is New Again

So here we are again, on the eve of another road trip adventure. Having procrastinated all day, my bags are finally packed, my itinerary set, and my dog sufficiently confused. In the morning the two of us will head out once again towards the Blue Ridge Mountains. This time, the goal was initially to go back and see the places on the Blue Ridge Parkway that were closed when I was there last February. But then when I found out that the governor of North Carolina will personally send you some pretty good swag for driving the entire 469 miles and becoming an “end-to-ender” I decided to try that. Throw in a little bit of Great Smoky Mountains National Park that I missed last time (namely Clingman’s Dome, the highest point in the park), some waterfalls in nearby Transylvania County, and a couple of strategic stops along Skyline Drive at Shenandoah, and my week was pretty much filled out. As usual, here’s the plan, courtesy of Google Maps: 

  

A Thoroughfare for Freedom Beat

This is a public service announcement to all Canadian taxpayers: Your government has been stealing from you.

You pay the equivalent of over $4.50 a gallon for gasoline, much of it taxes, yet you have the highway infrastructure of a third world country. Either your government is full of waste, fraud, and abuse (more than even the US government), or the Trans-Canada Highway (which, as far as I can tell is not yet complete) is being built across the most hostile terrain ever encountered by road makers. I’m skeptical about the latter, since they manage to make roads out of ice every year. So boreal forest can’t be that tough to build on.

Yet there I was, paying $63 for a tank of gas when I’d never before paid more than $50, and yet every local road I took until mercifully limping onto the big 104 was as unpaved as unpaved could be. I’d call them dirt roads, but dirt would have been a welcome alternative to the ridiculousness I encountered.

General Malaise

A better place to be

For I Must Be Traveling On Now

In the immortal words of The Lion King’s Rafiki, “It is time.”

Six months to the day since crossing the Delaware Water Gap and retuning To New Jersey after my 11,000-mile journey west, I again stand upon the precipice of another grand Elantra adventure. Granted, this precipice is not quite as steep, nor is the adventure quite as grand, but it is perhaps more necessary.

For schools in New England, the week of President’s Day is known as February Vacation – a 10-day school recess coming after the post-New Year depression and before the furious 6 weeks of instruction leading to April Vacation and which includes the first rounds of MCAS testing. As Gandalf would say, it is the deep breath before the plunge. Knowing that this would be coming, and suffering from premature cabin fever after last summer’s travels, I began contemplating plans for February Vacation in October. It was never a question of if I would be going somewhere; it was a question of where I’d be going.

The Threads of An Old Life

What a long strange trip it’s been. Over the past 36 hours things have changed drastically as I’ve been plunged headfirst back into the real world. In some ways it feels like I’ve been on the road for years and today marks the beginning of a new life. In other ways it feels like I climbed through the wardrobe into Narnia and while I’ve lived a lifetime in another world, only minutes have passed back here in reality. But to top it off, today I experienced a new phenomenon that really signals the end of the summer – stress.

I Hope This Works!

Welcome to my blog! 

(Wow. I feel old and out of touch by saying it that way, but there it is.) This is mainly just an introductory post to help me get the hang of things and work out the kinks.

This will be the first time in almost 10 years that I make a concerted effort to do daily writing of any kind (I know I still kept a camp journal my first summer working at Kutz, but I don’t remember how long I kept it up after that). What’s the occasion that’s prompted me to give it another shot? This occasion: