Week One

Day 1: Tuesday
Lowville, NY to Rochester NY
 

Day 2: Wednesday
to Forest Glen Preserve County Park, Danville, Illinois

10/19/00

This is my first entry. I am hoping to write some digests from the road as I go, if only to prove that I am cool enough to have packed a computer, printer, digital camera, and cd burner in my Beetle for a cross country road trip.

But this is the problem. I do not want to digest my trip just for the sake of letting people know where I have gone. I will tell no inane stories of weird cars we have passed. It will all have to fit into some greater context. I will still have to have that spark of a great idea, that one line that can evolve into a good story.  I have to say that in two days of travel, I have not found such a line in my brain, or elsewhere, for that matter.

Ok, maybe I can bend the rules to describe a great place. I am sitting a picnic table as I write. The tent is to my right and the Beetle is behind me. There is a scummy pond surrounded by golden and red hued tress in front of me. And the sun is warming my left side. It is summer again as we travel west and I feel like mine has just started, that the one that just passed was not one at all. Wait, did a summer just pass? I am fairly sure one didn't. I did not wear shorts. It was neither hot nor sunny. Today it is summer. Yesterday it was summery enough for me to say ìhow glad I was that summer had finally started,î even though I knew full well it is October. Yesterday, I said it was a Freudian slip. Today, I say, I was right. It is summer. I woke up enough before dawn to see the sun rise as I chased at least thirty deer on my four mile run. I ran by prairie preservation, and native grass lands. I ran by accessible trials. I ran by the arboretum. This is a good park, and highly worth the trip if you are coming this way.

It hit me yesterday while we were driving across Indiana. It hit me that I was in a car far from home. My first reaction was,î What the FUCK am I doing here?î I guess that is still my reaction this morning. I feel like I have a lot to do at home. I guess that tells you what my last few months have been like. They have been busy. And I have been busy. And I have felt tied down, and scheduled. It is a little strange to be free. I don't feel free until I can just enjoy this day. True, I say, if you are thinking that I have enjoyed some freedom taking the run and the time to write this morning, but I still have that nagging feeling. I feel that I should be elsewhere, that I should be making money, that I should have more than driving and relaxing to do.
 

Day 3: Thursday
to St. Paul, Minnesota

Day 4: Friday
St. Paul, Minnesota

Day 5: Saturday
St. Paul Minnesota

Day 6:
to Makoshika State Park, Glendive, Montana

10/23/00

Getting to St. Paul on Thursday took all that we had, well ok, maybe not all. But it was a long day. I was thinking at the end of that day, ì there is no way we will make it across Montana.î And then Friday, people reminded me how far it was to Seattle. I had remembered that it took two days. We will be lucky to do it now in three. It is long days. And the beetle is a fatiguing car. It wears you down somehow. I can be more specific. It is small and bouncy. It is tiring to get bounced, but more so to be constantly vibrated. It's an all out muscle fatigue. It bugs Allison more. I remember the trauma of it from when i first drove the Beetle back from Oregon. Now I am somewhat used to it.

St. Paul was for the most part uneventful and enjoyable. We got a new Cd player for the beetle, and watched a couple of movies. We shopped for running shoes, jeans, food and all sorts of things. Allison squeezed in fun things with her friends between errands. Repacking on Saturday night was almost harder than it had been on Tuesday morning. I ran on Saturday. I am always proud of myself when i run, but especial when I have not run in awhile. I had not run in almost two weeks before we left because I was so busy.

I am writing as we cross Montana. Allison is driving and I am being my nerdiest, journaling on my computer, making web pages and
writing emails. I guess I have covered this, already.

We had another great campsite last night. Again we just went with the sign that told us there was camping at the exit. We were greeted with a campground right off the exit with a great view of the on ramp and highway, but we felt we could do better, and again followed signs through all these little roads. to a state park. This one is in Badlands and dinosaur country. It was so dark when we arrived we couldn't see anything. It was exciting this morning to wake up and see it all. I really wanted to run, but it was cold, with frost on the beetle and in the tent, and there was no shower so I would have had to stay sweaty all day, or something.

We hiked a short trail before dawn this morning. It was toward our goal of walking four miles a day even though goals are really suspended until we have passed the dead line of getting to Seattle. Who can resist a walk through the badlands when you have come all this was. Besides there was the promise of dinosaur bones. We didn't see any fossils, but it was a nice walk all the same.

Day 7:
to Some dark deserted trailer park too near the highway in Idaho, but it was free.