For my own reasons, I've decided to write more about my experiences. I've been enjoying it greatly, and as a few peers have persistently told me, others might enjoy it as well. I'll give it a shot, but don't get your hopes up. For the first rambling, as promised, I'll focus on my westward adventure.
6/29/2016
6/29/2016
I am home. In the
past month or so, I went on a bit of a road trip. I had been planning the trip for a while,
however, I made it a point to not make any concrete plans. The general idea was to drive to the west
coast and paint my way back home. I’m
happy to say I survived and didn’t get myself into too much trouble. I could go on and on about the trip, or as I
like to call it, my adventure…but I’ve decided to keep most of it to
myself. For those of you who are
interested, I’ll give a somewhat lengthy, mildly entertaining overview.
I drove 10,282 miles in 25 days…this means I have a raw
elbow from my console, new calluses from holding the steering wheel, a sore
heel, and a case of sciatica that will probably linger for several more
days. My car is worse for wear, as I had
expected…many quarts of oil were added, a new battery was purchased, and
several roadside stops were made to ensure I could keep driving on. It’s safe to say that I spent more time in
the driver’s seat than anywhere else. I
drove for 15+ hours on several occasions, slept in the driver’s seat at picnic
areas and parking lots, and ate many meals while cruising down the
highway. Funny enough, as much as I
tired of driving, I ended up finding a lot of comfort being in my car. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but I’m pretty
confident I could live in my car. If it
wasn’t for a deep connection to my community and a great love for my wife and
students, I’d probably give the whole “modern nomad” thing a shot…at least for
a little while.
I ate a lot of beef jerky, trail mix, and chicken
sandwiches. I went through several cases
of water, Gatorades, canned iced teas, and local brews. And thanks to my food friend Larry, many
Stroh’s…but that’s a whole different story.
I ate tacos on the beach, ice cream in the mountains, and a couple steak
dinners with good friends and former students.
I was offered a free meal at Monterrey, presumably because of my rough
appearance, and got caught in a “pay it forward” chain at an In-N-Out
Burger. I forgot to eat a lot while
driving, but I usually compensated by having a good, sit-down meal at the most
“local restaurant” establishment I could find.
Highway 40 was a great route westward and where the
adventure really started. There was
plenty of route 66 nostalgia and roadside attractions to enjoy when I needed to
stretch my legs. My first long break was
in Amarillo, Texas, where I stopped for dinner at The Big Texan (no I didn’t
try the 72 oz. steak challenge), watched an amazing sunset over an enormous
wind farm, slept for a few hours, and then watched the sun come up over
Cadillac Ranch…quintessential American road-trip stuff. I then pushed on, stopped briefly in Santa Fe
and Albuquerque, and then traveled through the desert to my first destination,
The Petrified Forest. I spent several
hours wandering through the park trying to understand the “wood petrification
process”, went on my first hike of the trip, and admired the Painted Desert at
several dramatic vistas. I decided to
paint and set up my easel just as the wind started really picking up. I found out really fast that painting in the
desert is no small task, and ended up giving up on the painting. Instead, I did a small oil sketch from the
driver’s seat, mostly for the sake of capturing the subtle pastel colors that
I’m unfamiliar with. I found myself
captivated with the desert. I don’t know
that I would like living there, but I definitely found it interesting and
enjoyed passing through (my experiences in the desert later in the trip would
have me feeling differently). After
leaving the park, I drove through a lot of open land, saw real cowboys herding
cattle, waved to a man sitting in a lawn chair in the middle of the desert, and
moved on to Arizona’s meteor crater. I
saw the crater…there’s not much more to say than that. By nightfall, I had made it to the south rim
of the Grand Canyon.
