Santa Barbara, CA > Yosemite Flats, CA > Pinole, CA > Santa Barbara, CA > Kingman, AZ > Flagstaff, AZ > Santa Fe, NM > Colorado Springs, CO > Kearney, NE > Iowa City, IA > St Joseph, MI > Stowe, NY > 16 Ridge Ave, Pittsfield, MA
It is March first. Johnny has already left with the U-Haul for Yosemite Flats while I wait for Lee so I can turn in the keys to the beach/bachelor apartment I’ve lived in for seventeen years. There is great excitement flavored with melancholy. I stand on my stoop with the slightest view of the Pacific through the neighborhood palms and pines. How much I will miss it all is total conjecture at this point.
Mary Pat comes down to say goodbye and I tear up for the first time today. She, and Chris, have been wonderful neighbors and I always enjoyed our short chats.
Todd H and Gerry show up to also say goodbye, a gesture that truly hits my core. We look through the empty apartment and Lee arrives. We are both emotional when I give her the keys. We hug and again I’m on the verge of crying. It feels good to be so appreciated. Who knew?
A final moment with my two dear friends and I hop in the jeep. It is loaded for a month on the road. Route to be determined.
It’s a blur driving north until I pass by Refugio Beach and realize, after months of planing, that I am on my way. The Jeep has been tuned-up and it’s a smooth ride past blooming almond orchards and swarms of spring bug hatches, the windshield is smeared with their guts and tiny flecks of wing and legs. Gruesome. It starts to rain and when I get to Johnny’s new house he is waiting with the U-Haul. Wisely we opt to wait until tomorrow to unload and instead head to the Snow Line Saloon for dinner at the bar. Big burgers and cold beer replenish our energy, not quite enough to get to work on unpacking, but enough for another beer.
We are both slightly emotional thinking about our changes, Johnny has been in Santa Barbara longer than I have, it’s a massive, but much needed, move. We are truly comfortable with our decisions and find it hard to contain our excitement. Lucky us.
I’m up early and take a morning walk around Johnny’s new neighborhood. It rains on me and then turns to sleet and then back to rain. The forest is full of bird song. I see little grey birds, hawks, turkeys, ravens and a field of robins, my favorite sign that spring is eminent.
I’m happy for Johnny. He’s talked about living up here for a long time and now he has made it happen. He is thrilled.
We unload the truck and drop it off after a lengthy hassle with with the U-Haul corporate assholes. They changed our drop-off destination to an unreasonable place so we ignored the change and left the truck at the spot where I made the original reservation.
The next few days are spent building furniture; bed frames, tables, chairs, and after a reasonable amount of work we retire to either the Snow Line, the Oak Room or Bass Lake for a late lunch. Johnny has been up here a lot and by now he knows every bartender in the area. Not bad for a guy who drinks nonalcoholic beer.
I wake up to a beautiful scene of a storm clearing above the low mountains to the east. Snow has fallen overnight and I take a walk as the morning light reflects off the dispersing clouds. The birdsong is raucous, earth’s grand alarm clock.
It’s very comfortable and quiet here, and not for the first time I feel relief at leaving the chaos and hustle of Santa Barbara. The timing is right even though I never thought it would happen. I was suffering from stagnation, the worst stage of complacency, which takes away some of the joy and spark of everyday experience.
On a grey morning we head north to El Sobrante for a visit with the Kecheleys (Marcie, Max & Kevin)and Kampas (Larry & Darcy). In my motel room while waiting for our Uber to take us to Larry’s I note that I am really on the road with only the vaguest plan about which routes I will take. It’s not surprising that I’m more prone to slightly aimless wandering than to have a set itinerary. I’m at my best when I’m not beholden to schedule. It’s always been a strength of mine.
Larry takes us to a nice Italian restaurant and we have dinner at the relaxed bar. It’s great to see him and we have some hysterical reminisces about wilder times. Little did we know that we would be adding to our list of adventures this very evening.
Larry recommends a nightcap and as Johnny and I are still in a celebratory mood we dare not refuse. Antlers Tavern is a big neighborhood bar with an enticing neon martini sign out front and tonight there’s an unmistakable energy in the place. We take a seat at the long bar and I look around and humorously notice it’s an older crowd. A normal Wednesday night?, I wonder. There is a disproportionate number of greying men with berets and little round shades. Maybe not so unusual being so near Berkeley, a bastion and haven for old beatniks.
A band starts up and delivers great renditions of some blues and jazz standards. The bass player has a strong resemblance to Phil Lesh. The musicianship is several flights higher than your average bar band. They play for a while, forty minutes or so, and then their set is over and another group takes the stage. More of the same kind of tunes played with talent and passion. Bass player number two also resembles Lesh, which, I muse, maybe also isn’t so unusual here on the East Bay.
For a while different musicians alternate, each playing a few songs before switching off again. Eventually every beret makes it to the stage. All the guitars look vintage and lovingly cared for. One guy plays the trombone like Curtis Fuller. Then a tiny black woman comes to the stage with her baritone sax and digs at my heart with her joyous intensity. Joni is her name and I’m amazed at the size of the horn compared to her. She swings it with grace. She captivates me and I wish there was time to hear her story. Anyone who plays like that has a good one. She finishes a song and is out the door before the band kicks into its next number. A fascinating interlude.
Later in bed, with my ears still hearing the music, I am once again reminded that on any given night a nondescript barroom can be the scene of transcendence of a kind that gives us brief pause from our daily strifes and anxieties. An on this night, Antlers Tavern in Pinole, California was the place to be.
The next day we have lunch with Marcie and Larry and then spend the afternoon at the Kechley’s and when Kevin gets home from work we go to dinner at a neighborhood Mexican restaurant. Then back to the Kechley’s. It’s so good to finally get together. On the way to their house I notice I have a headlight out in the Jeep. Max, a recent Eagle Scout, gets home from work and has the bulb changed pretty quick. He then gives me a spin in his car, a very quick Lexus. We are back at the motel before nine, tired, both Johnny and I fighting head colds. I have a shitty night’s sleep.
After an early Lunch at Saul’s in Berkeley with Darcy and Larry we head to Santa Barbara. Another fine adventure with Kampa behind us. We changed Johnny’s plan to fly down and me to head east on the 80. My schedule is flexible and I check and see if there are rooms at The Lemon Tree and there are. I get Johnny safely home and we make plans for me to be back in Yosemite Flats at the end of June. We agree to keep this to ourselves.
While checking in at about seven p.m. I can hear the loud bar from the lobby. Gerry is working so I know who is occupying the stools. I have parked around the back and get my room key as stealthily as possible. The last thing I want is to see the usual crew, who I have already said goodbye to once. In my room, a great value, I drink a beer and unwind from the drive.
I bought a giant map of the United States, my plan is not to use GPS on the entire trip. Of course my twenty-two year old Jeep has no navigation system so I would have to rely on my phone if I somehow get spun around. Which is always a possibility. As for music, my CD player having succumbed to the wear and tear (Entropy!) of over a hundred and eighty thousand miles has had a Ratdog disc jammed in it for years now, I am using an ancient iPod with over eight thousand songs on it. I hit random shuffle this morning and am interested to see if synchronicity will play any part on the drive.
Later, after the bar has emptied out, I go down and have a glass of wine with Gerry. He’s pleased by the surprise, which was my plan. I swear him to secrecy about my brief appearance. I’m in no mood to explain my reasoning, even to the people I love. Nobody gets this more than Gerry.
March 8th — Kingman, AZ
Eight hours on the road. Probably too much driving, I’m exhausted. Most of the day was exciting though. When I turned toward Needles I was on a new route for me. A part of the desert I’ve never seen. The vistas continued to expand the further southeast I drove. The sky all day was a wonderful inviting blue. When everything is fresh for me I try to grasp the small nuances of discovery.
There wasn’t much traffic and I cruised the lonely road with the occasional impossibly long freight train moving slowly west. Dust lingered, a slightly lighter hue than the bronze colored desert. The openness deceiving in its vastness. I drove for hours and the far away mountains seemed not to change.
My motel on historic Route 66, by the time I arrived late, was indeed an oasis. The town is surrounded by austere mountains whose silhouettes are now dark against the sky as stars start to fade into view. The night air gets crisp early at 3300 feet.
I had a quick dinner in the quiet motel bar and now I’m back in my warm room pondering the map. I see how close I am to the south rim of the Grand Canyon and that’s my plan for tomorrow. I told myself that this journey, unlike, say Basho’s or Sandoka’s, would have a more directionless sense to it. Even though there is a ultimate arrival point, Western Massachusetts, the timeline will stay flexible.
Flagstaff — Aspen Suites
At the Jeep this morning is a large grey bird with a shapely curved beak. A type of thrasher I believe.
Moments after getting on the road Journeyman by Jethro Tull comes on. An odd, disjointed song about a commute that gives a sense of restless movement. Ian Anderson seems to be saying that even short trips can be full of apprehension and consequence.
For me however, it’s an easy and beautiful drive through the Kaibab Forest to Grand Canyon Village which on this late winter day is uncrowded.
I wander the rim path for a while seeing elk, red tails, and ravens. I stop often at secluded outcrops where I sit and gaze down at the river and across the seven mile expanse to the north rim. Again my sense of distance is out of whack. As I walk for an hour while looking down at Black Bridge, a suspension bridge across the Colorado, it appears no farther away then it was when I first viewed it. It seems a tiny black line on the muddy brown river. But according to my map it’s six miles away and almost 5000 feet below me.
I scramble down some rocks and find a large slab and loll in the sun contemplating the eternal processes that formed my vista. It’s too magnificent to photograph with my primitive iPhone. You have to be an Adams or a Porter or a Werling to capture the wonder. Feebly, I click a few pictures.
Sitting in the high desert at over 7000 feet on a day with a blue sky and a slight enchanting breeze that carries a scent that I am unfamiliar with I think of Ed Abbey. This was his territory. It is just after noon and the light is sharp and there are no shadows. The air is clean and the details of the cliffs are clearly defined. I feel a part of something ancient.
Hunger (for exactly what though?) breaks my reverie and back near the village I find a picnic table hidden away in some short trees that provide no shade and have a snack; half a sandwich, granola and chocolate.
I drive the Desert View Road to the watchtower, a replica built in the 20s as a visitor center and was meant to resemble Native Pueblo structures. I could see it from a distance looking tiny against the walls of the canyon. Instead of waiting in line an hour to climb the seven stories to the top I walk the grounds and find another secluded spot to sit for a few minutes and gaze the distances; space and time. The afternoon air cools down and I make my leisurely way to Flagstaff where I find a delightful motel, The Hotel Aspen Inn and Suites. It’s buildings look modern with a grey and bright green front facing Route 66. My room is small but clean and artsy. I like the feel of the place, staff included.
Flagstaff, as my great friend Joanna agrees, is our kind of town. If I remember accurately, Ed Abbey got arrested here. Vagrancy. A few short turns from vagrancy myself, I take a walk downtown, Mount Humphreys looming in the final light of the day. A beautiful mountain, (Joanna climbed it!) snowcapped and steep, I can’t help but stare.
I find a typical brewery, they are rather generic and everywhere these days, and have an unremarkable IPA then some lobster macaroni and cheese. Not exactly Abbeyesque. He would have no doubt tracked down a darker joint for a steak and whiskey. I feel my authenticity challenged as I survey the kids politely watching sports on the flatscreens.
I walk up Route 66 in the cold night air, it’s already in the thirties. Flagstaff is at almost 7000 feet, high country, Humphreys is well over 12,000 feet. The sky is clear and my fleece jacket no match for the wind, so it’s back to my warm room. Just to be safe, to prevent it from freezing, I bring in the wine from the Jeep that I ended up not giving away and am lugging to the Berkshires. Before sleep while listening to a freight train I read some thousand year old Chinese poetry about the good reasons for staying away up in unpeopled mountains.
Autumn Thoughts, Sent Far Away
We share all these disappointments of failing
autumn a thousand miles apart. This is where
autumn wind easily plunders courtyard trees,
but the sorrows of distance never scatter away.
Swallow shadows shake out homeward wings.
Orchid scents thin, drifting from old thickets.
These lovely seasons and fragrant years falling
lonely away — we share such emptiness here. Po Chü - i
Santa Fe, NM
I was up early and stopped and visited the Meteor Crater near Winslow, AZ. On the short drive from Flagstaff Mount Humphreys fills the rearview mirror on this bright morning. I’m best when I am an off-season tourist and the visitor center is uncrowded. I have the upper viewing platform to myself and spend a half hour trying to comprehend this 50,000 year old, mile wide and over five hundred foot deep crater. The hole and the austere high desert surroundings certainly make for an eerie landscape. Earth feels closer to space and the workings of the universe more real.
I visit the other viewing spots for different perspectives and once again take a few unremarkable pictures. It’s just too big and looks unimpressive on my small screen. I want to scramble down to the bottom for a different perspective but it’s forbidden for some reason. Standing on the edge of the crater in the middle of hundreds of miles of desert and billions of miles of space I feel what Abbey called “A sweet but awesome loneliness.”
The gift shop is full of alien trinkets, shirts, mugs, the usual junk. What possesses humans to equate something that should leave us in awe and humility about the cosmos with cartoon toys of little green men? For me it’s enough to feel connected to something just barely at the edge of my comprehension. I have an odd twinge of desire knowing something like this could happen again. The dynamics of existence are exhilarating.
The employees are in a conversation about Bigfoot. Apparently the creatures live in the surrounding scrub desert. They are convinced of this. Foolish me, I always thought that they dwelled in the Pacific Northwest. But I guess we take our myths where we can.
After a last look at Mount Humphreys, still impressive in the distance, I move along planing on getting to Santa Fe for dinner. I slow down and check out Gallup and then Albuquerque realizing that I might be moving too quickly. My old mantra that says there is simply too much to see couldn’t be more appropriate these days. The desert seems to grow larger as the miles pass. Long flat stretches full of haunting beauty. Enchanting indeed. I often pull to the side of the road and just take in the rocks, mountains, faraway high forests and the occasional million-car fright train. The dryness is … what? Strangely addictive..
Santa Fe (is there a Saint Faith?) is bigger than I thought it would be and still not using my Google Maps I drive around on a few main streets until I find the hotel I booked last night. I’m amazed at how many homeless/panhandlers there are. I didn’t see anyone begging for money in Kingman or Flagstaff but here they’re on almost every intersection on a long street lined with hotels, restaurants and stores. Not unlike Santa Barbara.
My hotel is under construction which gives it an aura of shabbiness. But my room is clean and the price is right. And I am very close to downtown. The plaza is centered around old and narrow streets that wind crookedly in all directions. I walk up and down past stores selling all manor of western apparel. I admire with an air of indifference a $1000 cowboy hat knowing damn well I look out of place in my Carhartt jeans and twenty year old purple fleece jacket. Nonetheless I am as real as it gets. The author of my own story. Anyway, I have always looked foolish in a Stetson. The salesgirl gives me a sultry smile no doubt thinking never judge a book….
I find a restaurant with an inviting upstairs bar, The Thunderbird. A single beer goes right to my head and I remember I’m still at seven thousand feet and haven’t had time to really acclimate. I have been too long at sea level.
I find yet another bland sports bar closer to my hotel and have a snack, then tired and sated I’m in bed before nine.
Santa Fe
This morning I go to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, long on my list of places to visit. She is an artist whose work has always made me emotional. The Santa Barbara Museum of Art have two of her canvases in their permanent collection.
There’s no way to explain why her paintings touch my heart. I see one of my favorites, Winter Cottonwoods. I stare at it, walk around, come back and stare at it some more. I’m mesmerized. Other paintings captivate my imagination and I return several times to one of Stieglitz’s barn at Lake George and one of a starlit night.
There is a display with some of her many cookbooks that I wish I could flip through.
After two hours of immersing myself in the art of the great lady I need some air. The gallery begins to get crowded so I take a stroll around the plaza while trying to absorb what meanings I can from such a grand body of work. In those paintings are all the things (emotions) that have scratched my heart since I can remember; solitude, peace, Nature, loneliness, longing, serenity, desire, it’s all there in my imagination/heart/essence. Joseph Campbell writes, “One should not be afraid of one’s own interpretation of the symbol.”
Museums overwhelm me and Georgia’s was no exception. A few hours is not enough time to grasp it all. I will need several more visits and I vow to be back here again next year. This morning I already decided to spend another night in Santa Fe and kept my room. It’s still early, before noon, and seeing it’s a short drive I head up to Los Alamos. It’s a wonderful road with picturesque vistas and, like I do when I find someplace interesting, I wonder what it would be like to live here.
I find the small museum near the houses where Robert Oppenheimer and Hans Bethe lived. You can tour Bethe’s and it’s a very cool place and gives a good idea of what a modern home looked like in the 1940s. Big tiled bathroom and bright kitchen. The house is small but comfortable. Oppenheimer’s house isn’t open to the public yet but I peeked in the window to see what the library/living room of a genius looks like. Not very different from mine!
Coincidentally, last night Oppenheimer, the movie, won a slew of Oscars. I haven’t seen it yet but I read the brilliant book, American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin. I recently gave it to AP who I text to tell him where I am.
I think of all the great scientists who lived and worked here and wallow in my own ignorance. To imagine Richard Feynman walking these paths at the beginning of his career gives me the chills. This little “town up the hill” changed the world. Humanity has never been the same.
I remember back to drinking an old Sherry bottled from the 1944 harvest, the last before nuclear fallout spread across the planet. The astute gourmand Steve Acronico pointed this out to me as we enjoyed our nightcap after closing up that dark warm bar. A lifetime ago….
I drive back enjoying the scenery, the largeness of the snow on the peaks and the openness of the land and the sky.
Here in Santa Fe is the famous Coyote Cafe, Mark Miller’s restaurant. I ate at the one in Vegas several times, once with my friend Malamut, but tonight I’m not in the mood for southwest cuisine. I find a Asian joint called Jinga that reminds me of those hidden east coast gems or the long gone China Castle in Santa Barbara. Moody dim lighting, full bar, jazz playing. I sit at the bar, as I usually do, and order a much deserved (really?) manhattan and shrimp curry. Both delicious.
My road weariness starts to catch up with me and I decline a second cocktail. I’m asleep early but now up late, restless and full of an anxiety that seems to come from everywhere. The ever looming question of what the fuck am I doing? I fell back asleep by four and now it’s nine. A later start than I hoped for. But once again I remind myself that I’m not in any hurry to be anywhere in particular.
“I’m frightened all the time. Scared to death. But I’ve never let it stop me.” Georgia O’Keeffe
Colorado Springs, CO
I take a quick look at Taos, smaller and more rustic (I think) than Santa Fe and I debate staying the night but seeing I’ve only been driving about an hour I keep going.
The iPod plays Ramblin’ Man and it feels damn good to be zipping along quiet roads and being reassured about my movement by Dickey Betts, that smooth easy voice.
I find myself along the Rio Grande del Norte and I stop to take some pictures of fly fisherman for Mark and see that I am off the grid. No Service! Which is always a slight thrill for me, being somewhere that is too far away to be connected to what is, let’s be honest, mostly nonsense. It makes the sound of the water, the birds and the wind all the more alluring as I watch downstream the long casts of the wading fisherman. I linger and woolgather.
Up into Colorado I pass through the towns of Antonio, Manassa, and the charming San Luis at 8000 feet. I am surrounded by mountains and rarely see another car on Route 160. Traffic becomes less sparse on the 25 as I head north. The Sangre de Christos are far off and seem to be pulling me toward them. I pass solitary houses and I imagine living out here where contemplation of the big questions just might drown a mind that already is susceptible to wild swings of melancholy.
The sky starts to darken and there are, on and off, big rain drops. Pike’s Peak disappears in the clouds as I approach Colorado Springs where I find another nice hotel, The Academy.
I didn’t know you could drive to the top of Pike’s Peak. I remember looking at pictures of it when I was in Boy Scouts (Troop 66) and really wanting to climb it. The forecast for tomorrow is 100% snow so I guess that a drive up is not an option as the news is already predicting road closures. It starts to rain harder so rather than explore the city I read for an hour and then have dinner in the lobby bar, The Falcon. It’s early and not very crowded but I can hear kids playing in the pool across the courtyard.
A British guy at the bar asks if I’m a trucker and I wonder if he thinks I look the part with my flannel shirt, a black Carhartt I bought in Alaska, and a R. Crumb (Mr. Natural) hat. I tell him I’m more of a wanderer which is mostly true. I like to think of myself as only slightly disheveled but not without a noticeable touch of grace. An Enlightened Rouge as the Allman Brothers would say.
Kearney, NE
I meander east on little traveled backroads sating my peripatetic disposition. Near Limon, CO I pass a few thousand windmills. They fade at the horizon in all directions. Odd vistas. The landscape becomes more flat and I find the grasslands no less impressive than the desert.
My original plan today was to see Fort Robinson where Crazy Horse was killed but it is closed for the winter. I think this sordid piece of history shouldn’t be ignored.
I pull into Kearney just at dark. It is sandhill crane migration season and I book two nights at the Microtel Inn & Suites. It’s windy and damp out but my room is big and warm. I get a pizza, drink a beer, look at maps and, appropriately, read some of Jim Harrison’s poems. He loved Nebraska.
Today I drove on rutted dirt roads to the Rowe Sanctuary to see some cranes. I was too early and the docent recommended a viewing site a few miles away. He also said I should just park near any cornfield as that’s where the birds have been this week. I drive along the Platte River and see cranes in every field. Hundreds of them. I stop and get out of the jeep and the cries and calls are impressive coming from all directions. Birds are constantly taking off and landing. It looks chaotic in its picturesque randomness. The grandness gives me the same feeling I had when first seeing grizzly bears and blue whales. Nature going about Her majestic ways without care or notice of my speck-like existence. It’s reassuring to feel so minuscule.
I drive out to a boardwalk on the bank of the slow flowing Platte. Cold rain slaps my jacket and I see no birds on the river. I warm up in the Jeep and head back to the cornfields where the morning commotion has increased. It’s joyously raucous. I watch birds through binoculars until the sleet sends me back to the Jeep. I drive around more gravel roads seeing what I guess to be thousands of sandhill cranes. I’m later told that a million birds will fly across Nebraska in the next few weeks.
A brochure tells me I’m only a half hour from the Crane Trust Visitor Center so I check it out. They have lots of cool photos and exhibits. I find some instructions on making origami cranes and am too clumsy to fold the tiny pieces of paper with any amount of skill. I think of DF’s friends making him 1000 of the paper birds when he was dying. I remember the joy it brought him when he told me about it. I put the instructions in my pack, buy a few stickers and take the trail to an observation tower near the Platte. I see no cranes and am reminded of seeing Peter Matthiessen at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History read from his book about cranes, Birds of Heaven. He read a passage about a long trek in Asia only to have the guide repeat over and over to him, “No cranes!” I consider Matthiessen the greatest of writers and his elegance and erudition was powerful at that reading.
There are a few bison in the distance and I take a footbridge over the river and follow a wide path to the west. The day stays cold with momentary squalls of rain or sleet. I’ve added a fleece under my heavy Carhartt so I’m warm enough if I keep moving.
On my return trip I take some roads that run parallel to the Platte, a river that here in Western Nebraska is slow moving, very serene, and somewhat muddy. At its widest it appears very shallow but I think this is deceiving.
Back at the Rowe Sanctuary I walk alone to a viewing shelter and enjoy my solitude and break from the wind and rain. I can’t believe there’s no one here. But I don’t see a single bird either. I hear Matthiessen’s voice, “No cranes!”
I spend the rest of the afternoon at various cornfields watching countless grey birds pick at the leftovers from the fall harvest. They randomly take off and land with a grace that has evolved over eons. Every so often two birds will dance, hover briefly then continue eating. They are loud and the noise is continuous like storm waves hitting the shore.
At one point a flock a birds a mile long flies over me and once again trying to process such majesty brings on thoughts about the enormity of all experience. The noise of the wingbeats is astonishing. The hundreds of silhouettes moving through the slate sky is a reassuring (although deceiving) reminder of the fecundity of Nature. It takes a minute to catch my breath. The fact that this million crane migration is oblivious to my presence just adds to the wonder. I shiver, and not from the cold.
I drive past a tall gravestone marking Boot Hill. Not, of course, the famous Boot Hill at Tombstone but a similar mass grave full of poor cowboys buried so hastily that they still had their boots on. It’s a gentle sloping hill and like the Custer Battlefield time has softened the gruesome reality.
It is raining harder when drive by Fort Kearney so I opt not to walk around.
Home at the Microtel reading and watching the rain with the songs of the cranes ringing in my skull. I treat myself to a half bottle of champagne from the wine stash in the back of the Jeep. Matthiessen says that the sandhill cranes are no doubt the most ancient of the cranes, and birds in general, noting that every other species has shared traits with them. Researchers have found 9 million year old fossils. Think about that!
Whooping cranes also make the same migration here through Nebraska. I didn’t see any of these massive white birds as they are still rare. Not even 500 left in the wild. Less than a hundred of them will fly by here compared to almost a million sandhills. They are on the verge of extinction and fiercely protected. A hard contrast with their cousins and a call that shows us that the wilder something is the more fragile. I think of grizzlies, condors and blue whales.
The sky darkens as I walk over to a nearby steakhouse, The Coppermill, and have a salad and sirloin, and a single manhattan as a reward for a day out in the grey sleet and damp cold.
My room at the Microtel is the first one I’ve stayed in on the drive that has a Gideon bible in the drawer. I feel like the majority of humanity has been poorly represented when it comes to travel reading material. In the back of the jeep I have a small canvas bag of miscellaneous books that for one reason or another did not make it on the moving truck. I select The Four Nobel Truths by HH The Dalai Llama. I open it at random and read; “In fact genuine love should first be directed at oneself.” And, “There is not so much difference between us all.” Perfect semi enlightened reasoning. I place the book under the Gideon in the slim, well intentioned hope of letting someone (a housekeeper?) know that other options for wisdom are available.
I once attended a lecture by The Dalai Llama. Cher was in the audience that morning and I’m not ashamed to say that her aura was on a similar level as His Holiness. But that is another story…
Iowa City — 3/15/24
I looked out the window this morning to see cranes flying past the hotel. An hour east of Kearney I was still seeing hundreds of birds in the cornfields and great flocks in the air. Wild magnificence. I reluctantly pass by Lincoln feeling I should put more miles behind me even though I had originally planed on staying at The Cornhusker, a favorite spot of Jim Harrison’s whose Essential Poems is beside me on the front seat as I drive.
Eastern Nebraska into Western Iowa is a ride over great rolling hills with calming vistas. Interstate 80 offers a peaceful reverie. I take piss break in Council Bluffs, lovely country. On a long side road it’s with sadness that I realize I’ve left the cranes behind. The world becomes less fascinating without them.
Music today; Lots of Charles Lloyd, Focus, and Rush. Neil Peart was another restless traveler and his writings are full of trying to come to an understanding about his case of wanderlust. An affliction I’ve dealt with my entire life.
Three days in a row the shuffle deals me a different version of Dylan singing Oh Sister with its curious line, “Time is an ocean but it ends at the shore.” The rendition from Budokon is particularly mournful.
The hotel, The Graduate, is downtown near the old capital building and close to the Iowa State campus. The lobby has the feel of a library complete with shelves of books that on closer inspection I notice are mostly props. My room is cleverly designed combining some old furnishings like a roll top desk, an antique ice box that holds the mini fridge and a black rotary phone. On one wall is a caricature of Kurt Vonnegut and on another is a poster of men’s wrestling holds. I text the picture of Kurt to AP and the wrestlers to Todd E.
I walk around the city near the Iowa River and streets crowed with restaurants, coffee shops and many Irish bars, which tempt me but I don’t go in. All are quiet and I’m told it’s spring break so all the students are gone to warm destinations.
I have some wings in the lobby bar and for a while I’m the only customer. I offer to buy the staff a round, they seem bored and shyly decline my offer. I assure them I am not embarrassed to drink alone.
I am back in my room early. The floor I’m on has a reading room but the chair in my own room is perfect tonight. I look up at Vonnegut with his wild hair, large inquisitive eyes, cigarette in one hand, Slaughter House Five in the other. In another book, Mother Night, he wrote, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” A line that has stuck with me for forty years. I’ve always tried to be good at what I’ve pretended to be. And now, sitting under the gaze of the great writer, I wonder exactly what I’m going to pretend to be during the next few years of my life. I honestly think I’ve exhausted the possibilities of my older acts. Time, of course, will tell.
The Graduate has not provided a Bible and I feel no need to leave one of my books seeing the opening sentences to Slaughter House Five are there on the poster. I imagine this might jolt the occasional hotel guest to pick up the book. Incidentally, I read it every couple of years, usually when I’m searching for something I discovered when I was very young. It refreshes my thinking.
3 a.m. Wide awake reading Harrison. This is from a poem called Cabbage;
It’s after midnight in Montana.
I test the thickness of the universe, its resilience
to carry us further than any of us wish to go.
We shed our shapes slowly like moving water,
which ends up as it will so utterly far from home.
Before I fall asleep again I decide to skip Chicago. Iowa City was big enough for me.
St Joseph, MI — Silver Beach Hotel
I pass out of Iowa over the Mississippi and into Ohio. I stop at an overlook on the eastern bank and watch the river’s gentle flow south to the gulf. Rain keeps me from lingering longer and wishing I had a brighter day to contemplate the storied waters.
It’s cold, the wind blowing hard off of Lake Michigan. My first view of a Great Lake. Big waves and sand squalls are whipping up the wide beach. Tall stately houses overlook the water and I stand in the parking lot as it slowly starts to become dunes. Tiny flurries flutter past and even bundled in heavy jackets, the purple fleece and the Carhartt Pak & Johnny gave me, I’m chilled.
The hotel is a few blocks from the lake. Another place under construction and it’s loud with workers stomping around. My room has been renovated already so it’s new and clean. At a restaurant by a marina I have a very mediocre fried perch sandwich. My disappointment is somewhat tempered when the bartender offers me a complimentary blended Brandy Alexander, complete with whipped cream and nutmeg. An odd yet satisfying gift.
After dark I walk the small downtown vacillating between a nightcap or not and I decide the freezing air will be a strong enough tonic to put me to sleep early.
Stow, OH — Saint Patrick’s Day — Marriott Courtyard
Another restless night and then a drive through rain and snow.
And now I’m sitting at the window of my room making these notes and looking at the snow pile up on the Jeep. It turns to hard hail and clangs on the air conditioner and bounces off the parking lot pavement.
In the lobby I have a shrimp Caesar and a fine glass of red wine that the waitress overfills and then tops off at no extra cost. I realized a long time ago that this is a gift I have and I don’t question it. Something in my cheery demeanor and buoyant disposition that compels bartenders and waitresses to worry that I might suffer from dehydration. (Although it could also be that I look, and am, rather road worn) I’m always grateful for the attention. I take a piece of cheesecake back upstairs.
Kampa texts and when I tell him where I am he insists I go to The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. So that’s the plan for tomorrow. I thought about hiking out to Cuyahoga Falls but the weather report is calling for more sleet and snow.
My Room here has both a bible and a koran. I add to the bedside drawer Emerson on Transcendentalism. Good ole Ralph Waldo. He is never inappropriate. In Nature he writes; “All science has one aim, namely, to find a theory of Nature.” And asks in The Transcendentalist; “Where are the old idealists?” There is a lifetime of ponderable wisdom in his books, the lapsed preacher always a stick in the eye of more conservative and less adventurous thinkers.
Elmira (Mira), NY
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame building was designed by I.M. Pei and sits on the shore of Lake Erie right next to Cleveland Browns Stadium and The Great Lakes Science Center.
I find the bottom floor most fascinating with displays of all the old blues and R & B artists who started it all. Memories of The Long Beach Blues Festival where I saw so many of these long gone masters. John Lee, Pine Top, Johnny Shines, Albert Collins, Big Daddy Kinsey, Willie Dixon, Lowell Fulson, Etta James, Pops Staples.
Lots of guitars and clothes. Aretha’s dress!! Johnny Otis’ guitar and Pigpen’s banjo. Great stuff for an old DJ like me.
Upstairs I watch a video about John Cippolina and then walk the wall of inductee plaques. I’m cheered to see my old buddy Ansley Dunbar there, inducted as a member of Journey. One night we were having a drink and some kid sitting next to us was going on about what a great musician he, the kid, was. When he finally came up for air he asked Ansley what he did. “I play a bit myself.” Said the humble drum wizard and smiled conspiratorially at me.
I revisit the downstairs for one more look at John Lennon’s Mellotron, John Prine’s suit, Fats Domino’s autograph, and Jerry Garcia’s guitar.
Today, a day late, the shuffle offers Van Morrison, Luke Kelly and Ronnie Drew. Luke sings Raglan Road, the Patrick Kavanagh poem set to music. Also, curiously, more Focus, Live From The Rainbow. But overall I feel like a true Irish Rover. Solitary, melancholy, craving something slightly intangible.
Finally! A day of driving left until I get to Massachusetts and Truckin comes up on the iPod. The Europe 72 rendition. I give the volume a boost. This is a song that should be on every travel playlist. And a reminder that we are not only driving down the road but also are passing through life. I sing along very appropriately, LATELY IT OCCURS TO ME WHAT A LONG STRANGE TRIP IT’S BEEN! Even though there is some amount of resignation in that refrain you can’t help at the same time to be joyous at the simple reality that we somehow made it this far!
Another snowy day and I drove nonstop into upstate New York. If I really pushed I suppose I could’ve made it to Pittsfield. But, I mused, one more hotel, one more road dinner, one more day with my own thoughts, well, what could it hurt?
I find a Radisson with warm cookies in the lobby. There is only a mediocre chain steak house nearby so I brave the rain and walk across the street. Blah.
My bible project continues, in the drawer I leave Henry Thoreau’s Essays. Although never an ordained minister Henry sure did more than his share of preaching. In Life Without Principle he tells us;
“The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead downward. To have done anything by which you earned money merely is to have been truly idle or worse. If the laborer gets no more than the wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself.”
That resonates fine with this unemployed (and possibly unemployable) sufferer with a disposition afflicted with wanderlust.
As I get closer to Albany and the Hudson River the vistas become familiar. I am in my old range. For the first time in almost a month I don’t need to look at the map. The clouds are low but dreariness is often only a state of mind. And only a fool lets the weather dictate mood. When I merge onto Route Twenty I couldn’t be more excited.
I turn onto Ridge Ave, where the sky appears less grey, and click the trip odometer that I set to zero as I left for Yosemite Flats. It reads 4566.1 miles. I will have enough time later to reflect of what home really means but now I’m hungry, slightly road fatigued and thrilled to be here in the Berkshires. Snow flurries whirl through the neighborhood yet the air has an unmistakable scent of Spring. I am truly where I’m supposed to be for now.
Bibliography
The Essential Poems — Jim Harrison
Birds of Heaven — Peter Matthiessen
Mountain Home - The Wilderness Poetry of Ancient China — Translated by David Hinton
The Journey Home — Edward Abbey
Discography
Europe 72 — The Grateful Dead
Travels — Pat Metheny Group
Live at the Rainbow — Focus
Heavy Horses — Jethro Tull
Test For Echo — Rush
Bob Dylan — At Budokan
Wipe The Windows, Check The Oil, Dollar Gas — Allman Brothers Band
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