in media res
Imagine, if you will, that you come to a crossroad in your life. A decision must be made. The outcome of this choice will likely determine all events to follow. What do you do? If you're me, you get in the car and drive.
Houston, TX; end of july, 2003. I am leaving the city in my chevy, embarking on what will become the greatest solo adventure of my life. My car is full of supplies. The direction is north. The strip malls and gas stations give way to the suburbs and then the in between. Over the next three weeks, I will drive through Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico before returning to Texas. I will listen to nearly every CD I own, several more than once. I will meet strangers in unlikely places, like the young couple from Eugene (stranded?) on an Oregon beach after sunset. For those who have never been, the coast of Oregon is a dreamscape previously unimaginable to this east coast boy. In return for a ride back to town, I receive a box of organic raspberries (they're fruit farmers apparently). This is fortuitous, considering my conversation with my new fitness guru in colorado three days previous. She was the mother of an Olympic freestyle ski jumper (naturally), and clearly an accomplished athlete herself. If I recall correctly, she ran ironman races. She reprimanded me for trying to stay awake on the road with potato chips and soda. After my session with her, I was living off of fruit and trail mix from the grocery stores, downing about two gallons of water a day. Driving up to five hundy miles a day for weeks at a time is an endurance race all its own. She's the one who suggested I cross Colorado via the road less taken, Rte 40, rather than the more conventional Interstate 70. The places you see in Colorado? you would never dream of them. Isolated, rural mountain towns under a big red sky... I had to stop several times for road construction, up to half an hour sometimes... ridiculous. I did meet a nice flagger. She practically told me her life story. People in the west are so much more accessible than out here. I must have taken over two hundred pictures from the driver's seat. I almost slammed into an embankment while trying to get the right shot of the columbia river on my way to Portland. Brian's wedding was there. I saw the California coast on Hwy 1 south of San Francisco, most of the way to L.A. I was running short on cash when I pulled into Las Vegas. Turning sixty bones into two-fitty at the Flamingo helped out quite a bit. What sites did I see? after Vegas was the Hoover dam and the South rim of the Grand Canyon; Pebble Beach - golf mecca, I couldn't afford to play; the Presidio and Golden Gate bridge in San Fran; Rockies to the west at sunset; Big Sur on the coast; Twin Falls Idaho - who would've thought? gorgeous; the Great Salt Lake... I returned to Houston from Taos, New Mexico in one day - fourteen hours. My car aged over six months in under three weeks... I was three days late for the start of school. Ridiculous. I had made my decision.
Houston, TX; end of july, 2003. I am leaving the city in my chevy, embarking on what will become the greatest solo adventure of my life. My car is full of supplies. The direction is north. The strip malls and gas stations give way to the suburbs and then the in between. Over the next three weeks, I will drive through Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico before returning to Texas. I will listen to nearly every CD I own, several more than once. I will meet strangers in unlikely places, like the young couple from Eugene (stranded?) on an Oregon beach after sunset. For those who have never been, the coast of Oregon is a dreamscape previously unimaginable to this east coast boy. In return for a ride back to town, I receive a box of organic raspberries (they're fruit farmers apparently). This is fortuitous, considering my conversation with my new fitness guru in colorado three days previous. She was the mother of an Olympic freestyle ski jumper (naturally), and clearly an accomplished athlete herself. If I recall correctly, she ran ironman races. She reprimanded me for trying to stay awake on the road with potato chips and soda. After my session with her, I was living off of fruit and trail mix from the grocery stores, downing about two gallons of water a day. Driving up to five hundy miles a day for weeks at a time is an endurance race all its own. She's the one who suggested I cross Colorado via the road less taken, Rte 40, rather than the more conventional Interstate 70. The places you see in Colorado? you would never dream of them. Isolated, rural mountain towns under a big red sky... I had to stop several times for road construction, up to half an hour sometimes... ridiculous. I did meet a nice flagger. She practically told me her life story. People in the west are so much more accessible than out here. I must have taken over two hundred pictures from the driver's seat. I almost slammed into an embankment while trying to get the right shot of the columbia river on my way to Portland. Brian's wedding was there. I saw the California coast on Hwy 1 south of San Francisco, most of the way to L.A. I was running short on cash when I pulled into Las Vegas. Turning sixty bones into two-fitty at the Flamingo helped out quite a bit. What sites did I see? after Vegas was the Hoover dam and the South rim of the Grand Canyon; Pebble Beach - golf mecca, I couldn't afford to play; the Presidio and Golden Gate bridge in San Fran; Rockies to the west at sunset; Big Sur on the coast; Twin Falls Idaho - who would've thought? gorgeous; the Great Salt Lake... I returned to Houston from Taos, New Mexico in one day - fourteen hours. My car aged over six months in under three weeks... I was three days late for the start of school. Ridiculous. I had made my decision.