Road Journal .2 (Into Week One, July 2 Onward)

Start 'er Up

I had little idea where I was headed when I took off on the motorcycle, all my possessions strapped down behind me. I'd purchased a Rand McNally Road Atlas days before leaving what had been my home for five years in Austin and had studied the east Texas highways without planning a route, as the direction I would take was unknown. Let me be clear that though I did not know how to get there, I knew where I was going and had no doubts that I would reach my destination.

My destination -my objective, the focus of my personal power- was to become a writer and as such I made no other plans and would make no effort at any occupation.

If the trip had a mission statement, it was to ordain myself an author, to harden myself mentally, and to see this great nation of which I'd long dreamed. It was that determination that kept me cool under the hot sun and that would later keep me warm through the icy rain.

I put that determination into practice my second day on the road as I mounted the cycle in the grassy lot of the church and attempted over and over again to start the cycle. On the previous night I'd toppled over while making a turn on a dirt road and ever since the bike wouldn't start. I had no back-up plans, no one to call upon in the case of trouble, for my determination was steadfast and I knew I'd make it somehow.

With the desperation of a doctor yelling at a corpse for revival or a jockey whispering to his horse for more speed, I began talking to the bike as I pushed the ignition switch, hoping to will the engine back to life.

"Come on, Penny! Come on old girl! You got that life in ya. Spark it up one time."

With a few repeated pops on the clutch as I pressed the switch, the bike began to cough and sputter.

I spoke more affirmatively, "There ya go Penny, just a little more. You got it, you got it. Keep it comin'!"

And just like that, Penny, the motorcycle I'd bought second-hand just weeks prior, was fired-up and leading me across the east Texas highway.

Keepin' On

The plan, if you could say I had one, was to go east until the coast, go north until Canada, go west until the Pacific and back across the center, crossing out all 48 states on the way. The timetable was 12 months. The money I was starting with was $3,000 and to earn more I would work only when in dire straits, renting my time, hands, and physicality for labor, but prostituting my mind to no one. A clear mind would be my greatest asset, my sponge for knowledge, the ink for my pen. I couldn't afford to clog it with anyone's business dilemma.

Still headed east, and a bit north, the highway took me to Arkansas, entering the state at Texarkana where I diverged south through dense pine forests being logged for commerce. Even at seventy miles-an-hour I could smell the pine in the dense summer air. The road was a narrow hall between rows of trees that shot like walls to a ceiling-like sky. Eighteen wheel trucks merged onto the highway from inconspicuous dirt roads, always threatening to surprise me with a speeding tractor trailer overflowing with logs that shed their bark in the wind to blow into my face.

For food I stopped at a roadside produce stand. Careful with my money, as I new it was finite, I filled myself on cucumbers and a watermelon, which I opened with a knife in a neighboring field. I could afford little more than a few dollars for nutrition and a few more for a motel room every second or third night. I enjoyed sleeping outside when the weather was dry but for my added comfort I gravitated toward cities where I had friends or family who would open their couch for me.

With no relatives in Arkansas, I spent another night outside. I had to get through Mississippi and Alabama before I could reach relatives in Florida.