On The Road Again
In 2001, a couple of months after driving through New York City on September 10th, I hitchhiked from North Carolina to Colorado and found a new appreciation for life on the road. After securing employment and housing at the Breckenridge ski resort, I started seeing a woman named Andrea and borrowed her guitar to write what would be my first solo original song. I’m not sure of the date, but I know that I’d grown a bit tired of the snow, and by the end of the season in May, I was ready to get on the road again.
Took off for California, made it halfway there,
blizzards took my roads away and left me snowblind.
It's a permanent vacation for the next few months,
just waitin' for that snow to melt
in that rocky mountain sunshine,
Then I'll be on the road again.
Initially, my trip had been initiated by my diagnosis with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (without the hyperactivity). Basically, I lived a wandering life because I had a wandering mind. Roughly a year before I started hitchhiking from outside of Asheville, I was living a pretty miserable existence in Wilmington, North Carolina when a friend suggested that I might want to explore the ADHD possibility.
They say it's my way of thinkin' that keeps me seekin' more.
Some say my wires are wrapped too loosely,
some say I've come unwound.
Somewhere in Carolina, the future passed me by.
All my dreams were blinked away,
I think they headed westbound
so I took to the road again.
The trip was also spurred on by a reinvigorated interest in spirituality. It had been a few years since I’d left Christianity, but I still had an affinity for Jesus and had always felt that the call to give away everything and follow him was the most daunting challenge I could imagine. Granted, his call was to not even take a bag of things whereas I had a backpack full of stuff, but I wasn’t exactly a good follower by that point anyway.
There's Tao between reflectors, Nirvana's exit fifty
three,
even my man Jesus said “take up your cross and follow
me.”
I put it in my backpack right next to my canteen.
I was hoping for some living water, got crucifixion tea.
I found it on the road again.
Hitchhiking can take a very long time, and I don’t really recommend it in the United States (at least the lower 48). However, when you’re traveling without an exact destination in mind, it can take you to some really wild places. I have since discovered that I can go to even better places on a motorcycle, and I can do it in much better time. I had a woman ask me what my destination was on last year’s journey and I told her that the journey was the destination.
Some miles last for minutes.
Some inches last for days.
Only two choices at a fork in the road,
Where's your imagination?
Cars were meant to hurry,
planes were meant to rush.
I'm thinking about the journey,
I reached my destination
when I took to the road again.
Soon I'll be on the road again.
As far as travel goes, I think that if you want to get somewhere fast, take an airplane. If you actually want to enjoy the journey, take anything else. But if you can avoid it, never take the interstate.
Watch the video below…
