Notes on life which still continues – knock on wood…tons have happened since I was last here…oh memory, where to start? Still living in the same place with the same wife *cue smile* but new doggy, MAYU and new car which took me from when it was fresh out of the dealer On The Road redux, hat tip to Jack Kerouac, a total of nearly 12,000 miles alone around great fat wonderful America, FABULOUS AND FASCINATING for sure, except for all the evil stuff, which kept its distance from me. Let’s pause to count our multitude of blessings! Trip from FEB 15 to April 5, 2024, incredible now as I think about it… didn’t know if I could do it physically for one thing, mentally being away on my own again, going back to my roots and remembering all the long lost days of hitchhiking (still regretting no keeping of journal for all of that and a memory that fades is not much help) but I made it, pretty much completing everything I’d planned (which was relatively loose aside from some scheduled dates to meet up with certain people)…no accidents and good health UNTIL nearly the very end when I somehow contracted the dreaded COVID for the first time since the infection came into our world and consciousness and way of life. Not many by this time of the trip using masks…especially not in RED America. Who’s to tell where the infection happened /snuck in which is the frustrating part, but it was a cuckoo time of being thrown for a loop and down for the count for several days alone in a Pocatello, Idaho hotel waiting to get aware and strong enough to push on. I guess I’ve been sicker in my life with some other stuff (dysentary in Peru twice for example) and flu’s galore over the years, but nothing was weirder …played with my head — there was a period of time when I could not take ANY stimuli — no reading, phone stuff, tv, music — just a spinning brain. Hoping it’s not left dormant triggers hidden away somewhere deep and unknown, and it’s done no permanent damage. Still using a mask back around town at home when in circumstances where there are lots of people in enclosed space. With one exception, giving my Spanish class now at senior center …I’m nervous about it, but I’m fairly far from others and it’s a struggle for them to hear/understand me (especially in foreign language) if I’m muzzled. However, I’m still well aware of risks as I continue to encounter people in my small social circles who are still getting bitten by the COVID bug.

So happy to have made the trip though, seen some friends and all members of what’s left of our tiny tribe…and touched my roots in a few ways…mainly seeing every place I’ve lived in this country. God blessed me surely with traveling mercies. I knew if I didn’t do it now, I never would. I didn’t really look at it as a bucket list kind of thing, although I guess you could call it that and not be too far off. It’s unreal to think back on it…all those miles…car worked like a charm…Silver 2024 Honda CRV…As I’m driving around here, I sometimes flash back to moments on the road– remembering how it was to be crossing a parking lot, taking in the view or weather or local news of a place so far away. I’ve made photo albums of all the things I saw — with MANY photos but not a lot of shots of humans — that’s another level of work — negotiating with people to let you take their photos — but lots of scenes/landscapes/ buildings/ signs/ etc. that help me relive the experience again and again.

GO HERE TO SEE PHOTOS — https://sites.google.com/view/zonahispana2/fotos-del-viaje-primavera-2024

Many of my photos some would call weird — I call them art I’m living through and making a record of it. Proof it happened…that I was there in that moment. It’s been several months since I’ve been back, and while putting the photos in organized digital albums on Google Photos, I still have to work on my written accounts of the trip. I have lots and lots of recorded ‘observations’ for lack of better word that are just sitting here in my office. Glad to have gotten a chance to see some interesting places. From being stuck in snow on a mountain highway to being alongside a road in the desert where all you hear is a fly buzzing to the grim creative crowds of the Big Apple to sculptures out in the middle of nowhere beside a river to Big Pink house out in the woods to the studies where Hemingway and Bukowski wrote and struggled with their demons and the Denver streets Kerouac and his merry band of beat gypsies meandered to San Francisco streets to which I’d not returned since leaving in 1990. Now as I think about it…because although it was a long trip, I would have preferred to have more time to stay longer in places to get a deeper feel for them– to hear some local stories / history / music / food the culture there…to interact with folks of all kinds…that would have been another kind of experience — slower by a lot. I often felt that I was like a wind blowing through. At freeway speed. It did get lonely and I missed the comforts and familiarity of home — while being jazzed by not knowing what was next. A thrill and new thing a minute. I just couldn’t afford to do that — to take it slow …it would have required a lot more time and money and it was already expensive, despite my not being excessive in spending. That said, I’m way past sleeping in my car or in bed bug hotels …I tried to be in places that were safe and clean…I had to be careful about not getting my car broken into so that limited me to certain neighborhoods. I did get a chance to see some interesting things though and I feel no small pride for having met the ‘challenge’ and lived to tell about it. I guess not many can say they’ve done it.