Las Vegas. (As seen from the 14th floor of Wynn Encore.)
Final stop of a six-week road-trip across the country and back again.
Around 6,500 miles.
Eighteen overnight destinations. Ocean and mountains, warm sunshine and blizzards, small towns and big cities.
Answers to a few questions from friends and subscribers following our journey.
Question: Isn’t it hard work checking in and out of hotels every few days?
Answer: It is certainly strenuous, considering the amount of stuff we bring from place to place. Many fine hotels no longer employ bellmen. Fortunately, they do supply trolleys for DIY luggage movement. (It’s true what they say: Only take half as much as you think you need. And even if you’ll be in cold climes, leave the sheepskin and leather at home, stick to lightweight nylon & goose feathers.)
This translates to EXERCISE, which is very welcome. Certainly, I’m getting much more exercise (including for a muscle called the brain) than we ever get living within our comfort zones.
So chalk that up as plus.
Question: What about when you get back where you started and you don’t have a home?
Answer: Who says being back where we started is where we must remain?
Part of the mission has been seeking new horizons—and in that regard our trek has been a huge success. We sort of know where we want to be, pending further consideration, plus we’ll continue to enjoy the freedom and flexibility that comes from being unanchored by home ownership or a lease. In a word, exhilarating.
Question: But aren’t you tired of going from here to there and then somewhere else?
Answer: I have learned and experienced so much since launching. Before that, six weeks could pass in the blink of an eye and all I’d do was pretty much the same routine.
Or, as Jack Kerouac put it: “Because in the end you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.”
Question: What have you accomplished?
Answer: Aside from formulating a new direction for living my life, I’m on the verge of completing the final part of a nonfiction spiritual odyssey that began nine-and-quarter years ago with a dream I experienced while on vacation in McCall, Idaho.
Now all I need is a cabin somewhere back the woods for a week or two for processing, writing and editing all that has occurred during what has been a six-week motional blur.
It may never be published as a book.
It doesn’t matter.
Writing (or painting or sculpting or playing the violin) is the best therapy that exists; a cathartic exercise with the added bonus of leaving a record for posterity.
Question: What have you learned?
Answer: Never use a doggie bed supplied by a hotel.
Why not?
After sniffing the remnants of dogs that came before, Lulu would just as soon pee than sleep on it.
Good Morning! The dearth of today's world having a
shortage of bellman I find frustrating & sad. Very much
appreciate learning that Lugar's has found fertile ground,
now on the opposite coast. Smart move, indeed.
Enjoy your writing, adventures & F*U*N perspectives.
Doggie appreciates the finer things, particularly as his masters
astutely consider pooch's wants & needs as their own.
Regards,
DJ
You have proven that I it's the journey not the destination. Home is where you are until the real home beckons.