Feeling Paralyzed

I was sitting in my car feeling paralyzed. My brain had stopped functioning, my arms and legs felt like noodles and I couldn’t do anything except just literally sit there and breath. I didn’t know what to do next.

I had finally made it to the Rockies. After months of thinking about it and making and executing plans, it was over. And suddenly I realized that I hadn’t made any more plans after that. So literally, I didn’t know what to do next. The buffer was empty and was getting no more new input. So I pulled the car over outside the the library in Colorado Springs, found a parking space and just stopped. And then I cried a little and then I just spent more time blankly sitting there. I texted Cindy. “I’m here, now what?”

I don’t know precisely when it was while I was in France that I decided that my European trip was over. Cindy was going to continue on with the dogs but I was going back to the US. I wanted something easy I thought. I wanted something familiar I thought. I wanted time to be alone and figure out what I wanted to do next with my life. And here it was. That journey was over and I didn’t have the foggiest idea about what to do next.

I think I took the words of Wayne Dyer too literally. Now that the dance was over, I was just idling about on the dance floor.

So I tried to do something familiar and went to a campsite that Cindy and I had been to years before. But they were full, and so was the next one. I thought OK, I'll get a hotel, get a shower, use the internet and regroup. But they were all far more shekels than I was willing to part with. Casting a wider net, I found a campground about an hour south and settled in for the night.

The next day I decided to stop moving. I stopped at a burrito joint with good wifi had a meal and found a place on the map that was close by to drive to. I would just let whatever was next come to me. I found a dispersed campsite just outside of Salida and let the forward momentum that had sustained me to this point bleed away. I put up my hammock, drank a beer, stared at the clouds and then finally went for a trail run to help clear my head. It's funny, when I thought about what my life would be like on the road, it comes surprisingly close to this exact moment. Sitting alone in the forest with everything I need to be self sustaining for a week on end, having trails to hike and run nearby, have shade for me and sun for my solar setup and to be able to listen to the wind flow through the aspen trees.

Once again, I've found that If I don’t try to force it, and be open to the day, it would provide all I needed. I stayed two days just soaking it up.

Go East young man

I had just squirmed into my rooftop tent and flopped like a fish on the mattress. The mosquitoes were dense tonight and I was trying like hell to not let any into the tent with me. Success! I said to myself and raised my fists in self congratulations. As I write this, I can see and hear the mosquitoes buzzing just outside the thin netting as they desperately try to get in and find no advancement.

I had waited what felt like an eternity for my shipment of various household goods to arrive back in the US before I left on this trip. It felt endlessly because its delivery kept being postponed. Every day I waited and every day I thought “it will be here tomorrow and I can finally put it its contents into a storage locker and finally get on the road.” That waiting lasted almost 2 weeks. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. It felt like forever.

In the final days of waiting, I decided to head out for another quick camping trial run to the North Carolina, Outer Banks in my newly outfitted camp mobile. For some reason, in the 4 years that I lived in Asheville, I never made the trek out to the eastern edge of the state. In my head, I had a romantic vision of what it would be like. A home to writers, pirates, the wright brothers and wild horses. I was sorely disappointed.

As I waited in mind numbing traffic and wound my way up to Kitty Hawk, I started laughing maniacally. This was just one long tourist strip mall, filled with fried fish joints, tourist traps and drive through “beverage” stores. I'm still not sure what was served there.

Where was the pristine sand dune beaches of my Wright Brothers internal film? Where were the open expanses where the boys could test and test and test again each new version of their flying machine? Why was their sisters involvement in all of this hidden from taught history? I digress….

I found the Wright Brothers Memorial right next to the Lowes home center. Not a celebration of their achievement but a memorial. WTF? I didn’t get it. It was surrounded by a large expanse of manicured lawn. No beach. No open windswept sand dunes. Just lawn.

I drove into the entrance and turned around before paying my $10 entry fee to enter the building and be underwhelmed. I had seen the real first flying airplane in the Smithsonian Museum of aviation and did not need to see a replica. I had also read a pretty thorough account of the events that led up to that first flight and the subsequent aviation company that was created by the brothers in the ensuing years. I didn’t need to ruin my internal vision of the events any more than the current state of tourist encroachment already had.

Searching for the pristine beaches I had in my head, I drove endlessly south. Past the giant Jurassic park themed putt putt, past the pizza shops, the 3 t-shirts for $10 stores and the rest of the diatribe of human existence. Finally I found the outer banks of the romantic movies. Houses sitting on stilts at the open edge of endless beaches. Ahhh, this was what I was looking for. This was what the outer banks was supposed to be. This was incredibly boring….

So I drove as far as I could and turned around. I had too because there was no ferry running from the last island to the mainland. Back I went up past the beautifully crafted beach houses, the realtor signs enticing me to plop down a small fortune to own a small piece of paradise and I drove back toward Asheville. And I drove. And I drove.

Now that my world was settled I needed to decide where to go. Maine! It must be beautiful this time of year. So I set my sites on it. It took me 3 days of driving and finally, there I was, In Bar Harbor at Acadia national park. One of America's must see National Parks. It was right there, just down the road and all I had to do was pay my $25 and I could see it.

The problem was yet again people. Too many people. They were everywhere. Like ants looking for their next meal. Mindless, crawling ants. I couldn’t take it. I turned around. I left and drove south.

After consoling myself with a $30 beer, the world's saltiest fries and a genuine Maine lobster Roll (market price of course), I headed west. I didn’t know where I was going just west. I used various apps that I had downloaded onto my phone to find a free campsite just on the main border. I plugged it into my phone and I was off. And of course I got lost.

My cell phone completely no help I entered the convenience store doing the one thing I hate doing asking for directions. The girl behind the plastic panel was completely draped over the counter staring at her cell phone. Her hair was like a curtain across the front of the phone blocking my view of whatever she was watching. "Hello" I said "do you have a map?" Startled she jumped up and looked at me wide-eyed like she was surprised that there was a customer in the store even though one had just left 30 seconds earlier. "What?" she said. "Do You have a state map?" I asked again. We have this she said hauling a giant state atlas out from behind the counter. She scanned it she fumbled a scan it and pronounced it worth $26.95. " That's too rich for my blood and " I said fascinated by her accent.

"I just want to know which way New Hampshire is." That seemed to catch her off guard again. "Well'" she said "The one time I went to New Hampshire I went that way" and she pointed in the opposite direction I was sure I needed to go. It was strange to think that this person had never left her home state except for maybe one for a into New Hampshire to the south. But I was in rural Maine so maybe this was normal? I got back in my car and drove the opposite direction from where she had pointed me. I figured the odds were in my favor. Soon I was on the road I expected to be on and my mapping software was finally pointing me at the right direction.

An hour later, I found my campsite and settled in for the night.