November 15th, 2024
Five Strangers, Five Acres, and Five Weeks in Kentucky: An Autumn Tale of Life-Living and Thanks-Giving
Disclaimer: I know my blog posts are lengthy. I recently had a friend comment that it took him two hours to read my post from my time in Colombia (he’s a slow reader, but still). I also know that I (perhaps like you) rarely have two hours to read burning a hole in my pocket, so to my close friends and family, I want to once again emphasize that my love for you does not hinge on your consumption of these many words. That being said, for me - a frequent long-distance driver these days - it is often easier to listen to words than it is to read them. For that purpose, I have included the following audio file, so that you can hear this post read aloud, by me, the author. I was partially inspired by listening to Matthew McConaughey’s autobiography, Greenlights, which is a banger. My voice is much less entrancing, but I hope you enjoy nonetheless.
Disclaimer 2: I really didn’t think my reading of my post would approach an hour, but nevertheless, here we are. Happy listening.
Five Strangers
I met Dale Schmidt in a hot spring in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. He was wearing a bucket hat and rainbow sunglasses, sitting in the cold part of the Hot Springs, where one pool began to slowly waterfall about 3 feet into the next pool, on a hot sunny day in the southern Colorado mountains. He screamed local. Taking to heart the phrase ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’ I copied him, sitting in a spot to his right. He looked over at me and said “Doesn’t get much better than this, huh?” I laughed and agreed, and we got to talking. Within five minutes, Mr. Dale Schmidt had offered to sell me his 5 acres of crudely developed land in greater Pagosa Springs, Colorado.
I met John the Musician in the Boston Commons, a huge park in the center of which he was playing Jim Croce’s I Got a Name on his guitar. I walked right up, and we sang together. He told me I looked like a young James Taylor, with my mustache and all, then told tales of seeing James and other legendary folk rock musicians (think Dylan, Croce, Van, etc.) during his adolescence in the 1960s and 70s. I thanked him for what must have been the greatest compliment I’ve ever received, and we sang Fire and Rain together in the park. I promised I’d find him on the way to the Red Sox game the next day.
I met Dogwalker Dave in Central Park, New York City. I was sitting on the steps of a fountain eating a falafel sandwich, when Dave approached me and asked to take a photo of me. He thought I looked strange, and in hindsight, I can see why. There I was, sitting on the edge of Bethesda Fountain, surrounded by photoshoots and park musicians and other folks enjoying a mostly sunny day in the park, sporting a goofy sunhat, strange hair, and a Target bag holding all of my belongings. I was happy to oblige; he snapped a photo of me, and I asked if I could take a few with his dog (Howie, who was sweet). He agreed. A Central Park employee lady took a picture of him taking a picture of me, a moment that was reminiscent of the Jack Johnson song Pictures Of People Taking Pictures.
I met Farmer Tom on the side of a country road in Wilson, Kansas. I had run out of gas for the first time in my life and was parked, hazards on, on the side of a long road after (fortunately) making it off the 75 mph highway by the skin of my teeth. This was my first time running out of gas, and I wasn’t yet freaking out, but I certainly didn’t know what the hell to do. I was literally scratching my head when Farmer Tom pulled up beside me in his truck and exclaimed “Backroads? All we got are Backroads around here!” He was referring to the massive Backroads logo on the trailer that I was driving back from Kentucky at season's end in late October, and he would be my savior. The first words out of his mouth after I told him that I had run out of his gas were “I’ll go get you some gas.” And that he did. He brought me 6 gallons about 20 minutes later in his portable fuel canister, and I prepared him a goodie bag of beer and jams, leftovers from the Backroads season that I had been storing in my trailer to bring back to Backroads HQ in Salt Lake City.
I met Jonas the German Cowboy, at Andrew Molera State Park in Northern Big Sur. He was wearing a cowboy hat and had spent the last 51 days roadtripping, slowly but surely, from Vancouver to Big Sur, with an eventual destination of Panama. Wow, right? We climbed lightly trailblazen cliffs to get better views of the much larger, unclimbable cliffs south of Bixby bridge, and Jonas shared the fact that he had not yet been surfing despite spending quite a bit of time on the Pacific Coast Highway. I told him I had an extra wetsuit and board in my car, and his eyes lit up.
An Autumn Tale
The last two months and change have featured quite a few places, but as I continue to find, it’s the people – and often the people I don’t expect to meet – that define my experiences in these places. Dale, John, Dave, Tom, and Jonas are five of those individuals, and the bizarre circumstances that led to our introductions are a reasonably good encapsulation of how the fall has felt.
The New Mexican Unit Drive Gone Strange in Colorado
After my lengthy drive from Alaska to Utah (detailed excessively in my last post), I spent a week at the Backroads leader house in Salt Lake City, mostly with my good friend Beck, who became my brother for life in our seven days together. I then took off on another unit drive, though this one was much shorter. In theory, this journey would last just a day and a half – no more than 14 hours driving – from Salt Lake City to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I would drop off a van and trailer, spend a day with my cousin Robert, who lives in Albuquerque, then take off to Washington, D.C. to catch Bruce Springsteen live in concert.
My drive to Santa Fe was on track at first, and my stay in Durango, Colorado with a longtime family friend was pleasant as could be. Durango itself is a beautiful town in the San Juan Mountains, and its early September sunshine and greenery were a divine sight for driving eyes, especially for a pair that had seen only sparse desert for the previous week. I had always suspected that Colorado could steal my heart, and my stop in Durango began to confirm my hypothesis.
But what was supposed to be a day and a half of driving turned into 2.5 days on the road thanks to my chance hot springs encounter with Mr. Dale Schmidt the day I left Durango. I made a stop in “Nathan’s Hippy Dip Hot Spring,” the free version of what folks pay a pretty penny for just a few hundred feet downstream, featuring five separate hot tub-size hot springs and a slow-moving cold section of the San Juan River. It was a warm, sunny day, so I started on the cold side. That is where I met Dale.
After offering to sell me his property, Dale said he could show me around the five acres to see what I thought. But we couldn’t do the tour after our dip in the hot springs (I was getting my first ever North American massage, motivated by the back pain I felt after 9 days of driving from Alaska) and we couldn’t do it that evening (Dale had his weekly poker game with some of his local buddies that he had made over his 37 years in Pagosa Springs; I politely declined the invite to this event because I had my sights set on getting Thai food at a local gem of a restaurant called Thai Pagosa, which was well worth the stop). So, we settled on a sunrise tour, for which I had to get permission from the Backroads human who runs the New Mexico region to arrive a day late. She said that was fine, as long as I made it there no later than 10:30 AM, a tough task considering I still had three hours left in the drive, not to mention a sunrise tour to attend. But my curiosity was piqued; I needed – more than anything – to see Dale’s 5 acres, and that I did.
Dale graciously invited me to crash the night on his couch (his wife was out of town to see Tucker Carlson speak in Vegas…), an invite I felt weird about accepting, considering that it was offered by a 69-year-old man that I had just met in some hot springs, but as it turns out, my housing budget did not cover spending an extra night on the road to get a sunrise tour of a local’s 5 acre property. So, I accepted.
Dale and I were up at 6:15 AM, which was mildly tough but manageable for me and apparently no problem at all for Dale, who told me he barely sleeps at all. We first drove around the property that he lives on, which includes a nice house and (for whatever reason) a touring bus that is fully built out for a full band that wants to tour the North American continent. If any of you know a band with this objective in mind, I can put you in contact with Dale, though I gathered that one of the conditions is that he would be able to tag along on tour. I’m not making this up.
The property itself was 5 miles down the road from where Dale lived, and it certainly did not match whatever loose expectations I had. The 5 acres leaned right into a green hillside that was no longer green in the area where Dale had spent the last 17 years (no joke) using heavy machinery (Where did he get heavy machinery to begin with? Not sure; I didn’t ask.) to excavate the land and crudely develop it. The set up was impressive enough that I was struck by the fact that it was all his own work but crumbly enough that I did not maintain my belief that I might own it one day. I’ll attach some photos below and hopefully you’ll be able to see what I mean.
I made the climb to the top of the property, where I saw a lone tiny house structure, which Dale had implied would be where he (or whoever the leader of the self-sufficient community that could in theory exist there) lives. Feeling generally bewildered, I scrambled back down the hill, told Dale that I would think it over, and I hit the road to Santa Fe.
That just about wrapped up my first experience in Colorado, a state to which I had mused about relocating one day, and my two days there showed me that such musings were far from foolish. Beyond the strange wave of adventure that overtook me, Colorado’s mountains evoke within me a feeling that I cannot profess to understand, nor be able to verbalize, but it’s a feeling that I intend to continue pursuing at high altitude.
Arrival to the American Southwest
Colorado rolls into New Mexico, as the green summertime mountains gradually lower into desert plains spotted with tiny settlements (“unincorporated communities”) surrounded by swaths of Native American reservation land. I dropped my van and trailer off in Santa Fe, my cousin Robert picked me up, and we spent the day messing around in Albuquerque with his sweet dog Mabel, biking trails and eating chile-centric Mexican food. I even (briefly) entered the Rio Grande.
NM to DC (from the Southwest to the Capital)
That same night, I hopped on a midnight flight to Washington DC to catch Bruce Springsteen at Nationals Park the evening of the morning of my arrival there. I would spend three days and three nights in DC, and I ultimately spent those three nights in DC sleeping in three different places, fortunate to have several friends living in this very popular post-grad city (is DC technically a city?), the first of five popular post-grad cities that I would visit in the next two months.
I attended the Springsteen concert with Sarah (aforementioned fantastic Backroads human, who has seen a half dozen or so Springsteen shows and went out of her way on a drive to Vermont to catch him again), as well as Sam and Eli (brothers from Duke who happened to be members of our notorious Duke-UNC tenting crew of 2024; the name of our crew was so vulgar that I genuinely do not feel I can write it here). This hodgepodge concert crew was (phenomenal and) the result of the Springsteen show being pushed back by a year, and my own stubbornness keeping me from selling them after learning that all three of my previous prospective attendees were no longer able to go. We made it happen.
Seeing The Boss live was a full-circle moment for me in that Bruce was the first artist I ever saw in concert, all the way back in March of 2016 (March 13th, to be exact, exactly one month before the Warriors won their 73rd regular season game and Kobe Bryant put up 60 points in his final game ever) at Oracle Arena. It had been 8.5 years since that fateful day, and since then concerts have proven landmarks of my life; I keep a list of each one I’ve been to - complete with location, date, and fellow attendees - which I update at the end of each year. Somehow unsurprisingly, aged 75, Bruce is still crushing it, putting on a characteristically lengthy and energetic show while his superfans of all ages worshipped him loudly and proudly.
The rest of my time in DC was spent mostly on bikes, thanks to the DC bike share program, cruising around to various cool spots (mainly parks) and enjoying a lovely couple days of weather and no responsibilities. Sam, only in DC for his work training, proved himself an ideal companion, as did my highly political high school pal, Nick “Loch” Lochrie, who may be president in a couple decades (you heard it here first, Lochrie for President). Nick works at the DC jail teaching US history, and was gracious enough to host me for a night and make time in his jam-packed, networking schedule to check out the DC Arboretum, and several other green spaces that caught my eye.
Sam (still my brother), Nick, and I sat down for Ethiopian food one night, which I called (in the immediate aftermath of consumption) one of the finest dining experiences of my life. I stand by it. Shoutout Chercher Restaurant.
Once my time in DC came to a close, it was time to make my much anticipated arrival to Louisville, Kentucky, where I would begin my two-month trip-leading stint in The Bluegrass State.
Alone in The Bluegrass: An Unusual Introduction to Kentucky
My arrival to the Louisville field staff house was interesting in that I discovered that the house I’d be living in - while not leading trips, that is - was a mansion, which only made sense after I realized that Backroads rents just part of the mansion to host the 10 or so (maximum) trip leaders that are stationed in (the relatively small Backroads region of) Kentucky at any given time. This is apparently a trend in older American cities, where side streets are lined with huge houses that no one can afford, so these former huge individual or family properties become a bunch of rental units instead. I also found it interesting that none of the houses near Louisville’s Bardstown Street had garages; they were built before cars.
I also soon realized I was the only person at the house, which made for a strange first couple days as I got familiar first with the neighborhood and later on with the entire region through which the Backroads Kentucky trip runs. Backroads requires its trip leaders to do a familiarization (colloquially, a FAM) whenever beginning work in a new region, which is essentially a couple days to simulate a weeklong trip from the comfort of the front seat of a rental car (mine was a massive Ford F-150, which was the first and only time I have properly driven a truck). My two-day FAM was mostly cloudy, very confusing, a wee bit stressful, and mildly isolating. This last part was an unfamiliar, uncomfortable feeling, but when I look back on it, in hindsight, it makes sense: there I was, driving through a state to which I had never been, and I had yet to meet any human in more than just passing.
Strangely, I didn’t feel lonely as I attended my first ever solo concert, a performance by a band called Bendigo Fletcher, whose music I have adored for about a year. The day before my FAM, I was listening to their music for the first time in a while – perhaps because I had been trying to get into traditional bluegrass music, of which Bendigo’s music is reminiscent. I happened to check to see if they were on tour, and they weren’t officially on tour, but they were playing just a few shows in the coming week, one of which just so happened to be at a small venue called “The Burl” in Lexington on September 13th, where I would be as I finished up my FAM. I bought tickets nearly instantaneously.
The concert was swell, and I made a few concert friends with some folks who were there purely to see the opener: Willi Carlisle, a wildly progressive, cowboy-looking, one-man-band guy with overflowing talent. Bendigo itself was incredible as well.
Doing My “Job”
With that, it was (finally) time to start the trip leading portion of my trip leading job.
I began leading my first trip for Backroads exactly 2 months after my training began. The trip itself to me felt like a whirlwind, though it was just another week in the life for my two co-leaders. One, a guy named Peter, was from Kentucky, loved bourbon, and back in the day had attended an all-boys high school, which, based on personal historical precedent, made it no surprise that we got along great. Peter became a close friend and an outstanding trip leading role model, passionate enough about the region to educate me on bourbon.
I didn’t get along so well with my other co-leader, and I soon learned that I wasn’t the only one that felt such friction. I won’t share his name, but I will say that three of the four trips I led were with him, and I will say that he was released by Backroads at the end of the year. I had deliberated about whether or not to submit a confidential concern, ultimately deciding against it, thinking that my frustrations were mostly a reflection of my own inexperience, but it turns out that plenty of other leaders had already done so.
Yes, admittedly, it was a bit unfortunate that all but one of the trips I led had a significant component of tension as a result. But, as always, there are plenty of silver linings to be found within a situation like that, not the least of which is the fact that I felt extra appreciation towards the co-leaders with whom I worked swimmingly. And that was the majority of folks I met through Backroads, a proportion that I am sure is not the case in every workplace. For that, I am immensely grateful. A not-so-pleasant co-leader situation also pushed my comfort zone as a leader and forced me to find new ways to adapt to leadership styles that don’t align perfectly with mine, which I am certain will serve me well for the rest of my working life.
So, how did the singular trip that I did not lead with this co-leader go? Great question! It was fantastic. I got to lead with a Backroads legend, Emma Silver (“The Queen of Kentucky”), who was an excellent mentor and role model for the first trip on which I was a full-on leader (as opposed to a support leader, which every trip with enough guests has, a position that first-time leaders (almost) always work upon initial entry into the field). Being a full-on lead came with a significant increase in responsibilities – and way more hours. But I was happy to take on these extra responsibilities and had more than enough energy to work these 15 hour days, starting before the sunrise and ending after a lengthy dinner. I like to think that my summer camp counselor experience prepared me well in this regard.
Plus, these 15 hour days were anything but days in an office. They were days spent on the Bourbon Trail of Kentucky, days spent cruising through the rolling hills of Kentucky in the fall, eating delicious food (prepared by us leaders or our local vendor partners), listening to live Bluegrass music, and, of course, drinking bourbon at every opportunity; I surprised myself by becoming an enjoyer of bourbon, despite not being a particular enjoyer of any other hard alcohol, and I credit the documentary Neat and Peter’s tips for enjoying bourbon “the right way” with allowing for the emergence of my enjoyment.
I would ultimately lead four trips during my time on the Bourbon Trail. Weekly highlights included quickly connecting with all of our guests (who were on average 40 years older than myself and without fail told me I was an “old soul”), biking the longest rides I had ever done (50+ miles), and climbing on top of the van on the last day of each trip to play guitar for guests as they arrived at their final support stop (I had a couple guests who called me Jack Fogerty because of how fond I was of playing CCR). We laughed, we cried, we told stories and gave thanks. Most importantly to me, I spent significant time outside, every single day. The weather was absolutely splendid throughout, minus the two weeks during which the reverberations of North Carolina’s Hurricane Helene were felt. In a strange stroke of luck, those happened to be the two weeks that I was away from Kentucky.
Fives in Spades
Well, it was actually 15 days, to be exact, broken up evenly into three intervals, spent in three very different cities, with very different people.
Five Days in Frisco
I first flew to San Francisco after wrapping up my first trip for a family wedding on the 21st night of September. My cousin Beau married his fiancé Christina, and my huge family hit the dance floor, good fun.
Though I was home for only a few days, I took advantage of the opportunity to spend time with family and friends and get outside to do things that aren’t quite possible in Kentucky (namely surfing).
In the process, I saw the legendary Sam Farnum, whose short memoir about our Backroads training experience is included in my last post. This time, during a day off from his Backroads responsibilities which placed him in Berkeley, I drove across the Bay Bridge to pick him up, and we drove all the way back west to the coast, where we surfed in Montara and Pacifica. It was Sam’s first time surfing since he was 14 (16 years prior) so the learning curve was steep, but plenty of fun was had nonetheless.
A particularly special moment came when the sun began to shine in Pacifica, burning away all the fog, and allowing for a rare day of sunshine surfing on the Northern California coast.
Sam spent the night at my house, which I mention mainly so that I have the opportunity to share another short memoir he wrote while sitting in my backyard, drinking coffee and eating a bagel that he made before I even woke up. Such a strange character he is, blessed with so much writing talent and strange, one-of-a-kind charm, which he decided to put to use to describe in detail the first 30 minutes of his morning at my home:
Five Days in Beantown
From San Francisco I flew to Boston, where some of my closest friends from college had moved, a couple of whom had even moved into the same apartment. Trey, Ruben, and Casey – dear brothers of mine – had found a fantastic apartment in Back Bay and begun living a glorious urban existence on the famed Newbury Street that for just a moment made me consider whether my decision to take the path less professionally traveled (the nomadic one) was the right one. But that was only a moment.
The first two days there, my brothers were working, so I took bikeshare bikes around the city, something that was becoming a trend after my time in DC, and covered quite a bit of ground in some beautiful Boston weather.
When the weekend arrived, we spent just about every waking moment together, mostly messing around. This was the first time I had seen any friends from Duke since we had graduated 4.5 months prior, and it was like no time had passed at all. Frisbee in the park, guitar on the rooftop, late night biking across the bridge, vinyl before bed, even a Red Sox game in the mix (my first trip to Fenway): life was good in Beantown.
It was while strolling around one such park that I met my friend John the Musician. I didn’t have any cash to give him at the time, but he seemed grateful for someone to sing Fire and Rain with him, and I promised that I would locate him on the way to the Red Sox game the next day, as he told me that he usually goes to the park on Saturdays to play some acoustic guitar music.
My man John is talented.
I did indeed find him on that sunny Saturday, which gave me the opportunity to prove to my friends that I wasn’t lying about this legendary man and gave me the opportunity to give him some cash (which admittedly I did borrow from my other Boston brother Benji, as I still didn’t have cash).
Five Days in The Large Apple
From Boston, I flew to New York (the flight was cheaper than the train ride) and cruised around Manhattan (and beyond) – where the majority of my friends moved after college – for a full work week and nothing more. In this regard, it was as strange a visit to New York as you could fathom; I arrived on Monday morning and left on Friday evening. A work week in New York, except I wasn’t working. I started my 100 or so hours of free time with a stroll through Times Square with a true Italian sandwich.
The nature of my stay meant that my dear friends would be working while the sun was out, which in turn meant that I would usually grab a cup of coffee with one friend in the morning, maybe catch another for lunch, and certainly hang out over some dinner and other leisurely consumption in the evening time. But the days, marked by clouds and lasting moments of sunshine, I spent finding green space in the concrete jungle, mostly within Central Park, a place that grows to occupy more and more of my heart each time I visit the wild world of New York. Some of my favorite photos of this absurd place are included below.
It was in Central Park that I had my peculiar encounter with Dogwalker Dave, thanks to whom I now have the following strange photos.
My encounter with Dogwalker Dave happened to be on the same day that I walked from the south end of the park to the north end, from Columbus Circle to Harlem, completely solo, just strolling – with my journal, some water, and perhaps a snack or two that Zane got me from his software engineering office (thanks, Zane). I found a waterfall and journaled on a nearby rock.
At the end of my stroll, I grabbed a city bike (at this point my only non-pedestrian form of transportation) and biked from the north end of the park all the way to 10th Street in the Lower East Side. The route I chose brought me down 8th Avenue, straight through Times Square (during rush-hour nonetheless), which I think is probably the most chaotic biking experience one can have on Planet Earth. Nonetheless, I made it everywhere I went in one piece and lived to tell the tale. It was an interesting thought that the experience I just had – an absurd one that I will never forget – was known to no one but myself (unless of course, I chose to share, which I did and currently am doing). Such is the anonymity of big city living, a strange concept that bears a striking resemblance to life in incredibly remote, natural environments, despite the two being predominantly circumstantial opposites. What a trip.
The only day that a friend of mine could join for one of my daytime excursions to find green space was my final full day, when my friend from kindergarten and current NYU theater student Max joined me for a trip to Queens, during which we checked out Flushing Meadows Corona Park (recommended by my wonderful cousin Ana) and the tiny Queens Zoo. The former was actually the site of several World’s Fairs (1939-40 and 1964-65) and is a strange site now: a massive, grandiose display that now functions as a local park with abundant space and minimal acclaim (at least relative to world-famous Central Park, but perhaps that isn’t a fair comparison).
One of my favorite parts was the scale replica of New York City, complete with all five boroughs. This was a site that could captivate me, an occasional visitor of New York constantly amazed by the sheer size of our nation’s biggest city, Max, a transplant who has lived several years in New York, and I imagine just about anyone with love in their heart for New York City (which is probably anyone who has lived in New York).
I spent most of my evenings in the Lower East Side, where it seems that just about all of my friends have flocked and nested within a 15 block radius. Boston is wildly different from New York City, but once again I found myself doing a lot of the same kind of stuff with my friends: messing around, eating well, having a beer and a laugh, listening to live music – all as if no time had passed since we had last seen each other. We even worked a Remi Wolf concert in Brooklyn into the mix, a collision of worlds as college friends Sam and Kamdyn met kindergarten friend Max. My last night, I got to see my soon-to-be-famous friend Julian Dobson and my oldest friend Aidan (colloquially, Aids).
By the time it was time to go, I had biked all over, seen quite a few fantastic friends, slept in four different beds, and lived freely in Manhattan for a full week.
Back, then Goodbye, to the Bluegrass
I returned to Kentucky, led back-to-back-to-back trips, and tied a bow on my first professional trip leading season. With the end of the season came responsibilities typically reserved for first-years like me: the dirty work, which meant packing up and breaking down the equipment for a full region and driving it across the country to the Backroads headquarters in Salt Lake City (meanwhile, veteran leaders were partying in Croatia for the annual Staff Ride). Some of the Kentucky gang, plus Sarah on her way back from Vermont, did make it out to a Little Feat concert, as well as a horse race at the legendary Keeneland race track, so no complaints.
An Ode to Food Waste Prevention
I had no problem with the prospect of driving back to SLC from Kentucky, though admittedly dealing with a full region's worth of food wasn’t the most fun I’ve ever had. I am extremely opposed to food waste, arguably to a fault (especially if you ask my good buddy and one of two support leaders (shoutout Ellis too) on my last trip of the year, Chef Scott), which made the food situation even more challenging. I made a mission of donating all of our unopened non-perishables, which was a no-brainer, but the opened non-perishables were a different story. Obviously most food banks (understandably) do not accept opened goods, but what I was dealing with were 80-90% full plastic jars of nuts, dried fruit, crackers, and other items that were still perfectly good to eat, and had never been touched by human hands. I couldn’t bear to throw it all away, so I packed it in a huge garbage bag and gave it out along my 1,800 mile journey from Kentucky to Utah whenever I encountered food-insecure folks. This happened in cities through which I passed (St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver), though most of it went to folks in Boulder.
Hit The Road (for the last time), Jack
That is a proper segue to the drive, which was another very positive experience on the road. (I’ve told friends that long drives are essentially heaven plus back pain to me; that is, without the back pain they would be heaven). On the way, I stopped in my good friend Cap’s home city of St. Louis, catching a glimpse of the Gateway Arch and eating a pre-prepared lunch in massive Forest Park. It was a beautiful day. I think I got lucky this fall with how many of the days I lived that bordered on my definition of perfection: slightly cold in the shade, a direct call to find sunshine. I was always happily sad to see the sun go at day’s end.
It is also an interesting drive in that - inevitably - one drives through hundreds of miles of flat farmland: states like (southern) Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas that are not widely known for their scenic beauty. But nonetheless, and maybe it was because it was my first time doing such a thing, I was not in any way suffering in the way that most folks say that they were when they’ve had to drive through long stretches of rural America. Even in the flattest areas of Kansas, I just felt like there was something there, something that doesn’t meet the eye, something that is impossible to explain in words, but something that to me felt - in an entirely different way - as special as the rugged mountains of the Yukon or the striking coastline of California. Perhaps the feeling I was experiencing is that, well, life is life, whether you’re seeing it in the hustle and bustle of Times Square, or the sea otters of Monterey Bay, or the wide swaths of cultivated farmland in Kansas.
Trouble in Rural Kansas
I also found myself yearning to know this place through the lens of a fellow human being (a feeling eerily similar to the one when I encountered my hitchhiker in Alberta), which seemed impossible until I checked my gas tank and realized that my odds of making it to a gas station (15 miles away) with a nearly empty gas tank (10 miles of range) were slim to none: I would have to rely on a guardian angel to save me. This perhaps should’ve been a more panicky experience, but instead ended up being quite a funny one, as I pulled into the right lane of Interstate 70, a 75 mph freeway, and cruised along at a notoriously efficient 55 mph, hoping that conserving my gas this way would be sufficient to get me off the freeway. And that it was. I exited and found myself in Wilson, Kansas – the Czech capital of The Sunflower State (as the weather-beaten rusted sign proudly proclaims).
I always wondered what exactly happens when one runs out of gas. Do you really just push down on the gas pedal and nothing happens? Yeah, pretty much, as I anticlimactically discovered as my driving turned to downhill rolling on a one-lane road, wondering when I would have to stop. Gravity was on my side for what seemed like the foreseeable future, until, after at least a mile of rolling down the road, I saw what I thought was – no, it couldn’t be – a stoplight. Sure enough, it was a stoplight, placed truly in the middle of nowhere. This made sense once I realized that this particular stoplight was one of those temporary construction stoplights that halted the flow of one lane of traffic so that the other could pass while work was being done on a lane.
When I arrived at the light, it was red, and I came to a full and complete stop, fully cognizant of the fact that I would not be able to unstop myself. I pulled over slightly, using the nominal shoulder on the side of the road, and waited, laughing to myself, for a human to arrive.
Despite the remarkably low population density in the area, my guardian angel arrived in under a minute. A guy in an old pick up truck gave me (and my branded 15-seater Ford Transit van with trailer attached) a sideways glance. “Backroads? All we got are backroads around here!” Farmer Tom had arrived.
That comment broke me out of my dumbfounded social stagnation, and I explained the situation. Farmer Tom was back with fuel within a half hour, and I gave him jams and beers as a way of saying thank you. We drove back to the gas station so that I could also fill up his portable fuel canister. I offered to fill up his truck as well, but he declined. At the gas station, I asked him about Wilson, a town of less than a thousand folks, many of whom (including Tom) were dispersed in the surrounding rural area. Perhaps noticing the strange wonder in my eyes as I observed this dilapidated town, hundreds of miles from the closest city, Tom said something I don’t think I’ll ever forget: “This really is the land that time forgot; believe you me!” He followed that statement with a solemn chuckle.
As I drove away, I saw what he meant. Abandoned industrial structures, purpose long lost, blended with brick houses and small dead lawns, bleak beneath a gray sky. A gloomy picture, surely, but still that aforementioned indescribable feeling remained. This place, through which I was passing for a mere moment in time (a split second in my life’s 24-hour clock), was the canvas upon which people in this tiny corner of the western world daily paint their lives. This is a place that looked very different from the urban and remote places to which I had traveled in the last several months, but there was a common thread running through it. Humans being humans, doing life. It was a feeling of connectedness that feels as if it sprouts spouts from the core of who I am and occasionally spouts into my conscious experience, a feeling whose presence tells me that I’m doing an okay job at this whole life thing so far.
Layover in the Rockies
I arrived in Denver that night, where I spent two nights. Thanks to my dear pal and birthday buddy (one year removed) George, who had made the less common post-grad move (relative to our Duke peers) to Denver, for hosting me. Of all the cities I visited this fall (DC, SF, Boston, NYC, and Denver), Denver stands out for its ease of access to beautiful natural environments, which is a strong selling point for a guy like me, who may (or may not) one day live in a city.
I spent my layover day in the town of Boulder, a college town that has always intrigued me. BoCo sits right up against the Flatirons, a series of rock formations that are shaped so beautifully that belief in a higher power feels like an organic reaction to seeing them in person. I enjoyed hiking up to Royal Arch, but not until my ballot was cast, my non-perishable food was given away, and the Sun began to shine. A particularly (perhaps suspiciously) special moment occurred when, right as I gave away the last of a massive bag full of food items, the cloud cover that had shaded this mountain town all day disappeared into nothingness, and the Sun shone magnificently in the sky. Now, I have bore witness to the rapid burn-off of Northern California coastal fog quite a few times (an undoubtedly special experience that I shared most recently with Sam, as mentioned previously), but this felt different. A rainbow rose (fell?) over the city of Boulder.
I beelined to the base of the 2nd Flatiron and got to hiking, making it to Royal Arch with an hour of daylight to spare. I was excused from the viewpoint below the arch by a chipmunk who really wanted my granola bar (to a genuinely frightening degree).
I returned to Denver, where George and I shared a lovely homemade nacho dinner (paired with gifted bourbon), and I was off to Salt Lake City, an eight-hour journey, early the next morning.
The Final Day on the Road
This last day of driving, I came to realize, was the 15th full day I had spent on the road – driving for extended time, solo – since mid-August, exactly 72 days prior. I had enjoyed my time on the road immensely and had been paid for my time, and then some. I felt very fortunate, and my final day of driving felt like a fortunate end to a very positive, transit-centric chapter of my life. On this day, I had the blessed opportunity to drive through the Rocky Mountains.
I’m not sure if I wasn’t expecting snow, or if I just wasn’t expecting as much snow as I ended up seeing. I guess in my mind, thanks to all the fall sunshine I had enjoyed in the last several months (from Durango in early September to the day prior), summer hadn’t fully left yet. But nonetheless, at 10,000+ feet of elevation, winter had arrived, and I spent hours cruising through the frigid air, amazed that I had been in an urban environment just moments before.
Staring speechlessly, almost thoughtlessly, at 14,000 foot peaks, I wondered how, with all that could have happened in my life, I ended up right there – never stationary, but somehow entirely still as mystical alpine scenes seemed to unfold before my very eyes. I wondered how the rest of the world could possibly have continued existing, knowing (or not knowing) what I knew now, lessons instantaneously learned and mastered during my first time seeing the Rockies. I cried several times as I drove up, through, and then down the mountain pass.
After (involuntarily) trading the mountains of Colorado for the Utah desert, I arrived to Salt Lake City in one piece, despite encountering a flat tire delay along the way. I spent several days there, and I had a very fortunate opportunity to reconnect with some Backroads folks from training that I had not seen in several months since we trained together. Special shoutout to Jon, my roommate from training, who went out of his way (logistically and financially) to stay an extra day or two so that we could have some quality time together. My brother Beck and I also got more quality time, which is always appreciated. Unsurprisingly, we had a blast.
One of those days was Halloween, and after my pal Hunter commented that my hat made me look like Indiana Jones, I realized that I was saved from not having planned a costume. We went out in downtown SLC, and in the morning I bid farewell to the strange desert mountain city in which I had spent five wonderful weeks since July. It was time to return home.
Homecoming and Roadtripping and Surfpining*
Family complications delayed the writing of this post for several weeks, and I spent several weeks at home managing those and not doing a whole lot of writing. I spent a lot of time stretching, meditating, and taking care of my pets.
I now find myself on the central coast of California, on the south end of Big Sur, nearing the Thanksgiving holiday, reflecting on the wonderful several months that have passed since I last shared my writing. Amidst hardship and challenges, life seems to continue blessing me, not only with fortunate happenings and beautiful experiences, but also (and certainly more importantly) with a sense of empowered resilience that pulls me regularly back to the present moment, time and time and time again.
I feel most present while surfing, something I began to do instinctively upon my return to California that I told my friend June that it no longer felt like a choice, which is only a half-jest. As William Finnegan, author of legendary surf memoir Barbarian Days, once wrote:
“I did not consider, even passingly, that I had a choice when it came to surfing. My enchantment would take me where it would."
Admittedly, I am addicted with no reservations about my addiction, which has led me to many breaks where I am far and away the least competent person out there with a surfboard. Nevertheless, each time, I experience joy through an intimate experience with the ethereally beautiful natural world. My favorite version of the California coast is rugged, rural, rocky, and remote; I feel at home there and suspect that I may one day reside in such a place. And, to my surprise, I’m slowly but surely getting better at surfing; I had my best session ever just yesterday at Shell Beach in Pismo.
* Surfpining (noun) – a combination of ‘surf’ and ‘pining’ | to miss and long for the return of the act and feeling of riding a wave | a term I just invented
The Final Stranger
One particularly memorable experience with the ocean – and the last tale I’ll recount here – happened today. While doing some adventuring on an abandoned trail adjacent to Andrew Molera State Park, I encountered a fellow solo traveling stranger who became a friend in record time.
This, of course, is the fifth stranger, a cowboy hat-sporting young German guy named Jonas, the (aforementioned) German Cowboy. We climbed and scrambled up a 40-ish foot rock face that I had decided (just before meeting Jonas) I’d be unwise to climb alone, becoming friends in the process. I got the impression that Jonas was a good one, and he spent the day unknowingly proving me right.
Atop the rock face, we got a great aerial view of sea otters goofing off (as they tend to do) from another unmaintained trail. As we watched the otters bob up and down in the waves, I light-heartedly lamented the fact that this river mouth break was no good for surfing at the moment, and Jonas light-heartedly lamented the fact that he had never in his life gone surfing, despite spending the better part of the past two months on the Pacific coast. I told him about my extra wetsuit and board, and my new German friend was immediately entranced.
Eventually, we walked back to our vehicles (Jonas’s was a tricked-out van he had bought in Vancouver), condemning the evils of social media all the while, and planned to head north about 50 miles to Monterey. Lover’s Point ended up being our spot, and I got my friend suited up and oriented with the basics of surfing.
Now, I’ve helped a few folks get their first waves, both as an under-qualified surf instructor to college students on OA surfing trips in Wilmington, NC; to several family members in Half Moon Bay, CA; and to my roommate, the legendary Alfredo, and his girlfriend Melannie, who got their first waves in the very unlikely Myrtle Beach, SC. I did not, however, get Jonas his first wave; Lover’s Point is a pretty hardcore (and rather rocky) left that reached well overheard on the big sets that day. Luckily, it is very locationally consistent, meaning Jonas could chill on the outside shoulder, observing the ocean’s rise and fall, admiring the skills of surfers far more skilled than either of us, and practicing his paddling skills.
One of the most genuinely pure moments of my life manifested as several sea lions jumped out of the water, no more than 15 feet from Jonas, who let out a childlike holler that emanated wonder. Locals barely batted an eye, but my German friend’s wholesome shriek made me laugh then and kept me smiling long after we said goodbye.
That’s All, Folks!
So that’s all from me, for now. I hope you enjoyed reading (or listening). I enjoyed writing it, and I appreciate this medium. Though I maintain that my (private and public) writing is – at its core – a commitment to myself, all of you wonderful folks that have read even one word of what I’ve written hold me accountable by virtue of your existence alone. So thank you.
In the next installment, a few months down the road, you’ll hear about several other roadtrips down the California coast, an extended stay in a retirement community in Arizona, my first ski season in the Sierra Nevadas, and a full month in Asia (Taiwan and Thailand).
Bonus Poetry
I will leave you with a haiku that I wrote at some point during the last few months:
Outside with sunshine
I crave it with urgency
Reliable joy
And a Mary Oliver poem:
This is Musings from a Mullet, Installment IV, signing off.
Jack
I feel like I'm hanging out, if even for a few minutes, with every person you mention in your tales, and the emphasis placed on the stories of the people you encounter is so awesome. It's very inspiring to hear of so much kindness and love thrown your way by the universe, albeit all the challenges. People and relationsips are what it's all about. Here's to a great new year, a great few weeks in Taiwan, and hopefully playing guitar and drinking our first beer on Dale's 5 acres in Colorado one day. Cheers my BiC
This is so well written, I got excited when I heard you mention the homies.
My brain:”omg wait I know them”