My obsession began on the road to the Alaska Highway…
July 3, 2013
Subject: Dad’s Journey
I feel a bit presumptuous, so bear with me…
Before we left on our journey both Mike and Matt [my sons] had occasion to ask how I felt about leaving work behind and heading off into a new world of travel and adventure. Both seemed a bit skeptical that I would make the transition without, shall we say, a certain amount of angst.
A day later, Mandy [my sister] was far less circumspect–as usual. She reckons that the personality my kids have known for lo these forty odd years (sorry Kirsten [my daughter]) goes way farther back than that. She further reckons that, angst be damned, I’m probably headed for a full-fledged nervous breakdown. Worst of all, she thinks that’s funny!
Sorry, Kids. I didn’t invite her into the family–it just happened.
Mandy opined that, while it was fun to follow our travels on Chris’ web site, it would be equally fun for the five of you to follow my existential adventures in a more personal format. Remember, she thinks this is funny…
So here is my first edition.
On the phone with Chris this morning, Mike asked a couple of times how I was reacting to being without work. (I fear he thinks it’s a bit funny too.) She answered that I was doing fine. And that was true.
But an explanation might be in order…
For a confirmed work addict, keeping the mechanics, the refrigeration and especially the electronics going for Chris’ travelling road show is analogous to methadone for a heroin addict. For the moment, I haven’t stopped working at all–I just have a different, and infinitely more demanding client.
Somewhere deep inside, though, I feel my telos starting to bloom. Last night in a ‘campground’ in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, we met a lady about our age who identified herself as a ‘full timer’. I didn’t know this breed existed, and maybe you don’t either. She was about my age, tiny, painfully skinny, clearly suffering from advanced health issues. But she has been travelling the highways in her enormous freeway yacht of a motor home since her husband died in 2003. She has no home and doesn’t want one.
I wasn’t dumb enough to ask her about driving that behemoth all by herself, towing her smaller car behind. But she answered anyway. She explained that she had to do all the driving because her dog was too short to reach the pedals.
I’m not sure what effect meeting that incredible little woman had on my spiritual state, but I know it was profound. Something along the lines of, “Holy Shit there are some cool people in this world. I wish I was one of them!
Dad/Big Brother
I love reading your introductory comments. After reading many of your later reports, I see myself in your shoes. Imagining there are some people who not only survive such great wild-reness, but thrive and actually refuse to live any other way.
Survival puts a whole new perspective on ones life.