Westward Day 1

After the short trip to see Garrett and Liz again I drove back to Nashville to stay with Eric for the night before my long days on the road ahead.

Eric had work at 5, he woke me before he left to say goodbye and was off. I decided to sleep a bit longer because I still wasn’t feeling completely better.

I ended up leaving his place around 7 and got gas and searched for a place to eat. Eric lives in Murphreesburrow (pronounced Murfiesburrow…who knows) which is about a half hour south of Nashville. I located a Duncan donut just into Nashville on my way northward to meet up with I-70.

Grabbing breakfast in the DD/Gas station I headed back up I-24 towards Kentucky. As I had previously mentioned the roads in Nashville are horrendous, one can change highways 5 times just to stay on the one originally started. Passing through Nash. I came upon the junction that would go right to the Hilson Home.

Driving under the signs while keeping my gaze upon the numbers, I began to choke up with emotion for this town I had so shortly come to know and love. Continuing on I passed the exit for Bongo Java, my favorite coffee shop and location for writing many of these blogs, as well as many times spent well with friends, and again I was overcome with emotion for this place and it almost seemed as though a tear could form.

Reaching the northern outskirts of the city as the last of the Nashville exits passed I could no longer contain the emotions welling inside as the dam of tears broke and I wept my departure of this city and the home I was leaving with my new found family behind.

Humans were made for relationships. God created in us the need for one another and for Him. Being more of an introvert in general it has always been a hard concept to put into practice, to be an integral part of a community; it has always been easier for me to just have one or two people close. But lately I’ve had such a deep longing for community. To be around living in the day to day in the midst of others, struggling with life’s issues, more than just roommates or good friends- but to be with people who are serving each other and finding ways to serve others as much as possible.

Entering the Hilson Home was entering the mess of six lives colliding in one four-bedroom house. And I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

It is not just these lives either, it ripples into everyone within reach. The day I arrived, Paul (the one wearing girls sandals to take out the trash) was staying for a couple days on his trip home- he became another one of us for those few days. A while later six hippies leaving Bonnaroo stayed the night for showers, laundry and a dry couch to sleep before they continued on their way. (Tiffany and Stephanie were friends with one of the girls since childhood…the rest were just tagging along) And later another few people were supposed to stay that had found them on CouchSurfing.com, but for some reason or another it didn’t work out. There was always room for one more.

After just the first night I felt I had become another member of the household, I just happened to sleep on the couch. And I knew this was the community like I had craved. These were the messes of men (er ah women…) that I had longed to be a part.

This can’t even fully explain it all, but this is what I had tasted and was leaving behind. And it brought tears to my eyes. So much so that I couldn’t even understand GPSy or make out road signs properly. It was the first time in my adult life I had cried over leaving a place. I have never had trouble leaving till now. I cried when I was a child leaving my first home- but never since. This place had changed my life.

I think it may have also not helped that I was listening to Coldplay’s “A Prospekt’s March” EP, which is just so darn beautiful.

I ascended Nashville and eventually Tennessee. I found out that in Kentucky only people over 50 are in residence. Didn’t know that was possible, but they pull it off somehow. Everyone smokes as well, which seems counter intuitive to the afore mentioned statement, but they pull that off as well. And no resident may drive more that 3 miles per hour over the speed limit, though in general they stick to 5 miles under the posted suggestions.

Kentucky and Illinois are pretty I guess, and their drives proved uneventful.

Crossing over some river into St. Louis, Missouri I came to find that inner city ghettos can actually be had in the middle of cornfields of nothing- I had always assumed a city would have to be there previous to an inner city’s dwellings- but I was wrong. Only black men are allowed to ride motorcycles in St. Louis and protective gear is optional at best and of course the faster one is planning on going the less gear is required. Our motorcycle laws in CA are messed up…

Headed for a campsite just North of Kansas City, MO, GPSy takes me through back country roads with names such as M, N, O, and PP- wish they’d be as creative back home, it would make the drive more enjoyable. I began to get worried that this so called campsite was going to be the middle of an open field and upon setting up my tent I’d be approached by shotguns and pitbulls.

Somehow they make “towns” by putting a hundred year old gas station and a Sonic at an intersection and expect passers by to know that humans are around, even though the evidence suggests otherwise.

Just as I did finally find this so called campground, another RV park that hides the fact in forgetting to mention such a fact in the name, it began to rain- and not normal rain- big Ogre gone emo sized rain. The clouds had suggested he might cry, but up to this point had stayed dry. Judging by the size of the tears and the observation that swamp thick clouds saturated the skyline in all directions viewable, I decided to go back to the Sonic I had passed five miles back to let my full stomach decide what to do instead of my bitter, head cramping empty stomach.

After about ten minutes overview of my options I picked a sandwich and ordered. I really hate drive through- I avoid them at all costs- and Sonic is only that- well you can’t always pull through cuz you’d hit the building- but you always have to deal with the stupid speaker thing getting in the way of the order and the operators comprehension of no tomato or lettuce.

Upon completion I decided to drive a bit further into Kansas and get a hotel since camping with a tent doesn’t exist in 200 square miles, not to mention the now communal Ogre sized downpour. It is still beyond my comprehension, though I’ve experienced it, how it can be dark, °85, with 80% humidity, and pouring down rain the size of apples. It defies logic.

GPSy found hotels in Lawrance, Kansas about an hour away, which cuts off an hour from the following day’s drive. So I headed south to the city to find I-70 westward once again.

The sun had not quite sank, and southbound I could see to my right where the Ogre storm had abated somewhere over Utah, the sunset. Or at least sun rays over the mountains hitting the Ogre’s clouds, into one of the most brilliant and beautiful displays of color and light I quite possibly have ever seen. Had the Ogre’s not still been drenching this state with the apple sized tears and shocks of thunder and bright as day lightning I would have pulled over and photographed the sight.

As I came over a ridge and this wonder was shown more fully I once again was overwhelmed with emotion, thinking that I had another family on that coast who could see fully this sunset and that I had just left behind my southern family, and I couldn’t hold it in once more.

I felt the Ogre storm’s pain and cried mini ogre tears for the second time in one day. I longed for the community, for the family, the friendships, the hardships, and for a woman to share it all with. Someone that would long for and search for these things with me; someone that would go on some crazy trip across the universe with me- for the rest of my life.

Clearing away the tears to focus on the darkness and the irrationality of American’s in cars at night in a storm, I eventually found my nights stay at the Econo Lodge of Lawrance, Kansas.

The girl at the desk took my money and assigned to me room 207, directing me to “Entrance 6” to the right of the building. Moving my car among the diesel duellies and squeezing into a spot near Entrance 6, I unloaded what bags I needed (and or didn’t want to leave out) and many rain filled attempts to open Entrance 6, I repacked the bags and walked around to the front desk. She informed me she couldn’t do anything about it unless I tried the door to my room. So I went and found room 207 and low and behold it would not open either. She reassigned me to 236 and this time trying both room and Entrance 8 I moved the car closer and unloaded again.

Sitting in the room for a few minutes fiddling with television of nothing I wanted to rot my brain with, I went down to the “Lounge” for some pretty terrible playing of guitars and what I believe was supposed to be singing- and yet there was a huge crowd of people intently listening, and when the two finished they were applauded and given all sorts of praise on their “jobs well done…how well they played” and other sorts of completely unwarranted compliments. One even said, “You guys got better as the night went on.” I almost audibly replied, “Yeah because you just got more and more drunk that they didn’t seem to suck as much.” But I held my tongue.

Not even sure why I stayed long enough to hear them finish, I think I just didn’t want to be completely alone. Returning to my room I changed and turned back to the TV brain rotting for too long, and eventually fell asleep to the drone of parties down the hall and the street lamp incessantly turning on and off every few minutes.

I hate hotels.