Epilogue- 7,500 miles of America

A graphical interpretation.


Told you I was a map dork. Here's the recap. Blue was the first trip. Red was the second trip. Purple were the trips I took during the holidays. Squares were picture spots, circles were overnight stops.

I've now traveled over 7,500 miles in cars and trucks, been on a 4 day cruise, and flown across the country twice, been to 27 states and a foreign country... and I loved every second of it. Part of me aches a little because I really never wanted it to end.

It's over now.

To answer the question that Brian asked me at the beginning- "Doing some unnecessary travelling?" I can honestly say no. No, I did no unnecessary travelling.

I had been dreaming of the days, the time that I would be able to accomplish this, since 1999. For those of you that don't know, that's when my life took a massive turn for the worst. All I could do was dream and hope that someday things would return to normal, and that things would get better. I had to stay in Illinois. When you're bound to one place, and you already like to travel, staying in that one place is hell. When it was finally over, and the binding loosed, things were in my favor.

If you're pagan, you'd say the stars were aligned. If you're Buddhist, you'd say I had a buildup of good karma flood out on to me. If you're Christian, you'd say God answered your prayers. If you're Zoroastrian, I don't know what you'd say. If you're satanic, I don't care what you'd say. Regardless, things happened such that not only was I able to travel again, but I was not bound by employment, I had a store of money that allowed me to afford the trip, and I WAS ABLE TO SEE EVERY SINGLE THING I PUT ON MY LIST OF THINGS TO SEE!!!

There are the images, the ones I'll never erase, the ones that burn deep in your memory because of the sheer beauty or magnitude of the picture. Tulum. Xel-Ha. The arch in St. Louis. The Big Texas Steak Ranch. Sunrise AND sunset over the southwest. The cold, rainy day in Pittsburgh where the student became the Master (thanks for your help, Brian). The robotic redneck in West Virginia. The dude paying for cigs in Tenn. with a check. The all-you-can-eat meat bonanza (thanks for your hospitality, Steve). Laughing at the world's biggest chair. Sitting on the beach at sunset in a hurricane-ravaged coastal city. Saturday night in New Orleans. The fog in the bayou. The long stretch of nothing in Texas. The landscapes of New Mexico. The rainbow over Beautiful Mountain. Nearly running out of gas in the Navajo Nation, 40 miles from nothing. The Grand Canyon in winter. Vegas.

Don't read too far into this, though. Oh sure, I could put some theme on the trip, put some life lesson and turn this into some American odyssey. But I hate iambic pentameter. And the fact is, English is still my second language. I didn't care what the "main theme" of the selection was, and never will. It's not how I comprehend the written word, anyway.

Did the trip change me? No. Truth is, the events that created the trip in my mind changed me far more deeply than the trip itself. No, I'm who I am and no different. Only now I have even more useless information and boring anecdotes for people to yawn at.

Thanks to everyone. Everyone that read this blog. If you read every entry, you need to seriously take a trip to the mental health specialist and get a prescription for Thorizine, stat. Thanks to everyone who interacted with me in an unofficial capacity for the last 6 years. You did more to save my psyche and keep me grounded in my time of absolute misery, whether you knew it or not, and that was more than I could have ever asked. I am in all of your debt. Thanks to my family, who never gave up believing in me. Thanks to my friends who never gave up hope with me. Thanks to you, Jenny, for giving me something to fight for.

I guess I should stop writing and find a job. I have a wedding to plan, after all.

-Dan