Sorry to have been playing hide and go seek for so long. I’v..

Sorry to have been playing hide and go seek for so long. I’ve been doing what I call “wilding out” which is where I take off for a solo road adventure of 2-7,000 miles, typically on a wing and a prayer, in my circa 2002 Toyota Sequoia. She was originally a cattle car, from what I was told at the dealership. What they didn’t tell me was that she was a salvage title. She had 220,000 miles when I first bought her. She now has over 330,000 miles and has driven me successfully through nearly every mountain pass, desert, and long stretch of Highway in America. Fun, this last time, in a Stephen King sort of way, was Doherty Slide on Oregon Route 140. These sorts of things are always a surprise, reminding me that I should probably dig and plan deeper than just punching in point a to point b on Google maps. But what an adventure. I got to bucket list driving through all of S Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Washington, Oregon, Nebraska. Parts of Nevada and Idaho. Saw a meteorite with a tail that spanned 1/8 of the sky, Mount Rushmore, Crater Lake, the beautiful town of Astoria, Cape Disappointment (the name is a trick), drove through probably 50-100 state and National forests. Just pristine if not a little of the usual lonely. I’ll tell you what, the world opens wide up once you learn to p-ss in cups and make a bed in your backseat of this great nation’s Walmarts. The contrast between roughing it and making it back to a real bed is sublime. Sometimes I don’t know if I am eating the road or the road is eating me, but sudden visions like seeing a pair of wild mustangs standing at the edge of a cliff, a virtual swarm of bald eagles flying above your head, or a stag running the full expanse of a bridge right before you drive beneath it brings back a bit of the sacred in life. A handful of good podcasts helps. I think I have it out of my system for awhile, but there are a few more US states I haven’t reached, chiefly the northeast, plus Canada and Alaska. (I really want to see Vancouver Island. I was so close…so close.) Thankful for friends and family that I visited this last journey. Happy hellos and goodbyes makes my journeys all the sweeter and your sweet humanity keeps me grounded. Happy Freedom Day!