Scoring The Asphalt Ribbon

Have you ever killed and eaten living things? Birds, goats, wheat, rice, corn, fish, dogs, ants, bamboo shoots, scorpions... Before you killed them, did you take care of their growth from the very beginning? Does your regular source of barter exchange involve the care and feeding of living things?

I have raised fish. I have killed and cleaned fish I've eaten. I have met the animals that were later killed for my consumption. I have raised vegetables that I've killed, cleaned and eaten. I have eaten food caught and killed in the wild by me. In other words, I am part of this planet of eat and be eaten. I do not distinguish the types of organisms I consume by their brain function. Instead, I pay attention to the amount of nutrition they provide versus the waste they add to my body (paying attention does not mean I eat a healthy meal everytime). Another fact: my species has consumed my species throughout the course of its culinary history.

The day I decided to hit the road and escape the problems that weighed me down, I had very little money and no food. My plan - to drive to Seattle, Washington, and dive car bumper first into the Pacific Ocean - included no thought of food.

In the back of the station wagon, I had a bicycle, several empty Coke bottles, a stack of clothes and the material I studied to improve my job situation at Steak&Ale. I also had a small poster of the touring concert series by The Who.

At one point in time I thought about chronicling my monorail journey across the middle of the North American continent but decided that bookshelves are already crammed with tales of woe, whims, and wonders by more famous and perhaps better writers than humble ol' me. Although 25 years have passed since I drove west across the face of our planet, I recall many details but mainly strong impressions of my solo trek.

Crossing the muddy Mississippi River.

Reading speed limit signs and the explanation of monetary fines per increase in speeding over the legal limit.

The rolling hills of the open prairie.

Rows and rows (and rows (and rows (and rows))) of corn and wheat.

Using a petrol company credit card to pay for my motoring along the highways and freeways, wondering if there was a monthly or total limit to what I could charge.

Going days without eating food, drinking water from bathroom sinks in roadside parks and rest stops.

Picking up a couple of young hitchhikers who had been kicked out of a flat and were making their way to a family member's pad in hopes of starting over. Watching them pick dead grass out of their hair that had accumulated from them sleeping on a sheltered embankment the night before - their looking like a couple of primates picking insects out of each other's fur, telling me more about my place in the universe and the definition of true love than any song on the radio about love (i.e., lust) ever could. Giving them my last three dollars because I knew they needed it more than I did, especially after them wisely pointing out they were more messed up in their journey through life than I was.

Sleeping in the back of the station wagon for a couple of weeks, washing my clothes in the bathroom sinks from which I drank.

Using the concert poster and the training manuals to block the setting sun's reflection on the front dashboard from blinding me.

The kindness of strangers, instant kinship formed along the route, showing me the smartass, snobbish sarcasm of my youth was no longer useful in establishing myself in the moment.

Food deprivation causing me to whiteout while driving, giving me insight into the workings of one's body but also enlightening me that premature death was no solution, only an escape mechanism, that my destiny, if such existed, had already been decided when I met my girlfriend when she and I were 12 years old at a summer camp in the mountains of North Carolina (now my wife of 23+ years). I saw that she was the fellow primate I was willing to sleep on the side of the road with and pick straw out of her hair the next day.

I drove on, not ready to meet my fate, finally daring to ask a petrol station attendant if I could charge food to my credit card, eating a bag of potato crisps, drinking a bottle of orange juice and wolfing down some M&Ms after he said yes.

Seeing how far a tank of gas will last, pushing my luck a couple of times and making it to the next road exit on fumes.

The beauty of desolation.

The touristy glitz of Wall Drug.

Tumbleweeds.

The Black Hills.

Discussing the curse of modern technology (a Chevy 4x4) with a native American who wondered why a Tennessean wanted to drive through the small towns of Montana just to see Seattle.

Wondering if the station wagon would make it up the steep mountains without overheating or breaking down.

The oasis of Coeur D'Alene.

Spokane.

At last, Seattle, with houses, houses, and more houses packed between tall conifers. The rush hour traffic, people in a hurry, a far cry from what I imagined the Pacific Northwest to be. Feeling like my journey would not come to an end there after all. Finding a map to chart my trip down the Pacific coast to Pasadena - another story, another time.

Small details coming back in focus... Getting out of the station wagon in the middle of the night to pee, looking up at the sky and seeing our place in the Milky Way as clear as any people-prepared map. Waking up sometimes to hear noises and finding the car next to me the next day had its windows broken out and nobody around to claim ownership of the car. The enterprise of society at work in every town I passed through. Abandoned homesteads. Wondering when and if I'd get back home and what I would say, not wanting to use the phone to give away my whereabouts until I'd had more time to think through solutions to my dilemma, no deus ex machina waiting in the wings to save me. Solar-powered, no-water toilets in the middle of nowhere. The squeak of the car seat springs. Topping off the oil and losing the oilcap, only to find it down in the engine bay a couple of days and many hundreds of miles later. Getting used to a bicycle as a bedside companion. A person tapping on the back window, making sure I hadn't frozen to death in the mountains. Dirt tracks going across four lanes of the freeway, indicating to me a farmer or rancher traveling from one part to another of a land tract that was bisected by strips of asphalt ribbon. Getting up in the morning with the over-the-road, tractor trailer / lorry drivers, going from daybreak to dusk like migrating birds or caribou, or industrious ants.

Wondering when not looking back would turn into looking forward...