Day 1: Start Off With a Bang... or a Banging Hangover.

I woke up with the most gut-wrenching hangover that man has ever known. I was queasy and my head felt like someone had put a vice grip on my temples while I was sleeping. I could have stayed a few hours and slept it off, but that would seriously alter my distance capabilities. Not a good way to kick off day one of a road trip.

I geared up and hit the road, saying goodbye to Martha and Nick, thanking them for a wild and wonderful evening. I went the same way out of NC as I did on my first trip, past Pilot Mountain near the town of Mount Airy. My uncle called that mountain "the great nipple in the sky" due to it's unfortunate mesa that jutted sharply out of the peak. For all intents and purposes, it did look like a giant boob, which was comical considering how regal the landscape looked otherwise.

Must be chilly in Mount Airy.

Personally though, I could not possibly care less about that stupid nipple in the sky, because I was so miserable behind the wheel that simply staying in my lane was a challenge. I played music at first. Then I got a harder thumping in my ears, so I turned it off.

There was a lovely landscape through West Virginia. However, the delightful mountain driving made me push back vomit with each lurch to the left and right. I texted Little Bear, "you know you've reached a new low when you barf in a rest stop bathroom."

"I'm pretty sure I'm going to die," he replied. At least I wasn't the only one who was a hot mess.

I got so desperate for a nap that I pulled over in a rural industrial town to nap behind a Shoney's. Yes, they still exist. I needed sleep. However, there was no shade, it was over 96*, and I didn't have a good place to lay out. So, in the heat, I climbed into the back seat and tried to nap. It was the most uncomfortable and sorry attempt at napping I've ever done. Covered in sweat, holding back vomit, I lay in that car for 45 minutes praying to anyone that I would fall asleep. I half-dozed for a while, and in frustration, I gave up. Some very confused locals stopped in their tracks as I tumbled out of the car, barefoot and with no pants on. Whiskey: 1, Jamie: 0.

A slight breeze hit my face. I actually felt better. I looked out over the quaint, hilly town in a beautiful valley. There was a river crawling its way through the middle of the town, and from the far edge, up on a hill, I could see the entire town as if it was in a bowl and I was standing on the rim of it. An arched steel bridge ran over the water, connecting the two sides of the town. The peaks of church steeples stood out among the flat topped warehouses. Before it was an industrial town, I suspect the main profession here was mining.

I felt a bit better and made a graceful exit from the town. Normally, I attempt to take secondary highways on road trips so that I can see the scenic route. Not at this point. This part was just a means to get me west. I'd seen West Virginia before, and while it was lovely, I wanted to fast track to all the states I'd never seen before. I zig-zagged through the horizon of WV and eventually made it to Indiana. I was finally feeling more or less back to normal.

Indiana interstates look much like every other one you've ever crossed a state on; kind of nondescript in a lot of places. The afternoon rolled on and the landscape flattened out. I realized I was getting close to sundown and decided it was time to look into a place to sleep. One of my road rules is never to drive after dark unless absolutely necessary. Nothing good can come from a woman driving alone in an unknown place.

I'm pretty sure 85% of America looks like this from the interstate.

I was approaching Indianapolis as the sun began to swing low in the sky. That signaled to me that I had to stop now. Cities are just no good for car camping, and worse for unaccompanied women. You either have to commit to driving through the city and finding a place on the other side to stay, or you have to stop early. Once, I got caught somewhere between desperation and exhaustion and thus had to spend the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot, which was a harrowing experience.

Flashback, shall we?

On another adventure, I was desperately trying to find a campsite in the deep south after leaving New Orleans and wound up getting impressively off track. Each campsite we tried to find was either locked down for the night with gates shut, or it no longer existed. My GPS was a little out of date. To save myself from falling asleep at the wheel, I pulled into an empty shopping center for a power nap.

I barely had time to get my pillow out of the trunk when two patrol cars arrived, lights flashing. Our out of state tags were apparently very disconcerting to them, and we "looked mischievous," so we had two strikes against us besides the obvious trespassing issue. After a lengthy conversation, a dual interrogation for Lex and myself (to make sure our stories matched up on why we were there), and a field sobriety test, they didn't have anything to really hold us on, but were hellbent on finding something to report.

The one cop reached for my pants and slowly pulled my pocketknife out of my jeans. "What does a girl like you need a knife like this for?"

I didn't think "to keep bitches in line" would be a response he found enthusing, so kept silent. I handed him the larger, serrated knife out of my other pocket and he sat them on the hood of his patrol car. After standing on one foot and saying the entire alphabet backwards, walking a straight line, and literally blowing my breath into his face so he could see if I smelled like alcohol, we were again at a standoff about the situation at hand. They asked me about searching my car, but never actually went through with it. They never breathalyzed me either. At that point I realized they were really just two cops looking to get their jollies off by scaring the shit out of us. They didn't make me blow because they didn't want to do the actual paperwork, and they didn't have any intention of searching my car unless I got nervous about it as if I had something to hide. They didn't believe we were lost, they thought we were up to something.

Anyway, I finally asked the officer if I could reach into my car and show him my GPS, to show him that the last five destinations had been campsites, which were to no avail. Finally! They decided we were suddenly just some honest, good-hearted kids that were a little stranded at 3:00 a.m.

"Oh heck yea, you guys can totally sleep here! We will even swing back by and check on you to make sure nobody troubles you if you like!"

Needless to say, we waited about 30 seconds after they pulled out of the parking lot to hightail it towards home. We got an extra three hours of alert driving time from the adrenaline alone.

And this, friends, is why you never road trip after dark unless you absolutely must. 

Needless to say, I had no desire to get into that sort of debacle again. I discovered Lake Haven campground just outside of the city, and paid for a single tent site. There was a winding lane of RVs parked with no signs of life around them, and a loop at the end for tent camping, gracefully nestled beneath a dozen or more weeping willow trees. The campsite was quiet; at least, quieter than I was used to. It was a peaceful scene, with a man made lake next to us with a fountain in the middle, splashing away.

This was my chance to finally use Magic Car Bed. What a delightful invention! It came from Amazon.com. I remember when it arrived. I had painstakingly tracked its shipment all the way from the factory in China where it was made all the way to my door with eager anticipation. I took it out back of the animal hospital and inflated it in the yard, giddy at the thought of a new adventure. It came in a little nylon bag, with red Chinese words printed on the yellow fabric. The instructions were printed in five different Asian languages, so I was on my own for the tutorial. Thank god for diagrams. It had two air chambers: one was the mattress portion which inflated flat, and a second one that went down into the leg wells of the back seat to give you a large, flat sleeping surface so you could use all the available space from back seat to front. It came with a brown faux sherpa mattress cover, a patch kit, and an air pump that plugs into the cigarette lighter. The road was my hotel now. There was no stopping me!

Magical. In theory.

I unpacked the mattress in the Lake Haven campsite and set up to inflate it. The fountain in the lake made a soothing soundtrack paired with the breeze that swayed the fronds of the willow trees around me. A few things came to light during my actual implementation of Magic Car Bed. The first being, no matter how you dress it up, you are still sleeping in the backseat of a fucking car. Second, seats slope. Unknown to me at that point, I would wake up in the middle of the night swallowed in what seemed like a vinyl sauna pit of death. I would later discover that I had to roll up my towels and shove them under the mattress against the back of the seat to make my sleeping surface level. Third, if you are sleeping in a car as opposed to a tent (one of which I also had in the trunk just in case), you are doing so because it's safer than sleeping by yourself with only a swath of nylon between you and potential campsite serial killers, so rolling the windows any bit past a crack defeats the purpose. You will be sleeping in a hot, stagnant vehicle on a rubber bed covered in fur, and you'd better just go on and pretend you paid a lot of money to sleep in an expensive sauna. Your backseat will turn into a sweat-drenched, stinky slip 'n' slide. Believe me when I say it sounds like fun in theory, not so much in real life.

The sun hadn't quite set yet. I walked over to the edge of the lake. There were a few hordes of geese out there swimming around. I wondered how deep the water could be since it was man made. I looked over to the trio of campers' children frolicking in the water at waist-high depth. They were wearing regular clothes, soaking wet, splashing one another happily. The water was probably pretty warm considering the heat. The lake had a sickly kind of hue. It reminded me of a swimming pool that had been left to its own devices; fake blue with a grody green tint to it, which made me uncomfortable as I watched them swim. I looked at the sand under my feet. I then discovered it wasn't actually sand. I was standing on a figurative carpet of goose shit. It blanketed all the ground within twenty feet of the water line. I mean, not just a little poop. Enough to thoroughly gross a veteran medical professional out.  I realized then that the dark silt on the bottom of the lake's rim was just liquefied fecal matter. Oblivious, the children continued to splash and wrestle and play. How disgusting, I thought. How can they not see how filthy that water is?

At that moment I had thoughts of home, and my friend Morgan. She's been my best friend since I was old enough to know what a friend was. She lived in a modest and impeccably stylish house on the creek back home. The house had a lush, green lawn and at the edge was a ring of cypress trees that lipped the murky water's borders. They had a floating dock that boasted two adirondack chairs that her grandfather had made. One night under a beautiful summer moon, we sat out there drinking wine and laughing as we often did back in those days, and I felt so inclined as to take a dip. I pulled my long skirt up and threw it over my shoulder, proceeded to sit on the edge, and lowered myself into the cool, black water.

Now, let me say that I knew beyond a doubt how absolutely nasty that water was. In this stagnant portion of the creek, there's little flow regarding the current. Crawfish built their little castles in the mud. Poisonous cottonmouth snakes were well known to swim through the water looking to snack on frogs. Snapping turtles lived there (I know this to be fact, and this creek was specifically home to a turkey-platter sized one named Turt that I released there... but that's a story for another time), and they can bite off a toe or disfigure you. Lost fishing hooks lay submerged and tangled around branches (again, I know this to be a fact-- what can I say? I'm not real good at fishing). Did I mention that the water is black?

I dangled on the edge of the dock, submerged to just below my bra. Morgan is absolutely not okay with this. "Don't you know how dangerous that water is? There's crabs, snapping turtles, and diseases! Your vagina is probably going to rot from the inside out because of that water! There was an alligator in this creek last year! You're gonna get eaten by a gator!"

I mean, she was right. That didn't matter to me at the moment. I calmly found some footing on a rotten log on the bottom. I didn't see what the big deal was at the time. The water was cool and the mosquitoes stayed away from me - probably because I smelled like death at that point, but whatever. I sipped my wine comfortably and told her to relax. It was nice-- the moon, the bullfrogs singing, my best friend sharing wine with me. The moment was lovely, even if I was going to catch dysentery from that swamp. Eventually, I climbed out and dried off. I lived to see another day. Looking back, I never did contract any diseases from that foul water. My vagina is safe, thank you for your concern.

I thought of all this as I watched those three children, bathed in innocence, as they played in the murky water. The sun was setting and it glistened on the water as their laughter fell pleasantly on my ears. I wasn't so different from them once, and not even that long ago. Sometimes I think about the things that separate adults from children. I don't think it is paying rent or bills or having a car payment. It's not working a stable job or obeying traffic laws. The difference is in how you choose to see the world. Children aren't afraid to dream, or to play, or to enjoy the simplest of pleasures. Adults are too busy worrying about deadlines and time and social ladders to step back and even contemplate dreaming, much less playing.

Maybe it's the difference between seeing that lake as a magical, delightful playground on a hot summer day, or choosing to see it as a stagnant, unnatural pool of filth and disease. I have no doubt that those kids, barefoot and dirty, survived to see another day after their swim in that lake, despite the concerns of a bystanding grown up such as myself. We can all still be a child at heart if we want to. I'm not saying I wanted to plunge into that water, because I understand the basics of infectious disease. C'mon. Still, it's the ability to love the simple moments, to laugh, to dream, to play... those things were lost to me at that point. Maybe that's what I was trying to do on this trip. Trying to revive the Dreamer that I once knew myself to be. Funny the things you think about while you're ruining a perfectly good pair of shoes in a mine field of goose shit.

I returned to my car, prepared my linens, and cracked my windows. I draped a sheet over the front seats to give a little privacy as I slipped my pants off, too hot for any clothing that wasn't absolutely necessary. I opened my water bottle and dug out a Benadryl - the only way I was going to be able to sleep in this heat - and shut my doors. Here we go, I thought. First night on the road. It was hot, but I slept soundly, thinking about the little girl I used to be, wondering how to get her back as the fountain in the lake sang me to sleep.

My shoes? Yeah, they slept outside that night.

Wayfarer: More Than Just Sunglasses

Wayfarer: [noun] 1: A traveler, especially on foot  2: A person who goes on a journey

At this point in my life, I'm definitely not a stranger to travel. I've been a lot of places, met a lot of people, and put a lot of miles behind me. I've driven up mountains, been the sole moving object on an eternally blank landscape, and visited foreign continents. I've watched the sun rise and set thousands of miles from the people I know and love. I've also slept in WalMart parking lots, plowed through 300 miles of bleak interstate outrunning twisters in Tornado Alley, ran at full tilt towards the refuge of my car after nearly being accosted, and prepared for certain death by bedbug attack. I've felt that gut-wrenching, sinking feeling as the check engine light comes on 1000 miles from home. I've also laughed as tears of happiness stained my cheeks in one of those rare moments of clarity we all seek. My feet aching, my car moaning a fatigued hum, my eyes shadowed in dark circles of exhaustion, no clue where I'll rest my head once my energy gives out... and with a road-weary grin, I think, now this? This is really living.

Travelers of this type are a completely different breed. The thrill we seek, and even the way we perceive the journey gives a unique sense of gratification. The experience in and of itself is a sensory delight. One becomes hyper aware of their surroundings. The terrain below your feet feels foreign. The birds tickle your ears with unfamiliar melodies. The horizon appears mysterious, as if you've landed on a new and unexplored planet. The local food awakens your taste buds to flavors you've never experienced (whether or not your stomach regrets this later is a total crapshoot). Even the smells of the earth, flora, and nearby inhabitants are completely new. In moments like that, you are both evolved to a heightened sense of self-awareness, and simultaneously reduced to primitive man, relying solely on your most rudimentary sensory capabilities. It's an interesting sensation to feel so feral and so enlightened at the same time. 

A different breed of thrill seeker, indeed. I came to this realization as I stood atop a mountain pass, my feet so close to the edge that a light nudge would send me over. I contemplated stepping forward. I stood atop Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park in August of 2013. I looked out over the widest expanse of landscape I'd ever set eyes on and inhaled the brisk air. Fifty-seven degrees in August. I clutched my shirt across my chest and hastily rolled the sleeves of the cotton top down to my wrists. My father had given it to me two weeks before I left as we sorted through old clothes to go to Goodwill. It was a men's cotton shirt, its blue, red, and mustard-yellow plaid design proudly displaying its late 1970's heritage. It was the warmest thing I'd brought on this trip. At the elevation I was at, the valley became an optical illusion. If I squinted hard enough, it looked like a lawn of lush, vibrant grass with piles of gravel scattered here and there. It reminded me of our first days in the house I grew up in, when we had rocks delivered to lay the driveway with. They unceremoniously dumped two piles of gravel on the lawn and left. The reality was that the lawn before me was a forest of coniferous trees; an entire ecosystem was nestled between two giant mountain peaks, safely protected by a moat of undescendable rock. There could be deer, elk, even a buffalo down there and I wouldn't be able to see them without a decent set of binoculars. 

I dug my toe into the gravel on the shoulder of the road. There wasn't a guardrail, only suitcase-sized rectangular rocks every five feet or so as a partition. I wonder if that would actually keep my car from plummeting over, I thought. Some parts of the park had railings, but not this area. Gravel sprung from my dusty flip flop and barreled down the side of the mountain. Several years ago, I used to live in a small college town in North Carolina named Elon. A railroad track ran through the main thoroughfare, and was used both for the eternally long, slow moving freight trains as well as the high speed, nonstop Amtrak line. I lived just adjacent to it, and every day I would walk across the unfenced track to my second job, where I slung sandwiches and lattes at the Acorn Cafe. No fences, only an elevated pair of rails. Those trains lulled me to sleep quite often. One summer night while walking to the pub, I heard the rails tremble and saw the headlamp of the Amtrak. The year before, a boy killed himself on that very spot. He stood in the middle of the track with his back to the train, and just before the train hit him, he turned to face it head on. As it approached, I wondered if it was the same engine-- do they get rid of a train after something like that, or simply rinse off the blood and resume the daily route? I decided not to try and beat the locomotive; one misstep up the rocky mound could send me tumbling into the boy's same fate. 

As it flew past, unfaltering at 60 m.p.h., I watched. It's a train, it can't leap out and hurt you, I thought. I inched closer and closer until I was four feet away from it. Four feet from churning, crushing wheels and unyielding metal, four feet from certain death. Like a caged tiger, though, I knew four feet ensured my safety. I took another step in. I wanted to reach out, to touch this great steel beast. I knew I was safe where I stood, but my heart pounded as the siren blasted and my hair whipped violently. Geez, are you CRAZY? I asked myself. I drew back my hand as the street lamps shone on my face, the last car flown past in a whirlwind of leaves and dust. I didn't even realize I had begun to stick my arm towards the train. I shivered abruptly, confused at why I would do such a thing. For the sheer excitement of being so close to something that could undeniably kill me, I supposed. I crossed the track and thought little more about the event, ordering a cheap beer in a run-down college bar in a run-down college town. 

The memory of the Amtrak came rushing back as I watched the pebble careen down the mountain. There was absolutely zero percent chance of making it out alive from where I stood on this mountain pass, should I stumble over the edge. Scarier still, it wasn't an abrupt cliff wall. There was neither ledge nor railing. There was road, then shoulder, and at some hairpin, invisible border was the point where one more step put you into a rock slide down an impossibly steep mountain face. Yet there I was, standing at it, heart racing, seriously contemplating taking a step forward. I was literally one step away from death. The breeze kissed my face and the deafening silence began to push on my eardrums. Geez, what are you doing? Are you CRAZY?  I thought again for the second time in my life. 

I took one step back. My senses, awakened by adrenaline, took it all in. My eyes stretched over the expanse and greeted an endless span of hunter green, earthen gray, and the deep shades of navy in the waterfalls that pooled and cascaded down the mountain. There was a distinct absence of sound (which was louder than anything else, honestly), occasionally interrupted by the sound of a breeze whistling in my ears. My skin quivered as goosebumps crawled up my arms, chilled both from excitement and from the small, frayed hole in my father's shirt. My toes clenched into the craggy rocks below me, my shoes discarded beside me. I smelled crisp, unadulterated air that was chilly in my nostrils. My mouth was dry and tasted stale, now thirsty after the climb. 

I sat down on the rocky slope and crossed my ankles in front of me. I stared at my dirty feet, their sea foam green polish chipped from a week of barefoot abuse on the road. The fluffy cotton clouds parted and the sun peered through, its rays almost tangible. I was so near death, and in that moment, instead of being reminded of my own mortality, brought back to thoughts borne of fear, I drew a long, slow breath and reveled in the delight of my own existence. I'm not crazy. I'm a wanderer, a dreamer, and an adventurer. I'm the mortal enemy of a life mundane. I seek the thrill of standing on the edge at the thin line between "regulated" and "risky" because it brings undeniable clarity. When you're at the edge, you're not worried about bills, work, in-laws, or the daily stresses that cloud our minds constantly; you're in the most primal of states, your only concern in that moment being to stay alive. It's like an eraser on a whiteboard, clearing everything away and allowing you to focus on whatever you want, even if just for a little while, until the daily worries start crowding their way back in. I felt so alive. So free. In that moment, I remembered why I made this journey to begin with. Something as small as a footstep could take everything away, and so often we forget that. One footstep. I decided it was best to get to living while my footing is still sure.