strange reflection
people ask me all the time, “don’t you get lonely on the road?” and i sometimes wonder if there’s something wrong with me for not feeling more alone when there are so many hours that i share with just my car and the highway. i honestly don’t mind it so much. more than getting lonely i sometimes just lose any point of reference for who i am. when you look at a thousand different faces, drive countless unfamiliar miles, wake up facing a strange wall every day, after awhile how do you recognize yourself? i look a little different in every bad hotel mirror, and in the eyes of all the new people i meet. it’s strange to realize how much you depend on the people you care about in your life to reflect you back to yourself so you know who you are.
list of consistent things from day to day:
a morning shot of caffeine
pee breaks every 100 miles or so
dazzling new landscapes between boring stretches of interstate
my dear old friend and road buddy, NPR
the never-ending quest for a good vegetarian meal
wishing i could capture all the things i saw in a day with words but in the end “you just had to be there” has to suffice
Oregon is gorgeous, i’m so inspired. i wish i had some free time. i’d go hiking, read a book in the sun, and just sit and breathe in the sweet clean air. it’s so different from the east coast with all the plateaus and passes, open valleys for miles, and evergreens that i don’t even know the names of. yesterday i drove most of the day in the Columbia River gorge running along the border between Washington and Oregon. i almost ran off the road a couple times trying to get a better look at the scenery.
k 
ps a guy in Monmouth, OR told me today “you know, i don’t usually listen to country music, but i really like your stuff” and it was all i could do to just say “thank you” and not rage and rant about why i’m not country! funny how people can see you so differently than you see yourself…