The Big Road Trip – Epilogue Part II

Blogging about The Big Road Trip . . . another spur of the moment serendipity. I’ve been blogging for at least three years and, yet, I didn’t think about the idea of blogging about the trip until my second day on the road, just before I left my friend, Carolyn’s house in Keyser, WV. If you’ve been reading any or all of this series of posts about The Big Road Trip, you’ll note that it’s written from a very personal, conversational perspective. That’s because I wrote it for me and posted it so you could follow MY adventure as I was perceiving and feeling it intellectually and emotionally. I didn’t write it to impress you or sell you anything or change your life. But, what you may have witnessed was a certain “child-like” wonder and a metamorphosis – mine.

So, you’re thinking, come on, Ed, you’re 65 years old. Aren’t you a little old for this kind of stuff? Maybe YOU are, but not me. I’ll be too old the moment I take my last breath on this earth.

Now, here are my impressions from my trip.

First and foremost – I came back completely renewed. Did I answer my questions? The big one was, is this “Living and Working Free” lifestyle and dream a reality for me? I have that answer –

ABSOLUTELY!

If I accomplished nothing else on this trip, I answered this question so strongly and affirmatively, I couldn’t have imagined how motivated I would be. Over all those miles and hours on the road and seeing the things I had only seen from 35,000 feet in the air before, I realized how much I’ve missed in my first 65 years. I had ideas flying through my head about how I could share this lifestyle and the opportunities I saw everywhere in this country.

I saw the backbone of this country both in the geographic sense and in the human sense. I saw and met people who had strength of character, ambition, work ethic, conviction written all over their faces. Most of them were older people and I categorize older as those, basically, 30 or over who have learned what life is about. They’ve experienced, first hand, what the late Dr. M. Scott Peck wrote as the opening paragraph of his best selling book, The Road Less Traveled. The entire first paragraph of his book was just three words long, “Life is difficult!” WOW! How ready I was for that when I first read it. I thought only my life was difficult, until then. I wasn’t alone. And that’s what I saw and felt in the people I saw and came in contact with. The younger people, under 30, were, mostly, still idealistic in many ways. However, I also sensed a sadness and futility in many under 30. I sensed that their lot in life was making Arby’s roast beef sandwiches or Subway sandwiches or selling cigarettes to truckers in travel centers.

I met, 35 year old, Cameron Taylor, the Tremendous Life Books author that I recorded two audio books with. Cameron filled me with hope for the future. As long as there are enough Cameron Taylor’s around, this country has a chance to survive and may, one day, regain it’s prosperity and respect in the world. We talked about a lot of subjects and what I really enjoyed is that he learned from me and I learned from him (just as I learn from my 31 year old son). I met Ron Hurst in Nashville. Here’s a guy about my age who found the job market in his chosen profession, broadcasting, in Boston closing around him. The family was old enough to finally consider getting out of the cold and snowy winters of the Boston area and they moved to Nashville, TN (a place I really like) to start anew. He’s only been there a year and a half and is facing challenges from natural forces (Boston, cold and snow – Nashville massive fluke rainstorms that flood major parts of the city and close businesses and cost jobs). But, he still had a great attitude and when I kicked a few thoughts around and an idea of how he could look for some new opportunities, I saw enthusiasm and a feeling of, maybe I can follow a new and different path. He may not follow my ideas, but, perhaps, his mind is a bit more open to possibilities.

In Memphis, as I walked through the STAX Record museum, I felt an almost religious experience. It was so sad that the original structure hadn’t been preserved, it would have made it a hallowed place. There I met Renee, the fellow from the Netherlands, and we had an instant connection through our love of the music and the recording industry that we’ve both had some involvement in throughout our lifetimes.

There was the attractive, late 30ish waitress at the Brewsky Broiler who was very friendly and open. She told me about her family and her friends and her life. The head of housekeeping at the Super 8 Motel in Ontario had a great sense of humor and was a hard worker, doing her best to make my stay and my job as pleasant as possible. There was also Arthur, the Hopi, Navajo, Apache, Spanish, Italian young waiter in the Denny’s in Winslow, AZ. He didn’t say much verbally, but through his eyes and persona he spoke tons. I had only short encounters with the people “Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona” as I took pictures of them with their cameras. Then there was the very sweet and courteous young Japanese couple and one of their mothers that I took a picture for with the Grand Canyon in the background. The Armenian mechanic who checked out my air conditioner for me in Fresno, but wouldn’t charge me anything, because he couldn’t fix it – even though he expended a fair amount of his time and used some of his air conditioning refrigerant. Or the honest guys at Airtech, who could have taken advantage of a broken down traveler 2700 miles away from home. They did work on it for me and managed to get me all the way back to the east coast with enough air conditioning to make the trip comfortable. They saw my Virginia license tags on the car and could have hit me below the belt. But, they didn’t and I got to talk about the one partner’s Cadillac CTS, actually, a special model of that car that I wasn’t familiar with and he was extremely proud of. There were the two police officers (one of them the chief of police) near Burnsville, WV who stopped to see if they could be of assistance as I was stopped on the side of the road. They couldn’t have been nicer or more helpful. I could go on and on. My life is so much richer from all of these encounters.

Of course, the people part of this trip is only one element. There is the vastness of this land. There is the Big Sky Country. Holy Cow! I’ve only seen that country from the sky in the past. I would love to go out there one night and find a nice isolated spot where there is no light of any kind – and that won’t be hard to do. Then, I’d like to lie on my back and just stare up at the vastness of the universe. I know I’m going to see the universe as I’ve never seen it or even imagined it before. I finally made it to the Grand Canyon. I have flown over that chasm at least a dozen times and, more then likely, many more times then that. I have numerous photos from 35,000 feet. But, standing on the very edge, on a rock, jutting out over the rim – whoa! I only had about an hour to stay there, but I have to go back and spend some days there. Perhaps, I’ll take a white water raft trip down the Colorado River through the gorge. But, while I was on the trip I learned that there is even a deeper gorge about 80 miles north of Ontario, OR on the Snake River. I will have to go see that. There’s also another similar canyon in southwest Texas. I, also, never knew that there were so many places that were as high and even higher then the Mile High City, Denver. But, I went through them. The terrain changes were mind-boggling and they happened just over the next rise. There were stretches of road where I could see 10 and 15 miles ahead. There were flat, straight stretches that seem like they go on forever.

The contrast between the western and the eastern part of the country was fantastic. It’s hard to say that any one or other of these sights impressed me more. However, I have to admit that as I came through that desert in Nevada and was heading due west toward this humongous snow-capped mountain range, all I could think was, “Holy S**t, I’m on the eastern side of those huge mountains and my destination is on the western side. There just has to be a pass through them somewhere.” Well, there was . . . at 10,000 feet in the middle of Yosemite National Park. Another serendipity thanks to “Fiona” my GPS navigator. I had no plan to go through Yosemite – BUT I DID! What a rush! 8’, 9’, 10’ snow banks on both sides of me, avalanche danger signs, water falls all around me from the melting snow higher up. The majesty and power of nature just blew me away. And, again, I was only passing through. I only scratched the surface of what was there in Yosemite. And, I guess a neat little touch was wading in the Great Salt Lake outside Ogden, UT. I had been to the lake once before, approximately, 39 years before. What a treat to repeat an event from my past.

Passing the massive wind farms and below them seeing oil pumps sucking black gold out of the ground – both producing the massive energy this country needs to operate on. Then to see a solar energy facility in the desert near Daggert, AZ. WOW! I felt like I was seeing it all, oops, I forgot, I also passed refineries in the desert, massive freight trains hauling coal, coal fired power plants and I think I even saw a hydroelectric plant. As I was seeing all these things I was thinking about the many countries in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, South America where they have electricity during only portions of the day, if and when they have any electricity at all, even in their largest cities. I also reveled at the huge farming operations and seeing how those crop circles we see from 35,000 feet are made. Fields and fields of various green produce growing over vast areas. And, of course, there were cattle grazing on huge ranches that made the 49 acre ranch I left a year and a half ago look like a subdivision lot.

Now, I’ll comment about the other two big questions, “What are Americans like today?” and “What is America like today?” I did not reach conclusive answers to these two questions. There are simply too many people and too much America to see, yet, to come to any conclusions at this time. What that means is that I’ve determined that my dream and my chosen lifestyle are viable for me. Now, I get to spend as much time as I want to, or that I have left on this planet, exploring this country and reporting on my findings. I would hope to develop a following who will learn and gain from my adventures. I don’t have any delusions of being the next Charles Kuralt, Studs Terkel or John Steinbeck. I’m simply going to be Ed Helvey, reporting my own findings based on my five senses in my own way. I’ll work to make this reporting as accurate, from my experience, competency and perspective, as I can and hope it will be a positive contribution to helping this country and its people see itself for what it is and make the necessary course corrections to become what it has the potential to become. That will be my contribution. That, will, I hope, fulfill my personal mission statement, which is simply, “to leave the campsite a little better then I found it.”

This concludes The Big Road Trip. It is not the end of the road, though. It is only the beginning. I have not reached my destination. This is only a resting point while I prepare for the next phase of this journey. And this IS a journey, destination unknown. I hope I never reach THE destination, because that means I will have seen and experienced everything. That just can’t happen.

Thanks for indulging me if you’ve read this far. You certainly need to be commended for having intestinal and intellectual fortitude. Future posts will likely be about various facets of the impact of this trip and the ideas it has spawned.

Enthusiastically,
Ed