THE STORY SO FAR
Austin. Winnie. New Orleans. Mobile. Dauphin Island. Pensacola. Santa Rosa Island. Panama City. Tallahassee. Waycross. Aiken.
It’s a small, arbitrary list. Some of the places I stayed a night or two (or five) in, others I simply passed through, or stopped long enough to get off the bike to take a picture and fill up the tank. The journey thus far has taken me through suburban sprawl, marshland and swampland, abandoned homes, overturned boats, national parks, glittering beach fronts, gated communities, roads lined with tall pines and great oaks suffocating in Spanish moss.
In Georgia I saw my first cotton field and first rebel flag of the trip. I ate catfish in Tallahassee. Met a woman obsessed with her family tombs in Mobile. Eavesdropped on diner gossip about a girl whose boyfriend had just sped off in a rage after a fight at breakfast, and who was now making the long trip home on foot. I’ve seen too many dead dogs to count. Slept in four different motels. Drank my weight in cheap beer. Stood on a beach with sand so white I kept thinking I was surrounded by snow. And now am sitting in comfort in my sister’s home here in Aiken, South Carolina, waiting for the hour to roll around when we stop thinking about lunch and start thinking about dinner.
Folks keep asking me, “What are you looking for? What are you writing about?” Everything I thought I had an answer to previous to embarking seems wrong now. The truth is that I no longer know what I am doing, exactly, except collecting. Stories, pictures, calories, receipts. I’ve picked up a few more tangible items — a pair of shoes, a sweater, two books — and left a few other things behind. I’ve also knocked over my motorcycle (twice) and broken my cell phone.
So now what? Well, this Sunday I head to Charleston. Then to Savannah. Then I make some hard decisions about my path back to Texas. I keep staring at my map but I’m not finding any answers there — two flimsy dimensions when I need three. In spite of the uncertainty, or perhaps because of it, this trip has turned into deeply satisfying personal and geographical adventure. I just hope when I sit down at the end of it, I have something more to share than a clumsily sketched map.
That’s the (very short) story so far.
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