There are only a handful of things that I’m looking forward to from this trip. I’d like to see the Grand Canyon from a helicopter. I’d like to throw a silver dollar into the Pacific Ocean. I’m hoping that I’ll find a cool diner somewhere on the side of a highway where they make giant milkshakes with cookie crumbs in the bottom.
I’d like to see some sunrises and sunsets, and I want to take a breath of ice cold air that is clean and free of whatever it is that troubles city air.
And I’m hoping that the distance from this house will make the dreams I’ve been having stop.
It’s a Winnebago. It’s 27’ long and it’s set up like a studio apartment inside. It has enough space for my books, some clothes. I have a camera and a bunch of lenses and a briefcase. And there’s room enough in this thing for a lot more. But it’s enough for now. I can pull over whenever I need to to refill the fridge.
Summer is just about here. The house has been sold and the boxes are in a truck headed for the middle of the country and a storage space I’ve never seen.
Hey, if you come through New Orleans we could meet you for ice cream in a neutral location–we’ll leave the kid and our dirty tomatoes at home …
I am longing for a trip to that very spot. I like kids when they are able to perform a suite of one act plays or play musical instruments. Then it’s just heaven!
Derek, In 03-04 my wife and I traveled for nearly a year in that Winnebago pictured above. I interviewed 62 American poets about how “place” influenced their writing. Those interviews and the travel blog I kept at the same time became my third book, Poets on Place.
Your book looks fantastic. Thanks for the heads-up, I’ll checking that out.
Some of the travel memoir is just hodge-podged in a reverse chronological way on this blog:
http://poetsonplace.blogspot.com/
The interviews are only in the book, but you can get a flavor for the trip from the blog.
Winnebago envy.