Into the West -- Final Report
"Well, I'm back," as Samwise Gamgee says at the end of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I returned home just before midnight last night (Wednesday), a few hours before my intended return today by 2:30 p.m. I was lonely for my family and friends and ready to get off the road, so I manipulated my travel plans a little for an early return. What follows is a brief--or perhaps not so brief--recap of the second half of the trip.
Thursday, 10 August 2006--I arrived in Chadron, Nebraska, just after 11:00 p.m. and found my room key in an evelope taped to the front door. Because I was the last one to check in, I apparently didn't get my choice of a nonsmoking room, and the place smelled like bars used to smell at 6:00 p.m. when my band came in to set up and do soundcheck. The stale smell of cigarettes and beer in those bars somehow seemed to dissipate by the time the show started around 10:00 (probably overridden by the smell of fresh smoke and freshly spilled beer), but at 6:00, it reeked. So did my room. But after a few minutes, I barely noticed it. The day had been long--see the previous post--so I went out almost as soon as I got the air conditioner blasting and myself under the covers.
Friday, 11 August 2006--When I woke up, I read some and wrote some and then went out with music in my ears to do my five miles. Back at the motel, I cleaned up and checked out, but before leaving Chadron, I got the Elantra's oil changed. I stopped in the early afternoon in Alliance, Nebraska, and ate lunch at a little cafe and bakery downtown. While eating, I wrote a handful of postcards to wife and son and other family. I mailed them from Alliance and got on the road again. In the late afternoon, I crossed over into Colorado and stopped in the town of Sterling for a while. I ate supper there at a place called La Fiesta. I had a soupy sort of dish that featured shrimp and scallops. Good stuff. After supper, I headed further upward and west into Denver.
Saturday, 12 August 2006--At noon I arrive in Castle Rock, at the home of my friend Jack. We met in the summer of 1979 on a student tour of Europe--he from California, I from North Carolina. We've been friends ever since. (See my European journal at http://faculty.etsu.edu/codym/auto_AESUjournal.htm). After the various changes life takes us through, Jack now is part of a family of five, including, besides himself, his wife Gizelle, sons JP and Nathan and daughter Perrin. They're a great group. He's working hard to establish a wonderful business bringing technology to retirement homes and sufferers of dementia. Check it out at http://www.in2l.com/. Jack and Nathan had just come off a two-week business trip and I'd just come off the road too, so we didn't do much that evening--just visited with one another, fought off the overly amorous pup Lucky (quite attracted to me, he was), went to Mass, ate a supper of hamburgers from the grill and made a little music.
Sunday, 13 August 2006--Because we'd been to Mass on Saturday evening, we had a relaxed Sunday morning. We went downtown in Castle Rock for a breakfast at the B&B Cafe, an old western saloon established back in the 1880s, I believe, where this is an old bullet hole in the ceiling and where I had an excellent plate of huevos rancheros. Intending to hike, we drove to the Red Rocks area west of Denver. The hike never materialized, not, at least, in the time I had to allotted to spend there. Instead, we spent close to an hour in the amphitheater. What an awesome place that would be to see a show--or play a show. Afterwards I had to head out, as I a long long drive to Wichita, Kansas, awaited me. My day ended there as planned, at about 11:45 p.m.
Monday, 14 August 2006--Given the long Sunday, I took it easy this day, traveling only four hours or so to Tulsa, Oklahoma. I also avoided the interstates and took the "blue" highways, taking Highway 77 south from Augusta, Kansas (just east of Wichita), to Ponca City, Oklahoma, Highway 60 east through the Osage Nation Reservation and then Highway 11 south into Tulsa. Here I broke the Motel 6 habit and stayed at a Best Western. At Chimi's, a local Mexican restaurant, I relaxed with more huevos rancheros and a couple of Coronas.
Tuesday, 15 August 2006--I initially awoke at around 4:30 this morning but, after staying awake for a while, went back to sleep and didn't stir again until almost 8:30. Having accomplished by this morning everything I wanted to do on this trip, I was really getting homesick. So, around 10:30 the idea struck me to cancel my Little Rock reservations and push on through to Nashville, intended as my final stop. I called my good friend Mark and asked if I could roll up to his place around midnight, and he said that would be no problem. So, I drove and drove and drove, out of Tulsa, through Oklahoma to Fort Smith, Arkansas, from there to Little Rock, where I stopped and hung out for an hour and a half or so, to Memphis and through the buggy night to Nashville, where I parked in the street in front of Mark's house at about 11:50.
Wednesday, 16 August 2006--Mark runs a baseball training venue in a mall on the west side of Nashville, but he doesn't open the place up until after school hours. So, we had until a little before 4:00 to spend together. We were in the music business together years ago--he's the guitar player who plays lead the way I would if I could--and we're Christians together and husbands and fathers together and always have plenty to talk about. We spent part of the morning at Starbucks and part at the store, waiting to see if UPS had any goodies to deliver. Then we called jb, a recording engineer, Mark's friend through several lives and mine since my earliest days in Nashville. jb met us for lunch at Cancun, where, once again, I ordered huevos rancheros. (If this keeps up, I'm going to have to look into the psychology of this Mexican egg craving.) We all had lunch together, talking music and politics and culture until we ended up down the sidewalk at Starbucks again, talking about the old days, the good old 1980s. Just after this, when Mark had to go open the store, I made the decision to go home. Not directly home, however. As I was leaving Nashville, I called Noel, another old Nashville friend who now lives in downtown Knoxville. Three hours later, or thereabouts, we were sitting outdoors at a restaurant on Market Square talking and eating (no huevos rancheros this time; fish tacos instead). We'd been invited to join two of Noel's downtown friends, R and C, who already had a table. Their company was good, if slightly--at times more than slightly--pretentious. Noel saw me off at around 10:00 or so, and I walked into my house just before midnight.
I've been home about 24 hours, and I'm still somewhat buzzing from the road. Now it's off to the second night in my own bed, where I can snuggle down into the covers and think to myself, Well, I'm back.
Thursday, 10 August 2006--I arrived in Chadron, Nebraska, just after 11:00 p.m. and found my room key in an evelope taped to the front door. Because I was the last one to check in, I apparently didn't get my choice of a nonsmoking room, and the place smelled like bars used to smell at 6:00 p.m. when my band came in to set up and do soundcheck. The stale smell of cigarettes and beer in those bars somehow seemed to dissipate by the time the show started around 10:00 (probably overridden by the smell of fresh smoke and freshly spilled beer), but at 6:00, it reeked. So did my room. But after a few minutes, I barely noticed it. The day had been long--see the previous post--so I went out almost as soon as I got the air conditioner blasting and myself under the covers.
Friday, 11 August 2006--When I woke up, I read some and wrote some and then went out with music in my ears to do my five miles. Back at the motel, I cleaned up and checked out, but before leaving Chadron, I got the Elantra's oil changed. I stopped in the early afternoon in Alliance, Nebraska, and ate lunch at a little cafe and bakery downtown. While eating, I wrote a handful of postcards to wife and son and other family. I mailed them from Alliance and got on the road again. In the late afternoon, I crossed over into Colorado and stopped in the town of Sterling for a while. I ate supper there at a place called La Fiesta. I had a soupy sort of dish that featured shrimp and scallops. Good stuff. After supper, I headed further upward and west into Denver.
Saturday, 12 August 2006--At noon I arrive in Castle Rock, at the home of my friend Jack. We met in the summer of 1979 on a student tour of Europe--he from California, I from North Carolina. We've been friends ever since. (See my European journal at http://faculty.etsu.edu/codym/auto_AESUjournal.htm). After the various changes life takes us through, Jack now is part of a family of five, including, besides himself, his wife Gizelle, sons JP and Nathan and daughter Perrin. They're a great group. He's working hard to establish a wonderful business bringing technology to retirement homes and sufferers of dementia. Check it out at http://www.in2l.com/. Jack and Nathan had just come off a two-week business trip and I'd just come off the road too, so we didn't do much that evening--just visited with one another, fought off the overly amorous pup Lucky (quite attracted to me, he was), went to Mass, ate a supper of hamburgers from the grill and made a little music.
Sunday, 13 August 2006--Because we'd been to Mass on Saturday evening, we had a relaxed Sunday morning. We went downtown in Castle Rock for a breakfast at the B&B Cafe, an old western saloon established back in the 1880s, I believe, where this is an old bullet hole in the ceiling and where I had an excellent plate of huevos rancheros. Intending to hike, we drove to the Red Rocks area west of Denver. The hike never materialized, not, at least, in the time I had to allotted to spend there. Instead, we spent close to an hour in the amphitheater. What an awesome place that would be to see a show--or play a show. Afterwards I had to head out, as I a long long drive to Wichita, Kansas, awaited me. My day ended there as planned, at about 11:45 p.m.
Monday, 14 August 2006--Given the long Sunday, I took it easy this day, traveling only four hours or so to Tulsa, Oklahoma. I also avoided the interstates and took the "blue" highways, taking Highway 77 south from Augusta, Kansas (just east of Wichita), to Ponca City, Oklahoma, Highway 60 east through the Osage Nation Reservation and then Highway 11 south into Tulsa. Here I broke the Motel 6 habit and stayed at a Best Western. At Chimi's, a local Mexican restaurant, I relaxed with more huevos rancheros and a couple of Coronas.
Tuesday, 15 August 2006--I initially awoke at around 4:30 this morning but, after staying awake for a while, went back to sleep and didn't stir again until almost 8:30. Having accomplished by this morning everything I wanted to do on this trip, I was really getting homesick. So, around 10:30 the idea struck me to cancel my Little Rock reservations and push on through to Nashville, intended as my final stop. I called my good friend Mark and asked if I could roll up to his place around midnight, and he said that would be no problem. So, I drove and drove and drove, out of Tulsa, through Oklahoma to Fort Smith, Arkansas, from there to Little Rock, where I stopped and hung out for an hour and a half or so, to Memphis and through the buggy night to Nashville, where I parked in the street in front of Mark's house at about 11:50.
Wednesday, 16 August 2006--Mark runs a baseball training venue in a mall on the west side of Nashville, but he doesn't open the place up until after school hours. So, we had until a little before 4:00 to spend together. We were in the music business together years ago--he's the guitar player who plays lead the way I would if I could--and we're Christians together and husbands and fathers together and always have plenty to talk about. We spent part of the morning at Starbucks and part at the store, waiting to see if UPS had any goodies to deliver. Then we called jb, a recording engineer, Mark's friend through several lives and mine since my earliest days in Nashville. jb met us for lunch at Cancun, where, once again, I ordered huevos rancheros. (If this keeps up, I'm going to have to look into the psychology of this Mexican egg craving.) We all had lunch together, talking music and politics and culture until we ended up down the sidewalk at Starbucks again, talking about the old days, the good old 1980s. Just after this, when Mark had to go open the store, I made the decision to go home. Not directly home, however. As I was leaving Nashville, I called Noel, another old Nashville friend who now lives in downtown Knoxville. Three hours later, or thereabouts, we were sitting outdoors at a restaurant on Market Square talking and eating (no huevos rancheros this time; fish tacos instead). We'd been invited to join two of Noel's downtown friends, R and C, who already had a table. Their company was good, if slightly--at times more than slightly--pretentious. Noel saw me off at around 10:00 or so, and I walked into my house just before midnight.
I've been home about 24 hours, and I'm still somewhat buzzing from the road. Now it's off to the second night in my own bed, where I can snuggle down into the covers and think to myself, Well, I'm back.
posted by mac | 10:35 AM
2 Comments:
So glad you made it home safe and sound. As Dorothy would always say, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home...."
Your classes sound like fun, Mike!
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