This will be my final post from my road trip. This also marks my final days of vagabonding before settling in to work. I’m already planning my next trip (November 2014), and I will write one more post about my re-entry into the 9-5 (more like 7-5 or 6) society and my struggle adjusting. I almost sat down to write that post now but it would be cheating you from seeing what I did with my last few days On the Road…..

Today, I did not have any sort of firm plan. I was losing daylight driving East (timezone changes working against me) and while I was in a bit of a hurry to get back to NY, I still had enough time for a couple more interesting stops. So I decided to take a bit of a detour off the highway and check out Palo Duro Canyon State Park, south of Amarillo. I had meant to visit it on my way West but the dust storm deterred me.

Palo Duro is the second largest canyon in the US; 120 miles long and 800 feet deep, formed by the Prairie Dog Town fork of the Red River. It used to be home to the Comanche, Kiowa, and Cheyenne peoples, and was the site of the Red River Wars in 1874, when Native Americans were captured and moved to Oklahoma. Later, in 1878, a group of Native Americans from those reservations came to the Canyon for a buffalo hunt but found the buffalo gone and a ranch of 100,000 cattle in their place. After they started slaughtering the cattle from anger and disappointment, the rancher Colonel Charles Goodnight came and settled on a truce; they could have two cows a day until buffalo were found.

As for me, I was pleasantly surprised. It is of course small by comparison with the Grand Canyon, but it was still lovely, and not what I expected from northern Texas. I went on a 2 hour hike to the Lighthouse formation (a National Natural Landmark).

And then I was off again for another long bit of driving into Oklahoma. I don’t actually remember the name of the state park that I stayed in that night, but I do remember that it was lovely. An unexpected piece of tranquility, I believe was my thought. Nice rolling hills, a very nice campground (mostly empty), walking trails to the artificial lake where I watched fishermen from the docks, and best of all, red winged blackbirds in the trees. These birds are the sound of spring to me. The sound of quiet ponds and marshes; the sound of my childhood.

I had a very good nights sleep and then had another long day of driving continuing East into Arkansas, through the Ozarks. The folks that I couch surfed with in Missouri recommended the Buffalo River area for hiking and I was headed straight for it. My overall feeling after hiking there: it felt just like hiking in the NE in spring, except without the mountains. If I had been there one week later in the season it would have been lovely with the trees budding out and green things poking out of the leave litter. But everything was still brown and grey.

I camped at a lovely rural site down on the river and the only other folks there were three families and their assorted kids who played tag and hide-and-go-seek all around me the whole evening, which was really fun.

Then another long day in the car through Missouri, through St Louis again (the arch park was still under construction and I got lost there.. again) and into southern Indiana to the Abraham Lincoln Boyhood National Monument and the Lincoln State Park for the night. I got in pretty late and no one was manning the fee booths so I drove all the way in down to the lake and set up camp between an older couple two sites up on one side and a solo guy in his forties/fifties a few sites down on my other side.

While I was in the middle on my dinner (canned chili, beer and corn chips) the single guy comes walking up the road and introduces himself… rather awkwardly and makes a point of saying a few times that he’s lonely and if I would like someone to chat with… he’s right over there, he has beer and a campfire… I say thanks, I’m in the middle of my dinner and he leaves. Thirty minutes later and he’s back, offers me his military grade headlamp, insists I take it as a gift, again invites me to his campsite saying he’s not hitting on me, he’s just lonely, insists he’s an interesting guy and we’d have a lot to talk about…. And I say thank you but I’m taking this trip to be by myself and I just want to be left to myself. I try to give him his headlamp back but he refuses, and wanders off dejectedly…

Just as it’s getting really dark a park ranger rolls by and tells me that I do need to pay (even though the camp is practically empty) and the site I was staying in was an RV site and costs extra. I agree to move to another area and just as I’m paying the guy speaks up from too close behind me, telling the ranger that I’m his guest and he’s a member of the campground and he will pay for me to stay there. Yikes. The old ranger picked up on the weirdness and made it clear I would be moving. He also escorted me to the other area and promised to drive by and check on me during the night. I will just say that I was glad I was sleeping in my locked car and not out in a tent with a creepy ex-military guy close by.  I didn’t see him again, thankfully.

That morning I discovered a packet of instant coffee from Taiwan in my pack and again reflected on how lovely it was to hear the birds again in the morning. Then I headed across the street to the Memorial of where Lincoln spent most of his childhood and teenage years. His mother also has a nice little memorial; she died here of Milk Sickness, which was a mysterious and deadly poisoning that we now know gets transferred through cows milk when they eat a certain poisonous weed. They have recreated the cabin where he lived and still work some of the fields of the homestead.

 

After a nice early morning stroll I got in the car and headed through Kentucky. I was loosely planning one last stop in the Smoky Mountains, but then I got the call. I hadn’t had much contact with Jonathan the preceding month or two, but I am so glad that he is the one who told me. My friend James, who I had shared the majority of my Camino with, had died suddenly and mysteriously while traveling in Cambodia. Jonathan stayed on the phone with me for awhile as I sat in shock and silence, begged him to try to find out more, and started crying. I cried all the way through Kentucky and ended up at my Dad’s house in West Virginia that night and the next day, in shock and mourning.

It was an odd way to come home, but not all bad. Every day, and every night in my dreams, I was reliving my memories. When I looked through pictures there were so many that I took just to share with James of things that he loved; clouds, butterflies, old doors… It was a distraction from the present but also encouragement for the future. I knew that if I died suddenly, I would not have any regrets. I have been living life that way I want to.

I interviewed and got the job. I went to James’ memorial outside of Philly, reunited with three of my other dear Camino friends. I have started to make friends and plan weekend trips. And I’m working at a job that I (70% of the time) enjoy, which will release me in November (end of construction season) to take off on my next adventure. I am balancing the past, the future, and the present, a juggling act that isn’t always successful, but beautiful in the way I need my life to be right now.