This Oregon Trail: Part One

April 10, 2008
Last day in Kentucky. A day: sleep, wake, leave. Don’t think. Don’t analyze your head to mush. Only cause the head to spin. Keep it simple, stupid.

April 14, 2008
Grand Island, NE – Of course, there aren’t any islands in Nebraska, the lady at the front desk of Comfort Inn tells me. An answer to a bleary-eyed question after ten hours of hungover driving through the cornfields of Iowa and the plains of Nebraska. How’d it get its name? Her answer: Three rivers converge in the area, surrounding a piece of land, or something like that.

There seemed to be a number of hotel billboards on the way in. I ask her if this is a touristy area. “This is Nebraska,” she replies. You get used to smug responses to stupid questions when you’re a journalist (ex-journalist?). But she is laughing and not rude, like others we pen-pushers deal with, like say past Gov. Ernie Fletcher’s former director of (mis)communications.

Not halfway to Oregon, I’ve spent $199.04 on gas. The trip to Wisconsin to start the trip in order to visit old friend F. Scott (formerly silly when he drank, like the writer, who earned the nickname after a few blacked-out nights, real name: Eric) and wife Melanie, an out-of-the-way detour contributing to the higher than expected gasoline total. Though, it was a good weekend visit. We drank like we did when we were footballers in Germany eight years ago, when I was young and had designs for greatness in my drinking career. As it is, I now fall into the very banal “social drinker” category, something that often leaves me with hangover worse than the last worst one. However, the hangover that sticks with me across Iowa isn’t too terrible, just a low drone of a pain and a few rumblings of gut. Not enough to take away from the amazement of Iowa. You think I’m kidding. I’m not. It’s vast, like Nebraska, like the rest of the U.S. will prove to be. All these little towns dotting the plains, snuggled into the mountains, standing alone in the high desert. All these people living in these towns. All with their own story. I wonder what life is like in Grand Island. Maybe it’s somewhat like good old Henderson, Ky., where the kids growing up can’t wait for college to get to Louisville, Bowling Green, Lexington, and then after, move on to Atlanta, Nashville, even New York City. Do the kids in Grand Island dream of college in Lincoln and Omaha, then on to Dallas or Denver, even Los Angeles?

April 15, 2008
Boulder, CO – Taking U.S. 76 into Colorado, the low western hills of Nebraska continue with what I call a scrub grass cover. The grass is burnt brown, seemingly dried out from the wind that daily sweeps the plains. I keep repeating the Annie Proulx short story title, “The Bunchgrass Edge of the World.” Don’t know why. Most of the story is set in Wyoming, and Wyoming is nearby, and probably it has the same scrub or bunchgrass. I say this damn title maybe one hundred times. Seems appropriate.

Pulling up to Fort Morgan, I caught my first peek of the Rockies, distant through the baby blue sky. I say out loud, “Hell yeah” though no one can hear me, like I’m talking to Gary Louris or Radiohead or Richard Schindell, who’ve all taken turns at the microphone throughout the trip. In fact, Louris and Schindell have both been nominated for Best Song of the Trip: Louris with “Vagabonds” and Schindell with “The Next Best Western.” A contest that won't be decided until the last night on the road in Oregon.

Seven hours on the road today. Short in comparison to the day before. And I’m well-rested. Comfort Inn was comfortable enough. As the mountains come closer, a woman is on my mind. Big brown eyes. Soft skin. An accent not my own. But I’ve got miles to go the opposite direction, and it’s not good to think like that in these situations. When you’ve quit a job and left a woman just to wander the country, wander to a place you’ve never seen, just because you’ve never been there, and you’re a little bit scared of the unknown, thoughts of your old Kentucky home are hindrances. These are times when it’s not good to think of woman: holding you, rubbing your back, falling asleep next to you, treating you better than you deserve – it might cause you to turn around. Think about Utah. Utah is tomorrow and you’ve never seen Utah.