A Great Trek must have a beginning and, sadly, an end.
Not that there’s anything particularly sad about having regular access to indoor plumbing, of course. I mean the other aspects of a Great Trek- the constant novelty of life on the road, the sense of freedom as one roams from place to place, unfettered by others.
I never appreciated that the family wanderlust was something I’d inherited… not until 2020, anyways.
I drove back across the USA whence I came, deviating only in that I made a detour off I-90 to I-94, that I might see North Dakota.
Much to my surprise, I rather liked North Dakota. It had badlands, just like South Dakota. I stopped in Jamestown, where I spent a terrific amount of time holed up in Babb’s Coffee House, a somewhat expensive but delightfully appointed cafe with excellent tea and sinful cheesecake.
On the off chance that you ever find yourself driving across ND on I-94, I highly recommend you stop in, get some hot Peaches and Cream White Tea, and munch on a tasty baked goody whilst you type madly away on your laptop.
What? Holed up in a good cafe, writing and reading, is one of the best ways to spend a day, I think.
Closing thoughts
Setting off on the Great Trek of 2020 was one of my best mad ideas ever.
Also one of my maddest mad ideas.
That’s saying something, lovelies. I have rather a lot of excellent mad ideas.
I set off on the Great Trek of 2020 for a number of reasons, which I enumerated in a previous blog post. I heartily endorse a Great Trek if one is setting one’s life on fire.
In fact, I also heartily endorse setting one’s life on fire, for that matter.
Don’t like your lot in life? Set that shit on fire.
And then run. Obviously. Something’s probably going to explode spectacularly when you put a match to your entire life.
Thus, the brilliance of the Great Trek of 2020.
Life becomes much more straightforward on this sort of quest. Instead of overwhelming questions like, “What will I do with my life? What can I do?” one begins to ponder conundrums like, “Where can I charge my cell phone?” and “Will a bear eat my arm off?” and “Exactly how long has it been since I last showered?”
It’s delightfully bracing.
In that sense alone, the Great Trek of 2020 was a success. But then, I also went in search of answers for what to do when faced with no job, no home… no future.
All these things were there to be had on the Great Trek; I just had to drive far enough to find them. (Ten thousand miles, round trip, to be precise.)
I looked up some dear friends from a previous life in Washington state. One of them got me hired me at a firm doing something that involves a great deal of numbers and a large number of things that I am busy learning. This work is salaried and has enabled me to waste terrific amounts of time on various websites trying to select an apartment I wish to inhabit. Think I found one in a suitably fun city that has, in the past, been able to cope with my particular brand of enchanting weirdness when I visited. We’ll just have to see how it does when I arrive and don’t leave.
Now, look. I don’t have the faintest notion what my future actually is. I only know that I have some prayer of having a decent one, right now- the sort of future where one writes, and does not starve. I am quite unabashedly taken with this possibility.
I imagine there will be another month-long radio silence from me as I and relocate to a new city, but be of good cheer, my loves. Just as the Great Trek inspired many pages of writing, the new city and oddball coworkers are sure to plant seeds in my brain that become stories, too.
Everything is a story, really.
–DLR