I designed the trip to have several destinations within itself, suchas to be a circular multi-climactic journey rather than a goal with a week's worth of driving on either end. This wasn't the simplest task and attitude given my predisposition for living in the past and the future (and rarely the present) and my infatuation with San Francisco. I worried that I would focus too intently on arriving and not enough on enjoying the travel. This is a mindset that troubles my whole living, actually.

The entire trip turned out to be an absurd metaphor, a Kafka-esque parable, wrought with as much endurance, questioning, and trial as was I given delight and intrigue. I traveled in all imaginable weather and temperature, saw people and places and roads in 20 different states, and continually had my sense of priority and planning totally abstracted and inverted.

The westward portion took me as follows: South from Boston to Philadelphia-area. Overnight in NJ. Next day visited a friend in Phila, then drove 200 miles to western PA. In the dark I navigated the mountain curves. The next day I drove 300 miles, crossing the rest of PA and a piece of West Virginia, before arriving in Columbus OH to stay with a painter friend. We had dinner and toured the city at night in the rain in her work van.

In the morning I left for a 400 mile drive to St. Louis. When I crossed the Mississippi river, at sunset, with the St Louis Arch shining a welcome I was ecstatic. The next day I spent touring the city, admiring the architecture and subways, and then doing some research with the Beckmann works at the SL Art Museum, before treking another 100 miles west to sleep in some motel in west MO.

Kansas was a 500 mile windy blur of praries and intermittant rest stops, unchanging scenary on the light-trafficked state highway. I assured myself, though interesting for now, I would not return this way. Denver was interesting. At a mile high, my engine wasn't performing so well, but I finally made a few tweaks and was able to proceed not-too-daunted. Boulder CO was a trip, a liberal, goofy, collegiate mess. Good enough for a day and a night and a nice vegetarian meal.

Crossing the rockies west on 70 proved impossible when the rain gave way to snow, slush, and ice. Terrified (the exit ramps were worse than the highways, but as the elevation increased the snow did) I had two hours with some pancakes and decided to re-route. As anxious as I was to be in SF in two days with the previous plan, I drove 400 miles south into New Mexico for a more southern approach through the canyons and then LA before SF. This was not without, anyways, getting trapped in Southern Colorado when the snow and elevation taunted again and I found a motel in Walsenberg CO. No weather reports, no tangible instructions or inclinations, I twittled my thumbs and ate my trail mix.

New Mexico was spectacular in scene, as was its sister state Arizona. The reds and oranges and sand and rock were amazing. And I was thrilled to be going west again. I was hours from fulfilling a three-year long desire to reach the Grand Canyon on a motorcycle. That night I camped in the Painted Desert, set up at nightime by the headlamp, and awoke at five am to a 35 F sunrise. I packed and headed off. I was at the Grand Canyon's rim in 2 hours. I hiked a mile into the canyon before the temperature dropped to 45 F and began to rain. I hiked an hour and a half out of the canyon, soaked, irritated, but amused.

When the rain let up I continued down the scenic AZ roads towards CA. I crossed the Mohave Desert. This was the warmest portion of the trip-- 90 F and enough insects hitting my goggles and windscreen to prove it. I went to Calico Ghost town in CA, which turned out to be more of Calico Gift Shop, and then went south to San Bernadino, before the approach on Los Angeles, the so-called City of Angels. Fifty bumpy nighttime miles of Californian freeway and three hundred exits later, I saw the city-line. Then I took a wrong exit and ended up in East LA at night, a place where one should never be pulling out a map in plain-view. I found my way to the New Dream Network headquarters, and then we went to dinner in Santa Monica.

The next day I went to the LACMoMA to check out the collection, walked the Miracle Mile, and peroused the LaBrea Tar Pits. I admired the abundance of Art Deco Modernist architecture, had some good food, and rested the night after a ride through Hollywood.

The trip to San Francisco was bizarre. Forty miles up the coast on the Pacific Coast highway, watching the morning surfers hit the waves, the Malibu mansions on the cliffs, the salt air, and seeing the Pacific Ocean-- it's always such a treat to see my childhood waters. I switched to a more efficient road, 101, and continued north from Santa Barbara. The rain started about 200 miles from San Fran, and taught me a lesson in driving with twenty-foot visabililty, high winds, maniacal Californian drivers, and soaked boots and gloves. But the approach to SF was spectacular. Soon enough I was driving amidst Victorian houses and paralleling Golden Gate park.

My five days in San Francisco, as I expected, were five more days to add to my Best Days Alive list. I ate so well, so plentifully. I walked ten miles a day, rode the MUNI buses, saw fireworks over the GG bridge one night, and had a fantastic time with my penpal host and his friends. I managed to dine supurbly at a variety of fine vegetarian places, visit Grace Catherdral park again, and hike the city streets and hills.

My return east was not as exciting, but was wild, nonetheless. I received snow, again, crossing the Sierra Nevadas heading east on 80. (I planned an eastward return almost entirely on Interstate 80, whereas on the way west I had driven primarily on state highways and smaller roads.) I drove across scorching Nevada where gas stations are fifty to seventy miles apart, ran out of gas once (got fuel from guys in a pickup,) crossed Utah, drove past the Salt Lake and through downtown SL city, across Wyoming which was a chilly desert canyonscape drive, crossed Nebraska (hundreds of miles of corn and dirt,) and then across Illinios, Iowa, Ohio, passing Chicago, Cleveland, etc. When I hit Pennsylvania the sun set and the rain began. In the mountains it was pouring, I-80 was under construction and down to one lane and grooved pavement-- I was not happy. I drove over eight hundred miles that day, but gave up at two am when the rain started really pouring. I was determined to get to Philadelphia that night, but had to content for getting there the next day.

Seeing the Philadelphia cityscape set against the dismal sky was one of the greatest sightings of Philly for me. I went to lunch in Chinatown for Vegetarian Dim Sum. I relaxed and slept in NJ and then the next day endured the 340 miles home with miserable conditions almost the whole way. When I arrived in Boston, Chinatown, I was soaked -- most of my rain gear had given up -- but thrilled. I parked and locked up the bike and went back to my studio.

Maybe I should have made the trip three weeks later. Perhaps I would have traded poor weather for heavier crowds, but I wouldn't change much of anything from the trip. I'm so pleased to have been able to do it. How many people dream of doing amazing things but never do? How many never dream? I've never felt closer to the recognition, reality, and immediacy of death, disaster. The very constant threat made the trip always on edge, always unsure, but usually fantastic. I learned so much, saw so much. I know I'll never be the same. I hope that I can go on for a long time living a life this intense.