Travels with Chelsea: I-70 W

Map Key

I had to use the different colors, because our incredibly direct line of travel intersected itself so often. For those of you wanting to figure out what order these all go in, here's the key.

1) Blue "Initial Westward Push": Springfield to Vegas
2) Red "Back Tracking East": Vegas to Albuquerque
3) Green "West Again!": Albuquerque to Santa Rosa to Joshua Tree (second time in Josh)
4) Purple "Gone North" (and back south): Joshua Tree (second time) to Portland, and back down to Yosemite

Where are we now? Yosemite!

Monday, April 20, 2009

I-70 W

I just came across this poem that I wrote several years ago. Little did I know then that I-70 wouldn't even get me out of Utah before disappearing, but this still seems relevant.

I-70 W

I-70 West is a rite of passage
The dead silent whisper of the plains
Testing my will
It takes faith to cross Kansas
In the hope of wild mountains
To blow through desert flats
With the hope of rivers

In this religion
Some maps are sacred
And some are heretical
In this sect
I pray in mile markers
And cross myself
As we cross state lines
It is a belief to follow road signs
And the setting sun
Into the center of your windshield
To move ever onward
In hope of what you cannot see

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leather bound book

Chelsea:

since coming home, i have wanted to draw silhouettes of birds on everything - on walls, on journals, on benches... the freedom of flight and the ability to move on a whim has been trapped in my mind, making the taste of road trip well stuck in my mouth.
there is a time for everything and now, i feel, is the time to cross the grand road trip off my list of things to do. i want this trip to be air under my wings. i want to run and explore and read leather bound books while sitting in the sun. i will lay in the sand and dip my toes in the water, sleep under a tree and not shower. i want these things to be my choices and not just the habit of every day life.
i choose to have choices, i wish to make wishes, and i live to be alive.
instead of sitting around with the empty time i have, i want to be alive with joyful energy and a road trip is the perfect motivation to do just that.

last night pre-flight zero hour nine a.m.

Amanda:

OK, it's not the last night, or even 9am, but I am a rocket man. Rock it man.

Anywho, for me this trip, and this blog, starts with a break-up with my super long-term boyfriend (my apologies to those finding out this way), which I won't be writing much about here, but that's what this trip starts with for me, because before the break-up, I had a plan. And now, there's just white space. This whiteness--this gap--it's emptiness, but I'm starting to see that it's also openness, and what happened to fall into this first gap is a spontaneous road-trip with my friend, Chelsea.

My goals for the trip include lots of writing, and reading, and thinking, not the least of which concerns what the heck I'm going to do with my life. I also want to break out of the mold on this trip, which will require climbing to be something other than the main thing. There will still be climbing, but the plan is for it to be at least the 2nd most important aspect. We'll see how that goes.

Instead of climbing, we intend to be "road-tripping," by which I mean we will stop and see things along the way, and take our time. You know, see important cultural sights, like giant balls of yarn and the sort.

Travels with Chelsea

Where We Actually Done Been