On the Road

It seems like everything I read these days is dealing with "the road." Maybe it's because I left Texas a few weeks ago to travel the southwest, and the road has been my only companion.

Having stopped in Albuquerque for a month or so, I've been catching up on my reading. It turns out that most of the books deal with someone on "the road." Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic tale "The Road" was one of the first novels I read while in ABQ. Then I read Hunter S. Thompson's novel of his Latin American adventures in "The Rum Diary." He laments that as he is getting older, being on the road and traveling around the universe is getting tiresome. Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" was published 50 years ago and is getting attention in the press, plus was reissued in a new edition to mark the anniversary. I became interested in Kerouac a few years ago and read everything I could get my hands on about him, including a book of his notes and drawings (more doodles, really, than drawings).

I left Texas with a desire to just go, somewhere, anywhere. I had a desire to travel the country and to write about my experience. I was at a time and place in my life where I had the opportunity to pack up the car and leave. So I did. I'm not sure there is any meaning to it, any reason for it, or any life-altering revelations to be discovered by it. I do think I will be different, though, once I settle down again.

The road has an allure, an attraction, a seductive quality for someone hungry to experience the unknown. I was starving for a change, a new world. After a lifetime of relative security, stability, and normalcy, I needed a mistress. The road is a jealous lover, and I can see it's going to be difficult to let her go.

For Jack Kerouac and others like him, the idea of staying in motion was vital to their sanity. Kerouac's survival as a writer depended on his westward journeys on the road, his passion to discover meaning in unknown places and people.

I'm beginning to discover the passion he felt for experiencing life on the road and it's a little unsettling. To read about my travels, visit my blog "1,100 Miles to Las Vegas" at http://2Vegas.blogspot.com.