On My Way

Baltimore --> Newport, Tennessee

Tuesday, May 15th, 2012

The feeling that I am losing due to traveling cross country is the subtle change from Spring to Summer. This morning I awoke in the backseat of my car on the side of a country road. I had created a makeshift awning over my head with a few paintings propped between the headrest of the front passenger seat and the headrest for the back seat. I sat up wide eyed and proud, almost astonished of my accomplishment of not being raped and murdered during my first night alone. Smiling to myself, I opened the back door and stepped out of the car. The sound of crickets in the tall grass of the field next to me made me feel as though I'd teleported from Spring to Summer overnight.

I left Baltimore in a bit of a rush. I'd been convinced to wait to leave until Tuesday, then plans fell through Monday night and I decided to head out around 8pm that evening. The night before I had slept at my friend's new place which they call the granny house or something along those lines. Nothing in the apartment has been updated since the 1970's. I'm talkin' a huge wooden print microwave, wall to wall carpeting upstairs and down, a pea green bathtub, anyway, it's quite the place. I dallied around while everyone was at work and watched Starwars Episode IV.

Needless to say after my dull afternoon I was feeling restless. So I grabbed happy hour with a friend at Golden West, and then got out of dodge. I was on a mission to Tennessee. In the town of Newport, parked outside of a barn in the middle of a horse pasture sprinkled with buttercups sat an old Chevy truck, filled with a friend of mine's belongings. The duty that I chose to accept was to transfer the belongings from her truck to my car in order to deliver them to her in Oklahoma City. I arrived at 5am Tuesday morning. After a fairly extensive search, I was able to pull off into a breakdown lane and take a nap. Three hours later I awoke, ready to complete my errand.

I got to the pasture with no one to greet me but for a friendly yet anxious dog. As I crossed under the electric fence and through the pasture to the truck, the horses became curious of me. While lugging the first armload of things from the middle of the field to my car, the horses followed, then surrounded me. "Who are you and what is your purpose here, stranger?", they seemed to ask with their behavior. "I belong here, I have a job to do", I responded with a SHhh sound and a swish of a trashbag. After that they allowed me to make several trips without interrupting me.

Today I drove from the pasture to Memphis after a quick bacon, egg, and cheese bagel at Waffle House (sub-par). The treck took about 7 hours and I found a cheap vacant lot turned campground to sleep at for $16. I drove from there to downtown Memphis where I am now sitting on a hillside which slopes steeply into the Mississippi River. A few steamboats are visible to the south and I feel like I've finally made it to a more foreign land within my own country.