Sleepy drunken ~thoughts~

I used to want to own land more than anything, for 3 or 4 dogs to enjoy, but now I'd much rather buy an RV. I still want dogs def but I bet they would love camping. Recreational Vehicle is code for fun on the go obviously

8 hours to go

From Day 1 to day like 25 or something. Oooops. I'm at the Grand Canyon, staying practically in the park with some tour guides. New plan for updates is to eventually just type up everything I've written in notebooks and post with pictures, once I've developed them. I never want to be on a computer when I'm surrounded by nature or fun and have had a full day. But here is a quick peek at the itinerary I've followed:
Richmond
Chapel Hill
Boone
Asheville
Chattanooga
-night in Talladega, Alabama bahahaha
Birmingham
New Orleans
Houston, sort of
Austin
-night in a ghost town. Muleshoe, TX/ Texico, New Mexico/ Clovis?
Santa Fe and Albuquerque
Gallup, New Mexico
Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon

Next San Diego for a week or so and then San Francisco!
After this trip I feel like why did I ever want to go to Europe or even Asia?!? I'm staying here forever!!! There's so much more to see.

Day 1 (April 30th)

I didn't leave til about 6pm Monday. Tying up loose ends and generally freaking out. But once I finally got on the road and starting listening to the Beastie Boys I got pretty relaxed and stoked.
Going south towards 85, I had to down 95 first for about 35 minutes. This means I passed Chester, home from ages eight to eighteen, and next I passed through Colonial Heights, home from ages 2 and a half to eight, and then through Petersburg to 85. It's sappy but I felt like I was traveling backwards through my past into the future.

Anyway, then I stopped at the Pamplin Park exit, fueled up, got a Dr. Pepper and a Blowpop, accidentally left with the bathroom door locked from the inside, and chatted on the phone with a friend who will be in Las Vegas as I'm passing through.
45 minutes down. 48-ish hours to go.
In Rawlings, VA there was nothing but a huge gas station with a smoking lounge. I met a mute and blind guy who was dressed like a classy baller, red bandana and suit coat and sweet kicks, etc etc, and kept playing Michael Jackson tunes on the jukebox. Clearly he staked out the lounge daily because everybody who passed through chatted him up in a sort of routine manner. He bought me a pizza and then I had to tell him I was vegan. Pizza rejection is always tough because I do love fun a lot, but this time was THE HARDEST. We could have had a cute date right there in the smoking lounge in the gas station in Rawlings. Dammit.
I entered NC, stopped at a wafflehouse in Henderson, played some country classic jukebox jams, rode my bike into the town and explored, and snapped some pictures. I could see that the town was really suffering, with most buildings shut down and all the stores advertising big blowout sales despite being mostly empty of merchandise inside. I sat down at a picnic table on the main road and watched zero cars pass for an hour. I thought Richmond was small but 4 days into my trip, I have discovered that I am wrong. In Henderson I had just begun accommodating the perspective of not crowded. I have been absorbed in Richmond for too long. American country has a lot more to offer than I gave it credit for.
So I looked up a statistic. As of 2000, 166,215,889 citizens live in 153 American urbanized areas that have populations over 200,000. That's 58.274 percent of people living in cities like Richmond, within the city limits.
Wikipedia says that as of 2008, 82% of people live in cities and suburbs, making the US highly urbanized. But I don't think the suburbs count really, and that is including cities with populations as low as 2,500 people, calling them "urban clusters". So to me anyway, that is a misleading statistic. My high school had 2,000 people in it. That is not a city. I'm sure the requirements are complicated or globally standardized or whatever but bottom line is almost half, or roughly 40 percent of Americans, live in cities smaller than Richmond. I'm trying to meet them!! Anyway the country is cool. This is getting boring. Peace yall

The End is the Beginning is the End

Hey. So I'm driving across country. It is a stupid long way. Today while I was driving it finally hit me that I have graduated college. It only took a year for that to dawn on me..... It was a pretty triumphant feeling. Not because I have a degree but because I'm free. So I started shouting and grinning like a fool and relished the thought that the daily trifles of my recent past are ultimately so inconsequential, because they are so situational. Today I decompressed the weight that's been building over my head since Switzerland. August 2009 was the last time I felt this way, insignificant and yet independent and in power. I really need this. My mind is getting set right. I was nervous to leave Richmond, in a more scared and anxious way than I had expected to be, but now that I'm 300 miles away, those feelings are all evaporating. My grandpa told me to only look through my windshield and not out my rear views. It's advice I'm following. But only metaphorically, duh!!!! Pictures etc soon. Next stops: Asheville, Atlanta, Houston, and plenty in between.