The Waffle has now been muffled. She is now quite the stealthy vixen. Remember, if you're ever in Lincoln be sure to see Zig's Discount Mufflers for all of your exhaust needs. This saturday my friend Mark is going to do some more work to the Waffle. It promises to be a full day of grease and gaskets.
Well, it's cold here. Supposed to get 2-4 inches of snow tomorrow. God damn Nebraska.
Well, it was a long haul but I and the Waffle finally reached Lincoln on Friday night. It's been over a year since I've seen my family and friends here in Nebby so I've spent the last few days running amuck around town trying to see everyone. I've managed to hang out with a lot of people so far, some of whom I haven't seen in 2 or 3 years, and since I plan on sticking around town for a week or two I'll probably get to spend time with most everyone I care about.
I've also gotten to hang out at a number of my old haunts. One such place is Duffy's Tavern, a bar that hosts local and touring indie bands. Luckily one of my old bandmates is playing next weekend with his current band Ideal Cleaners. They'll be playing with Crush the Clown, all three members of which I consider good friends.
I have to admit that it's very strange to be back in town. On the one hand, I get to hang out with some great characters like my friend Mark, the funniest human being I've ever encountered - I actually had to dab tears from my eyes he was making me laugh so hard yesterday - but on the other hand, there are a lot of ghosts for me here. I'll certainly enjoy the next couple weeks, but I think maybe I'll be more than ready to head on after that.
When I went to leave Martinsville this morning I started to get really worried. The Waffle was stuck in park and refused to shift into any gear. Luckily I know how to push her buttons (in this case the shift-lock release) and away we went.
Today was the monumental crossing of the Appalachians. With the Waffle so weighted down, I was certainly concerned that this would be a huge problem. Bah! The Waffle scoffs at such doubting! We climbed high up into the mountains, especially along Hwy 58 west of Martinsville. I wish that I could have gotten some pictures but I was driving and feared plummeting to my death. Also there weren't any good spots to pull over and take scenic images. Along the way I stopped in at a service station back up in the hills where four or five guys were sitting around staring off into space. I considered pulling my banjo out of the Waffle and asking if anyone could re-enact the opening scene of deliverance but decided that would be rude. I was also concerned that they might not remember which scene was in the beginning and which ones were much later on, involving squealing and unpleasant interactions with the buttocks.
Never having been to Tennessee, I had no preconceptions. I have to say that I was amazed at how noticably different the landscape became once I got to...maybe the Knoxville area. The vegetation was more lush, with less underbrush to make it look weedy (if that's a word). Just beautiful mountains and rolling valleys with every imaginable shade of green.
Nashville is awesome! When I first got there I made a brief foray into a very sketchy area for lunch, where some old dude kept soliciting every woman in the joint (including two junior high girls), and where some guy kept looking into my car as I ate lunch. Needless to say, I ate quickly. But downtown Nashville was really cool. All sorts of old Honky Tonks, restaurants, and shops. It was great to see a city center with no McD's, Starbucks, or other large chains, mostly gritty little mom n' pop places with loads of character.
The first leg of the journey went surprisingly well. It was a stunning day out and the Waffle was in a good mood. I can already feel the tension of D.C. traffic leaving my body.
I spent the past day and a half visiting my good friend, Julie, in Martinsville, Virginia (see her self-portrait at right). It's a beautiful area! On top of that, a nice one bedroom apartment is something like $350 w/everything included. As someone who is coming from the inflated housing market of D.C., I can't quite comprehend paying less than a thousand clams for your own place. And in the D.C. area, even living with roommates only gets it down to about $500-$600...and all that includes are ants in the kitchen and a rat in the dryer. No joke, people! Rat in the dryer! If only he would've helped out more with the laundry...
I guess having grown up in the center of the universe (St. Teresa's neighborhood, Lincoln, Nebraska to everyone else), I think it's kind of unfortunate that there's so many cool places to live and experience, yet everyone crams along the coasts...of course, I'm moving from one coast to the other so maybe I should keep my mouth shut on this topic. All I'm saying is if you think the coastline is a shelter from biggots and ignorance, you're romanticizing your surroundings a bit. Now if the problem is that you think there's not as much to do in middle America, well...you're probably right.
Next stop is Tennessee.
Hi, I'm Tito.
After almost four years of living in our nation's capital, I've decided it's time to move along and see what new adventures there are to be had. I have no set destination, well okay I have some ideas, but the gist of it is to head west, take in as much of the country as possible, and eventually see the Pacific Ocean, doubling the number of oceans near which I've pondered. So for the next few weeks I'll be posting updates as I move along. I won't be able to post every day, but I'll do my best to keep you updated.
Some of you may want some explanation as to what's causing me to do this. That I'm quitting a stable job with great co-workers, leaving some extremely good friends, and flinging myself headlong into uncertainty probably has more than a few people scratching their heads. Well, I'm not really sure what to tell you. Maybe I don't know where I want to be in life right now, but I know when I need to keep looking...and that turns out to be pretty important. Plus there's nothing wrong about wanting to reinvent yourself when things don't quite feel right. When you're all said and done, you could count the number of hours you had in this amazing world. Don't cheat yourself out of any of it.
I should piont out that I'm not alone in this crazy quest. My unwilling companion and crotchety sidekick is the Waffle, a 1990 Honda Accord with 240,000 miles, an intermittant charging system, a suspect speed indicator switch, no muffler, and a recently developed idle problem in prolonged stop and go traffic.
All in all, I'd say we're pretty much ready to go!
At this point I've just about finished packing my things. It's been a challenge but I think everything I really want to keep will actually fit into the Waffle. Adding to the challenge, as if cramming your life into a 2-dr import isn't tough enough, I have a lot of instruments (guitars, basses, banjo...) but these will be the first things loaded; everything else is gravy. Next on the to-do list is deciding on an approximate route across this great country called Not Canada or Mexico.
