My friends have been having a terrible time keeping track of me as of late. I seem to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. My friends in Florida think I’m still there, while my Washington friends are both delighted and mystified that I am back in Seattle once again.
Unfortunately, this guessing game will just have to continue on for a while.
Believe me, it’s not at all a pleasant existence from my perspective. While I have done the bimbo limbo a time or two, being in actual limbo isn’t something I was expecting or have come to enjoy.
It’s not like I’m just shuttling between the Bay area and Seattle as I once did. No, that would be too simple. Instead, I am winging my way on what is quite possibly the longest flight one can take in the continental U.S. For all intents and purposes, I might as well be flying to Tahiti for a weekend bender.
I have thought often about simply creating a Where in the World is Robbie Sandiego game. I could provide clues that would have to be deciphered as to my location at any particular moment. I know with great certainty that trying to nail down my location over the past five days would have been enough of a challenge, even if I didn’t add in bicoastal travel by plane and automobile (sorry, no trains in the equation – yet!).
I certainly know that even when I was in Florida, it was damned near impossible for anyone to know my whereabouts. Fort Pierce, Vero Beach, North Hutchinson Island, Melbourne, Altamonte Springs – geez, where are these places? Can’t he just live in Orlando, Miami or Tampa? At least they appear easily on a gas station map.
As we know, I have been a gypsy for most of my adult life. That wandering soul just seems to keep traveling on. I don’t really know why.
I did, however, come to appreciate this wanderlust over the weekend. We were at the Washington State Historical Museum down Tacoma way. We happened upon an exhibit on the Oregon Trail and there was a Conestoga wagon, the side removed so you could see how the pioneers packed all their worldly possessions in it for the trip West.
I marveled at their strength and well, pioneer spirit. Here is this tiny little wagon filled to the brim with all their most important possessions, food and spare parts for the wagon. These people walked to their new homes. There was no room in the wagon to carry passengers. They couldn’t just stop at a McDonalds for a
Happy Meal when the kids got hungry.
Me? I have tortured on more than once occasion that I might have to load a 22′ moving van with all the crap I own and that there won’t be enough room for it all. I gripe about the fact that I might have to drive for a couple days in my gypsy caravan.
It took the pioneers between 4 and 5 1/2 months to go 2,000 miles. I guess if I really wanted to honor my ancestors I could just hitch a couple horses to the Saturn VUE and head west. I could sit up top, with everything I really needed packed inside. Jan would have to hoof it.
I admit that the Florida part of the journey would be nothing short of grueling. It’s very hot here and even though the state is flat, it would be an arduous task walking all the way across it. I don’t even like to walk to the pool on a hot day here.
When I migrated east in the Great Transit for Love Gone Wrong of 2004, we made it across country in just 84 hours. Yes, hours. Not days. That included two overnight stays, albeit brief ones in motels.
The only part of the trip I didn’t really enjoy was the entire Midwest. Now, I am not slighting the entire Midwest. I am sure it is and was beautiful. After all, it’s the “amber waves of grain” part of America the Beautiful, so there must be something to it.
Unfortunately, it was tornado season and I still remember waking up in the back seat, Diablo taking a turn at the wheel of Vanna, and the radio is crackling with tornado watches and warnings for particular counties.
I am sure this is helpful to the people of the Midwest. At least you have a general idea where a tornado could be. As a traveler, however, it is as useless as tits on a chicken (I thought I would use Midwest vernacular for a moment). When you’re in a car and from another state, county names are next to useless. And taking shelter in a Walmart, frightening.
Thankfully, the fingers of God did not reach down and touch Vanna that night. Instead, God let his fingers do the walking in neighboring towns, killing a few people that very night.
I won’t be going through the Midwest should I return from whence I came some day, which has and is always a possibility. Instead, I’ll take a page from Bugs Bunny I will take the right at Albuquerque or whatever town takes me as far from the tornadoes as possible.
Where am I going? Perhaps somewhere, perhaps not. Perhaps now, perhaps never. The good news is that I should know or not know very soon. Or maybe not.
Welcome to my world – Limboland, where all the rides are running, but you never know what time of day they are open, how much they will cost or even where the damned theme park is located on any particular day.
In Limboland, someplace where it’s hot (or not),
– Robb