The Wisdom of Jeff Daniels

Well, all my stuff is in storage, all necessities have been purchased, and the only thing left to do is pack. Waves of nausea mixed with terror and excitement are regularly washing over me. I feel like I'm on an old wooden roller coaster and I'm slowly clicking my way to the summit, and come Monday I'm going to plunge over the top and start this crazy ride. It's finally starting to hit me that this is really going to happen; this thing that's for so long been just an idea in my head - six months, a year? - is becoming concrete. The ironic thing about all this is I'm really not a spontaneous person; I'm a creature of routine and habit, I like comfort and stability. And I couldn't be doing anything more uncomfortable and unstable. I was asked the other day how I know the trip will be a success, and I didn't really have an answer, but now I think I do: If I leave on Monday and return in a couple of months, I'll have been successful. Upon my return, I don't have to have everything figured out and the mysteries of life solved. Just knowing I challenged myself to step outside my comfort-zone will have been enough for me to declare victory; the rest is just gravy.

Tonight I'm having dinner with my oldest friends, people I've known since kindergarten and Jr. High. Afterwards it's drinks with friends old and new. Tomorrow is filled with errands and packing and Sunday night dinner with Oma (grandmother in German). Part of me feels like I haven't prepared and planned enough, and the other part of me knows that it's not like I'm doing something overly complicated - there will be plenty of time to plan on the road. But still, there are thing which require forethought. For example, last week I came up with the idea of starting my trip by heading to San Francisco, then shooting East to Yosemite for a couple of days, and then traveling for a few days with the destination being Yellowstone. Upon doing some research last night however, I realized that nighttime temperatures in Yellowstone this time of year hover around 29f, so this time of year might not be the best to visit for someone sleeping in their car. So I'll save Yellowstone for the return leg of the trip, and start out going North until I hit Seattle, and then figure things out.

I didn't want to start out going up North through California, but I never could put my finger on exactly why that was. Oddly enough, a quote by Jeff Daniels in Life magazine this week (he's in the new Robin Williams movie RV and an avid RVer himself) best summed up what I couldn't put to words: "True RVers know that you don't become one with the road until there's a state between you and your home state. That's when you become Lewis and Clark." I won't feel like I've truly started my trip until I'm out of California and exploring a state I've never been in, and I imagine that happening by Friday.

Thought of the Day: I never really thought there'd come a day where I quoted Jeff Daniels.