Road Dog: Life on the Road

Adventures of my Cross Country Journey, July 2023

Photo by Mary Hammel on Unsplash

Well, I’m sitting at The Bean Gallery on 637 N. Carrollton Avenue in the “Mid-City” section of Bayou St. John in New Orleans. It was a four-minute drive from my glorious Air BnB studio apartment—which is stupidly cheap and massive—and since it’s 97 degrees out and 60% humidity it sounded like the wisest choice. Oh, and the kicker: They’re open until midnight. Were this Santa Barbara, say, or Lompoc, or even many parts of the Bay Area, I’d be shit out of luck.

I got to New Orleans—a city I’ve heard about endlessly for the past two-plus decades and have always wanted to visit—this afternoon around 1:30pm. I’ve been on the road for 10 days. Britney and I started from Lompoc, California (where we live) and drove across the nation over the course of a week to Portland, Maine, a la I-15, I-70, I-80, I-90. Aka: The Northern Route. This is the route I’ve done probably half a dozen times in the past, hitchhiking once as well as driving and taking Amtrak several times, all during my lurid, reckless twenties. I’d always wanted to travel through the American South but never had.

Britney and I loved Chicago so much (I’ve been there several times, including for a week during the winter of 2017) we’re seriously considering moving there next year instead of the Bay Area. It felt like the NYC of the Midwest…only people were friendly…dare I say it…human. It always bothered me that NYC (well, Manhattan, anyway) has that sort of desensitized, feral, zombie-like indifference which everyone possesses, especially on the subway trains, as if they’re all robots and get plugged and unplugged by The City at will. Chicago had something in the air, something much more vibrant and blood-pumpingly sane. Something which held luster and a slim glaze of kindness. Rare for a mega-metropolis like that.

After Maine—where Britney devoured a whole lobster—we drove south to Boston. We stayed in an Air BnB which claimed to be “in” Boston but was actually in Dorchester about 20 minutes south of the actual city. It was a little rough there. Nothing too crazy. At least the parking was easy. We had a room in a multiple-story house. But we were woken up rudely just before 8am the next morning to two Black men arguing with each other down the hall. It became increasingly loud and erratic. One called the other “weird,” which we found slightly amusing…yet the word had been charged with an edgy violence. N-words were hurled back and forth, and not in a friendly way. Suddenly their voices raised much louder. They seemed to be literally just outside of our room, a foot outside our thin closed door. Britney looked at me with fear in her eyes. I remained calm. I’d lived in Manhattan for two-and-a-half years, and specifically a rough part of East Harlem for one of those years. This didn’t worry me…too much. Yet. But my hackles were up. I remembered going through Covid in East Harlem, having eyes in the back of my head, my head on a bobble, more aware than I’d ever been before. Read my ongoing fictional memoir (prologue and first few chapters free, the rest paid) about this experience HERE.

I worried when one guy, outside our thin door, said, “Get up outta my face, N_____.” Some yelling ensued. Britney looked like she was about to leap out the second-floor window. Then one guy said something—I forget what—several times and walked off, going into the bathroom and slamming the door. The other guy yelled threateningly, You’re gonna pay for this, N_____, You’re gonna pay for this,…

Anyway, we went out for the day and then I got Britney a Lyft to Logan International. I was back on my own. Britney and I had enjoyed an incredible, totally satisfying trip. We travel well together. We both love and crave travel. I’m more of the risk-taking adventurer; she’s more of the practical one. We balance each other out quite nicely, both in life and while on the road. I spent the day walking around Boston, from Back Bay to downtown and back, partially in a thunder rainstorm which felt fantastic due to the humidity.

*

The following day—July 28^th—I had planned to stay a second night in Boston but decided instead to head out. I woke up with adrenaline pumping, ready to go, at 2:45am. You gotta obey The Inner Urge, so I say, so I got up, quickly packed, and left. I was on the road by 3am. I plowed through New York, New Jersey, Philly. (By the way: What in the FUCK is going on with the incessant, never-ending toll booths in Jersey??? Seriously: What the HELL???) I considered dropping into Manhattan to meet a good sober writer friend of mine, but it was damn early (he is not an early riser) and I knew the traffic was going to snaggle me and the whole fiasco would set me back hours. So I burned rubber. I pushed through Maryland and into Virginia. I ended up going into Richmond, VA where I found a cool hipster coffee shop ironically right next door to a bookstore. I of course bought two books, because I’m a bibliophile—a thin volume of The Upanishads, which I realized would probably get cancelled today by the fringe lefties if they noticed in the very opening pages it uses the word “niggardly,” and the novel London Fields by Martin Amis. They were used and cheap. I paid in cash. The kid behind the counter was too cool for school: Redheaded, maybe 21, no eye-contact. I love this generation!

*(By the way my new nickname is Road Dog. Or R.D. Either is acceptable.)

I digress.

After writing for an hour or so in Richmond and drinking about 17 Sencha green teas, I headed south on some random backcountry roads seeing if I might razzle up a hidden parking spot where I could sleep in the car. We have everything you need to sleep and camp in the Kia Sorrento rental. Yes, even at 40 I have a Road Dog Soul (RDS). Hey: At least I’m sober and not hitchhiking. I did that all through my twenties.

I ended up finding a great little campground about 20 miles south of Richmond. Lake Shelden. I got there after hours so I put some cash into an envelope and camped. Spots were open. I cooked using the Jetboil stove, read and passed out. I awoke at 4am and headed out way before anyone arrived to open the place. I like to drive in darkness, baby. Morning or night, but darkness. Road Dog creeps silently in the night, people.