Brian Dylan

Time has slowed.  It’s an incredible feeling – a lot like exhaling.  We have said our goodbyes, we have finalized our itinerary and we have made progress.   Once we left Pennsylvania, the minutes until we were out of the state shifted into the hours we had until our next location.  Once we crossed into Central Standard Time, we were suddenly out of people we had to visit and had gained an hour.  We have officially shifted out of our old lives.

The first three days of our journey were frenetic.  Rush to leave, hurry to visit family and race to get to some place unfamiliar.   We needed to slow down, so we staged ourselves in Ohio.  We visited dear friends.  We staged our belongings and realized a little more of our itinerary.  Still, we did not feel entirely free.

We could not really relax until the terrain changed, until the town names sounded unfamiliar and until we saw a few new restaurant chains dotting the road.   Once we left Mansfield, Ohio, we melded with the open “road” and really began to enjoy the “trip.”

We ate Venezuelan food in Columbus, got surprised by the abrupt vista of Cincinnati and saw the world’s largest Louisville slugger in its namesake city.   I donated ten dollars to itinerant beggars at a rest stop and ate deliciously uncooked eggs at a Waffle House.  We also drove.  We drove so much my ass went numb.

Currently, we reside in the cheapest hotel available in Cave City, Kentucky.  This is my first new state.  It’s so lush; the hills look overcrowded.  Kentucky rolls.  The highways rise and fall in long straight lanes through hillocks exploding with green.

Tomorrow, we visit Mammoth Cave and tour western Tennessee.  We will try for Arkansas, but we might get delayed by Nashville or Memphis or even Clarksville.  We were already supposed to be in Tennessee.  I am glad we decided to stop.  We’ve remembered to breathe, to inhale our new surroundings as we expel the pent up tension of our former, structured lives.

Even with the detours, we have a lingering sense of go, go, Go!   However, a funny thing happens when you cross into another time zone with no immediate plans of returning.  Everything slows down and you suddenly have time to do everything.  Actually, you suddenly have time to do everything you wanted to do.