I made it across the country in four days, not including the two days I spent in Prescott, AZ. Spoilers! Prescott is the best school I've visited. Its small and flexible, flexible meaning it allows its students to grow, each in their individual way. Outdoor education and designing one’s own curriculum is strongly encouraged. Along with every course, a lot of writing is required, which makes sense to me. Writing about an experience is an effective way of “personalizing” information and retaining it longer. From Prescott to Kingston, Ontario, where I visited my cousins the Cote’s, I drove as fast as I possibly could. Not as fast as one man did however. Twenty-one or so years ago a lone trucker traveled from New York to Los Angeles in two days to pick up his wife, who was about to give birth to a son, and take her to Colorado, via train, where they lived. Present day, on a cold on-ramp in Arizona, my trucker-hero’s son (Jeremy, or Scraps Trashcankid, as he is now called) was picked up by a red Geo Metro, after waiting for three days! I can’t begin to think up sufficient excuses for the thousand or so members of our friendly-world-community who passed him by. Scraps and I had a regular good time, driving for 36 hours straight through the desert. I slept for ten minutes on a couch in Starbucks but other than that we only stopped to re-fuel. I dropped him off in Memphis where he tried his luck catching a ride to Nora, for Mardi Gras. He was going to resume is role of previous years as booze fairy. Walking the streets with an open liqueur container, legal in Louisiana, and coercing party people into drinking.
Things got faster paced the further north I got. People are serious about their business and a relaxing, amiable conversation between friends is less likely to occur. Not so much the case, however, in Canada. I crossed over to see the torrential beauty of Niagara Falls then on to Kingston to visit the cousins. More ice-skating in a winter wonderland, and a wonderful shower and bed! I had been sleeping in my car, parking in rest stops and washing my face and hands in place of a daily shower. Its really not that bad, it just gets a bit uncomfortable after awhile. I’m glad there isn’t any more space between to Atlantic and Pacific!
After much anticipation I visited College of the Atlantic. Its absolutely lovely there, well to be honest, all of Maine is. I drove all along the coast and it was just quaint friendly little town after town. COA is a cool school, a lot like Prescott but with a less defined curriculum. A very exiting discovery I made is a boat building school just north of Portland. Its a small thing and they have internship programs to teach you how to build boats. Smaller ones mainly, but it looked like tons of fun. I went on further south to visit Boston and see the sights but I never made it because the back tire went out on my car. I lost control and crashed headlong into the side rail.
The poor thing, it just crumpled. I don’t understand how I hit the side rail at 65 mph without flipping, and I don’t remember if I spun or not. It was like a 90 degree swerve to hit the rail head on, then another 90 degrees to straighten out, to find myself on the shoulder facing forward. For a few terrifying seconds I felt like I was dreaming or watching a movie, with the almost cliche screeching of wheels, me frantically pulling on the steering wheel, the air bags, and rubbery smoke spewing from the dash board. I was not injured at all just majorly freaked out for a bit and bummed to see my investment destroyed so suddenly. I had brand new rear tires put on the car, from Firestone, before leaving. The US is 3,000 miles across, so they went out about 50 times too fast. Also they were completely shredded, there was metal sticking out of the rubber, so they were obviously the wrong tires or put on incorrectly. Ah bummer.
It worked out alright though because I went straight to NYC and stayed with a buddy from Hidden Valley. Driving does not work here unless you love honking all day and trying to kill peds, also there is no where to park. I think people just switch out their cars so they are continually on the road. And subway here is great! Any where that’s anywhere (said with a downward drop of the hand with fingers extended) is accessible via the subway.
The plan for NY is to leave New York. Well I’m enjoying it of course but the objective is to raise money for a bike trip in Europe. I estimate three months, until the end of April. In the first week here I found a job and a place to live. I love the room and room-mates, all students from Korea or Thailand. The job is a joke. Minimum wage and stress-full, cafe job. I was really surprised by how easy it was to land it though. I suppose there all lots of jobs out there like that, with lots of turnover, catering to the “uneducated” working class. I KNOW that we are working harder than the squishy fleshed desk gnomes we are making sandwiches for. My co-workers all have huge hearts. It doesn’t show, however, unless there is a bit of free time. When its busy, and it usually is really busy, anything goes in the deli bar. I was shocked at first, coming from chill and compassionate Eugene into the NYC war zone. Its a bit sad , but you know the true New Yorkers because, ther’e always talking about “watchin your back” and trusting no one. Apparently trust in strangers is not a possibility when one lives in a sea of humanity, at least not in this age. The art of connecting and establishing trust with all our brothers and sisters is very subtle and it seems to be lost on most people.
