I'M PRETTY SURE my desire to travel was sparked when I first read "On the Road"  while attending the University of Texas a long time ago :)  I was taking a course on the History of Rock and Roll (Ha! one baby step above basket weaving) , and  the hepcat professor assigned Kerouac's seminal beatnik book as required reading ("Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," "Mystery Train" and "The Electric  Kool-Aid Acid Test"  were assigned, too - all terrific!.).  

Anyhoo's, On the Road's traveling themes were simple: The possibilities.  The wide  open road.  The adventure. 

With hijinks, humor, and freewheeling youthful exuberance to spare, OTRs appeal to 20 year old  Max was profound (Right up there with Catcher in the Rye and The Stranger).  I read more  travel books, from classics to the obscure:  The. Grapes of Wrath, Travels with Charley, Down and Out in Paris and London, Waiting for Nothing. Not every book was a pleasant, positive tale about traveling, but all had one thing in common. People were on the road, on the move, day after day, a different place, and not always for the better. That's what grabbed  me. It was the "someplace new" aspect. Somewhere different. Something different.   In the 90s I traveled a lot.  I went to Mexico often, I got around by train, bus, and automobile and thumb.  I had a blast. Now, I travel in my Winnebago Micro Spirit, christened the ATXtraveler (previously the ATXBreeze)..

The ATXtraveler has been transformed four times in three years.  She started out a s tiny trailer (chronicled in year one, 2018). In year two, I transformed The Traveler  into a van (chronicled in year two, 2019). This year, the original  tiny trailer (which I still had in my back yard) went back to its roots, but in a larger, roomier version of itself.. With all the crazy ass project time the pandemic has created, I built the  III in four frantic weeks.  But before I could put that version to a road-trip-test, I was able to get my hands on a Winnebago Micro Spirit (finally!). This beauty is a standalone motorhome, a particular RV I've had my eye on for a good while.   I'm hoping my travels will be enhanced and extended like never before.

On every trip I learn things about the practical and philosophical aspects traveling. What works, what doesn't, what to add and what to subtract, what to do more of, what to do less of.   I've made adjustments. I expect to make more. I'm getting there.

My first three long-assed  road trips lasted about a month to 45 days.  Last year, the Covid year kept me and everyone at home.  There was to be no traveling. But here we are now. Tail end of spring, beginning of summer. Covid's not gone, but it's visible in the rear view mirror.  I'll be tripping very soon now. And   what I've had in mind for a while is a  three to six months journey when I finally hit the road in 2021. For a while now I've  been toying with the idea of living  in another state about half the year. This upcoming trip is going to help me pick a place, by "trying out 'cities, living there for one month at a time.   . That's the plan anyways. We shall see.

At some point during my travels, maybe in some little town in Arizona, or perhaps  at a rest stop between Vallejo and San Francisco, right around sundown,  I'll pick up my original travel  inspiration,  "On The Road". For me, there never was a more inspiring read  on the joys of travel.  The inspiration remains, imprinted into my old gypsy soul.  . .

" “So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars'll be out, and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear?" - Jack Kerouac

Selah - Max