By God

Recalled 13 February, 2013

Sperryville, Virginia

We left Bowling Green, Kentucky early, getting up in the dark and writing the penultimate chapter to this travelblogue, and I noticed an ephemeral sheen reflected in the parking lot from a sign extending 100 yards into the air, and remembered seeing it as we had arrived the previous evening: White Castle.

I simultaneously regretted and reflected on the appropriateness of naming our record after the stoner movie, Harold and Kumar’s Big Adventure. Harold and Kumar, as I recall, having barely seen it, spend their days in search of the stoner holy grail, the White Castle Hamburger Joint. And here we were, having crossed the 10,000 mile mark, about to embark on the last day of four months on the road, actually able to make a photo, still healthy, less wealthy and refutably wise.

We stuck with route 65 through Kentucky and the Bourbon Heritage Highway through Elizabethtown and Lexington, into West Virginia, hearing on the radio that there had been a straight-line wind gust in Nashville the night before that registered at 105 miles per hour.  We had heard the winds whip up and intensify in Bowling Green, and I was fearing the roof would be peeled from the motel.

From Lexington we took route 64 with plans to take it all the way to Virginia, hoping to sneak into the state without a safety inspection sticker, which had expired in December, only to change plans after a snow mix was forecast for the Seneca area. I had been planning to exit route 79 at Elkins and take route 33 towards Harrisonburg, and instead maintained the northerly route up to Clarksburg, taking route 50 east to Winchester.

We passed through Charleston around 4, and two hours later, upon beginning the squirrel trail that passes for route 50 in central West Virginia, I saw a sign that read, “Romney 88,” which could have been a campaign sign. This portended much further travel for us, already at eight hours on the road, as were maintaining an average speed of 30 miles per hour, and would still be in West Virginia four hours later.

Four more hours of this?

We trudged across the tundra, we trundled imaginary boulders, I don’t think we sang to stay awake, but I called my friend Andy, who had offered us a bed near Luray Virginia, which was a godsend, just by virtue of being 30 minutes closer than the smokehouse. Of course the smokehouse would be unheated and trashed, as this is sort of its nature, and there was a new wrinkle, presented while in California, that of no hot water.

Our friend (known as Kaya’s Uncle) was kind and indulgent, as we were definitely spent, so kind, in fact, that he made a chicken sandwich for Kaya, and meat and potatoes for me. We talked a little, as it had probably been eleven when we arrived, and nodded out with satisfaction.

In the morning we gathered before our host was up, and headed over the mountain into a new set of changes, and the rising sun.

Well now what is going to happen now is anybody's guess
If I can't spend my time with love I guess I need a rest
Time is getting late now and the sun is getting low
My body's getting tired of carryin' another's load
And sunshine's waiting for me a little further down the road

-Jorma Kaukonen