Welcome to my On The Road Blog!

I'm setting up this blog specifically to record my experience "On the Road" that begins in January 2009 and during the remainder of my sabbatical that finishes in March. What happens beyond that, we'll have to see.

The purpose of the sabbatical is to explore the connections between inner and outer journeys - the idea of physical pilgrimage and spiritual journeys. As part of this my friend Sean from Yorkshire and I will be retracing a journey originally made by Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady in January 1949 - 60 years earlier than our trip - from New York to San Francisco via New Orleans. This journey was fictionalized by Kerouac in part two of his book On The Road.

I should be arriving in New York round about January 12 from Vancouver and Sean'll be joining me a few days later. We've not quite worked out how we'll be traveling - obviously we'll be on the road but we haven't decided yet whether we'll buy a vehicle with a view to selling it at the end of the trip, or simply renting a vehicle or maybe driving someone else's car through www.autodriveaway.com or maybe even I'll drive my vehicle from here - though I'm not sure that'd be a good idea, especially in wintertime. But we'll know by then.

In keeping with Kerouac's timescale we'll be leaving NY on January 19 and passing through Washington DC on January 20 - Inauguration Day - exactly 60 years to the day after Harry Truman's inauguration for a second term. It's a different world. Wouldn't it be great if we could do the trip in a 1949 Hudson like they did back then!


So check back later to see how we're getting along on the road...