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 As part of this my friend Sean from Yorkshire and I will be retracing a journey originally made by Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady in January 1949 - 60 years earlier than our trip - from New York to San Francisco via New Orleans.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...
