The Road Begins

Here's my new car! Dodge Avenger - like it? Love the fact that it is burgundy - like Jack and Neal's car in 1949.... So, decided that best thing to do is press on. Renting a vehicle for a week (or so) probably has the least financial impact compared to other options (e.g. renting for the whole time), and having to return it to Toronto hopefully will only put us couple of days behind schedule, which hopefully we can make up by adjusting the route - especially the side trip bit to Merton's monastery at Gethsemani. It puts me in mind of the back-and-forth journeys between Rocky Mount and NY with furniture for Kerouac's mother (Sal's aunt, in the book).

Also reminds me of the beginning of On The Road where Sal/Jack starts his first journey west by heading north and getting trapped in the rain in the bear mountain wilderness and having to take a bus back into NY with a bunch of school teachers. Thing is: we're doing this trip to be on the road, and whatever happens, we're going to be on the road - even if part of the time we're having to make a frantic dash back to Toronto to return this car and pick up my car. It's still the road, right? We'll still be listening to great sounds, drumming on the dashboard, gabbing about life and whether and how and when we got "It" - you know "It!" Like life, we get thwarted sometimes, we think, and yet we're still here, we still have this day, we're alive, and no-one and nothing can take this from us. Only we ourselves, if we squander it being preoccupied with things not working out as we wish.

Above picture was taken soon after entering the States when I stopped for a coffee on I-90 with another 700km to go to get to Lowell where I cannot believe I actually am now. As I got closer, and the darkness came, the sky seemed to take on a luminous quality. Very striking particularly when I first saw "Lowell" on the signpost about 50 miles out, as if the horizon where I was heading was hallowed in glory - must have been the glow of a full moon radiating through the clouds, and I thought of Dr. Sax and the shadow disappearing in old milltown Lowell, where I now sit in a house in the heart of Centralville.

Some more snapshots along the road:


And I particularly like this one taken across the dashboard:


Both the above shots taken on the road traveling I-90 in New York State.

The Road Begins! Well, not quite ...

OK: So this is where I am now - well, not exactly right now, but I am in Toronto... not exactly according to plan, but then I guess that is quite Kerouacian - for plans to be made that then fall flat on their face. Turns out that shipping the car to Toronto wasn't such a great idea after all - it's not here. And what is more I've arrived here to find that it is still in BC ... on the train but still in BC ... not likely to be here until at least January 19 when Sean and I are due to be leaving NY. So I've spent the past few hours trying to figure out what to do. Still not sure.

But one spin-off benefit of this upset to plans is that I've had the reason, necessity, opportunity to get in touch with Susan Snow and Wade Howie who used to attend St. Francis with their daughter, Olivia. They included their contact details in a Christmas card that came late that I somehow just thought I should bring with me.... So, I phoned them from the airport with no notice and asked if I could stay over. Without hesitation they said, "Yes," and picked me up down town, brought me home, fed me and made me really welcome as we tried to work out where to go from here. I'm trying to take the attitude with this "On the Road" thing that whatever happens it's going to be OK. Be in the moment and see what the moment has to say. Not just, "It's a lousy idea to ship your car from Vancouver in winter if you actually want to get it by a certain date," but that life continues, and where the road leads can never be determined - at least not with any certainty. There is no certainty. We all know that; but sometimes we have to learn it all over again. Transform the frustration into bounty.

So what happens next? I think sleep happens next. Then probably get a rental car from Toronto airport and carry on, with the aim of returning to Toronto when my car finally arrives - sometime next week. Probably means we're not going to able to follow Kerouac's exact route or schedule - actually never intended to follow the schedule too closely as they didn't stop at all and made NY to New Orleans in about 42 hours and then about 5 days to SF when the journey resumed - but perhaps we'll follow him in the spirit of having to adapt and overcome the obstacles along the way - like the run-in with the law they had when Al Hinkle/Ed Dunkel got a speeding ticket in Virginia....

Getting to the Start of the Road

OK, so here's the plan: having considered various options including renting a vehicle or buying a vehicle in NY and selling it in SF, I've decided to ship my vehicle (2004 Ford Escape) to Toronto by train. I'm then going to fly to Toronto on January 12, 2009 pick it up and head south to the border. Before heading for New York City I plan to visit Lowell, Massachusetts - Kerouac's birthplace and where he spent the early years of his life - where his road began. It'd also be good to get to Concord and check out some of Thoreau's old haunts - Walden Pond etc, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately...."

Then Sean flies into New York on January 16 and we'll hang out in New York for the weekend before heading out on the road on January 19....

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...