While everyone else was watching the White Bronco...

I knew that a long trip of some sort might give me some perspective on what was going on, but I didn't know how to approach it. I had never traveled widely in my life, and had never planned a big trip on my own.

Going to the mountains held a lot of appeal, so my parents suggested I go visit Lee (kind of a distant cousin) who lived in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. He was an experienced camper, and was more than willing to take me on an adventure in the western Rockies. Then again, I had just enough money to fly to Alaska, which was somewhere I had always wanted to go. On the other hand, I could probably afford to go to Robert Fripp's Guitar Craft and awaken my long dormant musical ventures.

Then while perusing "What's New on the World Wide Web" one day, I bumped into Philip Greenspun's Travels with Samantha. It was a huge chronicle of a summer-long trip that Philip took from his home in Boston, through the lower 48 states, up to Alaska, and back again. I spent a week going over the site again and again. I knew what I was going to do now. I was going to take a driving trip.

I don't know why I hadn't thought of this in the first place. Long drives were one of my favorite things to do. I think that driving a car is one of the greatest forms of meditation . Jim used to joke that when going out to grab something from the store down the street from our place in Ann Arbor, I would take a detour through Marquette.

I didn't make any firm plans for the trip. I kind of knew where I was going to be on a certain day during the three week trip; but for the most part, I was making things up as I went along.

On June 16, I dropped the kitties off with my parents in Grand Rapids, and the next day, I left.

June 17, 1994

I left Grand Rapids early in the morning and drove south towards Chicago. Soon after starting, I popped in a tape of Richard Gere reciting The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which I would listen to over and over throughout the trip.

For someone unacquainted with Buddhism, the Tibetan Book of the Dead can be a pretty scary experience. Lots of people being chopped into little bits, having their intestines torn out, their heads ripped off, and lots of other terrible stuff.

But what I learned from it was a valuable thing for me to live with for much of the trip. Don't follow the people trying to guide you into their way of living or thinking. Understand yourself and act on what you find there and things will work out.

By early afternoon, I had made it to Iowa. I always thought that Iowa was a pretty flat place, but I was wrong. It had beautiful rolling hills, and wild flowers were in full bloom along the road where I went. At times the scent from all of the flowers was so intense, it felt like I was driving through a perfume factory.

I originally thought I might stop in Des Moines, but I was so full of energy, I pushed through to Omaha.