30,000 miles and the marble rolls past the drain again

We rode into the state of Florida on Saturday, after a long, winding road trip through the west. Out of San Diego, we made our way north to Hollister to visit Alaina's grandmother, then moved on to San Francisco to see a friend. We headed east next, to Lake Tahoe, where we camped and hiked for a few days (and tried to swim, but damn was that cold) before going to Reno to see another Florida face. He took us down the Truckee River that flows right through downtown, a highlight of the trip. We drove south next, through Nevada, past Las Vegas and spent the night at a hotel/casino near the Hoover Dam ($20 per night with a "players club" discount, no gambling required!). We would have camped, but I had a wicked case of food poisoning due to consuming Hollandaise sauce that had been left out all day (oops). We then made our way into Arizona. People sometimes ask me, as an environmental engineer, if I think we will ever run out of space to landfill our waste in this country. I can now safely say, after visiting the Grand Canyon, we will not. Since there really isn't much to see between the Grand Canyon and, say, Memphis along route 40, I'll say that's where we stopped next for all intents and purposes. We saw more of Alaina's family in northern Alabama and stayed in their double-wide yurt in the "toenails" of the Appalachians. They live on a commune with about 6 other families, about half of whom are off the grid completely. Yeah, they're hippies; but I'm not talking about the brain dead stoner variety, but professionals like engineers and architects who got fed up with the status-quo, sound familiar? It was all pretty inspirational for a like-minded person such as myself. And then, after a night with "chopper" Scott and Jeanine in southern Alabama, we were back in Florida the next day.

I've been doing some numbers and, since I left Newport last October, I've traveled about 30,000 miles in 11 months. That is an average of 3.8 miles per hour. 3.8 miles per hour continuously, 24 hours per day, for 11 months straight. Over 5,000 of those have been over water and 10,000 over land. I'm not boasting; on the contrary I'm making a statement about how damn exhausted I am. It has been a great trip though, with no regrets and a lot of lessons learned and experiences gathered. However, I just feel at home here in southwest Florida.

I imagine myself a marble. Starting in Boston last winter, with the purchase of Winchelsea and leaving my desk job, I was perched atop the rim of a porcelain sink and let go. Down I rolled, gaining speed towards the bottom near the drain. I didn't fall in though, when I reached Florida last November. I merely kissed its edge and kept right on going, up the other side. I didn't go quite as far as the other edge this time (maybe geographically, but not mentally), but close, before turning around and making my way back towards my home at the bottom. I've now reached the edge of the drain again, and I still have plenty of speed to make it a good bit up the other side. The apex of my trip up this side of the sink, as planned currently, will be Key West for the winter season. But, of course, I never really know for sure.