(Edit: Despite referencing both days above, this post turned out to be all about Monday. Tuesday's post will follow)
After yesterday's post from the fields of Iowa, I spent most of the day looking out the windshield at Nebraska. I'd heard friends grumble about Great Plains driving, calling it a mind-numbing bore, in fact, but I liked the drive a lot. I spent a lot of time imagining a pioneer gazing out over such calm, empty space and choosing one of three equally staggering options: go back, stay put, go on. The idea of facing that decision was paralyzing, a quality I eventually let creep into my own choices.
What happens after Tahoe for me? If I want to write, I need a place to write. If I want a place, I need money. If I want money, I need a job. If I want a job, then I might want to have one somewhere where I actually plan to be for a while. I'm in Tahoe for a month and, without having seen it yet, how do I know I want to stay on and find my own place? If not Tahoe, then where? Do I try LA at last? Return to DC or GA? Should I be sampling new cities entirely?
Though it's hard to call anything paralyzed at 80 mph, icy panic held my attention for several hours, with the Nebraska cornfields offering little distraction. Finally, after confirming that I have several emergency resources on this side of the country, I focused on the idea that, when I get to Lake Tahoe, I need to immediately hit the ground running on figuring out my next step from there. To this point, my plans have been open-ended and fluid, with spontaneous trips to Boston and gallivanting around New York. And, to now, that vibe has been just what the doctor ordered after the lock-step schedule of work.
But I'm starting to feel the cash outflow more than the freedom. Maybe not so much that it spoiled my enjoyment of the scenery...American spoke far too loudly for that today...but enough to want to turn the absence of direction into direction. Instead of "I guess I'll see what happens next", I want to look down a path, nod approvingly, and start down it with as big a step as I can handle.
It's weird to declare all this as though it wasn't kind of the plan all along. I remember saying to myself before I left work that, while I definitely wanted to write the book, a big part of leaving work was vacating the space it took up in my life and seeing what flows into it. I think that, with the help of the central-US void staring me right in the face, I realized that nothing is going to just FLOW into that space. There are choices to make.
But enough angst, I say! Onward the fields took me from anger to fear to anger again and finally back to a calm. I confirmed with Erik that I can head to Tahoe after this weekend's wedding, which allowed me to lean back into my pilot's seat and fly through the fields. At long last, Nebraska gave way into Colorado, immediately breaking my conception of Colorado as a state of mountains from border to border. If anything, the rolling horizons that had fallen from Michigan to Nebraska gave their last gasps and collapsed into flat prairie just a few miles into The Centennial State. Here began the sense of a true vacuum in which few humans chose to live. There was simply grass, the road, and the occasional rest stop, including the one where I accidentally shut off a bathroom light with a trucker still in one of the stalls. By the way, when I'd realized my mistake and doubled back to remedy, I opened the door to him standing at the lightswitch, Bic lighter in one hand and his belt in the other. I apologized profusely and promptly ran out of the store to get back on the road.
Of course, Colorado's mountains eventually made their appearance closer to Denver itself, though only in outlines glimpsed through a haze that, to my shock, came all the way down from the northwestern wildfires. Earlier, Kelly had sent me a staggering map of their affected area:
Sadly, therefore, the Rockies did not provide the backdrop of Denver they could have, but I would see plenty the next day. For now, it was time to reconnect with Kelly Straub, fellow member of Milton High School Class of 2003 and ridiculously hospitable person who had offered a place to stay and a tour of some Denver breweries. I felt so anxious when I finally pulled into Kelly's driveway, similar to how I felt before getting together with Laura Murphy in New York. We knew each other, sure, and Facebook had illuminated a lot of similarities in interest and sense of humor, but still we were about to hang out with each other (a) after over ten years, barring reunion, and (b) for easily more time than we ever had in the past.
I think I may have been the only one feeling this, however, as Kelly greeted me at the door with a wave of enthusiasm and quickly led me into the cozy guest bedroom I'd be sleeping in. After changing, I popped back out to find an Upslope Brown Ale waiting for me, which I enjoyed while Kelly filled me in on the house and our plan for the night. As for catching up, I will have trouble placing the topics with the locations, but suffice it to say we covered how she got to Denver, what's she's doing for work, her cycling hobby, how her family's doing, her various travels past and future, and just generally how she got from high school in Alpharetta to an awesome life in Denver. Kelly proclaims herself a high school wallflower that bloomed in college and grad school and, while I remember her as sweet, funny, and intelligent, I definitely did not know that meant sweet enough to open her home, funny enough to crack me up more than once during the night, and so intelligent that she seems to balance consulting with an active, adventurous life without a second thought. In short, Kelly rocks.
As for my end, it was equal parts what's been going on with me and, of course, what is going on with the A Kids nerd-clique. I'd learned from Drew Dir during a visit to Chicago that our gang could be something of a passive spectator sport (to this day, I admire Mr. Friedman for reading multiple accounts of the same drama), both during high school and after. The romantic entanglements were impossible to diagram, as were the ebb and flow of individual friendships, and so I think people who watched that all from a safe distance find it interesting that we're all still close. Since Kelly had also gone to Georgia Tech with some of the gang, she had tracked some of the goings-on beyond Alpharetta, so I filled in some gaps throughout the evening.
Anyway, from here on, I'll just say "we caught up" and it will cover the full breadth of conversation we had at the various points.
As we caught up ("you're doing it, Peter!"), Kelly's boyfriend Will arrived with an awesome new time trial bike in tow. We all ooh'd and aah'd over it, though I was definitely a bit lost other than observing that it was easily the thinnest bike I'd ever seen. My cycling primer would be later in the evening. Will gave an immediate air of Colorado ease, while admitting to a competitive streak when it came to cycling, a work-hard, play-harder sense I got from the whole night in Denver. Granted, we mostly hit breweries, but still, the vibe was, "Tough day? Sure, but look where we are!"
Our first stop was the Breckenridge Brewery and Restaurant, where we put our names in for a table, got a round of drinks, and walked out into the breezy patio area. Cornhole and bocce filled half of the area, while we took to a picnic table and continued to catch up. Will was a real trooper through all of the esoteric MHS material and I'm glad we got a chance to discuss his work, their shared thoughts on Denver's development as a city, and how the cycling became such a passion. We took the conversation to our table, where it continued over a second round of delicious brews, home-grown carrots, elk burgers, and more.
Any anxiety I had about hanging out after so long was long gone. Kelly and Will were warm, funny, and enthusiastic about their lives, which is needless to say just the type of people I love being around right now. The party continued to Declaration Brewery, where we had another round and caught up some more beneath a beautiful night with only a slight chill in the air. Speaking of which, Colorado felt like my first steps back into the west, reminding me of the low humidity and cool evenings that I find so appealing.
Finally, we returned to the house, where I helped polish off one last Brown Ale (my hosts are not fans of it, while it reminds me of Red Hare's Watershed Brown) and caught up some more. The conversation definitely went deeper throughout the evening, a nice way to bond in limited time. Kelly and Will are both very easy to talk to and, again, pursue life much in the same way that I hope to, so I felt comfortable discussing the plans and lack thereof and panic about the lack thereof. In fact, the discussion, the company, and the entire evening soothed the day's emotional wounds in a way I couldn't have expected.
Finally, though, it was time to call the evening and I retired to my guest room happily. The Clive, IA Best Western had been fine, but definitely more serviceable than comfortable, and it didn't provide a fun night on the town and an excellent evening of catching up.
My time in this Utah Best Western is nearly up and I'd like to make some progress on the road, so unfortunately yesterday's Best Drive Ever will have to wait either for a stop along the way or tonight's stay in Reno. I packed for the wedding last night, so I should have some time there and I want to capture all of that magic before it evaporates.
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