It has been long rumored that One is, in fact, the loneliest number. I now have first-hand experience that the loneliest number is not One. Instead, it is Fifty.
But first, let me bring you up to date on how this epiphany washed across me like a Texas flood, only without all the casualties and finger pointing. The rodeo, as I promised in my last post, has left town. The trailers were packed up, saddles oiled and racked, and the horses, at least the ones that didn’t measure up, packed off to the glue factory. That’s right, the house has been sold. The keys placed in the hands of the new owners who described the property’s condition as “immaculate”. Thank you very much. And I, as could be easily predicted, immediately left town.
As a brief diversion, though, I would like to talk about the actual sale and closing process. In my previous experiences, the closing process carried some weight. Everybody was in the same room. Ink on paper. Money changing hands. Closing was a ritual that carried the gravitas you would expect for the largest purchase one will make. Nowadays, not so much. Gravitas has been replaced – as has everything else – with efficiency and ease. Things happen via the ether with offers, counteroffers, contract review, title insurance commitments, the metric ton of paperwork that you’ll carry with you into your next incarnation, everything, reduced to the zeroes and ones of our digital present; even the notarization of your digital signature-which-looks-nothing-like-your-signature. It all takes place online. The notary part of the process, as it was described to me, seemed particularly creepy. The closing process website walks you through the process and, at a certain point, some guy from Florida pops up on your screen, asks to see your ID, and tells you to click on all the blue boxes.
Now, and it may be just me, I’m pretty sure that previous sentence exactly describes the scenario you’re warned against as key features of online scams. It seems that the main effect of moving real estate, the Sleaziest Industry in History, online is to make it even sleazier. I may dive into this in more detail but, if I do so, may be better for my continued ability to walk without a limp if I wait until I’m in a distant country that doesn’t really get behind the whole concept of defamation law.
I am so fucked.
Which brings us back to the pre-diversion thrust of this post.
For those of you who have been here for the long haul – including The Hiatus – this is not the first time I have found myself homeless and on the road. Although, this was the first time that found me in that state with something, that in my milieu, qualifies as a plan. And, as with all plans, a first step is required. That step found me a whole eleven miles down the road in the bustling metropolis of Poulsbo, Washington, a town which, by all evidence, would rather be located in Norway or, possibly, Sweden. The uncertainty stems from a confused founding mythology. Anyway, the next morning dawned clear and earlier than it would ever again.
Possibly.
My ultimate destination was still over a month – and more than ten time zones – away. So, I had some time to kill. I also had some stuff to unload and because of that, I would be replaying my trip of fourteen years ago. That trip, you may recall, started in Marathon, Florida and ended in Seattle. I had loaded all my worldly possessions into a Dodge van and a small trailer. This time around, everything – including a small table, two chairs, and, just to toss in a non sequitur, a crib – fit into my ten-year old Honda CR-V. Do I roll like a rock star or what?
I struck out southward heading for the hinterlands of Oregon with a plan to swing by Crater Lake National Park for a short hike and look around. It. Was. Spectacular. Luckily, and despite the closure of one of the park’s entrances due to the current and ongoing budget cuts to any of the things the government actually should be doing, I got there early and beat the crowds. The day was spectacular: perfect weather, perfect views, and an understaffed concession deli with exactly five of one kind of sandwich on offer – turkey and cheese – all rung up by the cheerless and inattentive lone worker standing by the sole operating cash register.
The following day found me in the frigid confines of King’s Beach on Lake Tahoe. A blustery gale coming over the water kept the temperature down and the watersports at bay and marked the coldest I would ever be again. Possibly. My main takeaways – other than getting to hang out with an entertaining group of people – were that I completely suck at games and that the next “trend” to emigrate eastward from the left coast is that avocado will henceforth be known as “avo” because god knows leaving those two syllables unspoken will clearly cut down on CO2 emissions. Hopefully, that will be a grammatical infant that is throttled in its crib. I happen to have one perfectly suited for the purpose. I failed to intercept “perfect” in time so now, from coast to coast and border to border, everything I choose in shops or order in a café is “perfect”.
“I’ll have the shit sandwich, hold the onion.”
“Perfect. Would you like avo on that?”
The ensuing dawn saw me dropping down from the High Sierra into the vast Great Basin area of the western United States. I stopped for gas in Carson City, Nevada and headed east on US Highway 50.
The Loneliest Road in America.
