Letter #9

Dear Rowan,                                          October 6     Plattsburgh, NY

Sorry I haven't written for a while, I was trying to get into a better frame of mind, less melancholy and whiney. I have yet to end up in a ditch, although with winter ice storms coming I suppose it is a possibility. I am on this trip, this Grand Tour of mine, to find good things after all, not depressing things. And so, I struck out on a quest to find a small happy town somewhere between Detroit and Boston. After the big cities with their decay and melancholy, I was feeling the distinct need for small town comfort. With that in mind, I took a few weeks rambling up the highways along the top of the country. After I left Detroit, I wandered through Toledo, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Syracuse, but they were all too big and none of them had the feeling I was craving. So wandering up farther to the north, I found Plattsburgh. I also found out that it is cool enough during the days now that I can have chocolatey snacks in the car and not worry about them melting into a giant glob of chocolate ooze in a wrapper, or worse, in an opened wrapper so it looks like a miniature scene from The Blob, oozing out of the packaging to attack nearby upholstery, maps, bags, or anything else within its creeping reach. For the summer months my chocolate cravings were only safely transportable in the form of M&M's, which I like, but variety is nice, and somehow small candy-coated chocolate bits do not satisfy an intense milk chocolate Dove bar craving.

Plattsburgh is a small town, with nothing in particular to recommend it to a distant traveller, but it was what I had been looking for. It sits right on the edge of Lake Champlain and has a river running right through downtown, so it has a strong water-life about it. It is very relaxing and comforting to just sit at the edge of the lake and think, or write, or just be. I also had the good fortune to arrive just in time for the annual "Adirondack Coast Wine, Cider and Food Festival" which was a whole day taken up with good food, nice wine, wonderful hot ciders, and music. It was a wonderful Fall festival, full of all the warm, homemade fall comforts I could want: cider, pies, artisan breads and cheeses, small batch wines, family butcher sausages, and of course all the hand made, home made non-edibles that you could think of, from rocking chairs to to wooden kid's toys. And yes, I now have a beautiful hand crafted carved wooden sailing boat that really floats and was sold as a child's tub toy. It has a little anchor, and a mast with real sails that can be pulled up and lowered, and a wheel that really turns and works the rudder, and tiny little ropes and pins and tackle and everything a sailing ship should have. I love it as much for the fact that the gentleman selling it was adamant that it was a toy, not a decorative piece, as I do for the wonderfully loving details that he put into it. I justified getting it because it could be a Christmas present for one of my nephews, but really I got it to play with myself. And it wasn't that expensive either, the man told me he hated seeing things marked up to be so expensive folks were afraid to use them because they might break, so he keeps his own prices low enough that kids will actually get to play with the toys he makes, instead of have them sitting on a shelf collecting dust. I really liked that guy, he had a great way of looking at things.

I bought a hand made traveling candle too. It is a candle that is in a tin with a lid so you can close it up and travel with it. The top of the lid has a sort of grippy, non,slip rubbery texture, and I didn't understand why until the lady who sold it to me told me to take the lid off the top and put it on the bottom of the tin in the car if I want it in there, like an air freshener (not lit, of course). The grippy top means the candle won't slide around while I'm driving. It smells like baked apples, all warm and spiced and scrumptious. The lady said that during the winter if it gets too cold and does not put out enough scent in the car, I can put it onto the front air vent as long as I have the heater running, to warm it up. She warned me just to be careful and not to leave it up there long enough to melt if I had the heat on really high.

The ciders were exquisite, and I tried cider from every vendor that was at the festival. Did you know that a place that just does ciders is called a Ciderie? I love that word, I know it is really no different than a Winery, but somehow it just sounds fanciful rather than formal. One vendor had a giant barrel full of apples, and a press, and was pressing the apples right there to make cider and apple juice. I tried both. Just the smell of the festival was entrancing. It was indoors so that they didn't have to worry about the weather, and the smells of cider and pies and wine and all sorts of wonderful foods all mingled together in an intoxicating blend. It smelled like the most enchanting Thanksgiving dinner ever. I sampled cheeses, and butters, and breads, and sausages, and jerkies, and pastries, and wines. I had as many different apple and pumpkin pies, crisps, crumbles, and other assorted fall desserts as I could manage. When I got full I just wandered around the festival until I had room again then tried something else. I glutted myself on the food, and the wine, and the cider, and the amazing friendliness and good will of the festival and the people of this small lakeside town. Between feeling like I was at a dead-end in Arbuckle, dry and brittle Bend, the horridness that was Wichita, and the disillusionment and decay of St. Louis and Detroit, I had forgotten how wonderful people could be, especially small town people.

The festival and music started at 2pm, and there was a bike ride beforehand, but I left my bike in storage since I didn't think I would need it over the winter. Oh well, I took a nice jog along the lakeshore in the morning instead. Then back to my hotel room for a shower and a few hours of writing time before the festival. There are no hostels in Plattsburgh, but there is the ever-present HoJo, which is fine. All I really need my room to have is a bed, a bathroom (with a sink, toilet, and shower or tub that has hot water. I know it is asking a lot, but really these are ALL necessary. It is very strange to find the places that are lacking one of these and think you as a guest should be fine with that, and should still pay them for the privilege of staying in their necessity-lacking establishment), and a table and chair for writing.

I have discovered one drawback to traveling constantly and writing. I get so many ideas for stories and articles that there is no way I can write them all, but they all seem like such great ideas and leads that I hate to not use them. I know, the trials and tribulations of a happy writer overburdened with exactly what she needs to be successful. Pity poor me. I have finally finished the first draft of a story I started in undergrad and got to book length, but never actually got past the climax. I put that down so it can rest for a while and started revising the first draft of a book I did for the 2010 NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Then of course there is the "work" side of writing, my travel writing. I am in the middle of a piece on St. Louis, but it is a bit depressing, as was the city. I think I will set it aside for a bit and write about this little town. It has such a wonderful feel to it, especially with the festival, that I think there is an abundance of feel-good things I could write about and really make people want to come and experience it for themselves.

I plan on staying in Plattsburgh for a week or so, then meandering over to the coast. I found a town called Belfast in Maine, and I think I will head there. That way I can say that I have been to Belfast (I just won't tell people which Belfast). And of course I will have to try Maine lobster, even if it is not in season. I really think I will stay in small towns until I come to New York for New Year's, except for Boston and Salem of course. I really do enjoy the feel of the holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas in a small town more than the impersonal hustle and bustle of a big city. If you want to join me on my East Coast wanderings before New Year's, just let me know. You might know a great tiny town that I have never heard of. Didn't you live in a little Virginia town for a while? I remember you told me it had a great theater that did Christmas shows. Maybe we could go there for Christmas, then back up to New York for New Year's Eve. That would be worth finding a B&B if one was running through Christmas, just for a more personal feel than a big hotel.

I will write you again from down the road. I promise it won't be near as long this time as it was between this letter and the last one.

Your friend,

Emily

Letter #8, Detroit

Dear Rowan,                                        September 16     Detroit

Hello from Detroit! It is great out here on the road! I spent a week exploring St. Louis, then most of a week in Indianapolis, and now here I am in Detroit. I get to do what I want, when I want, and how I want. I go to coffee shops or Elmer's, or anywhere else that has free wifi and write. I had forgotten how much better I feel when I am writing. I feel like my life is finally going in the right direction. I am happier, and saner, and don't have the random sobbing breakdowns for no real reason whatsoever, like someone taking my favorite chair, or losing a pen or pencil I like, or for no reason at all just standing in the middle of a room and breaking down. And the feeling that there is no reason to do anything at all other than sit and stare at a wall or just go to bed because there is no point in being awake. I know they say that these are the symptoms of depression, and I am well aware of the fact that depression is something that is a constant companion and has been since I was very little. I even have the doctor's note to prove it (I don't really have a note, just a diagnosis. Although a note would be kinda neat, I think I would frame it. "Emily should not attend real life today, as she is depressed and should stay in bed with a mug of tea or hot chocolate and a good book, signed Her Doctor"). But writing helps me balance my brain, even when there is still a landslide of things to do. If I give myself time for writing, it really does seem to help me get everything else done, rather than take time away from my to-do list. Not that there is much on my to-do list these past few weeks other than "write." It is really great. I have to write, and read, and run, and live. And the occasional load of laundry of course, but I can read or write while laundry is running, so that hardly counts.

I have been writing mostly fiction, I have five books in various stages of incompleteness that I have started over the years, and they all need work to get them finished and polished. I also have a few short stories that have come up just in the past few weeks that I hope to get finished shortly and submitted to magazines or contests or something. There is also the travel writing to do, which is the "work" side of my writing, but even that is fun. I have been trying out the travel writing I do on people in whatever cafe or coffee shop I have stopped into to see if my descriptions work. It has been great, I get a wonderful range of opinions and it lets me really hone my language to tug just the right strings to make people really want to go and see the places I am describing. It would be really wonderful if I can build my writing up into an actual career, so I never have to go back into the real world of a nine to five punch-the-time-card job again.

When I get stuck in the middle of writing something, I have a few different knitting and crocheting projects going, and I just work on one of those while I think about where I want my writing to go next. If I get really, really stuck I have been going for runs, which means I have been getting in at least one run a day. It is really fun to be able to just get out onto the road and find new places all the time. Going from city to city, and spending a week or so in each place, I have the time to look up any major trails in town, but I am not there long enough to get bored running the same places all the time. Heck, I haven't had time to explore every trail system I have found, but that is ok. If I ever make it back around to these cities again I will still have places to explore.

Detroit is a rather melancholy place to explore though. I have heard that one third of the city is vacant, and wandering around neighborhoods here, I believe it. There are entire blocks of houses that are empty, some boarded up, some left open with their windows gone and doors falling off their hinges. Some of these houses are grand old stone or brick places, and I am sure they were really beautiful when they had people in them to care for them. Now they are still beautiful, but it is the sad beauty of something that was truly grand now so far gone that it is past reclaiming but not yet simply ugly. There are also still signs of the riots in 1967, a truly ugly moment in history that left ugly and lasting scars on the city. There are buildings that were abandoned or burned out and just left there, not reclaimed and not torn down. Just left neglected, like no one cared or could be bothered to do anything about those buildings. But wouldn't a park, or even just an empty filed be better than an abandoned burned out warehouse?

The whole town seems to be cheering on their sports teams. I have yet to meet one single person that wasn't a fan of at least one of Detroit's sports teams. It seems like these teams are all that is holding this town together, they buoy up everyone's spirits and convince them that there is still something good here, something to be proud of and stay here for. There are all the factories of course, but while people do seem to have pride in the cars they make, it is different than a uniting, happy rallying point that is for pleasure, rather than to earn a paycheck. And there are rival car companies here, so people don't seem quite as unified there are they are by sports. If someone here is a baseball fan, they have their team and that team is the same for every baseball fan in Detroit. And if someone is a basketball fan, they might think the baseball people are a little weird but they still support each other's fanaticism since they are both fans of Detroit teams. Overall though, this is not a place I would want to live in. It is too sad, too empty and abandoned. It feels like every gaping old house has ghosts in it, looking out of the window hollows and seeing other ghosts looking back from empty windows across the street. And walking though, I feel like all those ghosts are feeling sad for the living, as though just being in Detroit gives a person a little more mortality than they had before.

I am much more in the business of keeping myself happy now, even though there is something sadly sweet about these abandoned old places. I bought an 8 gig thumb drive and I have been busy loading it with every musical soundtrack I can get my hands on. My car has a USB port in the glove box, and the stereo will play whatever I put onto a thumb drive. I have also been putting on tons of Disney songs, and other happy makers. With 8 gigs, I am not too worried about filling it up, but if I do I will just get another one and have thumb drives for different sets of music, like mix CDs but huge. I have another thumb drive that I have been filling with audio books. It is rather amazing how many audio books there are out on the internet for free. There are always the audio books for sale at truck stops, but I find I much prefer classics to the pop and pulp fiction that is generally available there, and the books that do look interesting at truck stops are usually available online too. I guess I am just an old fashioned girl when it comes to my reading habits.

I suppose it is not really fair to go on about how wonderful my life has become these past few weeks while you are still waiting to find your perfect life. And my life is not perfect, and I know that the "romance of the road" will wear off before too long and I will want to have a place to go home to every day that is mine, instead of a room I am renting for a few days. But that point has not hit yet, and I am in no hurry to get there. It is such a grand change right now to have gone from a dead end in Arbuckle, then a dead end in Bend, then another dead end in Wichita, to a brand new bright and shiny world full of possibilities out here on the road. And I know that this bubble might pop too, just like the one I was in all the way to Wichita and through the first week or two at least. But right now I feel like I have a plan, I am living the life I want to live, and somehow I will make it work. Between the rent from Arbuckle and the travel writing, I think my finances will be ok through this Grand Tour of mine, and hopefully will actually get better after I get a good reputation and a nice set of clippings and examples from the travel writing so I get more assignments. Right now, I really think that this crazy writing-for-a-living thing is actually going to work!

I plan on staying in Detroit for a few days, then meandering up across the top of the country until I can cut over to Boston. There is really no rush though, since I want to be in Salem, Mass. for Halloween and would rather not have to backtrack to get there. I might wander up to Maine before I go to Boston, depending on the weather. I know that I will be driving in snow a good portion of the winter since I will be on the East Coast, but that does not mean I am eager to get into icy driving conditions just yet. But from what I can tell, everything is still clear sailing (or driving) for now, so I have the whole country open to be explored! I will write again from my next fabulous and fun destination!

Your friend,

Emily

Letter #7

Dear Rowan,                                                September 1     St. Louis

After my first day on the road, life is looking up again! What a wonderful feeling to be free of that job and that apartment and to know that I never ever have to go back to either one. The job offered me a leave of absence, apparently they know that their employees feel more like cattle in a slaughter yard than people, and need to walk away from the job for weeks or months at a time or they will snap or crumble. Apparently, while they do nothing to actively make their employees lives better, either a verbal explosion or a weeping pile of depression that used to be a person occurring in the middle of the call floor is not something they want other employees to witness more than once a week (maybe they think we will spook and stampede for the doors). Thus they offer time away from hell to see what the real world is like and regain a sense of self respect before plunging back into the cave of cubicles that reek of human despair. As I told you before, I just quit. I do not want the gloom of impending re-damnation hanging over me, even if they were to give me leave of absence for a whole year.

Today I packed up all my stuff into the back of my car, turned in the keys for my little dungeon, and took to the open road. My destination, at least for a week or two, is St. Louis, MO. The drive took all day, but I was in no hurry, other than to gain some distance between myself and Wichita. I headed north first, up through Kansas City, then east over to St. Louis. I stopped in Kansas City for lunch and a little sightseeing. The country around Kansas City is just as flat as Wichita, but the city itself seems more alive and modern. I didn't stay very long, as I was looking for a place that didn't remind me of Wichita, even if it was more appealing. I had lunch at a place I found online called Fiorella's Jack Stack BBQ that has a really good Zagat rating and decent prices. I was a little dubious since it sounds like it should be an italian/BBQ fusion, but it was actually really good. And yes, I did have ribs. At a BBQ joint in the heart of America, would you expect anything less of me? After lunch it was straight back onto the interstate headed for St. Louis. I may go back to Kansas City someday when I don't hold resentment to it simply for being within driving distance of Wichita.

St. Louis is a terrifying place to drive into. The outskirts of the city are dotted with empty, abandoned, decrepit buildings. It feels like a plague has come through and left buildings with no one alive to care for them. Or maybe the zombie apocalypse has already started and no one knows, because it started in St. Louis and it is eating all the people from the outskirts into the central city and no one escaped to warn the rest of the world yet. Even in the heart of downtown St. Louis, within walking distance of the iconic (and amazingly, disturbingly, mind bogglingly gigantic) arch, there are abandoned, crumbling buildings wedged between fully functional, apparently thriving businesses. I expected to see contamination signs across the doors to warn people away and explain these rotten teeth in the skyline of the city. But there seems to be no explanation except neglect and ennui. The problem with these now uninhabitable buildings is that their owners gave up on them and moved away, but no one bought them so now no one wants the bother of either tearing them down or fixing them up, so they sit hollow, with boarded up windows or gaping holes in the upper stories where windows used to be. It feels like the city is dying just because no one cares, and they will just sit and watch it rot until they think it is hurting their own profits, then they will just move away and leave another rotten tooth to crumble into decay and drag the city further down. Its sad, really. I found an amazing little Indian restaurant with the greatest dessert naan I have ever had. It was naan stuffed with raisins and coconuts, and pistachios, and dusted with cinnamon and sugar, and they served honey with it to drizzle onto it for a little added sweetness. There was also an apparently thriving arts district, because the streets were crowded with people either coming from or going to  shows, and some people that had apparently just come out of one show and were going to another, from what I gathered from shamelessly eavesdropping while loitering around the crowds on the sidewalk. How else was I supposed to find out what there was to do in town? I did not go to a show tonight though. After my escape from Wichita and a full day on the road, I was just ready to find a bed and not wake up for a day or two.

I discovered that the US has hostels today. Somehow I had always thought of hostels as a European thing. But there are quite a few hostels in St. Louis, and you can even get a private room. Normally dorming would be fine with me, but after the day I have had, I wanted a little alone-but-not-driving time. Besides, it was late when I finally found the hostel, and I did not think that dorm mates would appreciate me staying up to write a letter, or creeping in in the middle of the night after having stayed up in the main room writing. So private room it is, for tonight at least. The "hostel" I found with private rooms is actually a Motel 6, but its rooms go for $21 a night, so I might look into a real hostel tomorrow. I know there is a youth hostel somewhere in St. Louis, but it was late and I did not want to hunt around and try to find it tonight, I just wanted a bed.

Speaking of beds, the old bat of a landlord in Wichita bought the mattress from me that I got when I moved in, and she bought it for the same price that I bought it for, seeing as it was nearly brand new. I also did not tell her what I bought it for, and gave her an inflated price which she then haggled down, but the price we settled on was just about the price I got it for, rounding up to a flat dollar amount of course. And she paid me in cash, so I don't have to worry about a check bouncing or anything.

I think I will stay in St. Louis for a few days, maybe a week, then head north again to Chicago. I want to make it over to Salem, Mass. for Halloween. From what I have been able to find online, it looks like they do a rather amazing city wide blowout, and if that doesn't get me a candy fix for a few weeks (or maybe months) I don't know what will.

If you know about, or have opinions about, any of the cities between Chicago and Salem, let me know. I am going to be driving along I-90 (as far as I can tell from the maps), so I will be up for exploring any place between Chicago and Boston. There are no hostels in Salem, I already looked, so I think I will find a place to stay in Boston and then drive up to Salem for Halloween.

Once I finally get up tomorrow, I plan on beginning to explore St. Louis. I have to go up in the arch of course, and the travel book says there is an underground museum beneath it that I will go down and see. I also read that they have a dome with a year round rainforest inside, so I really want to go see that. I wonder if they have animals in their rain forest or just plants. The guide does not really specify, but I think it is just plants. It is inside the botanical garden, which I guess used to belong to a hardware baron, and he willed it to the city when he died. I will also need to go spend at least a day at the St. Louis zoo, as I do love big well-funded zoos. Little zoos always make me sad, but big ones with nice enclosures for the animals are calming to me. Plus I need to take several walking trips around the city to see any fun buildings or stores. And I will need to drive out to any places that come to my attention as interesting but are out of walking range.

Do you have any suggestions for must-do or must-see places or things in St. Louis? It would be so fun if you could come out and go on this Grand Tour of mine with me, but at least I will get to see you for New Year's when I come to New York. Are you still at the same job, or did someone finally notice your rather amazing talent and hire you away from the coffee shop? Or there is always the possibility of a wonderfully handsome and wealthy young man coming into your Park Avenue coffee shop, falling madly in love with you at fist sight, and sweeping you off to his penthouse. But the finding-a-better-job idea seems more likely, even in New York. And that way I would not have to be wildly jealous of you, either. If you did end up in your own happily-ever-after New York fairytale it would certainly inspire at least a short period of jealousy. But in all seriousness, I hop life is treating you well in whatever you are doing, and I look forward to hearing from you soon. You don't have to tell me that I have gone insane though, that is already a well established point by now.

Your Friend,

Emily

Letter #6

Dear Rowan,                                         August 26^th     Wichita, KS

I give up. I have still not found another job that seems like it would be any better than where I am, and that is a very low bar to get over. I thought my last job was bad, well I know know that it was a call center heaven, a downright eden compared to this job and this place. At least at the old place I had my own desk and a sense of community with my coworkers. Here the desks are catch as catch can, and if you can't find a desk just lurk in the aisles until someone goes home, then race the other poor jerks who are loitering the same as you are to see who can get to the desk first and clock in before they are "late." The good thing is, if you grab a desk that someone has been using for a few hours, it is more likely to be functional and not missing any equipment, like a mouse, or a keyboard, or a headset, or a monitor, or a chair. You can never tell what might wander off from a desk between one day and the next, since there is not a guarantee of enough equipment to go with every functional computer. And it is also more likely that your phone and headset will work, unless the last guy played with the cord too much and tied it in knots or picked off the insulation to work on fraying the cabling. Yes, it happens. A lot. And people gouge holes into the desks, and cut or tear up the fabric panelling of the cubicle walls. Or just write on any permanent surface they can find, the walls, the desk, the keyboard, the phone, the monitor screen. If a pen can write on it, it will get written on. Its like working in a high school for juvenile delinquents, except the inmates are old enough to vote, if not to drink. Not that they don't drink anyway, apparently it must be easier to answer phone calls a few sheets to the wind.

What this lamenting rant is really leading up to is the news that I have (once again) quit my job. And no more throwing darts for me. I refuse to settle on a new city to live in until I have gotten out and seen the world. Well, seen America at least, as much of it as can easily be seen from decent driving distance of a major interstate or highway. I went to a truck stop and got a trucker's atlas, and I am going to plot out a driving route all over the US. I am going to try to find something good in this supposedly great country of ours, because right now I feel like our entire culture is shallow, selfish, and rude. I think that this comes from working at two call centers in a row, where all I hear every day are other people's problems and how they can't fix them on their own but don't want to put out any effort to try, and don't want to have to pay someone else to fix their problems for them. Apparently tech guys who make house calls are all charity workers and go to the homes of others and fix their gadgets out of the goodness of their hearts. Or maybe it is just that you really don't see repairmen getting paid very often on TV, so people think that they must not get paid anymore because they have not seen it in a sitcom. Of course, people don't go to the bathroom much on TV shows, but I bet that the people who watch those shows still have to go during commercial breaks, even if the characters don't.

So, The open road is calling, and I shall answer it! I do feel a little like Mr. Toad, although I am not going to get a new car. My little hatchback actually has a lot of room inside. If I fold the back seats down there is enough room that I could lay out a sleeping bag and sleep back there, and not even have to curl up. Of course, the fact that I am short probably helps with this, but at least being short is convenient for once! Isn't there a Goofy movie where he takes a road trip? That could be me too, I am definitely a bit goofy for thinking that this is a good idea. But I have lost my faith in humanity, and I am setting out on a quest to restore it. Or something like that, at least. And before you bring it up, I am getting rent every month from the nice guy renting my place in Arbuckle, so that is a little income. Plus, I am going to write articles about my traveling, every place I go and all the sights I see. I plan on spending a few days in a different town every week, so that should keep me pretty busy.  I should still have time to finally get serious about my own writing too. Travel writing is great and all, but it is more of a job, not what I want to be known for writing.

Maybe this is what I needed to get me to really set in and work on my own writing. Maybe I needed to find jobs that were so horrible I could not be complacent and just punch my time every day and go about my daily life and not write and not hate that I wasn't. For my past two jobs now, I have wanted to write but I kept finding that all I could get out onto the page was angry and bitter and bitchy. And usually I was so wiped out and brain dead after work that sitting staring that TV was an effort, and writing was out of the question. So now I have quit my second soul sucking job and I am going to set off in search of humanity and joy in America, and I am going to write my stories. I am going to live my life, every single day of it, instead of just watching my days roll by with nothing to show for them except a paycheck that was not worth the abuse I had to put up with to earn it. I am going to be free, and I am going to be happy, and I am going to find the good in the world again. I knew it was there, years ago, before these last few horrible jobs. Somehow they drained all the color out of the world, and all the heart out of me to try and fix it. But now I am going to put the color back into my world! I might even take it into technicolor! I am going to read, and I am going to write, and I am going to travel the nation and see all the things I want to see and go to all the places I want to go! It will be a grand adventure, and it will be wonderful. 

In the Romantic books from England, young gentlemen were always going off on a Grand Tour in Europe. Well, I am going on my own Grand Tour, all over America. I want to see New York at New Year's, and New Orleans at Mardi Gras, and San Francisco for Pride, and anywhere else I can find people gathered just for the joy of being together for something special! I will have plenty of time for running too. Maybe I will enter a few of the big races around the country. Runners are always a fun group, and running helps get the mind working so it will help with my writing. I will run and write and live life for the joy of it. I wonder if Salem, Mass. Has a Halloween run? It could be fun to celebrate Halloween in Salem, I have heard they have huge and elaborate Halloween parties and festivities. And a costume run is always fun!

Of course you know, that since I am going to be in New York for New Year's, do you have plans? I want to see all the best things to see around New Year's in New York, and you are the specialist, so you need to show me, right? Please?? It will be great fun! We can hang out, and party, and play, and just have fun. That is the point of this Grand Tour of mine, to have fun and find joy wherever I can! Maybe we can get together for Christmas too! Although I want to be in some quaint little town for Christmas. Not too small though, I want to be able to have Christmas morning in front of a Christmas tree and a crackling fire, and see a Christmas play, and maybe listen to a Christmas concert. We should find a place over on the East coast that we can go to that has all that, so we can have a cozy, festive, Christmassy Christmas.

So that is my plan. Since this little rat hole I am living in rents by the month, I will be hitting the road on the first of September. I am not sure where I am headed first, I have not looked over the maps  yet to see where the first stop along the interstate will take me. I think I will go northeast, though. That way I make it along the East coast over the winter for Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's. Then I can wander my way down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, and who knows where I might go after that. I know I want to be in San Francisco in June for Pride, but there is a lot of country between New Orleans and San Francisco, and I have months to get from one to the other.

I will write you once I set off on this mad, wonderful, Grand Tour adventure and tell you where I am heading first. Until then, stay sane if only because one of us has to and it is certainly not me!

Your crazy friend,

Emily