my first road trip

so, something that i do to keep this writing to be a bit fresh, not just the monotonous. i slept in my truck, woke up and wasted away another day. is, i write out future title to expound on, quips or stories that i can inject as the time comes. well, such is the time.

i have mentioned sporadically my first road trip, it took place in the summer of 1998 with my then girlfriend, melissa medrano. at some point i would like to talk about her also, because i still think about her to this day. the last time i heard anything from her was in 2000, she sent me a terse typed letter that basically said she didnt want to ever talk to me again. i have tried to find her almost everytime i visit the place i grew up. unsuccessfully. anyway.

we were adventurous, or at least stupid. this was after we graduated from high school and i guess we didnt have anything to do. i remember having a job then, but perhaps i had recently quit it, i know my days were free. and my nights, and melissa and i spent much of our time together then. one night, i think we were at the all night coffee shop that we frequented, we came to the conclusion that we should take a trip. and not waste any time.

i relayed this aspect of trip before, it was around 3 in the morning when i woke up my dad and stepmom and informed them that we were going to cleveland. my parents werent into the idea and i was threatened with being kicked out should i embark on the journey. adventure knows no bounds, and with an eye to the future we left despite the warning. we took her car and drove all night to cleveland. then we decided to push on to buffalo, where i currently am.

it was very sweet, we were young and innocent, just looking for adventure. i remember us walking around the town of niagara falls aimlessly looking for the rush of falling water we could hear, but we never found them. we used a payphone to call our parents and i was reminded of the loss of my home status, effective immediately upon my return. i dont know what her parents said but it probably was similarly stern.

regardless, or in spite of this, we made the decision to push on and we spent the night at a truck stop in new york sleeping in the back of her car. i remember the idea of the adventure then. it was awesome, there was nothing that could stop us (except the fact that we had no idea what we were doing and very little to no money). we went to new york city after that.

eventually i would move to just outside of new york city, and although i resided there for 9 months, and have spent nearly two extra months in various visits since, the only time i caught a glimpse of the statue of liberty was on this first trip. from some toll bridge, i saw it and i was probably in some kind of awe because i was seeing things that i maybe thought i would only ever read about. i never had any idea that i would be able to adventure at will in my coming years.

we didnt spend much time in nyc, as i recall. but we were on this trip for over a week and i ont remember how we spent all of the time. the route was pretty simple, we used expressways from chicago to cleveland to buffalo through the heart of ny to the city and then on a southerly route through ny and pa back to chicago. at some point we discussed pushing further south to washington dc, but decided that we couldnt manage with the funds we had.

the youthful joy and adventure that washed over me then is something that i constantly try to manifest. and i have certainly been able to a number of times in the ensuing years. i feel older now and it is harder to replicate that joy, but there are certain times that it washes over me. the most frequent and patterned time is when i am jumping into the back of my truck at night to sleep. that little secret that i am back there and no one knows is something so invigorating, there is so much adventure just jumping into a tiny tin box on some random street in some random town. knowing that regardless of almost anything that happens outside i will just be in there, a silent witness to the world.

(i think i had more that i was going to write into this, but i am going to stop now. maybe i will rehash it again in the future...becasue i know i have already written some about this.)