I left my home, with my mother standing in the driveway at 830 Am and left my sense of reality temporarily somewhere behind the garage door. For the next several hours, I felt as though I would be turning around at some point- like I was going on vacation. It was not until the end of Ohio, when I no longer needed sunglasses to watch the bright red sun dip behind the flattened Ohioan horizon through my bug-scarred windshield, that I realized this was no longer a vacation but a departure. In the meanwhile, I ascended and descended the Appalchains, and said goodbye to another close friend.
Although my friends and family were difficult to say goodbye to, the place closest to my heart are the Appalachians and Sor-lak. I cut the grass and tended the yard for an hour and a half before stealing (heavy-heartedly) some fly fishing gear I kept only at Sor-lak. I looked at the moped and glanced over the interior decor, taking a few pictures for posterity and relief of homesickness for the place I consider my true home. Sor-lak gave me: Youth. Outdoors. Mopeding. Fishing. Music. The Pittsburgh Penguins and hockey.Trout. Hiking. Enthusiasm for the environment. Love for every season. Skiing. Water. The Harder They Come. Rivers. Sor-lak made me the person I am today from education to professional development and personal recreation activity- I am almost entirely driven by my relation to this one particular place. So driving away and saying the Varsa's typical "Szia Sor-lak" as I emotively played "Wild Horses" driving out of Hemlock Road, I could've sworn Sor-lak spoke back to me.
I visited Chicago where Margaret took wonderful care of me. It was 12 hours of driving from home to Chicago with a nice grass-cutting break. Not a bad day overall. Yet, getting off the road seemed cheating and I wanted to press further. We visited the Map Room where I drank delicious beer and got to see the Chicago streets I am slowly becoming more familiar with after this, my third Chicago adventure. I slept only brielfy before hitting the road once again and relieving my itch to move closer to the mountains and the WEST. Yet, I would watch the red sun drop gently below the horizon yet again before I would feel the Front Range and the West looming before me in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Friends and family, though distant now and growing ever more so, accompanied me on this major push West on the telephone through all hours of their waking days. Once night fell in the middle of Nowhere, Nebraska, I observed a cloudy mass obscuring the stars from my vision. Not surprising considering I watched lightning flash on the distant southern horizon. A "cloud" is what I imagined until the cloudy mass wouldn't dissipate and I realized I was seeing the Milky Way, thick and full, streaking across the sky. I could imagine it blurring past everything constantly moving further away form everything else. The cosmos closer to me than I had ever felt. Here in Nebraska.
I arrived in Loveland, CO, with Nancy standing in the door waiting, at exactly midnight. Sixteen hours, forty five minutes after sitting in my car in Chicago. I had driven through 6 states and seen practically nothing of note since I stayed pushing due West
on Highway 80 the entire day. I was so thankful to reach my destination. The next morning, I shed my car! I went for a bike ride- with the Front Range in the background (snow capped already) and the sun high and warming. I cycled to buy a fishing license and then went fishing on the Big Thompson, where I managed about a dozen trout- brown, rainbow, and cutt! I also literally caught a trout of my first cast. Here, though, is a photo of the fish of the day- a sixteen inch brown. Quite the fighter! The river was high and clear. the cottonwoods were just beginnning their golden change in preparation for winter. I returned home to the Baranczyk household to spy my first coyote (eating wild olives) in their backyard and sit around the campfire with Wayne while we talked about constellations. Its good to be back west.
