21 June 2005

From Sea to Shining Sea

I still have a few friends, which isn't bad for someone who has difficulty recruiting new friends and is prone to making few phone calls and returning even fewer.

One of my friends, who has since left this Washington for the Pacific Northwest Washington, recently came back to town for a short visit. About two hours. Then she was off with another friend on a cross-country auto trek -- not the Jack Kerouac "balling that jack" bullet across America, but rather the meandering John Steinbeck "Travels with Charley" trip. Okay, maybe not that slow and aimless.

Still I was happy to see her and though we talk only sporadically on the phone, her visit had a warmth and ease that made it seem like she was just stopping by on her way from Dupont to Mount Pleasant instead of making an appearance that may not be recreated for another year or two.

Two days later, she called from the road. After a brief trip to Connecticut to put some family business in order, she was on I-80 near Clarion, Pennsylvania, on the first day of an indirect journey to the west coast. Her goal is to see all those crazy roadside attractions that the freeway system has all but rendered obsolete.

No comments: