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After slaloming Turtle up and down even more West Virginia mountains I finally started moving into the less vertical, chubbier versions that the WV has pushed off onto it’s neighbor saying- here, you take these, I don’t want them.

And while I was relieved I didn’t have to torture Turtle any longer, I think I’m going to miss West Virginia. It’s weird-I don’t particularly like mountains and I definitely hate snow, especially snowy mountain roads, but there is something about the grittiness of the people amid all that verticality.

A lot of the homes I passed on Route 50 were beat down, looking as if the effort to keep them up was just a little bit too much. Even repairs and additions seemed half-assed and temporary. And the property surrounding them was filled with stuff that probably didn’t work anymore. Rusted cars with weeds growing up through them, appliances, machinery, gadgets, just about anything and everything imaginable.

Maybe it was metal junk just waiting for the scrap yard and a cash payout, or maybe it was broken repair promises and unfulfilled dreams.

I don’t know.

Or maybe, having all those mountains brooding over them, weighing down on them is wearisome to the point of just saying fuck it.

I don’t know.

But none of that seems to affect their attitude and friendliness. Like the woman at a gas station between two mountains who came out to fill up my tank because her’s was a full service station, and even though I pumped my own gas, stayed to talk to me.

West Virginia will get under your skin.

I first heard the word Gezellig while watching Ted Lasso. I learned that it’s a fairly untranslatable Dutch word meaning cozy or comfortable, pleasant, and relaxed. It’s more an idea than a description, I think.

And while Gezellig certainly describes my tiny little camper, especially at night, it also fits my drive west after I left DC. The weather was better and driving Route 50 through Arlington and Annandale and Fairfax and Chantilly was like slipping into my most comfortable pair of jeans. I grew up there and learned to drive and drink there. And to drink and drive- Gezellig.

So, yeah, it was pleasant. The places had changed, but they were still the same- it was Gezellig, right?

And then, at day’s end, when my drive took me to my little sister’s home in Purcellville for the night with her family- that was certainly Gezellig.

And then, while I was mapping out the next day’s drive into West Virginia, with everyone’s help and advice, we learned that the next night’s lows were going to be in the 40’s so it was decided that I would stay in my sister’s and brother-in-law’s vacation house in Davis WV so that I wouldn’t risk frostbite by camping- it was Gezellig all over the place.

And then, when I left the next day, as I watched my little sister’s home bathed in the soft morning light recede in my rear view mirrors- that too was Gezellig.

Gezellig. (pronounced ge-ZEL-lig)

Yesterday, I stopped at the aptly named Assateague Market a mile up the road from Assateague Campground on my way to my start in Ocean City for a cup of coffee. I chatted with the guy taking my money and he told me he liked my rig and I told him to enjoy the day.

And he said he would but that it looked like it was going to be a wet one.

As I drove away I thought about the weather report I had watched. A cold front was coming through with a roughly cigar shaped band of showers but as it came east it was sliding to the south and I remember thinking, Oh good, I’m headed west so it looks like I’ll be driving right into the cold front but north of the rain.

Ho, ho, hee, hee, I thought, no rain for me.

But then shortly after I left Ocean City the Rain Gods saw me escaping and marched north and stood straddling my truck, hands on hips, mighty heads thrown back, laughing uproariously as they peed on my damp, sad, little rig for the next three and half hours until I was through Washington DC.

Finally, though, as I exited DC and Arlington, heading westward, the gray skies lifted and with them, my heart.

At the beginning of Easy Rider, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper are astride their machines in the desert somewhere and Peter Fonda looks at his watch and then takes it off and tosses it on the ground and then they roar off on the beginning of their journey.

This morning sitting in my pickup truck at a stoplight in Ocean City at the beginning of Route 50W I felt like a kindred spirit. And as I sat waiting for the light to change so that I could start my journey, I briefly thought about making a similar gesture except that I don’t wear a watch so it would’ve had to of been my iPhone.

So I didn’t.

My trip had an inauspicious start today.

After seemingly countless trips to my truck to get things loaded up, I finally left Knotts Island and twenty minutes later I’m driving down the road thinking at last I’m finally getting started and if I’ve forgotten anything fuck it, too bad, so sad, and not two minutes later, I realize I’ve forgotten my USA map and the other reference books and atlas I’d convinced myself I need.

So I screamed some bad words and turned around.

Nothing seems like a longer time suck than having to return home because you forgot something.

But I finally got everything and got turned around and got headed out again (this time with feeling) and met Miss Carol in the Harris Teeter parking lot to kiss and say goodbye to. (she’s staying in Sandbridge while I’m gone and the parking lot was a good halfway point) (plus, I needed to sit with LoLa while she ran in and picked up a couple of groceries)

And then. At last. I’m finally gassed up, I’ve got ice in the cooler, and I’m headed to Assateague State Park campground for my first night before going to Ocean City to pick up the beginning of Route 50W tomorrow morning.

Did you know there are a couple of Assateague Parks?

I certainly didn’t and apparently neither did Kimi (what I’ve decided to name the chick narrating google maps for me) so she brought me to Assateague National Seashore Park in Virginia which I guess stretches into Maryland and which according to the nice Ranger woman at the entry booth does not allow any camping.

So I turned around again and, after cursing Kimi, typed the search criteria differently and my chastised Kimi brought me here to Maryland State Assateague Park.

With camping.

Only 18 days and two rain delays later and I’m ready to move into my low income housing and hit the highway.

At last.

Amenities of my plywood pied-a-terre include a comfy bed with a waterproof blanket (in case my new home continues to leak), a male bedpan urinal with a glow-in-the-dark cap (who knew such a thing existed), a fully stocked bar with vodka, whiskey, and beer (thanks to Miss Carol), a full pantry (again thanks to Miss Carol), and plenty of water.

Air conditioning is a rechargeable battery operated fan and lighting is provided by a kerosene lantern and a diesel engine piston head candle holder that my nephew made for me. (it’s awesome)

My kitchen boasts a two propane camp stove, the necessary utensils, and an Rtic cooler for foodstuffs and my little blue cooler (that I have had for decades and centuries) to keep my beer cold.

After nine months of planning, purchasing, and building I’m finally ready to give birth to my trip across ‘Murica.

I was supposed to leave three days ago on May 1st. Mayday to me. And it didn’t happen.

The camper build is taking a bit longer than I expected or anticipated or planned on.

Each morning while drinking my coffee, I’d plan my day and my brain would say- yeah, let’s rock it.

And each morning as I started working on my camper my body would say- that’s some funny shit right there.

And, unfortunately, usually, my 68 year old body overrode my 20 year old brain.

So yeah, I had to delay my departure one week. We rescheduled Assateague and I leave on Friday.

But even with the additional week as I sat in the camper, I thought about the things I still wanted to do.

And then I got tired of the thinking and I thought-

Enough already.

Let’s go. Let’s do this thing.