For some reason, vacations have become one of those…procrastinations. Who would think of such a thing? But living single, vacations just don’t take on the same excitement, because when you are on vacation – you really are alone. Despite that, vacations “around the house” never really get me away from my work…instead, the computer stays on, email rolls in and whatever stress I wanted to escape from just piles in everyday and these type of vacations are hardly restful.
After working for The KingsportTimes-News for over twenty years now, my four-week vacations are difficult to fulfill and even though I rarely take them all, I reserve most for out-of-town performances and extended holidays. Some of my best vacations have been with the Strickler family as we’ve ventured to The Grand Canyon, San Francisco and a number of weekend hops around the region, but some of my most personally signficant vacations are those rare times when you get away from it all…like I did this year to visit Emerson’s grave in Concord and a a few days in New England at Cape Cod.
I had postponed my vacation for several weeks in a row. My obsessive-compulsive tendencies just wouldn’t let go of my concious as there were so many more things going on at work. I do remember a conversation outside my office with my colleague Diana Meredith though. We were talking about vacation postponements and citing one of the reasons was the fact that I really couldn’t afford it. Her response, “you can’t afford not to” made up my mind. The next weekend, Danny Strickler had his birthday party on Saturday night and I remember being in somewhat of a stupor Sunday morning, but it was pretty outside and I had finally made up my mind to leave.
The weather was nice when I left the house. I quickly packed more than I needed – several books, Emerson, Thoreau and my trusty Rand McNally Atlas and a new CD of over 150 songs from several new artists I had been listening too over the past several weeks.
I had planning this vacation since my last solo outing to Kitty Hawk and the Outer Banks back in ’03. I always kidded my friends that one day I would visit Emerson’s grave. Of all the authors who have influenced me the most in the past 15 years, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s works have seen more face time for me as I’ve read through his Essays and poetry and for some reason, I just felt I had to visit his hometown and even more important make a pilgrimage to his resting place.
I hadn’t really planned the trip other than a few surveys of the websites in Concord and calulating mileage on Google. My secret desire to see autumn in New England along with Emerson’s hometown made for a beckoning sensation and I must admit I had fun trying to time the colors of the leaves in New England with the colorful live Chicken Cam.
I knew where I wanted to go. I had no idea how to get there, but my bags were packed and my old Jeep were headed North on Interstate 81. It was beautiful when I left, but as soon as I got to Abingdon, the clouds moved in and for the most part, my drive North – up Interstate 81 through the Sheneandoah Valley was cloudy and wet. Nevertheless, my mind drifted off into the memories this highway.
While I attended ETSU, we used to drive to Bristol and Abingdon and it seemed like these towns were miles away. It took forever to get to these destinations, but lately, it’s part of my weekly playground. This past year, my trips with Reagan and Clear have taken me into many of the towns that dot Interstate 81 all the way to Roanoke and this is one my favorite scenic routes.
My first venture North will always be some of my best memories too. In college, I fell in love with a black-haired, blue-eyed girl named Christa and my favorite memory was driving to Blacksburg, VA to spend Christmas with her family back in the early eighties. What a time that was. I drove a ’76 Chevy Laguna and it felt like a trip to another country. Christa’s brother was a musician and we had a great time running around this college town – home of Virginia Tech and James Madison. I’ll never forget the snowfall that Christmas. Layers of snow came down every evening and Christmas night was incredible, but bittersweet too (the story of my life). I had a job at WQUT and as the rookie I had to be on the air at 6am on Christmas Day and that drive back, behind the snow plows was one of the scariest ever.
As I passed by one of the hotels we used to stay at on my recent adventure, I recalled a trip to James Madison back in the late seventies for a band competition. Now that was a doozy too. The Sullivan Central High School Band under the direction of Bill Canny, attended a music festival and our bus pulled into the campus of JMU and what a blast that was. We were all under-age and able to get our vices past our chaperones and a wreckless weekend is still kind of blur as the road spanned further north.
It seemed as the miles were behind me the more the memories would cascade into my thoughts. From different moments – different people, Interstate 81 has an archive and as I got closer to Falls Church and the exit for Washington DC, the past really started to come back to life as the skies cleared and the sun began to shine.
I recall only one true vacation in my youth. My father had a business gig somewhere in Washington DC and the drive up 81 brought back up that short experience. I’d been to Washington several times along this route – once with Michelle, my second-wife and another with my best friends Danny his children Abbi and Evan. I recall me and my brother alone for the first time in the nation’s capital browsing the museum of Natural History and later in life walking so much the kids refused to walk anymore when I visited DC with Danny, Abbi and Evan in the mid-nineties.
The strangest event I would recall on this trip was a car I bought from my father-in-law in the mid-eighties. Times were tough. I married a girl who I had known for about four weeks and we tried to make a marriage. We worked on it for six years, but sometime early on, we needed a new car and her father was a dealer in Arlington. He had spotted a Chevette Scooter he thought would be a good car for us and he invited me to ride with him up the road to drive the car back.
Bob was a very intelligent man, but a bit too secretive and manipulative for me. Our trip up Interstate 81 to Arlington that night was a verbal chess match. On the one hand, I listened while he told me hypothetical stories that seemed to be a confession. He hadn’t lived at home for decades, driving back and forth from Bristol to Arlington and I’m still not exactly sure what he was trying to do, but by the time we parted company it seemed all the more possible that he had let me in on secrets he had been dying to share. My trip back was a rollercoaster too because the devastating story came at a critical time for this family and still do not know how this settled out.
It wasn’t long after the Falls Church exit that I was able to relax and cruise into new territory. I stopped just outside of Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania at a Ruby Tuesday and had a salad, read a few pages of Nature before heading back out on the highway. I always like getting to the edge of familiar territory and waking up in someplace new and new adventures. The clouds of Virginia gave way to pristine blue skies and a brilliant tapestry of fall color as I passed through Maryland and Pennsylvania. Almost every exit pointed to a Civil War attraction and I couldn’t help but entertain the idea of making Gettysburg one of my first stops on this vacation.
The sun was low in the sky by the time I drove along the narrow roads to Gettysburg. The pastoral landscape that is home to one of the bloodiest battles in American history is a unique memorial unlike any other. As you drive into Gettysburg, you notice granite monuments everywhere. As a matter of fact, according to the brochures I picked up along the way, there are some 1500 monuments memorilzing the states and their troops who fought in this battle in the late 1700s.
It’s fortunate that Gettysburg has a car tour too. I arrived late and was sort of passing through (I’m sure there’s plenty more here to experience). You can drive for miles through this battlefield stopping along the way to read markers and imagine the smoky battlefields that lay strewn with bodies. The earth itself seems to grow rich green grass from the blood of this day and as you meander among the hills and valleys at this site, it’s easy to imagine the war that was fought on this field. There are several observation points that look out upon the city and you can hear the cannons in the no-so-distance history.
[ Click here for Gettysburg Photos ]
The sun started to set and I decided to get back on the road. I wanted to at least make it to the border of Pennsylvania before bedding down for the night. I drove through the early part of the evening and touched down in Scranton Pennsylvania at a Comfort Inn for the night. It had been a long day and I was swimming in memories and photos. The next day would be a trek across the Catskills and I was finally starting to taste new found freedom.