Ok, so let me give you the skinny on how the idea for this road trip came about.

I was sitting in my room watching Nature on PBS about John Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club, feeling kinda depressed about losing my job when it came to me…CROSS-COUNTRY ROAD TRIP!! Now I suppose I should explain how it came about that I lost my job…this requires a little more explaining, settle in for a story.

Five years ago I was in a near-fatal accident, don’t worry I won’t get into detail, in which I shattered my right patella (kneecap) and femur, broke my right hip, left acetabulum (pelvic bone), and L2 vertebrae. Two years after the accident I found out I had stage 4 osteonecrosis in my right hip. So, in the matter of two years, blood had stopped flowing to the head of my femur and the bone died. I now needed a total hip replacement. At 30, I was having an operation that people twice my age have…fabulous. Fast forward two years, my hip replacement has fallen apart…lovely. Six months after that news I’m having a hip revision to put the stupid thing back together…again, a surgery someone twice my age should be having. Six weeks prior to going out of work for my surgery, I had my hours decreased to part-time to make it easier on me physically. This cut my medical leave by three weeks so when my medical leave was up and I was not able to return to work…I was let go. Not a huge shocker. Now that we’ve gotten the short and sweet version of how I got to this point outta the way…

We’re back to the CROSS-COUNTRY ROAD TRIP lightbulb that flashed about my head. Who are we kidding, it was more like a cattleprod to the ass! I jumped outta bed “ran”, you don’t do much running 8 weeks after hip surgery, downstairs to find the Reader’s Digest East-West and North-South travel books that are somewhere on the bookshelf in the library and started planning my American Road Domination! Ok, well maybe not domination but you get the picture.

So, here I am, more excited than a 4-year-old at Christmas, looking through these Reader’s Digest books and I realize I NEED more “reference materials”. Thank the Lord for AAA.com!! I hop on that website and order every TourBook and CampBook, you never know when you’re gonna want to sleep in a tent for the night and you wanna know a reputable place, for the continental US.

When that box o’ goodies was delivered I was happier than a pig in shit! As I started planning my domination I realized that there are a shitload of things I wanna see and I hadn’t even gotten myself outta NY yet. Holy hell, what have I gotten myself into!!! But the more I read, the more excited I get. Reading, writing, typing, google mapping, etc. There’s a frenzy goin’ on in my head and it’s the best feeling I’ve had in a LOOONG time, well aside from those induced by prescription narcotics…love those, too!!

So, I guess that brings you up to speed on how this crazy idea came about. Now all that’s left is more TourBook reading, figuring out all the crap I’m gonna need to bring with me and how the hell I’m gonna get all that crap AND my clothes into my Focus…Sweet Jesus, it’s gonna be a LONG week!!! 🙂