Richard Kline said "Confidence is preparation. Everything else is beyond your control". And so the preparations have been both extensive and exhausting. Laying up the proper stores and packing them away hopefully in an efficient and compact manner. It's an open vehicle, so you pack it more like a whitewater raft than a car. Virtually everything is open to the elements and the ride is rough, loud, dusty and sometimes wet. It's all about creating systems. Protect valuables and things that don't like water deep. The things you might need go near the top, as do the less valuable and more durable items and then it all gets lashed down as if you were heading into a hurricane. And you can't really assume she'll remain upright. Made that mistake before! Trying to collect your belongings as the EMT's are scraping you off the pavement is rarely successful. It's all you can do to keep them from cutting everything off of you with the trauma shears....never mind getting them to pay any attention to what's blowing down the highway..... So just lash it down and hopefully it'll still be there when you collect the remains at the salvage yard.
Taken together, perhaps the most intriguing part of this process is just reflecting on the juxtaposition of fastidious physical preparation and a simultaneous mental readiness for completely letting go. Because both are part of the game.
You have to use what you know to prepare to the best of your ability; anything less would be foolhardy.
Yet, at the same time, if you know anything, you know that there's only so much you can do, and at some point, you just have to let it loose and embark on the adventure.
"Buy the ticket, take the ride" said Hunter S. Thomspon.
And if you have to quote someone, while perched on the ragged edge of the American Dream, looking south toward an extended desert road trip into old Mexico, then my money says that someone has got to be Hunter S. Thompson.
Hallelujah & Amen!
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