My John Steinbeck Travels with Charley tour is now over: 210 days, 21,114 miles, 1,407 gallons of gas, 41 states.
Bismarck, November 24, 2024 — This morning, I woke up in my own bed for a change. It was 4 a.m. or so, and I had to pee. From a lifetime in motel rooms I know how to find the bathroom in the dark. I realized I was in some strange space as I opened my eyes. Then I realized that it was my own home of 20 years. When I crawled back into bed and moved into that fugue state between wake and sleep, when the dreams were almost daydreams, I began to calculate how far I would have to drive today before realizing that I didn’t have to drive today. And a little later, I wondered if I should go down to the lobby for the free breakfast. Was I ok with yet another dry, folded, pre-cooked omelet, a thin glass of cranberry juice, a pre-peeled boiled egg, and an insipid link sausage? But then I remembered that I was not in a hotel.
Welcome Home
My John Steinbeck Travels with Charley tour is now over: 210 days, 21,114 miles, 1,407 gallons of gas, 41 states, two Presidential Libraries, two athletic Halls of Fame, six National Parks. … I’ve camped almost every night in my Airstream trailer, but enough in motels over the last couple of weeks to alter the balance somewhat.
I’m bone weary and feeling, too, a great sense of joy and satisfaction.
But, back to my bewilderment of not knowing where I was this morning. I can report without exaggeration that I have spent about a third of my life in motels and hotels. If I had stayed in only one chain — Holiday Inn, Super 8, or Ramada — I’d have enough frequent guest points to have my own designated suite. I’ve never really minded my life on the road. It has its supreme pleasures, and in some sense, a bed with clean sheets is a bed with clean sheets. Still, I also know the wear and tear of the dawn taxi in a strange city, arriving at the hotel at 9:35 p.m. and having no option but a Caesar salad at the hotel bar; the stress level when the pilot comes on to say that “maintenance” is boarding the airplane and they will let you know soon (he is lying!) just what is wrong and when we can expect to depart; checking into the motel only to discover that the Wadena, Minnesota, junior high hockey team is there for the weekend.
I remember when the Holiday Inn Express chain rolled out its celebrated cinnamon roll. It’s a pretty average bit of baking, but it was presented in a special tray under a special lamp. For a time, that was the reason I would stop at a Holiday Inn Express rather than any of the five similar motels at the same intersection. Late capitalism. Now, occasionally, I pluck a cinnamon roll out of its cradle at a H.I.E. and drop it on my paper plate, but they have lost their ability to please me. Now it’s just more bland provender in a lobby room filled with American grotesques: loud children spilling imitation maple syrup over their waffles; the big woman in her Hello Kitty pajamas loading her plate with dry thin bacon; the older men watching Fox and Friends and snorting at the liberals; the woman using Facetime on speaker phone to tell her sister about the broken water heater; the man in the lobby last week who told his sister that his life’s dream was to manage a women’s mud wrestling team.
When I got home the other night, I opened the refrigerator apprehensively. It stank. Something was rotting in the state of Bismarck. I was too tired to explore, but when I woke up yesterday, I sniffed at a large number of potentially suspect things and threw most of them away. Later, I bought two units of baking soda at the grocery store to take up some of the smell.
Americans waste 30% of the food they buy. I do my part to keep that percentage high. I like to blame it on my travels, but that is mostly not true.
I’m home. It is Thanksgiving week. My friend Loren of the Olympic Peninsula has sent me an organic turkey he raised and throttled and packed in dry ice. Plus, some of his superb bacon. On Thursday, I’m entertaining a couple of waifs who have nowhere else to be or would rather be nowhere else, I cannot remember which.
And when I walked into the kitchen, there was a stack of book packages from all over the map, all demanding to be opened, browsed, stacked, and (eventually) read. I drove 640 miles on the last day to get home in time to conduct my online class (on John Donne) on Saturday. I’m still in a Kerouacian fugue state, but I’ve found a cache of the spices needed to make mother’s patented pumpkin chiffon pie. She was right to try to protect her stash, but I was once in a while able to lull her into a turkey coma and abscond with the “fixins” as we used to call them.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
Over the next few months, Clay is shadowing Steinbeck’s 10,000-mile trek around the USA (and making a few detours of his own). Clay’s expedition is a central part of LTA’s big initiative to explore the country and take the pulse of America as it approaches its 250th birthday. Be sure to follow Clay’s adventures here and on Facebook — and subscribe to our newsletter.