The other night in Missouri I accidentally ended up on a stretch of the old Route 66. Today, I drove some of the “Mother Road” intentionally. You know, you just gotta live some of your rock star, hippie, freedom-loving fantasies.

Too bad I was stone cold sober and not looking to score weed or ass. Part of the legend might be some free-wheelin’, free loving, hazy with drugs adventuring on the road. Or maybe just getting drunk and beating my poor wife and children as failure and the Dust Bowl grinded my spiritless soul down. Either way, I was just another middle-aged broad sightseeing.

Desperately holding onto my rock and roll fantasy, though, I’m now sitting in Tucumcari, NM. I decided to stop here, when I started hearing Lowell George’s voice in my head and remembered the Little Feat lyrics:

I’ve been from Tuscon to Tucumcari
Tehachapi to Tonapah
Driven every kind of rig that’s ever been made
Driven the back roads so I wouldn’t get weighed
And if you give me: weed, whites, and wine
and you show me a sign
I’ll be willin’, to be movin’

Kind of feeds into my other (mucher newer) fantasy. After cruising so far and feeling pretty fine, I’m thinking my next job is long-distance trucker. Putting the hammer to the metal and all sorts of other cliched jargon I don’t yet know.

Maybe tomorrow if I find a good Internet connection, I’ll write about all of the hackneyed spiritual, road trip, journey cliches zipping through my head. Really, though, it’s a pretty damned good way to transition to a new coast, new life and all that.

By the way, I woke up in Tulsa, OK and am going to bed in Tucumcari, NM. Thanks to a certain chimp in the Whitehouse, I decided there was no way I would linger in Texas.

Oh, yeah, and one last thing. With all of the time to think and the necessary self-involvement of so much travel, I fear that I may be neglecting my relationship. I heard from M. today, and apparently my showing up in California a hundred pounds heavier with knotted, ratty hair and a leather face is a deal breaker.

Anyone know anyone on the West Coast interested in a bloated and dirty road warrior?