Rise and Shine the World is Turning...again.

It's good to know even the birds get up early in our nations capitol. People are walking into work and the traffic is brisk for five in the morning. In Louisville there is at least an hour of quiet streets after four a.m.. I am glad the cogs of Democracy never sleep. It helps me feel safe.
Perhaps you may be wondering if I have been saying I would get to Washington D.C. on Earth Day, why am I here a full day early? Traffic. I anticipated more obstacles in getting across the river and crossed at night to keep from annoying bike riders and pedestrians proved to be fast. So here I am waiting for the sunrise and the new day.
Since everyday is Earth Day for Worldguy I came a day early to appreciate the experience.
Of coarse after I celebrate Earth day I will change hats, as it were,and begin this years journey for diabetes awareness. I have been walking all this time truly to honor my mother, Kentucky State Representative Gerta Bendl, who died a week shy of her fifty fifth birthday. I have just aged forty eight and this year I am being selfish and also walking for me. I have always been a large guy and walking can keep diabetes away. I want to honor my mother by living longer than she did and doing some service for the world like she did during her stay on it.
Have a happy Earth Day, and turn that light off, save a tree or plant one, and slow down on the parkway for OUR sake.

A Loss for Words at a Dead Run

As I wrote this morning's post I had a clue about the traffic I might encounter on my way from Annapolis and into D. C.. But the reality of the enthusiasm drivers have for their gas pedals around here just makes me laugh. This afternoon I made my way to the scenic Roosevelt Island and walked to the memorial. I met a park ranger on the bridge on my way back and asked him a few questions about the area because I want to begin this chapter in Arlington and roll into D.C. by Thursday (Earth Day). He told me to head out on the Washington Memorial Turnpike and quickly turn left and come back into Arlington. When I got on the road the traffic was going so fast I was forced to keep going straight. The speed limit is posted at forty but no one cares. Further on it goes to fifty. I was going fifty five and I was clogging up the lane. I went sixty five, and still even a Prius passed me. To add to the hilarity there are no exits. I had to go ten miles to get back, and the return trip was even more amusing starting with a bridge sign named Dead Run, then Turkey Run, then Douglass Run. Then a police car blasted by going faster than all of the rest. When the sign reduced to forty again the flow was, and stayed, above sixty five. I couldn't stop laughing. All this after spending the morning and early afternoon in the capitol being cut off and bum-rushed for a few feet only to sit at a signal two car lengths up.

The bridge from Virginia to the capitol will have to be done at night because it is narrow and I am going to guess the bike riders will have more attitude than the car drivers.

I have found a spot to start and am at a loss for words as I begin this walk.

This too shall pass.

Clear Skies and the Fast Lane

I was able to sleep till it was light this morning. I did awaken once in the night but eventually calmed the racing thoughts and slept again. The morning is beautiful and peaceful now. We drove down to Annapolis where I intended to survey the sights a bit. A lane change in the rush of the morning traffic forced me back out onto the expressway and we now are relaxing on the outskirts in a large sports park where Nice could do his business and I could charge my Blackberry and the travel charger from an outside plug. Nice needed this, the ride is stressful. Soon we will load up and see where the next lane choice takes us.

Where Do I Begin...

This morning I was in the middle of Ohio taking note of the places and the people I encountered during my trek to Pittsburg. I would drive a little and stop to jot a note here and there. Sometimes I would recall what was over a rise or around a bend. A short space of road whose canopy was so dense it left me blind in the night, also an eerie memory. So much has changed in less than three years with urban sprawl, natural disasters (wind and ice storms) and decay of old structures that I fancied or visited on my way. I stopped at a cemetery where I had to fall asleep from exhaustion high on a hill next to a set of three cypress trees whose trunks had grown twisted together like the family buried there under. When I slept with them three years ago the middle tree was fading from a lightening strike that tore a crevice in its trunk. Today you could hardly make out that there was once a strike at all, like the faded letters of the elders sandstone marker. Things change, fade and return to dust. They kept me safe that foggy and cold morning; I remember them... The towns folk don't remember the family name. The next morning, I spoke to the grandson of the cemetery owner who knew all the living inhabitants in the county but not those of the family whose stones he had cut and weeded around as a child.

That was not the only tree I slept under that exists now only in my thoughts. So many things changed, I noted a few.

Then it was off to the great unknown! I drove from downtown Pitt into Maryland and am now close to the bay an hour north of Virginia. It is long past dark and this parking lot is safe enough. In the morning we will begin to work our way down to our destination point, which is our begining point and subject to change. Like the man said in the Harry Neillson tale of Obleo and his dog Arrow who were banished to the Pointless Forest, "Ain't nothin pointless about this gig."

Dig?

Dreaming in Circleville Ohio

All night my dream went in a loop of me in a cramped truck driving from work thru the city. repeating the same congested route shifting gears with a floor shift and clutch talking to the other two men in the cab with me. I'm not a small man and though I didn't recognize one of the men, the other, and more talkative, was Terry (Hulk) Hogan. Far too many bodies in the little trucks cab. Now that Nice (the dog) has bullied his way under my blanket I can see the relation between the dream and the reality..Why "the Hulkster" was dictating driving instructions is a mystery.
I remember the dream ending, it being my time at the wheel, easily blending into the flow of traffic despite Hulks warnings it was too difficult.

I'll write something of value after I get somewhere for breakfast or this evening when I have finished this task I have of reviewing my first long walk for diabetes in 2007.

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looking back while moving forward

Yawn! I spent the day driving more than half way to Pittsburgh to recall the experience. Taking some notes as I went. Wonderful people and many forgotten bits from that time are both good and some sad. Now I am exhausted so I will soon be asleep.

I got the house taken care of with the neighbors on all side helping out.

Just a Few Ducks

As anxious as I was last week I have changed to a calm and deliberate resolve to get the preparations out of the way. Things are falling into place, bills paid, jobs finished, tasks tasked. In the morning Nice (the dog) gets his shots a month sooner than is needed, which leaves cleaning and arranging the house, travel supplies, and the WG van(the two ton grape). A nice woman today took it upon herself to go to AAA and get every travel book and map of the north east for me. She was giddy with pleasure from twisting the guy at the counter who wanted specific routes and destinations. She laughed as she recalled the look on his face when she said she wanted maps all the way up the coast to Maine. A real head Bangor...
If all goes well we will be headed out Sunday.

Counting Down

All the little things are going together for the road trip. I have been spending good times with my son these last days. We'll both be leaving this fine city the same day,just in different directions. He is heading back to Madison and I am going to D.C. and beyond. Just a few things more to finalize.
Earth Day in the Capitol is where I'll give the world a new coat of paint, a once over, a fresh look. I may even wear a new hat. No hidden messages here. I have a few jars of blue and green and a Stetson that's not had a thousand miles of sweat and rain or cradled the weight of the world 'atop it. Like the one I have worn so long it is hard with salt and mountain dust. I bought it for myself as we walked thru downtown K.C. My ATABOY for a journey well walked. I have been babying the thing so; it's time to break that hat in!
Am I rambling?
On Earth Day I'll do my little part for the World with a stroll thru D.C. and then begin my little part for diabetes with a stroll through the summer

Anxious

Today I want to go and I know I need to save more "quan" for the trip. There are things I need to do for a few people, and for myself. I am anxious to get on the road. Just like last year, my body is retaining, and my belly is expanding, like it knows what I am about to do and is storing fat. Like the happy Buddha.
I will be starting soon. This time I will start around earth day in our nations capitol. It depends on me now how close to earth day I start. Like the saying goes, "Your needs are taken care of, your wants you have to work for."
The oak next door is leafing, the mimosa in my yard still holds a few seed pods and awaits its spring calling. My 'angst' holds no sway. I don't want to post this . I will anyway

When Life Gives You Lemons...or a two ton grape

A few weeks ago I was contacted by an old friend who needed to move her coffee shop out of it's current location and store it at home. In exchange for my help she proposed to give me her van which she used as the smoothie and coffee mobile. I agreed and after much hard labor I have a well maintained conversion van. The original owner bought it new and was a mechanic who used it only for vacations, very good condition. I had been thinking that someday I might splurge and get something to use on our walks that was more suitable than the dirty old electricians truck that had obviously been driven hard by disgruntled employees as a work truck and all terrain vehicle. This gets better mileage by virtue of good maintenance so I now have the new World Guy Mobile complete with earth emblems embroidered on the seat backs and an earth engraved on the front vanity plate. (The manufactures emblem) Kentucky requires only one plate one the rear so I will keep it.
And it is purple like a cartoon grape...

Too Soon

A few months ago I helped pack my brother and his family's belongings in a moving van for his move to the mountains of Colorado. Leaving me, the baby of the bunch, the last to remain in Louisville. Though I am a grown man and spend little time with my brother in a way the separation came too soon.
Some weeks later my son returned from the road. It was the dead of winter and we spent our evenings together in the front room with the fire to keep the draft down getting closer than we had been since he was very small and I rode him in the basket of our trike; he with his lttle helmet and the occasional balloon, or when we first threw the world-ball over the fence when he was sevenand frollicked in the park--care free. He left after another month,the hometown kids he had grown up with just as petty to him as always, he calls me evry few days and is happy on his own learning about life in his own way. Learning well,in leaps and bounds. I wanted him to stay but he was miserable, laying guilt and critcism only ailienated the rest of his family from him; he only keeps close to me. Still, he grew up and away too soon.
As I walk to encourage people like myself to do something healthy I remember my mother, gone too soon.
My middle school friend whose brother passed in his late twenties, too soon.
An Apache' shaman who my wife and I visited often just as my son was born who went to the hospital and never left, dying from diabetes at the same age as my mother, too soon.
In high school I had a friend who just a couple months ago befriended me on FB passed last night after amputation and dialysis. I had tried to call him a couple times, had intended to visit. Intended to help him in some way with my fund raising. Too soon.
Life smacks me in the face sometimes. Bites me in my asspirations.As the weeks till I begin the next walk speed away the time for action can not come too soon.

Springing Forward, and the things I miss...

I sit on the porch this morning, having set the clocks to spring, waiting for the call from the man to work that should come in moments. Having taken our morning stroll around the neighborhood with Nice (the dog), the sprigs of spring have been showing for days, in some cases weeks even sprouting through the melting snow. I've turned off the heat in the house to get ready for the cool mornings on the road that will surely come with our trip up north. Cool mornings put spring in our steps.
With the spring comes the smells that have been frozen over the winter months. The scents have keyed my memory, much to my surprise, of the days last year on the road. The unfortunate wild life who didn't make it to the far side of the road. Indiana had all manner of things, Illinois had frogs and turtles in abundance, Missouri had things I never see in Kentucky like armadillos and more. I miss the sunrise, the fog, the dew, early birds, the deer, the scunk and rabbits. I miss the sweet smell of scunk and the odor of road kill. I miss the smiles, the conversations with strangers and new found friends. I miss pushing myself far beyond what I thought I was capable of. I miss doing some good.