Painted Yellow Lines

“And I have no expectation, just to be here in the present”

-Dispatch

Each year as I’m putting together the road trip book I pick a quote for the quote page that captures a feeling about the trip. The quote above is featured this year and I think it fits particularly well. The feelings of adventure and craziness that accompanied our trips years ago have given way to a sort of peaceful familiarity. We spend ten months anticipating and doing the things necessary to support the two months we really live for. Yet, my expectations are low in the most positive way.

As has become tradition Day 1 was spent nearly entirely on the road. In Ellie’s podcast yesterday one of her questions was about what I was most looking forward to doing in the car. I answered that I enjoy singing along with the playlist, more on that in a moment, and watching the scenery go by. Other than a brief stop at the Hoover NHS, where we were unsuccessful in purchasing an America the Beautiful pass or a blacksmith crafted triangle, it’s been a day full of singing, watching, and not much else.

Over the past year I’ve spent countless hours obsessing over the details of The Spreadsheet, but that time is as much a way to mentally escape as actual planning. Of course we’ll hike most of the hikes we’ve planned and stay in most of the hotels we’ve booked, but I’m totally content to think of it as a rough guide and go with the flow as needed. The most important thing is that we’re together and back on a journey.

There were several posts I thought about writing over the past month as we made our preparations for departure. One of those was to discuss the updated road trip playlist. A few weeks ago over post hike beers we went through the list removing songs that had worn out their welcome, replacing songs for bands that we have multiple favorites from, and upping the amount of rap and bluegrass. We’re currently about eight hours into the trip and having some new songs to sing has been a refreshing change. It’s also provided me with a new batch of titles to use for my posts this year including this one.

Our only other activity of the day was getting dinner at Thunderhead Brewing in Kearney, NE, our home for the night. Thunderhead employs an indefatigable brewer for the people of Kearney and the city’s out of town guests. There must have been 20 beers on tap with a huge range of options. The nitro tapped double IPA I enjoyed was a perfect complement to their made from scratch pizza.

Tomorrow the trip will really begin. If all goes well we’ll be writing about summiting our first mountain of RTXIX!