Writing (and driving) gone wild
The Umpqua River Valley as seen from Oregon Highway 38 in August, 2004. Photo by Bill Lascher.
Today I leave Los Angeles for Portland, Oregon.
As I do, I look forward to taking an as-yet undetermined path to my new home hundreds of miles north.
I don't know how exactly I'll get to Portland, though I've set a few ground rules. I won't set a firm date to get there. Though the trip could easily take as little as a day and a half, I don't want to constrain myself to any schedule, lest I miss the world I pass through (you can help me get there, too). I may backtrack. I may make detours. I may decide to linger in one spot staring at the sky for hours. I may rush. I may wander.
Which brings me to rule #2, perhaps the most exciting and most questionable part of my plans. To best experience the journey I plan to completely avoid freeways and even divided highways. Getting to Oregon from Southern California in January makes this a rather daunting task, particularly because I also plan to steer clear of the coast. As stunning as the coast is, I've seen much of it and hunger for a new path, at least this time around.
Instead, after a brief visit to Ventura, I might start crossing the mountains of the Los Padres Forest along Highway 33 or perhaps head east to U.S. 395, the Eastern Sierras, and a detour through Nevada. It's likely I'll have to ditch certain highways for local roads as some stretches, like the 33 in Ventura, become highways. Perhaps I'll find myself crisscrossing farmland on country roads in the San Joaquin Valley. Most certainly I'll travel along dozens of unknown roads upon which I've yet to decide. I may very likely encounter snowy passes, and, though I have chains, I don't intend to be stupid and may have to make a number of adjustments to the paths I set (I won't, however, bring a GPS because I treasure my sense of direction and my ability to read a map).
On the other hand, I'm most likely to pass through a California and an Oregon oft-ignored. I'm free to turn elsewhere if an obstacle proves more than I'd like to surmount, if I simply tire of where I am, or if I'm curious if what's down that side road, and I'm free to experience the landscape I see along the way as a result of those decisions. I'm also leaving myself free to change the parameters of this journey, though I don't expect to too drastically.
I have no set plans for what I intend to write or how frequently I'll do so (and I may be constrained by wi-fi options or simply too caught up in adventuring at certain points along the way), but I imagine some account of what I see, where I am, where I am not, and who I meet will pass upon this screen.
Transitory nature
A Hillside in Southern Oregon as photographed in August, 2004. Photo by Bill Lascher.
After reading about my plans for a road trip, some of you might question my commitment to shifting society away from its focus on single-passenger automobiles toward more sustainable, rationally planned transportation strategies. Yes, I do own a car and yes, I do enjoy driving it, though I never have qualms leaving it behind to take transit, ride a bike, or just walk. I can say that I plan to determine how to offset the carbon footprint of my journey once I have a good sense of its reach (including the distance traveled, the food I consume, and an estimate of the resources I use to write and post about my trip). What you make of my intentions beyond that is your business.
What I will say is that there are different ways to experience the automobile, and to experience the landscape through which it can take a person.
Despite my passion for transit — and a history of misadventures on solo road trips — I'm thrilled about this journey. Indeed, I have come to realize it's quite difficult to really discern a “misadventure” from simply an adventure. Like life, it's all interpretation. Too much of this world focuses on perceived destinations, and not the road we travel to reach those destinations.
That statement has been made so many times in so many ways. What I might add is that we are constantly in motion, even when we are “home.” As hard as we struggle for stillness, as passionately as we seek peace, we are in motion. Fulfillment might be more than freedom from desire, it might require accepting our transitory nature. Perhaps more than anything, I believe in the fluidity of life, and find transition to be the most constant force we face.
What you may read
This weekend, after encountering yet another bevy of predictions about exciting new technologies, prognostications about the evolution of journalism and fretting over worrisome new trends in the news business, I realized just how pointless it is to dissect the minute details of the future of media. Afterward, I made a statement I've already shared publicly and think is relevant to my motivation for this journey:
“Let's go out there and tell the stories we see, tell them well, and stop worrying about who's reading them and what they're worth.”
I'm taking this journey in part because I want to tell a story of the road. You may read it. You may not. Though I welcome donations, I don't expect it, and definitely will not put a price on my writing. More importantly, I know my writing and my ability to record what I see would suffer if I did.
What you read here, and this adventure itself, are products of imagination, not crowd-sourcing. Is there an audience for it? Who cares? Or rather, the audience is this one now, the one reading these words, whether the reading occurs today, two months from now or decades hence. This is simply an effort to describe one sliver of the world as filtered through my eyes, not by metrics and news budgets or obsessing over what I think my readers want to see. Though I definitely do not know, I think my readers, whoever and whenever they might be, want to see what they don't know they'll see, what they won't expect, just as on the road I hope to see what I don't know I'll see and what I don't expect.
I am not a backpack journalist. I am not part of a media industry in upheaval, nor a media innovator. I am not a technophile, nor a Luddite. I will not constrain myself by trying to pinpoint ways to present my narrative or funding channels to tap. I am simply an observer willing to use whatever tools are handy to tell a story and to uncover those parts of the story that might matter, but might not easily be seen at the surface.
Join the journey
A truck passes cornfields on a highway in rural Illinois circa August, 2004. Photo by Bill Lascher.
If you feel you'd like to see what I come up with, perhaps you'd like to throw some change my way, or perhaps you'd like to avoid doing so, or, perhaps, you'd like to give me some cash and don't want to see what I come up with. If you do want to offer money, you can safely drop it in my PayPal account contribute by clicking the support button at the bottom of this page.
I’m not going to ask for a specific amount of money, and I don't only welcome money, as you'll see below. I’m not going to define what you'll see in return for your support. I’m not going to outline how much I expect to write or how often. I’m not using a formal service to raise money, just asking whether you might want to buy me a gallon of gas, some coffee, a bite to eat or, heck, a night's lodging. I’m not following any rules or any standard practices for fund-raising, just as I'm not following any set route to my destination.
Should you so choose, please fuel my journey. Fuel my writing. Fill my tank. Fill my belly. Fill my cup. Just as my route and my writing won’t be restricted by artificial constraints and deadlines, your choice to support my efforts or not won’t have constraints. You can offer $100, $1, 50 cents or nothing at all.
If you want to support me in another manner, perhaps consider offsetting some of my carbon impact (though, like I said, I won't know its extent until after this trip) or maybe share this with a friend, or someone else who might want to read it or see the photos or video I take, if I happen to take photos or video.
Or do something creative of your own. Take an adventure in the manner best suited you and maybe share a tale of it with me. Or avoid adventure. Or don't share your plans with me and revel in your privacy. Write your own piece about a totally different topic or don't write anything. Make dinner for your best friend. Play.
I won’t mind if you offer nothing. If I raise nothing more than the cost of a cup of gas station coffee I’ll still be pleased, as I’ll still have had that opportunity for the journey. So please, please don’t feel bad if you can’t afford to support me, or if you simply don’t want to (particularly those family and friends who have been so extremely generous and helpful to me lately).
Perhaps asking strapped friends, family and strangers to drop some change in my jar or take their own adventures instead is a bit insane without any concrete commitments and with such murky goals. But there’s no certainty to the road and, more importantly, writing thrives in the wild. Perhaps we can try to set it free here.
