The Week In Review

I’d love to start this off with something ominous, like If you’re reading this, I’m already gone. The truth is, I’ve been gone.

I left Pensacola on Tuesday. Anyone who’s read anything Shawshank has posted may have already figured out. I’ve been mentally adding to this post as I drive, so appologies if my verb tenses are all over the place. I didn’t post anything concrete about my plans because I don’t want to get excited because I have really awful luck when it comes to hoping for the best. Regardless of how things turn out at the end of the week, I’ll post this shit on the weekend.

Tuesday: Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee

I started the day by madly packing the last of random stuff into the truck. The last things to go in were a crate of poi, a 1950’s American Touristor suitcase, and a big tote full of “local flavor”. I put Chaucer in his crate, hugged Mom, and left her with the advice I’ve been telling myself for the last two months: think of this as temporary, and you won’t freak out as much.

With nothing left, I got in the truck and prayed I didn’t shit myself out of nerves. I set the phone up and got the GPS running and the music loaded, only to discover I could barely hear the audio coming through the truck’s speakers. Five minutes of frantic fucking around later, and I realized I was turning the wrong knob to adjust the volume.

My first stop was to fill the gas tank. The station I normally go to was out of gas, which makes some sense because there was a hurricane barreling down on the state. The rest of the drive was pretty normal. It was the longest drive of the five days I’ll be on the road.

I arrived at the hotel in Memphis after about 7 hours on the road, only to discover that my reservation was at a different location in the city. I had plotted the GPS route before I made the reservations, and never updated it after I reserved the rooms. I cancelled the first reservation and stayed at the place I accidentally showed up at.

I ordered some Ubereats, hit the vape, and settled in for my first night. At some point, a homeless woman came to my door and asked if she could have my pillows and blankets because someone staying in another room was letting her sleep in the bed of their pickup truck. She seemed annoyed that I wanted to use these items for myself.

Wednesday: Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri

Tuesday night’s sleep was shit. I woke up at around 3:30am – too late in the night to take more drugs to go back to sleep and still wake up as a functioning human. As a result, I started the day on about 5 hours of sleep and a stomach that decided it was going to play a game of “YOU TRICKED ME YESTERDAY AND TODAY IS PAYBACK”. Consequently, I had a bad time getting out and back on the road.

Three minutes into the drive, I missed my first on-ramp and ended up about 15 minutes off track. Six-ish hours later, I was in Hannibal, Missouri. The drive felt longer than Tuesday, even though it was about an hour shorter. Regardless of what the tourism site says, there’s nothing near the hotel. I ate a pack of PopTarts for dinner. I was a little chilly, and tried to turn the all-in-one AC/heater to warm me up, setting the smoke alarm off. Instead, I took a hot shower and sat under the blankets.

Thursday: Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota

Not content to let the day start off like shit due to my own personal issues, Chaucer decided to add some color to the day by hiding inside the “platform” portion of one of the beds. I spent 30 minutes trying to lure him out with a can of soft cat food. Unfortunately, I was a victim to my own stupidity: I had already drugged him an hour earlier, and his last fuck had flown the coop shortly after he entered his fortress of solitude.

I attempted to call down to the front desk to see if someone could come help move the bed. However, the room’s phone was broken, and I was forced to walk from my room in the farthest corner away to the office to ask the manager to send help. Roughly 15 minutes later, someone showed up to help move the mattress and boxspring off the shitty platform, where Chaucer was a perfect catloaf of apathy.

Thankfully, the rest of the drive went smoothly. I enjoyed the scenery a lot more than the last two days. I also discovered that my truck doesn’t include one of those little dashboard lights to alert me that I’ve left the gas cap off. The hotel in Lakeville wasn’t bad, the most spartan of the three so far. It’s in a larger plaza, and I enjoyed an early dinner of McDonald’s.

Friday: Minnesota, North Dakota

Sadly, I did not stop to purify myself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka.

The ride was the best ride of the week, absolutely gorgeous. I kept thinking about how pretty the landcsape was, barren and alive at the same time. Whatever’s growing is ready for harvest, whether it was corn or sunflowers. There’s nothing and there’s so fucking much of it. It’s like a post-apocalyptic Shire.

The Motel 6 is awful, even by Motel 6 standards. The first room I was assigned was completely uninhabitable. It wasn’t cleaned, for one thing, and actually appeared to have been lived in for quite some time. It was so bad I honestly thought that maybe I had been given a room that was already occupied. I had them switch me to another room, which is cleaner, but this entire place is a trap house that should be condemned.

Don’t get me wrong – I understand this is Motel 6 and I am not expecting the Biltmore. However, the floors are ripped and worn out, there’s a spot that looks like someone kicked in a wall, the TV doesn’t work, there’s no phone at all. There’s graffiti in the bathroom, the exhaust fan is disassembled and hanging apart, and the toilet sounds like the second coming of Jesus when you flush. I couldn’t tell you what the state of the shower plumbing is, because the idea of being naked in this room terrifies me. I need a shower though.

If there was a Lake Minnetonka available to purify myself here in Bismarck, I would’ve been in it five hours ago.