A long walk through Anacortes town, past the marina and up Cap Sante for the view and the climb. Sweating off the confusion. Echo leads, and we move fast, almost trot, near tears. Step, step, step, step, there’s whiskey in the future. Been a hard time these past couple of days. Family troubles. Nobody hurts you like family. And you don’t hurt nobody like you hurt your family.
Tomorrow, Dawn, wife and co-pilot, and I will up and away to Ouray, Colorado, via the Nine-Mile Ranger Station and Flaming Gorge. We should pull into Ouray in time for my birthday. The 69th of those “celebrations”. In my teens at the old, long-gone pool hall on Main, I never expected to be kicking after 69 years, and many of the folks I rode with are dead or enfeebled. But still…
I remember honey nights in the back of a ‘65 Impala, feeling heaven under a bra for the first time. I remember a hilarious night with a garage band on a flatbed truck lit by spotlights in a field, while kids drifted off in pairs into the woods, and we got lost and flatted a tire on the VDub, and six of us picked that car up, put her on a stump, and changed out the tire.
I remember skiing deep powder in Utah - the last time alone on a sunny, bluebird April day, with snow clods exploding around me as I floated down the mountain. Little Cottonwood lay at my feet, gorgeous magic - and nobody to share it with. Then, there were dark days on the streets of Salt Lake, broke, begging, a target for perverts. And other, better days, hauling ass across Oklahoma back roads in a Corvette with the top off, music blaring, no direction home.
I met her in the old Soj’ in Jackson. A romantic cowboy summer of hikes, meadow trysts and sunny walks that led to winter vows back in cold, cold New York. Then came the first pregnancy and panic. Joined the USNav, and daughter number one was born in old Orlando. Made it a few more months before jumping ship and running away from Uncle Sam. We conceived daughter number two in a sublime moment of intimate understanding, just us in a shack, while the whole world held its breath. That kid was love embodied. But I had to pay my debt to the Uncle, and I missed her birth, doing 90 days hard labor, chucking sod on the Admiral’s Golf Course.
Tech school next, got my airplane mechanic license, and earned an engineering degree on top of it. Moved the wife and kids to Seattle to work at the Lazy B. Bought a house and worked and worked. Provided. Chased opportunity in Texas and Arizona, and back to Texas.
Became a hired gun, shit-hot, cold-eyed engineer. Could tear a 747 apart and put her back together again. I could repair cracked fuselages to get ‘em flying and still make departure. I could troubleshoot everything from anti-ice systems to auto-throttles and stubborn entry doors. Installed cockpit doors after 9/11 and winglets in the oughts. Could transform a beat-up passenger 767 into a sleek next-generation, cargo-hauling, badass freighter, bringing Amazon to your home. I was good at it, and they paid me a ransom. But I didn't know how the cold, hard pressure of the airplane engineering world warped and twisted me. Didn’t see it coming. Couldn’t repair what came apart at home. I was a madman, priorities all wrong, did what the bosses wanted, performed like a trained seal. Repressed frustration went sideways. The damage cost me my family. And they ain't coming back.
I need a road trip.
My heart still lies on the road. There is redemption on the road, freedom too. But, constant wandering has its cost. Ain’t nothing’s free. To wander is to uproot. To vagabond is to ignore security, safety, and comfort. Some thrive on it; most others don’t.
There sits Big Red. Got nice foam mattresses in the back, pantry tote on the right, utensils to the left. Two-man tent stuffed next to the big eight-man palace tent. Been running like this since I was 17 - that's, let’s see….nine minus seven, six minus 1 - oh, my hell - 52 years!
There have been so many trips in all those years.
Crossed the country from Utah to New York twice in a 1960 Triumph TR3. Heater didn't work, so I wrapped up in a sleeping bag and drove straight through cold Wyoming nights. Drove the back roads across Commanche country from west Texas, Oklahoma, to Colorado. How could you navigate that boundless prairie with only a horse and grit? Wound across the deep south playing Baptist church bingo, eating ‘cue and hush puppies, big old coonass smiles. I wandered all over Montana and Northwest Wyoming. Skied the Bridgers, hiked paradise, and fished the Madison.
I'm counting my blessings.
Drove up from haunted Darien to the Blue Ridge. Beer and music in Asheville and Black Mountain. Followed Sherman to the sea. Hung out in dreamy Savannah.
And California - Drove the 1 all the way, the full kit-n-caboodle, top to bottom. Over the Golden Bridge and through the Haight, past Jerry's house, and down south to Big Sur. Mom always wanted to see Big Sur, and I've driven it maybe six times? On one of them, Dawn and I camped along the edge and paddled our boards with the seals and dolphins off Hearst Castle. Hiked up a short canyon and showered under a wispy, cold waterfall. Best picture I ever took of my love Dawn was her doing wild-thing on a Big Sur beach with blue-green surf crashing behind. Sailed Maravilla from Ventura to Catalina, anchored on the back side, and rode the big surf home.
Utah. Arizona. New Mexico. Red rock palaces, fortresses, and ghosts. Vast, immaculate wilderness is there. Apache ghostland. Small, artsy towns, long, curvy roads, eccentric town folk - I've wandered up rocky canyons to find Eden under a waterfall, ancient ruins under the rim.
Yeah, I been lucky.
So, one more time, I'm gonna jump in the Big ‘Un and roll across the North Cascades and the Palouse - familiar territory. From Nine Mile outside Missoula, we'll head south down the Hamilton and through Big Hole country. Across Idaho and down into Wyoming at Flaming Gorge. Then, down the Million-dollar highway into Ouray.
Happy Birthday.
Along this star-spangled road, I've lost friends and loved ones - casualties of ambition, crazy wanderlust, and selfish pride. You can't drive from Key West to Austin, to the Sangre de Cristo, to Kanab, to Anacortes, and back without somebody dropping by the wayside. You can’t spend months away from home working on cold, dead airplanes, piling up cash, burning family, without casualties. I have left people, mostly loved ones, hurt and cold and for that, I am broken-hearted. I set out to live without regrets. But tonight - that’s all I got.
The road calls, and my love and I are gonna roll away. Again.
Play us out, Mr. Bingham.