RIP iPod

My iPod died. I’m sad.

However I started listening to the unabridged audio book of Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley”. It’s perfect for this trip. It begins with a letter to his friend, Frank Lesser:

In the fall, right after labor day, I'm going to learn about my own country, I've lost the flavor and taste and sound of it. It's been years since I have seen it. So I'm buying a pickup truck with a small apartment on it. Kind of like the cabin of a small boat. Bed stove desk icebox toilet. Not a trailer what's called a coach.

I'm going alone, out towards the west by the northern way, but zigzagging through the middle west and the mountain states. I'll avoid cities, hit small towns and farms and ranches, sit in bars and hamburger stands and on Sunday go to church. I'll go down the coast from Washington and Oregon and then back through the Southwest and South and up the East Coast but always zigzagging.

Elane will join me occasionally but mostly I have to go alone and I shall go unknown. I just want to look, listen. What I'll get I need badly: a re-knowledge of my own country, of its speeches, its views, its attitudes and its changes.

It's long overdue, very long.”

I’m not an old man like him so I don’t need the truck but I do wish I had a few more months to explore the US and zigzag. One month isn’t enough. I'm hitting too many superhighways and not enough small towns. There’s too much stuff and too many people.

That’s why there’s a Next Time. There’s always a Next Time. And perhaps I’ll bring a dog.