Heading West

It's that time of year.

I’m going to take a couple of weeks off from politics and writing. I’m heading west to cooler territory, taking my little travel trailer to Big Sky country. I love the wide open spaces and stunning landscapes of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. I enjoy seeing animals like grizzly bears, wolves, bighorn sheep, and pronghorns that seem so exotic to a small town boy from North Carolina. It’s my own little trip to Oz.

I also like the culture of campgrounds. I meet people with widely varying worldviews and life experiences who, for a few days, share a common space and desire to see a different part of America. We rarely discuss politics and conversations tend toward places to see, places avoid, and RV maintenance. Most of the people I meet I will never see again.

Over the years, I’ve watched action movies on a sixty-inch television mounted onto an RV the size of a Greyhound bus. I found myself riding bikes through Cades Cove with a woman who needed help setting up a tent that attached to the hatchback on her car. I shared coffee with a retired school bus driver in Kentucky who chewed tobacco and smoked cigarettes at the same time, listening to him pontificate about the problems with electric busses. I never saw any of those people after I left them, but I’m glad I met them all.

So for a couple of weeks, I won’t think too much about the US Senate race in North Carolina. I’ll take a well-needed break from following Trump’s latest outrage. I hope I can temporarily forget I ever heard of Ghislaine Maxwell or Jeffrey Epstein.

Instead, I’ll listen to books on tape and worry about running out of ice or gas. I’ll be reminded that we live in a vast and spectacular country. I’ll find common ground with people with whom I likely have profound disagreements. I’ll remember how lucky we are to live in America.

I may drop a short travelogue along the way, partly because I can’t help myself and partly because I want to share my experiences with other people. Until then, enjoy your summer.