Post from January 10, 5 pm after switching driving...
Well, days and 875 miles into the road trip and Framer Dude and I haven’t killed each other yet, that’s a good sign. But we have 1,200 miles left, 800 miles of it just through Texas alone, so there’s a lot of tread left on these tires, so to speak.
I hate interstates. They take the fun out of a road trip, but for the sake of expediency, they’re a necessary evil. Coming home I will do secondary routes. There’s so much out here to see and I don’t want to become cynical, too “been there, done that”, too old in the mind. That’s one thing that is vastly different between my road trips in my teens and now, and I touched on that in my last post. I had Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever album (HA!! I just showed my age!!) playing as I left Louisiana and blasted into Beaufort, TX. I reminisced that I had first bought the cassette tape for a road trip when I was 18 and taking a road trip on I 90 west with my college buddy Warren, when I was the only one in my dorm with a car (my great-aunt’s 71 Maverick, 3 on the tree, no heat, no ac, no power brakes or steering, and a gas gauge that worked intermittently). We would get a hair up our butt to just “go west” into cow country out of Albany, NY to see what there was to see. I still remember that sense of adventure, the excitement and we and maybe a few other clueless 18 year old piled into my car and headed west. No particular destination, just wanted to see what was around the next bend.
I miss that feeling. Sure, I’m excited as a little painter can be, going to the expo across the country, quitting a 40K steady job to do it, how much more ballsy can you be? But I want to be that adventurous kid again. I want to wonder what’s around the next bend, be wide eyed at the mystery and beauty of it all. I don’t want to be a staid middle ager reluctant to leave the security of my GPS and next clean pair of socks. Going on a road trip used to mean you definitely weren’t going out there to be sure there was a Walmart within 10 miles. I know my fellow RV’ers out there know what I mean, and most of us artists too, because that’s what we do- create from a place that inspires us, and try to pass that along.
But for the moment, time is of the essence, and here I am on on I 10 weaving my artmobile through Houston’s rush hour traffic. I am always a little awed by the sweeping concrete overpasses that crisscross each other around cities, I suppose in the same way that Edward Hopper was when he painted his cityscapes. There is a kind of industrial beauty that Art Deco was fascinated with. I may try my hand at painting one of them if I ever get bored of rocks. I guess if you think about it, the overpasses are a kind of rock...maybe.
Comments