Day: Two
Location: Midpines, California
Mileage: 637.8

I am sitting in the lodge at the Yosemite Bug Hostel having my third Red Tail Ale with my new friend from New Zealand. He sat by me to get access to the outlet for his MacBook, and we’ve been talking and writing for about three hours now. He’s on an amazing journey: from New Zealand to southern California to Central America to London and home. I envy him the time and courage to do all this. He says he will go home broke, work for a little while, and do it all again. I offer to let him crash at my place on his way back to LA, and I think he might do it. I tell him about Cool University and my job, and he’s very interested. We comment on the uniqueness of doing trips like this alone and wonder how tour groups do it. He’s very depressed about New Zealand losing to France in the Rugby World Cup, but he manages to subdue his grief in a Miller light. There’s a boar’s head on the wall above the fireplace, and I think I’m the only American here. It’s a funky place with cabins and cool people, and they are playing the blues on the juke box. It reminds me of Dr. Feelgood Potts in Memphis, but we are far from Memphis. We are asked to bus our tables and not flush the toilets unless we have to, and I like the feel of this unique blend of Europeans in this most American of landscapes. El Capitan is only a few miles away, and I am overjoyed to see landscapes that are new to me.

Scott is right about traveling alone. Frankly, I get lonely at times, even on trips, but I can’t imagine doing this with someone else. Or I guess I can, but it would just be a different thing. There’s something to being on the road and being alone that is irreducible to anything else. The solitude becomes your friend and not just in a romantic way; it becomes something you desire and enjoy. Like the road itself, the solitude is uniquely yours because it is not shared. I have the road, my music, and the quiet. Today I listened to Jackson Browne on the way up PCH to Monterey. It was perfect, and conversation with anyone else would have made it less rather than more. I especially was struck by “Your Bright Baby Blues,” a song I have heard dozens of times in my life, but it took on new meaning in Jackson’s home ground and on a beautiful day alone on the coast.

I’m sitting down by the highway
Down by that highway side
Everybody’s going somewhere
Riding just as fast as they can ride
I guess they’ve got a lot to do
Before they can rest assured
Their lives are justified
Pray to God for me baby
He can let me slide

‘Cause I’ve been up and down this highway
Far as my eyes can see
No matter how fast I run
I can never seem to get away from me
No matter where I am
I can’t help feeling I’m just a day away
From where I want to be
Now I’m running home baby
Like a river to the sea

So I like being alone. I never thought I would say that, but it’s true. I like my life. I like it being solely and uniquely mine, and I like being free. I think being free even highlights the possibilities of the sacred because it highlights your solitude. Alone, we are even more aware of the possibility of the other. As Uncle Walt put it.

HOW is it that in all the serenity and lonesomeness of solitude, away off here amid the hush of the forest, alone, or as I have found in prairie wilds, or mountain stillness, one is never entirely without the instinct of looking around, (I never am, and others tell me the same of themselves, confidentially,) for somebody to appear, or start up out of the earth, or from behind some tree or rock? Is it a lingering, inherited remains of man’s primitive wariness, from the wild animals? or from his savage ancestry far back? It is not at all nervousness or fear. Seems as if something unknown were possibly lurking in those bushes, or solitary places. Nay, it is quite certain there is—some vital unseen presence.

It’s been a great day on the road, and now I’m going back to my cabin (which doesn’t have a TV) and read a little Nietzsche before dropping off to sleep. The music has changed to electronica, which is a sign it’s time to go, and Scott has headed off to do his laundry. He says he may see me in Redlands, and since we’re now friends on Facebook, he may be right. Another good day on the road. Three couples remain in the bar, and I will leave them to it. I am the solitary traveler, and I am glad. Goodnight.