The blog Home Sweet Road (USA) has just “won” a new reader in Portugal. It goes straight to the favorites list! This weblog is updated by a young couple from the East Coast…Scott and Eileen. They are preparing to go on the road for a year. Keep on moving… the idea, for now. 🙂
From Scott:
«(…)We took the 7 p.m. train out of Union Station. Once our tickets had been punched and we’d settled in for the journey, Joe leaned over and shot me a puzzled glance. “So what are you going to do on the road for a year?” To me, the answer was obvious: anything and everything. But I noted a glint of skepticism in Joe’s eyes, and it rattled me. So I attempted to defend our decision to leave behind our friends, families, and careers, but it was not a particularly convincing defense–not to Joe, or even to me, and I’m the one taking the damn trip.
As the train rumbled past the ghostly silhouette of Baltimore, Joe kept after me. “I took a trip like yours, for six weeks, and by the end I’d had enough,” he said. He paused and I could see he was reliving the experience. “I wish I had been born a few centuries ago. Back then you could really discover something new. You could walk on land that no on had walked on or write a book about a place no one knew existed. But today, well, we’ve got the Internet, GPS, satellite maps. You can learn everything about the world without leaving your computer. There’s nothing left to discover.”
“You don’t need to plant a flag in polar ice cap to discover something new,” I countered. Then, seeking some validation I added, “Right?”
But Joe wasn’t buying. He merely responded with a skeptical grin that said, “I don’t really get you, but I do enjoy trying.”
I sunk back in my seat, still defiant, but experiencing doubts for the first time. Joe’s words had cast our adventure in an entirely different light. Perhaps this trip was a silly indulgence, an exercise in “art” that was little more than an excuse to slip the stultifying rhythms of daily life. Maybe it has all been done before.
No, a little voice in my head protested. No! I reject that way of thinking. We may not discover rivers or flora or mountains, but we will discover plenty. Because while countless others have combed America with the same basic intent, we have’t. You’ve never seen America through our eyes, nor we through yours, and there’s beauty–and discovery–in that.
Yes, we will discover something new. We will linger where others stop only for fuel. We will peer into the shattered windows of abandoned stores, kick up dust in forgotten doorways, and venture into dark and forbidding alleys. It’s not the Northwest Passage, granted; it is our passage.» in The Curse of 1492 (Home Sweet Road)
From Eileen:
«My favorite thing to do when I travel to a new city by myself is to wander around on foot, get really tired out, and then find a coffee shop where I can pass several hours. I’ll sit there sipping an unfamiliar latte, and imagine what my life would be like if I lived in that town. It’s always the simple things that I fixate on. Would I be a regular here? Would I walk by that corner so often that I stop noticing that sign? I’m a voyeur into my own imagined life. (…)» in Mind Wandering (Home Sweet Road)