Walkabout #2: Escaping PA's Transitcondom
Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 09:38:51 AM PDT
Friday I slept late, worked a good bit during the day, and then turned east around sundown. Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio all look the same in the rain at night, and I was ready to be free of vowel states. I finally escaped when I passed into the sliver of West Virgina that separates Ohio and Pennsylvania with the gray predrawn light coming. I felt good so I kept at it for a while, then finally scored a nice parking spot between two large pieces of logging equipment near some nameless interstate ramp.
Kossack farmerchuck rudely interrupted my back seat nap with a 6:30 AM Central time wakeup call, inquiring as to my location and disposition: Was I coming? If so, how far had I traveled? A bit of small talk ensued, cut short by my limited remaining minutes, and then it was back on the road.
Thusly disturbed I began moving again and it wasn’t long after this that I discovered what the state of Pennsylvania calls a turnpike, but for me it will forever be the transitcondom.
Having only been to Pennsylvania once in the distant past and then having flow in and right back out I knew pretty much nothing about the state, except that there are a good number of Clinton supporters and that something or someone, somewhere, could have been or might still be bitter. That part wasn’t clear.
Steel yourselves for a shock, you western Kossacks: you have to pay to drive on this stretch of interstate 70! Now I’ve seen all of I70 from the tip of its tail in southwest Utah clear to Pennsylvania over the last year and I’ve not paid a single toll, but here they want up to $19.75 for the pleasure of moving along at a good clip. I wasn’t even sure if this was the right road, but I was in the far southwest corner of the state and I knew I needed to get to the east side, so I took my chances.
Once you get on this turnpike you don’t get off without paying the toll. A little ticket lists your starting point and tells you the cost of each possible exit in tabular form. The turnpike is wide and relatively straight, which is a minor miracle given the overall lumpy nature of the state of Pennsylvania, and other than these attributes the road has absolutely no merit.
When I go to a place I want to BE there. The transitcondom at once inflames and simultaneously denies these urges, just as its namesake interferes in one of life’s marvelous pleasures. Green hills, rolling fields, and tumbledown old barns and houses begging for photographic attention? They’re thick here in Pennsylvania ...however it’s look and don’t touch when you’re encased in the transitcondom. If you’re craving low quality chocolate, or a tea flavored drink full of high fructose corn syrup, or a chance encounter with a far too fat American, this is the place for you. The whole experience was so dismal the only photo I took was of the Somerset Wind Farm. I’d checked the map at a fuel stop near the turbines and I was relieved; just thirty five more miles would take me to the exit for highway thirty and freedom.
Highway thirty, now this, this is a road! I pulled off and what do you suppose I saw first? This is the way to Gettysburg! Oh, and there are FORESTS in the area. I swear I could hear my camping paraphernalia quivering with anticipation in the back seat.
The roads twists and winds, showing 9% grade in a few locations. This was Saturday and I was surprised by the number of Harleys bearing riders wearing colors. Yes, real live gang colors, not the faux badges you find at the Harley store. It’s impolite to stare so I’m just guessing, but they could have been Pagans, a "club" from the upper northeast. The destination seemed to be a hilltop bar and grill with plenty of bike specific parking. There were a dozen outside when I passed it and more on the way.
This is the sort of thing I like to see when I’m roaming. This beautiful old home, now gone to seed, sits near the top of a ridge line overlooking a valley with an old town at its center and edges blighted by sprawling suburban sameness. I’d rather squat in this one than live in a formulaic ranch spitting distance on either side from the neighbors.
You pass through Chambersburg on the way to Gettysburg and sandwiched between them are the perfect solution to the transitcondom blues; Michaux State Forest. I stopped at the visitor’s center on 30, got a map of campsites, and picked the smallest once, well clear of anything labeled "ATV" or "horses". Ten miles of state forest highway, two miles of bumpy logging road, a short bit of dirt track, and I was parked. Out came the hiking boots, trekking pole, day pack, my Columbia bush hat, and off I went, trails at first, and finally bushwhacking a quarter mile into an area where I was fairly sure I’d see no humans. The hammock went up, I had a nice scribble, a nice nap, a little more scribbling, and then cooling breezes sent me packing.
More about scribbling: 90% of my personal diaries, as opposed to the analytical/policy oriented ones, are spur of the moment compositions taking roughly half an hour to an hour to produce. A smaller subset are written in a similar burst but left sitting due to my having already said something on the day they were created. These overnight efforts often get another good going through before publication. There is some slightly improved chance that the ones left overnight and well scrubbed before being sent into the world will get rescued. There doesn’t appear to be a correlation between effort and the recommend list – I’ve written things off the cuff that got 250+ comments and I’ve done things that I liked very much that got less than a dozen responses. I guess there is no accounting for taste. Scribbling, for me at least, means mechanical pencil and a spiral notebook. The personal diaries I write always begin with a "seed crystal" – a good title, an enjoyable turn of phrase around which the first paragraph coalesces, or a fresh life event that I feel like sharing. I’m hoping taking the time to record these "crystals" will improve my output a bit.
I’ve been doing a lot of mindfulness meditation recently along with working with someone who is very much into managing the creative process. These forces being in effect, I’ve noticed that I go through long bursts of creative thinking, and that this almost always happens when I am driving. Driving, for me, is a meditative experience for me; I get just a little windshield time and I’m right into "the zone". The scribbling is an effort to capture this stuff without the distraction of the internet being close at hand. I think the next increment of this is going to be making sure my voice recorder is charged for my next long run and seeing what I can capture.
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