I have now been on the road for four weeks. (I left home on Monday December 20). By the end of the week I will be in Boston celebrating the bat mitzvah of my late college friend Jonathan’s grand daughter Ava. The winter storm that just passed was the first big obstacle. The roads in Atlanta are dry (not only clear) this morning but it is cold and will be getting colder.
I had planned out most of route for the first half of the trip (until Boston) and intentionally left my plans vague from that point on. It will soon be time to make those decisions. I am pretty certain that I am not going to head directly back to Oregon via the northern route. It would be approximately 3,000 miles straight across on Interstate 80 or 90, and while it was something I did many times (in the winter) when I was younger it simply does not appeal to me. I remember walking to the thruway entrance in Buffalo, New York in December and putting out my finger with no fear of survival and even a hitchhiking back east from California one winter when I stopped off in Minneapolis (where my grandparents lived) and had to jump up and down to keep feeling in my toes. but I was young then and as I said it simply does not appeal to me today.
Next week (after the bat mitzvah weekend) after my fifth week I will need to make some decisions about my next steps. I have several old friends in New England that I would like to visit and even some on Cape Cod and in New York City. I will probably figure out a plan to spend an extra week up there before heading back down south. I will however look at the weather map and try my best to avoid getting stuck in a snowstorm. I intend to stop in Baltimore and visit friends and relatives in the Baltimore/DC/Virginia area.