April 28, 2026
Leaving East
There is a moment, just before leaving, when everything still feels hypothetical.
The camper is packed. The truck is loaded. The hayball is tied down — firmly, but not rigidly. It has a little give to it. It will move with the road.
We stand there looking at it for a while.
It is, objectively, a strange thing to put on top of a vehicle and drive across the country.
Which feels like part of the point.
We are leaving from Maine, heading west by way of smaller roads — the kind that move at 55 miles an hour and pass through towns instead of around them. In a few days, we will reach Missouri and join Route 66, the Mother Road, as it turns one hundred…more here