"You're right from your side and I'm right from mine"

One year ago I woke up in the driver’s seat of the Jetta Wagen and drove west.  I visited the hometown of my favorite musical poet and the world’s first mega-electric rock star who did controversial world touring in stadiums: Bob Dylan.  I drove to Hibbing, Minnesota where I stopped at a gas station and asked if anyone knew where he lived.  Nobody did, but then some guy in the parking lot remarked on my canoe and we got to talking.  He told me that Dylan lived only a few blocks away, in a blue house on what was now named “Bob Dylan Drive.”  He also told me that Bob had asked his older sister to the prom, but she had turned him down.  “She should have said yes!” he added.  Then another guy remarked on my canoe and asked if I had just been up in the boundary waters.  I said yes, and he asked how I had made out in the thunderstorm the night before.  I said I had made it to a state park just in time.  He said, “That’s the worst thunderstorm we have EVER had around here.  I couldn’t believe it!”

I drove over to Bob’s home and saw his high school, and then got back out on the road.  A few different cops decided to tail me for some reason while I blasted Bootleg Volume 4, the electric disc, probably “One Too Many Mornings,” and then got out of there. 

I later passed through Grand Rapids, the home of Judy Garland, who is Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz

 

Eventually the sun came out and I found a lake where I could park and rearrange my car.  It’s not hard to find a lake in Minnesota, as it is the land of 10,000 lakes.  The Los Angeles Lakers used to be from there, thus the confusing name.

It took four hours to re-arrange my car, something I hadn’t done for about three weeks since I got on the road.  Then again, just about everything I had or needed to use somehow got soaked the night before, so most of that time was spent waiting for everything to dry out.  It wasn’t until dusk, just after 9 pm, that I was able to get back on the road.  I kicked it off with “Road Trippin” by Red Hot Chili Peppers:

“let’s go get lost, let’s go get lost, anywhere in the USA”

Sometime after 10 pm, well into my chronological Bob Dylan playlist (100+ songs), I saw yet another enormous thunderstorm headed my way.  This time hail was landing on my windshield, but luckily that part didn’t last long.  The lightning kept up a steady pace for about an hour, but by the time I crossed the border to North Dakota, was beyond the Mississippi and truly “out West”, the storms had stopped.  All I had to do after that was drive in a straight line at 80 miles per hour on one highway cutting through the entire state, an endeavor that lasted until sunrise.  Luckily I had Bob with me to share the lonely highway:

"Most of the time,
I'm clear focused all around
Most of the time
I can keep both feet on the ground
I can follow the path
I can read the signs
Stay right with it when the road unwinds
I can handle whatever
I stumble upon...

most of the time"

There’s nothing quite like officially starting the summer solstice flying on the highway under the stars, crisp and clear, reminding you that the Milky Way is always here, and that there is nothing to fear.

Soon after sunrise I entered my first national park: Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  My adventures into the wild had just begun.  Yours can too.  If your spirit is strong, you will have loads of fun.