Just months before Leonard Cohen died he wrote a letter to his muse Marianne Ihlen who was dying of cancer. He ended the letter “Goodbye old friend, endless love, see you down the road.” Two days later she was gone.
Reading this letter days after the election I can only feel this for my country. I spent a week driving down Route 66 with less of the nostalgia I felt the first time I drove the Mother Road. The first time I drove it I thought about this great America where people went on vacations where the trip was as much of the adventure as the destination. This was the America that existed in the decades after World War II where the men had come home to a heroes welcome and women left the factories and had kids and America made things!
This is the nostalgia for America that Trump supporters have when they want to make America great again. But they don’t think of the cost of that greatness. They don’t think about the destruction of Europe that led to the booming American economy, they don’t think about our current medicare crisis that has been caused by the baby boom, they don’t think about black and brown people being second class citizens… well maybe they do think about that last one.
Whatever the case I feel like we are saying goodbye to America, our endless love and handing her off to Trump and collection of white nationalists and just hoping we are going to see our country again down the road…
All of this is to say that the Road Trip Blog is now open while I am out of town for two more weeks. Click through to read hopefully regular updates from my trip. I am in LA for another week and then to DC and Miami. Will keep you as up to date as possible.
Click here to read the Driven By Boredom Road Trip Blog.
