I tell myself one of the reasons this trip is so exciting is because
I never know which of my 300 million "neighbors" I might meet.
America is full of different types of people. It's dauntingly big geographically, too.
In uncharted territory I could find myself feeling lonely or displaced.
But the longer I'm on the road, the more I feel at home — in big
cities, small towns, unincorporated lands or on Indian reservations.
In
St. Paul, Neb., a guy sitting next to me on the tractor ride to the
drag racing strip randomly asked where I was from. Turns out he'd been
raised in Moses Lake, Wash., not far fromWenatchee where I used to live and work.
In Idaho, I took a small detour to Lapwai on the Nez Pierce Indian Reservation, where I met and interviewed a guy who was sick with cirrhosis of the liver.
Three months later in northwest Oklahoma on a different
off-the-beaten-path reservation, I engaged in small talk with a woman
who tells me he was her step son. She also said he died July 14.
I am glad to have met him and glad to know his suffering is over. If I
hadn't asked the woman her last name I'd never have known.
When I
was in Gillette, Wyo. on the coal mine tour, I was drawn to a cool
young family that had recently moved to the area. I took their picture
and gave them my card. They visited my blog and told me they know the
pastor of the church I visited in tiny, out-of-the-wayOrofino, Idaho.
And while I was in Omaha, Neb., I got an email from a woman who'd stumbled across my website while googling Kenya. She says she was amazed to discover I had interviewed her Kenyan-bound daughter a couple months earlier while I was in Missoula, Montana.
These
small-world connections, along with feedback on my postings and help
from strangers when I experience mechanical difficulties, are what keep
me going. They're like a trail of marshmallows someone left in my
personal woods to tell me I'll be OK and am doing the right thing.
They make me wonder, too, about the surreal stories and connections that exist in all our worlds, yet remain undiscovered.