Just Another Day at the Office

Reveille

You know that scene from every boot camp movie? You know, the one where the recruits are blasted awake in what still seems to be the night?

Yeah.

Mainely New Hampshire Indeed

It's almost midnight, and we're driving back to Boston for the evening having taken care of three states -- New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont. There will be more come on each state, but right now I'm just trying out the "blogging from the car" thing. I also wanted to raise two housekeeping points:

1) For up-to-the-minute updates on our situation, be sure to check out Dan's Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/dan_leslie

2) We are officially picking up our first straggler. Previously-referenced Nishant S, lifelong friend to some of us on the trip, is going to join us for 3 days of our trip starting tuesday. What's more, there's an outside chance that our friend Walter will crash the party bus/minivan from Holland, of all places. If that comes to pass, this is going to be one seriously cozy vehicle. 

Going Local

After months of planning, our trip is set to begin in a few short hours. Before I even wake up, Dave will be boarding a plane to Boston and the New Yorkers will be hitting up a bargain bus. Right now, however, I'm thinking about the many ways our big walk has changed over the past few days. Not in the practicalities or the details--they have been static for some time. The difference is that now we've got a whole new audience.

Throughout the planning stage of our trip, the only people who knew what we were contemplating were those closest to us--our girlfriends, families, etc. Things have turned up a notch this week as a result of our new-found goal of raising money for the Accelerated Cure Project. With the tireless help of my sister Maia we were able to secure a number of small-scale interviews in the media, mostly with small newspapers (and one huge radio station) from across the country. As these articles have started trickling into the public, and as we've ratcheted up our own campaign of alerting friends, more and more people have taken the time to write to me (or my sister) and lend their support to the big trip.

Among this flurry of communication I've noticed an interesting pattern: almost everybody talks about the state where they are from. Specifically, an amazing percentage want to know where we intend to walk in said state. Just in the last 24 hours I have been asked about Michigan, Kentucky, Delaware, North Carolina, California, Maryland, Florida, Texas. [FN 1] Often the person doesn't simply ask about a state by name, either. They use the nicknames. I had to laugh yesterday when, within two minutes, I got separate inquiries about our plans in the First State and the Bluegrass State.

I also noticed an unsurprising if related trend trend in the questions I've been asked by the various local newspapers. Sure, they all want to hear about our plans and my condition, but each has featured really targeted questions about what we are going to do in their state. Perhaps nothing exemplifies this more than the Nebraska interview which was conducted not with me but with cornhusker-for-life Philip. As I said, though, it is unsurprising that the newspapers would seek to push a local angle--heck, one of the papers' website is called "wickedlocal.com," after all. But combining this angle with the nearly universal state-specific requests by our acquaintences has really emphasized in me just how "local" this country is, and just how rewarding it will be to try to get a sense for it across 48 states.

It is fortunate, then, that our plan involves few, if any, widely recognizeable landmarks or attractions. Honestly, the Herbert Hoover Memorial is probably the most well known, and that's saying quite a lot. Instead, our focus has been on local nature preserves, quiant city streets, and a significant number of town parks. I sought out town parks in particular because I wanted to go somewhere that is vitally important to the people who live in a town but completely ignored by everybody else. This week's experiences--specifically the local flavor of our interviews and e-mails from long-lost friends--have only made me more intrigued and excited to be a tourist who seeks out a truly "local" experience.

Anyway, it's late and I still have much to do in the morning before those wheels do in fact start rolling. The next time I write something, it will likely be from the back seat of a minivan. Until then.

[FN 1] If you're wondering (and who would blame you if you weren't), I've listed the state requests in order of how long I've known the person asking. In some cases that has been a very long time indeed. Twenty-six, twenty-seven years. Even somebody who was among my best friends in early elementary school but whom I haven't seen since. A testament to both the universal appeal of our trip and the power of modern social networks.

The Basic Route

A number of people have asked us about our route. As you might imagine, it's fairly complicated. For the moment, however, I'm posting this extremely primitive illustration. [FN 1] We'll have a lot more detail later, hopefully with better maps. Also, I will be posting a final "pre-trip" entry some time tonight. A lot of interesting things have happened over the last few days. 

[FN 1] For example, you can largely ignore all those little lettered tags on the map. While we are in fact stopping all those places, I could only fit in half of our walk sites--I guess google maps isn't used to people taking 9000 mile jagged trips. But at least the route is accurate.

Accelerate the Cure - How to Help

A number of people have asked if they can donate money "for the cause" in connection with the big trip. And although I am not in this explicitly to raise awareness of MS or funds aimed at its cure, I recognize that this is as good an opportunity as I've ever had to do just that. As a result, I'm encouraging everybody who wants to give a little in support of the hundreds of thousands of people like me who suffer through this terrible illness to give to the Accelerated Cure Project. While other MS charities may be more well-known, none that I'm aware of are better dedicated to the goal of not just alleviating the symptoms of MS but actually curing the disease. Call me a dreamer, but that's what I'm talking about when I say let's all get together and do something about MS. My sister has been kind enough to organize this effort and has set up a page to explain the donation process for Accelerated Cure a little better. Please visit it at:

http://www.maiaw.com/donate.html

I'm not even sure if the Accelerated Cure Project knows we're doing this fund-raising (although they did send us some shiny white t-shirts for our trip), but I guess that's not really the point. So please, help if you can. Thanks.

Wanderlusting the Impossible

Today Philip and I went on our big pre-trip shopping spree. Antifreeze? Check. Flares? Check. Face masks for me to wear in case somebody gets sick? [FN 1] Check. Among our many stops was Autozone:

Philip - Do you guys have a serious roadside emergency kit?
Clerk - We've got one in aisle 3, back left.
Jordi - Yeah, we saw that one. Not serious enough. We're looking for something a little more industrial strength.
Clerk, looking at our collection of purchases - Wherrrr...where are you guys going, like New Hampshire?"
Philip - Yeah that and the other 47 states (sic). In nine days.
Clerk - No way. That's impo--
Jordi - Yup.
Clerk - --ssible. No way.
Jordi - Well we're gonna do it.
Clerk - Right, well I want you to send me a postcard from each state. Or like a picture showing what time it is there. No way.

This is a typical reaction to news of our drive. It's one of two we get, actually, the other being complete nonchalance. But for the most part the predominant reaction is incredulity. And I'm here to tell you right now that it is in fact...well, it's "possible." We've worked it out. We've got a route. We've got stops and everything accounted for but chance. Yet what makes our trip so great is that the task is just barely on the bleeding edge of "possible." The more Philip and I plan it out, the more stressed we are getting about how we are going to reach all of our destinations on time. The more we think, yeah, we can do that...probably. Cambridge, Massachusetts. Martinsburg, West Virginia. Atmore, Alabama. Memphis, Tennessee (via Oklahoma). Beloit, Wisconsin. Gresham, Nebraska. Bozeman, Montana. Boise, Idaho. Flagstaff, Arizona. Denver, home. Those are our nightly stops (optimistically assuming that we will be able to actually stop every night), with extraordinarily far-flung waypoints in between. When you just look at map, it seems impossible.

But the math says we can do it and, more importantly, experience says we can do it. Three experiences, actually, two mine and one somebody else's. The first happened back in 1999 when my friend Nishant and I decided to take a friendly weekend trip up to Cooperstown, NY to see the hall of fame. After touring the museum and wandering the town endlessly we found ourselves a bit bored. So we moved on. To Pittsburg for a Pirates game, Cleveland for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Erie for a Seawolves game (don't ask), Toronto for the CN Tower, and Montreal for the Casino du Montreal, all in one weekend. It was a great experience in countless ways, the one most applicable here being that you can in fact do a lot of interesting and memorable things in a very short span of time.

The second instructive event was my walk this summer to all five boroughs of New York City. This was on July 4, the 3rd anniversary of my initial hospitalization for "neurological dysfunction." Every year since on that day I have attempted some significant feat of walking...sort of my friendly way of saying f&!@ you to the disease. This year I found myself in New York for work and hatched the boroughs plan. When all was said and done, we (myself, Brian, Philip, and my sister Maia) had marched off the better part of 18 miles. I had demonstrated to myself not only that I could still walk a long way, but also that a self-imposed challenge could push me even further. And so my wanderlust was born, but what would my next goal be?

I unwittingly came across my answer a few weeks later when I read about three guys who had driven through all 48 states in five days. They never stopped for the night, obviously, but it showed that one could in fact touch all the states in a relatively short amount of time. [FN 2] So this third experience showed me that such a trip would be possible. I finally put all three together in September, when, as I described earlier, my health situation drove me to do something (and go places) dramatic.

I convinced the others based on the three stories above, combined with only the most basic back-of-the-napkin number-crunching. It is in fact possible to drive to all the states in 120-plus continuous hours. I can--we can walk a long way in a short period of time, especially when driven by a goal. And we can have fun and see a lot of memorable things in a very short period of time.

Now, having spent countless hours with Google Maps, Google Earth (for finding places to walk), and some good ol' atlases, we know how ridiculously close we are to trying the impossible without actually crossing that threshold. When I used to tell people about my trip plans and they'd say "yeah, right," I'd happily tell them that it's very doable. Today in Autozone I was probably a bit less convincing. But we're going to do our darndest to prove that doubt wrong for good.

[FN 1] Yep, face masks. I need 'em because the chemotherapy I'm on dramatically lowers my immune system's ability to fight infections to the point that one man's cold very well may be Jordi's hospitalization order. See "Jordi's Decimated February, 2008" or "How the Office Bug Nearly Killed Me."

[FN 2] In fact, the grand scheme of our route is loosely based on their route. Ours is necessarily longer, as we needed to accommodate our walking requirements, but we are indebted to their method of zig-zagging our way westward. Check out their website at http://www.greatamericanroadtrip.us.