Oh, Canada! Oh, Calgary!

We made it through to Calgary today—a quick blip at the Port of Entry (where we were inspected, made to open the trunk, told our life story, then let go into the Canadian abyss). After that it was 11.5 hours of traveling, two bathroom stops, and a quick bite at Quizno's in Moose Jaw, where I spent several of the Canadian notes that Dad gave me. He handed me a few bills this morning saying, "I know they're old, but they're still good." The sandwich workers got giddy when I paid with them. I told them the money was of no use to me, then reconsidered taking the bills to the Canadian bank to see if they're of extra value; collector's items! We instead charged forward, Adam with a steady grip on the steering wheel. Needless to say we blasted through about 9 CD's including Lady Gaga and Hanson. You can about imagine.

After arriving at 7:00, we located our (ghetto) hotel. Of course, we knew this when we made the reservation but it was a cheap room and we don't need much. The red flag was in the description: "Located near a river…," yet the river was never identified, and we still haven't found it. It's probably three miles from here. Tonight we're actually sleeping in our street clothes so our pajamas don't garner the cooties from the sheets. And Adam has been on drug patrol all night, busting the floor pot smokers. Vacation, indeed!

Tomorrow we're going to mosey to the grocery store and pick up necessities: Bread, peanut butter, jelly. We're cutting back from $6 sub sandwiches. Afterward there will be coffee (both of us run on it) and a visit to the Calgary Olympic Park, home of the 1988 Olympic events (we stumbled upon it during a hunt for McDonald's and a Mint Aero McFlurry. Score!) Then…then…on to Banff!

Now that the longest leg of the trip is complete, we feel more at ease. I caught a cat nap for half an hour, ever hour on the hour. Adam has been a trooper, doing all the driving (with a little help from his GPS, Barb, whom we are indebted to). This party is just getting started!

Tune in tomorrow for another Canadian extravaganza!

Cross country road trip! New life! Leaving everything a thousand miles away! Beginning again! Experiencing! Loving! Being uncomfortable! Going broke! Following my heart! Living! Let's do this!

I'm really doing it, starting today with a 13 hour drive to Calgary, Alberta, Canada (Destination C)! I'll be writing about my adventures on here—keep up if you can!

xo
jenny

I haven't written as much as I should
I should write as much as I'd like
As life is about to change—dramatically.

Here I go to follow a dream, here I go to try...

So happy, I am so happy.

I made the list! Finally! Googling yourself really does pay off.

Dear Missed Connection,

You came in again tonight. With a kid.

I now proclaim you "No Connection."

Love,

Deli Wench

And That's the End of the Ballgame

You were a cigar, a dugout star, the big win until the boom.

Give it a ride, kid. See one you like and
give it a ride. We rode in the bed

of the Hemi on a summer day until boom. The blast that

struck you out forever. Then there was nothing,

no more Yankee games, big trucks and lineups. No more Dairy Queen, the softball dream you saved me for. No more

pleading from third's corner, screaming Swing, swing, kid! Swing! Or the jean shorts with your belly flopped over the waist, gap teeth. No more cap

to cover the bald spot that stole your hair. Just Boom! Just like
three on, two down, one to go…wheel kid, wheel!

One boom!

and you're out. Like a ride over the field, past the fence, into
the street. Like a trip around the bases, dispute with the referee like

boom. In the park
at the picnic table, face boom! down.

GOOD. I always wanted to know.

(Hits 'CONTINUE')

THIS IS ME, at Times Square in NYC, year 2006. I have an inkling that while this photograph doesn't mean a thing to me right now—hardly a thing—it will in 2o years.

I feel so departed from this moment. I feel so disconnected from this person. Everything is so far away.

How It Happens in my Head

THE DAY BEFORE I LEFT FOR CALIFORNIA, it was eighty-two degrees, sunshine and serenity. My mom and I went for coffee as we usually did, sat down and talked about travel arrangements and fiscal responsibilities, P's and Q's. She slipped me a twenty across the table as we broke off chunks of our cranberry orange scone. "Just a little spending cash."

When we walked out, I thought it might be the last time. Perhaps when I returned, I wouldn't want to come to this place anymore, or anywhere here. That was what Mom was afraid of, I could see, and she watched anxiously as I gathered my curls into a bunch. "Imagine what your hair will do in their weather," she said. I recalled how humid it was in Florida, October 1999, the year my hair transitioned to curls; the year of the glasses; the year of the braces. So far from those days, I thought, I felt I'd grown up. I'd imagined California was always eight-two degrees plus sunshine, and that Californians were hard to appreciate a North Dakota afternoon like the one my Mom and I walked through.

That night when it cooled to the sixties, I'd found my friends. We clouded the bar for hours, crying over the roar of music and clamor, and conceptualized the next few months. Maybe I'd come back with a husband or a new hairdo, maybe I wouldn't come back, we decided. As the house claimed the last call, we gathered ourselves in small ways and together, laughed out the door for the last time, drove around our favorite circuits, rolled down the windows and bullshitted, straight talk. The city pressed on past the window's realms, I wanted to go home, I didn't want to go home. It was the same conversations we'd always had, about the empty lots where buildings once stood, now robbed of aesthetic.

"So what's going to happen now?" I asked, and I got the long answer, just the one I was looking for.

I could hear a train trundling through night. We crested into the country, just past the water towers, right near the grain elevators, where there was light but no sound. I was cold in my dress, my goosebump skin scraped by a chilly air, but I laughed anyhow, I smiled anyhow. Everyone took a moment to admire the sky before we packed up, took the corner on the wheel's tips, parked in the alleyway, called it a night. Then I said I wouldn't be back.

Then returning home to a dark house, tipping down the back stairs, I came to my luggage. It occurred to me: The next day just after dawn, I was going to be on the westward road. The summer I'd always wanted. A chance to break from familiarity and then, to rebuild. And I'd never been so uncertain.