Terry's Wrap-up

After the much anticipated traffic of NJ and NY, I dropped myself off at Flushing around 6:30 PM (EST). Charlie went on to his home in Suffolk County where he later on had a gig at the Blue Parrot; sorry for not making it! The moral of the story, the conclusion, the two second sound bite that sums up this trip? Not sure yet, I guess that will come after I have told the story and mulled it over countless times in my head and the distilled product will come out (or I will have it at the end of this dump of thoughts).

For now, I can define it with two words: Culture Shock. You come back from the host and birthplace of the Olympics (Greece), go to work for a week, make some major career changes, and then get into a car for a road trip that most people respond to with ‘why didn’t you fly?’ WHY NOT? I respond with the grin of ‘haha I saw shit you will never see in your lifetime, nor would you appreciate it because it was not at some fancy hotel while ordering Foi Gra!’ Okay, enough scorning the elitists; everyone can be an elitist from time to time. The trip was a bit rushed as we combined the standard annual pilgrimage of Lab Automation Engineers to Austin, Texas’ NI Week with a Road Trip spanning two time zones, the Confederacy, Home of Wrestling, Blueberry Cobbler, Jambalaya, key lime pie, Gumbo, Home of Jazz, Live Music Capital of the World, Home of the King, Home of Mr. I did not inhale President, Home of Mr. I only drink virgin Pina Coladas President, Home of the Confederacy’s President, Soulville USA, Natural Gas Fires which we thought were only 40 feet high, but reports later on said they were up to 1000 feet, real BBQ (not the Yankee stuff which is simply grilled meat), Texas Chilly, Driftwood, TX, Home of Texas Independence (a.k.a. Ozzy’s urinal; that dude is whacked!), the random gas station in Dallas where we had several gas station attendants in a self-service gas station who warned us about the stranded truck driver who was driving a mini-van with the hood open who wanted to give us his tools as collateral for a few dollars, the sex shops in a randomly colored Bourbon street, the Athens 2004 Olympics T-shirts, the non-marble Parthenon of Nashville, the wi-fi spots at TA for those truckers (and us!), miles of swamp land in Louisiana through Alabama, to get back to your neighbor’s BBQ where the “y’all come back now” is replaced with Greek Rebetiko (like the blues) and ouzo on the rocks. And then full circle where a neighbor at the above BBQ (not the host) of mine tells me of his 13,000 mile road trip to Alaska! Now that’s a road trip… in comparison, our road trip to Texas was commute… but there will be more!

Reality truly is where you are! It was each of those states we stopped at or raced through at the ‘speed limit’, it was the gravy-laden southern meals that kept me going for 12 hours on the road trip, it was sitting in traffic on the parking lot also known as the NJ Turnpike, and it is getting back to work (the only thing I used to refer to as reality)!

Yours truly,
Terry with 4000+miles of trekking