Thursday, November 11, 2010 - Frankfort KY
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Barberry, Red Rock, East Chatham NY, August 31, 2010
Enough already
I'm one of those travelers who much prefers backroads to the Interstate highway system s when I headed out for the winter I headed out across southern NY, down across PA, and into WV largely on secondary roads and got my faith in the local's driving skills reaffirmed.
Well now lemme tell ya; Pennsylvania and West Virginia have some pretty good and some mighty twisty roads through their endless mountain hollers. And what a hoot they are to drive and I've driven them before.
Posted speed limits are way more than adequate to get your blood flowing in a largely futile attempt to stay with the locals - especially driving this old RV! Those locals can DRIVE and drive fast and well. Little old ladies in subcompacts, good ol' boys in big pickups and heavy equipment haulers and dump trucks alike. Oh, and the school busses keep right up too.
Unlike folks on more civilized roads one can't let the mind wander and they don't. Their lane discipline is amazing in these unforgiving blind corners and thank-you-ma'ms. This kind of driving is WAY too much fun to ruin it splat against a hard place. These people have a skill set to be proud of.
Two days of this outrageous fun was about all I could take and once I emerged from the hollers this morning I hit the interstates and made such good time I might sleep west of the Mississippi tomorrow night. Not bad progress all things considered.
Night camp
Wal-Mart Supercenter in Frankfort KY
Walmart Supercenter Store #720, 301 Leonardwood Rd, Frankfort, KY 40601 - (502) 875-5533
- This Walmart Supercenter is at the intersection of US 127 and I-64 south of Frankfort KY.
- Good level parking
- Verizon cell phone service - very good signal
- Verizon EVDO service - very good signal
- Locate this Walmart on my Night Camps map
- Find other Wal-Marts in the area
- Check the weather here
When Hope Dies
When you give up on hope, something even better happens than it not killing you, which is that in some sense it does kill you. You die. And there's a wonderful thing about being dead, which is that they—those in power—cannot really touch you anymore. Not through promises, not through threats, not through violence itself. Once you're dead in this way, you can still sing, you can still dance, you can still make love, you can still fight like hell—you can still live because you are still alive, more alive in fact than ever before. You come to realize that when hope died, the you who died with the hope was not you, but was the you who depended on those who exploit you, the you who believed that those who exploit you will somehow stop on their own, the you who believed in the mythologies propagated by those who exploit you in order to facilitate that exploitation. The socially constructed you died. The civilized you died. The manufactured, fabricated, stamped, molded you died. The victim died.
And who is left when that you dies? You are left. Animal you. Naked you. Vulnerable (and invulnerable) you. Mortal you. Survivor you. The you who thinks not what the culture taught you to think but what you think. The you who feels not what the culture taught you to feel but what you feel. The you who is not who the culture taught you to be but who you are. The you who can say yes, the you who can say no.