Travellogue

We're going home for Thanksgiving. First time in three years. It's funny, when you live far from where you came from you feel like a guest in your own family. There are jokes my cousins tell each other in emails that I don't understand. There was a funeral last week that I could not attend. But we're going home.

Night driving tonight. It'll be a long reach across Nebraska. We each take half the state. I'm loading up my gear for the reach now – I can't make it across without Joni singing about Amelia, I need Nick Cave -- that devilman with his red right hand, Peter Murphy mourning Bela Lugosi, Johnette Napolitano to deal out her 100 games of solitaire. I need to chase cars with Snow Patrol, I need Steely Dan's wheels turnin' round and round. I need 16 Horsepower and Slim Cessna driving north to Cheyenne. It only makes sense that Death Cab for Cutie drives me home from the passenger seat. Elton telling me it's four o'clock in the morning, dammit.

And coffee. Lots of it.

(Oh happy day! O just came home with a baby thermos for me!)

Henderson, Nebraska is a hotel and a truck stop that only exits at night or whenever a bus pulls up. Otherwise it's all wind and dry grass.

The Mississippi divides the world in half.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.