A path of a thousand miles....

It all started early. Much earlier than I am used to. I’m floating above this amazingly comfortable cloud of a bed, sleeping deeply, when Bang Bang Bang, a pounding on the door followed by, “Get up, it’s time to go to Portland.” I rolled over, like I usually do when I’m woken up, about to disregard the event and go back to sleep, when it dawned on me, I’m not floating on my cloud, I’m at Force Berg’s house. All my stuff is in a baby blue RV outside. People are waiting for me 2000 miles away.

I jumped out of bed, rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, and waited another minute for my morning wood to go down before I made my way down the hall to the bathroom. I wanted to give Force Berg’s parents a gift for their hospitality, but not that. After a hasty shower and a shave (my last for weeks), we were in the kitchen making last minute arrangements and drinking coffee. We didn’t have much to talk about. I was busy checking and rechecking my mental list of things in my suitcase (flipflops, sleeveless tshirts, sunscreen, check). Force Berg seemed occupied clicking his laptop between stock market updates and a map of the US with a purple trail that made its way leisurely westward.

Both of Force Berg’s parents helped us get our trip off the ground in their own ways. Cindy was definitely the mom. She made lists of everything that was in the RV, from the bedding all the way down to the condiments in the cupboards. She brewed our coffee in the morning and gave us travel mugs so we could bring it with. She even demonstrated the proper way to empty the sludge tank that would surely begin to weigh us down later in the trip. “First you put these gloves on, Second don’t get it on you.” Force Berg’s dad was less practical with his help. When he was younger he had worked in the oil fields of Wyoming, exactly where we would be driving through, and we stayed up late the night before drinking beers and listening to him tell us the best bars in the small, rural Wyoming towns. He didn’t write us any lists, but he certainly got us pumped to go.

So we’re sitting in the kitchen when it dawned on me… the only thing left to do is go. So we did. We grabbed our travel coffee mugs, put on our shades, gave Cindy hugs, plugged in the iPod, and pulled out of driveway. This was it. The RV was moving. We were still in Edina, but I could already feel the electric pull of something. Something far away. Something faint, but would not let us go until we got there. We were on the road, nothing would stop us now. Force Berg pulled on to the highway not a mile from his house, and with a crash and a bang the small fridge in the kitchen flew open flinging the four bottles of champagne across the RV. Great, 10 minutes from home and we already broke the latch on the fridge. Ok, so almost nothing could stop us now.

I sat with my back leaned against the fridge door while Force Berg brought us back to his house. We pulled up and his dad was already in the driveway with a spool of wire, duct tape, super glue, and magnets. In no time he had rigged up a serviceable wire contraption that would hold us for the entire trip. I’ve seen a lot of MacGyver episodes, and this would have made the show for sure.

Leave for Portland, Take Two.

Force Berg pulled on to the highway not a mile from his house. This time the fridge door held, the champagne stayed put, and I could sit in the copilot’s chair instead of on the floor. We navigated around the crowded Minneapolis highways until we hit 169 south. This was the ideal highway to take because of its southwestern direction, the fact that it spit us out right on I90, and we could drive through Saint Peter to make a few well-timed phone calls. We had both driven the stretch between home and St Peter a million times. But for some reason, this time it seemed to take hours instead of the 55 minutes the trip usually took. It was probably because I had waited so long for this moment to arrive. Instead of having the end of this stretch as the destination, I knew we wouldn’t be stopping. Not for days. The other consideration is that we never really pushed the RV too hard. Gas prices would soon skyrocket, and we tried to be as conscious as possible of gas mileage. So a steady diet of 55-60 on the highway, a bit faster on the interstate, was usually the way we drove the RV.

With a slight but steady rain falling, we finally entered the unconstitutional speed trap also known as St Peter. The only stretch of 169 that was less than 55 mph was in town, and the civic leaders of this backwards thinking, exploitative, hick town had the audacity to drop the limit down to 30. Anyone finds themselves in the area will soon realize that St Peter is not nearly cool enough to warrant slowing down that much. I would rather fly over personally.

The only redeeming quality of this town is that two of Force Berg and my best friends live there. Having graduated from Gustavus, the two decided to move in together and begin their lives there. Krista Redden works selling huge slabs of genuine Kasota Limestone for the Eddie Stone Company, while Sarah Hamline decided to take a class and set up her own grant writing business. These two were dear friends of ours all the way through college, they would do anything for us; we would do anything for them. In fact, they were going to come with us on the trip. I could picture it in my mind: the skinny dipping, the home-cooked meals, the bottles and bottles of whiskey. Unfortunately they had to bail, and Force Berg and I were left to our own devices.

It was difficult to accept that these two girls chose to do something else instead of come on what would surely be the trip of a lifetime. I wanted to make them come, demand that what I was doing was much more important than anything else, tell them I wouldn’t be their friend any more if they ditched us. But I didn’t. They mean more to me. If they had to cancel the trip to make sure they maintained their friendship with someone else, that’s a shitty spot to be in. They will have my friendship no matter what. Forever.

That didn’t preclude them from early morning phone calls as we were passing through St Peter though. Force Berg and I called them both and made sure to tell them how much fun we were going to have, how much booze we had, the names of all the mountains we were going to see, and most of all, how great it was going to be to arrive in Portland. That made me feel better.

We were really making wake now. 169 went down quickly since the rest of the small towns in southwestern Minnesota had the sense and courtesy to allow us to keep our speed above a crawl. The rain clouds seemed to hover over us as we drove, nothing too hard, but enough to keep the wipers on. Without taking an exit, we were on I90 and hauling RV ass towards Portland. As we neared the South Dakota border the rain picked up and started falling in sheets across the highway. Force Berg held the wheel steady, and almost exactly when we crossed the border, leaving beloved Minnesota behind, the clouds broke and there was nothing. Ahead in the distance, nothing. Not in the sky. Not on the ground. We wanted to stay off the interstate as much as possible, but cutting across South Dakota makes it a necessity. Nothing ahead for miles, home and heart behind getting smaller and smaller in the distance. I felt tears well up in my eyes as Force Berg pulled off into a rest stop. It was my turn to drive.