The End of The Road and Johnson City

To view the song while reading about it in the Location of the Day, right-click the title above and select 'open in new tab'

I finished reading On The Road (The Original Scroll) around 11:15 on Monday night. It took me the same time to read it as it took Jack to write it: three weeks. I had spent all day on the move, from the Ashley River in its burning blue water, to the Old Navy Base sitting alongside the creek (though only for a moment), and read last of Kerouac's travels during all of this. As planned, I finished the book on a bus. The restlessness of youth. Kerouac lays "IT" out on the road and in his novel here:

We were all delighted, we all realized we were leaving the confusion and nonsense behind and performing our one and noble function of the time, move.

Snapshots of my time on the road Monday. . .

1) The autumn moon brought the salt at my feet, the salt-pluff and salt-reeds, their mixing smells forever conjoined in my mind with the beach. The sun made it all right. A narrow string of trees across the creek showed their festive colors and gave way to a wise, old marsh tree further in the distance.

2) Biking down old meeting street, the MAGIC of the desolate sodium-vapor-lit dark, with moon keeping vigil amongst the cottonball clouds. All of the orange burning light, it disappeared, dispersed all at once. Across the dark field, all the light that was left was the imperial light of the Ravenel towers, miles out in the sea, two pillars of gentle white. It spoke to me, not that I could understand at all, but it gave utterance and it grasped and held my attention

3) THIS is North Charleston in the late night, with all of its decay, and all of its calm. The absence of humans returns the land to its natural feel. Desolate unlit parking lots. I've never witnessed such. As I walk in the holy Charleston night, I feel exceptionally safe, no, not safe, mildly excited and tranquil at the same time, as a child gets in the quick sharp cool of a windy night. Winter is coming.

You can't get ANY of this in a car

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Musically-Inspired Geographic Location of the Day
Today, this first day of December, we move to east Tennessee, to Johnson City. The end of the road in Kerouac's novel, the paradise, is Mexico City. The end of the road for me, I think, will be eastern Tennessee, where I find my paradise. I may travel afterwards, but I think I'll find perfect fulfillment from my travels in eastern Tennesse, beneath the banana trees. I looked at some of the things along the NC/TN border, and I saw this one landmark, Round Bald. Its my dream: mountain hills devoid of trees but lush with brush and grass, like the hills of Jerusalem. Maybe I'm very limited by my experiences, I have not witnessed the yellow expanse of the deserts of Arizona, the jungles of southern Louisiana, even the endless plains of Iowa or the savannah of Africa. Here be a tale of a man, told by Old Crow Medicine Show, in Wagon Wheel (adapted from the chorus of Bob Dylan's Rock Me Mama):

Headed due south out of Roanoke
I caught a trucker out of 'Philly, had a nice long toke
And he's a' headed west from the Cumberland Gap
To Johnson City, Tennessee
And I got to get a move on before the sun
I hear my baby callin' my name
And I know that she's the only one
And if I die in Raleigh at least I will die free

When it clicked, long overdue (I do listen to the lyrics but I tend not to piece each line together because I do not read the lyrics. My friend is right: doing so is neccessary), that it is a song about being a hitch-hiker heading for something, my soul leapt. The joy. I smiled so warmly as I type this.
I included the link to the song, but I have the World Cafe EP of this, as I said in a previous blog. It has much more echo and the banjo rings so true. The fiddle is sorrowful and sweet, oh the solemnity of the mountainside when its quiet and there's nothing to do but sit and ponder on that quiet. All of this actually reminds me of my time in Boone, North Carolina, and traveling down to Lake Eden Arts Festival in the middle of spring. The memories are precious aren't they? It's the only thing we can take with us.