According to Plan to Midnight Journey to Darfur Buddy to Hollywood in Missouri

Sycamore, Illinois
The lights of the sleepy towns we are passing drift calmly by the windows giving way to the black chasms of nothingness in between the next one. I’m sitting in the backseat of a Jeep Cherokee with my laptop and I’m on interstate 43 heading south from Milwaukee and I’m with Matt Cain my old chum from Darfur and his newly acquired bride the former Besty MacIntyre now Besty Cain.

I came to be here from where I was in pretty much the way I laid out my plans in the last epistle.

Kicking up the dust on the road from Camp I was again on the road and feeling down right good about it. In all truth I’ve come to love getting back on the road. Being with folks I know and love is great and I have enjoyed each stop on this adventure of mine but there has been awakened in me a need to move. Thankfully I’m not so possessed by it that think of nothing else. Those that are consumed by the itch to travel constantly can’t ever really enjoy where they are presently as they are thinking about the next stop before truly stopping at the one before. I think that I have been able to make the most of each of my stops and be content in them. During each one I’ve been able to slow down and rest a little and reconnect with people that I haven’t been able to see in a long time.

Such was Camp and such were the last few days.

It was a short drive to Little Falls, MN and it was right on my route down to Minneapolis and so stopping to see Keelan Diehl for lunch was an easy thing. His dear mother prepared a tasty home cooked meal and I had a pleasant visit. Keelan and I are planning our mutual friend Justin Lonas’ bachelor’s party for his October wedding. I’ve never had the honor of best man bestowed on me before and so I’m sort of having fun figuring out what to do. Justin is the first of my group of friends from growing up to get married and so up until this point there hasn’t been much of an occasion to be apart of such an event.

There were large storms tromping about and although I avoided their moist mischief I felt the cool air they brought with them. Before hitting all of those nasty storms in Washington I had pulled over to a Wal-Mart and bought two cheap sweatshirts and the added layers has really helped to keep me warm. I was glad to have them.

Minneapolis was just a hop, skip and a jump from Little Falls and so I actually arrived a lot earlier at my cousin CJ’s house than I had planned. As I pulled into his neighborhood I met him coming the opposite direction on an errand. I forgot to call and let him know I was early. Oops. We went back to his house and I was set up with my room and reintroduced with his darling of a dog, a Golden named Winnie. Sweetest dog. Exuberant. Coy. Soft. She really made me miss my own dog Skipper.

Anyway, CJ is JP’s son and thus my mother’s cousin. He and his wife Terri live with their daughter Kelly in a handsome suburb of Minneapolis and also have built a cabin up on the same lake as Camp Chippewa and just two doors down from my family’s cabin. As I grew up I would see them almost every year and they’ve watched me grow up from a pipsqueak of a kid to whatever gruff ruffian I’ve become now.

During my tenure in Darfur CJ and Terri followed my stories through my updates and they were eager to hear stories first hand. Also watching and listening was the exchange student that CJ and Terri have hosted for the last 10 months. Maryanne is a girl from Norway and was here in the States to finish highschool. This trip has really proved to me how good of an idea it was to put my pictures into a presentation and then to bring my laptop with me. I’ve been able to show it to many people along the way.

From Minneapolis it was about 7 hours down to Monroe, WI. I was driving down to see my Great Aunt Helen and at her recommendation I took the scenic route along the Mississippi River. It was mostly two-lane country roads that cut along the river bank sometimes darting inland to race over fragrant farmland and dairy farms before switching back to the serenity and curves of the river. The depth of summer has pretty much taken over this area and so everywhere there is richness to the green that makes you feel alive and fresh. Passing banks of wildflowers on a motorcycle is quite a sensual experience with more than just your eyes taking in the pleasure. The smells waft their way into your helmet.

The southern part of Wisconsin is full of huge farms that wrap around the low hills and all across the horizon are pictures of the agrarian skyline, countless grain silos. For this biker the two lane country roads that dipped and swerved with the terrain was a joy. I was trying to make good time and so I was opening the throttle pretty wide and really leaning into the turns. It was glorious. I love riding a motorcycle.

My Aunt Helen has worked for the Swiss Colony for many many years as the resident artist. She has been a family institution as many of us have prints of her artwork framed and hanging in our homes. I grew up seeing her at family get togethers at Camp and was always called by her “Jonathan Seagull”. The last time I saw her was three years ago at my Grandparent’s 50th wedding anniversary celebration.

I pulled into her driveway and as I have made custom revved the engine to allow the roar to announce my presence. Killing it I hopped off and unstrapped my helmet. At that moment Aunt Helen came out the door, all smiles and followed by her happy dog Moxy. Many people haven’t been told of my current appearance and so she expressed some delighted shock upon seeing my long hair and thick beard.

Her neighborhood in Monroe is a quiet and pleasant one with lots of new families taking residence in old, regal houses and filling the parks and sidewalks with laughter and squealing that comes with lots of little children. We took a walk in the cool evening while the coals for our steaks got hot. Aunt Helen’s dog really liked me and accompanied me on our small trek.

I ended up burning the steaks and slightly under cooking the corn on the cob but with some delicious white wine and some salad our meal was well rounded and the conversation of things important made it all the better. After dinner some neighbors of hers came over and I again showed my pictures and talked of Darfur and of my experiences.

For a send off the next morning we ate a heaping pancake breakfast at the ‘Corner Cafe’, a greasy spoon joint that Aunt Helen likes to frequent. It’s the kind of place you find in the movies where all the old timers in a small town gather in the mornings to drink coffee and talk of the harvest or of the ‘durned things these youngsters do’. With that I was off again.

It only took me an hour and a half to get to Matt Cain’s house in Sycamore, IL, which brings me back to watching the lonely lights of sleepy towns drift by the car window. Betsy Cain, Matt’s wife, mentored a young girl who was in the 8th grade and the day I arrived happened to be her highschool graduation. Rather than hang out at the house I opted to just tag along for the ride and to spend time catching up with my good pal.

Matt is a real good friend and he really helped me to stay sane while we were in Darfur together. It was so good to be with him again after almost a year of being apart. Just as it was when Andy and I got back together it was with Matt. Thus the two hour car drive to Milwaukee was quite enjoyable.

I stayed with them as they spent time with the girl and her family prior to the graduation but then as I wasn’t ‘invited’ to the show I decided to head over to a movie theater and catch a nighttime show. Five minutes before seven I bought a ticket for a seven o’clock showing of ‘Cars’ and as soon as I walked into the theater the previews began to roll. I must say that I very much liked the movie and found myself laughing hard many times. As it worked out, as soon as the film ended Matt and Betsy pulled up to pick me up and thus I am in the backseat of the car on the way back to their home.

Some days later
Unfortunately I didn’t have much time the next morning to spend more time with Matt as I needed to hurry down to my friend Jordan Niednagel’s house in Missouri. I had about 540 miles ahead of me. Matt cooked up a hearty breakfast and after a hug and a handshake I fired up the trusty machine and again had the feel of the open road under me.

Illinois is a fairly boring state. Sorry to any of you who care about it. It just is. Lots of farms, grain silos and the like, but there just isn’t anything to get the ol’ heart racing. So I made up for it by cruising at a cool 80 mph and rolling up my sleeves and catching a deep tan in the hot sunshine. There was ridiculous traffic in St. Louis due to some construction and I was reduced to gobs of sweat in the stop and go traffic. Towards the end of that I started to cut in between cars some and get in the front when a car that was stopped opened its door right in front of me. I hit the breaks and swerve around it, cutting into a lane closed off by cones. So I was doing a bit of cone swerving action at about 40mph. Cool.

Lots of Missouri is pretty bland as well. Then I hit the road that Jordan’s house is on. I hit it farther north and rode a lot of it that I hadn’t seen before. It was very curvy and had lots of ups and downs that was really fun to do on my bike. However, due to the very worn nature of my rear tire I had to take it kind of slow. My mother, I’m sure, is happy to hear that.

So now I am with Jordan Niednagel and our friend Nathan Daher as we endeavor to film this movie we are doing for a Christian Film Festival in San Antonio, TX. The grand prize is very handsome and I am very confident of our chances to win. So far we’ve already had two days of shooting and they have proved to be very difficult. It is quite hot and our costumes do not lend to cooling us off but rather to accentuating the sweltering temps. At the end of the day when we rip our costumes off they are drenched with sweat and we stink like men. Missouri is full of all sorts of biting insects too, mosquitoes, chiggers, ticks, little hornet like things, biting flies and the like. It makes it all very interesting.

Well, there you have it. I must forewarn my readers that from here on out my updates shall be sparse although I shall try and record the goings on that are of import. I am fixing to be returning home shortly and thus conclude this amazing chapter in my life.