June 6th, 2008 by admin | Posted in our journal, our trip | No Comments »
We hit Seven months on the road just two days ago, I cannot believe it! We are still going. This is quite an accomplishment with no real source of income and no savings.
We are now in the Portland Oregon area, and finally out of California. Truth be told, that last few weeks have been rough. Just before we got to California we were excitedly rushing there to clean out our storage area. We had stuff we wanted to ship back to Illinois, and some stuff we were gonna sell to continue the trip. But, as we neared the border though we were given some very bad news.
The person we left in charge of storage had not paid the bill and the last bit of what we owned was gone. This sent us into a tailspin that lasted for several weeks. It was hard to lose all of our stuff, but worse yet was the fact that our trusted home base had dropped the ball, and it made me feel like we have no safety net whatsoever.
“That’s what we get for trusting” - I said to myself, but as the words came out, I thought I had better rethink that statement. Trust is something we must have for people, not trusting leads to a lonely, paranoid life of peeking out the door at the world. Trust is what this trip is based on. Total strangers have trusted us enough to let us come into their homes and stay with them, and everyone who has done so has been completely awesome, and the people of California were really awesome, and I appreciate their trust, and I know what a precious commodity trust is.
In California, we stayed with a young military family right by Monterey. Amanda and Matt were great, and even though our beliefs were probably worlds apart, we found a great deal of common ground. I enjoyed listening to their opinions, and I got to play with their two young sons, and even bake a bunch of goodies with Amanda.
I felt sad to leave them, just as I did when we got to San Francisco and spent a few days with another young couple. Nate is a Iraqi War veteran with a completely opposite thought about the war than Matt, and Sarah his wife volunteers at an anarchist book store. While we may have had more in common with them, we were still strangers and they still were willing to let us stay in their home.
In Richmond, we stayed at a place called The Burnt Ramen, kind of a flop house for the young and artistic, our friend of a friend Peaches invited us to stay and he and his housemates welcomed us with open arms. There we got to stay in a small rooftop room that felt like an artist’s paradise, while downstairs young people flowed from every nook and cranny, and they offered skate ramps and a stage for even more artistic expression. Everyone there was warm and wonderful to us, even though at first glimpse a few of the tenants may have looked a bit menacing - one can never judge a book by it’s cover.
The last place we stayed in California was with a heavy metal legend, and one of my teenage heroes. Jeff Becerra was the distinctive voice behind the band Possessed. I was lucky enough to interview him over the phone a few years back for a little radio show I used to do, and we had kept in contact loosely since then. When I told him we were in Cali, he demanded that we come and visit. We stayed for three days full of great music, metal reminiscing, and philosophical discussion. Again it was hard to leave.
So trust — In the end, I wonder which is more dangerous — being too trusting - trusting enough to stay with or host a total stranger, or not having any trust and the jaded sadness that it reaps onto our body and soul?
I think I will continue with being too trusting, because I know the opposite well and it can never lead to the joyful experiences I have had on this trip or to the new friends I have made.
At a former stranger’s house,
Amy Bugbee
