It’s also hard to know which way to go when I start again.

In Columbus, after my backwards-loop with Hank, I was hanging out at his little apartment, spending time with old friends, and having a great time. Finally, I had to just yank myself out of there. “Where are you going?” asked Hank, that Tuesday morning. “Over to Dave’s. After that, I don’t know,” I replied. “OK,” said Hank. “When are you going to call me?” “Next week.”

Dave and I drove his little sports car to the Chillicothe Indian Mounds in a light drizzle. We had the ancient mounds to ourselves, no other people walking around. But we weren’t alone. There was someone — or something — else there.

Dave with a shoulder cat

Dave and the fun little car we took to Chillicothe.

In the afternoon, back in Columbus, it was really time for me to leave. “Where are you going?” Dave and Maggie asked. “I don’t know,” I said. This time, I didn’t even know which way I would turn the wheel when I got into the car.

Dave looked very concerned as I got into my car to back out of his driveway. Then I realized it wasn’t my lack of destination, but the fact that I had a burnt-out headlight. I had a few hours of daylight to rectify that problem.

At the first stoplight, a car honked at me, because I didn’t get moving right away. I just didn’t know if I should go south, or east. My brother-in-law, Cody, told me he and a friend once went on a road trip where they flipped a coin at crossroads to determine their direction. Columbus traffic was too heavy for me to dig out a quarter and start flipping coins on the passenger seat.

I compromised and headed out of Columbus on US 33, into southeast Ohio’s hill (pronounced “heel”) country.

I’d spent nine days with Hank, and now this silence and freedom felt strange. It was like starting the trip over again.

In Logan, at dusk, I bought a headlight bulb. Feeling sorry for myself, I spent 15 minutes trying to get the old one out of the fixture. Then the clerks from the auto parts store took pity on me and got it out in 15 seconds. Just in time — it was dark, and I needed that headlight. I also needed a place to stay.

I had turned my nose up at the chain motels on the highway. Surely there was something better in town. I drove down the main street, but I didn’t see one. Should I go back to the highway? Whoops, missed the on-ramp! Time for a loop around the block — oh! I’m facing the Inn Towner Motel’s front door. Serendipity again.

It was in Logan that I got my traveling stride back again. The white-haired desk clerk entertained me with stories about life in Cuba during Castro’s takeover. In the morning, I laughed out loud when I ran through noisy piles of dry, crunchy fall leaves along the sidewalks. I joked with a policeman in the donut shop, where the donuts were handmade and not perfectly-shaped. He always bought a dozen for his buddies, but the guys at the station never saw more than eleven donuts. His special apple fritter never made it that far.

My favorite Halloween display

For some reason, I was being pulled east more than south. I picked a twisty 2-lane road that would take me toward the Ohio River and West Virginia. A couple of hours later, at a pit-toilet rest area, a cold fall rain started. Summer was over.

Now what?

I was pushing too hard. I’d sent some emails the previous week, looking for a retreat house where I could spend some contemplative time. The places I’d written to were south, but only one had answered my inquiry. They had a room available, but not for weeks.

Trying to make things happen was like pushing a piece of string. I had to let go of that particular string and look for another one. One that would pull me, if I just grab onto it.

Shivering in the car, I thought of my friends, Donna and Mike, in Pennsylvania. For me, Mike was one of the best things about our 2008 trip to Burning Man. He was our next-door neighbor, and it was his first Burn. Watching him experiencing the art and the creativity and the magic was like being first-timers again ourselves.

In 2009, he brought his wife and son down to Beaufort for a visit, and Donna and I really hit it off. We were all sitting at dinner, talking about food, and they started telling me about Donna’s mother’s Pennsylvania Dutch Pot Pie. It’s a 2-day affair to make it, and they just about went into rapture describing it.

“Can I get a recipe?” I asked. Not really, they said. Donna’s Mom hadn’t ever written one down. “You just have to come up and learn it from her some weekend,” they told me.

Sitting in the car in that cold drizzly rest area, I called Mike. “Can I come learn how to make pot pie this weekend?” I asked. “Sure!” he said.

In my imagination, I pictured a warm, bright kitchen, big bowls and cutting boards and bubbling pots on the stove. I imagined feeling like part of a family, getting messy and sharing the work. Laughing together, eating together. Could it really be that good? Could there be pot pie nirvana in southeastern Pennsylvania?

I grabbed the string and let the universe pull me across rainy West Virginia and Maryland. I was going to find out.

Power plant on the Ohio River

Crossing the Ohio River

I stitched 2 photos of 1 yard to get 25 of their scarecrows -- & there were 3 more I didn't get!

They even had dead scarecrows by the side of the road

Some of the 28 scarecrows in one yard in West Virginia

Smile for the camera!

When I arrived at Hank’s apartment in Ohio, ready for our vacation together, he gave me a present. “Here,” he said, handing me a toothbrush. “I got one from my dentist last week, and he said to give you one, too!”

I’ve never met Hank’s dentist, so why would he send me a toothbrush?

The answer is my brother’s infectious enthusiasm. He’d been living in anticipation of our road trip for months, talking about it with everyone he met. It’s no surprise that his dentist would send me a bon voyage present.

Or maybe he just knew that traveling with Hank, people would see my teeth, because I’d be smiling a lot.

Hank in the Tracker

In the meantime, I’d been feeling apprehensive about the trip. I’d just spent three weeks not having to answer to anybody, even my husband. Now I was taking responsibility for someone who seems healthy and strong, but is actually a little fragile. Hank told me he’d recently had an epileptic seizure at night and woken on the bathroom floor in the morning. That terrified me.

Then there was the pressure from people who looked at me like I was some kind of saint. When I explained to my new friends in Summit that I couldn’t stay for the Fog Festival because I’d promised a road trip to my disabled brother, Mike said, “It takes a special person to do something like that.”

The truth is, I’m not a saint or a special person. I’m a hedonist, and I expected this trip to be fun. Some fun just takes more effort than other fun.

Finally, after all of Hank’s anticipation and my apprehension, we set out on the road.

At Canadian Customs, the traffic director in the orange vest leaned on the window for a chat.

From the passenger seat, Hank told him, “My sister is taking me to Canada because I’ve never been there.” That’s when the man realized that Hank was special, and he looked at me like I’d suddenly sprouted a halo.

“I have a special needs daughter,” he said. “I hope someday her brother and sister will take her on vacation…”

I smiled and said, “You know, it just depends on the example their parents set.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “God only gives you what you can handle.”

Two days into the trip, I realized that this sister had taken on more than she could handle. It was the most exhausting travel I’ve ever done. How could someone so slow make me run so fast?

I found myself crawling on my hands and knees, looking for a tiny dropped pill. I listened through the bathroom door for 10 minutes as he argued — out loud — with the shower curtain, trying to get it to stay inside the tub, then, exasperated, his voice now several octaves higher, he called me in to help. I unloaded our luggage, carried it to our room, and in the morning, carried it out again. Back on my hands and knees, I checked for lost items under the beds. “Is this your toothpaste?” I asked, finding it there.

As we drove across Canada and the midwest, I gave Hank a running description of the scenery he couldn’t see. To my surprise, he didn’t respond to many of the things I pointed out. I’d be describing a cute Halloween display or reading a funny sign, and he’d interrupt me and start talking about a frozen dinner he’d eaten last week.

Our worlds were out of synch — why was he always talking about the past or the future? Why couldn’t he live in the present moment with me? He was happy, but would he have been just as happy at home?

It wasn’t until after the trip was over that I understood. Hank’s brain works differently — he gathers life’s experiences, stores them up, then processes them at his own speed. He simply can’t process them on the fly.

He actually told me at one point, “I think better when I’m sleeping.”

Hank with his "beer" at Hooters

A day or two after each event, he’d begin to relive it with greater and greater relish. One example of this was in Detroit. I asked him, “Hey, Hank, have you ever been to a Hooters?”

“No, but I’ll buy you dinner!” Obviously, he knew something about Hooters.

Once inside — neither of us had ever been in a Hooter’s — Hank was a lot more interested in the baseball game on the big-screen TV than in the waitresses. He ate his chicken and drank his non-alcoholic beer, and when we were done, I got a picture of him with six sexy smiling waitresses.

He did notice that their shorts were kinda short. “What do you call those again?” he asked me. “Hot pants,” I told him.

A couple of days later, he was on the phone with his friend, Juanita. “The waitresses were wearing these, um, orange, um, hot pants,” he told her. “And I got a picture with all of them!”

Hank with six new friends

Watching him interact with people, I could see why we had to do this. Taking Hank on a road trip was like giving the gift of a smile to many people. He’s so bubbly, he makes people happy. That sort of happiness needs to go on a road trip and be spread around. Even if it wears out his driver.

When we got back to his home, Hank had finished his processing. The trip was a huge success, and he couldn’t wait to call his friends. I heard him telling them about the big storm on Lake Huron, the Ford plant, the museum, the restaurants, and the nursing home where we’d visited our aunts. He couldn’t wait to get his pictures developed, and he couldn’t decided which of his new t-shirts to wear first. He had presents to deliver, too.

A couple of days later, we got together with Steve and Carol to eat pizza and catch up on news. Carol and I went upstairs for girl talk, and Steve and Hank sat outside making guy jokes and drinking non-alcoholic beer. Eventually, the guys came bounding up the stairs with some big news.

“We’re planning a trip to Niagara Falls next year!” they told us. “We’re going to rent a minivan, so we can all go together!”

I was flabbergasted. I looked closely at Steve, who was rattling off the details of the trip they had planned. Was that a faint halo over his head?

Before I left Columbus, Hank asked me, “Am I still fun to take on vacation?”

“Absolutely!” I said, with enthusiasm. I’d caught up on my sleep (while he was at work), and now I was anticipating the future eagerly. Steve and Carol and Barry and I may all need new toothbrushes — we’ll be smiling a lot, at Niagara Falls next year.

Hank and Margaret with Sisters Mary Pat and Mary Julia

Watch out! The blind guy is driving!

A big bowl of strawberry ice cream - yum!

Another smiling waitress

This one is priceless. It documents the road trip I took with my special needs brother, Hank, and his thoughts on the experience. His happiness and joy are infectious — you are guaranteed to laugh!

A special trip with my Special brother from Margaret Meps Schulte on Vimeo.

Our first evening in Canada

Once upon a time, there were two children, a brother and a sister, who lived together in a big house. They swam in the backyard pool, watched “The Waltons” and “All in the Family,” and played games like “Sorry” and “Uno.”

The girl was small, and the boy was big. For as long as she could remember, he was over six feet tall, a gentle giant.

The little girl grew up fast, and she was astonished when her big brother did not. He was a child when she was a child, and he was a child when she was an adult.

He’s still a big kid, and he’s here with me. I’m talking about my special brother, Hank, who is traveling with me for a week. He’s now 59-going-on-10.

Sometimes, I think I must be crazy to do this. It’s like taking Forrest Gump on the cross-country trip from Rain Man. I am on call 24/7, making sure that his needs are taken care of. I want his vacation to be perfect, but I’m finding that’s at the expense of my own wishes.

For months, I looked forward to Hank’s reaction to Canada, because he’d never been to a foreign country overnight. I wondered how he would handle my impetuous way of traveling without making plans, going where the wind takes me. I wanted to give him the chance to make decisions, but how would I handle his choices?

Meanwhile, he was savoring the anticipation of the trip. Every time I talked to him on the phone, he brought it up. Where would we go? What would he pack? The day before we left, he said, “The closer it gets, the exciteder I get!”

I started him out with two choices: An eastward loop to Canada and Niagara Falls (which he’d never seen); or a drive straight north to Canada, and then south and west to Indiana to see our two aging aunts. He chose the aunts,  “Because I don’t know whether I’ll get to see them again.” Niagara Falls can wait “until the next time.” He’s already excited about “the next time.”

I realized this trip was going to be challenging when I got lost just leaving his house. The worst kind of passenger is one who can’t help you navigate but who goes “uh-oh” every time you make a u-turn. We’d only been on the road five minutes when he was going “uh-oh” and I was searching my vocabulary for words like “sheesh” and “dang,” instead of my usual choices.

He can’t fault me for my lack of direction. I suggested one morning that he go to the motel lobby for coffee. He went about 10 feet to the left. Then he came back and said, “Which way is it again?” The next time I made a u-turn, he laughed and said, “That’s OK. I get lost trying to get a cup of coffee.”

At some point, I realized that the subtleties I relish while traveling would be lost on my companion.

My first inkling was his exclamation on I-75 — in order to make the most of Hank’s vacation, I was driving on interstates instead of my favorite 2-lane roads. “Look at that!” he exclaimed. “A Wal-Mart truck!” Waving his hand at the semi I was passing, he said, proudly, “I know a Wal-Mart truck. I know a Fed Ex truck. And I know a Kroger truck.”

He may not be subtle. But he’s doing the same thing I do while traveling: Looking for similarities and differences from his own home and routine. We’re always searching for patterns.

“I’ve never seen a beach in Canada before!” he said, when we walk over the sand dunes to Lake Huron. He was comparing it to the beaches he knows in Florida. “Wait ’til I tell Joy I saw a green golf cart!” he said. Joy is the one person he knows who owns a golf cart.

He started tracking our motel room numbers. The first night, we had room 5. The second night, we had room 105. On our third night, the streak was broken with 119. So on the fourth night, as we went into the lobby, he said, “I wonder what our room number will be tonight — 5, 105 — that was so funny! Maybe we’ll get 119!”

Hank shows off some Canadian bills

When we bought our first meal in Canada and broke a $20, I asked him to carry the Canadian money. I handed him the change, which included several loonies and a toonie. “Where are the ones?” he asked. I pointed to the loonie. “That’s it; they don’t have dollar bills.” “That’s weird,” he said, frowning.

Later, out of the blue, he said, “You know what would be weird? It would be weird if I lived in Canada.”

I asked what his favorite thing was about Canada. “When I couldn’t get the car door open!” We’d gone to the marina in Grand Bend, but there was a storm, and the wind was blowing over 60 kph. Hank tried to get out, but he couldn’t fight his car door open against the wind. So he handed his camera to me, and I took it out to the beach for pictures. Meanwhile, as the wind buffeted the tiny Tracker, he sat inside the car, warm and toasty.

Watching the storm from the car

Finally, after three days in Canada, we drove back across the soaring bridge at Sarnia to Michigan. That’s when I discovered that border crossings are amazingly easy with Hank in the car. He’s so genuine, he makes the Homeland Security guys laugh out loud.

“What did you buy in Canada?” the uniformed man asked, holding our passports and peering in the driver’s window. From the passenger’s seat, Hank said, “I bought a t-shirt!” I laughed out loud and admitted that we’d also bought 10 bags of potato chips. I thought that would surely cause suspicion and a car search. But no, the man laughed. “Any alcohol or tobacco?” he asked. I chuckled at that, too. Traveling with Hank, there’s no need for alcohol or tobacco. He’s always happy.

Then we were back in Michigan, and Hank turned to me and said, “Well, I had two nights in Canada. I guess I’ve seen all that’s different about Canada.”

I can’t wait to hear his comments on Michigan and Indiana.

Meps and Hank in the indoor pool

Hank says Canadian indoor pools are just like the ones in the US

The big storm at Grand Bend

We really did buy 10 bags of these!

I came up with a little list last night, during a particularly stubborn case of insomnia. It’s my list of the five things a woman may find useful when traveling cross-country alone:

1. A credit card. This is useful for food, lodging, and fuel, which are the only things you really need to make it across this vast country. There’s a big drawback to using it for fuel, though. You swipe the card, fill the tank, and don’t actually interact with anyone. That makes me feel lonely.

2. A roll of paper towels. Since there is no gas station attendant, you need the paper towels for wiping the dipstick when you check your own oil. Better lonely than dead, I think scrubbing the sad remains of a giant bug off the windshield with my paper towel.

3. An iPod. I use this for mood modification — I put polkas on it to cheer myself up, so that when I pull out of the gas station, I won’t feel lonely on the highway.

4. A black lace bra. Unseen by others, this is a secret confidence-building item. Once I have cheered myself up, I wear it into a rowdy midwest bar under a flannel shirt with jeans and sneakers.

5. An orange satin backless evening gown. This is the ultimate way to combat loneliness. Once you are brave enough to interact with the people in the rowdy midwest bar, you accept a dare that you won’t wear an evening gown into the bar. Everyone in the bar knows how tiny your car is, and assumes that you are joking about carrying an evening gown. One quick circuit of the room in that dress and you can pretty much get what you want. Specifically, I have always wanted to drive a tractor, so that is my goal for the exercise.

If all goes well, there may be a photo of #5 tonight. That’s more likely, and more interesting, than any photos of #1 thru 4.

“Oh! Oh! Goodbye, then!” We both laughed uproariously at our shared obsession with yard sales. It was my cue to go.

I got onto the freeway and headed across Spokane in a light drizzle. When I saw a Best Buy, I decided to stop and pick up an FM transmitter for my iPod. I parked between the Best Buy and a Krispy Kreme donut shop, with plans to visit both. When I got out of the car, a man was walking towards me, purposefully. “Would you be missing a cell phone?” he asked, pointing at the rack on the rear of the Tracker. There was the cell phone, which had ridden across Spokane on the outside of the car. I thanked him profusely, although I had been finding the darn thing not very useful anyway. With the exception of Spokane, I haven’t found cell phone signal since I left Seattle. Traveling on 2-lane roads can be anachronistic.

Riding on a Krispy Kreme sugar high, I decided to spend a little time on the interstate before taking US 95 straight north. But even the interstate didn’t disappoint. The light showers and broken clouds produced a huge, luminous rainbow. I was heading directly to the end of the rainbow, which came and went like a guide.

When I turned onto Highway 200, I finally found a truly wild area of northern Idaho, with few houses and towns. The views were breathtaking as I followed the shores of Lake Pend Oreille. As if that wasn’t enough, the clouds became more and more dramatic, and I had to pull over again and again for sunset pictures. I finally made myself put the camera away and just look, because pictures could never do the dramatic sky justice.

After the sunset came twilight, and I still didn’t know where I would sleep that night. I thought I might just find a campground, pull in, and make myself a sleeping nest in the front seats of the car. But I couldn’t go to sleep at 7:30, so I decided I’d have to drive until dark.

About five years ago, when Barry and I drove through Maine, we decided we would no longer drive after dark. The chances of hitting a moose were too high. Hitting a moose is like hitting an 800-pound wall with feet and antlers.

So that evening in Idaho, when I saw signs warning me of deer and “game crossings,” I slowed down to about 50 mph and scanned the shoulders for critters. Then my mind wandered, and I crept up to 55.

Have you ever noticed how deer do not travel solo? When the first deer crossed the road, my brain was a million miles away in thought, but my subconscious remembered: There is always a second deer. So I slammed on the brakes, locking them up and screeching to a halt a few feet away from deer number two.

My heart was racing. The deer strolled nonchalantly away, as if to say, “See? We told you driving at dusk was a bad idea.”

A couple miles down the road, I saw the sign: “Cabins and RV Park by the river.” I followed a pickup truck down the long winding drive to a little complex of cabins and a half-finished lodge. “Do you know where the office is?” I asked the man from the truck. “I’m the office,” he told me. It made sense — he was as big as a house.

“I’m looking for a place to stay tonight,” I said, my voice still squeaky. My heart had not returned to its normal rate after the deer incident.

For $35, Dennis offered me a sleeping cabin. “It’s 30 feet away from the women’s bathroom,” he said. When he showed me the “Minnow,” an 8×10 cabin with a bed, dresser, and heater, I thought I’d found my new Happy Spot. A little private deck overlooked a river which the map identified as Clark Fork. I meant to ask whether that was the Clark Fork or the Clark Fork River, but daylight made Dennis too taciturn for many questions.

It was a funny sort of handshake cash transaction. I asked about a key to the cabin, and he admitted that the door was warped and didn’t lock. “There’s nobody here; we’re closing at the end of the month,” he said. “That’s OK,” I said, “It’s still a step up from my tent.” As we stood outside the cabin, talking, I noticed shadows flitting about. “Are there bats?” I asked. He told me there were, and that they’d had some trouble with them spending the winter in the heated attic of the lodge, leaving bat poop everywhere. Just then, a bat flew right between our faces. There were definitely bats. It’s a good thing I like bats.

It rained hard that night, making me glad for my warm, cozy cabin instead of my cold, leaky tent. In the morning, I thought about staying for a few days. It seemed like a peaceful place to sit and write. Just then, the power tools roared to life, and I remember what Dennis said about construction on the lodge. I tossed my bag in the car and kept going.

To deal with the boredom, I thought about boredom. One of my favorite sayings is, “Only the boring are bored.” If I was bored, then I must be boring. I’d begun this trip with a whole bucket full of thoughts to occupy me. Boredom seemed to indicate that the bucket was empty.

I mentally turned the bucket upside-down and shook it, then turned on the radio and searched for a non-country music station. I wondered if I should go around Spokane, or through it. Then I started thinking about Shirley.

A few years ago, my friend Tina and I discussed the possibility that we were doppelgangers. She started a list of all the things we had in common, including the fact that we have the same hair color and complexion and birthdays a couple of days apart. To this, we added first boyfriends with the same name and the fact that our first cars were brown Volkswagen Rabbits. At the time, Tina knew she was adopted, and I secretly wished that she was my twin sister.

Then Tina discovered her birth mother, Shirley, and reluctantly, I gave up the idea that we were secret twins. When I met Shirley, who is from Spokane, I realized that Tina had lucked into the coolest mother on the planet, and I decided this was someone *I* wanted to adopt.

So that Friday, on my way into Spokane, I called Tina’s partner Will in Seattle. “Hi, Will! I’m in eastern Washington, and I need Tina’s work number, so I can call her right away.” “OK, let me see if I can find it,” he said, sounding awfully sleepy for 11 am. “Hey, Tina, what’s your work number?”

“Will? What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m asking Tina for her work number,” he said.
“What’s Tina doing there, instead of at work?” I asked.
“We’re going camping this weekend,” he said.
“Well, if Tina is at home, then I don’t want her work number,” I said.
“OK,” he said, maddeningly. He didn’t get the hint.
“I. Need. To. Talk. To. Tina.” I said. Finally, he handed her the phone. I think he needed coffee.

Despite admitting to still being in her jammies, Tina was more coherent and was able to give me Shirley’s phone number. With some trepidation, I called Shirley — and she remembered me. “Would you be free for a cup of coffee or some lunch today?” I asked. “Sure!” she said, giving me directions to her house. “I’m still in my jammies, but I’ll wash my face and be out on the front porch. You’re only about 10 minutes away.”

At 11 am, I wondered if I was the only person awake, alert, and dressed in the Pacific Time Zone.

I pulled up in front of Shirley’s house, which I recognized from a photo. It’s a glamorous 1903 Craftsman with a front porch big enough for a pool table. I know this because there was a pool table on the front porch. It was probably 11:15 when I arrived, and we started talking and drinking iced tea. Shirley asked me where I was planning to stay, and I said I was going to continue on the road and find a place later that night. “I have a guest room, and you’re welcome to stay here,” she offered. It sounded heavenly, but I felt badly about dropping in on such short notice and declined.

We talked for a couple of hours, nonstop, and she offered the guest room again. “Oh, no, I really should keep going,” I said. After my morning of boredom, here I was talking with one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met. But I didn’t want to be a bore. I’d said I was just stopping by for a cup of coffee; how could I admit I’d love to stay for days?

Then we went to lunch at an amazing diner called Frank’s. It’s an actual railroad dining car that has been converted to a restaurant, and Shirley knew both the owner and the craftsman who’d done the intricate wood inlays. Despite the fact that it sits next to railroad tracks, so that it routinely rumbles and shakes authentically when another train goes by, it was brought to Spokane by a semi.

We were on a conversational roll, with hardly a break between fun topics, when Shirley asked me, “Did you hear about the man at the State Fair?” I shook my head.

“There’s a state hospital near here for the mentally ill. Yesterday, they took a group of criminally insane patients to the State Fair, and one of them escaped. He’s a murderer who once decapitated a little girl, and they still haven’t caught him.” “Are you serious?” I said. I thought she was teasing me, since I was adamant about camping in my little tent.

A little while later, Shirley said, “Are you sure you don’t want to come see a play with me and spend the night?” I realized she really meant it. “Well, it does sound like a lot of fun. Twist my arm!” And she did. I was glad to be safe from the axe murderer, but mostly, I was looking forward to the play and more conversation.

Back at the house, I had gotten my overnight bag out of the car when Shirley asked me a strange question. “How do you feel about clowns?” she asked. I wondered if this had something to do with the evening’s activity. Did I have to dress up as a clown to go to the play?

I admitted that I didn’t have a lot of feelings one way or the other about clowns.

“You’re not afraid of them, are you?” she continued. Now I was really wondering. I’d heard of people who were clown-phobic, and I may have been one as a child. But I’d gotten over it. My only phobia is dogs, and Shirley’s adorable shi-tzu was helping me overcome that one.

It all made sense when I saw the purple and lavender guest room decorated with Shirley’s clown collection. There must have been over 100 clown statues and dolls, plus many clown paintings and two hilarious clown slippers. I was surprised by the sensitive and artistic renderings (except for the slippers, which were pure kitsch), and I could have spent days studying them.

That afternoon, I spent a couple of hours with my notebook and laptop, trying to capture some of the things we’d talked about. But I couldn’t remember it all. In just a few hours in Spokane, I’d gone from the emptiness of boredom to mental overflow. Thanks to Shirley, my thought bucket was completely full.

But as I packed my bags last night in Seattle, I felt butterflies in my stomach. This time, I’m going alone.

Fifteen years ago, my sister Julie did a trip like this, with a car, a tent, a bicycle, and no cell phone. I envied her courage. At the time, others envied me — I was bicycling across the northern USA with Barry. I didn’t realize that my travels with Barry took a different kind of courage.

Since I’ve planned this trip, women have asked me, “Aren’t you afraid of traveling alone?” Men say, “I wouldn’t let my wife do that.” I laugh and say blithely, “No, I’m not afraid of being harassed or attacked.”

But when I packed my bags, after I took Barry to the airport, kissed him goodbye (many times), and said, “See you in North Carolina next month!” the butterflies revealed my secret: I am afraid to just be alone.

Driving alone away from our friend Margaret’s house, where we once lived for a year, was like leaping into the void, embracing my fear and hoping the universe would catch me.

But the beginning wasn’t scary at all — I drove across the I-90 floating bridge, which I’ve driven hundreds, if not thousands, of times, and have even bicycled dozens of times. Cough, cough. I can’t recommend bicycling alongside an 8-lane interstate, even if it does cross one of the most beautiful lakes in the world. Today, the deep blue water sparkled as though topped with diamonds. And then I headed up 405, that river of SUVs, only a little less familiar, but the route I’ve traveled to reach many good times.

All travel begins with a single step. Then it continues with single steps.

When I reached US 2 and started going east, I thought, “This is it! I’m traveling alone now! What if nobody talks to me?” The butterflies came back.

I chased them away by noticing funny things along the way. Pickle Farm Road made me laugh out loud. How do you grow a pickle? Do you grow a cucumber and water it with vinegar? Then I went through Startup. Wouldn’t it be funny if the venture capitalists moved there from Silicon Valley? I wonder what they would think of financing the Startup Market, which is probably older than the venture capitalists themselves.

Knowing that I would forget about these things as I kept driving, I pulled over to dig out my notebook and jot them down. A kindly, well-tattooed man sauntered out and looked at me and the Tracker. “Can I help you?” he asked, his smile genuine. I shook my head. “I just needed a place to pull over,” I said, but I was thinking, “Thank goodness! Somebody talked to me today!” And as I left his wrecking yard, with the junkyard dogs snarling, the butterflies were gone (despite my nearly pathological fear of dogs).

My drive took me across Stevens Pass, and now I was in travel mode, recording the scenes as I passed. I compared Stevens with Willamette Pass, which we crossed last week on our way back from Burning Man. Willamette Pass is green and cozy, with a tunnel-like feel. Stevens is full of sweeping vistas, meadows, vast rock-faces. The road slides along the side of the mountains, instead of twisting its way down at the bottom.

I didn’t linger long in Leavenworth, but I stopped in Cashmere, because my friend Margaret said it was a really cute town. I needed an excuse to talk to somebody, so I went into the Hometown Market. I wanted to measure the butter.

A couple of months ago, when I got to Seattle, I wrote a piece entitled “Crossing the Butter Divide.” In it, I mentioned that one difference between the east coast and the west coast is that quarter-pound sticks of butter are shaped differently. So when I decided to drive across the country, I thought it would be fun to actually find the mythical “Butter Divide.” That’s the place where sticks of butter on one side are long and skinny, and on the other side, they are short and fat. And people’s butter dishes are different.

I have mentioned this idea to a few people, and they either look at me as though I’m nuts, or they laugh. There’s a fine line between insanity and hilarity, and I am on it.

Those who don’t think I’m nuts have hypothesized that the butter divide may coincide with the continental divide. Or it may follow the Mississippi. Either way, I plan to find it, and perhaps, follow it.

Back to Cashmere, when I told the woman with the movie-star black pageboy in the grocery that I was measuring butter, she threw her head back and laughed. “Is somebody paying you to drive across the country and measure butter?” she asked, incredulous. I told her that not only was I not being paid, I was so scatterbrained I’d forgotten to bring a ruler! She sent me over to Doan’s Pharmacy, where I got an old-fashioned 12-inch wooden ruler for 49 cents and an Italian soda at the soda fountain for four times that amount. “You can get anything you need at Doan’s,” said the silver-haired cashier.

Then I went back to the grocery store and measured the butter boxes, and, just for kicks, the margarine boxes. I continued up the road and measured the butter in Wilbur, Washington, too, just to make sure the butter divide isn’t here in Washington. It’s not.

Along the way, I stopped at Dry Falls, imagining water and icebergs coursing over the largest waterfall in the world at the end of the last ice age. In 1958, my Dad was also entranced by Dry Falls, and he took me and my mother there in 1978. In those days, we visited a lot of waterfalls, and I’ll never forget the look of disappointment on Mom’s face when it dawned on her that the breathtaking Dry Falls he’d been telling her about for 20 years were actually dry!

Now my little blue tent is set up in Wilbur, next to Highway 2, in a little RV park full of friendly people. I’ve had lots of conversations today, and the butterflies have flown completely. Tomorrow, I’ll continue to seek the butter divide, or I’ll talk to more friendly people. It’s really the same thing.