What beckonings of love you receive you shall only answer with passionate kisses of parting, You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those who remain behind you, You but arrive at the city to which you were destin’d, you hardly settle yourself to satisfaction before you are call’d by an irresistible call to depart,
You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve, You shall not heap up what is call’d riches These are the days that must happen to you: I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes, Here’s a Whitman quote of my own that illustrates what I am talking about (Part 11 of “Song of the Open Road”: Heat-Moon quotes Walt Whitman extensively throughout the book. Almost always I was by myself, and sometimes I left congenial travel companions, including lovely and intelligent women, so that I might continue on my solitary journey. I know this feeling, having hitchhiked in numerous countries around the world. He confesses he feels lonely sometimes, yes, but at the same time the loneliness is glorious. He lets them talk freely and copiously about their lives and philosophies without interruptions or judgments.Īpart from a few days here and there when he stays with friends or people he has met and the occasional hitchhiker he picks up, Heat-Moon remains alone and goes his own way. In the small towns he passes through, he goes out of his way to find the most idiosyncratic residents. The most fascinating aspects of the book, however, are the long interviews he has with people he meets on the road. The author writes of life on the road and the unutterable loneliness that would sometimes overtake him. From New England he turns west again and goes back to Missouri. He then heads across Texas and Arizona, turns north through Nevada to Oregon, follows the north side of the Columbia River in Washington, turns north in Idaho and follows the Canadian border closely through Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, and so on. From there he swings southwest through the Deep South to Louisiana. Heat-Moon starts out from Missouri and heads east to North Carolina. The title of the book comes from his intention to avoid the interstates and stick to secondary roads, those that appear in blue on old paper maps. After a heartbreaking separation from his wife, the author takes off alone to tour the United States in a small camper van he names Ghost Dancing. It takes place in 1978, although it was not published until 1982.
I’m surprised that I never read it before. This book is considered a classic in travel writing, particularly in the sub-genre of road memoirs.
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