After the Trip

The truck, caked in mud and bug guts, back in Clemson 7/8/1995

[written August 1995]

The inspection on the U.S. side was a bit surreal.  No one talked much, we couldn't take pictures, and they searched us and our bags with huge air ducts overhead.  A beautiful golden retriever ran all around and inside the truck, sniffing intently.  I asked the agent what happens when she finds something.  "She'll tear it apart.  Destroy it," he said quietly, shaking his head.

Our first stop back in the United States was at Taco Bell, where we ran through the parking lot shouting for joy.  I treated Sean to a few tacos, and we began the drive home.

The final leg of the trip is a blur.  There were times when I was so pumped up on Vivarin and so exhausted from lack of sleep that I couldn't remember what day it was or exactly where we were.  My only clear memory is of driving across the thirty-mile causeway through southern Louisiana as the sun rose high into the light-blue sky.  I kept myself awake and partially aware by singing at the top of my lungs.  The nonstop trip from Nautla, Mexico to Clemson, South Carolina took 34 hours.

Pulling into town Saturday evening was anticlimactic.  There was no band, no ticker-tape parade.  We honked and waved as we drove through downtown, but of course no one had any idea why.  There was no one home at Sean's so we took a picture of ourselves at the journey's end.  Sean thanked me and said he didn't know another person he could have made that trip with.  The picture didn't come out.

I also arrived home to an empty house.
 

Since the trip I have felt out of synch with my surroundings.  I was high in Mexico.  I was super-aware.  I had the reflexes of a cat and nerves of steel.  Back home I'm just a regular guy.  I wish my life here could be packed half as full of new experiences as my journey to Belize was.  Within a week of returning, I was thinking of my next trip.  That South America idea keeps coming up again and again...

Today I rotated my tires because the truck has been shaking at high speeds.  When I began switching the wheels around, I found dried clumps of red Belizean mud plastered inside.

I wanted to stick the stuff in a jar and keep it.

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