In 1991, Lenny Kravitz sang “It ain’t over til its over” to try to keep his life with his wife and daughter from ending. During the Oscars, when the orchestra strikes up a song, the awardee gets that not so subtle hint to wrap it up and leave the stage. At your favorite concert, the band runs off but the lights stay down and the crowd keeps screaming and you know darn well that it’s not over until they play the encore. Music plays an important role in life’s milestones. It tells the story. It signals intention. It completes the story. As this Tropics to Tundra adventure draws to close, we use some of the words from our favorite music to capture its spirit. It is only fitting. The Adventure began in Nashville with our birthday song, Break the Loop. Now the orchestra has started playing. Lenny is singing. It is our encore blog in song lyrics.
Sixty four days ago we looked at each other and said, we may find ourselves living in a suburban tract. And we may find ourselves in a homogeneous part of the world. And we may find ourselves behind the wheel of a large automobile. And we may find ourselves in a beautiful house, with a beautiful spouse. And we may ask ourselves, well, how did we get here? Letting the days go by, let the pickleball hold me down. Letting the days go by, Barn giving us hand-me-downs. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. So we asked ourselves, where does that highway go to? And we asked ourselves, well, how do we get there? And we may find ourselves in another part of the world. Once in a lifetime. {Talking Heads}
It felt like we’d been everywhere, man we’d been every where. Cross’d the deserts bare, man, we’ve breathed the mountain air, man. Of travel we’d had our share, man. We’ve been everywhere. In the 100,000 miles we’d roadied, we had not actually been everywhere. At least not everywhere drivable with a camping rig. But, it sure did feel like it. {Johnny Cash}
High on the map was a region that was unexplored. At first it began with the 49th state, Alaska. Then it morphed into the region above the Arctic Circle. Alaska had a road above the Arctic Circle called the Dalton Highway, but it ended at an oil field with restricted access to the Arctic Ocean. Canada had a better but tougher road called the Dempster Highway. The Dempster dead-ended in the northern most town reachable town by car, Tuktoyaktuk, NWT. We finally had a name for our destination, the Arctic.
So it’s going to be the Arctic, or it’s gonna go down in flames. You can tell us when it’s over, if the North was worth the pain. We’ve got a long list (15) of ex-adventures. They show that we’re insane. But we had a blank space baby. So we wrote the Arctic name. {Taylor Swift}
It turns out that traveling to the Arctic Ocean from Florida requires a trek across the long diagonal of the North American continent. We had to drive from the heart of the sub-tropics to the Arctic which begins at a latitude of 66.5 degrees. We had tented across the northernmost highway in the United States, and for this adventure, that road was just the start. Above the Canadian Rockies, above the so-called Top-of-the-World highway at Dawson, the real adventure began on the Dempster Highway.
Those changes in latitude caused changes in attitude, and nothing remained quite the same. Somewhere north of north, the chain retail stopped being a thing. Gas stations, which are nothing more than an external storage tank with credit card reader, were placed every 150 miles. No ice, no bathroom, no hotdog and soda. Roads were not paved because the permafrost would make short work of any blacktop in one season.
It was all dirt, dust, ruts, pot holes, and resilience. It was a given that the bugs would eat you and the road would break your rig. Stuck in Eagle Plains we realized that if the Adventure suddenly ended tomorrow, we could somehow adjust to the fall. Through all of our running, and all of our cunning, if we hadn’t laughed we would have gone insane. {Jimmy Buffet}
We broke our doors, and our fan, and our air conditioner; our screened room, and our our truck battery, and our lithium storage battery; our windshield, and our understanding of self-reliance. Good times and riches and sons of a bitches, we’d seen more than we could recall. {more Buffett}
Broke, dirty, out of supplies and 13,000 miles under our wheels, today we rolled back into the self-proclaimed free state of Florida. The orchestra has struck up the music. No matter how much Lenny wished it wasn’t so, it was over. It’s closing time. In Falling Waters State park on the Florida pan handle, it was one last call for alcohol. Time to polish off the remnants of our illegally imported Canadian Club. So we gather up our camp stuff, move to the exits. We hope we have found an adventure. Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end. {Semisonic}
We reread the encore blogs of our past journeys and realized that we had no idea what new beginning would come. We are staring at a blank page before us. Opening up those dirty T@G windows. Letting the Florida sun illuminate those words that we could not find. Reaching for something in the distance. So close we can almost taste it. Releasing our inhibitions. Living our life with arms wide open. Today is where our book begins. {Natasha Bedingfield}
[Apologies to the original artist for shamelessly using their words as we liked.]
