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Tonight I packed my bags, packed my car, with everything I'll need for the next year and a half, two years. Skis, snowshoes, bike. Coats, scarves, pants. Shoes, boots, shoes. Pots, pans, muffin tins. The list: it goes on. I also packed my spare iPod with books on tape and podcasts, and mom mixed up a bag of gorp (good old raisins and peanuts, plus m&ms, which don't make the acronym) for me, and all told, it looks like I'm ready for this road trip thing.

This blog was started at the end of 2008, in preparation for my first adventure in studying abroad--a five month stint at the University of Otago in New Zealand. I posted a Walt Whitman excerpt in my last post before leaving the states, and although there's another poem scheduled for Wednesday, I thought I'd throw this one up again in light of the journey I'm about to undertake (my alarm is set for 5:30 tomorrow morning). It's fitting, I like a little repetition in my life, if the shoe fits, wear it, etc., etc. Here we go:

from Song of the Open Road

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.

The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well for where they are,
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
I am fill'd with them, and I will fill them in return.)

-Walt Whitman, 1860