The Road to 7-Eleven (The Final Conclusion)

San Diego, California
I drove 200 miles for a Slurpee the other day.

At 9:30pm, I left the office after working 12 hours on a Friday. My eyes were blurry and my wrists were sore from being on the computer all day. From Chula Vista I drove north and east toward La Mesa, my home. As I approached my exit, something urged me to keep going. So I continued on driving and took highway 8 east into the vast emptiness of the desert. It was one of those moments where I didn’t want to be at work anymore and wasn’t ready to go home yet. I wanted to be somewhere in between. That’s essence of traveling: not wanting to be where you came from and not quite ready for what lies ahead. Traveling is just being somewhere in between.

So I headed east past La Mesa and El Cajon. Past Santee and Alpine. Up into the mountains and beyond the Golden Acorn Casino. Past Ocotillo and Seeley. Two hours later I arrived in El Centro at a 7-Eleven. I filled my car up with gas and purchased a Purple Haze flavored Slurpee. Then I turned my car around was ready to head west, back to my home.

(Several months earlier after arriving in Hawaii from Japan)
All my clothes had stains and stunk, that is, aside from the fleece jacket that I packed but never wore. My beard was full and scraggly, my hair was long enough to curl at the ends. At the airport leaving Tokyo, I ate my ramen noodles and French fries with chopsticks and it felt comfortable, normal. I had dreams my niece and nephew grew up a few years in the few months I was gone. My shoulders were sore from wearing a backpack. Gelatinous substance replaced what were formerly firm muscles. My memory bank was full, but my bank account was quite the opposite. All these phrases could finish the sentence, “You know it’s time to come home from Asia when…”

My travels started in San Diego before I met up with Brad in Hawaii. Our adventure began on the idyllic Thai beaches of Ko Samui and days later at the Full Moon party on Ko Phangan. Then we moved on to Malaysia and the diversity of Penang and Kuala Lumpur. By bus, we headed south to the ultra clean city-state of Singapore. A flight landed us next in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam where we toured the former Viet Cong tunnels of Cu Chi. We took a boat cruise up the Mekong River and into the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, where Cheong Ek, one of the many Khmer Rouge killing fields, is located. Then a speedboat up the Tonle Sap Lake led to Siem Reap and the ancient temples of Angkor. Flying into northern Thailand, we arrived in Chiang Mai, where we hiked into the hills and stayed with the local tribes’ people. From there, we went back south to the bustling city of Bangkok where we stayed just off the nocturnal Khao San Road. We endured the heat of Hong Kong and got some hometown hospitality while staying with my friend in Shanghai, China. A train took us to the capital, Beijing, and we walked along the Great Wall. Our last Asian destination was Tokyo, Japan where we mingled among the millions in the technologically advanced city.

All in all we traveled 43 hours by plane with 15 ½ hours of layovers, 46 ½ hours by train, 20 by bus, 15 ½ by boat in addition to taxis, cyclos, tuk tuks, mopeds, subways, ferries, jeeps, elephants, and countless miles by foot across 16 cities in 7 countries before returning to Hawaii.

For more than a week I stayed with Brad in Honolulu. Then San Diego, once the city of my origin, became the destination after two long months. Walking out the doors of the San Diego airport and seeing the downtown skyline by night really made me feel like I was home, mostly because I was…almost. My friend dropped me off at the house and my bed, even though I didn’t fall asleep until 4am, has never before felt so comfortable.

Traveling, by definition, is moving from place to place. Our longest stay in any one city was five nights. Most places were just two or three nights. It wasn’t until the end of the journey was in site that thoughts of home entered my mind. Until then, quite honestly, I didn’t think too much of home because part of traveling, at least for me, is getting away from home and experiencing something new. I love traveling the world, but there’s always something nice about coming home and being reacquainted once again with the familiarities of my normal life.

In those first days after I got home I placed pins in my world map to mark where I’d been, I organized all the photos from the trip, I washed all my clothes and stored my backpack away along with my passport that must be retired because every page now is filled with stamps and/or entry visas. But the journey is not completely over yet. I still have to find room to sew on the seven new country patches onto my backpack, edit the journal entries that I didn’t publish, make a scrapbook, create a collage of all the different currencies and…

But before I could get to any of those projects, I drove 200 miles for a Slurpee. Was the Slurpee the purpose of the trip? Was it why I drove all those hours? No. The Slurpee was not what I craved. It didn’t call my name. The road was what my ears heard. It can lure you down its lonely highways past your youth and into oblivion before you know you’ve even left. For me, traveling brings everything back into focus and realigns my perspectives that tend to get fuzzy if left unchecked. It’s unhealthy to get into a rut, traveling is the best way to get out of it. And the road, be it across town or across the world, is always there to take. It can whisper of exotic adventure in unknown lands, of meeting intriguing people, of learning about the world and yourself along the way. Though it can also lead you just down the street to clear your head. The Slurpee was the result of the trip, but not the purpose. The road getting there is what’s rewarding. Many hear the call when they’re young but grow accustomed to its calling and become deaf to it. And only when the end comes into sight do their ears begin to hear its whisper once again. But sometimes it’s already too late. That’s why when I hear the whisper of the road, I follow it.

And both times I followed it, east.