This morning, I awoke in the basement guest room of my best friend’s home on the outskirts of Knoxville, Tennessee. It was around 9 a.m. (Eastern Standard Time) when I got up. I then received a message from my publisher, who texted to see if I was going to make the 9 a.m. editorial meeting via Zoom. The text was sent at 9:09 a.m.

Shit. I thought the meeting was the usual 9:30 a.m. Wednesday morning roll call. Not this go-round. The other editors had other stories to track down and tackle ahead of schedule for this week’s publication. By 9:15 a.m. I was in the meeting and figuring out what the upcoming newspaper would look like and what it would feature for subjects/topics.

Nail down the stories for the impending week. Say goodbye. Shut up the laptop. Pack up my things in the basement. Pack up my truck sitting outside in from of the suburban home in West Knoxville. Say goodbye to my best buddy. Head to Waffle House for a quick breakfast. Texas toast, bacon, egg and cheese melt with hash-browns smothered. Coffee, too.

Fuel up the truck and merge onto Interstate 40 West towards Nashville. Onward up I-24 West through Kentucky and Illinois, over onto I-57 North, then I-64 West, then I-70 West, across the Mighty Mississippi River and into St. Louis, Missouri. It was sunset when I caught a glimpse of “The Arch” gleaming in the last rays of the day.

And there I was, once again in the “Heartland of America.” The Midwest. Rocketing down the highway towards the Under the Big Sky Music Festival in Whitefish, Montana. The gathering doesn’t take place for another week, but it’ll take me just as long to make the long trek up and over and around to the desolation of Northwestern Montana (aka: one of the beautiful places on God’s green earth). I remain excited.

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Late-night fast food orders at the McDonald’s across the parking lot from the Brady Hotel. The vehicles in the drive-thru are anonymous, so is the mysterious person typing away wildly on his laptop at a small patio table under a lone overhead light and slow-twirling fan. The urge to write always remains close to the surface of my absolute being, especially on the road. Thoughts ricochet around my heart and soul.

The last time I saw “The Arch” in-person was in the spring of 2022 heading east from Bozeman, Montana, in a fast-paced U-Haul, helping my aunt move from her home in the West to be closer to family in Charlotte. Within a few months, her son, my cousin Nate, who was like the older brother I never had, would passed away from substance abuse in my hometown of Rouses Point, New York. But, at that juncture in St. Louis, all seemed steady and on autopilot somewhere, for her and myself.

The time before that seeing “The Arch”? I was heading back and forth to visit her in Bozeman. Summer 2020. My parents flew out and met us there for a week running around the mountains of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. It was in the midst of the shutdown and I was on a solo cross-country trip trying to make sense of a world seemingly gone mad. Five years later? More questions than answers are still floating in the ether.

The time before that seeing “The Arch”? December 2007. I was 22 years old and had recently accepted a rookie reporter position at the Teton Valley News in Driggs, Idaho. I’d just graduated college in Connecticut, daydreaming about hitting the open road and seeking my destiny in those glorious Rocky Mountains. My ole buddy from home jumped in the truck with me. He was jobless, and also looking for a fresh start.

As I type this, one of the McDonald’s employees across the way is bringing out the garbage to the dumpster. I remember doing the same thing when I was teenager working for Ronald McDonald on the Canadian Border in the summer of 2001. I was 16 and my future seemed so far down the line along the road of life. I was a star track athlete and dating a nice girl from the next town over. I remember holding her hand in her parent’s living room when we watched 9/11 unfold on TV.

I suppose there’s no actual point or bow to tie in this week’s column. Is there ever, eh? This is just how my mind works. Constantly lost in thought, memories conjured by the simplest of things, like a corporate fast-food sign or the sounds of a big-rig blasting down the road. I’ve always found the rattle of those 18-wheelers soothing. The rhythm of the road lulls me into a peaceful slumber of self, and of purpose.

There will surely be more to say and write as this trip shows itself to me, the miles ticking away with each passing hour en route to Big Sky Country. I find the whole thing as mesmerizing and inspiring in this moment as I ever did, even as a starry-eyed journalist looking to make my mark in Eastern Idaho, the heaviness of the East Coast in the rearview mirror. That heaviness still lingers in that damn mirror.

Oh, and the title of this column? It comes from a large billboard for some store that caught my eye earlier this evening on I-70. I found it quite amusing and couldn’t help but write it down as my old truck was holding pace at 75 miles per hour on cruise control. In truth, I find most things in this existence amusing, which is why I ended up, perhaps by happenstance (or serendipitously), in this job.

Whatever resides just beyond the horizon of my intent remains as elusive as ever. And yet, I’ll always be game to run towards that unknown line in the distance. Montana is somewhere out there, a long way away, in the vast blanket of darkness covering the Midwest right now. There’s lot to ponder until I put the truck in park in Whitefish. And I’ll be sure to send y’all a postcard via this column soon enough.

Life is beautiful, grasp for it, y’all.