Four Days

Departure is in four days.

We are nervous, but we have been busy with our final preparations, which include packing as well as grading student essays and portfolios in order to wrap up the semester. It's a tough combination. Both will come down to the last minute, I'm sure.

Many folks know about our trip now and offer their advice and, sometimes, their admonitions about being safe and avoiding nasty weather. My nervousness is tempered, though, by the splendor of excitement. In a more-safety conscious way, I feel like the speaker at the end of James Dickey's poem "Cherrylog Road."

I tore off
Up Highway 106, continually
Drunk on the wind in my mouth,
Wringing the handlebar for speed,
Wild to be wreckage forever.

Of course, I don't want to be wreckage of any kind, but the sentiment still fits.