Vagabond Chic

 Middle-aged, Single White Female Takes a Drive 3 months, 10,000 miles alone to the middle of nowhere. “So how was your trip?” they asked. First of all, she turned 50. Isn’t that how it goes with aging? It was an outrage—how did this happen? Her children grown, husband gone to cancer, their business sold—Gloria Jean had reached middle age; she was on her own. Next! Was it a bucket list thing, life too short? Didn’t matter, Vagabond Chic beckoned; the first day of the rest of something lay ahead as her bold vision materialized, and once inspired, the odyssey seemed to plan itself. Months of research stretched to two years of getting prepared—a journey all its own. “We do not take a trip,” said John Steinbeck in his Travels with Charley. “A trip takes us.” This would come to mind many times as her May to September journey commenced. She drove the main streets of outer space—small towns, cheap motels, an assortment of critters, and more than once, a high spirited, didn’t-see-it-coming, moment. Train whistles echoed divine exhilaration across the prairie, as America was browsed beyond any route imagined, passing unnoticed along northern borders—Lake Superior to Fargo, the quiet solace of Wounded Knee in Dakota; the eureka moment in Hathaway, Montana; and the extraordinary personal discovery in Sheridan, Wyoming. Isolation weighed heavy at times, but the search for her personal holy grail weaves a compelling, serendipitous plot straight to its unforeseen conclusion. If it’s courage you seek for your own long-held inner something: “Courage is feeling the fear and doing it anyway.” Oprah said.