MicahPaul

A couple of hours ago, I returned home from a little journey. I set out for one week on the road with minimal planning, looking to go new places, meet new people, all that usual stuff, and with a more deep-seated desire to gain profound new experience and perspective.
In all of these respects, I succeeded.

What follows is an very lengthy account. However, for the sane ones who do not have the interest to read this beast, it can be summed up thusly: I surfed collectives in Chicago, met my friend Max at a Chicago jail, took him and friends West to Omaha, crashed at an anarchist house there, then headed North up to Brookings to spend a few days with my friend Wes, cut across Minnesota to Chippewa Falls to see Mariah, and then home. And it was amazing. On with it, then. Actually, one note: In reading over this account, it seems to come across as a bit flat - I seem to have failed in getting across the true feel of this trip. I hope the events can at least speak for themselves.

In the days preceding my departure, I began to get a nasty skepticism about whether this trip would work. Travelling without a plan and expecting to run into great adventure is a pretty gutsy move. I had never done anything of this sort before, so I really didn’t know what to expect. My fear was that I would drive to Chicago and have nothing to do and no one to meet for a week, and come back home with little gained but a gas bill.

The moment I arrived at the place I would be staying in Chicago, however, these fears were alleviated.

The drive to Chicago was extremely foggy. I stopped in Madison to have dinner with my brother, Noah, and would later find out that the reason I had a dickens of a time getting back on to I-90 was a 100+ car pileup that happened there. Anyways, I got to Chicago fine and then found my home. This was a place I had found through The Couchsurfing Project, a site which I very highly recommend for any traveler. It was listed as a warehouse having 16 people living in it. And how!
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