After driving around eastern North America for three-and-a-half months, I have arrived safely back in Denver, Colorado, where I will remain for several months.

The route I drove is plotted in blue on the map above. The red lines reflect my original planned route. Below is a map reflecting all of my travels within the Americas during the past two years.

You can click on the picture above to see a larger version. I have traveled extensively within the United States, and somewhat within Latin America.

I left Denver in a hurry at the beginning of April. Due to scheduling constraints, I didn’t really do any planning. Instead, I just threw a bunch of stuff into my car and took off.

By leaving so quickly I knew I would be forgetting some important things, and after I was on the road, I realized I didn’t have my iPod!! Three-and-a-half months on the road, and all I had to keep me company was a couple of scratched CDs I found in the car door’s side pocket. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise however, for two reasons.

For one thing, some thugs broke into my car outside of Philadelphia, and my iPod would surely have been stolen if I had taken it with me.

Secondly, I ended up driving in silence for large portions of my trip. This had the unexpected benefit of allowing me to spend large amounts of time in quiet contemplation. As a result, the past few months were a very introspective time for me. I stopped regularly while I was on the road to write contemplative notes in my notebooks.

After three-and-a-half months on the road, I was exhausted. When I got home, I was looking pretty rough.

But my room in even worse shape than I was!

That can hardly even be called a bedroom. It’s more of an enormous pile of boxes, computer cords, clothes and magazines. So I heated up some leftover pizza (compliments of my roommates), and got to work putting things away.

And then I saw him.

He was just sitting there, looking at me…

Oh no! In my haste to leave, I had forgotten to bring Ernesto, my faithful travel companion!!

Ernesto “the Bear” Guevara had been with me through it all. He was there when I rolled my 4Runner. He was there when I saw all those bears and glaciers in Alaska. He was even there for all those endless other adventures that I never got around to writing posts about.

Oh Ernesto, how could I forget you? You were supposed to be the face of MyAmericanJourney.com, and yet I left you sitting here on a box for three-and-a-half months while I traveled around eastern North America!

The original plan with Ernesto was for him to accumulate accessories while traveling with me. I didn’t even buy him so much as an “I Heart NY” t-shirt while I was traveling. How could I be so self-absorbed?

Ernesto didn’t really say anything about it though. He just sat there looking at me, with this sad expression on his face.

Oh come on, don’t give me that look. I’m sorry already! I’m soooorrrrrryyyyyy!!!

Another old friend was also waiting for me when I got home. He seemed pretty excited to see me.

My roommates’ dog, Lucky, was all smiles when I showed up. At least I think that’s a smile.

Lucky and I have a simple friendship. The relationship consists entirely of me throwing a tennis ball around the yard for him when I feel like it. As for Lucky, he always feels like it.

Here is how a typical interaction works between Lucky and me. First he brings a tennis ball over to me and sets it at my feet. Then he stares at me intently. Notice the intentness of his stare.

I typically ignore him for a few minutes before giving in. Then I pick up the ball and toss it towards him.

He watches the ball carefully while it’s in the air.

When it gets closer to his face he keeps his eye on the ball, while opening his mouth up really wide.

When Lucky really gets into his zone, he becomes Neo the Matrix-dog. The ball moves in slow motion, while Lucky moves with supernatural speed.

When the ball is in just the right position, he chomps down on it.

Chomp!

I have to say, it’s good to be back in Denver, my home away from home. The weirdest thing happened the day after I got back. I was standing out in the backyard, throwing the ball around for Lucky, and suddenly I experienced an overwhelming feeling of freedom.

Is that the weirdest thing, or what? Here I am out on the open road, free to go wherever I choose, and then I get back to my place in Denver with the disaster bedroom, and I feel this incredible sense of freedom. It was totally unexpected.

But then, being away from the luxuries of home makes you value things that you previously didn’t think about. I now have the freedom to take a shower and shave whenever I want. I’m free to do my laundry at any time. Free to sit down at my computer at any moment and work on writing about this crazy, unbelievable, overwhelming experience I’ve had during the past two years.