El Circo Cheapo Tour Day One: Sept 6th.

Miraculously, everything fit in the van. All the people, all the stuff. It's amazing how small a circus can get when you shove it it boxes and bags. You think of a circus as being huge, but most of it is just air and fear and imagination.

Moment of Panic #1. We fill up the tank at California and Division before getting on the road. Key into the ignition, turn it, nothing. Do it again. Nothing.

“Elena, can you think of a reason the van isn't starting”. Elena looks at me white-faced (not wearing clown makeup).
“Is it in park?” It is. I take it out of park and put it back in. Van starts. We all breathe.

For the first few hours of driving, everyone is singing and chatting and laughing. We listen to old skool hip-hop. No one farts. Slowly it gets quieter, conversations dwindle, eyelids droop. The farting begins. We drive through Iowa cracking the windows every 30 min or so. We stop at Dairy Queen and drive through Nebraska cracking the windows every 15 min or so.

When you're on a trip around the country for 4 weeks and you see a craft brewery, you get off the interstate. You drive down little streets. You get lost. You waste a lot of time, but ultimately consume delicious beer from Kearny, Nebraska and play pool. Big deal if end up at your destination an hour later than planned.

Well, had we known a nail would find it's home in our front passenger side tire at 1AM, we may have opted for Wendy's or Subway and saved ourselves that hour. But there's no way of knowing. There is a way of making the situation a bit better, which is looking real quick under the van before, leaving Chicago, to confirm that there is a spare, but I was in a hurry and that would have taken like 10 seconds or something--and I would have realized that there wasn't a spare, and I would have had to go get one, and that would have been more time and money. So, screw it. We're probably not going to get a flat tire in the middle of the night, anyway. I mean, when's the last time I got a flat tire?

I must have been overdue.

So, at 1AM Helena called AAA. They told us that we wouldn't be able to get it fixed until Tuesday, because of Labor Day. We pictured ourselves between greyish sheets at the USA #1 Motel. We pictured the van getting towed to Walmart at 7AM. I pictured everyone taking a turn hitting me with a trapeze after I fell asleep. But when Helena told AAA that that's unacceptable, they sent a guy right out who put a new tire on for us!

Everyone learn this phrase: “That's unacceptable”.

James was awesome. He'd been working 23 hours straight and showed up with a smile on his face. “I don't mind”, he said. “I like helping people.” I exhaled a long held breath. I thought about laying on my belly on top of the loft in the van as Elena drove, feeling like Superman flying down the expressway, Lizzy and I putting our fists determinedly forward and looking down on an imaginary village below. I remember looking up and seeing 7 of my best friends sleeping, driving, reading, cuddling and thinking, “I'm so happy right now”.

“I don't mind, I like helping people”. I thought about why I'm doing this tour. I thought about spending the next month indulging the absolute core of why I exist. Anything could have happen. I couldn't mind a bit.