Musta Got Lost

This week, and this week only, I'm going to do something a little different.  

My life dramatically changed nine years ago.  For the better.  I didn't have a smartphone then.  Or a blog, Twitter or Facebook.  Or even a MySpace page.

Even so, many of the details are still very vivid.  It's not exactly live-blogging.  It's more like live-reflective-blogging.  Then again, that's kind of what a lot of blogging is, so maybe it's just blogging.

At the time, I was living in Northern Virginia, looking forward to shedding my old life.  Especially since I had a new life waiting for me in California.

Here's where I stayed that last night, nine years ago tonight.

It was nice, but it didn't really matter.  I had a deal and they had a vacancy.  It was very pretty, and at this time of year there were beautiful autumn colors and falling leaves.  I had a nice dinner in the bar, and the room was great.

I was too excited to sleep much, though.  And I had to get up at night to go into work.  My job was from 2:00am to 10:00am.  I was training someone new, though my mind was on the road, very far away.

I was exhausted but also really exhilarated, constantly thinking about my stuffed Saturn in the parking garage, and my AAA triptych on the passenger seat.

For some reason, as I think back on this, the J. Geils Band song "Musta Got Lost" is stuck in my head.  While I didn't get lost, at any point on this journey, I did feel like I had been lost before this, and had been for a very long time.

I had a ten-disc CD changer in my car at the time, but didn't take any J. Geils Band with me.  But I did have that player filled, and a box of CDs in the trunk, to keep me entertained.

Leg 1 of the trip starts tomorrow!