Like Steinbeck, when he famously traveled the country with his dog Charley, my dog Colby and I set out on a trip. But also like Steinbeck, we quickly found that we needed to take care of a few things first. Steinbeck wrote, in “Travels With Charley,” that when the travel bug bites and “a man” (it was 1961) wants to hit the road, “the victim must find himself a good and sufficient reason for going.” Of course, someone imbued with the degree of wanderlust that Steinbeck and Charley and Colby and me are imbued with does not really need to put the reason into words, it’s just a thing that we long to do and given any opportunity, we will do it. But I have one good word to suffice: Sabbatical. I’ve been given a year of my life to pursue a few dreams with the security of knowing my job awaits when I return.

Earlier versions of my adventures did not end so well, because when I tried this before, within about a day of being alone on the road I was lonely, scared, and confused. In 1989 my friend known as Madeline told me at the Bozeman, Montana, airport as she stepped onto the tarmac to leave me there, “You stay on the road as long as you can.” Go have adventures, go see the world, go find whatever the hell you’re trying to find that is making you too crazy to be with. But I was 24, and I did not have a dog, and I had not made myself a map and did not have a purpose and did not have a job waiting for me anywhere. In short, I was lost. There is a certain amount of being lost that is crucial to a road trip, but when it is out of proportion, the journey is doomed. And so in 1989, the day after Madeline left, I turned tail and started for home, which was New Jersey.

It is now–and I really can’t believe this–about 24 years later. I am twice the age I was when I seemed to have nothing but time. And for the first time in my life I really do have time, and along with that I have just enough money, and I have spent the past 24 years learning how to use it–the time, I mean; I try not to use the money too much. The purpose of my sabbatical is to explore America’s industrial ruins–cities that are past their glory days, and struggling to retain their identity, or remake it. (Golly; does that sound a little bit like a metaphor for me? Well, read on. We’ll see.) I need to learn to use the internet and social media as a journalist, which required having a focus, and dying cities is the subject I picked. Just is. Maybe that metaphor thing was at play in my mind (words of wisdom returned to me from the student I gave them to a couple years ago: “Does your narrator ‘want’ something? Of course she does…) But in any case, armed with this mission and inspired by Steinbeck (and a million thanks to Gail Howard, for handing me the book on CD before I left for a drive back in June), I decided to visit those places in one big, long swoop, in a trailer, with my dog at my side, to combine a personal adventure with that professional one.

Here are a few tips if you are thinking of embarking on a similar adventure:

• Have a partner who is also a writer, and who will support you 100%–thank you, Suzanne Parker.
• Be sure to thank the rest of your family because they helped, I’m sure; thanks, mom and pop.
• Dogs make good companions, but any pet will do. A horse might come in handy.
• Have a good reason to go, but be willing to change it once you get started; more on that later.
• Be absolutely sure that you are fully prepared…because without planning, you’ll probably fail.