I met Garry outside of the primary school in Coeburn. I was immediately struck by his openness and confidence. He invited me to a Veterans Day breakfast at the local VFW taking place the next morning.

I don’t know if I’ve been quite frank up until this point. So I’d like to begin to relate more closely my experience. I’m living in a van by myself. I’m searching for something of interest. Something of which I’m not quite sure. I sleep. I wake at varying hours, usually several times throughout the morning if not during the wee hours of the night. I dream a lot about various people in my life, that is my constant life of school friends, home friends and family. Usually though it is clearly these people enacting my own misgivings and self-disapprovals. People telling me that the work I am doing is invalid, that it’s basically a waste of time. Or when I’m in a good mood while asleep I will have dreams of approval and comradery. This is a lonely trip, but not depressingly so.

OK, so the technology of this operation is having some difficulties - namely it can't quite keep up. I'm waiting for a video export here in a cafe where I've already been editing for around 3 hours... maybe more. I don't want to buy any over priced sandwich and I had a large coffee that was about 30 ounces... I can't handle any more.

So I hightailed it out of Virginia. I ran into the Cumberland Gap. A friendly visitor center lady told me about the hot showers in the campsites, she also gave me free cornbread, and I was surrounded by people dressed like Indians and Explorers - it was a Lewis and Clarke reenactment, and I was sold. I figured it'd be like taking the day off in a place where I could legally park and cook, maybe I'd even sleep in. I stayed up reading Gravity's Rainbow by flashlight and drinking tea. I was hoping I could spend the following day editing video.

I went to a Veterans’ Day breakfast at the local VFW this morning. A guy invited me while I was speaking to that vet, Will, yesterday.

It was a pretty amazing experience. I had a great home cooked meal, including biscuits and gravy, and about 5 cups of coffee (best placebo for cigarettes and alcohol I’ve got). I spoke with a WWII guy for a while. He was definitely something – wearing his purple heart on his gold necklace.