“Writing is the handle I can grasp onto in order not to yield to the centrifugal forces
trying to throw me off of the earth.” - Ogden Nash

    So it is with me, although not just with writing.  For me, it is creativity, in general.  Making something that wasn’t there before.  Whether it be with others, walking the boards of a stage; by myself, above a notebook or keyboard; a photo/video/graphics project; or now, evidently, web design, I can either detach from or make sense of the chaos, or redirect the energy generated by such chaos.  The left side of my brain likes notes and lists and spreadsheets, giving order to chaos and arriving at irrefutable answers.

    My mind was blown, shredded, in tatters after six months and 13,572 km (8,433 mi) on the road. I had been through hundreds of cities and towns, seen thousands of faces, searched and found and explained and negotiated, cooked, cleaned, and washed…  It was time for a break.  I needed to clear the cache, the random access memory.  Six months seemed like a good number.  And Granada, Nicaragua seemed as good a place as any.  I found parking for La Bestia and rented an apartment for 30 days.

    The kinetic motion of the wheels and movement southward, coupled with the spiritual infusion of tackling a big one on the To Do list were working unforeseen magic.  With each mile, I was accomplishing more and more of a dream, something that had gone undone for 19 years.  I channeled Langston Hughes regarding his warnings and hopes of such a thing being deferred.  I was exploding.

    I made the first of three roadtrip videos, this one in honor of my first six months.  It consisted, as they all would, solely of videos captured from the camera mounted on the driver’s side windshield wiper.  This one was unique, in that it opened with an introduction, of sorts – narration by the aforementioned wild and wise apparition from Quebec, Marc Grenier.  Aside from musician vocals, his was the only voice that would ever be heard in any of the videos.  After his voice fades out, “When the Levee Breaks” became the background to my travels from the U.S. through Honduras.  The levee had broken, indeed.

    With all the stops and sites and views - some 10,000 photos and 1,400 total videos to date - why would I choose to include only driving videos?  Firstly, it was easier.  All media was recorded with the same orientation, resolution, etc.  But more importantly, the journey really was the thing.  Anyone could go to these places, but how many drive there?  That was the thing, and a thing I wholeheartedly underestimated: the act of driving, of surviving such a length of road, the hypnotic, mesmerizing nature of following an interconnected series of interstates and highways and dirt roads - and a donkey trail - was sublime.  The road was as much a player in this play as anything else.  It was such an extreme pleasure to bear witness to.  For as much as I did the driving, I felt as much the passenger throughout the journey.  This great sojourn was a blessing and a gift – all of it.  At least once in every country, I would rise high above myself on the road, see where I was compared to where I began, and say to myself, “I’m in _____.  And I drove here.”  I had never felt so alive as in those moments.  There is a part of me that has felt soft since then, that I have been merely existing.  Will I ever be so alive again?

    I resurrected what was going to be my first film.  Both audio and video content recorded in 2004 made it onto an external hard drive.  I had re-recorded the audio with better equipment in 2014-2015.  The project began as a series of free association monologues written from the perspective of a man in prison.  My buddy, Ralph, purchased high quality audio and video equipment and editing software.  The project stalled out when I could/did not convert the free form, solid block text into a screenplay format.  At least, that was my excuse.  Thirteen years later, in Nicaragua, I resurrected the media and put it together for the first time.  Centrifugal forces, indeed.  I uploaded it to my YouTube channel, David Overturf Photography.

    Four and a half months later, I would slow down and grab a handle again, spending six nights in Vilcabamba, Ecuador, working on the formal proposal for a nationwide version of a theater project I had led back in Billings.  I had mentored high school students through the conception, writing, editing, casting, and staging; and then directed the performance of their self-written theater pieces.  Here, I delineated project stages, content, and descriptions; tasks for Performer and Advisor; calendar; budget; writing prompts; intra/interpersonal, academic, and life skill benefits; and plans for private sector funding.

    Two months after that, I spent time working on my photography website in both Oruro and Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia.  especially the structure for this roadtrip.

    Almost fourteen months into the journey, I resurrected the idea of Project 1:1000 in Esquel, Argentina.  It was first conceived while living in Barcelona, as a sort of semester abroad program for college students.  16 years later, I wrote about this history, sketched out, then made graphics of what I envisioned as a site map and basic functions of the site.  I thought that a book about this roadtrip written in the same 1 picture: 1000-word format would kill a few birds with one stone.  And here we are.

    Introducing the 6-month video to friends and family on social media, I wrote,

    …I am trusting in the road. It has never let me down. It has always brought me somewhere I needed to be. Surely, I am not quite the same person who left six months ago. You cannot see what I have seen and remain the same. It changes you.