Nomad Time: Kirstin’s Experience as a Great Plains Nomad
I want to talk to you all about something weird that’s been going on since tour started. No one on my team quite understands it and it’s starting to make us all feel a little crazy—Nomad time. Let me try to explain what I mean. Yesterday, the three of us woke up after six hours of sleep that felt like five minutes. We had 27 hours worth of work to do and only 18 hours left in the day. When we we were ready that night for a few more hours of sleep, it felt like the morning was 10 years ago. But like always, the day was so amazing that it felt like everything went by in a second. It’s just not adding up.
We’ve been working on a theory—we’ve been meeting so many awesome new people so quickly that it’s warping time. Let me give you an example: During our week (day? month?) in Dallas, we got the chance to stay with Lance and Catie for two nights. An unexpected snowstorm cancelled our presentation on the first night, so we met up with them, along with the other guest speaker who was going to be at an event, for dinner. And that’s how the Great Plains nomads ended up at dinner with Blaine Harden, the author of Escape from Camp 14! With so many interesting people meeting in one place, time seemed to stop mattering at all.
Dallas gets really quiet when it snows, so we almost had the restaurant to ourselves to talk and share stories. We learned a lot about Blaine’s life as a journalist (apparently it was like summer camp with whiskey). He’s writing a new book, and he let us in on a few secrets. Lance has Taco Bell connections, so we learned that they’re cooking up something that will change our fast-food lives forever. We’ll let you guys know whether or not that’s really true once we get to Toledo!
After dropping off Blaine, we headed back to their place and somehow it had already gotten dark (where did the day go?). We learned that Catie has the true nomad spirit. She’s worked for a few different non-profits, and worked on an organic farm in New York for a while. We even met Scrappy, an adorable but terrifying monster dog. He’s five pounds of cute with the capacity to be vicious. Eventually even he got used to us, and curled up next to me by the fire. The only way to keep track of time was by how much the snow had piled up outside, and I couldn’t tell you whether it was one hour or six before we eventually said goodnight.
Nomad time. It drives you crazy in the most amazing way. The next few weeks are going to feel like a lifetime, but it’ll be over in a second. And we look forward to every minute of it.
There’s still time to meet the Nomads this spring. Request an event in your town!
