Driving through the flyovers

Tomorrow I get to swear in again.

Yes, I’m checking in during training in Chicago, where tomorrow, for the second time, I get to take the exact same oath I did as a PCV. Coincidentally, it’s the same oath military take and I believe it might be the same one the State department employees take, too.

So I might as well memorize it.

The AmeriCorps training is pretty much the exact same as PC’s: icebreakers, flip charts and all. Needless to say, it’s as fun as it sounds.

The group is a bit different than I expected, though. I figured it’d be another like PC, diverse in its own way but mostly just-graduated students.

The reality is a bit different, in part because I forgot a couple of key factors. First ACVs are allowed to have dependents, so we have several parents. Some are single moms and some are married moms. (It’s possible there are dads, too, but I haven’t knowingly met any.) There are also halves of married couples, which is possible in PC but pretty rare.

But the biggest factor in the difference between the two service organizations is that ACVs don’t have to relocate to serve. As a result, the bulk of the people here are serving in either their hometowns or their college towns.

That is a huge difference from my previous flip chart-heavy training, because with PC, everyone’s relocating – far, far away. And everyone’s going the same place.

Almost everyone is staying in the Midwest. I think there’s one guy who’s headed to DC but the rest of us are in the flyovers.

Tomorrow, I set off again through those states. My plan is to overnight in Wisconsin and then head to Minnesota before moving on to North Dakota.

It’s likely that once again, the thought of being a long-haul driver will be crossing my mind. I sure have done a lot of it lately.

For the first two days of this excursion, I had Zippy to entertain me, but this leg, I am on my own.

I have some Louis L’Amour stories narrated by Willie Nelson, so I think that’s going to be my entertainment between radio stations.

I have to use CDs sparingly because even though I brought *all* my music on my MP3 player, I only brought 24 actual CDs. Considering I’m going to be gone for 12 months, that’s a lot of the same stuff.