Long Way

We bid our friends goodbye
 We promised we would write them
 And headed north up 95
 Into the great unknown
 We turned up our stereo
 And felt so reckless and alive
 We didn't know who we would be
 We didn't know where we would end up
 When we headed down that road
 A little food and our guitars
 In the backseat and that old cello
 The one that would get stolen
 In a town in Idaho
 And it's a long way to Michigan and back
 And it's a long way
 Cause it's a long way, the clouds upon our backs
 And it's a long, long, long, long way
 And I have never seen
 Reflections of the cleanest
 Of blue as the Minnesota lakes
 Those were the longest nights
 Of wood smoke and Northern Lights
 As we talked until the morning came
 The light of glowing embers
 As sweet as I remember
 Among the rustling of the trees
 The legend of the harvest moon
 And sweet ballad of the loon
 I felt as ancient as I was meant to be
 And it's a long way to Washington and back
 And it's a long way
 Cause it's a long way, the clouds upon our backs
 And it's a long, long, long, long way
 I called you from a payphone
 In windy, cold Missoula
 And then from Midland in the rain
 A place as proud and sad as
 The South Dakota badlands
 It touched me more than I could explain
 The dirt poor reservation
 Where the Oglala nation
 Tries to hang on to its ways
 Feather and Peyote pipe and
 A six pack of Miller Light
 Sits on the dashboard of a beat up Chevrolet
 And it's a long way to Tennessee and back
 And it's a long way
 Cause it's a long way on the worn out heels of Kerouac
 And it's a long, long, long, long way
 Out in California
 We touched the other ocean
 And I still have that jar of sand
 In the Arizona desert
 The sky goes on forever
 You've never seen a thing as grand
 And North Montana was cold
 She keeps her secrets frozen
 Under glaciers way up north
 And people have got lost up there
 In the home of the grizzly bear
 And you can ask the mountain
 But the mountain doesn't care
 And it's a long way to Delaware and back
 And it's a long way
 Cause it's a long way, the clouds up on our backs
 And it's a long, long, long, long way
 Cause it's a long way on the worn out heels of Kerouac
 And it's a long, long, long, long way