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| -rw-r--r-- | ennui.txt | 43 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | published/2018-03-21_stone-crabs.txt | 46 | ||||
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| -rw-r--r-- | sketches/2018-02-01_safari-trek.txt | 3 | ||||
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| -rw-r--r-- | sketches/2018-02-06_camping.txt | 10 | ||||
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| -rw-r--r-- | television.txt | 14 |
16 files changed, 181 insertions, 29 deletions
@@ -1,10 +1,8 @@ -Traveling around for months or years on end without any direction sounds romantic, at least to some people, and it is. For a while. +It's difficult to describe the sense of freedom that comes from traveling through the world, unleashed from all the responsibility or worry of normal suburban/urban life in 21st century America. The perpetual motion of open-ended travel is liberating in a way that few other things can really match. -It's difficult to describe the sense of freedom you feel traveling through the world, unleashed from all responsibility or worry. The perpetual motion of open ended travel is liberating in a way that nothing else I'm aware of is, save perhaps psychedelics. +Traveling long term is also a kind of curse though. Don't forget that exile was once a favorite punishment for all sorts of crimes in more than a few cultures. Cain, perhaps western culture's most famous criminal, was condemned to wander the earth aimlessly as a punishment for murdering his brother. The worst thing his culture could conceive of was to strip him of a home and set him adrift in the world. -Traveling long term like this is also a kind of curse though. Don't forget that exile was once a favorite punishment for all sorts of crimes in more than a few cultures. Cain, perhaps western culture's most famous criminal, was condemned to wander the earth aimlessly as a punishment for murdering his brother. The worst thing his culture could concieve of was to strip him of purpose and set him adrift in the world. - -I think there's an important lesson there for traveling. Long term travel that has no sense of purpose, no mission, no project behind it inevitably leaves you lost, adrift in the world, wandering aimlessly, trapped in a pit of ennui. +I think there's an important lesson there for travelers. Long term travel that has no sense of purpose, no mission, no project behind it inevitably leaves you lost, adrift in the world, wandering aimlessly, trapped in a pit of ennui. Do it too long and you'll find that ennui, no matter who you are. It is too easy to let your brain slip into a mindless blur of cocktails and sunsets that leave your mind limp as a lime floating in yesterday's beer. It's okay to do that for a while, but too long and you'll throw in the towel or turn to one of those sad, soused expats staring blankly at the wall behind the bar all day. @@ -12,44 +10,33 @@ If you want to do more than just travel for a bit, if you want to make a life on The first thing you need is a project, a purpose to drive you, no matter how quixotic or strange it might be. Almost every long term traveler I know has something that drives them. Often these projects are the reason I know of them. I know people who [make movies](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCirYAT7CafNatSyJH3-O4pQ), many [others](https://www.bumfuzzle.com/) [who write](https://www.vagabondjourney.com/), others who [photograph](http://charlenewinfred.com/journal/), others who [paint](https://expeditionaryart.com/blog/), others who are [avid birdwatchers](https://www.notesfromtheroad.com/), others who take work along the way, traveling chefs, traveling teachers, archaeologists -- anyone who travels for an extended period of time has something driving them, even if it's nothing more than a desire to show their children the world. -For me it's usually several things, but the obvious public one is this website. I have been writing for this site more or less steadily since 2003. I've managed to put down over 260,000 words here, most of which I can even re-read without wanting to punch myself in the face, which is more than I can say for most of the writing I've been paid to do. I don't have a real reason for doing any of this beyond the fact that it's an neverending project that I enjoy and that gives a certain sense of purpose to my days on the road. I don’t make luxagraf because I travel, I also travel because I make luxagraf. The two go hand in hand, they are in fact very much the same project. - -But sometimes even luxagraf isn't enough to stave off the sense of being adrift. I can always tell when ennui has set in for me: I look back at luxagraf. Posts will get progressively shorter, terser, heavier on the photos and generally mundane. I'm just going through the motions and I can tell. I'm sure you can too dear reader. - -To make our recent bout of ennui more acute, in the last ten days or so we've all had the flu. In five years we've never been simultaneously sick. It's a pretty awful flu, high fevers, chills, all night coughs and general misery. It was also the sort of flu that makes it impossible to read, which meant I spent at fair portion of time contorted in strange positions in the back of the bus, with two clammy feverish five-years-olds pressed tightly against me, just staring up at the ceiling in the dark. It was the kind of flu that strips away your existence and forces you to ask, what is the point of what I'm doing right now? And what am I doing right now anyway? +For me it's usually several things, but the obvious public one is this website. I have been writing for this site more or less steadily since 2003. I've managed to put down over 280,000 words here, most of which I can even re-read without wanting to punch myself in the face, which is more than I can say for most of the writing I've been paid to do. -If you're one of the half dozen friends and family we've talked to in the past couple of months you've probably heard us say we were headed everywhere from Mexico to Canada because the truth is for a while now we've had no real plan, no project, no purpose driving us. We're all feeling a little bit lost, a bit bored with most of the ideas we've come up with. The get up and go got up and went at some point and we need to get it back. +I don't have a real reason for doing any of this beyond the fact that it's an neverending project that I enjoy and that gives a certain sense of purpose to my days on the road. I don’t make luxagraf because I travel, I also travel because I make luxagraf. The two go hand in hand, they are in fact very much the same project. -To fix this we need to tap into the second thing you need for a successful and happy life on the road. This one is a little nebulous, but I like to define it as an acute sense of place and your place in places. +The second thing you need for a successful and happy life on the road is a little more nebulous, but I like to define it as an acute sense of place and your place in places. -You have to make sure you're in places that move your soul, places that fill the spiritual hunger inside you that sent you traveling in the first place. The point to existence isn't to accumulate stuff you know (and places can be stuff just as much as stuff can be stuff) the point to existence to fully develop who you are. To make that task easier it realy helps to be in places you love. +You have to make sure you're in places that move your soul, places that fill the spiritual hunger inside you that sent you traveling in the first place. The point to existence isn't to accumulate stuff you know (and places can be stuff just as much as stuff can be stuff) the point to existence is to fully develop who you are. To make that task easier it really helps to be in places you love. -But I don't just mean places you love in the sense that pretty much everyone loves the beach. I mean places that you go to and you immediately feel at home there for whatever reason you can't really put your finger on. I believe this is actually a sense you can develop, the ability to feel what once might have been called the vibe of a place. I don't know whether that energy is a result of human experience in a place, some kind of inate energy of a place, some sort of being that occupies a place or, most likely, some combination of all those things. I can't explain how you tap into it, I just know that you can and once you know how you'll be well on your way to making your travels a much more enjoyable experience. +But I don't just mean places you love in the sense that pretty much everyone loves the beach. I mean places that you go to and you immediately feel at home there for whatever reason you can't really put your finger on. I believe this is actually a sense you can develop, the ability to feel what once might have been called the vibe of a place. I don't know whether that energy is a result of human experience in a place, some kind of innate energy of a place, some sort of being that occupies a place or, most likely, some combination of all those things. -Of course sometimes you end up in places where you are not happy for one reason or another and you can't leave them. That's when traveling gets hard and people end up throwing in the towel. Like I almost did in California. Here's a quick lesson in how a place you don't like, with a vibe you instictively shrink from, can ruin your whole world. +Once you know how to tap into and sense of the vibe of a place you'll be well on your way to making your travels a much more enjoyable experience. There are a variety of ways to do this, but the one that I've had the most success with is a kind of mediation, but not the sort of meditation you're probably familiar with. I've tried that, emptying your mind and whatnot. There's value in that, but it's never really led anywhere for me. -I've disliked California for years. Probably forever. I avoid it. The minute I set foot here I get irritable. But then I'd been gone so long I forgot why I avoided it. People always want to know why I dislike California, but I don't have an answer for that really except to say that this is a spiritually dead place to me. California has no soul. It's as simple as that. Except San Francisco, you're alright San Francisco. +I mentioned in [a recent post][1] that I often spend a good bit of time "doing nothing". Certainly more than I used it. Early on on this trip we ran around and did things. And sometimes we still do, but I would say less than we used to. These days, so long as it's a wild enough spot, we're happy hanging around camp, walking whatever trails or seashore might be around and generally doing "nothing". Sitting still and observing the world around. -I remembered that the first day we were here. We drove through Redding and I started to get cranky. My wife says I've been cranky ever since. I believe it. California puts me on edge. There is no real ryme or reason to it. I've tried to trace out what it is, but it's nothing specific, it's nothing you can pin down. It's just a place I don;t have a place in, I never have and I never will. Simple as that. +In the post linked above the "nothing" we did is stare out at the sparkling waters of Pensacola's East Bay, but it could be anything really. I spent hours watching the pine forests of Colorado, the deep woods of Mount Shasta, the deserts of the southwest, the rocky stream beds of Utah, the snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada. We stare at campfires almost every night. -I've been meditating on this notion for many weeks now though and I've realized it's actually somewhat deeper than that. There may be no real rhyme or reason to it, but whatever it is seems to run deeper than just California. I am no longer who I was when I lived out here. Up until about August of this year if pressed I would probably still have called myself a westerner despite having lived in the south longer than anywhere else at this point. I have long felt that the south was my spiritual home, but I think it's hard to escape the place you were born so I would have probably, had anyone asked, still said westernerer. +But watching the world, observing the natural environment around you isn't really doing nothing. It took me quite a while to internalize that, even if I might have *said* it from the beginning. I've come to recognize that there's a big difference between saying something and actually knowing it through experience. And staring at nothing isn't doing nothing. It so happen that watching the world in silence isn't something our culture considers valuable and so you and I have been trained to casually dismiss it as "doing nothing". But the more I've done it, the more I realized that sitting, "doing nothing" is actually, possibly, the secret of the world so to speak. Whatever it may be, I can say from experience that it's incredibly valuable to me now and has helped me grow by leaps and bounds as a person. -But since I got out here again I've realized that that's not true at all. Somehow or other I have fully and truly excorized the west, particularly California, from my soul. It's not for me you see. You can have California. You can have the west. If there's no wilderness to eacape into anymore, there's no reason to be out here. +I also think it offers a practical way to get a sense of a place by learning to pick up the vibe it has. I find the relatively easy in cities, more difficult out in nature which has larger, deeper patterns that are harder to pick up on. -Somewhere along the way I became a southerner. The truth is I felt at home in the south the very first time I drove through it, starting in New Orleans and continuing along the gulf coast to Appalachicola before heading north toward Athens. But I feel at home lots of places. Paris. India. Thailand. Laos. Mexico. All places in which I have found my place. -Still, for the last eighteen years I have been a southerner. Everything I love in this country -- and there's not much left to love in my opinion -- is back somewhere along the gulf coast tucked in the bayous, beaches and oyster-rich rivers flowing into the sea. I want New Orleans and Appalachicola, I want jazz and seafood. That's where my soul is, that's where some form of life, however meager it might be, continues to thrive on these shores. That's where the soul is. -One of the things I miss most about the South is southern kindness, which is sometimes called politeness. Before I go into why though I need to define what I mean by that, which is simple: that you say hello to people when you can, yes, strangers, you hold the door for them, you pause to let them go first, you wait for them when they walk and you're in a car, you respect them and treat them as people even if you don't like them at all. Even in fact if you thorough dislike them, you still treat them as if you liked them. -Much gets made of this sense of kindness or politeness, it gets celebrated a lot, mostly by northern and westerners who think it's somehow quaint and charming. It's neither. It's it's much simpler than that. It's something that used to be called common decency, which you would extend to anyone, anyone with whom you have an I-you relationship, that is, anyone you consider a "person". Rather than calling southern politeness charming and quaint, I would prefer to call it nothing at all and define northern and especially western behavior what it is -- coarse and rude -- but then, that wouldn't be very polite. So politeness it is. -Still one thing I've noticed in 7000 miles of travel is that the lack of respect, the lack the treating the world around you and what's in it as equals is a big part of the problems our country is having just now. When you deal with the world outside yourself you can essentially treat things as either "yous" or "its". That is as "persons" or as "objects", though I prefer you and it. I'm borrowing those terms from philosopher Martin Buber because I think they work quite well, so long as you keep in mind that all dualities are concealing a third possibility. -There are, in my experience, more people with more "yous" in their lives in the south than elsewhere. This is part of what I mean when I say the south has soul. It has people who view the world around them as their equal. Not everyone of course. Perhaps not even most, but enough that you notice them. -And this part of why, despite the economic strife, racial hatreds, lack of caring from the rest of the nation, and a host of those things that would be fine excuses for being assholes, southerners remain a generally happier, pleasanter bunch of people, despite having more differences among them then the rest of the country. That's not to say the south doesn't have terrible people or is somehow a paradise. It's flawed like everything else. It's a mess too, but the people in it have at least retain the ability to go about the daily lives with a certain grace, dignity and politeness that I find missing elsewhere. +I remembered that the first day we were in California. We drove through Redding and I started to get cranky. My wife says I was cranky the rest of the time as well. I believe it. California puts me on edge. There is no real rhyme or reason to it. I've tried to trace out what it is, but it's nothing specific, it's nothing you can pin down. It's a place I don't have a place in, I never have and I never will. Simple as that. -One of the interesting outgrowths of this is that southern culture extends beyond it's borders. I can't tell you how many people have come up to us to talk because they saw our license plate. We've met Georgians, Carolinians, Louisannas, Alabamans and others who wanted to talk simply because we were also from the south, because they knew we would talk, because they knew we would treat them with respect, and perhaps because there is an unwritten understanding among those from the south that we must stick together in the face of the unkindness that has engulfed the rest. +Sometimes you end up in places where you are not happy for one reason or another and you can't leave them. That's when traveling gets hard and people end up throwing in the towel. Like I almost did in California. -And so we're headed back that way. It'll take us a while, and frankly that's good because it's unseasonably cold in Florida right now, to say nothing of Texas. But still, the west has been fun in a way, educational let's say, but now we're eastbound, looking for some white sands, some seafood, and some southern kindness to remind us why we started this adventure in the first place. diff --git a/published/2018-03-21_stone-crabs.txt b/published/2018-03-21_stone-crabs.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6123355 --- /dev/null +++ b/published/2018-03-21_stone-crabs.txt @@ -0,0 +1,46 @@ +After enjoying such a [nice slice of wilderness][1], we were bound to be a little disappointed returning to the crowds. + +As we headed back to the coastline we found ourselves among two peculiar breeds of American tourist, spring break partygoers in rented convertibles and snow birds in massive RVs. + +To provide maximum contrast between wild and crowded, we headed first to a place called Topsail State Park and RV Resort. And yes, it really was an RV Resort -- full hookups, pool, the whole bit, but inside a state park. It was the strangest campground we've been in and not really our scene you could say. When my wife asked if there was a trail to the beach the woman at the counter looked at her like she was crazy and apparently the first person here to contemplate walking a whole mile. There was naturally a road, complete with shuttle, that could take you to beach. + +The minute Corrinne said there was a pool I knew I'd never see the beach anyway. For the kids, at this point, white sand beaches happen pretty much all the time, but pools? Pools are exotic and enticing, even when they're the coldest pool any of us had ever set foot in. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-22_142041_topsail-state-park.jpg" id="image-1254" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-22_142215_topsail-state-park.jpg" id="image-1253" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-22_142231_topsail-state-park.jpg" id="image-1255" class="picwide caption" /> + +Topsail certainly isn't a destination for Spring Breakers, though we drove through plenty of that crowd on our way, especially in Destin. Topsail drew in the snow birds. I lost count of midwestern license plates, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, and South Dakota, but those are fulltime people[^1]. And there were some truly massive rigs, with square footage well over the average Parisian apartment. I've nothing against big rigs really, it seems very limiting to me, but hey, to each their own, still, it was odd to be around such mammoth vehicles. + +I'm not really sure how we ended up with a spot here in the first place. Corrinne had been refreshing the reservation page the whole time we were at East Bay and finally found something, a cancellation we were able to snatch up for a couple of days. + +The pool entertained the kids, and we did make it out the beach one afternoon. We walked. It was a nice beach, though pretty crowded with people and high-rise hotels just down the shore in either direction. But if you stared out at the sea and squinted a bit, it looked more or less like Gulf Islands National Seashore. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-21_152901_topsail-state-park.jpg" id="image-1252" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-21_151936_topsail-state-park.jpg" id="image-1248" class="picwide" /> + +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-21_152318_topsail-state-park.jpg" id="image-1250" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-21_152414_topsail-state-park.jpg" id="image-1251" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-21_152256_topsail-state-park.jpg" id="image-1249" class="picwide" /> + +The influx of Northerners and Midwesterns brought a return of what I call the stone-faced walk-by, which I thought we'd left behind in California. + +Imagine you're walking down a trail, or a path, a nice sun-bleached wood plank boardwalk over some dunes say, and someone else is approaching you. Now nearly everywhere I've been on this planet, in dozens of cultures, with dozens of language barriers, in nearly every case, everyone at least smiles and maybe attempts to exchange pleasantries, even if the latter are not maybe completely understood. + +In parts of America though there's another approach: the stone-faced walk-by. + +In this scenario you not only don't smile or exchange pleasantries. Instead you don't acknowledge the other person at all. You completely avoid making eye contact because you're very concerned about something over... there, anywhere really, except the direction of the approaching person. You find this spot to stare at, like it's the guiding light that will get you through, past the terror of interacting with other people, without actually interacting, like a child who closes her eyes and momentarily pretends that nothing around her exists. And then you slide on by the other person without acknowledging their existence in any way. + +It's fascinating to watch, bizarre and a little disconcerting to experience. It helps to narrate the whole thing in your head using the voice of David Attenborough. Sometimes I swear you can almost hear the approaching person's subvocalization: please don't talk to please don't talk to me please don't talk to me. + +It's strange, very strange. But then maybe it's the place, not the people. I didn't notice it the time, but I ended up with pictures of the kids looking hilariously (and unintentionally) angsty while playing on the beach. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-21_150504_topsail-state-park_JgU1k4V.jpg" id="image-1245" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-21_150528_topsail-state-park.jpg" id="image-1246" class="picwide" /> + +Different places bring out different things in you. I have a post about that, but that's for another day. For now I'll just say that Topsail was an oddball place; we didn't dislike it exactly, but I think we were all ready to move on when our three nights were up. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-23_062841_topsail-state-park.jpg" id="image-1256" class="picwide caption" /> + +[1]: /jrnl/2018/03/green-sea-days +[^1]: A lot of full time people make South Dakota their state of residence. Just as Delaware attracts corporations with tax breaks and easy incorporation processes, South Dakota has (purposefully or not, I'm not sure) made it easy to be a resident, and even get mail, without needing to actually be in the state more than once every few years. So when you see an RV with South Dakota plates, chances are, that's a full timer. diff --git a/scratch.txt b/scratch.txt index 6bfaf0c..f05f1c8 100644 --- a/scratch.txt +++ b/scratch.txt @@ -1,6 +1,28 @@ +I've got a couple of those photos where you can count the feathers on the bird's face of laughing gulls. They're everywhere down on the Gulf Coast, sit long enough and they'll come close enough that you'll get something. But that's not how I see Laughing Gulls. I see them from a distance. Not a great distance, but slyly out of reach. Like this photo. Always watching, waiting. Waiting for the humans to give up something. A chip, a Cheeto, a forgotten peanut. Moo Krob Nam Ma Prow having grown up in mid-twentieth century suburbia — and then escaped! — I have a very low tolerance for the kind of boring world that comes from excess conformity and obedience to authorities. As for ways to sort through the abstractions — ah, we’ll be getting to those. -I wish there was a way to record the texture of a place, the way the crushed gray gravel felt agaist the bottom of your foot, sharp, but rough and not cutting, or reconstruct for you the dryness of the grass between your fingers, thin, smooth, like a miniature brown flute that crumbs as your roll it and is carried off on the wind, or provide a way for you to feel the warm waft of humidity slowly receding through the evening as the sun fades and the temperature drops enough to weeken it, and it is pushed back by the cool salt air rolling in for the night. I can photograph the stars and record the sound of the frogs singing but there is no way to make you feel the texture of a place. to feel a place you must get inside it somehow and when you do, when you've shrunk yourself down into the cracks of it, heard the thin rumor of whispers it says behind our backs, then you know that place, in your own way, with in it. +I wish there was a way to record the texture of a place, the way the crushed gray gravel feels against the bottom of your foot, sharp, but rough, not cutting, or to reconstruct for you the dryness of the grass between your fingers, thin, smooth, like a miniature brown flute that crumbs as your roll it and it's carried off on the wind, or provide a way for you to feel the warm waft of humidity slowly receding through the evening as the sun fades and the temperature drops enough to weaken it, the way it is pushed back by the cool salt air rolling in for the night. + +I can photograph the stars and record the sound of the frogs singing, but there is no way to make you feel the texture of a place. Perhaps that's for the best, lest we have another reason to not get off the couch. To feel a place you must get inside it somehow and when you do, when you've shrunk yourself down into the cracks within it, heard the thin rumor of whispers it says behind our backs, then you know that place, in your own way, and are connected to it forever more. + + + +> In a home I need walls, roof, windows, and a door that can be opened and closed. I also need a place to cook, a place to eat, a place to sleep, a place for a guest, and a place to write. More space is not better... more space attracts more stuff which eventually means less space. + +> Some things make life easier, but more things do not make life more easy. More things mean more things that can break down and more time spent fixing or replacing them. + +> Comfort is freedom and independence. Comfort is having the sweat glands and metabolic tolerance to deal with heat and cold. It is not central heating or air conditioning which may fail or be unavailable. It is not plushy seats but a healthy back. Luxury is not expensive things. It is a healthy and capable body that moves with ease with no restraints because something is too heavy, too far, too hard, or too much. It is a content and capable mind that can think critically, solve problems, and form opinions of its own. + +> Success is having everything you need and doing everything you want. It is not doing everything you need to have everything you want. If so then you do not own your things, instead your things own you. I do not need to own a particular kind of vehicle. I need to go from A to B. I do not need fancy steak dinners, rare ingredients, or someone else to prepare my meals whether it is a pizza parlor, a chef, or an industrial food preprocessor. I need food to live. Food to fuel my body and brain. Luxury is not eating at 5 five star restaurants. Luxury is being able to appreciate any food. Comfort is eating the right kind and the right amount of food. Not whatever I want. Eating and moving right prevents diseases, pains, and lack of functionality. I am what I eat and I look what I do. Everybody is. It is the physiological equivalent of integrity. To say what I mean and mean what I say. This too makes life more comfortable. Money is opportunity. Opportunity is power. Power is freedom. And freedom means responsibility. Without responsibility, eventually there is no freedom, no power, no opportunities, and no money. More importantly, freedom is more than power. Power is more than opportunity. Opportunity is more than money. And money is more than something that just buys stuff. It is simple to understand but hard to remember, but do remember this if nothing else. + +http://earlyretirementextreme.com/manifesto.html + + +Under the Jaguar Sun +The Burning Plain Juan Rulfo +The Labyrinth of Solitud +Juana Inés de la Cruz. Her superb book "Poems, Protest, and a Dream" +Mariano Azuela's "The Underdogs" diff --git a/sketches/2018-01-31_harvey.txt b/sketches/2018-01-31_harvey.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ab802c9 --- /dev/null +++ b/sketches/2018-01-31_harvey.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +Driving out of Rockport there's a place where the highway becomes divided for a bit and then the divide gets really wide. The space between the two sides of the road is currently being used as some kind of staging area to clear the debris of hurricane Harvey. It's strange to drive by great piles of what are essentially people's stuff, smashed beyond repair or recognition. A good reminder that just because things slip out of our memory doesn't mean they've gone away. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-01_093724_matagorda-beach.jpg" id="image-1084" class="picwide" /> diff --git a/sketches/2018-01-31_hookups.txt b/sketches/2018-01-31_hookups.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..32963cd --- /dev/null +++ b/sketches/2018-01-31_hookups.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +We seldom stay anywhere with hookups, so when we do we're like kids in the candy store -- let's do laundry! Free electricity! Let's charge everything! Even the toothbrushes! Fancy shower? Time for a haircut and shave. We usually get our money's worth anyway. + +Which is good because most RV parks, which are only places with hookups in these parts, aren't very nice. The one we stopped at last night wasn't such a bad place, a quarter mile walk to the shore and on a really nice beach, but that's an exception rather than a rule. You can camp on the beach, but the sand was too soft for the bus. Other than the RV park there's not much out here, few houses along the shore, a few more back by the river, but driving by it look like there were maybe five permanent residents. The rest were vacation rentals. I think that'll be the ultimate consequence of tourism, eventually no one will live out in places like this, it'll just be empty houses waiting for tourists who, eventually, stop coming. diff --git a/sketches/2018-02-01_safari-trek.txt b/sketches/2018-02-01_safari-trek.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8e37301 --- /dev/null +++ b/sketches/2018-02-01_safari-trek.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +We met some really nice people at Padre Island National Seashore who travel in this really cool Safari Trek from the early 1990s (can't remember the exact year, I think it was 1992, but I know they're pretty hard to come by). It has the most ingenious bed design I've ever seen, a queen size bed retracts up into the ceiling over the front seats when not in use. A four cylinder diesel that gets 15 miles to the gallon ain't to shabby either. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-01_071249_padre-island-nat-seashore.jpg" id="image-1102" class="picwide" /> diff --git a/sketches/2018-02-02_travco-mechanic.txt b/sketches/2018-02-02_travco-mechanic.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c2b0b76 --- /dev/null +++ b/sketches/2018-02-02_travco-mechanic.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +We stopped for a bathroom break in the parking lot of a small town grocery store on the backrounds of Texas. We were getting ready to hit the road again when an older gentleman with long, white hair and a white beard that would have done Santa Claus proud, pulled up in a beat-up Honda Accord. The hood was held down with a bungee cord and it didn't seem like it was going a whole lot further than where it stopped right in front of the bus. The car combined with a certain over-eager look in his eyes combined to make me a little hesitant at first, but he motioned me over and I walked around to the driver side. I said how you doing and he just looked at me and said *Travco, right?* and I said *yup, 69*. + +It's not often someone knows what a Travco is, so I waited. He went on to tell me that he was a retired mechanic and we talked abou the bus's engine a bit. He called it a Canadian 318, a term I had never heard before. I'm guessing that means maybe it was made in Canada. No idea if that's true or not. + +He told me about a person somewhere here in Brazoria that had a blue one, just like the bus. He had done the rebuild, or reassembled it after the machine shop had done it's thing with the pistons and case. He also said he's done the brakes and electrical wiring, *chased 50 miles electrical wiring* as he put it. I said yup, done that. And then the person who paid for all the work he did passed away. The bus went to the man's wife, but she sold everything and then she passed away and poof, just like that a Travco disappears from your life. + +I would have liked to talk to him longer but I knew I had four hours of driving ahead of me, including Houston, so I said nice talking with you and hit the road. diff --git a/sketches/2018-02-03_coastal.txt b/sketches/2018-02-03_coastal.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2928723 --- /dev/null +++ b/sketches/2018-02-03_coastal.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9 @@ +It's great to be back by the water, driving the seemingly endless coastal plains, threading our way through tidal marshes and shallow bays full of shorebirds. I'm probably really annoying to drive behind on the narrow bridges that span these bays. Actually I'm probably always annoying to drive behind, but especially on the bridges because I tend to slow down and watch the birds -- cormorants, pelicans, eagles, ospreys, gulls and the always present Great Blue Heron. + +Generally though the driving here is pretty relaxed. The tallest hill is the occasional tall bridge over the Intercoastal Waterway. For the most part I can kick back, foot on the dash, coffee nearby and enjoy the salty muddy smell of the marsh in the morning. I love that the most dilapidated of marinas are the ones still standing after Harvey. The beat up rundown bait shacks and seafood dives still line the waterfront in many places, faded gray wood sidings, collapsing docks missing half their planks. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-01_110409_matagorda-beach.jpg" id="image-1082" class="picwide" /> + +Then the road breaks away from the bays and plows straight through a sea of brown reeds and marsh grass that stretch as far as the eye can see. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-02_125633_holly-beach.jpg" id="image-1083" class="picwide" /> diff --git a/sketches/2018-02-04_ferry.txt b/sketches/2018-02-04_ferry.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8c18484 --- /dev/null +++ b/sketches/2018-02-04_ferry.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +The bus went on its first, and probably only, boat ride in Louisiana. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-03_090958_rutherford-beach.jpg" id="image-1118" class="picwide" /> diff --git a/sketches/2018-02-06_camping.txt b/sketches/2018-02-06_camping.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f78ada8 --- /dev/null +++ b/sketches/2018-02-06_camping.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10 @@ +Driving the southern Louisiana coast through seemingly endless fields of marsh, cat tails and lakes, blur together on a gray misty day like today. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-07_074242_rutherford-beach.jpg" id="image-1128" class="picwide" /> + + +Out here there are no houses, everything is a "camp" and every house has a sign out front with a name. Camp Canal, Camp Dr. Herbert, Camp David, Camp Southern Leisure, Camp 12 Oaks, and my personal favorite, Camp Plan B. There's no shortage of jokes out here too, I pass a single wide mobile home on 12 foot high stilts with a sign on it that read: Cajun high-rise. + +There are also no tire swings out here, instead you get buoy swings. Bright orange buoys hang from oak trees draped in ferns and Spanish moss. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-04_084144_rutherford-beach_01.jpg" id="image-1127" class="picwide" /> diff --git a/sketches/2018-02-22_two-photos.txt b/sketches/2018-02-22_two-photos.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3df9929 --- /dev/null +++ b/sketches/2018-02-22_two-photos.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +One of my favorite things to do is photograph the same thing over and over to keep seeing it in new ways, but that rarely happens these days. It did in Palmetto Island though. Here's the swamp in May of 2017: + +<img src="images/2017/2017-05-16_121751_palmetto-island.jpg" id="image-481" class="picwide" /> + +Here's the same swamp in February of 2018: + +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-08_091053_palmetto-tabasco_01.jpg" id="image-1129" class="picwide" /> diff --git a/sketches/2018-03-07_signs-times.txt b/sketches/2018-03-07_signs-times.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..24d6611 --- /dev/null +++ b/sketches/2018-03-07_signs-times.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +The drive down to Grand Isle was one of the more interesting drives we've done in Louisiana, not the least because of all the interesting signs. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-15_145328_grand-isle.jpg" id="image-1175" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-15_145541_grand-isle.jpg" id="image-1174" class="picwide caption" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-02-15_145724_grand-isle.jpg" id="image-1173" class="picwide" /> diff --git a/sketches/2018-03-17_commons.txt b/sketches/2018-03-17_commons.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ae34107 --- /dev/null +++ b/sketches/2018-03-17_commons.txt @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ +During [our time on the bay][1] we watched night after night as people found nowhere available to stay because the sites were booked, but empty. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-13_133929_escabia.jpg" id="image-1233" class="picwide" /> + +We talked a good bit with the rangers about it and it turned out they were just implementing a new system where you have to call when you get to your site and confirm that you're there. No call and a ranger will delete your reservation the next day. How exactly that's reflected on the website or for first-come, first-serve campers was never really clear to me. + +It's a step in the right direction I suppose, but it still seems like an oddball solution to what's a pretty well-solved problem in most of the country: you pay $5-10 a night and everything is first-come, first-serve. That's the way nearly all the forest service and BLM campgrounds are and even some state parks. + +The whole idea of a campground that's free seems odd to me. Campgrounds need maintanence and therefore cost money. I have no problem paying for them. When we camp for free it's typically because there are no services. But something struck me in the conversation with the rangers, both of them balked when I said you should just charge. They said they talked about it, but wanted to keep it free because "it's public land after all, the public should be able to use it for free". + +It's refreshing to hear that in this age of anti-public sentiment. + +I happen to think that losing the commons was the beginning of the end of our civilization. I realize that sounds hyperbolic, but read up on British enclosure laws, how that worked, why it was done, and what it did to British social structures to get some idea of why I think that. The same thing happened here, though over a longer period of time and in a less publicly obvious way. + +One small park in Florida isn't going to reverse the tide that's washing over us, destroying our public lands for the profits of a few men, but it does mean there's a very nice free place to camp in the Florida panhandle. Just be sure to book a site ahead of time. + +[1]: /jrnl/2018/03/green-sea-days diff --git a/sketches/2018-03-21_big-rigs.txt b/sketches/2018-03-21_big-rigs.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..db5a198 --- /dev/null +++ b/sketches/2018-03-21_big-rigs.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13 @@ +My wife is a member of quite a few Facebook groups related to travel and she tells me about things people discuss sometimes. Typically she tells me the sort of stories that make us both shake our heads, like the person from Britain who wanted some advice on getting RV to travel the U.S. and was told it would be simply impossible without a massive rig with twenty slide outs and every conceivable gadget. Obviously, as our lives show, not the case. + +Normally I wouldn't care, but since there's a chorus of people out there arguing that you need a huge rig, I'm going to add my dissenting voice so the other side of the argument gets some air time. So here it goes: + +Getting too big of a rig is possibly the biggest mistake you can make when setting out to live this way. + +The problem with big RVs is that -- aside from weighing you down with a ton of crap you don't need, offering up more places to leak water[1] and more things to break -- they limit where you can go. I can count on one hand the number of campgrounds we've stayed in that could accommodate a rig over 35 feet. If you go big, you're restricting yourself to RV parks and Walmart parking lots. + +We're 27 feet long bumper to bumper and honestly I wish we were bit smaller so we could get into some places that we can't (for example I know we can't do the main road into San Miguel De Allende because we're a foot too long and I also know we can't drive the road into Natural Bridges, among others). + +Then there's the part where these rigs cost about 200K, which is enough to travel the world like we do for about eight years. And then there's the part where, once you drive that 200K RV off the lot it's suddenly worth 100K. But of course no one actually owns their RVs. I already know we're anomalous in the fact that we like to own things rather than rent them from a bank. + +[1]: All RVs leak water. Even brand new ones sitting on the dealer's lot. People who say their RVs don't leak water just haven't yet discovered where their RVs are leaking. diff --git a/sketches/2018-03-23_texture.txt b/sketches/2018-03-23_texture.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..618eb9a --- /dev/null +++ b/sketches/2018-03-23_texture.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +I wish there was a way to record the texture of a place, the way the crushed gray gravel feels against the bottom of your foot, sharp, but rough, not cutting, or to reconstruct for you the dryness of the grass between your fingers, thin, smooth, like a miniature brown flute that crumbs as your roll it and it's carried off on the wind, or provide a way for you to feel the warm waft of humidity slowly receding through the evening as the sun fades and the temperature drops enough to weaken it, the way it is pushed back by the cool salt air rolling in for the night. + +I can photograph the stars and record the sound of the frogs singing, but there is no way to make you feel the texture of a place. Perhaps that's for the best, lest we have another reason to not get off the couch. To feel a place you must get inside it somehow and when you do, when you've shrunk yourself down into the cracks within it, heard the thin rumor of whispers it says behind our backs, then you know that place, in your own way, and are connected to it forever more. diff --git a/television.txt b/television.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1821506 --- /dev/null +++ b/television.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14 @@ +My wife is a member of quite a few Facebook groups related to travel and she tells me about things people discuss sometimes. Typically she tells me the sort of stories that make us shake our heads, like the person from Britain who wanted some advice on getting RV to travel the U.S. and was told it would be simply impossible without a massive rig with twenty slide outs and every conceivable gadget. Obviously, as our lives show, not the case. + +Getting too big of a rig is one of the huge mistakes you can make when setting out to live this way. + +The problem with big RVs is that -- aside from weighing you down with a ton of crap you don't need, offering up more places to leak water and more things to break -- they limit where you can go. I can count on one hand the number of campgrounds we've stayed in that could accommodate a rig over 35 feet. If you go big, you're restricting yourself to RV parks and Walmart parking lots. + +We're 27 feet long bumper to bumper and honestly I wish we were bit smaller so we could get into some places that we can't (for example I know we can't do the main road into San Miguel De Allende because we're a foot too long and I also know we can't drive the road into Natural Bridges, among others). + +Then there's the part where these rigs cost about 200K, which is enough to travel the world like we do for about eight years. But of course no one actually owns their RVs. I already know we're anomalous in the fact that we like to own things rather than rent them from a bank. + + +Now if you get a smaller rig you may not have room for the five or six TVs I see in some RVs. And yes, predictably, I don't own a TV. Which reminds me of a joke, how do you know someone doesn't own a TV? Oh don't worry, they'll tell you. + +I really don't understand the TV in your RV thing, but hey to each their own. Except. Except that people regularly ask how we're able to live this way. Round about answer? We don't watch TV. I haven't in well over twenty-five years. Instead I do other things, for example, I taught myself how to program computers in my spare time, evenings, late nights and so on. The times people watch TV. I got pretty good at it after putting a few years into it. And now I can work from anywhere. So yeah, not watching TV is how we're able to do this. |