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+April 1, 2020 marked three years on the road for us.
+
+For all practical purposes our time on the road really ended in October 2018 when we [flew to Mexico](/jrnl/2018/09/big-exit). After that we've continued to live in the bus, but we haven't traveled like we did those first 18 months. Still, three years of traveling and living in the bus is far longer than we intended [when we set out](https://live.luxagraf.net/jrnl/2017/04/april-fools).
+
+<img src="images/2020/2017-06-16_102451_trinidad-and-around.jpg" id="image-2365" class="picwide" />
+
+Living in the bus was always about far more than traveling. It would not be inaccurate to say that traveling was really a byproduct of living in the bus. A nice fringe benefit if you will.
+
+More importantly living in the bus was more about stepping outside, literally and figuratively. Stepping back from life, taking stock, and critically evaluating the assumptions that had been handed to me about how to live a good life.
+
+Do you need a house to live a good life? What about a car? What about a refrigerator? What about a fixed address? What about a phone? Oven? Books? Speedometer?
+
+Living in the bus very quickly became about living with less. When you have less than 160 square feet of space -- with only about a third of that truly "livable" -- everything becomes about doing more with less. That's what we wanted to learn how to do, which is why the bus was perfect.
+
+<img src="images/original/2017/2017-10-23_165008_shasta-forest.jpg" id="image-931" class="picwide" />
+
+It eliminated a lot of things by necessity. We did without and got to see if any of that stuff mattered. It is one thing to sit around and wish you could get rid of things because they cost money or you think you might be able to get along without them.
+
+It's another story entirely to actually do it.
+
+Living in the bus provided a way to experiment in doing without, but offset any sense of loss with the adventure and excitement of travel and living on the road. If you want to eliminate something and learn to do without it, fill that open niche in the ecosystem of your life with something you *do* want. Otherwise the weeds will take over.
+
+You might miss having a hot bath for instance, but you know, it's also nice to be sitting here on this perfect white sand beach in the Gulf of Mexico. Or you can think, gosh I'd really love to have some ice in this drink, but... since I was willing to forgo it I get to sit here in the amazing smelling pine forest 8000 feet up in the mountains of Colorado watching thunderstorms roll in all afternoon. And I could get ice actually, but I no longer need it.
+
+<img src="images/original/2017/2017-04-27_123622_gulf-islands.jpg" id="image-388" class="picwide" />
+
+It's harder to notice what's missing when you're surrounded by the beauty of the world. You spend less time thinking of what you miss when you can't wait to see what's over the next hill. It also helps to know you couldn't get over the next hill -- you can't have that feeling of freedom and peace -- without having given up those old requirements.
+
+So your mindset shifts over time. The things that you were "giving up" turn out to be things you don't need. There's no giving up in the end, you free yourself of those unnecessary burdens -- those burdens you didn't even realize were burdens.
+
+I could see the beginnings of this before we left. I could read it in between the lines of some of the long term travelers I follow, like Rolf Potts, Wade Sheppard, the Bumfuzzle crew, and others. But you don't really know something until you live it yourself. Happily, I was right. And it grows. The further you go, the more any sense of loss fades and the sense of gain grows.
+
+Having less became really wonderful quite quickly. By the time we made it to [Fort Pickens the first time](/jrnl/2017/04/gulf-islands-national-seashore), about a month into our trip, I don't think we were missing anything. And we didn't have solar power, a water tank, or even a working shower yet.
+
+To even get on the road in the first place we had to get rid of a ton of stuff. And that is helpful, but I think it was more important to take that step back, to, as I said above, think critically about the assumptions your culture has handed you, and to question those assumptions. Once you do that deliberately for a while it becomes second nature. You start to look at everything a little sideways.
+
+So we questioned everything, trying to look at it sideways and see if there was another way to solve the problem. In doing so we learned all kinds of things about how we live. Do we need a large living space? No. Provided we have a large outdoor space we don't really need any more than a place to sleep and get out of the rain. Did we really need an extra car? No. Do we really need air conditioning? No, but it can be really nice at times. How about refrigeration? No, but again, nice for some things. The list here is very long, but you get the idea.
+
+<img src="images/original/2017/2017-10-26_194321_patricks-point.jpg" id="image-938" class="picwide" />
+
+It took a bit longer to extract overarching principles from these small lessons, but I think there are two very important things I've taken away from this experience so far.
+
+The first principle is: accept the environment for what it is and learn to live in it.
+
+One of our unspoken cultural values is that we can shape the environment the way we want it and that this is good. This is barely-consciously a part of our daily lives in very subtle, seldom-noticed ways. Take air conditioning for example. For the entirety of human history no one had air conditioning. Somehow, those people did not all expire of heat exhaustion[^1].
+
+If you don't turn on the air conditioning, eventually you won't need it. The first time you get hot make it a point to sweat. Deal with a little discomfort and let your body adapt to the heat. In the end you'll be cooler and have no dependency on air conditioning. This frees you up to explore and exist in places others cannot. You body is phenomenally well-designed, it is capable of miraculous things if you give it a chance to adapt.
+
+This principle -- adapting to, rather than changing, the environment -- also applies at the micro level. Don't change the environment around you by adding an extra fork, wash the one you have. Don't bother fixing your oven, [buy a waffle iron](/essay/waffle-world). And so on. This is something that, once I saw it, I was never able to unsee it. I see it everywhere I look in the world, ways to make do without abound when you're looking for them.
+
+<img src="images/2020/2020-04-12_131425_winterville.jpg" id="image-2366" class="picwide caption" />
+
+The second principle is really just an extension of the first: stop worrying about what you can't control.
+
+How do you do that? You learn to adapt to things. You let go of the need to make the "right" choice and you make the best choice you can based on the best information you have at the time. You make a choice and you move on. You can always adjust and chose differently when conditions change.
+
+Are you going to make it to that campsite you wanted to get to? Maybe? Maybe not? Okay, then where are we going? Well, on the map there's something over there... let's try that. If I had a dollar for every time this played out I could buy you a couple dozen tacos.
+
+Are you going to have enough water to stay another night? Maybe? Are the tanks full? Maybe? There are dozens of unknowns like this every day in traveling, you either make peace with the uncertainty of it or you become stressed out and miserable. It's not for everyone.
+
+It's not a matter of solving all the unknowns. That's not an option. There are always more of them. You have to learn to be at peace with them because you know you can adapt. That is peace, knowing that whatever happens, you're going to adapt to it.
+
+That's not to say I don't have moments of stress and misery because my world falls apart. I would actually say there's been far more world falling apart situations on the road than there ever were before. If your house has a engine, expect your world to fall apart frequently.
+
+<img src="images/original/2017/2017-08-07_161821-1_dolores-river.jpg" id="image-725" class="picwide" />
+
+Part of adapting is learning when you *should* do something. Traveling has made me very suspicious of myself whenever I say "no". Whenever I don't do something I force myself to stop and think, why not? Why not go swim in the river with the kids? Why not take a walk to watch the birds at dusk? Why not sit around the campfire half the night? Too many times there is no good reason for not doing it. It's painful to admit, but sometimes I'm essentially refusing to go swimming because I don't have a towel. That's crazy.
+
+<img src="images/2020/2002-12-08_120000-27__.jpg" id="image-2367" class="picwide" />
+
+That said, sometimes the answer to the question *why not?* is *because your axle is falling off genius*. The picture above is of our rear axle mount, which supports about 5000 pounds, with three of the four pins sheared off. I don't care how comfortable you get with uncertainty, how much you can push aside worry, how much you say yes to, there's no way to stop yourself from freaking out when your axle hangs by a single, obviously weak pin. Ditto when your head gasket blows and takes out a cylinder, or when you run out of money in Mexico, or any of the other things that will come up in life whether you travel or not. There are times you will not be able to stop yourself from worrying to some degree.
+
+What I've learned is that the things worth worrying about are fewer and farther between with every passing year. After the axle almost broke and the head gasket blew, I wasn't all that concerned when the exhaust manifold cracked in half. I've built a tolerance perhaps.
+
+I've also learned that worry is often a way of avoiding the work that needs to be done. Worry and stress don't fix anything.
+
+If you want to have any control over which future you get, you have to figure out how to turn your worry into action. You have to stop freaking out and get to work. When your axle mount is about to shear off you have to turn that worry (actually more terror in that case) into action. Call a tow truck. Call a friend. Call everyone you know. In our case, [my uncle came to our rescue](/jrnl/2017/10/trains-hot-springs-and-broken-buses)). When there's a pandemic and you have nowhere to park your rig, figure out your options, pick the best one, and make it happen. Call a friend. Call everyone you know. Spend all day pouring over Zillow and Craigslist. Do whatever you need to do to find the solution.
+
+Someone said to me the other day that things always seem to work out for us. I won't argue, but I take except to the implication that this is solely the result of luck. We are very lucky, and yes that does help, but to be completely honest the main reason we've had so much good "luck" is because Corrinne works very hard to make things happen for us.
+
+I might write more about coaxing the engine along, but she's the one who spends long hours solving all the other, much more frequent problems we encounter, like where to live in Mexico, what to do when the budget has to stretch farther than you thought, or where to go and what to do when the world shuts down. To figure those things out you have to set aside the worry and do the hard work.
+
+[^1]: It is true that in many case their homes were more intelligently constructed than ours, and they understood their land and its microclimates at lot better than we did, which gave them more ways to escape the heat. These are things worth exploring should you decide you want to free yourself of tyranny of air conditioning.
diff --git a/published/2020-06-25_hands-on-the-wheel.txt b/published/2020-06-25_hands-on-the-wheel.txt
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+I once had the opportunity to float for a while in the confluence of two great rivers. It was hot, the middle of summer in the Utah desert. I waded out into the cold water and floated along for a while, half my body in the Yampa River, half in the Green River.
+
+The Green River was true to its name. The Yampa was muddy brown. The brown and green waters met at a surprisingly sharp line you could see and feel.
+
+<img src="images/2020/Yampa-Green-Confluence.jpg" id="image-2368" class="picfull" />
+
+I floated along for maybe five minutes. Ten at the most. It was a pit stop on a long day's paddle, but I think about that confluence all the time. I think about how sharp the division was there, and how utterly it vanished two hundred meters further down the channel. Two very large, incomprehensibly powerful things join together and become one in a matter of feet.
+
+What's perhaps more startling, having started out on only one river, is to suddenly see that second one join in. A world you didn't even know existed suddenly arrives and blends into what you thought was the world. Everything changes in an instant and then carries on toward the sea as if nothing happened. Rivers of thought, rivers of possibilities, rivers of history, rivers of choice all coming together, opening and closing worlds in ways that are sometimes difficult to predict. Everything always heading toward the sea.
+
+---
+
+We spent some time at the beginning of the pandemic lockdown in an old farmhouse that had been converted into a schoolhouse. It seemed in keeping with our general strategy that, when the world zigs, you should zag. In a world where no one was going to school anymore, our kids, who have never been to school in their lives, suddenly lived in one. Zig, zag.
+
+While everyone else struggled to entertain their kids at home, ours suddenly had access to swing sets, climbing structures, stages for plays and magic shows, and every STEM-related learning toy and tool you can imagine. There was even a zip line. From my kids point of view, for a few weeks, the pandemic was the best thing that had ever happened to them.
+
+<img src="images/2020/2020-03-21_151255_double-helix-school.jpg" id="image-2370" class="picwide" />
+<img src="images/2020/2020-03-26_162928_double-helix-school.jpg" id="image-2371" class="picwide" />
+<img src="images/2020/2020-03-21_150000_double-helix-school.jpg" id="image-2369" class="picwide" />
+<img src="images/2020/DSC_2043.jpg" id="image-2372" class="picwide" />
+
+We tried to make the best of things and not let the pandemic intrude on the kids' life too much. We were isolated of course, no campground playmates to run and bike around with, no campground even, but otherwise we tried to stick with our normal routines -- school and work in the mornings, playing outside, climbing trees, zip lines, swings in the afternoon. Then after the kids were in bed I finished up work. Naturally there was plenty of time for waffling.
+
+<div class="cluster">
+ <img src="images/2020/DSC_2087.jpg" id="image-2378" class="cluster picwide" />
+ <span class="row-2">
+ <img src="images/2020/DSC_2126.jpg" id="image-2376" class="cluster pic66" />
+ <img src="images/2020/DSC_2127.jpg" id="image-2377" class="cluster pic66" />
+ </span>
+ <img src="images/2020/DSC_2077.jpg" id="image-2375" class="cluster picwide" />
+
+ <span class="row-2">
+ <img src="images/2020/DSC_2062.jpg" id="image-2373" class="cluster pic66" />
+ <img src="images/2020/DSC_2131.jpg" id="image-2374" class="cluster pic66" />
+ </span>
+</div>
+
+When it became apparent that the lockdown would last more than a few weeks, we started looking around for a place to hole up a while. The school house lacked beds, and its future was uncertain. It also had a ghost that liked to walk around smoking a cigarette.
+
+As so often has happened to us in our travels, someone we barely knew offered us a place to stay. We took them up on it for a few weeks while we tossed around ideas for the future beyond that.
+
+It turned out to be a perfect place for us, plenty of room for the bus, and a huge yard for the kids to play in. There was even fancy stuff like an oven, which we used to make brownies, because brownies don't work in a waffle iron, we've tried.
+
+<div class="cluster">
+<img src="images/2020/DSC_2198.jpg" id="image-2383" class="cluster picwide" />
+ <span class="row-2">
+<img src="images/2020/DSC_2179.jpg" id="image-2382" class="cluster pic66" />
+<img src="images/2020/DSC_2339.jpg" id="image-2380" class="cluster pic66" />
+ </span>
+ <span class="row-2">
+<img src="images/2020/DSC_2149.jpg" id="image-2379" class="cluster pic66" />
+<img src="images/2020/DSC_2385.jpg" id="image-2381" class="cluster pic66" />
+ </span>
+</div>
+
+We toyed with a variety of plans, but we're more strategy people. Broad sweeping life aims are pretty well defined around here. We know what we want, but there are a lot of ways to get what you want.
+
+Consider for instance this trip. We had a few goals, but one of the biggest things that's emerged over time is that we like to spend time in the wilderness, undisturbed by the trappings of modern culture. A plan to achieve this would be to look at BLM land and maps. A strategy to achieve this would be to modify your life in such a way that you can get to the BLM land, or get it to you.
+
+One day Corrinne ran across a Zillow listing for an 19th century farmhouse for rent in the middle of a 300-acre forest. I dismissed it out of hand because real estate descriptions are usually nothing but lies. Still, it did get me thinking. Thinking strategically. Instead of wondering when we'd get back on the road again, I began to wonder if getting back on the road again was the best strategy.
+
+What if you could rent the wilderness for a while? Bring the wilderness to you so to speak.
+
+Those two rivers swirled around me for a while. On one hand there was the comfort of the familiar, life in the bus. But [you can't go home again](/jrnl/2008/06/you-cant-go-home-again), things are always changing. With international travel largely shutdown we knew people would turn to camping. RV sales went up 600% in April 2020. This year is shaping up to be an [Eternal September](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September) for RVing in the U.S. and I was not at all sure I wanted to be part of that.
+
+There was also a parallel current that's been pulling at me for some time, one that seems to want me away from the road for a while. We flirted with this in Mexico, but that didn't work out quite the way we wanted. We were not able to get the things done that we intended to get done. At the end of the day, we were still on the road in Mexico.
+
+One of the strange things about writing about travel is that it's very tough to do when you're actually traveling. To write you need long uninterrupted periods of nothingness, which travel generally fails to provide. Most writers I know travel in bursts, then retreat to write about it. And to be clear, I mean writing longer projects. Creating a site like this on the road is a lot of work, but it happens in short bursts so it's not too tough to do.
+
+Eventually, these two streams for ideas began to mingle. Both Corrinne and I have projects we want to get off the ground that we just can't swing from the road. And that property? It turns out the description wasn't all lies. It really was an old farmhouse in the middle of 300 acres of pine forest.
+
+<img src="images/2020/DJI_0149.jpg" id="image-2384" class="picwide" />
+<img src="images/2020/DJI_0147.jpg" id="image-2385" class="picwide" />