by aramatzne@gmail.com | 11 Apr 2016 | Musing
I am the anomaly.
I am conspicuously alone, no family or friends have joined me.
My license plate does not say “Nebraska.”
My camper is less than 50 feet long and does not bear a name like Pioneer, Surveyor, Montana, Patriot, Zinger, Heritage Glen, or, my favorite, Vengeance.
Eagle is the camper model I have. I plan to add a “B” to the front of the word. Darwin takes a road trip. I am glad I have cleared the Bible Belt.
One of these RVs has an outdoor kitchen built into the side of it. I can see a coffee maker, sink, and refrigerator as I walk by. I am not sure if the man sitting in front of this kitchen has opened the doors so he can use it or if it is just for display. Although based on his shape, I suspect he uses it often.
There are 95 sites with electricity; they are mostly full for the weekend. I am the only person using one of the 25 tent sites. This is a good strategy: it is cheaper and I have no neighbors or all-night lights.
“There’s a kitty in that camper,” I hear repeatedly from people strolling by with their dogs. “He’s adorable!” three tweenage girls screech as they run back and forth on the road giggling and squealing at Big Cat curled up in the sun on the bench.
To recharge my computer, I poach electricity from the nearest campsite with an outlet. I am sitting outside in 20mph wind steadily typing away while the surrounding campers begin cleaning up last night’s parties and begin packing up their campers.
Poaching electricity in the Nebraska wind.
I came here for the Sandhill cranes. They migrate through every year in the hundreds of thousands. I went to the bird blind before sunrise to see the birds lift off from the Platte River but there were no birds to be seen. To the east, far downriver, we see flocks taking to the air against the lightening sky. To the west, upriver, half a dozen whooping cranes are spotted standing in the tall grasses; they take flight, moving north. I am late to the game and have missed the vast majority of birds. I see a few hundred in cornfields surrounding the Audubon sanctuary and the campground but the seasonal migration has passed.
The campers around me are local. They come for the weekend, to hang out with friends, to fish, to take in whatever crane activity falls into their view. It is an easy weekend get-away; they load up and go home again on Sunday. Theirs is also a temporal migration: workweek to weekend.
I stay another day and then, like the cranes and the Beagle, I continue my journey.
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by aramatzne@gmail.com | 1 Apr 2016 | Musing, Roads Taken
Chapter 1
I turned west this morning, leaving Annapolis, joining the teeming mass of metropolitan DC traffic on the Beltway. I crossed the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge into Virginia, the National Monument in plain view in the distance to the north. Somehow it seems fitting that my exit from the east was via one of its busiest highways. Eight lanes of traffic all skirting the capitol in one direction or the other.
I misunderstood a sign and got into the EZ-Pass Express lane. I understood that the lanes were express; I didn’t understand that they were exclusively for EZ-Pass holders. The electronic sign gave toll prices for the exits the express lanes served. I wanted Route 66 toward Front Royal, Virginia, price: $1.95. I took the express lane.
Traffic wasn’t particularly heavy but it was nice to zip by the local exits and to not have so many vehicles moving around me. The express lanes were in better condition also, making for a smoother ride with the extra weight of the camper. Somewhere along this stretch I started to think that maybe I misread the sign but I thought I would sort it out at the exit.
Chapter 2
Yesterday in Annapolis I went to the United States Naval Academy. I wanted to walk around the campus, see the boats, and enjoy a beautiful spring day. The campus is open to visitors but requires, of course, a security check. I arrived at the airport-style metal detectors and told the Marines on guard that I wanted to visit the grounds.
“I just need to see your driver’s license.”
I handed her my license.
“And I need a second form of ID. Do you have a social security card, your birth certificate, or a passport?”
No. My passport was in the truck, miles away. I thought I just needed my driver’s license.
“Well, any normal person would think that. But Washington State isn’t complying with the Real ID.”
That sounds like Washington.
“I’m sorry, you’ll have to leave. I can’t let you in.”
My tax dollars at work.
Chapter 3
I took the EZ-Pass Express lane left hand exit for Route 66 and merged into another highway swamped with vehicles. No tollbooth. No place to stop and say, “I made a mistake, here is your $1.95.”
I expect this mistake will cost me. I am sure that my license plate has been recorded and a bill for $1.95 will be sent along with an exorbitant moving violation ticket for using the exclusive club express lanes.
Chapter 4
No real ID, illicit use of Beltway express lanes, I am probably now on the No-Fly list.
I wonder. If my license doesn’t qualify as valid ID, do I even exist in the eyes of EZ-Pass? Does the Washington truck registration fly under the radar, unseen by the in-motion transponders that read these things?
Big Brother may be watching but will he acknowledge me without a second form of ID?
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by aramatzne@gmail.com | 10 Mar 2016 | Musing
Part I
Like many decisions I’ve made through the years, leaving my house and moving into a camper didn’t seem particularly crazy to me. It wasn’t until I became obsessed with a steamer trunk that the enormity of my decision began to take form in my head.
The steamer trunk belonged to my great-grandmother who used it to tour Europe in some finer era of passenger ships and dressing for dinner. After many years in my care it was ready to go live with another member of the family. A friend helped load it into the backseat (I removed the actual backseat) of the truck several weeks before I left my house because its weight and bulk were too great for me to deal with alone. It brooded in the backseat, its old leather dusty and worn, and its metal-clad corners hard against the backs of the front seats (yes, both front seats).
There was enough headroom to stow a duffel on top of it and for the cat to worm his way into a hidden corner if I didn’t stash my coat or anything else in the way and enough room at one end of the trunk for the necessary litter box.
Under ordinary circumstances, the trunk would be a minor inconvenience. My life rarely seems to hold ordinary circumstances. At this point most people would drive from point A to point B and deliver the trunk but, alas, this would be too easy.
Instead, I divested myself of the vast majority of my belongings and moved the remainder, including the cat, into the truck and the slide-in camper that have become my home.
By most standards, my house was small, approximately 780 square feet, with a shop that added maybe another 200 square feet. The most generous estimate of the total square footage of my new, combined truck and camper tiniest-house-ever is 85. Yes, 85 square feet. Total.
Now, consider this: the steamer trunk has a footprint of 7 square feet. Of course, 7 square feet is nothing, unless your living space totals 85 square feet. If you additionally consider the three dimensional bulk of the trunk…
Needless to say, I became obsessed with getting the trunk out of my space.
Part II
As I said, under ordinary circumstances one would move the trunk and get on with life. Which is sort of what happened. Only moving the trunk involved emptying a house, moving into a camper, crossing a continent in winter (and no, not by a southern route and, admittedly, by choice), visiting some friends along the way, and working around the elephant in the truck.
When I bought the house, I chose it because nothing needed to be done. The first thing I did after moving in was, essentially, gut it. I tore out the carpeting, the windows, an old chimney, several walls, the kitchen cabinets, the air conditioner, the patio roof, the back door…
The only home improvement project necessary for my new truck and camper home was an organizational system in the backseat, in the exact spot entirely consumed by the Trunk.
By this time, the Trunk has taken on its own persona, becoming larger than life, and now deserving of a capital letter “T.”
Part III
I am generally not an owner of stuff. I try not to accumulate things; I try to move unwanted items on to happier homes. Some would say I am obsessive. When I have decided something has to go, it has to go.
Alas. The Trunk stayed, for weeks, through provinces and states, through bitter cold and mild days, through sun, snow, and freezing rain. Until, finally, one mild winter day in Vermont it was extracted from the truck. Pulled out like a bad tooth and taken away.
Now, finally, the truck has become palatial. The sudden expansion of the extended cab is almost a little daunting. I don’t feel obligated to immediately fill that space but I do feel compelled to organize it (see above, re: obsessive).
A few days later, on a pretty damn cold New Hampshire day through the good graces of an old friend, a new structure takes the Trunk’s place. A box for the solar panel is bolted to the seat mounts. Upright supports are installed, a wall is built, shelves take shape, rims are glued to the shelf edges. There is a massive rearranging of items and Voila! the truck becomes home.
I have moved in.
My entire life now takes up far less space in the universe. I have a few things stored, a canoe, some books and clothes, a moose skeleton (doesn’t everyone?), but I am essentially self-contained and self-sufficient. Like a turtle with her home on her back, I can now wander freely, dip my toes in the next pond, and leave only a small ripple.
I don’t feel like I am living a smaller life. I don’t feel like I have lost anything of importance or value. Rather, I have found a new space for myself. It’s called the World.
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by aramatzne@gmail.com | 25 Feb 2016 | Musing, Roads Taken
I drove north and east from Thunder Bay, across the rest of Ontario, 500 miles, before stopping for the night just short of the Quebec border. It was a long road; the cat and I were tired. Driving from Winnipeg the other day he sat in my lap and in the back watching things go by but today he hid and, by the end, we were both desperate for a little more space and to stop the motion – 10 hours was enough.
I pulled onto a logging road with a sign that said “24 Hour log haul in progress”. Though I don’t see what progress there is in clear cutting. I tucked in next to a skidder with the intent of staying out of the way, popped up, and moved in for the night. The high for the day: -14ºF (-26ºC).
The sky was dark and the stars were fabulous. There was a little bit of moon, not the intense, dark-sky stars but still a beautiful showing. The snow was crunchy underfoot and the hairs in my nose froze. That always tells me how cold it is.
I awoke at 2am, suddenly and for no apparent reason. I went out into the night to pee, enjoy the stars, and appreciate the cozy nest of my camper, heater, and bed. It took me a while to settle again. I had the blankets over my head, the tip of my nose sticking out just enough to breathe the cold air, when I heard this loud, rumbling, Whoooosh. Then silence. It confused me. My head was awake enough to know this was not a sound I had heard before; it raced to compartmentalize it. Plane? No. Truck? No. UFO? Yeah, right. Then I realized the 24-hour log haul had begun. The deep snow and the thick forest surrounding me engulfed the sound of the trucks until they were just even with me and then swallowed them and their noise whole again as they sped past. For the rest of the night every 20-30 minutes another truck went by.
A mountain of timber dwarfs trucks.
Coming across Ontario is a study in lakes and spruce bogs. The Canadian Shield that is the bedrock of the province does not allow much to pass through or grow up. The towns are discreet with a start and an end and a few random houses and gas stations scattered throughout. Slowly as you move east the forest becomes more dense and more determined in its growth. With this, of course, comes an increase in logging activity and the clear cuts become more noticeable along the road.
In my mind, we are slowly dismantling the earth. We consume resources far beyond their capacity to regenerate – and not all resources can or do regenerate. Even those of us who regularly ground ourselves in the wild are not always connected to our actions.
Is buying organic and remembering your reusable grocery bag enough? Is buying a more gas efficient car enough? How many devices are plugged in? How many plugs are plugged in but not actually connected to anything? What materials do we choose for our clothing? Is there lawn to mow?
This disconnect is not new. We have willful blindness toward the things that we want even if they don’t fit our idea of what is sound. I drive across the country with my home on my truck and my gas mileage dipping into the range of a 1970s F250. Still, I drive on.
What will change this consumption? An increasing number of endangered and extinct species has not convinced us. Super storms, drought, and record heat have not convinced us.
The 24-hour log haul continues. For how long?
Last one out please turn off the lights.
Early morning light along the 24-hour haul road.
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by aramatzne@gmail.com | 7 Feb 2016 | Musing, Roads Taken
Once again:
It’s not the years, it’s the miles.
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by aramatzne@gmail.com | 22 Jan 2016 | Musing
Now, I am irreverent. I love this. In all the ways that one can mature, this is probably the only one that truly appeals to me. It means that your insightful comments about the world are no longer dismissed as childish ignorance, teenage angst, or twenty-something entitlement.
No. Now, it means that you have taken a broader view of the world, its experiences, and its offerings, added your own musings, perspectives, and thoughtful humor and synthesized it into a meaningful take on all that is. It seems the intuitive recognition, and the willingness to express it, of so many things that are not quite right with the world but are no longer questioned would offer a position of power to those who possess this skill. Alas, no. The status quo holds.
Let’s change that.
I start here with a photo I am titling “Product Misplacement.”
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