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 | 22 Mar 2016 | Roads Taken
An excerpt from February:
11 February
Tamara: Yesterday was a long drive across Saskatchewan and Manitoba. It is not any more interesting or diverse than North or South Dakota.
Big Cat: The litter box has become my friend; I hide in it most of the day. The trunk makes a good perch when I want to stare daggers at her for dragging me across the continent.
12 February
Tamara: Grace asked to see Big Cat but he wouldn’t come out from under the covers. She was disappointed. I told her kitties have different personalities, much like people. Some kitties are shy and like to hide. “Like you?” she asked, “I haven’t seen you before.”
Big Cat: A child came to see me. I refused an audience and made it look like she was lying to the child about there being a cat in the camper at all. I remained curled in my cozy bed under the blankets.
15 February
Tamara: Last night was the coldest yet. I popped up on a logging road in the deep quiet of the winter woods.
Big Cat: WTF? My water bowl is frozen.
17 February
Tamara: I sat in a chocolate shop in Montreal this morning and wrote while I drank coffee and ate a croissant. It snowed and then rained so it was a perfect morning to hang out in a warm shop full of bakery smells.
Big Cat: I slept under the blankets while she went away for a few hours. She came back smelling of coffee. I didn’t even get catnip.
21 February
Tamara: Sister Carolyn and I had a lovely dinner in Hanover. Scallops, yum.
Big Cat: Cat food, again. At least I got some catnip today.
22 February
Tamara: Carolyn and I walked up through the forest along the ledges, looking for tracks and hoping for a bobcat.
Big Cat: There is a giant, four-legged animal moving in and out of the barn. It whinnies when anyone walks outside. I can’t take my eyes off of it; I twitch my tail. I am ready to pounce, if only it would come close enough.
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by aramatzne@gmail.com | 21 Mar 2016 | Roads Taken
A few days in the relative wildness of western Massachusetts… spring peepers, croaking toads, beaver, mink, Canada geese, and beautiful late winter light made a perfect escape.
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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 | 11 Feb 2016 | Roads Taken
The web site said the border crossing closed at 1900hr. I turned onto Montana highway 24 out of Glasgow at 1701. A hundred meters later there was a sign: Opheim border crossing 9 am – 6 pm, 59 miles. 59 miles, 59 minutes. The speed limit: 70. I can do that.
At 5:57 I passed a sign that said, “Leaving Montana.” In the last daylight a woman in a border patrol uniform (in the failing light I couldn’t see if it was Canadian or US border patrol) waved me through as she stood holding one end of the gate she was about to swing closed and lock for the night. I pulled through to Canadian custom’s Stop/Arrêt sign. I shut off the engine, 5:58. I waited.
A few minutes later a man waved me forward. I pulled up, putting down my window simultaneously. “There’s no way we’re going to process a camper tonight,” I heard another customs agent say from the side of the road.
Standard border crossing questions: where do you live? Where are you going? What do you have with you other than clothing and personal belongings? Where are you going to stay? When was the last time you entered Canada? What do you do? Do you have any weapons?
Why are you crossing at this point? I’ve never crossed here before, I tell him. A look of consternation, perhaps, crossed his face. And then again, “when was the last time you entered Canada?” It was my turn to look perplexed. I answered again and he said, “Oh, right. I asked that already.”
“Yes,” I said. “Is this a trick question?” Another perplexed look.
They took my passport and the license plate number and went away. He came back two, three times to read the license plate. My speeding ticket rap sheet has neither preceded nor followed me.
“Do you know what time the border closes?”
I tell him the web site said 1900hr but the sign in Glasgow said 6 pm. I thought I had plenty of time. The gates close 10 minutes before 7 he informs me.
Saskatchewan, as it turns out, is in the Central Time Zone and does not change its clocks with daylight savings time. I did not expect to drive north into the Central Time Zone. We discuss Manitoba and Alberta time zones and the dilemma of me coming through the gate so late when, apparently, the American side locks the gate.
If they scan my passport and find red flags, they have me on the wrong side of their border with no way to get me out of the country. Then they have to call the American side to unlock the gate and take me away. I point to the camper and say, “Or, I could just plug in right here and you can deal with me in the morning when you get back.” Another look.
They let me through. The catnip stash left unfound, unquestioned.
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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 | 29 Jan 2016 | Roads Taken
For many years I have had uncanny luck with vehicles. Through benign neglect things that seem to be not quite right have healed themselves and I continue on my way mostly unimpeded by unfortunate incidents of the vehicular kind. I usually get around to fixing things at some point but I drag my feet and put it off until it seems sure to be catastrophic if I don’t. So it was when I approached the camper with the same semi-nonchalance.
Campers and trailers are notorious for wiring and electrical problems. And here I am facing my own special version. It seemed intermittent and I expected it would heal itself the way so many other things have done over the years, but, alas, no. GFI outlets tripped, battery fuses blew, and more than a few sparks and puffs of black smoke flew. Yes, these things concern me somewhere in the rational part of mind (which lurks way in the back at times) but with a little wiggling of wires and some swearing (my specialty when it comes to fixing things) it worked each time.
And then it didn’t.
A few phone calls, some rewiring (who makes the white wire positive?!), more swearing, a new GFI outlet, a junction box in the deepest bowels of the camper torn apart to no avail, and nothing. Still no obvious answer to why the plug was throwing circuits left and right.
The junction box, behind the drain, under the drawer, above the heater.
While I had cooking gear strewn all over the camper, my arms (which some may remember are freakishly long) wound into the camper cabinet, around the sink drain, over the heater, and through the drawer to reassemble the perfectly good junction box, I struggled to screw the outlet back into its protective box. Sitting on the floor between the reluctant cat, the snowshoes, and a crate of food I thought, “What have I done?!”
The good news is since I can’t plug in anywhere the chance of an electrical fire due to bad wiring is nil. The bad news is that I plan to drive across Canada without the certainty of auxiliary battery power sufficient to keep the heater fan going long enough to keep me toasty on cold winter nights.
I am now chasing an elusive connection across the continent. I will stop in the next major destination to see if they can help me work it out. And if there is no answer there, I will continue along my way to the next stop with the hope of finding someone who can fix this problem.
One of the last times I drove across Canada in the winter (as I seem to do) I was in my old Tercel. I left New Hampshire with auntie and uncle giving me a push out the driveway – literally, as we pushed the car and pop-started it. For this reason alone, I may never own an automatic. After a stop in Vermont where my sister fed me delicious homemade chiles relleños on a snowy, deep-winter night, she also helped me push the car to pop it into life the next morning.
Gas stations, the border crossing, more gas stations, I pop started the car each time. Almost 500 miles later, I stopped in Petawawa, Ontario, to visit a friend and do a little snowshoeing in Algonquin Provincial Park. The morning I planned to leave, I found my car frozen to the ground in the hotel parking lot, a night of freezing rain locking me in. I asked a trucker to help me rock it, break the tires free, and give me a push so I could pop it.
For those that don’t know, most of Ontario is flat. Hills are few and far between. My luck held; the hotel was at the top of the only hill in town. We broke the car free, pushed it to rolling, and down the hill I went. But this time the attempt failed and soon, I was at the bottom of the only hill in town and the car was not running.
I asked a couple of snowmobilers in the hotel parking lot for help; one happened to be a mechanic. He told me the distributer cap was cracked and showed me how to remove and replace it. I went back to the hotel, borrowed a phone book (remember those?), and the phone (pre-cell phone ubiquity), and called half a dozen auto parts stores in town. Finally one shop had the part and would deliver it. For free. To my car.
While I waited, at least a dozen people stopped to ask if I needed help. It seemed almost unreasonable to have so many people inquiring after my wellbeing on the side of the road. The part arrived, I installed it and still the car would not start. Another person stopped; after hearing my story of rolling, popping, installing, but not starting he thought I had flooded it and told me a trick to reset the starter. The car fired up. Just like that.
During another phone call to the camper manufacturer I’m told that it’s normal for the plug to spark when plugging in. Oh, and it will trip a GFCI outlet every time. Now my task is to find only non-GFCI outlets that are not connected to any other GFCI outlets on the same circuit. Three days, three strikeouts.
Somehow, I know that whatever the electrical issue is, it will be resolved. Maybe I’ll wait until I get to Canada and maybe some nice RV electrical specialist will randomly find me swearing at the camper… or maybe my path will miraculously be lined with only non-GFCI outlets. After all, distributor caps are delivered roadside in some places.
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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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