Feeding the Fantasy

Humboldt County Fairgrounds
Ferndale, California

Good Morning.

I recently wasted your perfectly good time with a long lament about the ruinous price of gasoline, and the felt need to reconsider my RVing career. Surely you remember. I even contemplated downsizing to a Scamp or Casita or another one of those little fiberglass eggs.

You didn't think you were going to get away that easily, did you?

Bob Hatch wrote:

"Maybe you need to think another way. You're driving that truck everywhere. To the store, sight seeing, to the mall. The low mileage truck is your primary method of transportation. Your "average" mileage would go way up if your transportation was split between a nice, but not too big, Class A or C, and a Jeep or similar type vehicle. Seems that about 1/2 of those miles you list were when not towing the trailer. If you could get 26 mpg on 1/2 the miles, your average cost per mile goes way down."


Unassailable logic. But me, in a motorhome? Become one of the Pod People? Oh, brother.

Seriously, there are a couple of problems I have with his plan. One, it takes a hunka hunka burnin' cash up front. And two, it only works when you move seldom. Or not at all. That's the opposite of traveling.

Okay, okay. I guess I don't have to buy the fanciest or most expensive or newest Land Whale out there. And the used price of some of them ought to be coming down considerable next year, if gas stays up there.

But, but, but... don't those things just go from one parking lot to another?

Something in me just recoils at the idea of a motorhome. It is almost a political argument. It is not his logic that makes me want to back off. It is his starting point. It may boil down to a matter of style, which takes the discussion out of the realm of economics altogether.

I am, mentally, just miles from a motorhome. I may get there, but it'll take a while. Bear with me. I may live that long.

People come to this RV racket from very different places. Some come down from a house. Others come up from a tent. They may wind up with the same RV, but they will have nearly opposite expectations of what they hope to accomplish.

With me the ideal is peace and quiet back in the woods. Or at the shore. Hard to get at places. With a small footprint and simple tools, breathing air that has not just been exhaled by someone else, in a place where I can hear myself think, and be comfortable in my own skin.

Don't get me wrong. I was never Natty Bumppo. It is a fantasy. You have yours and I have mine.

Here is the reality: I am 59 years old. I have to take medicine every day for my heart. My knees won't let me run any more. I can't see fine details without my glasses. My neck is held together with a metal plate and scar tissue. My ankles turn if I look at them. Things fall from my fingers if I DON'T look at them. I creak and pop with every movement, and bits of me hurt every day.

But what the heck. I'm still here to bitch and moan about it. And I'm still a vessel for my fantasies.

So I've made some compromises along the way. I suppose the first one, long ago, was when I started carrying water instead of drinking out of streams. Sensible, no? Then I gave up the 60 pound pack. I bought into certain prosthetics, like Jeeps, and started keeping more or less to something resembling a road. Then I made a bed in the back of a pickup, and traveled those bits of the country accessible by pavement.

Then I bought a small trailer. And followed with a bigger one. The one I've got now. Which may have been a bridge too far. Step by step, the slippery slope. Farther and farther from the fantasy.

I'm afraid that one of these days I'm going to wake up with an empty heart and a mouthful of ashes, sitting in a fancy coffin on wheels. A motor home. Arrghh!

And before you roll your eyes, remember that the purchase of something like an RV is all about the accommodation of fantasy. It is seldom a practical decision. The most practical thing is to stay put, unless you happen to live in New Orleans.

It's all relative. For instance, at the moment I am eating blackberry pie for breakfast, looking out my window at the fairgrounds in Ferndale, California. Right across the way, up against the fence, is a vintage 18 foot Airstream that looks like it's been there for a while. While I was writing all that stuff up above, a couple of boys in red shirts and blue jeans, about 6 and 4, emerged from the darkness of a doorway half hidden by a rag of blue awning.

A small white dog followed them.

The boys are about as clean as boys get. They played a little, rough and tumble, waving sticks and wrestling, speaking in the tight voices and strained tone of children who don't want anyone knowing too much about their games. One of them fell down dramatically, and I heard something about "killed ina linaduty." Then a slim woman appeared, a bit worn about the eyes, carrying clothes in plastic sacks. The woman locked up the trailer, and they all got into a red Jeep station wagon and rode off together.

They seemed unreasonably happy.

The little trailer looks lonely without them. Abandoned under the trees. Like a battered shoebox, where a child might once have kept his special things.

I think it is their home.


Bob

The Cost of Avoiding Business

Cape Blanco State Park, Oregon

I've been fooling around with Quicken. Ooops. Just paid my credit card bill for August. Ouch. Some of you may be interested in my gas expenses to Alaska and back. Some of you may rather not hear about it, if you're headed that way anyhow.

Please cover your screen. What follows may scare the kids.

I left on May 20th. For the 3 month period, May 20- August 19, my gas bill was $2513, an average of 837 bucks a month. This got me to Alaska, and down the Kenai Peninsula to Ninilchik, where I spent a couple of weeks doing very little, as slowly as possible.

Highest gas I bought in Alaska was $3.50/gal, highest gas in Canada was $1.28/litre (currently translates to about $3.90/US gallon, in US currency). Airline tickets are starting to look pretty good.

I won't know the whole story until about a month after I get back to TX. But I'll bet I'm looking at a total of 15K miles, and 5 or 6 Grand. Just for gas. No meals, campground fees, trinkets, or psychiatric assistance included. Just gas.

Gulp. Thank God for credit cards.

Same period in 2004, traveling in Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, -- $993, an average of $331/ mo. Less linear distance covered daily, lots more running around in circles.

Go back another year. Same period in 2003, constant travel up through BC and down the left coast, -- $1112, average of $312/mo. That trip was quite similar to this year's trip, in terms of movement.

Note the consistency 2003-2004. Staying put in the SW didn't seem to slow me down any. But I'm spending nearly 3 times as much this year.

Whatcha gonna do?

My baseline average at home, Jan-Mar, 2005, was $145/mo. In the past I have gotten about 8 miles a gallon pulling the trailer, in all conditions. From these figures you may be able to extrapolate your own likely figures. Poor things.

Make what you will of all this. Lots of variables. But any way you look at it, RV travel is getting to be a sight more spendy. And in a dingdang hurry, too.

You could call it the cost of doing business. But durn it, I'm supposed to be avoiding business. I'm retired.

The time is creeping up on us when "full-timing" may involve turning into semi-permanent site-bound trailer park trash. Well. It might not take much turning. But it was easier to maintain my clever disguise when I moved right along every day.

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My brother wrote to say he was planning to take his wife someplace really expensive for their anniversary. He was considering the Phillips station.

Ba-dump bump.

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I am seriously considering truly downsizing my next RV. I will at least put off the decision to upgrade for a while. This one's paid for, which makes it a something of a pearl beyond price.

My philosophy about this RV stuff has always been to identify the essence of it, get in cheap, and spend as little as possible on extraneous stuff. I think the main thing is to know your own mind about what you want to do. That's what I mean by "the essence of it." I've seen some very specialized RVs on this trip. There's a picture of one of them to the right.

But, but, but... moving around and using gas IS the essence of it, or near enough, and it's getting to where there is no 'cheap' way to do that.

And (whine) to make a real difference means DRASTIC downsizing, like a Casita or a Scamp hauled by a little pickup. Or even, God help us all, a minivan and a tent trailer. That might triple my mileage. Double it anyway.

Might put me almost back to where I was last year. Just in time for the next round of price hikes.

Problems, problems. For me to fit in a Casita may require amputation at the knee. Or the neck. Ah. That's the answer. I don't need a big ole clunky RV. I just need to stunt my growth a bit. Or maybe I could live fast and die young. No, wait... it's too late for that, too, darn it.

I'll think of something.

But could you really call the emerging prospect RVing? Am I back to camping? Would that be all bad? Or just commuting? Bob, the weekend wonder, pedaling out to Lake Georgetown to set up a tent?

Sic transit gloria mundi. At 8 miles to the gallon.

What I really need is a suitcase trailer. All of us do, at least those of us who are not already movie stars, or wealthy real estate maggots. I think I saw a trailer like that in a Porky Pig cartoon once. Take the bulging suitcase out of the back seat. Lay it on the ground. Stutter a little, and whistle a happy tune. Unlatch, doc. Just lift that lid a bit, and Sproinnng! Aaahhh. Jacuzzi. Roaring fireplace. Easy chair. Home Sweet Home.

Quicken be damned. Man cannot bear too much reality.

So merry melodies, y'all. And maybe th-th-that's all, f-f-folks!


Bob

Ents Along The Ocean

Port Orford, Oregon

Dang it. I must have kicked the wall again the other night. Must have. Gout is possible, I suppose, though I'm holding out hope that is one of the few things I am still too young for. I started limping yesterday as I got out at the Cape Blanco lighthouse, and last night it got worse. Point pain, top of the foot, outside, as from a blow. No bruise, though.

My next RV is definitely going to have a longer bedroom. If I have to take a chainsaw to it.

The foot is better this morning, though still swollen. I gimped on down to the bluff anyway, out of sheer stubbornness, and caught sight of a whale spouting, out by the seastacks. I don't know what kind of whale it was. First one I've seen in the lower 48, though there were lots in Alaska.

Of course I had neither camera nor field glasses with me. Only my coffee, clutched fiercely in a my fingers like the precious stuff it is.

I remember an old movie with Matt Dillon. "Drugstore Cowboy", I believe. His character raided drug stores for a variety of designer pharmaceuticals, and his defense of drug abuse was as charming as any I ever heard:

"Most people don't know how they are going to feel in the morning. With the right pills, I know exactly how I'm going to feel."

And that, my friends, is my attitude toward coffee. My drug of choice. I may fall over a root and die back here, but I probably won't spill the coffee. Grrrr.

Cape Blanco is a bargain, as these things go. $16 a night for water and electric. 50 amp service for motorhomes. Open year round. And a sign warning us not to sign up past October 1st, as the price will then drop to $12. The campground is in a grove of spruce, backed up to the ocean. The trees are really a blessing, up here on the cliff , as they rip the constant roaring wind off the so-called Pacific into intermittent vagrant teasing breezes.

There's a road down to the beach a short walk away, and trails behind the trailer to the edge of the bluff, with tables where you can have a sunset sandwich or two, if you like.

It was a little cold last night to sit out alone, without stars or a fire. These trees get a little spooky without conversation, or something to keep the shadows at bay. Instead I watched the rest of Scorsese's Bob Dylan special on PBS.

It's a tough life, out here in the wilderness. But fear not. I come from pioneer stock.

This morning was magical. Parked deep in a gloomy forest shot with brilliant angled beams and scattered speckles of sunlight. A wisp of mist among the ferns. I looked to see if entrapping tendrils had grown round the tires, but not yet. It did seem like there might be an Ent asleep back in there somewhere. All those high dim green trunks with multiple ragged moldy upraised arms.


But no, not even a hobbit. Only one hobbler, and that was me. Well, if I do fall down, there's a thick bed of needles to fall into. Maybe I'll fall asleep for twenty years, like old Rip, and wake to the sound of bulldozers.

As I came out of the park on the way to town, a small doe crossed the road like a lean shadow in front of me. Then clumpf... it plunged and disappeared into the thick foliage, and was swallowed up.

Not even a quivering leaf to prove it happened. But I'm pretty sure it was real. Or was, anyway. While it lasted.

Speaking of swallowing, it's time for lunch. An panfried oyster sandwich and a cup of chowder awaits in Orford, 5 miles away. Maybe even a piece of pie.

Not to mention an Internet connection. More than one kind of magic along this coast.


Bob

Champoeg Peggy

Champoeg State Park
Oregon

Champoeg State Park is a reasonably pretty place along the Williamette River, south of Portland. The campground has no view of the river, however. It is divided equally between a grove of golden yellow cottonwoods and an open field where the satellite dishes work.

I went straight for the trees.

A 34 foot Itasca Sunrider backed in next to me, containing Peggy and her mother Bertha. Peggy is a fulltimer with a broad Texas accent, but Bertha has a little more Cajun in her cadences. Peggy had just picked Bertha up at the Portland airport, for a cruise down the coast. This was their first stop.

Peggy was not happy. She was having problems with her slide, and the sofa bed her mother was supposed to sleep on would not unfold with the slide closed.

"Do you have any tools?" she asked.

"Tools? Of course. I'm a guy. Stand back. We live for this."

"Ooooo." She cooed. "So strong. So masterful."

Hmmm. Could it be that I was being mocked? Well, no matter. This ain't my first rodeo. I cautiously peered in the darkened door of the motorhome, screwdriver at the ready.

"What's the matter with it?"

"I don't know. It just started making a grinding noise, and then it sort of popped."

She was just too short. From six feet up it was pretty easy to see the problem. But not at all clear why it happened. The metal along the top leading edge of the slide had caught a piece of trim and ripped it out of the wall. The metal edge was bent back in the process. I beat it flat again with a hammer.

Hammers are fun. Hammers I can handle.

We worked the slide back and forth a few times. The slide appeared to just be a little too high on one side for the hole it was in. It caught every time.

"Have you had this thing sitting a while, with the slide out?"

"Well, yes."

"I think what we have here... is sag."

Her face stiffened. She put her fists on her hips. "A gentleman," she replied crisply, in that uncompromising Texas drawl, "would not use that word in the presence of a Lady ... of mature years."

"Oh... er... ah... well, how about 'lean'? The slide has developed a 'lean'."

"Lean is good." There was a twinkle in her eye. But it was a hard twinkle.

"No, it's not. Not really. Somehow one side of this slide has gotten a little lower than the other. And I haven't a clue how to fix that."

"Dam." she said. "Dam, dam, dam. This is just what I need."

I had not quite reached the end of my expertise, but I was close enough to see the end. I tried to position the trim higher, but it ripped out again. The slide was catching way back toward the middle, with gradually increasing contact toward the end.

I allowed as how there might be an adjustment underneath that would make it level, but I didn't know how to do that. Better take it to a pro before we really break something. It seemed to work best if I just left it the way I found it, with about a foot of the trim torn loose and moving out of the way with the action of the slide.

At least it wasn't grinding any more. I thought I better bow out in favor of someone who actually knew what he was doing. And said so.

Bertha and Peggy professed themselves not to be...too... disappointed. They even invited me to dinner. As darkness came on, I contributed a bottle of wine, and enough firewood for a roaring fire. But it soon got too chilly for Bertha, and she went in to watch TV.

Peggy and I got to talking about how we came to this RV life.

"It's one of my earliest memories," she said. "I was walking down Magazine Street in New Orleans, hand in hand with my mom. Near where we lived. Not the most elegant address."

She swirled the wine in her glass.

"Anyway, I was only 5 or 6 years old. We used to go walking around and looking in the store windows, just for entertainment. We passed by what must have been a travel agency. There were these posters, with palm trees, and sandy beaches and umbrellas and beach chairs, and beautiful sunsets over a too blue sea, and handsome people all laughing and happy.

So I came to a dead stop. 'Look, Mom.' I said. 'Look. Can we go there?'

She looked at me like I was crazy. 'Yeah, right.' she said. And then she dragged me on down the street. It was probably my first exposure to really burning sarcasm."

Peggy poured herself a little more wine. The firelight danced across the bottle. She leaned back into her chair.

" 'Yeah, right,' she said. That's my Mom.

There was a world in those words. A world where 'people like us' didn't travel. 'People like us' didn't get to go places like that, didn't get to do lots of things. 'People like us' didn't get away....

It wasn't just that we didn't have the money. There was a sense that I ought not to be even thinking about stuff like that.

I thought about it anyway.

Later on, in school, I took all these tests to see what I would be good at. There were lots of possibilities. Law. Sales. Too many things, really. But nothing really appealed to me.

Finally this counselor said, 'Okay, let's try an experiment. Sit back. Close your eyes. Now think about being happy. Just being happy. Take your time. Now. Where are you? What are you doing?'

So I told her about the palm trees and the sandy beaches on Magazine Street. And she said, 'Why don't you go there?"

Peggy fell silent for a while, staring into the fire.

I couldn't leave it. "So? Did you?"

"Oh. Yeah. It took a while. I ended up living 3 years on Maui."

"Was it what you thought it would be? Were you happy?"

"Pretty much. I had a second floor apartment, two blocks from the beach. I used to sleep out on the lanai and listen to the surf all night. And sometimes I'd go sit on the sand, and look out over the ocean, and there'd be these great red and purple clouds, maybe even a green flash around the edges now and then, and I'd think I was too happy. Too happy. Like there couldn't be anything to top this. Like I could die and it wouldn't matter."

"Why did you leave?"

"I had a grandchild. Another story. But I've had that feeling lots of times since. You know what it's like ... when you go along a quiet lake, and the sun is bright, and the air is clear, and the mountains and sky are reflected in the stillness of the water so perfectly that it's hard to tell what's real.

Sky above and sky below. That's the way it was in Maui on the beach. Only I was the lake. Peggy Lake.

Once in a while, you know, you get to see something so right that it gets inside you, becomes part of you, and you can't tell where you leave off and that begins.

I don't think you can lose it afterwards.

It's called reflection, isn't it? When you really see things? Not with your eyes, but with your mind? And then it's all so obvious, like it was always there. 'Aha,' you say. 'I see.' Of course. There it was, all along, just waiting for you to relax.

Waiting for the right moment.

Moments like that just let you become who you are. Or who you ought to be. And moments like that are why I like to travel."

"And now ... you're headed for the coast of Oregon?"

"My mom is with me. She's 79. I want to show her the coast. I want to show her the redwoods. I want to show her what it's like to be on the open road. I want to show her that I'm not crazy."

She laughed.

"A kind of farewell tour?"

She laughed again. "No. Not at all. More of a Hello Tour. What I really want to show her is what 'people like us' can do."

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I slept late this morning. Too much wine. They were gone when I got around to staggering outside.

I would like to have had at least one more campfire. Peggy can be tart. She can even be intemperate.

But she has her moments.


Bob

Oops!

Walla Walla WA

While I was in Valdez I hooked up with a guy who made welded aluminum boats for the river traffic along the Snake River, and he suggested I take a ride up Hell's Canyon in one of them. He also gave me the lowdown on taking a shotgun through Canada, for he had one in the back of his truck camper, loaded with slugs.

You hear lots of talk about how hard it is to get across the border with a weapon of any sort, and even the occasional lurid tale of nosy inquisition and hours of search and destroy forays through your vehicle by belligerent border guards with a confiscatory gleam in their eyes.

The reality turns out to be a lot more cut and dried. He just showed up at the border, declared the shotgun, filled out a form identifying it by model and serial number, and paid $25 for a 60 day permit. The permit is renewable. He did not have to show the gun, nor have it sealed and plugged, nor any of the nonsense you hear about. He was on his way in about 15 minutes.

No muss, no fuss.

If you are going to be fishing at remote streams in Canada, and worried about bears, this might be the way to go. But I've been on some of those streams, and my experience is that the bears are not interested in you. Along the Russian river in the Kenai, I saw men and bears fishing side by side, both hauling in the salmon.

My impression is that people up there deal with a bear like you'd generally deal with a drunk. Just move over a bit and give him some room. He's more trouble than he's worth to run off. Of course, if either the bear or the drunk is carrying a shotgun, that's a different kettle of salmon.

My first view of Lewiston, Idaho, coming down from the north, was from the top of Lewiston Hill. Impressive. In the hazy distance, hay stubble covered the hills like a tawny pelt, rumpling down and converging into the speckled green of Lewiston along the broad blue ribbons of the Clearwater and Snake Rivers. Lewiston is a port, connected by river and lock to the Pacific ocean. Amazing, when you think about it. It's a long way to the ocean from here.

I took a look at Hell's Canyon State Park, and some of the tour boats. Perhaps another time. It was the middle of the day, and I just wasn't in the mood. Besides, I had an appointment in Walla Walla to pick up my guns.

I got in about 3 pm, and Alan didn't get off until 5, so I decided to improve the time by washing the truck and trailer. I had accumulated a thick coating of Alaskan and Canadian mud.

I had to pick up a new little door for my electrical cord stow-hole, so I headed south a few miles to Milton-Freewater, Oregon, and Smiley's RV. Got the part, and directions to the carwash. Pulling up in front of it, I saw that I couldn't pull straight in, but there was an entrance to each side. I waited for traffic, then pulled right into the one next to the pizza joint.

Oops.

Someone had put a high curb between the two businesses. So there I was, facing into a dead end parking lot, with the traffic going zip-zip-zip behind me. Can't go forward, can't go back. Then I noticed that there was a little road around back behind the pizza joint, apparently for window pickup.

Narrow, but looks like I can make it.

Now I could have just waited for a break in the traffic. Eventually there would have been one, and I could have backed out of there. But noooo. That would have required patience.

When in doubt, panic.

You guessed it. Erk. I caught the edge of the green mansard roof with the passenger side of the trailer. Poked a hole right through the skin, and ripped the awning above the door.

Employees came boiling out, then ducked back in again, because I was turning the air pretty blue. I apologized, briefly, then let'er rip again. Just couldn't quit for a few minutes there. Not really inventive cussing, just energetic and repetitive. I wore it out after a little while.

The owner showed up with the cops, and I settled with him for a hundred bucks. Not that much damage to the building, but the figure was less than my deductible, and I didn't want any lingering long distance trouble. Then I persuaded some of those nervous employees to back me out into the road and around to the side, where I got out the ladder and duct-taped the hole.

About a foot long. Dang.

I dropped the trailer and washed the truck. I gave up cleaning the trailer. The duct tape might not hold against that much water. In fact, I've got to keep an eye out for some 70 mph test duct tape. Do they make such a thing?

I had a couple of beers to settle my digestion. Then I drove back to Walla Walla. Alan met me in the Safeway parking lot with my package. We went out to supper.

I didn't unwrap the guns. Safer to wait till tomorrow. They aren't loaded, but given the way things were going I could probably still figure out a way to shoot myself in the foot.


Bob

I'm Baaack....

Lewiston, ID

I came back into the lower 48 through Yahk, along the Moyie River, floating on down Hwy 95 to what I thought would be a sleepy little crossing. What I found was a dozen huge cattle trucks waiting in line, along with 20 cars or so, the usual assortment of Winnebagos, and an armored truck.

Took about an hour to get through there.

The cattle trucks were from Alberta, and had their own line to the right. I guess the Great Alberta Cattle Scare is over.

Most of the trucks were empty, but a few had moos coming out of them. For once I was glad it was raining, and there was not much wind. One by one they passed by me and pulled up to a stop sign, where the driver got out and went inside with his paperwork.

The first thing you see when the door opens on one of these tractors, right at eye level, is a pair of tiny stocking feet, followed by a groping hand reaching down under the seat, feeling around for a pair of slip-on sneakers. A lot of these guys drive in their socks.

The next surprise is the burly bullet-headed man that appears next. Men with big bellies, big shoulders, and no ass at all, gimping gingerly across the parking lot on vestigial feet. They look odd out of their rigs. Unbalanced. Like birds without wings.

I suppose if you drove one of these things long enough, you'd come to resemble your cargo. All torso and a pair of hooves.

"Anything to declare?" the lady asks.

"I do declare I'm happy to see you. It makes waitin' in this line worth every minute."

She laughed, asked me if I had any Fire Department patches on me, and waved me on through.

I spent the night at the Coeur D'Alene Casino, my first experience at Casino Camping. It was convenient. The far side of the parking lot was just me, a couple of motorhomes, and a semi, all rumbling away. After I got my generator going too, I went inside.

The Casino was entirely electronic slot machines and video poker. Lots of bells and whistles and ching-ka-ching. It was built like a shopping center department store, in clumps and circles, with no straight lines, and mirrors on the eventual walls to create an infinite regression of carnival light.

Intentionally confusing. They don't want you to easily find your way out. Hang around. Have a drink. Try again.

God help you if there's a fire.

Some of these people looked anemic and rumpled in the blue glow of the slot screens, like they'd been chained there for days. Like vampires in protective custody. An illusion, no doubt.

In fact they looked much like my mental impression of many a denizen of newsnet. Minus the quarts of Dr. Pepper, if course, and the stacks of empty pizza boxes.

When I finally got my bearings in there, I found the buffet. Hmmm. All you can eat breakfast, $7.99. When I showed up again a little after 7am, there were still people ka-chinging away, heavy-lidded, propped up on their elbows.

Used to be, you got a little exercise for your money, pulling the arm down on these bandits. These days the most you can hope for is a hypertrophied index finger. Watch for the signs.

Breakfast was pretty good. Lots of fruit, sausages, bacon, waffles, biscuits and gravy, eggs to order. Just me and one older couple to eat it all. And they were sensible sorts, filling up entirely on conversation and oatmeal.

So I did what I could to put a dent in it.


Bob

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Driver

Muncho Lake, BC

Canada is in its full fall glory, here at the northern terminus of the Rocky mountains. The birches, aspens, cottonwoods, and poplars have turned the landscape into a river of gold and rust and green that flows off grandly into the roadless distance. Such sights are wasted on a man alone. Beauty always confronts the solitary with his solitude. It makes him more alone.

It needs sharing.

O, I know about the loneliness of crowds. But yesterday it was the loneliness of solitude that bedeviled me, the loneliness of being far too far from anyone. Or at least anyone I know.

It comes out in little things, like gripping the steering wheel too hard, or driving a little too fast, a little too long.

Listening to music I don't even like.

Talking to goats on the side of the road.

Accosting the occasional caribou.

Periodically I just have to pull over, get a grip on myself, as opposed to the wheel, and ask the question: what's the hurry? After all, at the beginning of the trip, this solitude was what I was seeking. It was a source of strength, and freedom, and satisfaction.

What has changed?

Well, for one thing, I am bored. Boredom is a principal component of loneliness. Sometimes it is the boredom of nothing to do. And sometimes the boredom of too much to do - - that you'd rather not do.

Humor is a help. Dragging a rattletrap trailer across the continent is an intermittent cure. Something is always falling off, or apart. Busy hands busy the mind also. But right now everything is working just fine.

Things are going just a little too well for me to be happy. Guess I could break something, just for the hell of it. Where did I put that hammer?

I could eat. That works great for an hour or so. Many a neurasthenic has found his depression lifted by a sandwich.

But no. Think I'll skip that. Too temporary. Matter of fact, I've made a recent vow not to eat until I'm truly hungry. This may seem an odd sort of diet, but it has melted away dozens of pounds in the past.

Psst. Hey, wanna hear the secret of weight control? If you don't stick things in your mouth, you lose weight. That's it. Simple, huh? There are obnoxious people in the pulp non-fiction market who have made fortunes offering no better advice than that.

Unfortunately, I am not one of them.

And you can get bored with boredom, too. Turn depression into irritation, and you might piss yourself off enough to do something about it. Entire careers have been launched by little more.

Exercise helps. It's hard to be bored once you run out of breath. How sweet life can seem, no? With the addition of just a leetle more oxygen? The right moment can make water better than beer.

But my beat-up body won't cooperate. When I try to run, my knees swell up like knobby grapefruit. I am a born walker. But three days ago I turned my left ankle, and it's been hobble, hobble, hobble ever since. It's getting better, but that pretty much limits the walking cure, at least for now.

And then there's self-pity, of course. Though whether this is a cure or just another durn disease is a matter for conjecture. Like kicking a rock real hard, to take your mind off a toothache. But certainly I could wail and gnash my teeth, cursing the risible fate that gave me mortality and consciousness on the same morning, berating the bitter drink that men were born for.

Yas, yas. Pity the poor garrulous dustbin godlet on cruise control. Ah, but pulling out my hair is problematic nowadays, and nobody likes a whiner. Least of all himself.

So then, what to do, what to do? What to do, if all these cures do not avail?

Why, there's the talking cure. Reaching out to touch someone, through a minor miracle of modern science. Like now.

Which seems to have done the trick.

Yes. I've had my ration of coffee, and then some. The sky is blue. The sun is bright. There's an open road before me. There's even a trickling breeze about this morning, with just enough winter in it to make me want to paw the ground. There's plenty of gas in the tank, and all eight tires are at just the perfect pressure.

Yesss. It worked. Thanks.


Bob

Poetaster

Haines, Alaska

I'm sitting on the beach in Haines, waiting for Mardi Gras to begin. They have their own calendar here in Haines, and Mardi Gras begins tonight. That's their story and they're sticking to it.

Yesterday I went up to Chilkat Lake and got some good pictures of Grizzlies fishing, picky devils that they are. Also the odd sight of a traffic logjam of people taking pictures of them. Nobody could get in or out, for a while. The bears left early, probably laughing too hard to concentrate on fishing. Eagles quit about the same time.

"Lookit the hairless apes! Ain't they a hoot! Clickety clickety click."

And then last night around ten somebody hammered on the trailer and told me the Aurora was out. No pictures. I don't have a tripod. So you'll have to take my word that it looked like the sky was lit up with bright green searchlights.

That about completes my list of things to see in Alaska. Except for Mardi Gras.

In between all that, I uncorked a bottle of Frontera cabernet from Sam's (a fine cheap Chilean wine), and somewhere into the second glass tried my hand at a commemorative poem. While I was at Fairbanks, I went to see Jazz Night at the Blue Loon, and had a pretty good time.

So, this is about that. Here y'go:


Jazz Night at the Blue Loon


The saxman stood, waiting for the beat.
A buzzing drummer and the organ wraith
Traded love notes. The saxman simply stood.

Waiting for the beat.

Slump-shouldered, bent, a wasted cadaver
Hung in a shiny suit, his hollow cheeks
Stretched taut and thin, like drumheads.

Waiting for the beat.

A reliquary face. A wooden face.
The face of a saint who learned too late
Love is a habit as easy to break as your nose.

Waiting for the beat.

Now he stands like a man with a mouthful of nails.
Like a marionette, eyes painted wet,
Waiting for the Hand to Move.

Waiting for the beat.

One, two, three. Like a counting horse.
A white flash of eyes as he looks to heaven.
And then the music moves, moves, moves
Like a gravel avalanche, like blazing feathers,
Like sauntering syllables of pain and pleasure,
Through the glass-clink and murmur of the crowd.

The saxman floats. The saxman flies. The saxman
Carves cool silence from the heated air,
Smoke in his heart, and in his eyes
The end of waiting.


Bob

What About Bob?

Denali State Park
Alaska

A half dozen people have written, wondering what could ever have happened to me. Thank you all for your concern.

To forestall the expense and trouble of outfitting search parties, let me say that I am well and in Alaska, currently approaching Denali from the south. If you do send out that big dog looking for me, don't forget the little keg of brandy that goes on his collar.

Some good may come of it.

This morning I am in a viewing spot south of Cantwell. As in Cantwell see. It is blue up above, and I am waiting out a persistent mist in order to obtain that Holiest of Grails-- a clear view of Mount McKinley. This may be the perfect time to clear up misperceptions of all kinds.

I've been gone a week on a ferry ride to Dutch Harbor, out in the Aleutians. 1644 miles in six and a half days, sleeping on the deck, swapping lies and visions with an erudite Aussie sailor, a lovely rural nurse on leave, an ironic ex-cop from Fairbanks, a couple of lively Bering Sea fishermen, etc.

Birders by the dozen, Aleuts by the score.

Before that there were two weeks in Ninilchik in the Kenai, clamming and fishing for halibut, sitting back in proprietary and sometimes even solitary baleful splendor on the bare beach, always with one eye watching Mount Redoubt.

Macabre impatience. The top blew off as recently as 1990. What's it waitin' for? My god. Volcanoes can be coy as whales.

Before that, I was a couple of weeks in Seward, doing about the same things and catching the odd boat tour. Otter delight. Sea lions in City Park. Motorhomes lined up facing the sea like beached land whales, generators droning plaintively. Occasionally someone peeks out of their maws to take a furtive look around.

Robert Frost has a poem about these guys:

"They do not look out far.
They do not look in deep.
But when was that ever a bar
To any watch we keep?"

Something like that.

Before Seward, the Fourth of July in Valdez. Icebergs calving from the Columbia Glacier. Sparklers sputtering in the rain. Salmon bakes.

Pinks were runnin'. I was settin'. Each to his own.

But somewhere along the way I apparently lost interest in hunting up Internet access. Or writing about what was happening around me. Slipped my mind, softly as a cat slips his collar.

Plenty to write about, I guess, but I was too content, or too entertained, or maybe just too ornery, to keep up with reportage. Or maybe this: perhaps I have finally discovered (gasp) the Virtue of Reticence. Well! Shut mah mouf, as they say in the Souf. Move over, Gary Cooper. Could it be?

Nope. Ain't claimin' no Virtues. Nary a one.

However, the following quote from a recent letter to a friend may clarify this absence of industry:

----------------------------------------------------------------

"8/20/05
10 am

I think you called this morning. Unfortunately I was still abed at 8 am, and by the time I got there you were gone. No message. I don't know who else it could be. Some siding salesman, I suppose. Boy, has he got the wrong guy.

The State Fair started at Ninilchik yesterday, and I wasn't in the mood for crowds. I seldom am. I ended up here at Upper Skilak Lake, right next to the water.

The sky is clear and high and blue. A low, lazy breeze sends chilly fingers reaching back, up into the shadows. But out here, right now, the sun is bright and warm on my face. Gentle as a loving hand.

Of course I am not alone. There are many small voices here. As the wind comes and goes, the pines creak, muttering bashfully. Squirrels chatter in the lower branches, scrabbling about, dismembering cones. These guys don't like to share. Occasionally there is a rain of husks, and then the race is on.

The few flies have all gone to cover. Lots of bees. One buzzy little fellow keeps trying to admire himself in my glasses. He seems to like what he sees. An insect philosopher, perhaps, bent upon reflection.

And hard to discourage as a penchant for puns.

Floop. Floop. Flooop. Floop. The lake is calmly beating on the pebble shore. There's a small island in the near distance where a gaggle of geese whimper and cry and circle constantly, practicing their touch-and-goes. Every time one lands, there is general relief, celebration, and commentary. Then they take off again. Wahoo.

I may slide the kayak out there later, just to join the fun. They are having their own state fair. And in their economy a goose egg is far from zero. It is in fact a thing of infinite worth.... "

------------------------------------------------

See there? Nothing much going on. Just Bob. An ordinary life. All is well.

------------------------------------------------------------

The mist has moved, but only up the cliff to surround the trailer. "I say, Watson. Did you hear the Hound? There's more to these Moors than meets the eye..."

Still some blue, directly overhead . I think the guy who named this place was dyslexic. He meant to say Denial, not Denali. Amazing how these little typos gather a life of their own.

Wait. There it is. There it is.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Someday I may feel like working on the website again. Maybe I'll catch up, or fill in. We'll see. Meanwhile I wish you all as much luck in your adventures as is prudent.

Or maybe more. In fact, I don't know Prudence very well. I'm sure she's a good person, mostly. But I doubt she'd want to keep company with an old man like me.


Bob

A Tale Of Woe

Lake Louise Lodge
Lake Louise, Alaska

"Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned..."

- Yeats, "The Second Coming"


Well, okay. Maybe it's not all that bad. I get a little carried away, sometimes. This year I got carried away up to Alaska.

The fact is, I've abused my venerable old Mallard on many a bad road these last 5 years. It's held up reasonably well, but not perfectly. Those who have occasionally followed my adventures may recall some cross-frame members falling out into the middle of Highway 1 a couple of years ago. Stress fractures. I got the whole frame re-membered, stiffened and reinforced at a welding shop in Fort Bragg. Then my dinette caught fire. Fixed that, then finally tore the whole thing out and put in chairs and a table facing the window. Then I dropped a hot skillet on the vinyl flooring. Redid the floor with sticky squares from Home Depot. The idea was that I'd never have to do the whole floor again, but just replace individual squares. Right. Then last year in Colorado my converter fried itself. So I replaced that. In May my doorstep tore loose at a weld and hung cattywhompers. Got it. Moving right along.

You're right. This SHOULD be leading somewhere. Let's survey the current scene:

1. Many of those spiffy little vinyl squares are now curling up at the edges from all the flexing of the trailer. Or maybe the glue was just no damn good in the first place. And I find that Home Depot has discontinued the pattern. Great. So I've got all that to do over again. And I've yet to discover a material suitable for trailer flooring that chairs won't scratch up and eventually dig a hole in, sliding back and forth. Carpet would just collect dirt. Somehow I bring in a lot of dirt.

2. While at Valdez last week, the lock retractor on the right arm of my A&E awning quit retracting the locking pin. When I finally got it apart, a piece of what appears to be pot metal fell out of it. That little piece was what held the locking pin in reach of the release arm. If you can't picture this, you probably haven't got an awning. Shame on you. Go get one. I'll wait.

I screwed it down, as a temporary fix, but in a week or two that will fail, no doubt, and then I'll just rip the guts out and go to a simple through pin to hold the awning up. I've already drilled out multiple holes in the arm to fit one.

3. At Blueberry Lake, the gas valve on my water heater quit passing gas. I took apart what there was to dismantle, and everything looks fine. Whatever's wrong is internal. So I'll hope Anchorage has a replacement thermostat/valve assembly. I did try one of Mark Nemeth's old tricks: if you leave just the pilot light on overnight, there's usually plenty of hot water come morning. But the pilot light won't stay lit. The electrical side still works, though, so every morning I have to fire up the Honda generator for 30 minutes so I can get a hot shower. How blooming convenient.

4. Oops. The locking female plug on the generator isn't locking anymore. It pulls loose if there's any strain on the cord. Somewhere in Anchorage, I'm sure I'll find parts and a parking lot to fix this too. Thing probably needs an oil change, anyway. Anchorage is starting to loom large in my plans.

5. The Prowatt 650 inverter that powers everything but the TV inexplicably gave up the ghost only an hour ago, after performing flawlessly for 3 years. The green light doesn't come on, and AC power doesn't come out. No fuses, and the DC side is fine. I gave it a knucklethump, which actually fixed it for about 10 minutes. Then it quit for good. Further thumps fail to resuscitate. I even tried a little light cussing, followed by sweet talk. No go. That about uses up my technical expertise in these matters.

I have a couple of cheap Vector inverters put away just for just this situation. But they're 350W, and won't run the coffee grinder. That Krups grinder is only rated at 100W, but it won't work on these inverters. Another reason to run the generator every morning, even if I have to duct tape the cord in place.

6. The Vector 350 already wired up and ready to use is in an inaccessible place, and operated via a remote switch and relay hidden in a closet. Suddenly that relay has started clucking loudly at me every time I flip the switch. I fear the worst.

I've come to like being home 4 or 5 months a year, despite my early ambition to be a full-timer. You may have guessed at least one reason why. Things Fall Apart. And it takes a month or so, at my usual heady retirement pace, to get all that broke stuff working again.

Lately the pace of decrepitude has quickened, and I don't think I'll be able to wait until winter to deal with it. It looks like I'm going to be fixing things on the side of the road, and then fixing the things that fix things, on a regular basis. Which has got me started on a little wistful RV window-shopping. I had a couple of hundred units cheek by jowel around me down in Valdez over the Fourth, and dozens of people to compare notes with. I turned the whole question over in what currently passes for my mind.

All the choices, starting from scratch. Forget money for a moment. Yikes. Well, okay. What's the best RV for me?

I'll share a little of that higher math with you in the next episode. Right now I'm going down to the beach and check out the hovercraft.


Bob

Crackers

Valdez, AK

I am camped at Blueberry Lake, above Valdez. It's a silent sort of place just now, in the whispering way that nature is silent. Just enough wind to make a half empty ale bottle moan, and keep the abundant flies back under the bushes. Balm for the mind, this, after the crazed seagulls and frantic fishermen of Sea Otter Park in Valdez, over the Fourth of July.

I'm not sure what sort of bushes these are. Some kind of low Alders, perhaps. They climb the bluff opposite, leaving little bare ground. The leaves are lighter on bottom than top, so when the wind makes them restless there are inconstant wavelets of light and dark up there, as though the spirit of the lake, not content to be contained, has climbed the mountain.

Here I am, in the middle of the glacier-crowned Cnugach Mountains, and all I can think to write about is crackers. What on earth has happened to crackers?

Now ordinarily, and to most people, crackers would have about as much to do with camping as, say, motorhomes. But for me crackers are part of the picture. Poking with a stick at a spitting fire, a plate of crackers and cheese and sausage and pickles and cold sliced boiled eggs at hand, a glass of wine or a bottle of ale beside, the low sun warm on your neck, fish flopping in the water nearby... why, that's camping.

In the South there would also be a cacophony of crickets and tree frogs, but there are other critters here that take up the serenade, in their own shy way. Kew. Kew-kew-kew-kew-kew. Kew.

A hidden bird. But what? I haven't a clue.

I went into the Safeway in Valdez this morning to get the aforementioned culinary ingredients for camping. You can't get rat cheese any more, but cheddar makes an acceptable substitute. I picked up some "Alaska Sausage" nearby, which is a sort of hard salami that claims to "contain Reindeer meat". That may well be. Or perhaps their droppings. There are little black things in there that I hope are bits of peppercorn. It ended up tasting like beef, so I am content. I mention these things simply to indicate that I am not entirely opposed to innovation.

Which brings me to crackers. When I turned up the snack aisle, I was met by a pair of the most amazing blue eyes.

"Is there anything I can help you with?"

"I'm ...looking for crackers."

"Crackers? How about Ritz?"

"No, too rich for my blood. I was looking for something to go with cheese and sausage."

"Triskets? We have these on sale."

"Garlic and Oregano? Sounds a bit much."

"They're very good. Would you like to try one?"

"How would I do that?"

"Well, I've got this box that's been mushed a little. I'll open it up."

I couldn't help but smile. "I'm sorry, but I keep looking for a badge of some sort. Do you work for Nabisco?"

She dimpled. "Yes. And Dreyer's. We've got a special running on ice cream, too."

"Is your name Polly?"

She dimpled again. "No, I'm Miranda." She was opening the box. "What made you think of Polly?"

"Something about you makes me want a craacker."

She dimpled. Gosh, she's good at that. She held out the box. I tried one. Oregano and Garlic. Spicy hot and heavy on the grease. Not qualities that put me off in themselves, mind you. Quite acceptable in a hamburger. But rather nasty in a cold cracker.

"Do you eat these?"

She looked alarmed. "Oh, no. Well. I try to stay away from this stuff. Oh, I guess I shouldn't say that."

"Quite all right. You're a very good salesman. Er, person. But I think I'll stick with saltines. I like things to taste like what they are."

Those blue eyes lit up. "These taste like what they are. All our products do."

"Ah. Well, you go ahead then. You can have my part."

And so, like Odysseus, I slipped by. Didn't even have to tie myself to a mast. I did lean on the cart a little, once I got around the corner.

But I must have still been thinking about crackers, or something, when I went down the charcoal aisle. I grabbed a couple of quarts of lighter fluid without really looking at them. Seemed like the same white squeeze bottles with which I've tempted fate around campfires for decades.

You see, I learned long ago at the knee of Hob Martin, my sainted Scoutmaster, practically all there was to know about the tedious inefficacy of friction fire bows, and of flint and steel. Oh, if what you want is ritual, they're good enough. You can make a day of it. It's a little like cooking an elaborate meal, and laying out the ingredients in advance. All those little piles of stuff: punk, coarse dry tinder, twigs, and then dry sticks in assorted sizes. Makes you appreciate the Trials of Primitive Man. Museum stuff.

But if what you want is an actual fire this very evening, there's nothing to beat charcoal lighter. Doesn't usually flash over, or back, like gasoline. More flammable than motor oil. Hangs around just long enough to get the wood HOT and crackling on it's own. Liquid enough to penetrate the random cracks and recesses of a stack of firewood. No finesse, of course, no fuss, just fire. Functional technology at its finest. In fact, charcoal lighter is perfectly formulated to produce a plentiful supply of dancing flames in precisely the time it takes to skewer a couple of hot dogs and set out the buns and mustard.

And Oh! That pungent smell! Like a woman's perfume, it lets you know immediately that you're entering dangerous territory. You might get burned, if you're not careful. A potent and irresistible challenge that sets the mood perfectly. Eau d' camp. If there's such a thing as foreplay in camping, that smell is the bracing essence of it.

Friends and neighbors, I'm here to tell you that charcoal lighter is a miracle of modern science. So of course they've gone and ruined it.

I got a good look at that label just now. "Duraflame Fresh Light Liquid Gel Charcoal Lighter." Sounds like a civilian variant of napalm, doesn't it? Not so. It's white and creamy. Looks like gritty soap, and smells like oranges. As a matter of fact it's very similar to Fast Orange, a hand cleaner I keep for those rare occasions when I am tempted to fool with car innards. May be the exact same stuff, repackaged for the gullible and distracted.

It doesn't soak in. You can't aim it like the petroleum based dragon pee I'm used to. It just spluts out there and sits on top of the wood. A match WILL light this stuff, but it doesn't get HOT. It won't dry out damp wood. I know. I've used up an entire quart. And if I wanted my hands all sticky and orange-smelling, I'd simply buy an orange.

It's pitiful. Seven bucks. It's like those indoor fireworks I've heard about. Lame beyond belief. Just a pfft and a fizzle, when what your soul craves is a blaze of glory against the sky. I guess it might work if I started with small stuff, and made sure it was dry, and slowly built it up.... waitaminit! Now we're back to the fire bow! Centuries of progress erased in a moment!

I admit it. I'm male. I seldom read directions, and never read ingredients. But I'm reading them now. "Contains Methyl Alcohol". I could drink this stuff, if I didn't mind going blind. Wouldn't be much different, far as the timely reading of labels is concerned.

Grrr. I been had. Might as well have gone for the Triskets. At least they came with a plentitude of dimples.


Bob,
on Blueberry Lake.

Taking Stock

Sea Otter RV Park
Valdez, AK

It may be of interest to some to list the variety of troubles I've had with my rig on this trip, and my experience with what works all the way up to Alaska. And what doesn't.

First of all I have to say that the roads have not been as bad as I was led to believe. I've been on much worse in Colorado, Montana, or even Michigan. The bad roads are just longer up here. I was surprised within 10 miles of getting on the south end of the Cassiar to come over a rise and find a Winnebago stopped dead in the middle of the road, with the whole family outside taking pictures. I slid to a squirrelly stop, and asked if they needed help.

Nope. Just taking pictures.

The middle of a two lane road is the only place there is to stop, generally. In Northern B C, and somewhat less so in the Yukon, turnouts are rare and shoulders are thin to nonexistent, sloping down into a ditch. In this regard, the main roads up here resemble the back roads of Louisiana. The Cassiar is a boring, mosquito infested track through a tunnel of trees, and ill maintained. But the really bad spots are generally marked, and all you have to do is slow down. Traffic is light by southern standards, even with the annual sub-arctic RV migration.

I came to expect impromptu obstacles like that Winnebago. That doesn't mean the practice is safe. The only time I came near to having an accident was on the Klondike Highway, when I decided to stop briefly to pick up a hitchhiker. Note that I did not say pull over. There is nothing to pull over on. A semi nearly took us both out, coming around on the left at speed. In the lower 48 he would have used his horn. Here that is apparently considered waste motion. The trucks, and they are enormous heavy tandem trailer jobs for the most part, just go over, under, around, or through, as convenience dictates. They may not actually have brakes.

But flying rocks are no more common here than elsewhere. That's one of the Myths of the Northern Wastes, down south. It's funny to see the elaborate screens and shields people from the lower 48 have bought or more likely manufactured out of scrap to protect their precious paint jobs. I've seen motorhomes that resemble lightweight bulldozers that have recently churned through an East Texas trailer park. Some pickups look like they ran through the wire shelving department at Home Depot. The simplest and, to my eye, most original arrangement was a motorhome from Oregon that simply had wire screens over the headlights. All the rest of the front below the windshield was covered with bubble wrap and duct tape, with a couple of strategic gaps for the radiator.

I liked it, mainly because I am a Confirmed Deacon in the Church of Duct Tape. Simple, effective, and easy to remove when you come to your senses.

But people that live up here don't load up their vehicles with that crap, and neither should you. It can happen, of course, but I haven't gotten a single ding. Amazingly, the one lens that somehow did break was the porch light high up under the overhang of the fifth wheel, which had the whole truck in front to protect it. Go figure. Five bucks to replace it in Whitehorse. That's four bucks to you, you lucky devils.

Satellite radio is problematic. The incident angle to the satellites is easily blocked by low hills up here. XM shut down like I threw a switch at the Yukon border, and has worked only for minutes at a time since. Down south the digital signal was either perfect or missing, but up here you get a weird modulated soprano effect, as though all the announcers had gone castrati.

Perhaps they have.

Sirius has worked further north than XM. I believe their satellites wander this way a bit. But it's becoming finicky too. I think it's only a matter of time before I'm back in the '50s.

Verizon hasn't worked as an Internet provider since I entered Canada. In 2003 I got a workable connection through Telus in practically every little town south of Prince George, but not this trip. I think the problem is political, not technical. As these companies become larger, they are less willing to pay other companies for borrowed capability. For the customer, this means not all progress is forward. Voice service quit when I turned right onto the Cassiar, and hasn't resumed. I have some scant hope for Anchorage, in a few days.

Because everything depends on politics, I don't believe any cellular advice is likely to be useful from year to year. Cell phones do work up here. Right now the company of choice seems to be Cingular (ATT). I don't know anything about Internet service through them, though.

Wi-fi is everywhere. Most of this access is inadvertent, I believe, the result of people not knowing how to secure their systems. I understand that security of some sort is only a few clicks away, but lots of people are scared of this stuff, and absurdly grateful when it works at all.

This traveler thanks them very much.

The various connections are weirdly variable. Sometimes Windows reports an "unsecured" connection that I can't get out on anyway. Sometimes I can get the Web, but not email. Sometimes I can receive email, but not send it. There are technical reasons for all these things, but the practical solution is just to drive on a block and find another connection. I'm told they only reach out about 300 feet, but they are to be found nearly everywhere there are houses.

I have two GPS receivers. One is an ancient Garmin StreetPilot. The map program that came with it five or six years ago insists there are no streets or highways in the Yukon or Alaska. Microsoft Streets and Trips knows better, and the little GPS that came with that has worked pretty well. Both receivers began to show me a couple of miles to the north of the roads I was on, once I passed Prince George. I think this has something to do with the number of satellites in view. I have often found myself virtually up a mountain or in the middle of a bay, but fortunately automobiles are not IFR devices, and it is still pretty easy to look out the window and determine that you are on a road.

Beyond that, the two receivers report a consistently different altitude, by about 40 feet. And both differ from the road signs in the passes. Close enough for me. I am a child of the sixties, and careless about getting high. Indeed I often take comfort in not knowing exactly where I am. And even when I do, I compensate well.

Geeze. This note is getting waaaay long, and I haven't even gotten to most of the things that went blooie. That's going to take another installment.


Bob

Living Large on Lake Labarge

Lake Leberge, Yukon

When I was about 11 years old, I fell in with a disreputable crowd: Jack London, R.L. Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Service, and of course the arch vagabond himself, Mark Twain. When I wasn't hanging around Hannibal, or creeping through the jungle with Mowgli and Rikki-tikki-tavi, I was up in the Yukon with White Fang and Nikki and Sam McGee. No telling where I might end up on any particular day. It certainly didn't depend on the price of gas.

Rudyard was the obvious Poet Laureate of that lot. Robert Service was perhaps the Poetaster Laureate. But at the time, even his limerick lines seemed unforgettable. And in fact they must have been, for they are in my ear even now, almost 50 years later.

"The northern lights have seen queer sights
But the queerest they ever did see,
Was that night on the marge of Lake LeBarge
When I cremated Sam McGee."

Mystery, adventure, exotic locale, desperate deathbed promises made and kept. Wow. Everything a boy could want.

I'm on the marge of Lake Labarge right now, or at least the verge of Lake Leberge. Service seems to have taken liberties with the spelling. When he was up here, around 1898, this lake was much populated, covered over with skiffs and steamers and rafts and wrecks and just about anything that might float for a day or two. It was part of the Yukon River Road to the Klondike, and that mob of mad Stampeders probably saw this scenery as just something to get through. Their eyes were inward, raptly bent upon the golden future. You know, the one just around the bend.

I, on the other hand, have come here to visit with an 11-year-old boy.

But I've about given up on seeing the actual Northern Lights. There may well be some strange stuff going on up there, even as I write, but it has to get dark before you can see it. And that may not happen before, say, October.

Yesterday was summer solstice. The longest day of the year. The sun was going down around midnight, so I took a picture of it. An hour later I came out again and it was still going down. The red had washed out of the clouds, a little. The still surface of the lake shone with a deep pale pearlescent gleam, and even the air above it had a wavery quality. It gave an underwater uncertainty to mountains across the way. The first amphibians, the sea still in their eyes, might have seen mountains just that way.

I got here on Monday, just behind a caravan of Germans in their Canadream RVs. The Euro being what it is, the entire German nation seems to be over here taking advantage of it. Who needs Lebensraum, when the world is for rent?

It was a calm, sunny afternoon, perfect for kayaking.

I had been cooped up at Takhini Springs over the weekend, waiting out a cold persistent rain. The trailer sat safely plugged into electricity, while I scanned the gray horizon for lightning from the tenuous comfort of the hot pool. I even watched a little TV, only to find that Canadian TV is every bit as boring as the US variety. It is sort of an interesting challenge, though, to watch stand-up comedy in French, and try to figure out the joke from body language. Don't laugh. The French are pretty good at body language.

After all that, you'd think I'd want to get right out on the water. Instead I lazed around, sunning on shore in a lawn chair for hours, watching a few people put in their boats, reading Huck Finn. I witnessed one fellow back his 30 foot Bayliner into the water with his 30 foot motorhome. Did a creditable job of it too. Too bad his battery was dead. Frumpf. Frumpff. Frumpff-frumpff-frumpff-frumpfffff. Pop. Ffft. Click, click, click. Alberta plates. After a while he got tired of bobbing around out there, tugged the boat in to shore like a latter day Gulliver, got another battery out of the motorhome, and was on his way. Vroom.

Another couple, with BC plates, had an interesting rack for their canoe. The back T bar was on a swivel mount, which allowed them to load it from the side, then swing the front around to the ladder rack behind the cab of their pickup. There was a "US Marines" sticker on the window, and a yellow ribbon on the tailgate. Turns out, back in the late sixties, this Canadian citizen traveled south to join up, had a bit of adventure in Viet Nam, and then returned home to Vancouver.

One of those guys that likes to buck the current, I guess.

Tuesday brought another day of cold rain and wind. At Takhini Hot Springs I heard someone warm up an old aphorism about the Yukon: "If you don't like the weather, wait a few minutes." First time I heard that one, it was said about Texas. 'Course that's in the winter. In the good old summertime, the only English words a Texas weatherman needs are "partly cloudy", "clear", and "hot".

The rest is body language.

The Germans left early Tuesday, emptying out the campground, so I drove round to a site right on the bluff. And surprise, XM radio began working, for the first time since I entered the Yukon. Sirius still holds up pretty good. I think their satellites swing further north.

After setting up, I wandered up through the puddles to Mom's Bakery, for sourdough pancakes and what I thought was a plentiful store of pecan tarts. I also picked up a dozen eggs still warm from the hens clucking on the other side of that fence. Then I settled back on the couch for a few hours to finish up with old Huck. I like reading while a storm shakes the trailer. Soooo much better than a tent. Wish I had a chicken in the fridge. This is chicken soup weather. Guess I'll settle for warming up the last of that brisket.

Better than wish soup, any day.

It's Wednesday morning, and the air over the lake is crystalline. It's idyllic - sunny and 68 degrees. Windy though. Surf's up. I seem to keep finding lots of reasons not to go kayaking. Maybe later. Somehow it seems like work right now, and I'm retired.

I made a pot of coffee and walked a few feet down to the edge of the bluff. Some generous soul cut down a tree here not long ago, and left a stump the perfect height to rest my laurels on. I surveyed the whitecaps on the lake. Longfellow comes to mind, for the first time in many a year:

"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts...."

The wind is certainly having it's will here with the hillside pines. There's a faint high whistle and a trembling all around, and something of the feeling you get near the top of a mountain, when the wind pokes and laughs to you, and tells you you are alone.

But I can't hear what it's saying now, over the pesky drone of that airplane.

There's a flotilla of ducks off shore, out in the middle distance. I counted 24, all gathered in a bunch. I reached around for the camera in my jacket pocket, brought it up to focus...and they had disappeared. Every one of them. I scanned the sky. They can't have flown off that fast. A trick of the light? Hidden by the waves?

Nope. Just gone.

I was about to put it down to another curious aspect of the aging brain, when they began to pop up again, individually, spread out over a larger area. Pop, pop, pop, pop. Popopopopop. Up they came, shaking their heads, looking around, and immediately gathering into a mass again. There they floated a moment, perhaps to compare notes. Then all of them dipped at once, and sank in unison.

Gone. I think I am witnessing a coordinated buffet.

Which reminds me. A sharp wind can make a man hungry as well as maudlin. Time for some smoked ham and a couple of those yard eggs. I tried to get up, but met with initial resistance. I'm used to that. But this time it wasn't my joints.

Pine sap.

Well, the morning is not entirely wasted. I am once again in a position to offer advice to anyone out there occasionally dumb enough to sit on a fresh pine stump. You know who you are.

There are a number of salient points:

1) Before you sit on anything else, get out of those pants.

2) Just go ahead and have a good wallow on that stump. Then you can cut up your jeans for fire starter.

3) If you are stubborn enough to try and save them, your best bet is applying a little charcoal lighter or other solvent, then scraping the softened sap off with a knife. Careful with the knife. Remember, holes can't be salvaged for fire starter. White cheeks on your pants, on the other hand, are quite fashionable.

4) Don't try the knife trick on your fingers, sticky as they are. You may need them, now and then, in this digital age.

And that, children, is all Uncle Bob has to say.


Bob, living large on Lake Labarge.

The Predator Supreme

On the Continental Divide
Northern BC

I did not mean to come this far. I can't stop, you see. I'm running for my life. I have met the Savage Beast that rules these northern lands. The Predator Supreme, who feasts on all others. No, it is not the Grizzly Bear. And certainly not Man. Nor even the Dreaded Logging Truck. Pity them all.

It is the Mosquito.

I've been wanting for days to stop somewhere. I considered lovely Meziadin Lake, but I daren't get out of the truck. The bugs were actually pelting themselves against the window, trying to get at me. I stopped again at Kinaskan Lake, which had as pretty and empty a campground as you could want. Nearly every site is level, and backs right up to a shallow beach. That lake begs to be kayaked.

But my God, the Bloodsuckers.

Some people seem oblivious, and I suppose future generations will all be descended from them. While trolling through the campground I saw a pale, tubby, bearded man sitting at a table in a pair of swim trunks. He was covered with the things. Perhaps he is a lingering advocate of 17th century medicine, seeking a replacement for the leech.

He did not look happy, exactly. Dourly determined to endure, is more like it. My hat would be off to him, if doffing it did not expose critical areas of unbitten flesh, where blood flows close to the skin.

I was forced to stop at Tatogga for fuel. I've learned to be lively getting in and out of the truck, but there's no stopping certain forward elements of the invasion. At speed, on the highway, it is safe to leave the windows open. Indeed it is necessary, since the breeze of passage helps keep the hitchhiking critters pinned in the back seat.

I asked the gentlemen with the vaguely European accent, who was filling my tank, how he deals with them. He was dressed in long sleeves and a gimme cap. He kept blinking rapidly to keep them out of his eyes. He shrugged his shoulders.

"Ach, you take it as comes, eh?"

My Hero.

After a beat of two he stolidly added something about how they got better in July, when it got a little hotter and didn't rain as much. All during this brief conversation, I myself resembled a dervish whirling in place. Or perhaps someone practicing the Macarena. Swat, swat, swat. Swat, swat, swat.

My pioneer forebears would be disgusted with me. I don't care. I've got bumps all over my neck and arms.

The gas guy also said something about how last winter was milder than usual. Mosquito eggs can survive being frozen for a long time, but the shorter the time, the more there are. May God save Canada, if Global Warming proceeds as expected.

All this lovely water is just a wonderful breeding ground for the wee beasties. And the water is lovely to look at, though in general my passage along the Cassiar Highway is a bit like watching a travel documentary on TV. Everything has to be viewed from behind the protection of safety glass.

I moved on. And on. And on. No rest for the wicked.

Finally I stopped at a turnout here, near the Continental Divide. Around 4000 feet, above something inauspiciously called Upper Gnat Lake. It is just cool enough up here to discourage the worst of them. I am thinking of staying until the propane runs out, and then make a dash for Watson Lake.

But wait. According to the map, the road rises again as Hwy 1 goes west from there. Back to the Continental Divide. Maybe I can make it that far before dusk. Dusk doesn't come until midnight just now. Well, almost. I have not yet reached the Land of the Midnight Sun, but I am definitely in the Land of the 11:30 Twilight.

I really need to stop somewhere and lay over until the July dieback. Maybe Skagway. But here along the Cassiar there is no peace. No balm to be had, as in Gilead. Part of the problem may be an excess of imagination. I've been accused of that before. I feel them crawling on my skin even when I see they are not there.

I wonder if there is some way to rig the Northern Lights as a giant bug zapper? Anyone? Anyone? Hello?

Who knows? In years to come there may arise a new Legend of the North, one to rival even Sam McGee. People may whisper stories to their children of "The Flying Texan", condemned by a few bugs and an overwrought imagination to flee ever farther into the newly unfrozen north, with nary a place of succor, nary a place to rest. No land of hope and glory for the addled traveler. Only an unending dogged journey to the Pole.

Come to think of it, though, at least a few people have to survive for such a story to be told. The Predator Clouds do not auger well for that. History has always been a story of struggle, written in blood. Mosquitoes may have their own version of that.

Winners usually do.


Bob

Fort Saint James

Paarens Beach PP
Fort Saint James, BC

I seem to be developing a dangerous talent for driving right past Provincial Parks. I don't mean to. I set out from Juniper Beach, on the Thompson River north of Kamloops, yesterday about noon. I intended to drive perhaps 4 hours.

I drove 10.

By the way, I've already fallen into certain patterns on this trip, and a noon departure is one of them. I find I like my mornings sedentary. I wake up stiff and crabby. My eyes open fully only halfway through the shower. This makes the pre-shower shave something of an adventure. Then I drink several cups of coffee, sitting outside if the bugs allow it, maybe do a little writing, and fry up a late breakfast. Out of respect for the innocent drivers of Canada, I don't actually get on the road until fully human. This happens around noon.

In other words, I behave much as I do at home, minus browsing the newspaper. Out here, Nature is my newspaper. Yesterday it arrived wet.

I stopped off in Chasm, which is where I camped on my first night out of hospital in 2003, after a stent operation in Edmonton. It is still just a muddy flat spot along a cliff, with a pretty view. No enormous fires on the horizon this time round. Unimpressive, but yet it has a place in my heart. So to speak.

The store at 70 mile house has some VERY good home made jerky. Pretty cheap too. Load up.

On and on, through Williams Lake, and Quesnel. The scenery is nice, but monotonous. Most anything gets monotonous, on a long drive day. Around Hixon I stopped for the "famous Hixonburger" and a plate of Poutine. Poutine is a mess of fries covered in white cheese and brown gravy. Very hearty, and more savory than it's name suggests. I started seriously looking for a Provincial Park. And then drove obliviously past 3 of them, and on into Prince George. I never saw a sign.

Prince George is a ghost town after 5 PM. One of those places where they roll up the sidewalks. I stopped in a substantial strip mall to pick up a six pack. It wasn't until leaving the liquor store that I noticed a big sign on a lamp post. It had a lot of small print on it, but the gist was that no one could park in this side of the lot without a permit, by golly, and was liable to be towed away if they tried.

There was an old man out there sweeping the parking lot with a straight broom and a shovel. Let's call him Sisyphus. I asked him about the sign.

"Oh, nobody pays any attention to that. Those guys are just dull knives. There's a property line through here somewhere, and someone thought the pizza place patrons were taking up more than their share of the parking."

"I never heard of a parking permit for a commercial parking lot. Looks like it would run off casual customers. Where would you get a permit, anyway?"

"Nobody really knows," says Sisyphus. "It hasn't come up."

It isn't that there aren't plenty of campgrounds around Prince George. It's just that all of them I saw signs for were commercial campgrounds, and I avoid those. I may have to reconsider that policy. I drove and drove and drove up Hwy 16. The sun got lower and lower. Finally I turned off around 8 PM toward Fort Saint James.

They were resurfacing the road. It took 2 hours to go 50 kilometers or so. I made the mistake of cracking the window an inch. About 853 mosquitoes swarmed in. I wondered why the traffic drudge kept waving that stop sign in front of his face. He just wanted to live out the shift.

I finally got most of the mosquitoes out by lowering both windows during the intermittent 20 mph forward lunges that the construction permitted. Of course that let in all the choking dust. It was a tough choice.

I got into Paarens Beach PP about 10, just as the setting sun was painting the placid surface of Stuart Lake. I batted away the bugs long enough for a picture, then dove into the trailer and spent the next 30 minutes flailing about with the flyswatter. Then I went straight to bed.

I woke this morning to the sound of surf. The sun was up. It was 4:30 am.

There was a nice cool breeze off the water. A beautiful day. No mosquitoes. I expected to see windrows of them in their millions, but somehow they all just snuck off somewhere.

I suspect they or their cousins will be back. Meanwhile, this is my chance for a walk along the beach.


Bob

No Fool Like An Old Fool

"Sumer is i-cumin in -
Lhude sing, cuccu!
Groweth sed and bloweth med
And springth the wude nu.
Sing, cuccu!"

--The Cuckoo Song, popular Country Music ~ 1300 A.D.


Nicola Lake, BC
Sunday morning

There's no fool like an old fool.

If you've been reading here long, you may have grasped that fact. I've been writing songs this spring. It all started because I wanted to encourage Sean to spend time on his music. Graduate school may be good for you, but sometimes it gets to be too much like work to be fun. Ya got to remember to have fun. It's an odd duck that looks back over a long life and says "Gee, I wish I hadn't had so much fun." In the process of encouraging Sean, I discovered I was having fun myself.

Fun is like fruit. The best is fresh and local. But sometimes it travels reasonably well. It's a long way to Alaska. Stuck in the truck all these miles, I've started making up songs to the music I'm listening to. Most of it is not memorable. I've forgotten it already. Every now and then I hit on something I like.

So what's this got to do with you?

Maybe nothing. But sometime in my middle fifties I started to misplace my personal humility. Now it seems to be gone altogether. It may still be around here somewhere, but I can't find it. It first turned up missing about the time I realized that instead of counting up the years, I was beginning to count them down. I was coming face to face with the Great Humility. You know the one. Nothing personal, and it happens to everyone. Much of what you formerly thought serious begins to look foolish in the face of the Great Humility.

But the upside is that when the Great Humility comes to town, most all of the little ones pack up their bags and scoot.

It can be liberating. So what if I take a notion to drive to Alaska? So what if I want to write a few songs? Or an Opera, for that matter? What have I got to lose?

There's no fool like an old fool.

To start with, I decided to write just one song I like, in every genre I can think of. That ought to keep me busy. So far there's been pop, rock, blues, reggae... even rap, for God's sake.

Which brings us to Country. Country is hard.

Oh, it's easy to write badly. Most people do. There's so much of that, it's painful to listen to the radio - a swamp of poor writing, simple-minded and borrowed emotions, witless music. It's like TV. Lots and lots of hours to fill, and no more talent than there ever was. After a bit, you begin to look forward to someone trying to sell you siding.

Country is hard. It's too simple. It's dance music, mostly, usually some variation on a waltz or a two-step. When the music is that simple, only the writing can make it memorable. That's a burden. All the really good rhymes have been taken, dammit. Like drinking and thinking, blue and you, yearning and burning. What's a guy to do?

Well, you can put up. Or shut up. Or go throw rocks in Nicola Lake.

I threw rocks for a while. Country is hard.

Then just when I was contemplating doing something really foolish, like going for a swim, I remembered an RV-related songfest I once got involved in on the newsgroup. There was even talk of a band, before cooler heads prevailed.

Hey, maybe I already wrote a country song. Maybe I can just take a quick rag and a swipe to that thing, if I can find it, and then move right on to the Opera.

What have I got to lose?

Well, there's self respect, of course. But, my God, I haven't seen that stuff since I started counting down the years.

Here y'go, folks. One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three. You'll get the hang of it. Remember to have fun.

-------------------------------------------


A Red-Headed Woman


I sat there in the driveway of my neighbor,
Until I got my maps all in a row.
Then I went and threw'em in the dumpster.
Ain't no maps of where I got to go.

She was a red-headed woman. She was a sight to see.
I let a red-headed woman get the best of me.
I'm lookin' out the windshield, hoping for a shiny day.
But I've got a ways to go before I get away.

Sunrise in the desert sure is lonesome.
I didn't get that far, but it's a start.
Maybe I'll stay out here on my own some.
Takes a lot of room to ease a heart.

She was a red-headed woman. She was a sight to see.
I let a red-headed woman get the best of me.
I'm lookin' out the windshield, hoping for a shiny day.
But I've got a ways to go before I get away.

Could be I'll break down along this highway.
Ain't no use in phonin' home the news.
I don't believe she'll ever travel my way.
Or give a durn about broke-down-trailer blues.

She was a red-headed woman. She was a sight to see.
I let a red-headed woman get the best of me.
I'm lookin' out the windshield, hoping for a shiny day.
But I've got a ways to go before I get away.

I may have lost my mind, but saved the trailer,
When I told my baby my goodbyes.
A red-headed woman in the rear-view
Cuts all your troubles down to size.

She was a red-headed woman. She was a sight to see.
I let a red-headed woman get the best of me.
I'm lookin' out the windshield, hoping for a shiny day.
But I've got a ways to go before I get away.



How many chords is that? :o)


Bob,
who thinks Opera is going to take a while. Unless it's Grand. And Old.

Yellow Lake

Yellow Lake
British Columbia

I've discovered a terrific substitute for Saturday morning TV, though it does take up a bit more room. It's called Yellow Lake, and it's outside Keremeos, BC. I'm sitting down close to the water with some coffee and a couple of snickerdoodles, watching the boat ramp through a screen of rushes. There's a little dock there, floating on four blue barrels, "donated by the Penticton Flyfishers".

The first fishermen showed up around 7 am, a couple of young guys in a rustbucket yellow-and-brown Chevy truck. The bow of a beatup aluminum boat stuck out the back. Apparently everything they needed was already in there, because they just dragged the thing off and plopped it into the water. The motor started up on the first pull. They set up a couple of aluminum lawn chairs inside, one in the stern facing forward, one in the bow facing back. In they got and off they went. Not much waste motion with these guys. The whole process took maybe 6 minutes, start to finish.

I suspect they'll catch their limit. Maybe a bit more.

Next up were what appeared to be a father and son. The son was over 50, with a paunch. The old man was one of those dried up wiry guys. Their boat was carried upside down on a small utility trailer. Hanging down from the prow was a little wheel that allowed the youngster to grasp the boat at the stern and roll it easily down into the water, turn it over, and slide it in. They made a slow circle with a trolling motor and put their lines in.

Canadians around here sound a lot like Minnesotans. The same soft voices, the same rising inflection at the ends of sentences, the same family humor. Half-heard stories, told tartly with pointed affection, about a hopelessly absent dumbass brother-in-law. Low laughter, floating across the sunlit water.

These guys came to talk. The fish can bite, if they want.

Mama Duck is out this morning, absent the ducklings. They must be sleeping in. Last evening she was leading a flotilla of 7 tiny floating featherballs. These little guys behaved themselves while entrained behind her, up to a point, but then some kind of signal unmeant for human ears announced Recess. Wahoo. Off they scooted in all directions, leaving little wakes, dipping their bills and picking up what I suppose were insects floating on the water.

A turtle is sunning himself nearby on a half submerged log. He might have been carved from it. Farther down, a small brown bird with little stick legs is goose-stepping around, inspecting and pecking at the soft wood.

Back at the dock, a slim fellow in a floppy hat is also hopping back and forth, from his truck to the boat and trailer, stopping, looking back, picking stuff up, setting it down. Little quick uncertain movements. What did I forget? Where did I put it? Dither, dither, dither. Completely outfitted for Darkest Canada, his progress is impeded by too much of all the right equipment.

I went up and got me a slice of strawberry rhubarb pie.

Yellow Lake is a dead lake in it's natural state. It has no inlet. It is very deep. One fellow told me there's a hole 900 feet deep out there. An expression of local pride, I suppose. The display at the rest area only claims 120 feet. Deep enough. It's a slot canyon filled with water, and not enough wind gets past the mountain to stir up waves and oxygenate the depths. In the old days, over winter, it iced over and most all the fish died.

Now they pump air down to the bottom, in effect turning the thing into a giant aquarium. Fish live through the winter. Fishermen fish.

Imagine that. A lake salvaged, rather than killed, by the actions of men.

I talked briefly with a retired fellow who takes "fatherless boys" fishing part time. He is alone at present, with one of the widest 10 foot boats I've ever seen. Deep V keel, looks almost square. He carries it atop his Suzuki Samurai.

He talked about wintering in "the Valley". He's not speaking about the Rio Grande Valley. He knows about McAllen, says he used to play slow pitch baseball down there. But he means the Valley a few miles downhill from right here. Last week it got up to over a hundred degrees down there.

This is Canada's only desert, supposedly an extension of the Sonoran, cut and somewhat cooled by the Okanagan river. Retired Canadians flock to Penticton and environs. Winters here are like back in Texas, maybe a couple of weeks of snappy weather in January. This is one of the few places in Canada people can be pretty sure they won't eventually freeze their butts off.

Hallelujah.

There's a kid waddling around on the dock right now looking like a miniature orange version of the Michelin Man, stuffed into a tiny life jacket. A duck walks up and gives him the eye. The boy tries to tell Grandpa about the duck, but the old man is grumpy, intent on something in the boat. The duck wanders on, intent on duck business. The moment passes.

Welcome to my first morning in Canada. I love having nothing to do. I think I was born to be retired.


Bob

What's the Matter with Moses Lake?

Diragu State Park
Washington

I had some interesting adventures this morning in Moses Lake, Washington.

Adventure 1:

I stopped at a Les Schwab tire store to get new tires for the trailer. I had gone by in Walla Walla and gotten an estimate of $310 for the 4, but didn't get them installed then because I still hadn't made up my mind. There was a lot of tread left on the old ones. But a couple had been plugged, and I WAS going to Alaska, so after a few days I steeled myself for the expense.

When I asked in Moses Lake, she quoted 60 bucks more. When I told her I already had a quote for less, she said, "Oh, that's for different tires."

"What's the difference?"

"Just a different manufacturer."

"Same size, same weight rating?"

"Yes."

"Do you have them?"

"Yes."

"So why didn't you quote me the cheaper ones to begin with?"

She didn't have an answer for that. So she turned me over to a guy.

He fixed me up for $310. Then I drove around to the back under the big truck bay, as instructed, and told the tire guy I was getting 4 new trailer tires. I pointed to my left front tire.

"That's my best tire. That's the one I want for the spare."

He said okay, and actually wrote "spare" on it with a yellow grease pencil. He directed me to back the trailer up and move a little closer to the door. He watched silently, with an amused look on his face, while I slowly drove over a big tire tool that I couldn't see. It was one of those long spoon ended crowbars, used to separate big truck tires from their rims.

It went clattering across the concrete.

"Why didn't you say something?"

He just shrugged. Then while I sat in the truck and tried unsuccessfully to connect to three different Wifi hotspots that Windows kept insisting were actually available, he proceeded to change out all the tires for new ones.

Including that one I told him I wanted for the spare. Arrrgh.

The result was that he had to change the spare, too. All I had asked was for him to hang the left front tire on the back. Yes, that one he had marked "spare" in big letters.

When I went back up front to pay, the price was only $279.

I didn't even try to argue.


Adventure 2:

I went across the way to the combo Kentucky Fried Chicken/A&W Root Beer, told the girl that I wanted a breast and wing, crispy, and I was going to eat it there. She took my money, turned to speak to someone else, then looked back at me as if she had never seen me before in her life.

"Crispy?"

I told her again.

"That's to go?"

No. Again I repeated myself.

All she had to do at this point was turn around, get two pieces of chicken and a biscuit off the shelf directly behind her, put them on a plate, and hand them to me. Instead, I got into some kind of a queue, behind all the burgers and fries. Minutes went by.

Finally my chicken came up. She handed me a box.

"I wanted a plate."

"Oh, you're eating here?"

I just took the box. Somehow, what I ordered was in there.

I don't know what it is about Moses Lake. But I'm not drinking the water.


Bob