Spent the day in a Willie Nelson song.

Driving the lonesome open, high desert West,

Into the welcoming sunrise, casting shadows and colors

Not seen for the rest of the day.

Downgrade, upgrade, again and again, bounded by a

Two lane ribbon of asphalt,

Wide valley wind gusting or steady.

Small settlements off in the distance,

Reachable only by dirt road.

Wide load, really wide load ahead, moving slowly,

Four lights-flashing escorts, flatbed tires as many as caterpillar legs,

Hogging both lanes, bearing unimaginable, unidentifiable load.

It moves its right side to the nonexistent shoulder,

We squeak by on its left in a shower of gravel.

Need gas, tired, a truck stop, perfect!

Having no other plan, we stealth park for the night at the

Maintenance sheds by employee parking.

We are invisible.

Trucks, the big diesel boys, are tired too.

They pull in to the large gravel lot, circle around,

Dutifully park in a well ordered row, lights out, engines off,

For some much needed rest.

Business is booming at the store, gas pumps, and fast food joint.

We join the hungry, weary crowd, unnoticed.

Back at the six-wheeled home, a panoramic view of

Sunset over the far away mesa formations,

Silhouette of sleeping trucks a closer landscape.

It is gritty desert windy.

Thunderheads in the twilight shift and swell over the horizon.

It is only a matter of time until one comes our way.

Thunder! Lightening! Big fat raindrops!

Weather with a sound track, yes! 

I sleep strangely well, rocked and buffeted by the

Omnipresent wind, occasionally woken by

A late arrival, the subsonic diesel thrumming.

Oddly comforting.

Reflections on a solitary hike.

Its not often a city woman gets to take a solitary hike up at the treeline, at around 10,000 ft. Yesterday I had my chance. It was an incredible experience. I decided to just hike by myself and not worry about anything. That was the first thing.

For some unknown reason, I have always wanted to see bristlecone pine trees up close in their natural habitat. I'm intrigued by their great age, durability, and their life in in the most adverse circumstances up at the treeline, above which nothing grows. I was delighted to discover that Great Basin National Park boasted of a grove of trees that one could hike to with relative ease.*Relative* ease; at 10,000 feet I was a little concerned about altitude sickness.  I quickly realized I couldn't just light out on the trail at my usual pace, but a more judicious, stately pace and I was just fine. After awhile I forgot about it and just walked.

 
The trail. At this rate the hiking boots aren't going to last long.

Mount Wheeler. You can see where the treeline ends. The rest is just rocks.

See what I mean, lots of rocks. It was hard for this rockhound to pass some of them up, but remembering the elevation and the limited carrying capacity of my RV, I thought it wise.

This tree, 3200 years old, made me feel like I felt when I visited Palestine/Israel earlier this year.

When you touch the wood of this tree, it feels incredibly dense. If you rap on it with your knuckles, its like rapping on a rock.

At the urging of another hiker, I detoured on the way back down to see Lake Teresa, this little gem.

Bonus: the aspen were putting on their fall show. My poor pixels couldn't capture how luminous the leaves are. I guess they get thin, and then the sun shines through them like stained glass.

I am trying to capture in words just what these sights and sounds, oh yes, I haven't even talked about the lovely quiet forest breeze silent-sounds, occasionally interrupted by the loud rush of a gust of wind. (In addition to needing a photographer, I need a sound engineer.) I'd love to have an hour long recording of just these forest sounds, that I could play when needed, or give to my friends.

I'm beginning to realize in a visceral and intuitive way that I, we, are intimately a part of nature. We do not stand apart from nature, in its wild richness. I am looking for opportunities in this time of my journey, to find that connection between who I am and the natural world. Being that city woman, my connection to the wild and natural world has become tenuous at best. This hike gave me great hope that the connection is still there, still accessible, and still important.

Stuff happens waaaay faster than I can write about it.

And you suspected I might be leading a life of leisure.

One of the most interesting things about traveling on the ground long distances (as opposed to flying over) is that you get an intimate sense of the changes in topography, climate, plant life, and even people life. I wonder, I suspect, that a person who lives in the foggy, coastal cool humidity of Oregon might be somehow different than a person who lives in the dry, inhospitable desert sky and mountain vistas. I don't know exactly how my two hypothetical people might be different. But I am beginning to get a sense that we, I, am shaped by my physical and natural environment in only dimly understood and appreciated ways.  

Bandon to Crater Lake

A lovely drive inland to Roseburg, Oregon, and then, oops. I was supposed to take a connecting road from Hwy 5 to the Umpquah Highway to Crater Lake. One might correctly imagine that this road roughly parallels the Umpquah River. However, true to fashion, I got turned around, and ended up taking North Bank Road instead of the more heavily traveled (a relative term) correct road on the South side of the river.  It took me over hill and over dale dipsy doodle on a shall we say narrow pre-modern road that was not particularly engineered or banked to current standards. I got some funny looks from the few passing drivers. But once committed, I wasn't going to quit and I knew it would get me where I wanted to go. Besides there wasn't a place to turn around. It was a beautiful drive, the kind of road and scenery they make car commercials on. Got there in one piece, no harm done, and a boost to my driving confidence.

I was unaware that the elevation of Crater lake was around 6500 feet. The cover type is sub-alpine, scrubby trees struggling and contorting for their life in what is obviously a very harsh winter environment. Also, it is weird volcanic stuff up there, strange rocks and cliffs, pumice, and ancient National Park Service roads with zero shoulders, also pre-modern. There was many a turn where I just didn't look down to my right or my left and kept going. However, now that I drove that road, I think Hwy 1 going south to Big Sur would be doable. And my poor brakes! I stopped at the visitor's center to get my NPS passport stamp and some postcards, and to give my brakes a rest. When I got out of the cab, the hot brake stench was almost overpowering. Upon exiting the visitor's center, I could smell my brakes clear across the parking lot. And here I thought I'd been driving in a manner to minimize brake usage as much as possible. The next morning, I could still detect that brake scent.

I'm sure you've noticed that photographs on your computer monitor just don't do justice to reality. What I saw at Crater Lake, what my eyes took in, and what my ears heard, that particular high altitude silence, are only pitifully reproduced by pixels, at least my pixels. Maybe I'll come back and add some photographs later, but I would rather spend the time finding the words to give you a tiny sense, a little twist of recognition that may make you want to visit Crater Lake too.

Ach, I'm still two days behind. Fun and interesting stuff has been happening. I hope to catch up soon. And my mechanism for being able to catch up is pretty neat. I've been using a voice recorder app on my phone to make comments to myself as I'm driving along. Its a good way to stay awake on those long and straight roads through the desert. And its fun! I can read all of the signs, note all of the pass elevations, and record various observations that I would have no way of remembering, the sensory input is coming in so thick and fast.

Stopped for the night in Austin, Nevada. Got to get an early start tomorrow morning, heading to Great Basin National Park in Eastern Nevada. The wind is supposed to come up in the afternoon, and I can imagine that driving in a windy desert might be something preferably avoided.    

 

Oregon: The laundry won't dry so I had to bake a cake.

If you'll remember that coastal Oregon has a well deserved reputation for being foggy, then this title might start to make more sense. I thought I could fire up my Wave 3 catalytic heater to get the damp laundry dry, but that would not be multitasking the propane. Aha, I can light the oven, make an apple date cake I happen to have the ingredients for, and that will warm and dry the air in the RV, and hopefully, the laundry. See!

Well, it sorta worked. But I was distracted by a periodic ominous rattling of what I assume were the gas lines when the oven was in use. Uh, oh, you don't want the gas lines rattling because there might not be a gas leak now, but movement of gas lines could eventually loosen a fitting, and then I would have a leak. Yes, I have a propane leak detector (and a CO detector) but I think I'll have the oven and its connecting lines looked at when I get to Albuquerque, just to make sure.

Earlier in the day, several of us Ladeze went to watch the Cranberry Festival parade in Bandon. It was a very cute parade.

We spent more time than we thought. The farmers market was small, and hard to find the food booths in amongst the arts and craft booths, but there were several vendors that got me to part with some money. Farm fresh eggs, for one.

Tomorrow, I'm heading inland, toward Crater Lake, where I'll meet up with a couple of other women RVers. We'll stay two nights, then embark on the overland journey through the desert, towards Albuquerque. Yes, we are keeping a wary eye on the weather reports, but I think we'll be okay.

Establishing New Routines

So, I recently made the decision that in two weeks’ time, I would move out of my home of nine years and go full-timing in my RV. I’ve actually backed into this decision by a rather circuitous route. For quite a long time, I have thought about full-timing in my RV to see the country, National Parks and Monuments, museums, music festivals, sporting events, friends and family, scenic byways, areas of great beauty, areas of historical interest, and so on. I’ve compiled quite a long list over the years. The idea was to enjoy this with a partner, of course: much more fun, better photographs, and a lot easier. However, the X, having decided that marriage was no longer a viable concept, I am forced to reconsider my basic premise. Did I want to do this by myself? Do I want to do all the pink jobs, and all the blue jobs involved in traveling about in a self-contained RV, actually its own little municipality? And I knew I wanted to tow my car, too, which makes for additional driving challenges.

I’d already scheduled a solo trip of limited duration to the Ladeze event, and to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta again this year.  It occurred to me that I didn't really need to return home by a certain time.  In fact, there was no home to return to. I am not prepared to sign a lease here, or buy a condo there; I’m just not ready to do that. So the option to live full-time in my RV started to look a lot more viable. I had, after all, spent a lot of time thinking about it and planning for it. Opportunity was knocking. When was I going to do it? Later? The famous and often appealed to “Later”? The only thing I really needed to change was my own thinking. The necessary hardware was already in place.

Thus commenced a frantic two week flurry of activity to dismantle one life, and set up for another. All of my things that didn't get consigned or donated are carefully packed and stacked in a storage unit. And yes, now that that’s done, I’m wondering why I kept all that stuff.  J Clothes I thought I’d need for a wide variety of weather have been packed into the RV. Absolutely favorite kitchen utensils, if they were small enough, made the cut. Groceries can be purchased anywhere. Still, one is not aware of all of the routines one develops and relies on, until one is compelled to change them. Laundry, for instance. Or washing dishes. Or internet connectivity. Or being conscious of water consumption.  Purchasing in smaller quantities – no more Costco runs.

Ultimately it is a good thing, a privilege, to gain new and different levels of awareness of all sorts of things, big and little. I hope that no matter how long this trip lasts, short or long, I continue to gain new perspectives on all the details that go to make up a life.    

Wind Tag

I had left my RV awning extended for the night so even when sleeping I had a keen ear for the wind. In the early morning darkness, the wind did come up and my awning was making ominous creaking and flapping noises.  I got up at 5:30 am or so to go outside and see if the awning was holding its own. This is what I saw and heard.

Early morning velvet darkness silhouettes the tender canyon. 

Cold wind sweeps, rushes over the ridge of trees, swirls and stands, claims his ground.

Warm wind sighs in through the gap, announcing her presence softly, with a caress.

Cold and warm tussle in the clearing, chase each other round, round, tag you’re it.

Feint and dodge, giggle, chortle, playground antics.

Trees applaud, laugh at the sight, waving their approval, swaying with delight.

Warm and cold gang up to tickle the big tree in the clearing. Long branch arms wave wildly.

Other trees murmur gleeful enjoyment of the spectacle.

Outer stars twinkle, unperturbed by small drama in the canyon.

Our star slowly fades the others invisible, the Morning Star the last to relinquish night to day.

Sky dome warms through evanescent blues to reveal tree green colors imperceptible just a minute ago.

Dawning the new day, our star persuades cold and warm to come back and play another time.

Is it Saturday night already??? and another Recipe

The Internet is a wonderful thing. Without it I am bereft in so many ways. It was worth the internet deprivation to in exchange, discover the town of Ferndale. County fairgrounds usually have an RV camping facility, and Humboldt County Fairgrounds in Ferndale was no exception. The campground showers were notable in that they had plenty of hot water at a good pressure, and a well placed shower head. Otherwise, the facilities were, um, old.

To get to Ferndale from Hwy 101, you turn West toward the ocean. What wasn't so clear on the GPS is that you have to cross the Eel River which is quite wide at that point, being close to the ocean. The bridge across the river is loong and narrrrow. I just didn't look to either side, concentrated on staying in the middle of the narrow lane, ignored oncoming traffic, and I was across it in no time.

In this area of California there are tsunami warnings signs every few miles. The landscape shows why. Its flat and wide open to the brunt of the Pacific Ocean. Yesterday at about 2:15 pm, safely parked at the fairgrounds, I heard an old fashioned siren start its keening. Several seconds of thought and a vestigial memory came back to me. It was a tsunami warning siren! Oh, nooo! I thought 2:15 was a rather odd time to test a siren, usually they're tested at noon or something. Fortunately the siren stopped after a few minutes and there was no tsunami. I was relieved!

Ferndale is just charming. The church spires compete with each other all over town. The first one I spotted was Our Savior's Lutheran church built in 1899.

Not to be outdone, the Catholics countered with Church of the Assumption, which has a truly dramatic spire that probably wins the height contest.

Complete with itty bitty buttresses and Notre Dame-ish spires on the corners.

Many beautiful examples of high Victorian architecture show off in this little town of  1300 or so souls. Today was the annual town yard sale, an event that attracts, well, a lot of people. I decided not to go shopping, because living in a 200 sq. ft. RV, well there's not a lot of extra room to put stuff!

Tonight I'm camped at Harris Beach State Park just over the border into Oregon. Oregon deserves its reputation for fine state parks - California should take a lesson. I have full hookups, electric, water, and sewer, which means I can be relatively profligate with water and power. Everything gets charged up, cleaned up with plenty of hot water.And I've got a decent internet connection, woo hoo! I'll stay two nights, and find a church to attend tomorrow morning. Noticed a sign on the way to the park advertising Trinity Lutheran Church, so I'll check that one out tomorrow.

Dinner was Buttermilk Hot Sauce Chicken Breast, brown rice, broccoli and Concord grapes for dessert.

Buttermilk Hot Sauce Chicken Breast

I marinated a boneless skinless and pounded thin chicken breast in

buttermilk
Sriracha
Korean hot pepper paste (gojuchang)
soy sauce

then sauteed it outside on my Max Burton burner (I avoid sauteing inside the RV). The marinade turned into a sauce with a little water, then finished with butter. Turned out much better than I thought - delicious, and I have half left for a lunch sandwich tomorrow.

Life is good.

Searching for connection, Internet, that is.

Having purchased a small cup of coffee, I'm enjoying WiFi at Starbucks in Fortuna, just south of Eureka. How I've taken instant internet access for granted! Trying to pick my spot to stay tonight. Humboldt County Fairgrounds it is.

Am having to get back in the groove of living in the tiny house with six wheels. For instance, Hwy 101 in these parts is two lane, four lane at best. I'm thinking its wise to have my headlights on. When I stop for lunch, I just get up from the drivers seat and wander back to the kitchen to make lunch. Forgetting about headlights being on. No warning bell like there is when you open the drivers side door.  Okay then, must add to shutdown procedure to check that the headlights are off. 

Slept well at the Sherwood Casino in Willits. Wildlife! Deer! A flock of wild turkeys feeding outside my window, only a little curious about my rig. Crickets!

Saying goodbys

Ohhh, this is tough. Goodbys to people, goodby to the neighborhood, to the beauty of the Bay Area. I know I'll see lots of other beautiful places and meet lots of great interesting people but I'm going to miss the ones I have now. What to do? Where to settle? Hope to find the answers on the road. Leaving tomorrow as soon as I can finish up the details.

Went to Chipman Storage in Alameda to weigh the loaded rig. I'm still quite under the limit, surprisingly. Cost me ten bucks. Great, I can pack more books! Pick up a few rocks on the way.  :-)

 

Last minute paperwork and a delicious dinner

Having suffered through two hours of unpleasant paperwork and forms, and in need of sustenance and moral support, I invited myself over to JH's house kind of late. I was received with open arms, good red wine, and offered a delicious dinner which I did not turn down. Most grateful thanks, J.

Thirty-six hours to departure now. Lots of tech stuff to make work and pack up. Last minute keeper items to be stored into my friend JR's garage. The rest has to finally get loaded and stowed into the rig. SR is coming over for breakfast Thursday morning. My first guest in the rig!  What shall I make, that clean-up from which will not delay my departure unduly?

Coffee
Pastries from Feel Good Bakery
Fruit of the Season

Perfect!

Counting down and a Recipe

One day closer to departure day, Thursday, September 5, 2013. The To Do list never seems to shrink entirely away, but things are coming together. Got the solar panels washed off, the escape hatch dome and screen cleaned, the hitch installed, the front end washed, some Reflectix cut to window size, closet, toiletries and cleaning supplies reorganized and stowed, and several other things I've already forgotten.

Now some people carry a lot of tools. Some people carry a lot of clothes, or books, or pets. And some people like me carry a lot of food and cooking equipment. I just can't leave my sushi rolling mat or my scale or my silicone baking mats at home. It pained me a great deal to realize that I couldn't bring my 7 quart Viking stand mixer and extra bowl with me. Guess I'll have to knead bread dough by hand like the old days. Had to severely edit my collection of 15 different kinds of vinegar, very difficult.

Still, as I am almost completely out of the house now, I'm coming to realize that I don't need for instance, special bowls to mix things. In the process of using up groceries lurking in the fridge I discovered it was perfectly acceptable to mix 7 eggs, milk, salt and pepper in a quart size plastic takeout container. No whisk? A fork worked just fine.

So my latest "use it up" recipe, if I can remember the details, was a frittata I'm calling a "German Cabbage and Caraway Frittata". Wow, just realized that *every* ingredient qualified as a use-it-up. See what you think.

German Cabbage and Caraway Frittata

4 slices of bacon (lurking in the freezer)
4 cups shredded cabbage (languishing in the refrigerator)
1 tablespoon caraway seeds (freezer stock, you don't want to know how old)
7 eggs (remains of the last dozen)
1/2 cup milk (whatever was left in the jug)
salt and pepper
1 heel pecorino romano cheese, grated (the last scrap in the cheese drawer)

I used a 10" non-stick skillet. Dice bacon, render until half cooked, add and cook cabbage and caraway until tender. Pour egg mixture over cabbage, jostle the pan until the egg and cabbage are mixed. Sprinkle the grated cheese on top and push it down into the eggs. Cover skillet with a lid, turn the heat as low as it will go and let the custard just cook itself until set. I didn't stir or bother it for oh, ten minutes at least. Loosen the edges to check to see if its cooked all the way through. When it looks sturdy enough, flip the frittata onto a plate and slide it back into the pan to sort of brown the other side a little. Slide it back out onto the plate and let cool to warm room temperature. Serve it forth. Good cold the next day, too.

I was surprised how good it was. There's a reason caraway and cabbage are a traditional combination. Y'all at Ladeze or the Balloon Fiesta potlucks might just see another appearance of this dish, with fresher ingredients, I promise!

Final preparations for departure

The days to departure are getting short. The Lazy Daze is packed, and here's hoping that its not over packed. I've tried to plan for every eventuality and weather condition. I've got some tools, and am becoming familiar with them. 

Couldn't take my 15 kinds of vinegar, but probably managed to squeeze in seven or eight. Cooking on the road will be a fun challenge.  

Parting with things, stuff, is far more difficult than I thought.

The front door to adventure and new friends.