I think I’ve probably written about this before, but traveling in a camper van is adventurous; sitting still in a camper van is just living in a car. Tomorrow I leave for New Hampshire, then Maine and Massachusetts, and I am so looking forward to being back on the road again. I’ve had a lovely visit with family, but the annoyances of life in a van start to add up the longer I sit still.
However, this was sitting still for a very good reason: yesterday evening R & M arrived, on their way south from a summer spent working as a camp counselors in Vermont. We had sous vide flank steak, potatoes, and summer salads with sweet corn, tomatoes, avocado and pickled onion for dinner pretty much the second they got here, which I mention mostly so I remember that sous vide flank steak was pretty good. I’m not sure it was so much better than regular marinated flank steak that it’s worth the effort, but I think if I ever make it again, I will up the sous vide time to four or five hours and see if that makes it incredible. It might! But I was delighted to discover that R had picked up his own sous vide cooker at a garage sale in Vermont. I like seeing my cooking influence spread, I guess.
Blueberry season is definitely over, which makes me a little sad. It was impossible to pick it all, so we turned it over to the birds. It’s amazing to come back to the bushes and discover that all the berries that were left have disappeared but it’s nice to know that the birds feasted. And the end of blueberry season means that apple season has begun. Not today, but when I come back in a few weeks, I look forward to a plethora of delicious, crispness.
Meanwhile, today I have R & M to play with. I believe we’re going to try to fix a tail light on M’s car; do a little shopping; and go out to lunch. And I would rather be doing all of that than writing a blog post, so off I go. Enjoy your Mondays!
New Year’s Eve is usually the time when people look back and reflect on their past year, look forward and contemplate their next year. But three years ago today, I signed the paperwork, closing on the sale of my house, and drove off into the sunset.
If I was going to do this post justice, I’d add up the numbers: how many campgrounds, how many states, how many miles. But I’m honestly just not inspired to do that much work. Sometimes it’s fun to go through my calendar and make lists, but this past month has been filled with that kind of chore, so I’m not going to bother.
That’s a little ironic because I’ve actually been thinking about this post for months. What have I learned in three years of living in a van? What has 50,000 miles of driving taught me? But there are so many answers. Mostly that water is precious and that I really don’t like driving very much. I still miss my house sometimes, although not nearly as much as I miss Bartleby, and I still worry about the future more than I should.
Before I decided that I wasn’t going to make lists, I opened up my photos app to look at pictures. I was thinking that this past year wasn’t as busy as the previous two, that I did more adventuring in my first couple years of camping. Um, no. Not at all. Last summer was upstate New York and Vermont, followed by a delightful couple of months in Canada, then down through Maine and Massachusetts. Florida, then cross-country through Texas and New Mexico to California, and from California, a road trip to Oregon and Idaho, then north to Washington, and cross-country again. Lots of people, lots of places.
But not enough sunsets. That is, of course, not literally true — we all have exactly the same number of sunsets in a year, after all. But not enough appreciating of sunsets. When I consider the past year, especially in contrast to the previous couple, the real thing that strikes me is that I’m spending way too much time worrying about what comes next and not enough appreciating where I am.
I wrote a blog post last week and didn’t post it, because it was sad, and also because it stopped being true. I spent much of a day saying good-bye to Zelda, torn between rushing her to a strange vet and letting nature take its course, eventually deciding through many tears that the most loving thing to do was to just be with her, letting her know how much I loved her.
Nature decided that it was a bad day, but not the last bad day. A couple days later she ate a little chicken and by yesterday she was walking again. Not with any speed, and I’m still pretty sure that the baddest of bad days is coming soon… but it’s not going to be today, and that’s sufficient unto the day.
Meanwhile, I am puppy-sitting and working my way through that scary to-do list. I made definite progress — I think I’ve whittled it down to about twenty items, but of course, the twenty items left are some of the worst and scariest. One of them is so tiny — fix the Subscribe button on the sign-up widget — but the fact is, I have absolutely no idea how to do that and am probably going to easily spend a full day working on it, feeling frustrated and annoyed the whole time.
Is that a good use of my time? Obviously not. Does anyone really care if the subscribe button doesn’t look like a button? Well, I do, so yeah, probably there are some other obsessive people who would be bothered as well. Mostly, though, I think it feels like a symptom of my life being outside my control. So many things I can’t fix, can’t make better, but here’s a thing I could/should be able to fix. I wonder if I could convince myself that leaving it alone would be a signal of acceptance? And signal is not the word I want, but I can’t find the right one.
Speaking of things I can’t control, I’ve been experimenting with ads this weekend. I’d really like to get book sales back to where they were before I tried putting Ghosts into Kindle Unlimited. I was never earning enough money to live on, but I was steadily managing to push off the day when I’d have to start filling out job applications. That day is now zooming toward me. Is it ironic or just sad that one of the big reasons I’ve been avoiding a 9-5 is my reluctance to leave Zelda alone all day?
Anyway, ads. I had fun making them, but so far, they’ve been a pointless waste of money. My clickthrough rate is 0.13%, which is roughly equivalent to 0.
The long blurbThe simple blurbThe fancy ad
I might do better with more comparable authors — the authors I chose were almost at random, just people I liked, with audiences sizable enough to give me a big, reasonably inexpensive pool. (Robin McKinley, Sarina Bowen, Ilona Andrews.) So here’s a question for you: who are your auto-buy authors? Oh, and comments on the ads also welcome. Feel free to make suggestions!
You know how to find a grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park? Just look for the traffic jam.
Sadly, that is not actually a joke. I didn’t take any pictures of the grizzly bear I saw, because I would have had to park along the road with dozens of other cars and my picture really would have been of lots of people taking pictures of a brown shape lumbering away off in the distance. Still, it was cool to see.
I also didn’t take any pictures of any of the elk I saw, not even the baby, or the mama bison with her baby for roughly the same reason. (The baby bison was so, so cute, though. Baby bison are adorable!) There are plenty of places to pull off the road and take pictures in Yellowstone, but on a Saturday and Sunday in June, they usually had plenty of cars in them. I admired the animals on my own slow drive-bys, but I didn’t stop.
The only animal I took a picture of was this bison, because it was wandering near the campground.
It was still incredibly beautiful. And immense! I knew in my head how big Yellowstone was (bigger than the smallest two states), but driving through it makes it a lot more obvious. It did feel like I was driving through a state, one with spectacular scenery, snow-capped mountains, gorgeous blue lakes, and plenty of trees. Also plenty of people, but that’s how it goes.
And that was not a disadvantage for me, mostly. Remember my foreshadowing? On Saturday, I managed to snag a camping spot for the night at Norris Campground. The spot was small and slightly sloped, and the campground was full, but it was still Yellowstone. I actually took that picture of a bison from within the campground, while Z and I were out taking a walk. ( I don’t have a better one because Z was highly disinclined to sit still while I played at photography. )
My plan was to leave the campground as early as possible Sunday morning and head to Old Faithful, hoping to beat the crowds there. I’m willing to guess that even if all had gone as planned, there would have been no way to beat the crowds. And all did not go as planned. As I drove away from my campsite, the van started making a funny noise.
My first thought was that I’d left something loose in the back. I paused and did a quick check — what could be rattling around? But the silverware drawer (always a likely suspect) was closed, and there was nothing visibly loose and rolling. So I drove a little farther. Nope, definitely a weird noise. Paused the van again and checked the fan — could something have gotten stuck in it? I turned the fan off, just in case it was a problem with the cover rattling, and thought grim thoughts about hail storms and broken roof attachments. I started driving again and it was clear that turning the fan off had done nothing. So I paused again, in the middle of the road, and got out to walk around the van.
The problem was obvious, as soon as I crouched down and looked underneath. A metal bracket was dragging on the ground. I think — and I admit, I’m mostly guessing — I think it is a bracket for the generator, to hold the generator in place. Whatever it is, it’s not the kind of thing that you want scraping along the ground, as opposed to doing its job.
I thought bad words. I thought about wire and duct tape and zip ties and bungee cords. I thought about finding RV service places in the middle of an enormous park, at least fifty miles away from anything, and how much it was likely to cost to have someone come fix it, but how very bad it might get if that piece entirely stopped doing its job. And then I thought that at the very least, I needed to get out of the middle of the only road around that campground loop, so I carefully, slowly, drove down to the parking lot.
And the advantages of being in a crowded place immediately showed up. I’m going to guess that I had my head under the van for under five minutes, still trying to figure out what exactly this piece was and what it needed to attach to when a nice guy wandered over and said, “You need help?”
Yep, I needed help. He took a look, told me there had to be a piece with a bolt in it somewhere along my path, but that he’d zip tie it up for me in the meantime. I went back to the campsite where I promptly found a long metal rod with a bend at one end and a bolt at the other, and by the time I made it back to the parking lot, he’d already zip-tied the piece back in place. I showed him the piece and he said he needed to get his trailer set up, but he’d try to come back and help me with it.
I spent the next while waiting, while also figuring out how the piece worked, where it was supposed to fit, how it needed to go back into place, and trying to get the bolt loose. Basically the bent end of the rod hooked over a hole in an attachment on the frame while the bolt end was attached to the dangling piece. I have no idea why it worked its way loose in Yellowstone — I didn’t hit anything and I didn’t hear anything on the drive there — but I suspect my bumpy drive in Gallatin had at least a little to do with the problem. I theorize that it had come loose from the frame (maybe during the crunch I had in eastern Oregon several weeks ago) but was caught on one of the wires or hoses, and the bumpy road plus the slope of the campsite was enough to finally shake it free.
Anyway, I was just starting to reach the point of thinking that Helpful Guy #1 must have gotten busy with kids or campsite set-up or his own responsibilities and forgotten about me, when Helpful Guy #2 showed up. I showed him the problem and he went off to his campsite and came back with a set of wrenches. He told me he’d been carrying it around for 15 years and this was the first time he’d ever used it. I laughed and told him that my collection of tools was always for the last problem I’d had, never for the one I was currently having. But he loosened the bolt from the rod, and then we put it back into place, he tightened it up for me, and I was good to go.
It was a very satisfying outcome to a morning that had started out with an unpleasant sinking feeling. I think that unpleasant sinking feeling comes with some associated energy costs, though: the adrenaline high of “Oh, no, scary problem that must be dealt with immediately,” turned into an energy crash soon thereafter. By the time I’d made my way to Old Faithful and watched it spout on schedule (along with a thousand or so other people), I was seriously tired, and so sick of crowds of people. I like people-watching normally. I love situations where I can watch families and speculate on what they’re like, what their stories are. But not Sunday. I just wanted to be in a quiet place away from strangers, even nice helpful friendly strangers. So I got on the road and started driving.
It was another completely beautiful drive, this time into Wyoming. I was headed to Cody, where I planned to turn north to Billings. But along the way, I kept passing campgrounds and thinking, “I could stop there.” And when I’d been stuck behind a person going 55 in a 70MPH for a half hour that felt more like two, I let the impulse take me into the driveway of the North Fork of Buffalo Bill State Park.
There is no possible photo that could do this park justice, because it is one of those places with spectacular scenery in all directions. Also huge campsites, absurdly easy to get into. They’re all pull-through spots, parallel to huge grassy fields. My current spot could easily fit an enormous bus. And although I paid $35 for a water/electric spot, I’m actually worried about the water pressure — it blasts out so fast and hard that even with a pressure adapter on my hose, I feel like it might break something. That said, the water is delicious, so I am going to try to fill up my water jugs without getting too wet in the process. I think it’s the first time that I’ve ever had campground water that was noticeably good. (I’m not really a water snob, but I do notice what water tastes like.)
One angle on the view at Buffalo Bill State Park, Wyoming
The showers were pay showers — $1.75 in quarters got me five minutes worth of water — but private, clean, and with (unsurprisingly!) excellent water pressure.
In fact, I liked the campground enough that I seriously considered taking a rest day. I’m still not entirely sure what my plan for this trip is — I seem to be vacationing an awful lot, instead of trying to figure out how to write (fiction) while on the road. Somehow, though, I found myself clean, packed up, and ready to go by 10AM.
At dinner on Wednesday, we did “best and worst,” a childhood tradition at my friend P’s household in Seattle, where you share the best part of your day and the worst part of your day. There were eight people at the table, and the majority of us went with some version of the best moment being the delight of being at that table, with those people.
I was almost the last to go, so I picked another moment in the day — sitting out on the back porch, on an absolutely beautiful spring morning, while R and M and Zelda all ate scrambled eggs that I’d just finished making. I was enjoying the weather, loving the company, and my dog was eating. What more could anyone ask for?
What more would be the Vietnamese food later; the sitting around the table at the house talking; the dinner; the walk down to Ballard with a conversational crowd; sitting outside eating ice cream and appreciating city energy; and then the later walk through Ballard with just my bouncy dog. Bouncy at least in part because she’d just eaten a full serving of expensive vanilla ice cream, but that’s okay.
It was a day of glorious moments. One of my favorites was when we got back from Vietnamese food. Pam had gotten home from work and when we walked in the door, she turned around, beamed at Rory, opened her arms and exclaimed, “My son!” They exchanged a huge hug and I mock-protested, “Hey! Mine!” But I am so glad and so grateful that they have that relationship, that he has another adult in his life who adores him, another place where… well, what’s that saying about home? That it’s the place where when you go there, they have to take you in? But I love knowing that R has this place where, when he comes here, they are delighted and welcoming and would love to take him in.
On Saturday, I had dinner with the mayor of Eureka. Her name is not Henry; she doesn’t drive a tow truck; and it was Eureka, CA, not Eureka, OR. But it did amuse me nonetheless. And also made me reflect on how odd it is that a television show changed my life in such dramatic ways.
For those of you who don’t know this story, in 2010, I fell in love with the television show Eureka. During the break between the two halves of Season 4, my craving for information led me to discover fanfiction. Literally — I’d never even heard of fanfiction before, to the best of my recollection, and I’d certainly never written any. In fact, I’d given up writing fiction entirely at least a dozen years earlier (when I decided freelance writing was a stupidly difficult way to earn a living and went back to editing.) But Eureka inspired me and I wrote a bunch of Eureka stories that were really fun — complicated science, humor, romance — skipping all the tedious parts of writing, ie description.
Then the new episodes started playing and I hated where they took the characters. By then, I was possessive of them, even though they weren’t mine. So I started writing original fiction, where no one else could make my characters do stupid things. At the very end of 2011, I posted my first full-length original story to Amazon, so the people who’d been reading along online could have it in ebook format if they wanted. I made a cover for it in Powerpoint, using a photo from a free site, and told my friends and family that they could buy it if they wanted to give me a gingerbread latte, or download it for free on its KU free days if they just wanted to read it. That was A Gift of Ghosts. I was in grad school and my goal was to write for fun — a million words that I was willing to share — while I got my degree and started work as a therapist. By now I should be about ready to start my own practice, having finished my degree, worked the necessary hours for my license, and built up a bit of a client base. Ha. Instead I dropped out of school, and I’m wandering around the country, still undecided about my ability to support myself as a writer, although still enjoying writing.
Speaking of which, I’ve been waiting two months for Amazon to notice that Ghosts is available for free on the other sites and price match it back to free. I’ve even gone so far as to try to report the lower price myself, but to no avail. It’s pretty weird, because they noticed that it wasn’t free about five days after I put it into KU — I guess they’re prompter about not losing money? Short version of this story: I tried out Kindle Unlimited for three months, the shortest term that you can sign up for, and it killed my sales. I earned some money from page reads, but not enough to make up for the fact that I no longer sold any books anywhere. Two months ago, with a great sigh of relief, I let the KU term expire and put the books back up everywhere, but I’m still not selling as many as I did before this experiment, because Amazon hasn’t price-matched Ghosts to be free. Anyway, if you have a minute and feel so inclined, there’s a: “Would you like to tell us about a lower price?” link on the Ghosts page underneath the publisher info and it might help me out if you reported Ghosts being available for free elsewhere. (Elsewhere being Barnes & Noble or Kobo or iBooks or Google Play.) And I say “might” because Amazon can be weird and I don’t honestly know if this is what they need to make the change. But thank you in advance for trying if you do!
Back to my life news — Sunday was supposed to be thunderstorms and rain in Arcata. Instead, it was gloriously sunny for most of the day. We took the dogs to the beach for one last romp that was wonderful — Zelda was having a very good day, and not only did she run and roam and play, she paid attention to where I was and responded when I called her. We also did useful things — laundry and packing up and cleaning. S spent lots of time in her garden and I spent lots of time in the van, but it was nice to have one last glorious day.
Today, it’s time to move on. I tried to remind myself this morning that a departure is not an ending, it’s just a change, but I’m still sad to be leaving. On the other hand, once I get on the road, I will remember that I’m headed to another place I like, Seattle, to see more people I like. And a few I love! Conveniently for my enthusiasm level, if I make it there by Wednesday morning (new goal: get there by Wednesday), I will get to spend a few hours with R and his delightful girlfriend as they pass through.
And meanwhile, S and I already have plans for our next adventure together — New Mexico, sometime in 2020. In my head, maybe even my heart, I know that life is not about what happens next, it’s about what’s happening now, but it’s still comforting to remind myself that I have plenty to look forward to.
I thought that it was going to be really hard to leave Arcata this week: I’m so going to miss Suzanne and the dogs; the yoga studio down the street, the incredible gluten-free bread; the nearby beach (which we haven’t gone to nearly enough); the friendly neighbors; even Gina, the cat that yells at me all the time. (She yells at everyone all the time, I don’t think it’s personal.)
The weather, however, is being very obliging about encouraging me to go. It is cold and gray, in the 40s and 50s, with rain predicted for all the later days of the week. I’ll be sorry to say good-bye, but I can’t say that I’m going to mind finding myself some sunshine somewhere.
I do have really mixed feelings, though. There are all sorts of things that I’m looking forward to doing in the next couple of months: visiting friends and family, including a mini-reunion with some college friends; seeing the Best Brother Ever’s new puppy; eating blueberries straight from the bushes… but I am completely unenthusiastic about the driving part. I’m obviously not done traveling, because I live in a van and it’s not really an option to not travel, but the process of getting to the places I want to go does not fill me with joy. I’m going to have to work on that somehow.
But one day at a time, right? Today’s job is to write some words; work on getting a part ordered to fix the damage to the van; maybe schedule an oil change for later in the week. And spend as much time as possible admiring S’s garden, which is really just fantastically beautiful right now. More so on a sunny day, but the rhododendron outside the van’s window is stunning even in the gray.
Succor Creek was a beautiful place to wake up. I took a walk with Zelda on Saturday morning, down this road, and the scenery on all sides was incredibly beautiful. Even the herds of small children roaming the hills couldn’t make the campground feel crowded. But we had miles to go and prepaid reservations at our next campground, so we packed up and headed out.
Ironically — or, as my son might remind me, in just a not-very-funny coincidence — after all my worries about driving on the dirt roads, I managed to crunch poor Serenity after we got back on the road. At a gas station, alas. And I managed to break the kind of streak that everyone should wish for: thirty-five years of never having to call an insurance company because of something I’d done. Dang.
Poor Serenity. I promised her I would get her fixed, though!
But it was what it was. The van was still drivable and no one was hurt so after spending some time chatting with my truly delightful Progressive customer service person (sympathetic! helpful! organized!), we got back on the road.
Fortunately, our destination was exactly the kind of place you want to end up at when you’re feeling stressed and frustrated with yourself: Crystal Crane Hot Springs Campground. The campground itself was not beautiful: dry grass, rocky gravel sites, no trees or separation between sites, port-a-potty type toilets right across from our own site…
Our campsite at Crystal Crane Hot SpringsEven the dogs said, “This ground is too hard.” All of them wanted outside beds. It was cute to see them all piled up together, though. The bed that Z is on is her bed, but there was much mild doggie competition to be the one who got that bed over the course of the week.
But do you see that hint of water behind Serenity in the above picture? The hot springs was basically a pond, and the water was amazing. S and I swam once in the afternoon, then as soon as it started to get dark we went back again.
Drifting in the hot water in the cool night air while the stars came out was… spectacular. It was a moment where I was intensely glad to be where I was, to be alive, to be experiencing life. Bats swooped overhead, which doesn’t sound like it should be cool, but really was, and planes left contrails in the sky until it got so dark that you couldn’t see them. It was surreally beautiful.
Steam rising off the spring.
Unlike Succor Creek, though, which felt like a place where it would have been nice to stay forever, I was definitely ready to move on Sunday morning. The springs were great, but the campground was hot and dry and sort of bleak and there’s only so much soaking in hot water one can do. Plus, we were headed back to Bend and both S and I were looking forward to all the fun we were going to have there. Well, the fun and the good things to eat!
Tosha Yoga, the yoga place that S and I have been trying (on their introductory 5 classes for $25 plan), is in a building that looks like an old factory. The downstairs is an arts center. If you look closely at the above photo, you’ll see some stairs on the right that lead to the roof. The yoga studio is up there.
Tosha Yoga from the inside
It is, without a doubt, the prettiest yoga studio I’ve ever visited. It’s a gorgeous space.
The tea trayThe plant corner
And it is very yoga. Lots of focus on breathing, reminders to be mindful, and plenty of times where my thoughts can best be summarized as, “Don’t be ridiculous, my body is not doing that.”
But I think I said in my first mention of yoga in Arcata that it would be a long time before I tried side plank again? That was apparently a lie. In the very next class I flowed naturally into a side plank, because that was where the instructions took me, and I didn’t let my brain tell my body that it was impossible. My brain is, however, very grumbly about how sore I am. A couple years without yoga and a year without Bartleby and I have apparently lost all my upper body strength. And I don’t even want to think about the core exercises. Ugh. My stomach reminds me every time I try to sit up.
But the space is great and the instructors are warm and encouraging and, as always, the sense of peace and presence at the end of a class is immensely rewarding. And the good news for me is that the first class was enough to convert S from a yoga skeptic to an enthusiast, so we’ve been going to classes together. Having company always helps motivate me.
Of course, that also means we get to decide to blow off a class together. We had every intention of going to a class on Tuesday night — I even made dinner early, so that we’d have plenty of time to digest before trying to exercise. But Tuesday was the end of S’s weekend, and we’d gotten a lot done over the weekend, including tackling the storage shed and much gardening.* I was three quarters of the way through my quinoa bowl** when I said, “I’m really tired.”
S said, “Do you want to skip yoga?”
I had a brief moment of remembering all the reasons that yoga is good for me, even when I don’t want to go, and then I said, “Yes. Yes, I want to skip yoga. And instead, I want to watch Russian Doll on Netflix and drink mint tea. And in an hour or so, I want to eat ice cream and those fresh raspberries we just got.”
So we did. And it was really fun. The only thing better than going to yoga is not going with intention.
*I did not do any gardening and, in fact, my storage shed tackling was mostly limited to watching S work and occasionally carrying a load of stuff to a different storage spot or the street. So my right to be tired was reasonably questionable. But it’s arduous to watch someone else work!
**S was also a scoffer at quinoa bowls. The first time I made the suggestion, she didn’t quite roll her eyes at me, but she came close. The first time I offered her some, she passed. But I have completely sold her on their deliciousness now, the health virtues being just a side benefit.
“Why drive two hours to go to a campground by the beach when we could drive ten minutes to the beach, then come home and cook something scrumptious in the kitchen?”
Trinidad Harbor.The scrumptious dinner. Roasted brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes with rosemary, steak (cooked sous vide), and mixed greens with pea pods and a little grated cheese.
Yesterday was the first test of all three dogs in the van. We loaded them up and took them north on 101 to a rest stop. An exciting adventure! (Not really.) But the rest stop had an RV dump station, so I dumped the tanks while S and the dogs wandered in the redwoods. It was a pretty nice rest stop in general, and dogs — or at least my dog — loves a good rest stop. So many smells! And the dogs did okay. Z shared the dog bed between the seats with Riley without complaint, and Buddy took the bed in the back almost the moment he entered the van. Riley was the only one who seemed at all anxious about the whole thing, but even he relaxed after a while. He can rest his head on my leg while I drive, though, so I can rub his ears while I drive — very convenient.
On the way back to Arcata, we stopped in Trinidad. We got coffee at a cafe and drank it on their patio, dogs in attendance, while an early morning (-ish, it was around 10) musician set up and started to play. The fog began to burn off and the sun came out. It felt like spring and smelled like ocean and redwood forest and plants.
When I woke up this morning, I asked Alexa for a weather report. She used the phrase, “lots of sun.” I like that phrase so much! In Florida, it’s hard not to start taking the sun for granted. Arcata is teaching me appreciation.
