27 Wednesday Sep 2017
Posted in Personal, Randomness, Therapy
≈ Comments Off on Happiness Is Not Enough | Mark Manson
Source: Happiness Is Not Enough | Mark Manson
Not entirely sure that this link is going to work this way, but I wanted to save this article somewhere I could find it again. And also recommend it to everyone I know. It’s a really good quick explanation of something I’ve spent, oh, twenty years or so trying to learn.
24 Sunday Sep 2017
Posted in Personal, Randomness, Travel, Vanlife
Today has been, without a doubt, without even a close contender, the worst day of my journey so far. I’m not sure I even want to write about it, because I don’t feel well enough yet to feel like it’s over. But I’m safely camped at a nice campground, staying here for two nights, plugged into electricity, and it’s only 4PM, so maybe I should just be counting my blessings instead of mourning my misery.
I woke up in the night to stomach pain. Indigestive-type stomach pain. At first it wasn’t so bad, I wondered what I’d eaten. But it got steadily worse and worse until I was tossing and turning and trying to figure out how I could possibly have given myself food poisoning. I was going down the list of every food I’d eaten, trying to think how it could have been contaminated. Was the pesto too old? Did I not wash the radishes well enough? Was the water in my tank — which I don’t drink but did use to wash the vegetables — contaminated somehow?
At various points through my entirely sleepless night, I wondered whether I could be having a heart attack, whether I was dehydrated, whether it was my gall bladder, whether I had a kidney stone, whether I needed an emergency room, whether I should be calling a ranger for help. I checked my own medicine cabinet for something, anything, that would relieve some of the pain and found, unsurprisingly, nothing.
The dogs were, of course, as restless as I was. My squirming around trying to find something like a comfortable position kept them on the move, trying to get back into their own formerly comfortable positions. Eventually B wanted to go out — still dark and temperatures in the 20s. I didn’t even care. I was awake anyway and thought maybe the cold air would help. It didn’t.
Then, of course, Z wanted to go for her walk. Really wanted it. We’d had a terrific walk yesterday and she loved the cold weather. She was bouncy and energetic and all ready for morning to begin. I eventually wound up literally snarling at her, because I was face-down, knees to chest, some sort of modified child’s pose, trying my best to breathe, and she kept sticking her nose under my arms and trying to lick my face. But even the sweetest dog understands a snarl; after that she curled up on the dog bed and watched me attentively, trying to decide what I was doing and if I was ever going to take her for a walk.
Answer: no. I wasn’t sure I had walking in me.
But I did let her out on a tie-out, while I tried to decide what to do. I was pretty sure at that point that I had food poisoning. I didn’t know how I could have food poisoning and it was obvious that I was just going to have to throw away everything in my fridge because I had no idea what had gone bad, but what else could it be? And there’s no cure for food poisoning. You ride it out and stay hydrated. Not fun, but it’d be over eventually. Unfortunately, my reservation at the North Rim was over and the campground was completely full, so I needed to move on. But there were other campgrounds nearby — maybe one of them would have room.
I did one thing at a time. One item put away, one job done, punctuated with sitting on the floor and rocking. It hurt. It really, seriously, fucking hurt. It felt like my intestines were tying themselves in knots. Not to be too graphic, but my system had completely cleaned itself out except for copious amounts of gas. Ridiculous amounts of gas. I could have won a belching contest against a world contender, but it only ever alleviated the pain for a moment or two.
And then I realized — yesterday, my bag of gluten-free crackers had inflated. It was really strange. I had to pop it to open it. And the top popped off my plastic container of balsamic vinegar as if expelled by an invisible force. Gas, in other words.
Could I have altitude sickness? In what is not irony, because it is not funny, I’d worried about R facing altitude sickness when he went to Colorado, but it had never even occurred to me that I might get it. Was the Grand Canyon even high enough to get altitude sickness?
Unfortunately, I had no internet and no cell service to find out. Also unfortunately, my generator refused to start when I’d tried to use it to make coffee the previous day and my computer was totally out of charge. But if my problem was altitude sickness, then finding the nearest campground wasn’t going to be useful: I needed to get to a lower elevation.
I started driving. After an hour, I stopped and took a nap, because yes, the pain eased off some. Not entirely. I feel like someone punched me in the stomach a bunch of times and food is unfortunately still not an option. (I tried. Bad idea.)
And then I kept driving. Because the generator wasn’t working, I didn’t want to stop until I’d found a place with electric hook-ups, so I could charge the computer. And I definitely wanted a place with some decent cell reception so I could look up generator repair & altitude sickness & elevations of my projected destinations. And I also kind of really wanted a pharmacy to get something, anything, that might help me feel better. Plus, I was having a caffeine withdrawal headache, which only added to my misery.
Exhausted, aching, nauseous, I kept driving and driving. Watching the odometer. One mile at a time, that’s all I needed to do. And then another mile. And then another. I kept checking my cell phone as I drove for a Verizon signal that didn’t show up. I hate the No Service message. I get it less often with Verizon than I do with T-Mobile, but it’s still awful.
It was the longest drive through pretty scenery ever.
I wound up driving straight past Flagstaff — at 6900 feet, I could tell from how much it hurt that I wouldn’t be sleeping there. I’m now at Homolovi Ruins State Park and it’s still a little too high. At 4900 feet, it’s exactly where elevation sickness can start. I think I’d probably be better off a few hundred feet lower. But there’s electricity and a cool breeze and hot showers and I was seriously wiped out. I just couldn’t keep driving.
I still feel worried about eating any of my food — maybe this is food poisoning? — but I’m pretty sure from the way my body responded to the hills and valleys during the drive that nope, it’s altitude sickness. It really, really sucks. I thought altitude sickness was a headache, but wikipedia assures me that nausea and “excessive flatulation” can go along with the headache.
And you know, I know I should count my blessings: the worst day of my journey did not include an emergency room, a morgue, the police… it could have been so much worse. But it still sucks and I still feel miserable and I really wish someone would miraculously show up and deliver some soup and painkillers.
On the good news front, though, the Winnebago Travato Facebook Owners and Wannabees Group totally came through for me on the generator. Turns out the generator also suffers from altitude sickness, which is fine, because I am never going near a mountain again. (Probably not true. Probably a situational exaggeration. But I’ve definitely lost all my Colorado enthusiasm for now. Maybe I’ll be taking the southern route back east.) Ten minutes of reading old posts and I found exact instructions for how to get it going again. (Thanks again, Jake!)
I really want to write more about the Grand Canyon, but there is a bee buzzing around the van. Seriously, universe? Seriously? But I am going to go help it find freedom or else mercilessly slay it, ideally without getting stung. And maybe tomorrow I’ll try to write some more.
19 Tuesday Sep 2017
Posted in Campground, Randomness, Travel, Vanlife
I woke up yesterday morning and thought, wow, this looks like the scene of a crime. If I mysteriously disappeared, I wonder what the police would think when they investigated? It would have been a perfect location for it, too: the campground at Calico Ghost Town, a little east of Barstow, CA.
The cemetery would be an excellent spot to discover a dead body. Or rather to have a character discover a dead body. In real life, I’d really rather not stumble across any corpses.
At a busy time, the campground would have been the kind of place I hate: sites close together, basically a parking lot, with minimal outside room between one site and the next. But on a Sunday/Monday in September with no special events at the ghost town, there was plenty of room. I think there were about six campers/tents total in a campground with room to accommodate a couple of hundred. Perfectly comfortable.
And a deserted desert campground next to a ghost town? It’d be an excellent paranormal/horror setting. Or even a mystery/thriller. The town is cute enough that you could even do it as a cozy.
Or course, the real story of my personal crime scene was nothing so interesting (or depressing, I guess, depending on how you look at it.) As pretty much everyone I spend time with discovers, I am prone to bloody noses. Generally, my nose just starts dripping blood, a little gentle trickle. I feel a hint of wet, touch it with a suspicious finger or two, and yep, blood. It’s happened in stores, in restaurants, in friends’ cars, anywhere, everywhere. FYI, if you start dripping blood all over the floor in a public place, otherwise lackadaisical sales clerks will run to get you tissues or paper towels. It’s usually not a big deal — a couple tissues and it quickly stops.
Exception: the night before last. I think it might have been because the air was very, very dry in southern CA, but in the middle of the night, the blood just started gushing. Of course, it was dark and I couldn’t find the tissues and I was camped at a place where the van wasn’t connected to water, so I couldn’t just turn the sink on, and the dogs were underfoot — I wasn’t worried about it in the middle of the night, but in the morning… yeah, it was gross.
It really would have made a good fake crime scene, though. Especially because I also had my vacuum sealer out to store some chicken for later sous vide cooking. Vacuum sealers are great for storing food and really handy for sous vide cooking, but as I learned in Arcata, they’re also an essential tool for major drug dealers. Ha.
But I cleaned it up, of course, then took a shower (with much gratitude at being in a place where I could easily take a shower!) and dumped the trash with its excessive quantity of bloody tissues and paper towels, then headed out. We started with a visit to the ghost town, Calico. I’d arrived the afternoon of the previous day but it had been so hot that I just plugged into the electricity, turned on the AC and waited for it to cool down. A metal box is not a good place to be when the temps are in the 90s. But pets are allowed in the ghost town, so before moving on, we went and wandered around a little. It didn’t feel very ghostly. Mostly because even early on a Monday morning in September, it was filled with tourists — two busloads of them beat me there!
By 10 AM, I was in the van, ready to move. Suzanne and I had mapped out a route to the Grand Canyon back in Arcata. At the time, it sounded fun to take the scenic routes. And I’d thoroughly enjoyed at least some of said scenic routes — 89 around Lake Tahoe was well worth driving. But I was starting to get really tired of spending days behind the wheel. And I was also seriously mourning gas prices. It was over $4/gallon at places in CA as I drove south: in a vehicle that gets about 15-17 mpg, that starts to add up fast.
Plus, it occurred to me as I looked at my GPS, if I gave in and let the GPS take me where it wanted to go, I’d drive through Nevada and Utah, adding two more states to Serenity’s total. That’s a silly reason, I know, but… well, it amuses me. I’m up to 36 states as of yesterday. By the time I make it back to the east coast, I’ll only have 6 left in the continental United States that I haven’t driven though in Serenity: Delaware, Rhode Island, North Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, and Michigan.
So, in the interest of gas prices, less driving time, and a meaningless checkmark on a list of states, I took 15 up through Las Vegas and across to Utah. In St. George, I started trying to figure out where I should stay. Alas, I fell for some wishful thinking. The Reserve America app, my favorite app for finding cool campgrounds, said that walk-ins might be available at the campground inside Zion National Park. I took a chance that they were right, had an absolutely beautiful drive, but gave up before I even made it to the campground.
The park was packed with people. It was Mt. Rushmore all over again, not quite so kitschy, but definitely an absolutely thriving population of tourist attractions. Nice ones — in a different life, one that included more money, cooler temperatures, and an assurance of dog safety, I would have loved to wander around the town that leads into the park. As it was, I stayed stuck in traffic long enough for all my appreciation of the incredible beauty to turn into grouchy annoyance and tired frustration. Then I made a u-turn and drove back to Hurricane, Utah, trying to figure out a good place to spend the night.
A good place to spend the night when the temperatures were in the high 80s needed to include enough privacy that I could run the generator to keep the dogs cool without feeling guilty about my neighbors or an electric hook-up.
Long story short, I found it. Electricity and more! But I will write about it tomorrow, because somehow it has already become mid-afternoon. Where do the hours go?!
13 Wednesday Sep 2017
Posted in Campground, Randomness, Travel
At Van Damme State Park in California, $45/night gets you a sloped campsite with no electric or water hookup, plus access to a shower that costs $1 for five minutes of water. I suppose I sort of get the shower thing as a method of water conservation — limiting the amount of water campers use is probably good for the environment. I still resented it, though. Seriously, $45 should get you a free shower.
That said, you do get the sound of the ocean. Admittedly, I kept waking up and being grumpy about being so close to a highway, and then having to remind myself that it was the ocean I was listening to, not the highway, but it was the ocean. And it smelled like ocean and pine trees and campfire smoke, which is a decidedly different and nicer fire scent than the wildfire scent that’s been so oppressive throughout my west coast travels.
Plus I got to meet @theroadtoadventure, aka Kate, who is on a quest to see all the national parks and monuments (443 of them), taking beautiful pictures along the way. Her van is extremely cool inside — she turned one bed into a desk space, and put a real mattress on the other — so we talked mods and campgrounds and places I should see.
And yesterday morning, I got to take the dogs to one last beach before I turned my back on the Pacific Ocean and headed inland. It was a rather seaweed-y, rocky beach, but we did enjoy it. Not as much as the beaches in Arcata, though.
B, wondering why we’re at the sandy place again. He’s not as much a fan of the beaches as Z is.
I’m pretty sure that some of my (I’m sure detectable) grumpiness is just reluctance to move on. It was probably a good thing that there was a nest of yellow jackets (hive?) right in the corner of the house by the side door of the van or S might have had an electric cord dangling out her kitchen window all winter long. I really liked Arcata.
Some of that, of course, was the company I was with. But we also had a really good time mixing tourism with domesticity. The grand plans we concocted when I arrived — of kayaking, cruises around the bay, maybe camping — did not all come to fruition. But we went to the beach a bunch of times; wandered around Eureka and ate oysters; visited the Trees of Mystery and admired the objects in the Native American museum there; saw Serenity in a movie theater; visited a friend’s photography exhibit; went to the farmer’s market… a good and busy set of tourist-type activities.
And we also cleaned out and organized her storage shed; cleaned out and organized her refrigerator and freezer; cleaned out and organized the wall of bookshelves in her living room. A few more days and I would have been painting her kitchen. And we cooked some delicious meals: pot roast, sautéed shrimp in summer rolls, sous vide steak. Plus shopped and did laundry and went to the thrift store… it felt very homey. I guess I understand why six weeks of feeling very at-home in other people’s homes has left me feeling a little homesick.
Or maybe worrying about R has just made me miss him. The good news is that he made it through Irma without excitement, although he did decide to evacuate Friday night. Is this ironic? He evacuated to Jacksonville, where the flooding was apparently much worse than it was in Sarasota. Oops. But it was still an enormous relief to me as the storm made its way up Florida to know that R was inland, not on the coast.
In other news… oh, so many things I want to remember, and of course none of them are coming back to me now that I’m sitting in front of my computer. I’m not a cat person, largely because I’m very, very allergic, but S has one that I developed a serious infatuation with. They call him Tank, but I was calling him Zen Kitty by the time I left. On the morning I left, I said goodbye to him, and he indicated that I was allowed to pet. I did, despite the whole “very, very allergic” thing, and his purr was a rumble like a massage chair, almost more felt than heard, but very solid and definite. I suspect Zen Kitty would be a good traveling cat: he seemed to take all things in stride. If he had a voice, I think he might sound like Morgan Freeman.
Another random memory: on the way to the photo exhibit, we stopped at a candy store. It had salt water taffy, which I don’t much like. But the sign by the counter of taffy intrigued me. I can’t recall the exact words, but it was a warning that the candy would taste salty. I bought five pieces. I put the first one — peppermint, I think — in my mouth and was transported back in time. It was my madeleine. A flood of memories, of my grandparents, of sitting in the backseat of the car with my siblings, of sand and salt water and the sound of the ocean… I ate all five pieces in about three minutes and if I ever pass by that store again, I will definitely be getting more. Turns out I do like saltwater taffy, just real saltwater taffy, the kind that actually has salt in it, the kind that tastes like the past.
And a sad one:
Sealandia didn’t make it through the storm
That’s the catamaran we sailed on during the Best Vacation Ever. She’s still floating, but the damage doesn’t look pretty. Looking at pictures of the British Virgin Islands is so sad. Some of the places that brought me so much joy just a few months ago are basically gone. And people will rebuild, of course. Five years, maybe ten years from now, there will be new places, shiny and fresh. But that doesn’t make the present moment any easier.
It feels wrong to end a post on a sad note: let’s see, homesick and grumpy and sad, this is not the most optimistic post I’ve ever written! But I’m actually doing well, grateful that everyone I know made it through Irma safely, and looking forward to my upcoming adventures. Tomorrow I’m headed to Lake Tahoe, and next week it’ll be the Grand Canyon. Finally!
But first, some time with Grace.
05 Tuesday Sep 2017
Posted in Personal, Randomness, Travel
In my vague mental plan, I was going to spend some time exploring Oregon this fall. Two things happened to change that plan: 1) Oregon, like far too much of the west, started burning down and 2) my friend Suzanne, who lives in northern CA, had a week off in early September.
I know the wildfires are sort of making the news, but at least in my window on the world, they seem to be overshadowed by politics and floods. And they’re not completely out of the norm: although 2017 is winning for number of fires, 2015 is still in the lead on acreage burned. Both years are statistically significantly higher than average, though, and more to the point, if you’re living in the smoke, the air quality is miserable. I can’t imagine how people with asthma are coping. It’s been years since I even owned an inhaler, but I felt the urge to reach for one through my entire drive through Oregon.
So instead of wandering around Oregon, I drove straight through, with a single, largely sleepless, night at a rest stop, notable only because it was my first ever night at a rest stop and my first chance to discover that rest stops are not very peaceful places to try to spend the night. It might be my last night at a rest stop, too.
I got to Arcata on Friday night. It was nothing like I expected. I knew it was a small town. I knew it was remote. I knew it was foggy a lot of the time, with year-round temperatures in the 50s and 60s. And I guess all of those things are true, but apart from the remote — yes, it was difficult to get to — it was still not what I expected.
It’s actually cute as anything, and not so small. Two bookstores, three movie theaters, multiple grocery stores and sushi restaurants, art galleries and housewares stores and furniture stores… I guess small is relative, but when I think of small, I picture southern small, where a single road has a gas station, a Dollar General, and a donut shop, and that’s considered a town. By that standard, Arcata is a city. But really, it’s the perfect small town from the “quirky town” trope. I saw the town square on Saturday morning, when I was walking Zelda, and immediately thought, “Stars Hollow, I am in Stars Hollow!”
On Saturday, S had to work, so I had a mostly quiet day — much needed after my long drives of the previous two days — hanging out at her house. At lunchtime, though, we met up at the local farmer’s market, held on the aforementioned town square, where I bought some corn & artichokes. But it was insanely hot. I say that as a Floridian. Insanely hot. I’d been promised cool weather and fog: instead I got bright sun, 97 degree temps, and smoke-filled air. The heat broke records, not just for the day but for the entire time temperatures have been measured here. I was very happy to get back to the relative cool of her house, where all the dogs (her two, my two) lay around and panted, while G (S’s husband) and I, sat on our computers, every once in a while saying, “Wow, it’s hot.”
The next morning, we went to the beach with all the dogs. It was glorious. Hot enough that shorts were fine, but with a cool breeze. The dogs were allowed off-leash and three of them ran around like puppies, while even B managed a good long walk and a lot of sniffing at interesting smells. Z chased sticks and splashed into the water and smiled happy dog smiles. Once they were tired out, S and I went to a local fish market and picked up some fresh rockfish, then stopped at a local artisan’s market and admired art and had interesting conversations about the age of some beautiful polished stones turned into jewelry. One green stone, kambaba jasper, was, according to the seller, 3 billion year old fossilized algae from Africa, and a purple stone was charoite from Russia. (Yep, I’m writing that down so that I remember it later.) That evening, instead of having our rockfish, we wound up going out for sushi.
Yesterday, I made us breakfast in the morning, of sautéed carrots, beets, bacon, and sweet potato (previously cooked sous vide, so quick to sauté), over arugula, topped with a soft-boiled egg and some fresh parsley and cilantro. It was heavy on the beets, but really pretty good. I still haven’t mastered sous vide eggs, though. Then we went to the redwoods and wandered up a trail for a while.
The pack in the redwoods
Our walk was pretty short, because the hills were a little much for B. I probably should have left him at home. I wound up carrying him, but an uphill hike carrying a wiggly dog was a little much for me, too. Next we went looking for wild blackberries, and found plenty. We came back to the house, went down the street to a “block party” fundraiser, ate some delicious albacore for lunch, put some bids in on the silent auction, ate dessert — a gluten-free apple muffin for me — and then came back to the house and got to work.
First, we baked. I made blackberry crisp and Suzanne made blackberry calzone (pie without the pie pan). Next, I prepped baked artichokes with onion, lemon, mint, and olives, one of my favorite recipes from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook
After that, we seriously got to work. S and G have a storage shed in the back of their house and I think my Seattle efforts inspired S. The shed was (is) stuffed to the ceiling with boxes and bags and furniture and miscellaneous objects of more-or-less emotional significance. We started pulling things out, piling them up in the yard, trying to sort them, with the aim of turning the storage shed into more usable space by emptying out some room. By the end of the day, we’d definitely made the space more accessible, but since neither S nor G really want to get rid of anything, I think the shed will be staying pretty full. But at least they can get to the boxes if they want them now.
Usable enough that the dog approved.
This morning, S and I headed off to the beach again, bright and early. We were on our way home by 9, so I think we probably got there around 8. It was a different beach, but even more wonderful — big and wide and empty and just a little foggy. I think a lot of people think of beaches as places to go to sit in the sun, but I’m never really interested in sitting on a beach, nor do I much want to go into the ocean. I like watching the waves and taking long walks. On this beach, we could have walked forever if we’d left B at home. He was a trouper, though. He probably walked a solid mile, which is a long, long way for a small dog in congestive heart failure.
Since then, I have been writing and S has been working on her storage shed. But I am about to finish this blog post and drag her away, so that we can go visit the nearest big town, aka Eureka. Yes, Eureka. I seriously hope there’s a nice town sign that I can take a picture of myself by, because it amuses me to no end that I am so close to a town named like one so dear to my heart.
In one final note, I’m really surprised by how much I like Arcata. It wasn’t actually on my list of places that I was thinking about for possible future long-term living, but it has not only joined that list, it’s jumped pretty close to the top. I could see living here. Not in S’s driveway, which sees/hears foot traffic all night long, and not in S’s storage shed, despite its resemblance to a cute tiny house, but it’s a lovely small town. However, that’s a thought for some time far in the future. For today, I should get back to writing Grace, so I can do some more playing later!
23 Wednesday Aug 2017
So we were walking along, climbing a hill, on our way to a trail that would lead us to a place called Grace Lake, which I wanted to go to purely because it was going to amuse me to write about visiting Grace Lake instead of writing Grace. I was planning the blog post in my head, about how even though I’m being a terrible writer, I’m having lots of fun experiences.
We’d just seen the eclipse and even though we weren’t in totality, it was pretty damn cool. It hadn’t gotten dark, but the light had definitely changed and there’d been a noticeable drop in temperature. But it was warming up already and the sun was beautifully golden. Nothing like an eclipse for making one appreciate sunshine. There was no real path to where we were going, so we were making our way along rocky ground, through scrubby bushes.
Blueberry bushes, in fact.
I’d gotten out in front with the dogs (three of them, all off-leash), probably because they didn’t care about blueberries and I, having spent hours already this summer picking blueberries, wasn’t all that excited about discovering the random leftover ripe berry on bushes that were mostly over for the season.
I turned and looked back. It was so incredibly beautiful — the mountains, the clear sky, the pine trees — that I pulled out my phone and took the above picture.
And then Reino (in the red shirt in said photo) straightened up. In an absolutely casual voice, he said, “Bear.”
I waited for him to continue the sentence. Bare what?
And then I followed his gaze, out across the hill in the other direction.
Oh. Right. Bear.
No, no, I mean, BEAR!
I did not take a picture. It didn’t even occur to me until later, actually.
Instead, I dropped to a crouch and put a hand on Zelda’s collar. She, of course, was right next to me. I held out a hand for Bartleby, who, upon the indication that a treat might be in store, promptly joined me. He wasn’t overly put-out by the fact that instead of giving him a treat, I grabbed his collar, too.
And then I realized that I didn’t have their leashes. I’d been carrying B up the hill before I set him down to take a picture, so P had my bag with their leashes inside.
So I waited. It felt like a very long time before P made it up the hill to me, but I’m sure it was about a minute. I think we were all torn between wanting to watch the bear and wanting to get the hell out of its way. If it had been going in another direction, we probably would have stood there and admired it, just like we’d been admiring the eclipse. An incredible feat of nature, right? But since it was trundling toward us, or rather toward the blueberry bushes that we were standing among, getting out of its way seemed like a very good idea.
It wasn’t until we were moving away that I realized I was maybe a little scared. I didn’t feel scared, but I know you’re supposed to make noise when you’re around a bear — they don’t want to run into us anymore than we want to run into them. And with three people and three dogs, there was no way a bear would approach us if it realized we were there. All we needed to do was make sure it was as aware of us as we were of it and our encounter would get no closer.
In other words, we needed to sing.
But I could not think of a single song lyric. Seriously, not a one. No Christmas melodies, no hymns, no pop ear worms, nothing. I had nothing. Total adrenaline brain fog.
Fortunately, my singing was not required. But we never did make it to Grace Lake.
Other things I want to remember:
Last Saturday, I met up with some internet friends and played games. (Betrayal At House On The Hill
On Sunday, we drove up to Stevens Pass. P is volunteering at Stevens Lodge this week, basically a hostel-like place for Pacific Crest Trail hikers to stay. It’s the first time it’s been open in the summer — usually it’s a ski lodge — so she didn’t really expect anyone to show up. Reino and I came up to keep her company and watch the eclipse. But some hikers did show up, so we got to meet some people hiking the trail, which was cool. I don’t really understand the desire, personally. But it’s always fun to talk to people who are in the midst of an adventure.
Before the hikers showed up, I was wondering if I could make eggs Benedict in the hostel-style kitchen. Many, many years ago, it was the thing that I wanted to make — the reason I wanted to learn to cook. I spent several months trying, with some moderate successes, but eventually decided it was just too much of a pain. Hollandaise sauce is hard to get right, and poaching eggs is a pain, and the timing of getting a warm toasted English muffin, plus the sauce, plus Canadian bacon, plus the egg, all right at the same time — it was just too challenging. But I’d brought some gluten-free English muffins at a store in Seattle and I was… well, just wondering whether I could get it right now.
Answer: eh, not exactly. My Hollandaise was a little thick, because I didn’t have enough butter, and my eggs kept rolling off the muffins, which I think means they were not quite done enough. And I didn’t have Canadian bacon, so I used prosciutto. Also the gluten-free English muffins were terrible, so bad that I threw away the leftovers. And I dropped one egg on the floor (literally) and destroyed another one, so that it was more like an egg drop soup egg instead of a poached egg.
But! If you want an appreciative audience for non-successful cooking experiments, you should definitely find some PCT hikers. One was a vegetarian so he got spinach with his muffin and egg and hollandaise, and another was gluten-free and very tolerant about the horribleness of the English muffins. Both were perfectly happy with my rather messy Eggs Benedict.
And it was close enough to good that I’m definitely going to keep trying. The Hollandaise is a bit of a problem — how often do I really want to make something that requires an entire stick of butter? It’s not like I want to use eight tablespoons of sauce. But maybe I can figure out how to make it and freeze it.
And this has turned into a very random blog post, downright disjointed, but I am posting it anyway and then getting on with my day. I feel like I have much to do and not nearly enough hours in the day. Today’s plan includes another sous vide experiment, some room organizing, an attempt at a new screen door — possibly very simplified, because my complicated screen door plans have not been working at all, and yes, some time on Grace. Oh, and also publishing a short story. I made a cover for it yesterday and I’m posting it to Amazon today. Hmm, that’s what they call burying the lede. But yeah, I’ll write more about that when it’s actually available. 🙂
How did it get to be Wednesday already?
21 Friday Jul 2017
Posted in Boring, Randomness, Serenity, Travel
In 18 states and two territories (one American and one British), I stayed in 73 different places:
I definitely got my money’s worth from my Thousand Trails membership. I think my total spent is currently about $550 for about 80 days, so roughly $7/night. But I’m not going to be renewing it when it expires next year: those campgrounds seem like good places for families with small kids and people who are looking for stable bases for extended periods, but that’s not how I want to travel or live.
My KOA membership was not worth the money. Again, great for families with kids and I definitely enjoyed my really nice showers at the KOA in Bellefonte, PA, but I don’t need the amenities they offer and even with the reduced membership rate, they were some of the most expensive places I stayed.
My one night at a Harvest Host site was lovely and I remember it fondly. But I don’t tend to want to drop in to places for a single night. If that changes in the future, I might think about trying out Harvest Hosts again, but for the moment, I’ll let that membership lapse.
Passport America costs around $45/year and I bought a three-year membership, so I’ve got plenty of time for it to pay off. In fact, the park at which I’m currently staying is both a state park and a Passport America park, and I saved $14 on an upcoming night’s stay because of my PA membership, so yay. But I’ve got a pretty long way to go before that membership pays for itself and two of the parks on the PA list were among my least favorite of the places I’ve stayed so I don’t seek out the PA parks. I should check out more of them, though, because it’s a nice discount when the park is okay.
Generally speaking, the only worthwhile memberships for me were the state parks. I’ve got a Texas State Park pass and a Georgia State Park pass and they were very much worth the money, might even be more so, since I’ve got months left on both. Live and learn, right?
I can’t believe I haven’t stayed in a single national park — what kind of camper am I??? — but they’re typically more restrictive about dogs than state parks, and I’ve really quite enjoyed discovering the state parks. Still, that might be a goal for Year Two. 🙂
I budgeted $900/month for campground charges, figuring an average of $30/night. If I stayed at KOAs and independent campgrounds or even some of the more expensive state parks, I’d be breaking that budget on a regular basis. As it is, however, my blend of campgrounds and driveways kept me under budget every month. The closest I came was $826 in April, from paying for my two week stay at Cedar Key in May.
I budgeted $400/month for gas and fuel (propane, too) and I came in under budget on that, as well. My grocery budget, though… yeah, not so good. Eating the way I eat — heavy on vegetables and protein, almost non-existent on breads, pasta, grains — is not cheap. Now that I can’t buy in bulk and store leftovers in my freezer, I’m spending more on food than I want to.
The dogs were also way over budget. No surprise, there, but ouch. Having two aging dogs is not the kind of thing where you want to look at the dollars. Even hiding some of their food costs in my grocery budget, I spent over $300/month on the dogs. I’d budgeted $90. Yep, the dogs cost $10/day.
Health insurance and care, internet, auto and RV insurance, the storage unit, taxes… none of those were surprising numbers to me, although they do add up. Life in the van is definitely less expensive than it was in my house, but I really had hoped I’d have a book or two released by now, though, so that’s not so good.
But there, another goal for Year Two — publish books! And visit national parks. And continue spending ridiculous amounts of money on the dogs, because really, the only way that number goes down is bad, so the positive side of breaking my budget on pet care is definitely that I have two dogs that I adore still and that’s good news.
Speaking of which, I am out of dog food, so need to make a run to a grocery store, unfortunately half an hour away. Time to get going!
23 Friday Jun 2017
Posted in Grace, Movies, Personal, Randomness, Rant
I’m watching the rain out the window right now, trying to motivate myself to be productive. So far it’s not working. Watching rain is nicely hypnotic, but it makes me feel more like sleeping than writing. And unfortunately, I did a really, really stupid thing this week — I read A Lonely Magic.
I try not to be mean to myself, but every time I stare at my Grace file now, the mean words start running through my head. I need Noah to get to work. He’s got things to do. Instead, my imagination wants to play in Sia Mara. Worse, I want to go back and fix things in ALM, instead of writing the next book! Sigh.
When I wasn’t trying to write, I had a really nice week. It included video game time with my nephew — I’m a little obsessed with a game called SkyForge right now; camping and kayaking with my niece; and much berry picking with my brother. We’ve hit the stage of the summer where the berries are getting ripe faster than they can be eaten. If I had a bigger freezer, I’d be filling it with an easy summer’s worth of berries. As it is, I did look at the blueberries on my counter last night and think, “nope, no more berries.” Not sure that’s ever happened to me with blueberries before. Fortunately, my blueberry ennui wore off by morning.
Camping with my niece was lovely. We spent two nights up at Frances Slocum State Park, which is a park I visited last summer, including a stop at the cemetery where a few dozen of our ancestors, including some of her great-great-great-grandparents, are buried. There’s something inherently romantic, I think, in the idea of great-great-great-grandparents, but I had a weird little moment of shock when I realized that my niece is entirely a child of the 21st century. The 20th century is just as much history to her as the 19th. So obvious, I know, but still…
Frances Slocum State Park
Most of our “camping” time was really more like cozy, hanging-out-in-a-tiny-house time. We read our books, we played on our iPads, and we watched movies* — not exactly the campfire – tent – backpack scenario. But we did go for a nice walk, and we kayaked, and she came home with eleven or possibly twelve bug bites, so it was close enough to camping.
But this is not really close enough to writing, so time for me to get back to the real words. If I stare at my file for long enough, Noah is bound to do something, right?
*I must add a teeny-tiny vent about Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: Spoilers Ahead.
WTF? Obviously, it’s not the first time JK Rowling has written about abused children, but the ending left me… horrified. And then creeped out. Yay, happy bakery, but what the hell happens to the little girl left traumatized and cowering under a desk? I think my niece was disappointed by my response — she likes the movie — but I told her that sometimes being a mom gets in the way of appreciating movies where children are treated badly. And that one — just ugh. Despite my spoiler warning, I’m reluctant to say exactly what happens, but suffice to say I disapproved. Vehemently.
19 Monday Jun 2017
Posted in Grace, Randomness, Vanlife, Writing
The fireflies were out last night. I had that moment of blinking disbelief — what was that light? was I really seeing what I was seeing? — and then I realized what they were. Tiny yellow sparks in shadowy darkness, flickering in and out, in a warm summer breeze. Such a magical element of a Pennsylvania summer.
Some of the blueberries are ripe. So are the blackberries. So are the red raspberries. So are the yellow raspberries. The gooseberries and the grapes are not. It’s really interesting to watch the berries ripen — the blueberries, in particular, grow in a cluster, all of which get ripe at different times, so the cluster has berries ranging from deep blue to green. We can go back to the same bush, day after day, and pick more berries from it. And the blackberries — they get ripe so fast! Seriously, I could pick berries from a vine in the morning and then go back a few hours later and pick more. I can’t quite see them changing color, but I bet if I set up a time-lapse camera, I could.
Unfortunately, it’s also hot and sticky. I really love camping here, but I keep looking at the house and contemplating how much work it would take to make it livable. Do you suppose it’s possible to put central air-conditioning into a stone farmhouse? I guess anything’s possible if you have enough money, which means I should definitely not be wasting my time imagining renovating the house, and instead should be writing, writing, writing.
The writing… yeah. Not going well. I have discovered two characterization issues that I need to solve. I have partially figured out how to solve one of them, but the other… sigh. I guess I can be happy that I have at least figured out why I’m stuck again and what needs to change to get me unstuck, but I wish I could just write until I was done and stop caring about things like agency and motivation. And consistency. I guess that’s the one I care about the most. But I will solve these problems, and meanwhile, I will eat blueberries and blackberries and appreciate summer.
15 Thursday Jun 2017
Posted in Birds, Photography, Randomness
≈ Comments Off on Robin
I received the most delightful voice mail message today. It contained the words, “basically I’m just calling to say you were right and I was wrong.” I’m not sure why that amuses me so much — it’s mean of me to be amused, in fact — but it was expressed so… so… so precisely. It’s exactly the right vocabulary for a good mea culpa.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to find out exactly what I was right about so I’m sitting around on tenterhooks waiting to find out the details. The call was from R, of course, and while I’m appreciating the concession to my rightness, I’m also a little worried. I really would prefer not to be right about altitude sickness being a problem for him. As it goes, amused triumph mingled with worry is translating into a lot of snacking, a lot of internet browsing, and not nearly enough writing.
I’m tempted to start reorganizing Serenity yet again: I still haven’t managed to get everything into proper places after cleaning out my storage unit, so there’s work to be done. But I also know that work is just a distraction from writing. And if I’m going to go the route of distraction, I could also go pull up some weeds from the blueberry patch — distracting and helpful, a much better bet.
Or I could blog. And look through photos. And maybe post an entirely random robin?
A random robin. I think he’s telling me to get to work.
And then get back to work.