If I could fire myself, I would. I’m such a lousy employee. But what’s the saying? On your deathbed, you’re never going to regret that you didn’t work hard enough? Something like that? I am never going to regret this delightful last week of summer.
It included video games, mini-golf, playing with the puppy, walking an energetic and healthy Zelda, swimming, an outside picnic with burgers on the grill, a quick road trip with my niece to visit my aunt and uncle, looking at old family photos, a trampoline, tetherball, and ice cream. Actually, lots of ice cream, I think I had ice cream three separate times.
I didn’t take many photos and I can’t share the ones I did take, because they almost all include other people. But I don’t think any of the people in this photo would mind me sharing. Well, maybe my sister would — she’s the one wrapped in a towel. But she was so darn cute. We all were. It’s a picture that makes me happy just to see.
My grandma, me, my mom, my aunt, my sister. My grandpa called this photo, “Five babes in a bathroom.”
Next stop, Maine, for a quiet month of writing. I’m not looking forward to the drive at all, but very much looking to the sitting still time.
I’m not much of one for movie reviews, mostly because I’m not much of one for movies. If I see one movie every six months, it probably means I’m spending time with my kid.
But yesterday Barbara and I went to see Maiden, a documentary about the all-female team of sailors who won the Whitbread Race, an around-the-world sailing competition, in 1989-90, and I can’t stop thinking about it. And can’t recommend it highly enough. I got goose bumps, I cried, I was so invested in their story, even having spoiled myself and already knowing some of what happened.
It’s a movie about sailing, of course, but it’s also a movie about sexism and inspiration and perseverance and hope. And endurance. Maybe it’s really a movie about endurance. And I don’t want to spoil it for you, so I’m not going to write any more about it. (Actually, I’ve written lots more about it, but I keep deleting what I’ve written, because I don’t know how to say what I want to say without spoiling it.) But it is a fantastic movie. If you get the chance, go see it.
This morning, Barbara and I were on our way to the Y (for my first yoga class in months & her regular morning routine) when we passed her seafood store. Earlier I had suggested sous vide chicken breast for dinner later this week, but when we drove by the seafood market, I told her I’d realized that was a stupid idea. If I’m in a place where I can have good fish, I’d much rather have good fish. And Rockport has really good fish. Also, Barbara is a really, really good cook, which is an excellent combination.
But we then talked briefly about what we’d eaten and it made me want to remember all of the meals she’s made, so this is going to be a food post. Consider yourself warned.
On Tuesday we had grilled swordfish, quinoa salad, and a leafy green salad. On Wednesday, she had friends and family over and we ate grilled lamb, corn on the cob, and a fantastic rice salad made with jasmine and wild rice and lots of lemon. On Thursday, we had halibut steamed over fennel fronds, served on rice noodles with a watermelon, fennel and arugula salad. Friday was chicken apple sausage over greens and cucumbers, with a mango medley (somewhere between a salad and a salsa) of mango, avocado, red onion, jalapeño, corn, tomatoes, and lime juice, plus the leftover rice salad. On Saturday, we ate striped bass, seared then baked with lemon zest, salt and pepper, plus a summer salad with all the veggies, sliced tomatoes with cilantro, and more corn on the cob. Sunday was leftovers for me, dinner out for Barbara, but today will be quinoa bowls with sous vide steak, red onion, heirloom tomatoes, roasted beets, and more corn on the cob. And I have now officially made myself hungry. I hope I’ve done the same to you! (I might have mixed up a couple of my days, but that seems irrelevant to the memories.)
Apart from food, most of my Rockport adventures have revolved around my computer, although we’ve gone on some nice walks. In other words, not particularly adventurous. But my keyboard had been dying for a long time and when I was in Maine, it hit the point where it simply wasn’t realistic for work anymore. Still fine for browsing the web and playing solitaire, but it’s really tough to write without an E key. I bit the bullet and ordered a new one, and I’ve spent the past couple days moving files around, searching for passwords, organizing bookmarks and so on. Many hours of the “so on” yesterday was going through old photos, trying to limit the number moving to the new computer, so I didn’t immediately fill the drive. My big revelation from that is that I’ve seen an extraordinary number of gorgeous sunrises in the past couple of years.
Witness:
But much to my puzzled dismay, many of my pictures say that they were created on September 19, 2017. I know for a fact that I did not spend that day taking 3000+ photos of different sunrises, but whatever I did do that day overwrote the original information on the photos. That means I look at those sunrises and think… um, North Carolina? Nova Scotia? Florida? Texas? Maybe?? I could figure it out easily enough by going back to the original photo library but since it would be far better for my life to get on with writing a book instead, I’m not going to. I’m just going to enjoy all those pretty mornings and be glad I took photos of them so I could be reminded of them, even if I don’t quite remember the details.
And now it’s time to get on with writing a book. I started working on Friday and wound up back in the revising stage — redoing the first chapter of Fen’s Book Two yet again — but yesterday I was feeling reasonably pleased with that chapter. A little work on chapter two, and I hope I will finally be able to get back to the end game. I’m getting close, really!
From New Hampshire, I headed into Maine, to my first big meet-up of fellow Travato owners from the Travato Owners & Wannabes Facebook group. (Serenity, the camper van I live in, is a Winnebago Travato, for any new readers out there.)
I arrived on Thursday, a day earlier than most of the others, because Gary, an online friend from the group, had offered to teach me how to change the oil in my generator. It was the first order of business when I arrived and involved raising the van on ramps, crawling under, draining the old oil, and pumping in the new oil. Gary did all the hard work, I mostly watched and chatted.
Conclusion – yay, I don’t need to change the generator oil for another 150 hours of generator time and yay, now I know I will probably not be doing that by myself. Ever. I paid $125 to have it done the first time it needed doing, which seemed expensive for an oil change, but now I’m thinking was a good deal. Of course, not nearly as good a deal as watching Gary do it, but I definitely owe him a bottle of wine. (Thank you, Gary!)
The rest of the attendees started arriving Friday morning and continued coming and going all weekend long. The spot was beautiful – a house on a hill owned by Trish, a stained glass artist, with incredible art inside, wide porches outside, surrounded by fields of wildflowers, and enough parking room for 20 or so vans to line the driveway. And the company was delightful — interesting people, doing interesting things, all of us ready to talk about our travels, the places we’ve enjoyed, adventures on the road, ways of living in our vans and mods. Many, many mods. (Aka modifications to the vans.)
The view from Trish’s hill.
Also, of course, our own lives. On the first day, I wound up sitting with two fellow dog owners, Deb & Ken, talking about journalism, editing, the dot.com years, raising kids with learning disabilities, writing books… and after a couple hours of conversation, Deb said, “Hey, we’re going to be on the road for the month of September, if you want our driveway, it’s all yours.” I think I probably blinked a few times. Seriously? They live in Maine, across from a river, with bald eagles living in their trees… so, so tempting.
That night, everyone brought out their camping chairs and we filled the porches while we ate potluck appetizers and desserts. The next day, some people wandered into town during the morning, while others hung around the house. In the mid-afternoon, Trish collected lobster orders and we all ate corn, grilled vegetables, and fresh Maine lobsters with butter. Afterwards, some people played cards, some played music, and some listened to the music. I was the latter, but there was lots of laughter from the card players — apparently, the Travato owners group’s card game of choice is called Five Crowns and I am definitely going to have to learn how to play someday.
The next day, a few more people arrived and a few people left. Trish made a delicious lobster chowder for lunch for us all, and in the evening, people set out salads and snacks for another potluck. After dinner, we all carried our chairs out to the firepit in the front lawn and sat around a glorious campfire, toasting marshmallows for s’mores and listening to Faith and Daniel Senie sing and play.
I feel like I spent a lot of my time following Zelda around as she roamed. She was a busy, busy wanderer, which was… well, interesting? My time with her feels so precious to me now and I want her to do what she wants to do. I don’t know how many days of wandering she has left, so I really don’t want to shut her in the van alone, which she is usually unhappy about, or tie her up. But I don’t know that anyone would ever have guessed she was an old dog from the way she behaved, except in that she stayed very clear of the more boisterous dogs. She didn’t want to play. But she did want to sniff every single solitary blade of grass and explore every corner. Fine by me. But one of the dementia problems is that she doesn’t respond to voice commands any more, although she still understands her hand signals, so I can’t trust her to come when she’s called. It meant a lot of interrupted conversations as I jumped up to follow her around.
On the last day I was there, I picked up some bruises. I actually took a picture of my bruised knees, which I am not going to post, because ugh, who wants to look at bruises? But whenever I stumble across it in the future, I am going to pat myself on the back.
So the story is: Trish had warned everyone that animals were welcome but that her dog, Rosey, chased cats and any cats would need to be kept in their vans.
On Monday morning, Rosey spotted a cat sitting in the doorway of her van.
As long-time readers know, last year Zelda was attacked by another dog. It was the fastest, most violent, bloody experience of my life — out of nowhere, aggression and blood and screaming and fear, and for Zelda, pain and shaky trembling and near-death— and I had some post-traumatic stress afterwards. I worked on it, because I didn’t want to be afraid of dogs, but I definitely became wary, aware of how quickly a dog could do deep damage, and tense around bigger dogs. I think my time in Arcata helped me get over the fear, because occasionally I had that reaction to Riley — when he moved fast or unexpectedly, my heart rate would soar, my breath would catch. He turned out to be the sweetest, softest, loviest dog imaginable, though, which helped me work my way through the anxiety.
And that was good, because when Rosey went for the cat, I went for Rosey. Even as I jumped on her, I knew that if she turned around and went for me — which is a not unnatural reaction for a dog in a fight who feels herself being attacked from behind — I was going to get hurt. But I didn’t let the fear stop me. And yay, Rosey didn’t go for me, and I didn’t get bitten, and the cat escaped and was unhurt and Rosey was unhurt, too. She didn’t even get scratched. A couple hours later, she came and snuggled up with me on the porch, letting me give her lots of rubs and scratches, so she didn’t hold a grudge either. I didn’t realize that I’d landed hard enough to bruise my knees until the next morning, when I rolled out of bed and said, “Ow, what the heck?” But I’m pleased with those bruises, because they are a symbol of recovery from fear. I like that in a bruise.
Moving on, later on Monday I headed down to South Gardiner and Deb & Ken’s house. I had a lovely afternoon/evening with them, sitting in their front yard watching for eagles and chatting, and then sharing their dinner. And temptation accepted! I’m going to spend September in their driveway, working on the book (finishing it, I hope) and watching the eagles. And the loons and the hummingbirds and the river. I’m pretty delighted with the change in my plans. I might even manage some kayaking.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, I drove to Rockport to spend some time with my friend Barbara (first pausing at a rest stop on the New Hampshire highway to have lunch with Pam and S). More about that later, though, because this blog post has gotten long and our lunch plans — steamers? not something I think I’ve really had before — are beckoning.
≈ Comments Off on Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site & Blackberry Campground
Augustus Saint-Gaudens was the son of immigrant parents. His father became a shoemaker in New York City, and Augustus became one of the most famed American artists of the late 19th, early 20th century. His bronze statues of Civil War era politicians and military generals are the artwork of public spaces in big cities, instantly recognizable. At Teddy Roosevelt’s request, he also designed the art on some of the classic coins of the era.
He had a retreat and studio in Cornish, New Hampshire and after his (untimely, early) death, his wife worked to make sure he was remembered, part of which entailed giving the land to the nation and turning it into a national historic site, New Hampshire’s one and only national site.
I, of course, knew none of this before I drove up and parked in a pretty grassy field for RV parking. I felt like I should have, though. Many times during this journey I have been confronted with my ignorance — about wildflowers, bird identification, geography, geology, plumbing functioning, electricity… Yeah, moving into a camper van is a good way to discover how very much you don’t know. But it’s also a great way to learn unexpectedly.
The historic house
I had a lovely hour at the historic site watching the video about his life, wandering around the studios and admiring art, and appreciating the gorgeous gardens. I especially liked the honesty of the historical information: Saint-Gaudens had an affair with his model, an illegitimate son, and a strained relationship with his wife, all of which was openly addressed in the displays about his life. Even though my opinion of him immediately plunged when I found out he’d cheated on his wife, the details made their story much more interesting than a generic recitation of dates would have been. They became a story, real people, not just history.
Post the historical site, I headed into the mountains of New Hampshire. I’d been told that the Kancamagus highway was worth the drive, so even though it was far from being the most direct route to my destination in Maine, I headed that way.
It was a nice highway. I am, however, lamentably spoiled. I think I should drive it sometime in the middle of autumn to be truly impressed, because I mostly drove along it thinking about all the other beautiful highways I’ve driven on in the past three years. Sure, it was pretty, but it was no Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
But I stopped at Blackberry Campground, a National Forest campground, around 3PM and paid $25 for a dry camping spot for the night. My spot was huge, had a cement pad and a nice fire pit and was surrounded by trees. I would definitely give it solid marks for pretty and secluded. But I totally picked the wrong side of the campground. Even though I couldn’t see the road, I could hear it. And sadly for me, big trucks drive that road making big truck noises as they go up the hills.
Even more sadly for me — well, sort of — the weather had gone quite dire. Fantastic thunderstorms and pounding rain. I say “sort of” because it’s still really fun for me to be in the van when the rain is pounding down. Even after my intense winter of California rain, I love the music rain makes on the van roof and the punctuation of thunder rumbles makes it all the better. But it did mean I didn’t wind up exploring the campground at all. I’d picked the campground because it was a Conservation Corps Campground and most of them have some beautiful old stone structures. This one had a nearby hike to a covered bridge, too. In better weather, it would have been a fun place to wander around. So it goes. Maybe next time. And maybe next time in autumn, when the leaves should be splendid and the mosquitoes should be frozen.
I headed out on Tuesday morning with last hugs all around — the hugs that said, “I am a world adventurer venturing forth on a daring and risky excursion that will last for months,” instead of what would have been far more accurate casual waves of “See you in a couple weeks/months.” I wasn’t sure how far I was going or where I would spend the night, but I needed to dump the tanks, after having spent most of a month sitting still in PA, and I wanted to spend at least a night in New Hampshire on my way to Maine and a meet up of fellow Travato owners.
Along the way, it started to storm. So many beautiful days in PA, and once I’m on the road, rain? Really? But I stopped at a rest stop and waited it out, because why not? As a result, I didn’t make it all the way to New Hampshire, but I decided that was fine, because instead, I stopped at an Army Corp of Engineers campground in the Green Mountain National Forest of Vermont.
Now that I’ve (almost) been to every state, I’ve been contemplating other travel goals and one of them might be to visit all the national forests. I’m not going to try to get to all the national parks; there are too many of them, and they’re too crowded. But I like the idea of visiting all the national forests, as much because I’ve never heard of lots of them, so it would be adventuring in the unknown a lot of the time. I had heard of the Green Mountain National Forest, though, and it was just as lovely as expected. Also very green.
The campground had a spot available in the hook-ups section, which I took because I needed water, so it was a good opportunity to fill up my water tanks. It was a great deal, too — dry camping (ie camping without electricity or water) was $20/night and with hook-ups, it was $26. Getting to fill my tank and charge my computer for $6 felt like a bargain. If I ever go back there, though, I will definitely aim to dry camp, because the campsites with electricity were a little more parking lot than I like. A nice parking lot, on grass, with trees, but sites close together. I spent the late afternoon listening to kids running around playing and my neighbors chatting. Perfectly nice, but all things being equal, one of the quiet spots overlooking the river in the much more secluded dry camping section would have been more my speed.
Serenity’s campsite: lovely for $26, but those neighbors are pretty close. The view from the back of one of the dry camping sites.
I didn’t use any of the facilities except the dump station, so I can’t provide a shower report, but it was a beautiful place. No internet, though, so I couldn’t research my next day’s travels. Oops.
The next morning I headed out early. I knew I was going to spend the night in New Hampshire, but I didn’t know where. Instead of picking a destination for the night, though, I let S’s voice (imagined, in my head, not her real voice) influence my destination. New Hampshire has exactly one site listed in the National Parks passport, the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site. I had no idea what it was, knew absolutely nothing about it, but off I went.
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!
For a moment, when I thought about writing this post, I thought, “Oh, no, I haven’t taken a single picture in July.”
Duh. Totally wrong. I took many, many pictures, because the best part of July was spending time with the Best Brother Ever’s puppy.
Best Brother Ever’s first dog says, “Seriously, it’s time to save me from this little pest.”
Also, of course, BBE’s kids. Well, and him. And his wife, aka Best SIL Ever. But mostly the puppy. 🙂
Still, the nicest part of this exact specific moment of the month is that my own puppy is doing really well. I’m a little scared to write that, of course, because time is not on our side, but she’s eaten for several days in a row and yesterday she actually ate all her dog food and then seemed interested enough in her bowl that I gave her more and she ate that, too. And this morning she woke up at her historically normal time and wanted to go for a walk. Joy! It’s amazing how moments that you took for granted for years can become special, but this morning’s walk was definitely special.
In a nice moment of serendipity, I was hunting for a USB drive to transfer some files to my nephew’s computer, and I found one that turned out to have some old photos on it. Fourteen years old, in fact.
I’m sure that when I first saw this photo, I thought about how messy my hair was and how much I hate my freckles and how fat my arm looked, because, you know, photos. I don’t like them and I don’t post ones of me very often. But now I look at it and I see how sweet my puppy was and how much I loved her, and I’m glad this photo came back into my life.
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.
Thanks to everyone who shared their auto-buy authors with me! I have to admit, I don’t think I discovered the magical author whose name is going to open a world of new readers to me via $10 worth of advertising, but I did find lots of people who I might be interested in reading, so that’s a nice thing. Although maybe not a good thing for my writing career purposes. Too much reading generally translates to not enough writing.
My current experiment is with voice recognition software. I was hoping that I could pick up the pace of my writing by eliminating a step between my brain and the end product. There are authors who swear by voice recognition, and claim that it makes their writing much faster. They can produce more because they’re talking to their computer instead of typing.
Ha.
An actual paragraph via voice recognition:
I was also hoping to work on my mailing list today Area reasonably stupid however answered me not want productive. When I was working on a precarious magic I stop looking at the computer in the end result with a couple paragraphs but I could not fight her at all. I had no idea what I was trying say. A triumph of technology.
And I think it’s really funny that the last line actually worked. Irony! So far I’ve tried the voice recognition in four different apps and they all seem to have their own unique quirks, but even if practice does make perfect, I don’t think voice recognition is going to be any kind of panacea of writing productivity for me. Oh, well.
I moved over to the garden house yesterday, and last night I got to have the windows open while I went to sleep. It’s been weeks since I was able to do that, and it was so lovely. Firefly season is mostly over, but there were still a few isolated sparks in the darkness and the sky was clear enough to see stars. It reminded me of all the great reasons to live in a van. In four days, it will be three years since I left my house. I feel like I ought to do a year-in-review post — how many places did I go? Cross-country both ways means that there were a lot of states involved. But I think I’ll save that post for Monday.
Meanwhile — again in the not-writing category — I’ve been playing some more with the fun ad-creation tool I discovered, www.bookbrush.com. My latest:
I made up a logo for myself a couple weeks ago when I was working on a mailing list email and needed something to put in the “logo” spot, but I actually quite like it. I honestly don’t think having a pretty Facebook cover on my almost non-existent business page is going to sell any books, but it still makes me smile so that counts for something.
And now, back to Fen. I got stuck on something silly — the word to describe an angry cat’s tail — so I started writing a blog post instead, but I am determined that today will be a day of many words, even if that means it turns into an evening or night of many words. But a snippet for the fun of it (with the usual caveats of draft, might not make it into the real book, la-di-dah, whatever)…
Fen glanced at him just as the kitten shimmered into view on his shoulder.
Its green eyes were glowing with a hard, red, extremely creepy light. It wasn’t the weird but natural glow of light reflecting off an animal’s eyes at night. It wasn’t even a normal, if authoritarian, stop-light red. This red was the deep, rich shade of fresh blood.
It screamed “Danger” like no color Fen had ever seen before.
“Oh, shit.” Fen barely had time to breath the words and take a nervous step backward before Ghost launched off of Luke’s shoulder.
