misquoting utah phillips quoting jack conroy: “i prefer a rude vigor to a polished banality.” …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… anti-civ travel-blogging from the bush
attempted once again
“old timey music night”
at ye olde tienda de bicicletas gratis
despite the frosty white
DELUGE!
alas, the two who showed
left
ten minutes before
i rolled in the door
but i rode around in that sleety city snow
dobro
slung across
and hugging closely
to my back
bottleneck
slide un-slid
and safely sheathed
in my old timey brown coat’s pocket
the taste of the flakes was worth the meander
over river and rail
and through melty-puddled
intersections
especially
en route to my (next)
late arrival
at one last empty
yet open
cafe
for the “something chocolate” mi novia needed
and then again
after quickly exiting
following the placement
of an order
for one chocolate
chip
chocolate
muffin
for which i had not the money
apparently
to complete such a transaction
and not only
did the gol’darn baristas
fail
to giveittomeanyway
they instantly
ghosted
me & my no money
out of their consciousness
completely!
back at home
the snow-food
had turned to
a now unappetizing
chocolate
anyway
(on the bottoms of my boots)
so we’ll just have
this kiss
for dessert
[a note from another time: this blog ended two months ago...just not quite getting around to telling y'all that yet. stay tuned/resume inattention]
so this is our last night in the trailer. last time i’ll climb up into my bunk and burrow beneath the scratchy afghan nest. last do-si-dos we’ll dance as we maneuver around one another to get in and out of the bathroom…kitchen cabinets…booth seats…refrigerator…
last time we’ll have an excuse to be this unwashed & unlocatable.
it is exciting, but i can honestly not in the slightest sense imagine what it will be like without wobbling slightly upon wheels while dance-partying, or exercising, or…
but anyway, where was we?
ah yes:
upper left coast leg – day III
it resumed humboldt bay gray when we awoke and ambled towards the boat launching place. there were already little kids there, already doing our little kid type things – looking at anemones, crabs, starfish, barnacles, nice rocks, shells, grasses, bark, and leaves.
we moved on to our own side of the massive rock pile (where the lemurs had been lurking…no tracks survived the nights tides to confirm or deny their true identities). the girls – now experienced seawomen, after the move 7 years back from pennsylvania to the southern cali coast & all of its field trips & beach days & science classes – instructed us on the proper feeding of sea anemones (using little mussels whom they claimed their hungry, squishy friends loved most). we climbed and hugged and cowered around and in the branches & nooks of the big rainbow-striped eucalyptus mammoths, and the ease with which i achieved the highest of all high (yet still safe & not scary) points did nothing to reduce the TARZAN typecasting that is ever my cross to bear.
the bay tides committed their most beautiful woodworks
back on the road then, and deeper into the luscious redwoods. old friend thimbleberry was there, by the roadside, and the girls got some sourer berries of the wild experience. also, burnt out tree cave spelunking occured, and i think we hit our all-time feral-est for this trip.
next: THE OREGON STATE LINE (this was apparently the major point of passage for them, why? “i hate california. i love oregon.” …alright, kids!). posed for pictures by the sign (if you really want to accurately tell which side of the line you are on - look at the change in pavement), and there was the warm, banana-belting sun again. and despite the apparent rush (even after crossing that arbitrary line of salvation), the little one demanded a swim in the ocean. what a 180 from her usual protests! i bundled hair up on top and dog-ran the beach and surf and salty pools with her. then there were dangerous dares & climbings & jumpings, and dead seabirds & baby seaweed palm trees/giant seaweed jump ropes…
but we knew the whining was lying in wait, so to pre-empt later protests (about stopping for the night) with present protests (about stopping being sea creatures)…we rolled on.
but all bad things come to those who don’t wait - and who actually try to budget time and daylight… when we made it to florence with a fine sunset by which to find a parking spot at the three rivers casino, we found it completely filled with weekend warrior-ing rvers and realized we had no plan b. so we bit the siuslaw riverside bullet (aka highway 126), and set sights for eugene. the drive was wild & winding, so strangely humid like back in PA. we thought we’d never get there and be able to give the TOTALLY CLASSIC floor-mounted highbeam push-button a break, and then – the uncanny aroma of weed EVERYWHERE!(seriously) …we were upon the outskirts of eugene, no doubt, and whether we were imbibing or not, the city & its westernmost wal-mart was there to welcome us with open arms (and ample parking) all. night. long.
the little sisters finally got to see dreams come true beneath the bright parking lot lights…and i thoughtlessly, foolishly turned off the ignition – as if the next morning would see me surviving the curse of a slumbering vehicle with no intention of going anywhere after being allowed an unassuming night’s rest.
to be continued/concluded in tomorrow’s installment…
things are so good all of a sudden & i am so happy i can barely express it. i mean, my standards are certainly at a different level after all my recent months eaten up down south, but even so – my eagerness & excitement about life simply amazes me after getting to where i am now…and things can only go UP from here where i’m startin’ at.
but enough about that! we were right in the middle of a STORY:
left coast leg – day two
so, after our first econo-night in salinas, we woke and hurried along through garlic country USA, and on up to san jose. all the while, we saw billboards advertising Winchester Mystery House – which we found to be just so perfect during a trip that was to be propelled along by the fictional exploits of our favorite winchester boys, sam & dean (who do, in fact, investigate a similar “mystery spot” where “the laws of physics have no meaning…” in one episode of SUPERNATURAL), and our truck, which shares the same moniker. we opted out of the mystery house though, and saved ourselves the groundhogdayitis that sometimes accompanies such experiences.
thus began the thickness of the bay area, where we managed to see the golden gate bridge numerous times in numerous locations from the east bay side…until we were actually across to san quentin and had no other bridges over-that-a-way to confuse us. we were only passing through, so nobody had flowers in their hair (or the wealth to afford to stay in that mystery spot in my list of places to one day experience – san francisco).
we did stop for brunch right around petaluma, and did not even get hassled by the cop who’d pulled somebody over – way over – into the parking lot right next to us, by the weird little bay thing on the petaluma river we’d decided to park alongside. i had thrown a bunch of cherry pits out on the asphalt right next to our door, and we were also driving a vehicle with expired tags & an illegitimate title, but apparently that wasn’t enough for him to pick up our scent. i was instead approached by a guy who just thought we were so cute taking photos and such, as one of the girls picked out a rock (inspired by byrd baylor’s everybody needs a rock). guy asked: “where you traveling to?”
“well, first we’re dropping them off in portland…”
“ah – i have a grandmother in portland, just turned 104.”
“…then we’re heading home to montana.”
“oh, the guy i’m meeting here lived in montana. i don’t remember the name of the place… he went to the college there.”
“well, bozeman has MSU, and missoula, where we lived, has the U of M.”
“that might be it! is it real hard to get to the airport from there? he said it was real hard to get to the airport.”
[people are often misled about the lone "Montana Airport" just west of the missouri river, north of wyoming, south of canada, and a slight ways east of Ranch Access - nearby to the interstate.]
after ukiah-ing amidst the swelter, we managed to not emit any more smoke through the trip’s most fearsome stretch on the way to willits. relieved (though a little spooked by the sometimes-sleepy oil pressure gauge), we stopped for a quart of just-in-case oil and questions asked & answered at the napa in this kindly town where the longhairs are abided, and where the redwood gateway swings wide open – hooray!
now it gets good. first happy forests seen since last fall! the smell of them!!! oh, the splendor and solace of their shade-casting limbs after all that burning…
we meander, we enliven. we stop at a rest area and find somebody’s lost wallet. we roll on, alongside the wriggling eel river, deeper into the goodness of the northwest, finally.
uh oh, detour on 101 near leggett…leads us right into another site where “the laws of physics do not apply”.
this is where i met the 1200 year-old “elbow tree”, and imagined all that it has seen in its lifetime, and how relatively recent its encasement in pavement & relegation to novelty-status occurred. so sick…
north a bit, little sis saw bigfoot “for real”, hanging around in the forest quite nearby to the (phony) bigfoot attraction. of course, this is the perfect place for such a creature to blend in/take pride in so many effigies carved in its honor. like the previous day’s engine/tape deck smoke…we’ll just never know the truth behind such otherwordly visions.
now that we’re nearing our destination for day 2 of this leg, and all supernaturalness is presumably behind us, the fog begins to roll in via the humboldt bay. there is just enough light for us to find our way through eureka, across the bridge to samoa, and into the boat launch parking lot/rv camp (which had raised its rates since our last use of its blacktop). darkness came quick, but we all just had to say hello to the huge, elephantine eucalyptus trees, and the foaming bay calling out to us. we even saw what appeard to be beach lemurs scrambling around near the rockpiles, but as usual – nothing could be confirmed FOR SURE.
the real mystery, after this crazy, redwood-redeemed segment of our journey, is how in the hell we made it almost 400 miles in one day, with nothing of a supernatural…nature waylaying our trajectory towards cascadia & the sweet lands lying beyond it.
[one final triumphant photo of the rig in action (parked action!)]
re-rigged, packed-up, sights set, gettin’ out. although we can’t & oughtn’t (never ever got enough $$$) - we are. exiting this unimaginable, unintended furlough from freedom, bounding northward away from southern california today. this could be the final jaunt before these feet get planted back where they yearn to be (as much as they love to wander as well). seeking connection to a place and relief from all the recent snowballing road-living expenses – of time/energy (in the form of slaving to pay our way)…of my stability & sanity through all of the strandings & automotive madness & not actually traveling whilst being a self-avowed, self-respecting rover. yep – hanging up the hitch, draining the tanks dry, & gettin’ real still for a while back in western MT. well, maybe, anyway.
but first – here’s one last long haul for the road:
left coast leg – day one
it is never not tires. of course there were a million other repairs necessary (even to the point of malfunctioning windshield wiper blades & erratic fluid sprayers), but in the end it always comes down to tires with us. so much rubber shed throughout these rambling years. and again it was cracked, separating tire walls & at least one embedded nail holding us back from flight. and i ended up having to go to god-damned LARRY again, since he had what i needed. this is the guy to whom i was originally sent with our newly purchased $600 pickup…the old friend-of-the-father-in-law-in-theory type thing. the guy who i’d already slighted by coincidentally/accidentally test driving & refusing to buy his big, huge, old beastly rig (actually named & painted up with the word ”BEHEMOTH”), which i’d found on craigslist (“haha, the guy said his name is larry and that his contractor friend said he might buy the truck…wouldn’t it be funny if the contractor is your dad and this is mechanic larry…”). so, i was already off to a bad start with the guy who’s got to have the most peculiar attitude i’ve yet come across in a mechanic (some others of whom i deeply respect for their dedication & skills). larry was definitely lacking in dedication:
“we tuned it up, now drive it around and see what things have gone wrong with it from sitting for so long.” [that's what we brought the thing to you for, asshole].
$1100 later, we were still stuck attaching & removing a hot wire running from the battery to the coil to start up & shut down the truck, plus no working windows, wipers, or stereo (got the electrical & starting problem fixed at another shop, and then the next arising starting problem fixed there as well…)
but now, $2400 total invested into the truck…i was back where i started at larry’s for his last minute tires. at least this was pretty straighforward, though he awkwardized it as usual (and i got to observe how universal his weird treatment of customers & potential customers is, as they came filing through the door or called on the shop phone). whatever, i’m just lucky he didn’t give me $10 and send me down the street to buy a part for the vehicle that was supposedly already finished…like he did to one of my fellow house-erecting crewmembers a while back.
new used tires in place, some wiper blades purchased, dual fuel tanks filled, mail posted – time to go! after securing the trailer inniards, strapping in the cargo/little sistercritters, attempting & failing to light the propane-powered, fully-stocked fridge, and hitching up/plugging in the trailer to the 7-way rv receptacle & brake controller wiring i’d installed myself, for practically the first time…we jumped on “the 101″ (as they say in soCal), and were out of there (en route first to portland for little sibling delivery).
things were nice & smooth up around the bend to gaviota, where we stopped at the rest area & even got the fridge lit (“wait…does that mean that there is actually nothing going wrong with the rig right now?”). didn’t last long though…
“there’s smoke coming out, by the radio!!!”
“i don’t see it, where is it?”
[from the backseat] “i see it, it’s curling out like smoke.”
“i’m trying to see it…are you sure?”
“just pay attention to the road. i am sure!”
“the temperature gauge is reading fine…i don’t see any smoke!”
[from the backseat] “is the truck gonna catch on fire???”
“we need to stop as soon as possible.”
after not stopping as soon as possible (and after no more alleged in-cab smoke), i proceeded to GET THE TRAILER STUCK in a narrow gas pump lane, only to be guided out by an 18-wheeler operator w/ 4-wheeled stretch limousine & full limo driver get up. how embarrassing & ridiculous… ah well, we’ve got worse things to worry about, like a smoke-spewing engine.
next, up by salinas, and to the protest of the youngest of the travel companions who was already complaining and wanting to just “BE THERE”, we opted to stop for the night. spirits were lifted in the backseat when the novel prospect (for them) of sleeping in the parking lot of a WAL-MART was announced, so we were then off on some silly & very bad route to the town of marina, compliments of our mapping program. we wove through the dark, curvy course and parked in the familiar lot, by the familiar fellow rvers, as we’d done countless times in the past. everyone was happy to stop (“i CAN’T WAIT to sleep in our bed in the little house tonight for the first time!”), and the girls even saw the granting of their wishes to ride in the trailer while we looped around in the parking lot to get the angle right so our heads wouldn’t be flooded with blood as we slept.
and that is when the cops arrived, as if on cue. we were ALREADY worried about driving with the kids in back because of laws and all that, but we didn’t actually think police would show up on the scene. we listened to their bull-horned notice: “THIS IS THE MARINA SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT. THERE IS NO OVERNIGHT PARKING AT THIS LOCATION. PLEASE LEAVE IMMEDIATELY.”
we parked, they left, i visited a neighbor rver who had popped his head out the door while his wife went into the store. “the nice german family” (who ended up being québecois…wow, WAY OFF on that one), had been given permission twice by the store manager, and were staying on since all the state parks were booked and full, and because it was like 10pm at this point. so, we went ahead and climbed into our rollin’ nest, ate an organic frozen cheese pizza (yes, we left our defined diet behind in southern california…), watched the obligatory episode of our family bonding tv show – SUPERNATURAL (haha), and went to bed pretty much satisfied.
then: “CLICK…FZZZZZ…THIS IS THE MARINA SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT. WE WILL BE ISSUING CITATIONS FOR ANYONE REFUSING TO LEAVE THIS LOCATION IMMEDIATELY.”
the girls peeked out the window as “the nice german” lady battled it out with the cops and, sadly, lost. so we all caravan’d out and then went our separate ways. ours ended up being back in the direction of salinas (this time finding the right route using nothing but our own wits), where we tried out the rumored truckstops there. salinas is truckstop central, but despite that (or else because of it), all of them were packed. so, in a last ditch effort to actually get some sleep on our very first night of the trip, we took the advice given to the nice german lady by the mean old cop, and asked at the econolodge if we could park in the back of the lot. the very funny unusual night manager man said “sure”, and we were set.
first time we’ve EVER been kicked out of a walmart in all our days on the road. what kind of a world is it where children get their dreams of capitalist parking lot camp-outs squashed by the law?
————————————————————————————————–
what day #1 & our leaving sounded like:
and here’s winchester! (named after those vigilante brothers on SUPERNATURAL – heehee)
while inquiring with my new/fellow ex-bitterrooter acquaintance at the local trader joes about summer jobs in back (not gonna happen) & dumpster diving way out back (not an option in this hungry, heavily-class stratified town either), my eyes wandered towards the entrance where, BY GOD, i saw chris-in-the-morning stevens’ brother browsing amongst the individually-packaged produce items! naturally, i faded away from the guy’s on-the-job banter & stalked my first in-the-flesh celeb around the store. sure enough, he (richard cummings, jr.) had aged in a way that would be expected in the 15 years that have passed since northern exposure started to suck & went, well – south. i was a little unsure, as one always is in these situations, but this IS southern california, and he even had one of those star trek communication devices attached to his ear like successful people typically will when going to the grocery store. i proceeded to prowl & observe until we arrived at our checkout lines (he opted for the express lane because he is most likely very busy). i didn’t know what i was going to do since everything was moving so fast, but when he ran out to his car to get his forgotten reusable grocery bag, i knew my chance was at hand. he returned, paid, and turned to leave when i approached and said “you didn’t act on northern exposure, did you?”
“uh, no…sorry. not me.”
“oh man…wow…awesome.”
but, fuck – it was HIM!
probably just didn’t want to be mobbed on his way out of the store and through the crowded parking lot, so he denied everything. oh well…
SHOULDA BEEN ME!
um anyway…haha – at least i’ve finally found a way to broach the subject of the northern exposure tv series on here (always seemed tangential to the premise of this writing space). i didn’t have much saved up to mention on this topic, just how i’ve always wanted to see a hybrid show of northern exposure/deadwood, with a slow motion galloping moose in the title sequence. also, i almost did really see marilyn/elaine miles (who is hilarious & my favorite character & the all-around best ever)…but we didn’t get back up to missoula the time she was going to make an appearance.
i guess i was also sort of wondering what y’all alaskans & native turtle island folks thought/think about nor ex, since i don’t have that kind of perspective through which to filter such a show.
okay, i think that’s all there is to say here.
***this post is dedicated to tara, who always makes sure to ask me about my up-until-now-nil celebrity sightings while buried here in this LAvishness. and also because of her northernness & cause of everything else about it that applies.
get a car for under $2,000 (now that the brokedown truck’s sold for half of that, via ebay). quit this wage slavin’! head north, yank all our good stuff outta storage & inject fancy fancy furnishings into the cheapest little greatest place of our own ever in that prettiest, most colorful, old, crumbling, wilderness-abutting, all-the-while-toxified-ta-high-hell town of our dreams…ever awaiting our ailing bodies & minds - beckoning beautiful & battery acid lake-like. make it in time for the folk festival for fuck’s sake!
make the art again. get making music again. make us some meals. make like we mean it. get back into the thick of that shit tangled all up together once more & MAKE IT!
awake after 3 1/2 hours sleep with the bright & early lung-drag of a mild bout of asthma & this northward-creeping, chronic case of flea bites both borrowed from luxurious fur jungles of little itching luxury lapdogs, in the $2400/mo luxury house where our share/lair costs us $200, merging at the latitude of my upper thorax. nowhere to hide really (snuck out to the travel trailer to sleep sort of accidental last night…”existentialism is the shit!” said a loud walker through the thin walls before i drifted to nowhere quite far away enough). right middle fingernail potato-peelered halfway to the cuticle, to the point of not playing no more songs now as a result of the pain - tired of ‘em all anyway.
digging ditches. filling them in. ripping down walls & hauling away strips of roofing so more can be unnecessarily erected/re-laid. negotiating estranged in-laws-in-theory without catching collateral stabs-in-the-back. only up $500 in these weeks of supposed workin’ n savin’. that fancy inherited first-ever cellphone? broken already (fuming tech-hatred results in regular failures of mechanical items by proxy, it seems).
guy at work lost his sense of smell after hitting the back of his head on a moving car while riding a bicycle twenty years ago. didn’t put it together until a few years later when he realized his strongest sense memory was sloppy joes at six years old. can’t really taste much besides spicy (“i’m definitely not a picky-eater!”). contemplating what that must be like… he can’t smell the sea – the only thing there is here worth inhaling, unless you get one of those cards everybody or their spouse finagles from the state to legally smoke up an expensive escape (i’ve never tried having a habit of anything, but the first thing that strikes me about it is the exorbitant cost of breeding a dependence on an activity or substance that makes one forget about one’s life for a little while – especially in this forced-capitalist crush we’re all under…spend less on cheaper, shittier food? sure! cut down on consumption of things not necessary for survival, but with the ability to numb one’s struggle? no way! [not a judgment, just an observation of the costly desperation i hear in fellow ditch-digger's "i'll be budding-up five minutes down the road from here" daily sentiments]).
also never spent much time around habitually-intoxicated folks, so it’s always a shock when i unknowingly ask one a simple question like “are you emily’s brother?”
“…emily is [slurs]’s kid.”
“okay, you’re not her brother?”
[he gets more up-in-my-face while his buddy approaches, wobbly after exiting the cab that brought the teenage-lookin' boys home]
“whassup?!?!”
“okay, this is emily’s house, right?”
“emily lives upstairs…whassup man??!!?”
[starting to feel like this guy, who i later find out is emily's cousin, is going to kick my ass for being...i don't know...THERE]
“whatever…her friend who is sleeping-over needed me to drop some stuff off. i left it inside the door.”
[i fucking leave before i feel the brunt of a confused rich beach house kid & his sidekick supercharged on beers in the middle of the night, beneath buzzing streetlights & palm trees a-swaying]
we’re looking for a truck. i’m looking for some light (doesn’t shine here quite right). yesterday we ran off to the santa monica mountains national recreation area that i found in utter astonishment on the PCH after picking up the little ones at LAX (after their trip to PDX and the fucking Z-O-O…showing me pictures of enslaved elephants & warthogs & otters, seals, apes, and the similarly alien flora of their distant regions – all separated by/resting upon the concrete that i guess is now ubiquitously native to their homelands). after getting past the power stations, smokestacks, and agricultural wastes, we reached a portion of coastline with pacific waters crashing wildly on rocks & cliffs instead of the local tides’ usual custom of cowering at the feet of beachfront condos and vacation homes (until the day when it’s all finally flushed away). we recalled a little of what we do – go to different, good places, take pictures, dance, remember what it is that makes us fight this fight against the colonizers & the scars they’ve inflicted upon everything, everywhere. pelicans hovered, inverted, DOVE down into the sea. rockpiles received their daily embrace of breaking waves and salty mist. the living air there linked her and my stares, and we were back in it for a minute.
i do have a dependency, a habit. it is the re-forging of that feral connection, revisiting the place where i ought to be evermore. but my proclivity is one that’s free (or at least it should be – needs to be freed). withdrawal here in the city’s dead heart is only natural, of course (in its abject lack of nature). i just break down and start pacing inside my cage so quickly with all of captivity’s attendant insanity. like those elephants behind the fence with their heads against the walls – i am not much of myself here. my self is all that extends within and without of my open eyes, nose, ears, mouth, toes and fingertips – all that feeds me & all that i’m feeding by being alive (as well as everyone who i’ll feed when my body dies). here, in this, all i see is an absence of life; all i’m smelling are car fumes & perfumes; all that i hear are the grindings & screeches of a city being kept “alive” by machines, while tasting no foods who’ve grown on their own terms (the organic raspberries from the store gush an emptiness upon one’s tongue…even in all their swollen, mutant bright redness).
all that i’m feeling here, from toes on up to lacerated fingertip, is fucking suffocated, and itchy.
poor prisoner pachyderms need our help! photo stolen from one of the kids.
Nikki Craft, Lierre Keith and Derrick Jensen collaborating on a music video about catastrophic climate change, arctic animals, and militant direct action.
You can help by passing this information on:
Nikki Craft, Lierre Keith, and Derrick Jensen are collaborating in this music video about catastrophic climate change, arctic animals, and militant direct action. This ten minute video is a call on activists to discuss and seriously consider militant tactics and direct action in defense of all life on the planet.
Read the two-volume book, Endgame, by Derrick Jensen if you want specific ideas for strategy and activism.
You can help by sharing this information with your friends, all the social networking sites, and appropriate Facebook groups. For more information, or if you would like your own copy of this video to directly upload to sites, please send a friend request to Nikki Craft on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/people/Nikki-Cr aft/731530378) or off FB contact her at nikkicraft@gmail.com. If you share this video, and we hope you will, please include all text herein.
