Category Archives: My True Life

Mar30

Good Samaritan

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I broke the first rule of van life. I didn’t know where my keys were.

It only took about twenty seconds of not knowing where my keys were for life to begin to unravel.

I’d pulled in to a potential boondocking spot to check it out on my way somewhere else. As I drove around the main loop, nature called, then began to shout. I pulled into a spot near a pit toilet restroom and hustled inside. Once out, I slapped some hand sanitizer on my palms and climbed into the driver’s seat. Then I thought, I should take a few photos here, grabbed my camera, got out of the van, and slammed the door behind me.

Snap! Snap! I took the photos and turned around to get back in the van. The door was locked. I reached down for the cord around my neck on which my keys usually hang. No keys. That’s when I realized I didn’t know where my keys were.

It didn’t take me long to find the keys. I looked through the window on the driver’s side door and saw them, one sitting in the ignition, the other hanging on the ring. I cursed under my breath.

Maybe another door is unlocked, I thought. I walked around the van checking doors. Every door was locked. Every window was latched. There was no getting in.

This is what I think happened. I unlocked the van and got in the driver’s seat. I hit the power lock button, but didn’t close and latch the driver’s side door. I put the key in the ignition, but didn’t start the engine. I decided to take photos and grabbed my camera. At that moment, I thought I knew where my keys were, but in reality, I didn’t. I got out of the van, not realizing the door was going to be locked when I slammed it behind me.

So. I was locked out. My keys were in the van. My phone was in the van. All helpful phone numbers were in the van. Everything was in the van, except for me and my camera, and the camera was not going to do me any good.

Down from where I was parked was a school bus. It had a nice, conservative, professional looking paint job. When I’d first pulled in, I’d seen a man and a young teenage boy cooking at the fire ring. (Roasting marshmallows is what it looked like they were doing.) When I saw the man (thin, mid 30s, with short brown hair) come out of the bus, I walked over and politely asked him if he knew how to jimmy a lock. He grinned and said he didn’t have the right equipment, which made me think he could jimmy a lock if he had the right tools.

When I told him I’d locked myself out, he and his boy (about thirteen years old, lanky, short hair, and with a machete strapped to his side) walked over to the van.

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This is the back window that was open.

The man walked around the van, checked every window, tried every door, found it was locked tight, except for a window on one of the back doors. Unfortunately, there’s no way to open those back doors from inside even if one of us could have gotten an arm through the small opening at the bottom of the window.

The man and his son discussed different tools they might have that would work to jimmy the lock on one of my doors. Nothing the boy named seemed right to the dad.

At one point I asked if they had a coat hanger, and the man laughed and said, I live in an RV. I guess those marshmallows I thought I saw hadn’t been skewered on a coat hanger.

The man thought he could take the bolts out of the piece holding on the back window and remove the whole thing. He sent the boy to get tools. The boy came back not only with wrenches, but with two younger kids, a girl of about eleven, with long blond hair slung into a ponytail, and another boy, this one about nine with short, dirty-blond hair.

The man couldn’t get the bolts off. He sent the boy to get crescent wrenches. Those didn’t work either. The man tried the boy’s machete in the gap between window and body on the passenger side door, but that didn’t work either. The girl produced a Swiss Army knife with a tool the older boy thought might work, but that tool too proved inadequate.

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This photo shows the hinges holding the door to the van.

Just when I thought the man was going to admit defeat and tell me there was nothing he could do to help me, he wondered aloud if he could remove the pins from the hinges on the side door, thus enabling him to remove the door. He banged on the top pin, and to everyone’s delight, it moved. He sent the big boy to the bus for a hammer and chisel. It didn’t take long for him to remove the pins and take the door off its hinges. Some wires (electrical, probably) connected the door to the van body, so the man held the door while I tried to snake my (frankly, too fat) arm into the gap between the door and the van’s body. Then the man had the idea to open the latch on the window of the unhinged door. Once I stuck my hand in the open lower portion of the window, it was easy enough to reach under the cloth organizer hanging there and slide open the lock.

It didn’t take the man (who when it was all over introduced himself as Tim) long to get the pins back in the door’s hinges, at which point, I was on my way.

Thanks Tim (originally form Philly) for not giving up and leaving me stranded. You’re not just a good Samaritan, but an angel too, I think.

I took the photos in this post.

Mar29

Words of Wisdom from Dad

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My dad has a lot of thoughts, opinions, and ideas, and he’s not afraid to say anything out loud. Today I want to share some of the words that came out of my father’s mouth repeatedly during the years I lived under his roof. (Not all of these sayings originated with my dad, but he said them so much, I think of them as his.) I’ll let the reader decide for him/herself which words are really wise.

A lock is to keep an honest man honest.

You know what thought did? He thought he’s farted, but he’d shit his pants.

It’s not illegal if you don’t get caught.

If everybody liked the same thing, there wouldn’t be enough to go around.

Spit in the air and it lands on your nose.

Six of one, half a dozen of another.

[When he wanted a kid to leave so he could be alone with Mom] Be gone, peasant!

Possession is 9/10 of the law.

“Assume” makes an ass of you and me.

[If a kid were crying about some hurt] You won’t remember this on your wedding day.

[If a kid were crying about some hurt he thought was insignificant] Do you want me to smash your fingers with a hammer so you’ll know what hurt really is?

[If a kid were misbehaving] I’m going to rip off your arm and beat you with the bloody end.

I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.

I only know of one guy who was perfect, and they crucified that son-of-a-bitch.

It’s all over but the cryin’.

[To describe something dark] It’s darker than 65 miles out in the desert on the darkest night of the year.

Who lied to you and said life was fair, kid?

What words of wisdom did your parents offer when you were young? What were the catchphrases in your family? What did you tell your own kids? Feel free to leave a comment sharing your family’s words.

 

Mar27

My Time in Mt. Shasta

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Almost as soon as we pulled into the town of Mt. Shasta, Mr. Carolina saw his friend Milton. He pointed out the guy (an thin, older man), but we were on a mission to drink from the headwaters of the Sacramento River. After we’d filled our bottles and drunk our fill, we headed out to look for Milton. He wasn’t difficult to find, as he hadn’t walked very far from where we’d seen him. Mr. Carolina pulled the van into a nearby parking lot and he and Milton had a huggy reunion.

Milton needed a ride up the road to Weed. Yes, that’s the real name of a town.

Weed is a city located in Siskiyou County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the town had a total population of 2,967…

Weed is about 10 miles (16 km) west-northwest of Mount Shasta, a prominent northern California landmark…

The town of Weed gets its name from the founder of the local lumber mill and pioneer Abner Weed, who discovered that the area’s strong winds were helpful in drying lumber. In 1897, Abner Weed bought the Siskiyou Lumber and Mercantile Mill and 280 acres (1.1 km2) of land in what is now the City of Weed, for the sum of $400.[7]

Milton said his errand wouldn’t take long and asked if we could give him a ride. He said he’d have some cash after his errand and could give us gas money and treat us to lunch. Mr. Carolina and I readily agreed. I was really hungry, but all our money had gone to buy gas to get us to Mt. Shasta. I’d told myself all day that when I arrived in Mt. Shasta, someone would feed me. It looked as if my prophesy would come true.

After the errand was run and the hamburgers were eaten, Milton invited us to stay at the free camping spot on public land  where he pitched his tent. We drove out there and met the motley crew making up his community. There were several young men living there, a middle-age woman with a history of mental health issues whom they’d taken under their collective wing, and several dogs. These folks planned to spend the whole winter in that spot, living in their tents.

We hadn’t been in the woods long when the group suggested we drive to a free community dinner at a church near town.

The meal was pretty good: pasta with red sauce, salad, and garlic bread.

At the dinner, I recognized a couple I’d met a few years before at a music festival and again later on  Further lot. The world felt really small to me after randomly meeting up in Northern California with acquaintances I’d made on the other side of the country.

After the meal, we went back to Milton’s community for the night. I slept in my bed in my van and passed one of the coldest nights I can remember. I had my sleeping bag spread over me like a blanket, but it didn’t do enough to contain my body heat. I couldn’t wait for the sun to rise. I worried about the folks who planned to sleep out there in their tents in the winter snow.

My recollections of the second day with Milton’s crew are vague, although I do remember a few things. I remember we went back to the church where we’d had dinner for a clothing giveaway where I got a pair of white and blue billowy pants. I barely remember the guys shooting a pellet gun; I took a turn and to my delight, I hit the target. I remember shocking Milton with one of my stories (maybe the one about the man offering me $40 for a blowjob once when I was flying a sign), and him saying, I didn’t see that coming, sister. I remember one of the guys (a Southern boy from North Carolina, I think), always referring to me as Miss Blaize.

Late in the afternoon, the community members invited us to stay for dinner. Mr. Carolina seemed hesitant to stay another night, but I didn’t want to get on the road so late in the day. We agreed to stay for dinner, spend the night, and leave early-ish in the morning.

On the menu that night was chicken of the woods, collected locally by someone in the group. I’d only heard of chicken of the woods a few days before, and had never tasted it.

Wikipedia says,

Laetiporus is a genus of edible mushrooms found throughout much of the world. Some species, especially Laetiporus sulphureus, are commonly known as sulphur shelf, chicken of the woods, the chicken mushroom, or the chicken fungus because many think they taste like chicken. The name “chicken of the woods” is not to be confused with the edible polypore, Maitake (Grifola frondosa) known as “hen of the woods”, or with Lyophyllum decastes, known as the “fried chicken mushroom”.

The mushroom can be prepared in most ways that one can prepare chicken meat…

In some cases eating the mushroom “causes mild reactions . . . for example, swollen lips” or in rare cases “nausea, vomiting, dizziness and disorientation” to those who are sensitive.[5] This is believed to be due to a number of factors that range from very bad allergies to the mushroom’s protein, to toxins absorbed by the mushroom from the wood it grows on..to simply eating specimens that have decayed past their prime.

There wasn’t much food in the van, but we were able to contribute cooking oil for frying the mushrooms, and I think we offered up rice as well. I was glad we had some food to share with the group, food that was actually going to help make the meal delicious. (The Southern boy who was doing the cooking maintained it was the process of frying in oil that brought out the chickeniness of the mushroom.)

The meal turned out to be tasty. The mushrooms did have a meaty texture and a chickeny taste, and I enjoyed myself until the guys did the dishes by letting the dogs lick the cooking pots and then washing the pots with cold water. (At least they did use dish soap.) I tried not to think about the dog germs that were probably on the pots before dinner was cooked. I tried to convince myself the hot oil had killed all the dog germs in that pot, but what about the pot the rice had been cooked in? There was no hot oil to kill germs there. Gross!

After dinner, I retired early to the van. I got inside my sleeping bag, so I stayed plenty warm. However, it wasn’t long before I had another problem: a rumbling tummy. Scary thoughts ran through my mind. Had the person gathering mushrooms gathered something poisonous instead of chicken of the woods? Had I gotten food poisoning from the unsanitary kitchen? Was I going to die?

I needed to use the toilet, but the free camping area was free of amenities; there wasn’t even a pit toilet. I was going to have to dig a cat hole before I took care of my business, and I wasn’t sure I could deal with that in the dark. I cowered in my sleeping bag all night, my stomach rumbling, feeling a bit nauseous, hoping I wasn’t dying, trying not to shit my pants.

I was relieved to make it to first light, when I was able to exit the van, dig a hole behind a bush, and let what was ailing me out of my system. Oh relief!

 

 

Mar23

If the World Ends Right Now…

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The other day, a long-time friend of mine, an author, updated her Facebook status to read,

Googled “if the world ends right now, I hope I die in your ample bosom,” looking for plagiarism in a second-hand memory.

Her second-hand memory sparked the smallest of recollections in my brain, but I didn’t exactly know what she was talking about until she followed up with

Blaize Sun, this is one of my favorite lines from a story I didn’t witness. It runs through my head sometimes, and it just struck me that maybe it was from a book. I don’t think so!

At that point I remembered I was privy to that “ample bosom” quote. I wrote

No! It was NOT from a book. It was from a state park camp-out in Texas in 2000. It was not my ample bosom in question. I was sleeping on a picnic table (dumb idea!) and the owner of the ample bosom and the admirer of the ample bosom were sleeping nearby. Can’t remember if they were in a tent and just loud or if they were camped out sans tent on the base of the picnic table. I don’t know if that was the exact quote but definitely the general sentiment.

What’s really funny to me is that while I witnessed the event (at least in an auditory fashion), I only think about this when you–and  I think Lou–mention it.

I will not name names in this public fashion since I never know who’s a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend and might see this. But I attest to the fact it that it really happened.

My friend the writer came back with

I remember that it was from one xxxxx, but I wondered if he’d read it or come up with it on the spot, bc [because]  that is some quick, brilliant thinking!

It is such a funny story. I think of it all the time. I’m glad I wasn’t there to witness first-hand, bc [because] I think your retelling definitely enhances it!

At that point Lou sent me a personal message that started like this:

Wait…who said what?!? Why is my memory fuzzy on this?

And I answered,

Oh, I thought you remembered this story. It must just be [our mutual friend] who remembers.

Lou said,

I remember the quote but not the who, what, when, where, why.

I asked,

Remember that trip to New Mexico I went on with AmeriCorps in 2000? The one [your boss] (boo! hiss!) wouldn’t let you go on?
Then Lou said,
Oh!! Now I remember more. It makes sense because I wasn’t there.

I was in AmeriCorps in 2000, and I got to go on a trip to New Mexico to break trail in the Gila National Forest. Half of the folks on the trip were part of an AmeriCorps program that mostly did trail building and maintenance, but a few folks from the (related) program I was in went on the trip too. One of the other people from my program who was allowed to go on the trip was a guy named Dee.

The non-AmeriCorps folks on the trip were part of a group I referred to as the

mostly old people who worked on trails.

While I was the oldest person in my AmeriCorps program (seven years older than my boss), the people in the trail group were even older than I was. Some of them were downright elderly, as in, in their 70s. But these elderly people were active and fit and proved to be as hardworking as any of the 20-somethings on the trip. Also, the older people had money. They provided the vans we rode in and the gas to power them, as well as all of the food we ate.

There was a woman in that group I’ll call Sally (to protect her identity and because I no longer have the faintest idea of what her name actually was). Although Sally was older than my 29 years, she was the absolute baby of the mostly old people group. I think she was about 36 and pretty, with long dark hair. As the only people on the trip in our age group, Sally and I became buddies for the duration. I would soon find out that I was not the only one who had grown to enjoy Sally’s…er…company.

I don’t know if Sally and Dee had hooked up while we were camping in the Gila National Forest. I don’t know if they had been sitting together, making eyes at each other on the van ride back to Texas. What I do know is that on our last night away from home, we camped at a state park.

At that point, I was tired of setting up my tent at night and breaking it down in the morning, so I decided to sleep on top of a picnic table. All I can say is that it seemed like a good idea at the time…I spent the night tossing and turning on the hard surface, trying not to fall off. To make matters worse, Sally and Dee had parked their budding romance just a little too close to me.

I can’t remember now if they were in a nearby tent or on the ground at the edge of the picnic table. (Lou says,

Probably in a tent. I feel like I’ve had that problem before when inside a tent you forget that your tent doesn’t have real walls and everyone can hear you. It feels so enclosed and private!)

In any case, I heard every breathless word they spoke to each other, and at some point Dee dropped the cringe-worthy line my writer friend has remembered all these years:

if the world ends right now, I hope I die in your ample bosom

or at least words of boob appreciation along those lines. And well, yeah, I repeated his words way back then, and I seem to be repeating them again today.

 Many thanks to Kel for this memory and to Kel and Lou for their words which are included in this story.

 

Mar9

Husbands and Dogs

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It was a slow day at the Bridge. Because there were few customers, vendors were walking around, visiting with each other. There wasn’t much else to do.

I was sitting at my table, working on a bracelet. I hardly ever sit idle at the Bridge.

I could hear a couple of vendors–friends of mine–talking. They were discussing gay marriage, and they were not taking a pro-gay-marriage stance.

Here’s the thing about me: I’ve experienced affection, love, attraction, lust, desire, fondness, passion, and yearning for both men and women (and for more than a couple of people who didn’t choose either of those categories to describe themselves). I’ve had sex with men and sex with women. Gender isn’t a limiting factor as far as I’m concerned.

But straight people tend to assume everyone is straight, and I just let that assumption ride at the Bridge. As a woman on my own, I didn’t want the mostly drunk male vendors hitting on me. No way was I interested in getting involved with any of them. I also did not want any of these drunk dudes harassing me for being a dyke. So while I wasn’t ashamed of my sexual proclivities, I wasn’t out and loud about them either. After a couple of summers working at the Bridge, when I got a boyfriend, well, that just reinforced what people thought they already knew about me.

So I could hear my friends talking not too far from me. I could hear them getting each other all riled up, talking about standards and traditions, saying things like, Huh! Now anybody can get married. Next thing you know, people are going to be able to marry their dog.

I try to stay out of other people’s conversations. I really do. I try not to butt in. I try not to get involved. But that day I lost control and I turned to my friends and said, Well, I know a lot of dogs who would make better husbands than most of the men I know.

My male friend who was involved in the conversation is generally a kind and loving person, and he’s been a good friend to me. He’s also told me about the womanizer he used to be. He looked at me with big, sad eyes, and he said, Ouch. That hurt.

The folks having the hateful little conversation disbanded. I don’t know if I did anything to change their minds, but at least I didn’t have to listen to their ugliness.

I’m not into marriage. I’ve never been married, and I hope I never am. Marriage is an oppressive institution. Yes, some people do have egalitarian marriages where needs are met and love is shared. But marriage is based on property and patriarchy and capitalism and inheritance. Marriage is not my cup of tea.

But how does gay marriage–or even human/dog marriage–detract from traditional man/woman marriage? How does marrying one’s dog hurt other people? (Ok, I know, a dog can’t give verbal consent to marriage or any activities commonly related to marriage–such as visiting in-laws one can’t stand–but let’s just pretend for one moment that the dog wants to get married too.) If someone is so rah-rah-rah 100% into marriage, how does a non-traditional marriage hurt the true believers or the institution as a whole?

I’m not sure most dogs I know would actually make better husbands than most of the men I know. While the dogs are loyal, loving, devoted, and don’t spend the rent money on beer or weed or gambling, none of them have a job or money of their own. Most of them just lay around all day and want to take up more than their fair share of the bed at night. Also, the dogs always expect me feed them and take them on walks. Me, me, me the dogs always seem to be saying.

Sure, I get lonely sometimes, but overall, I think I’m better off on my own.

Feb28

Barbie Heads

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12568309_976809452404963_1329684302_nIt started in Arkansas. Mr. Carolina and the Okie and I had spent the night in in my van, in a Wal-Mart parking lot. In the morning when we tried to go about our business, we found that one of the tires was flat. We then had to go about the business of getting the tire fixed. Mr. Carolina borrowed an air compressor (a testament to Southern hospitality and Mr. Carolina’s powers of persuasion) and pumped up the tire enough to drive the van to the automotive repair entrance at the back of the store.

Somewhere between eating our McDonald’s sausage burrito breakfast and the actual moving of the van, I walked across the parking lot to the Dollar Tree. I went in and bought a fat black marker for sign-making, then stopped at the Dollar Tree dumpster to get a big piece of cardboard upon which to use the marker. On the ground near the dumpster, I found the head of a Barbie doll.

Of course, the doll whose head I had acquired had not been named Barbie. Real, true, name-brand Barbies are not sold at Dollar Tree. The head I had acquired had once belonged to a nameless “fashion doll.” What happened to this “fashion doll’s” body, we will never know.

As I walked up to the boys, I hollered in an exaggerated Southern drawl, Look what Santa left! as I waved around the cardboard in one hand and the doll head in the other. Then I commenced to poke a hole in the top of the not-a-Barbie’s head so I could impale her on the van’s radio antenna.

Once the doll’s head was on the antenna, Mr. Carolina started laughing. Oh, Blaize, he said, thank you. That’s what I hoped you were going to do with her.

The doll head stayed on the antenna as I traveled through the South. It was in Asheville, NC when the Okie and I delivered Mr. Carolina to his brother. It was at the truck stop east of Asheville where I dropped the Okie off to hitchhike to his further adventures. It went all the way to Austin, TX where I landed in the guestroom of my friend Lou and her new husband.

My first night in Austin, Lou gave me a pair of cowgirl boots I loved (RIP cheap, non-repairable cowgirls boots I wore to shreds) and invited me to a roller derby party.

I’d just spent two months in a warm fuzzy hug of the Grateful Dead, the kindness of strangers, and sweet-young-man friends who recognized and appreciated my inner goodness. My blissed-out hippy self was not quite prepared for the hard-drinking, rather jaded, rough playing, urban roller derby women I met at the party. It’s safe to say those women were not quite prepared for me handing out quartz crystals I’d dug from the Arkansas mud and trying to have real conversations with folks.

Two things at the party got my attention, the first thing being a van parked in the backyard and decked out with colored lights and cushions so people could hang out inside. I could barely wrap my head around the fact that to these house-dwellers, hanging out in a van at a  party was somehow exotic. I was asking Lou perplexed questions about the van, trying to understand, when she gently reminded me that people who don’t live in vans might think it exciting to sit in one at a party.

The second thing that caught my attention was a woman wearing a hat in which the legs of Barbie dolls (real, true, hard-plastic, name-brand Barbie dolls) had been used to fashion a Mohawk. Lou told me the woman had fashioned the Mohawk on the hat herself, and I got really excited, wondering if she still had the Barbie heads lying around.

I was by no means calm when I approached the Barbie-leg-Mohawk woman. I was babbling, it’s true. I told her I loved the hat, then said, I need the heads. She continued to look at me like and who the fuck are you? until I managed to explain live in my van, Barbie head impaled on antenna, need more to fill entire antenna. I think I got her with impaled.

A couple of days later when I went to see Lou play in a roller derby exhibition bout, a grocery store bag filled with Barbie heads was delivered to me. It didn’t take me long to make holes in all of the heads and add them to the antenna lineup.

For the next couple of months, people in Austin noticed those Barbie heads. While stopped at traffic lights, I saw people taking photos of the heads. More than once I saw people stop on the quiet street in front of Lou’s house to hop out of their cars and take photos of the heads. I suppose those heads unexpectedly jammed onto the antenna were an answer to the plea to Keep Austin Weird.

I loved the way those Barbie heads caught people’s attention, and I loved them because the one had so amused Mr. Carolina. But when I hit the elk and left my van behind, I left the heads too. It seemed silly to pack them in my backpack and tote them around as I hitchhiked, but mostly it seemed silly to try to prolong an era I knew had come to an end.

Photo of the Barbie heads on my van’s antenna taken by me. Special thanks to RenRen who helped me get the photo off my phone and into this post.

 

Jan20

Mexican Milkshake

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I was in Austin, TX, staying with friends (a married man and woman) I’d met in college. By staying with, I mean they’d given me their large, comfortable guest bedroom and bath, as well as access to WiFi, their HBO on Demand account, and all the movies and TV shows I wanted to watch on Netflix, Hula, and Amazon Prime. They also fed me anytime I was around and they were eating, and they let me borrow a car when I was between vans. I hung out with them and their siblings and nieces and nephews during family night on Fridays, and I celebrated the season premiere of Game of Thrones with them. (We celebrated by saying, Winter is coming a lot and by eating a most delicious chocolate cream pie baked by the Woman half of the duo.) In other words, they treated me like family.

As I eased into the routine of the household, I learned The Woman went to an afternoon movie most every week. She typically went to one of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas in South Austin. The Man half of the duo said if I ever went there, I really needed to try an adult (meaning with alcohol) milkshake.

One day The Woman invited me to go to the theater with her. I wanted to go, but when I asked her what movie she was planning to see, she said Mud, starring  Matthew McConaughey. It sounded like a possible downer. My mental health was rather fragile at the time, and I couldn’t risk a movie sending me into a tailspin of depression, so I politely declined.

A couple of days later The Woman said she’d changed her mind and had decided to see the original Jurassic Park–in 3D. Was I interested in seeing that movie? The Woman asked. Well hell yes I was! I’d never seen any of the Jurassic Park movies, so I was excited for this (belated, yes) cultural experience–and in 3D, no less.

The woman and I arrived at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema plenty early. We picked our spot and sank into the comfortable seats. Upon consulting the menu, I quickly found the adult milkshake I wanted to try. It was called a Mexican milkshake; added to the chocolate milkshake was tequila and cinnamon. Yes, please! The Woman encouraged me to order food too, so I asked the waiter for an order of green chile cheese fries.

When our food was delivered, I dug right in. The fries were cooked to perfection–crispy and crunchy on the outside and soft and moist on the inside–and the cheese was a lovely white cheddar. The green chiles added a perfect kick. So delicious! The milkshake was fantastic! I love me a chocolate milkshake (so cold! so creamy! so chocolately!) and the tequila added a kick of its own. I was in food heaven.

Before the movie started, a warming came on the screen. Basically, it said to turn off cell phones and no talking. It said the management would kick out people who talked during the movie. I was glad for the no-talking rule, but I knew I’d have to keep my tequila tipsy self in check.

Then the movie started and WOW–dinosaurs in 3D. I knew Jurassic Park was a thriller, but I never knew it also had environmental/don’t-fuck-with-Mother-Nature themes. I enjoyed the action and the dinosaurs practically coming out of the screen at me.  I managed to keep my shrieks of surprise (and my snarky comments about the 80s hair and clothing) to myself, so as not to get kicked out.

What a fun and yummy couple of hours. And what a good and generous friend The Woman was to treat me to all that fun and yumminess.

 

Jan14

Snow Angels

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My siblings and I grew up in the Deep South. We didn’t see much snow.

I’ve seen photos of myself when I was about two years old, wearing a little plaid coat with the hood up, standing in the snow. I don’t remember the snow, but I do remember the photos, which is sort of like remembering the snow.

christmas, cold, friendsWhen I was 18, it snowed again. I had tonsillitis and was too sick to go out and play, but my sibling made a (small) snowman. It was no more than two feet tall, and it stayed in the family’s chest freezer until our mom got frustrated with shifting it around every time she wanted to extract a package of ground beef.

In any case, snow? Not so much.

However, one of the favorite games of the kids in my family was snow. We would scoop up handfuls of pretend snow and pack pretend snowballs. We’d throw those pretend snowballs at each other. This game took place exclusively indoors, in the family home, a circa 1974 mobile home.

After we grew tired of tossing imaginary snowballs at each other, we’d lie down on the golden-brown shag carpet in the living room and make snow angels. I don’t remember how we even knew about snow angels. One of us must have read about them, or maybe we saw them on TV. (Is there a snow angel scene in the Charlie Brown Christmas special?) We’d lie on our backs and rub our little arms and legs back and forth through the shag carpeting. (It’s a wonder we never got rug burns.) When we stood up and looked back, we could almost see the outlines of angels in the carpet.

After we were both grown-up, my sibling (of tiny snow person fame) moved to the Midwest. The first time I visited her, I got lucky and the town got snow. After some snowball throwing, we got down to business and lay on our backs on the ground to make snow angels.

It was one of my few adult experiences actually as fun as I imagined it would be when I was a kid. But I did learn that shag carpeting is a lot warmer and drier than snow.

Apparently my siblings and I were not the only people who had the idea of making snow angels in shag carpet. In a book called Schooled by Anisha Lakhani, a couple of young women do the same thing.

Image courtesy of https://www.pexels.com/photo/christmas-cold-friends-frosty-269370/.

 

 

 

Jan13

The Rainbow Gathering That Wasn’t

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When I first talked to Sweet L, he told me that he and the crew (Mr. Carolina. Robbie, and the Fighting Couple), as well as Buttons and his mom and her guy were heading to a Rainbow Gathering in Nevada. Buttons (who was in this mid-30s) was riding with his mom (who was in her late 50s) and her guy (who was in his mid-40s) in a car that could seat one more person, but the other folks had no ride. I told Sweet L they could ride with me until I got to my stopping point.

I found the group the next morning, and we loaded up. Robbie got in the car with Buttons and his family, which meant I had Mr. Carolina riding shotgun, Sweet L and Mr. Fighting Couple in the middle seats, Ms. Fighting Couple and all the packs on my bed, and the Fighting Couple’s two dogs on the floor.

Fast-forward through me having so much fun I decided to go to the Rainbow Gathering too and offered my van as our means of transportation. Fast-forward through (literal) rainbows and hot springs, sign flying and gas jugging, Las Vegas and the Hoover Dam, and Robbie moving into the van in Flagstaff. Fast-forward through all of that, and we were in the small Nevada town closest to the area where the Rainbow Gathering was to be held.

Sweet L was doing most of the internet research to get us to the gathering. He wanted to be at the gathering because he had been told it would be a jumping off point for folks traveling to Guatemala for an intergalactic Rainbow Gathering peaking on 12-21-12. Buttons was talking about caravans driving through drug-runner tunnels stretching across the U.S./Mexico border and on to Guatemala. This Nevada Rainbow Gathering was supposed to be the place to meet the people making such transportation happen.

Sweet L had been in touch with one of the gathering’s focalizers, a man staying in a small, locally owned motel. The man invited us to come to his motel room, take showers, and hang out.

The man—George, I’ll call him—was probably between 55 and 65 years old and friendly enough. I was glad for the chance to take a shower and took him up on his offer right away. Robbie and Sweet L jumped at the chance to use his laptop, as they were trying to figure out how to get to Guatemala if the drug tunnel plan didn’t work out.

When I got out of the shower, I started picking up clues that George was a little strange and there were some problems with the Rainbow Gathering. First, although seven adults (and two dogs) were crammed into a small motel room, George had the television on with the volume turned up. The TV rendered communication quite difficult. It think it’s rude to have a TV on when folks are visiting, but it seemed strange to have it turned on when we were trying to talk to the guy about a Rainbow Gathering he was helping to organize.

From what Sweet L had said about what he’d read on the internet, I’d understood the Rainbow Gathering was about to begin and ten or so people were already on site. Upon talking to George, we realized the six of us had been counted among the people on site. And the site? It hadn’t been chosen yet! George wanted us to go out scouting for potential locations.

I’ve never been scouting for a Rainbow Gathering site, but I know certain things are desirable, like flat ground, trees, and a source of water. I knew nothing about the Nevada desert. I certainly had no idea where to find trees and water.

While we had food (and toilet paper) to contribute to a gathering, we were by no means prepared to provide for our own six selves (much less anyone who might join us) in the wilderness. We thought we’d be going into a gathering with an infrastructure in place. We’d had no idea we’d be expected to set up the infrastructure of a seed camp.

A few days after the gathering was scheduled to begin, Furthur would be playing in nearby Las Vegas. Those of us traveling in my van had already decided we’d leave the gathering and go to Vegas on the night of the Furthur show. We knew that even if we didn’t get into the show, we could have a lot of fun hanging out. After Furthur, we planned to go back for the duration of the gathering.

When one of us mentioned our plan to George, he said he was going to Vegas for Furthur too. He said he’d planned to pay a shuttle van to drive him to Vegas and back, but said he’d rather ride with us and give us the money. He then said he had a hotel room booked for the night of the show, and all of us could stay with him. I didn’t say it in front of George, but the last thing I wanted to do in Vegas was get stuck in some stranger’s hotel room.

Around 4:30, George got really weird. He said he was going to have to kick us out at five o’clock. He said he didn’t want us to wait until dark to find a place to make our camp. His attitude was strange for a couple of reasons. First, although it was fall, the time hadn’t changed yet, so at five o’clock there were still a couple of hours of daylight left. Second, he didn’t even know how great the kids were at finding places to sleep at night. Third, we were surrounded by public land where we could camp for free.

In the following days, we had much discussion about what we thought had really been going on with George. Why had he really kicked us out at five o’clock? Was he afraid we were going to try to take over his motel room and spend the night there? I thought he had a 5:30 appointment with either a drug dealer or a prostitute and wanted us out of there ahead of time.

As we were gathering our things in preparation for our exit, George pulled out his sleeping bag and said he wanted us to take it with us so it would already be in the van when we gave him the ride to Vegas. By this point I was getting paranoid and was more than half convinced that George had dealings with the FBI and there was a bug or a tracking device in his sleeping bag. I was cool though, and said we really didn’t have room for it in the van. Although the sleeping bag was rolled up quite small, I wasn’t really lying about there being no room for it. Where were we going to fit in a stranger’s (possibly bugged) sleeping bag in a van crowded with six people, all their possessions, jugs of water, two dogs, and only four seat belt? (Sweet L thought George wanted us to take his sleeping bad so we’d be obligated to come back for him later.)

We did find a place to camp well before dark. We also decided a few things. We decided we were not scouting for this sketchy Rainbow Gathering or helping with seed camp. In fact, we decided the Rainbow Gathering sounded as if it had too many problems, and we’d rather stay in Vegas. We also decided George would not be riding with us.

The job of calling George and breaking the news fell to me since I was the van owner. I felt awkward, but not as awkward as I’d have felt being stuck with an unwanted passenger. It was a good thing we hadn’t taken his sleeping bag.

 

Jan10

My Vans

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I’ve had three vans since I started rubber tramping on my own.

I was homeless when I got my first one. I’d made some money selling sage sticks and hemp jewelry, and several friends had helped me out with funds. As summer moved into fall and nighttime temperatures dropped in the mountains, having an indoor sleeping spot was becoming more urgent. It was soon going to be too cold to sleep outdoors, even in my snuggly sleeping bag.

I saw an ad on Craigslist for a Chevy G20 (my favorite kind of van) from the late 80s. (I think it was a 1986, but my memory is fuzzy.) The owner wanted $1000 for it, but the ad said the windshield was cracked and neither the gas gauge, the speedometer, nor the heater worked. It seemed like a high price for a van that wasn’t in really great shape. Besides, if I spent $1,000 for the van, I wouldn’t be able to afford insurance, license, registration, or gas. Since it was the only van for sale in the small town, I contacted the owner.

The woman selling the van seemed nice. I told her $1000 was a lot for a van in the condition her ad described and asked if she would consider selling it for $800. She said yes!

I’m not great at bargaining because negotiating seems like conflict to me. But I know people trying to sell vehicles ask for more dollars than they really want so they can drop the price during negotiations.

I set a time to meet the woman and test drive the van. A man I knew who claimed to be a mechanic had offered to look at any vehicles I was interested in, but when I tried to take him up on his offer, he was too busy to help. I was on my own.

When I saw the van, the body looked good. The crack in the window didn’t obstruct my vision. The back seat was folded down into a bed, so I could sleep comfortably right away. The van started up, and I took if for a test drive. Apparently I still knew how to maneuver a van, even through narrow small-town streets.

When I returned to the seller’s house, I offered her $700 cash on the spot for the van. She accepted, and I was on my way with not only a vehicle, but a new home too.

This is Betsy, my first van as a single woman traveling alone. Thanks to the Lady of the House for helping me get this photo off of my phone and into this post.

This is Betsy, the first van I got when I started rubber tramping on my own. (Thanks to the Lady of the House for helping me get this photo off my phone and into this post.) Notice the sliding side door. The door broke after a couple of months on the road and could no longer be opened or closed. My friend had a van with a sliding door that wouldn’t close and latch properly; we had to tie it shut with rope. I strongly recommend avoiding buying a van with a sliding door.

That van took me and my friends literally across the country, almost from coast to coast. Unfortunately, one cold February night, I hit an elk and destroyed both the critter and my van.

From where I was stranded in Colorado, it was a long, strange trip to Austin, TX, where I stayed with friends and worked to earn money for another van. (Again, good friends chipped in to help me.) I was scouring Craigslist for vans for sale before I had money to buy a vehicle. I was disheartened to see nothing available for less than $1,000, way more than I could afford.

One fine day, I saw this ad:

The Hippy Van of your Dreams!

Ol’ Blue has been in my family for 20 years! She’s a 1989 Dodge Ram Van with 191K on the odometer. RV with bed and couch! Great for road trips and camping. Definitely a one of a kind ride looking for the perfect owner! Some rust damage, but runs like a beast! If you are interested I can send pics. $789 obo

I was so excited. Ol’ Blue sounded great and $789 was possible. I showed the ad to Lou, and she said I better write a really good message to the van owner so s/he would like me.

This is what I wrote:

Hi,
My name is  Blaize.  I have been traveling for the last 3+ years, hitch hiking, riding the ‘Hound, and rubber tramping. I had a great van I loved very much named Betsy. Betsy took me to Colorado, through New Mexico, across Arizona, into Nevada, to LA, then all the way to Mt. Shasta, CA. After that, she took me across the country to Asheville, NC, then to Austin for two months before rolling me into Colorado again. Unfortunately, Betsy and I hit an elk. The elk died and took Betsy with her. RIP, Betsy.
After a month of hitch hiking and traveling with some folks who went sort of crazy a few days ago, some kind Christians bought me a bus ticket to Austin. My plan is to stay with friends, do odd jobs, buy myself another van, and get back on the road.
I just saw your ad on Craigslist. Yes, Ol’ Blue does sound like the hippy van of my dreams. But I promise you, I am the hippy that Ol’ Blue has been dreaming of. If she were my van, I would drive her to the coolest places, like New Mexico and Montana, take her to every hot spring I could find. I would make sure she never got bored by being stuck in the same place for more than a few months at a time. I would fill her with kids and dogs and backpacks and food. I would make sure her oil was changed right on schedule and never let her run out of gas.

The email must have worked because the owner seemed to like me. He even agreed to take a down payment, then hold Ol’ Blue until the refund check on the insurance I had prepaid on Betsy arrived. Once I bought the van, I had to park it outside my friends’ house until I could pay for insurance.

Ol' Blue side

This is Ol’ Blue. Notice the side door swings open instead of sliding.

Shaggin' Wagon

Ol’ Blue had both a full size bed and a couch.

Ol' Blue front

Ol’ Blue also had Celtic knots spray painted on the hood and sides and liberal stickers in various spots.

Ol’ Blue had some problems other than rust damage. The main one was that it didn’t always start. An old friend who’d gone to mechanic school put in a new starter for me. A few days after the replacement, the van wouldn’t start when I tried to leave a shopping center. I called my friend who came out and hot-wired it for me. He thought the van needed a new ignition switch, but he didn’t have the time and I didn’t have the money to put in a new one, so he just put in a toggle switch as a bypass. In the next year, whenever the van wouldn’t start, I flipped a switch to get it going.

Knowing that if I have a problem at night, I can climb into the driver’s seat, start the van, and leave helps me feel safe while van dwelling. When Ol’ Blue did not start, my peace of mind was shaken. Sure, I had that toggle switch, and it did get the motor going, but it was hard to get to. I couldn’t simply reach down and flip it while sitting in the driver’s seat. To get to it, I had to open my door and lean my body out while reaching down awkwardly and feeling around for the switch. Opening the door was not going to be an option if someone was hassling me enough to make me want to drive away, and I was going to look pretty dumb (and vulnerable) sitting in a van I couldn’t get started.

The van had other problems too. It needed new tires, I had to add coolant fairly often,  and sometimes when the indicator showed the van was in park, it was actually in reverse and rolled slowly backwards when I took my foot off the brake. I decided to start saving money and look for a new van before I found myself stranded.

I found my current van on Craigslist too. The headline made the van sound really good, and the price was do-able. When I clicked on the ad and saw the photo, I caught my breath. This was my van! It was a G20, and it had a high top. A high top! I’m fairly short, so a van with a high top means I can stand up in it.

I called the owner, a young woman who had bought the van to live in. She told me her life situation had changed and she was living in a house. She said she’d had lots of calls about the van, but no one had come by to see it yet.

When I got off the phone with her, I called my friend the Rock Guy and told him about the van. I asked me if he could drive me to the city where the van was (about two hours away) in a couple of days, but he told me we needed to go that night. So we did. I bought the van for the price the woman asked; I didn’t even try to talk her down.

I’ve had quite a bit of work done on the van since I bought it (new starter, four new tires, brake work, new battery, lots of front end work), but I love this van so much! (At one point I told my friends I loved the van so much I wanted to marry it!) It’s my safe space, my cocoon, my home.