VanLife Day 17 or Spectacular, Spectacular!

The Kraken Overlooking Deadman Pass in Oregon.

I post a lot of #VanLife blog posts and don't often post pictures of my traveling companion, the Kraken.  He's kinda the star of the show.  I'm simply a ride along more or less.  Here's the Kraken resting and overlooking Oregon at Deadman Pass.  He told me to take it easy on the way down.  I listened.

Today was perhaps the most momentous part of my journey to the great northwest.  It was at once one of the most beautiful drives I have ever taken in my life, one of the more monotonous, and one of the most frightening drives as well.  All of these experiences were wrapped up in one seventeen hour drive.

I started early at 6am Mountain Time.  I had a wonderful rest in Echo Canyon and thoroughly enjoyed my drive across Utah.  The vista was breathtaking and the little towns along the way intriguing.  I'm trying to learn not to rush tips and I failed in Utah.  There were several things I should have stopped to explore but I felt compelled to reach the Pacific Northwest sooner rather than later.  I will go back to Utah and spend some quality time simply exploring sometime.

And then there was Idaho...

Luckily, the bright spot during that leg of the journey was a quest on behalf of a new friend and the "Lady of the Land" where the Kraken and I shall make our home for a while we explore the PNW.  She's an herbalist and needed me to pick up some supplies for her business.  So, Twin Falls here I came!

Rock Creek Twin Falls Idaho

Heading into town from the highway I crossed Rock Creek across a wonderful bridge and one the way out I stopped to snap some pics.  It was well worth the small pause.  I met a fellow wanderer under the bridge. He engaged me in conversation hoping to catch a ride but we were going in opposite directions.  I bid him safe journey and headed back the Kraken to continue mine.

And then there was more Idaho...

I'm being too hard on Idaho.  It had its own beauty to be sure.  After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I'm sure that it's a dear place to many.  Somewhere around Boise the Kraken voiced his displeasure over the journey by running a little warmer than normal.  He never overheated nor did he even come close but he did run warm.  This would be an unfortunate trend that would continue off and on for the rest of the trip.  I've made a note that he needs to go the doctor.

After Idaho came Oregon...and for quite a while it looked like more of Idaho and then, it happened!  Oregon!  I very much enjoyed the beauty of the Blue and then the Black Mountain.  Deadman Pass was also a very beautiful drive.

Overlook from Deadman Pass looking toward Pendleton Oregon.

At this point I'll skip forward because the drive from Pendleton to Ellensberg was in 90+ degree heat and neither the Kraken nor I enjoyed that very much.  When we hit the forests and the mountains the temperature dropped and the drive through the mountains was, as I wrote earlier, the most beautiful drive of my life to date.  It was spectacular, spectacular! 

Sadly I was too terrified driving through the mountains to even think about stopping and getting pictures.  I thought perhaps if I stopped, it might be for the night and I wanted this leg of the journey to be completed so I forged on.

I arrived in Port Townsend Washington at 10pm Pacific Time.  Needless to say, I shall sleep well tonight.

VanLife Day 16 Part 2 or Sleep: A Little Slice of Death

Echo Canyon Utah

“Each night, when I go to sleep, I die.

And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.”

-Mahatma Gandhi

Tonight was the first night I slept in the Kraken not parked in a friends drive way or a mall parking lot and it was glorious.  Not that I didn't appreciate the other options but this particular spot was magnificently beautiful.

I had been driving about 12 hours or so and decided it was time to find a place to park.  I was in Utah and I rounded a a curve and happened upon one of the most beautiful rest stops I had seen on my drive thus far.

It was in Echo Canyon Utah and it was spectacular! I parked the Kraken a ways from the brunt of the traffic and near a picnic pavilion and some trees.  My companions were prairie dogs and a couple of black-billed magpie.  They were hustling over some food and bread left by human spectators.  The prairie dogs, in no small part due to their numbers, won the prize. Though they heard about it from the magpies.

I wrote my blog post for the day and turned in early after hiking the hills a bit and snapping some pictures. I have slept in rest stops before but it was always a perfunctory exercise based on expediency and necessity more than anything else.  This was special.  It was a glorious first #VanLife sleep on the road.

VanLife Day 16 or Serendipity, Saint Walburga, and Matthew Shepard

I started my day on a beautiful morning in Colorado Springs.  I had spent the previous evening boondocked next to a friends fifth wheel in an RV park.  I had my second shower in 16 days and hit the road.

I was zipping through Colorado and minding my own business when Google told me to jump off the highway and hop on a county road.  It sounded dubious to me but I reluctantly acquiesced.  I was getting off an interstate onto Owl Canyon County Road.  My first thought was, nope, nada, getting back on the highway and then the wanderer in me said, "why not?"  So, I kept going.

It wasn't too long until I came to a roundabout in the middle of nowhere and exited onto a dirt road, again, following Google's instructions.  At this point I wished I had stayed on the highway and wished I had my friend Jerry's new atlas book he had shared with me the day before I left the Ozarks.

So here I am on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere Colorado and then it gets even more sketch, as if that were possible. The dirt road is being grated and resurfaced.  Now I wait with a worker holding a stop sign in my way.

It goes on, and on, and on, and on...

Finally I get the go ahead to go though.  I can here the mud slapping all over the Kraken and I am just imagining what poor Peregrine clinging to the back of the van will look like.  What a mess.\

I'm dumped out one what appears to be a secondary road and Google spurs me onward.  It's at least a beautiful drive through some wonderful canyons and then I see a sign.  Abbey of St. Walburga.  I pass it at first because I was doing about 65 mph so I slow down and turn around, heading back to the main gate.  I tried to Google the abbey to learn more about it but as luck would have it Google wasn't cooperating.  Perhaps she was out to lunch.

I pull in and drive back into the abbey grounds.  It was a Roman Catholic Benedictine abbey full of welcoming and warmhearted nuns.  What a delight. I explored the abbey, the chapel, the gift store, and the grounds.  The nuns gifted me with a handmade rosary.  What a treasure and what a lovely place.

I had complained to a friend about my seeming misadventure with Google before I found the abbey.  He suggested Google knows me and he's probably right.  However you look at it, is was a serendipitous event and I was glad for it.

After the that I headed into Wyoming.  I was still coming off my happy high from my visit to the abbey when I rolled into Laramie. My thoughts immediately turned toward Matthew Shepard, a young man who was a student at the University of Wyoming who was tortured and beaten and left for dead for being gay.  If you'll click on his name it will take you to a link about him where you can learn more.  You owe it to yourself to lean about Matt if you don't know much or anything about him.

My thoughts were consumed by the seeming juxtaposition of my visits that morning within the context of just having watched the movie Milk the night before. The horror of homophobia and fundamentalism swirled in my mind for sometime as I drove.  I know it's not popular to say these days but Matthew remains in my thoughts and prayers as do the sisters from the abbey.

Wyoming was amazing.  It was a beautiful crisp and clear spring day and everything that could be green was.  The vistas were simply breath taking.  I drove through several sporadic sunny rain showers but after one in particular the heavy scent of fresh sage filled the Kraken.  It was glorious to say the least.  It felt and smelled like a vapor smudging and it helped to clear my mind of the lingering sadness over my trip through Laramie.  Its freshness and clarity reminded me of hope and in the words of Harvey Milk, "You've gotta give them hope!"

It was a wonderful day in #VanLife and one I won't soon forget.

VanLife Day 15 or Harvey Milk The Last Jedi

I spent the yesterday evening and today in Colorado Springs with a dear friend.  He lives in a fifth wheel in an RV park and so I was able to park the Kraken in his driveway and boondock there.  He gave me the code to use the bathroom facilities which allowed me my first shower in 15 days.  You would think I would be excited about that but not really. It was pleasant enough but honestly I haven't missed it so much. That's a huge shocker for me but it's the truth.

In my day and a half here we took to trips to Walmart and hiked a bit behind the RV park where he lives.  Most of the time we spent catching up and chatting.  I did turn him on to pita and Creama Kasa cheese and we enjoyed a couple of salads and washed it all down with a blended wine.  It was good company and good food.  The nights were cool and sleeping in the Kraken continues to be a great delight.

Earlier this evening we watched The Last Jedi.  The most redeeming thing about the film was the filming on Skellig Michael of the Celtic Monks beehive huts.  Other than that, I thought it was the weakest film in the Star Wars franchise.

I finished my evening with the movie, Milk, about a gay Jedi, Harvey Milk who would have turned 88 today had he lived to do so.  Instead he was murdered by a homophobic bigot and the rest is history.  He was a powerful Jedi in the resistance in which many of us continue.  He is a giant in the movement for equal rights for LGBT folk.  I watch the movie on his birthday every year and the anniversary of his assassination.  It was much better than The Last Jedi to be sure.

VanLife Day 14 or A John Denver Kind of Day

After Manhattan I headed west.  It was flat all the way to the mountains.  Very flat.  So very flat.  I guess flat with no trees has its own beauty.  I'm sure of it, more or less.  I've been to Colorado but I don't think I've ever driven there.

While on the way I saw so many vans that looked like they might be part of #VanLife.  I wondered about each and everyone of them.  I driven across country many, many times but I think this time I saw more folks traveling or living in vans than ever. 

How to tell the difference?  Is there a difference other than the amount of time you spend in the van?  I think not really.

The weather was perfect, not too hot, not too cold, sunny and I listened to John Denver almost all the way.

I was looking forward to seeing Fr. Rick and celebrating the Holy Mass with him.  It's been a minute or two. 

We had a wonderful dinner and he introduced me to his favorite wine.  He's watching American Idol as I catch up on the blog.  Hopefully I can keep caught up.

Oh, they're singing the Rainbow Connection with Kermit the Frog!  Gotta go!

VanLife Day 13 or Loaded and Laundered

Well, today was the last day of my Mother's Day show and was time for goodbyes, loading, and laundering the clothes.  I hate goodbyes.  Sometimes they're just for a time but sometimes they end up being forever.  I hate goodbyes and experience no small amount of melancholy.

All in all the show was worth attending.  It's always good to visit Manhattan and catch up with old friends.  Over the years I've developed so many of them and this year I added a few more.  For that, I am thankful.

I'm looking forward to the next leg of the adventure.  I'll be heading to Colorado tomorrow to see a priest in Christ Catholic Church.

Sadly I didn't ride today.  The weather just didn't cooperate.  It was cooler and rainy and as much as I like to ride, I'm a fair weather rider.  And climbing back into the Kraken damp and cold doesn't excite me.

This has been a great inaugural run for the Kraken and I in #VanLife.  We've made it through with flying colors.  I wasn't sure how I was going to take not taking a daily shower but I've adjusted quite well.  In fact, honestly, I don't miss it.  My skin is as happy as it's ever been and my hair softer than it's been in a long time.

Well here's to Colorado tomorrow.  Goodbye Manhattan!  Thanks for a great time!  See you down the road!

VanLife Day 12 or Home Is Where You Park

Downtown Manhattan Kansas - Small Town America

The conventional wisdom is that you find what you look for and I think that's true to some extent when traveling from community to community.  I have always had the ability to find friends and interests in any community I would find myself. 

Back in the late 90's I traveled around in a 24 foot Class C Motorhome and loved it.  I was blowing glass and traveling from craftshow to craftshow with a several different promoters. 

Many of us who traveled consistently with a show promoter did so in an RV of some shape and size.  We would all pitch base camp within the general vicinity of one another and form a little mobile neighborhood.

We'd do all the things that one would do in a neighborhood: throw block parties, have potluck dinners, invite the neighbors over for a barbecue, and even sometimes complain about our neighbor.  Some of us would even try and keep up with the Joneses.  We were always comparing RV's, gas mileage, and storage capacity.  Yes, size matters.

We'd each venture into the larger surrounding community and it was always interesting to hear the stories that made it back to camp, some good and some bad.

Once you got to know the people in our little traveling caravan you could almost guess what kind of experience they were going to have in any given community and at any given show.  It was very consistent and I think it was because they found what they always found because that was what they always looked for.

The same folks time and time again would hate this or love that.  They would have a rotten show or a good show.  Everyone's experience would be different but each individual's experience would be consistent with their general outlook.

I was often teased because I can always find something good in every place I travel and delightful people everywhere I go.  I think that's because that's always what I look for.  I roll into a community and I get excited by just arriving.  I start looking for the interesting, the unique, and the fun in every situation.  Sadly, that's not true of everyone who travels.

I will soon pack up and head off to a different city with a different crowd of folks and most likely a different climate.  I don't know what to expect specifically but I do know what I'll probably find there in general because it's what I always find.  It will be interesting and full of learning experiences.  I'll meet some neat people, have some fun, and find some beauty in whatever place I visit.  It may or may not make my favorites list but I'll no doubt enjoy it for what is.

My mentor in the Episcopal Church, Fr. James Martin, once said that I was the type of person to be at home wherever I hung my hat and he was so right.  Now, I would add, home is wherever the Kraken and I park.