On The Road (Part Duex)
~Carol Whack On Motion

Call it an obsession over that which I can’t really find, or the only way I can really find it.  Whatever it is, doing it, is for me life’s pinnacle.  To always be in  Motion.
            
And slow motion at that.  It is through this mode of travel that I DO know how there’s more out here about everything, than there is in there -earning multiple PhD’s -about anything.  Not just flora, fauna, fishing or forestry; birds, bees, butterflies or buttercups.  People, lingual to anthropological.  History, natural to political.  Science, social to biological to all that’s logical.  Geography, subterranean to topographical to a farmland’s vegetable or mineral.  (Even “the very model of a modern major general”!)
         
               First a little money is needed.  Second and more important is a bit more time off from earning that money.  Ideally being either retired (and willing to rough it) or independently wealthy.  For most, two weeks to two months is all the time off work we can afford.  The best way is to telecommute, or be part of a pyramidal bonsai money- making mechanism.  Then there is the job hiatus or year- long sabbatical.  And for some really slow travelers, a job overseas for a few years at a time can be the absolute best way to go about it.  Whatever it takes to afford all that would be needed for Life Transformation in motion… Time.

                I remember one of my favorite quotes by John Ruskin, “All travel becomes dull in exact proportion to its rapidity”.  And we all  know how traveling is greater than arriving.

                Being completely self- contained and self- sufficient means perpetual travel is possible.  The love of autonomy is both the incentive and the reward.  Yet to learn in this fashion requires a sort of “forced denial”.  And that is the required simplicity and minimalism of only using what is absolutely necessary.  I am reminded of Thoreau bending down to the riverside to scoop water up from his cup, whilst nearby, one of the more native inhabitants of America bends down to quench his thirst with his own hands.  Thoreau looked at his cup in disgust and tosses it away. 

This not only applies to travel objects one carries, but also the means in which one is carried.  And that is to perpetuate movement with the least mechanical assistance possible.  Speed reduction forces absorption of Real Life.  Hiking is better than kayaking is better than bicycling is better than motorcycling is better than 4X4 is better than car…van…and…well, and RV has almost gone too far.  That is beginning to move from minimalism to “maximalism”.   And a prepackaged tour- guide tour is completely out of the self- sufficient loop.  It is based upon a reliance on others.  That is psuedo-travel in my travel book.

My ultimate favorite way to tour, aside from the motorcycle, is the bicycle.  It is the slowness of pace which depicts the closeness and detail.  I can recall a million flattened maws or detached paws or frozen, gaping jaws.  The vivid memory of detail is due to it taking multiple strokes of infinity to pedal on by.  And as it is with seeing “more” of the flattened fauna, one also sees more detail of the houses and plants and towns and people and things.  The speedier motorcycle tour affords less absorption, but in many ways equal to experience.

What I love about two- wheeled travel is that it’s roofless.  There is a greater sense of motion from the open panorama of scenery not visually obstructed.  There is also the physical sense of actively perpetuating one’s own motion.  Balancing and leaning a certain way both influences as well as conforms to motion's wonderful process.  (There are ways that a motorcyclist needs no sexual partner travel accompaniment.)

Sometimes it is not so much the travel mechanism but the travel medium that makes all the difference.  Generally, dirt roads are better than two- lane black-top.  Which in turn is better than four- lane interstate.   And the lonelier the road the better.  I embrace the process of slowness and challenge in a 4X4’s traction, articulating every snag and cranny of Utah's slickrock.  Whereas I expel the idea of its exact opposite:  a car comfortably hugging the interstate, within the a/c- enclosed comforts and constant drone of indecipherable homogenous mush.  Soulless.  There is no better way to the comatose than this, even better to me than the oral sleep- aid lure. 

It is the WHOLE difference, whether in Motion or in Life (which to me IS life).  The active mode experience versus the passive mode.  To me, no greater diametric antipode exists, other than the herculean starkness between physical life and death itself. 

Somewhere above and beyond my travel spectrum is a hang-gliding tour, perhaps a little geographically limited.  Or an ultra-light tour which would be incredible.  Or perhaps some other form of piloted- aircraft tour.  Or better yet a balloon around the world (in more than eighty days). Or the best possible treatise of self- sufficiency I know: the one who sails around the world.

 From Time Off until Time Is Up, travel time never hangs heavy without the burdening bane of speed. 

For some, stationary mode is necessary.  The call of normalcy is not forward motion, but moving forward at other things.  A more creative work is sometimes needed, as opposed to mere learning and experience.  For others, it’s a preference to home-cooked meals.  Or beloved relatives or fat cats.  But whether home maintenance or comfort maintenance, I see it as a little too much maintenance.  There is not much more in my experience of melancholia than to return to the speed of stationary life.  Call it a twisted obsession to either flee reality or face it squarely.  Call it anything but Time To Go Home.        

Part 3/Survival Camp, Astor Park
 
Wow back in the sixties we called it a "rumble" when two gangs got together to taunt each other and fight. The coyotes were out SOOOOO early, just an hour or so after dark, having heard all the construction noise all day.

Usually they start up about dawn. But this night, after Neil and the kids hammered all day long, rode bikes all over, screamed and hollered all over, the coyotes sound like they are lined up all along the property line, yipping, hooting, and making some real noise. The teenage boys just hoot and yip back, taunting, and Scruffy the dog is absolutely magnitized, quivering, every dusty long hair perched on end as she listens to her distant relatives out there in the dark.
 
"They want Scruffy," Neil claims. I think the coyotes are complaining about the population explosion at Astor Park. Now tomorrow, hands on hips, we will all stare out at the ATV squads that howl past Neil's property and be resentful of their intrusion. This is a private road off of Gate Two and Neil and Henry can't understand why the desert sports centers can send in their clients on ATVs to run all over this property out here. Not Neil's property specificly, but the whole private road. As I said earlier this is Spring Break week and the place is hoppin'.
 
So after the semi-showdown with the coyotes Neil and the boys gathered around our campfire and we had quite a few laughs with the youngsters. It was warm and we even went to bed with one of two of the screens on our plush new hemp canvas top unzipped and open to the night skies. Come about midnight the wind kicked up so awfully that we had to get out of bed and take down the tarp. I worry that the tent pole will get bent again.
 
So we had to get out of bed and fight the wind to take down an 8x12 tarp in 60 mph winds. We climbed back up into the bed but worried that the canvas was getting hit too hard so then we took everything down, locked down the top, and then rearranged everything downstairs so we could make the bed. I did sleep a lot better not worrying about all the equipment. 

Then it got SOOOO cold. The big wind from the North, the same one that left some snow in Albuquerque, hit us.

Clouds, dark mean looking clouds, covered the skies in  just an hour it seemed and I stayed inside the van all day and night. But I can do that very contentedly. Neil and the kids left Saturday afternoon and the coyotes have been quiet ever since.
 
Today we walked into the RV park, Henry will give us a ride home. My hands hurt, there are chunks of skin off of my knuckles. cactus needle pokes, thorn scratches. I try to rub down in Vaseline every night, it's the only thing that seems to penetrate in the dryness, but my skin is taking a toll here. I have a beautiful big broad-rimmed hat that Neil has loaned me. It looks like something out of a Gene Autry movie. I love it.
 

Part 4/Survival Camp, Astor Park

Nine fifteen AM!! on a Texas Tuesday morning and two coyotes walked right into our campground! I couldn't believe it. All platinum furred, one hiked up a leg and marked the big hole where we empty "the bucket" every day while a second ambled along on the other side of the arroyo. Unbelievable.

 I got to catch up with my mentor for minimalist camping out here, Colleen. I spoke of her earlier. We discussed living in small places and she is exactly right when she says you have to perpetually organize.

 
That is the most frustrating thing for me. There must be all told at least six hundred different items in this van and they all stay in a constant state of flux. Nothing is ever where I think it is when I go to look for it and I get soooo frustrated. These are the moments I know that ruin Joe's experience when I am fussing and complaining because I can't find something. And it seems impossible to have a place for everything and everything in its place because the circumstances change. If the weather is right I cook outside, if not I cook inside. If I cook inside everything I need is outside and vise versa. If we sleep up top because the wind is calm I have to bring everything up because it was all taken down when the wind got wild. Up down, in out. I have been looking for my fingernail scrubbing brush for three days. It was in the same place for MONTHS and now I can't find it.
 
I guess we are gonna leave a little early. We hope to get the newsletter out and working out some details about our curriculum for the Peace Camp we are working on this summer. We have limited facilites to get anything accomplished here so we have decided to head out. I talk about the Orthodox Church I enjoy so much in Las Cruces. They have a special service on April 4 and we want to be there for that. Three hours of chanting beginning at a10pm with a big party early in the morning, with a party afterwards at one am. It's called a Pascha I think. We really enjoy these ceremonies with Michael our friend and mechanic, so I am happy to know we will be in town to share that moment with him.
 
We'll be heading up to Albuquerque soon for three weeks. I am looking forward to some running hot water and PBS and NPR. I really miss NPR. We have a MP3 player that we keep loaded with educational tapes of literary lectures. Other than that our only entertainment is some VERY sporadic AM radio and the only Terlingua radio broadcast, which is on a loop and only changes out once a week it seems.
 
As for other coping skills: When I empty out the water from the ice box with a poultry baster I empty it into a bucket, then transfer that cold water to the solar shower. Next day it sits in the sun and heats up and we use that to wash dishes or ourselves. The canned food has worked out fairly well. This morning for breakfast we had bacon we cooked on the firepit with two cans of corn. We had bean burritos, bean burgers, mashed beans, fried beans, rice with vegetables, Ramen noodles with zuchini, tomato and bacon sandwiches, and lots of cookies, shame on me.
 
Despite all the long walks in the heat I can't say I feel any lighter.