Par for the Coast

We made it coast to coast planning to coast up the Carolinas. A veer to Charleston, which like Savannah, has a beautiful, historic core (and again like Savannah built on a not beautiful past). South Carolina especially Charleston is known for a generalized rotten egg smell known as pluff, from the swampy bacterial (pluff) mud.  We walked around Charleston and enjoyed the neighborhoods, but didn’t notice or get to enjoy the pluff.

However, we had been camping for a few days. To pluff’s credit, it may have smelled better than us, which explained the ample social distancing we received as we toured the town.

Entering most towns you pass malls of varying sizes. Their names are; The Commons, “X” Towne Center, Oak/Cherry/Maple/Wood Towers, Deer/Plain/HuntsField Galleria, North/South/East/Westgate Mall, and the ubiquitous “Marketplace”. But not Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  Instead you get Jaws, Minotaurs and Gilligan. One miniature golf (or goff?) course after another (unfortunately, we hadn’t packed our miniature golf club or coupons). We did find some sandy beaches, with actual ocean attached to them as opposed to White Sands National Park in NM https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2021/11/12/uncertainty-principle/ .  Very nice beaches, actually. 

Myrtle Beach introduced us to the new phase of the trip….. “off-season”.  We were well versed in “off season” . Along the Croatian coast we never got to go swimming, but we also (fortunately) missed the crowds https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2018/11/12/croatia-1-dubrovnik-on-the-rocks/ and in Cyprus we never got to enjoy the closed themed bars and restaurants, but really we would not have gone to or enjoyed them. https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2019/01/14/cyprus-the-good-the-bad-and-its-mostly-ugly-part-1/ , https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2019/01/27/paphos-the-redemption-of-cyprus/,

But coming from always-on-season-California, where all ice cream shops stay open all year, we did not think this same cessation of commerce actually happened here in the US of A., but it does.  It all worked out because the beach does not close. We stayed in a small family run hotel, although the furniture/flooring had not been updated since 1965, there was a balcony overlooking the ocean which is Patricia’s criteria for a good room (plus exterior corridors which is our Covid criteria and generally requires avoidance of chains). 

The beach is all season, so a walk on the beach where weirdly all the shells were the same grayish color and super super thick.

Onward to a state campground in Carolina Beach which was probably one of the nicest sites because it allowed Magellan, the Beast and Eureka some play time (yes Papou theater has gone on the road).

For the uninitiated, see below for some past episodes of Papou theater.

We first avoided the Carolina Beach boardwalk not really wanting  a repeat of Myrtle Beach, but the next day we ventured to Carolina Beach to find a beautiful, sunny, bird filled beach with colorful shells and no miniature golf (goff?)

We crossed into NC the next day, driving through Wilmington, NC. Wilmington had some Southern charm, less than Charleston or Savannah but we may have hit the wall on cutesy Southern towns, plus we had trouble finding parking, so Wilmington was a drive thru.   

So far, weather has been great in the South, pretty much no day much below 70, which allowed us to stay Covid safe by staying outside much of the time, but winter was coming and we were pretty disgusted with the frequent roadside Trump signs so we decided to shelf our coastal cruise and get boosters at Maryland/Virginia Kaiser.  Appointments made,  we shifted from the coast, turned left and drove through inland North Carolina. 

Future sure does feel hazy.

Another stroke of luck when we found the Neuse River Nature Center and Campground, in Kinston, NC with a name and website far more standard then what we found, what we found was pretty memorable. 

We entered, drove past a very, very dated playground (must have been built the same time as our hotel in Myrtle Beach), the “nature center” a one room mobile unit with three outdoor cages with and without birds in various stages of rehab. One cage had an owl, one a vulture and one, was empty but still marked “red tail hawk” cage. We called Ron our campground host to direct us and he came puttering up in his golf cart (do parks provide these carts or is it BYOC?)  Ron directed us to the perfect spot, down by the river, in the “overflow” lot (vs the more permanent campground village) so he would only need to charge us $10. 

We realized our dream in North Carolina…. living in a van down by the river

Ron is a Vietnam vet and said he found his happy place here, a treatment for his PTSD by orienting travelers to all that the Neuse River Campground offered and sharing his “home” (aka campground) with all who needed a place. As we left, Ron told us we were always welcomed “back home”. 

As always, home made memorials have the greatest impactl
Boy Scouts were setting up as we were leaving, both underscoring that this was a great spot and it was time to leave

Onward to a still open off-season campground in Triangle Virginia, Prince William National Forest, location selected because it was still open and it was 20 minutes to Kaiser Woodbridge for our booster.  The campground was beautiful, lacked consistent internet and no water or electrical at our site. So pretty par for the course. 

Our campground may not have had electrical, but the picnic area 3 miles down the windy road did and the chill kept everyone else away.

Also weirdly, when we drove in to Prince William Forest a sign said “campground full”, although the two nights we were here it essentially was us and maybe 4 other people in a large around 80 site, three loop campground. Off season, no reason to be fully open.  But there were clean hot showers, which we had to ourselves. 

We ended our time below the Mason Dixon line with shots. We arrived an hour and half early for our boosters, and enjoyed the Kaiser shot-clinic efficiency as compared to our first ones at the CVS. Boosted, we got back on the road towards Hershey, Pennsylvania, where street lights are chocolate kisses, to do laundry and wait out the reaction on Chocolate Avenue since chocolate remains Patricia’s treatment of choice. 

Stink lines or sun rays?

Savannah Squared

After being on Cloud Nine the only way to go is South https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2021/11/21/states-of-never-mind/.  Following our usual uncertainty principles we briefly considered heading slightly north toward Memphis with the lure of the Graceland Campground on the grounds of Graceland, but that would have veered us north too soon with the risk of colder weather.  So, instead of Graceland we went to the origin of it all for Elvis- Tupelo, MS his birthplace.

We actually didn’t bother to make the left turn to drive by his ancestral house, which is unfortunate because from the pictures it doesn’t look much bigger than our van. We did make several other left turns trying to find a spot at the Tombigbee Lake State Park, but it appeared to be shut down for the season.   So, before the sunset, we hurried over to the next closest campground, Whitten Park Campground 15 miles east.  As with many state/national campgrounds, a lot of kids on bikes, sunsets framed by trees and clean bathrooms with hot showers.  (pic from Wikipedia)

Twist on the typical campsite, toasting on the tortilla press

This campground stood out though as within 15 minutes of our arrival, the campground hosts, an older couple puttered up in a golf cart to our site to check our IDs. Our hosts appeared more likely to have just gotten back from a disappointing doctor’s visit than a campsite. They said they had been hosts since March, we weren’t certain if their 8 month stay at this site had adversely affected their health, so we only stayed the night.  From Tupelo, we planned to turn left and meander up the Carolina coast but something told us to turn right and to continue south to Savannah.  We were so close it would have been silly not to make the detour (although silly has not stopped us before) besides, Savannah had some family history for Patricia. Her mother, Geri, spent about 3-4 pre-adolescent years in Savannah. We don’t think she was very happy here, having left friends and family in Chicago. Patricia’s grandfather spent much of his childhood there and Savannah is where her great-grandparents are buried. So Savannah it was.  Let the foreshadowing begin.

On the way South, something mystical lead us to the Walmart parking lot in Forsyth, GA.  That something was the Subway located INSIDE the Walmart. Earlier in the day, Nick had found a Subway gift card in a parking lot worth $4.11 and since there was a Subway INSIDE the Forsyth Walmart, it clearly was the place to stay the night.   After a decent night’s sleep and Nick picking up 3 bags of Sun chips from Subway, we were on our way to Savannah.

Off the highway into Savannah, no edge of town mini-malls, just immediately greeted with huge oaks dripping with Spanish moss. Had us right then.

When we travelled in Europe, everywhere we went, we thought “this is great, we could live here”.  In the US, it’s been the exact opposite, nowhere we have gone have we thought “this is great, we could live here,” nothing that appealing until Savannah. Part of the appeal, the joy and wonderment of our European travels were discovering new places and after walking around wanting to learn more.  We would spend our evenings reading and learning what we had seen that day (yes, that is our nightlife). Savannah brought us back to our zone.We tend to walk toward water, whether it be an ocean or a lake or a river.  Often the route will take in significant tourist and historic sites. In this case we started with a vague plan of wandering toward the Savannah River. 

Forsyth Park fountain a curious mix of every European fountain

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Starting from Forsyth Park, we meandered on cobblestone and brick sidewalks past beautiful buildings and lush green squares . Each very distinct square had multiple monuments, reading the descriptive markers provided an outline which we later filled in by our web searches. This city was planned in 1730 by James Oglethorpe, three years before he founded the colony of Georgia.  He sought to integrate ideas of the Enlightenment into the city; no aristocracy, no slavery.  Unfortunately the lofty ideals did not take hold, but the physical expression did.  The ‘Oglethorpe Plan’, was a series of  four residential blocks and four commercial blocks centered around a square.

Most squares are named after early governors of Georgia, but each square has it’s own personality.  Memorials honor the soldiers and leaders of the Revolutionary war, Confederacy and War of 1812; Church leaders, Girl Scouts, (Savannah was the home of the founder of the Girl Scouts-Juliette Gordon Low) and silkworms (a square was the site of the Filature aka silkworm farm). But the main draw seemed to be the square that was the location of Forrest Gump’s bench, but the bench has now been moved to a museum ( read the book, saw the movie).

The squares are bookended by Forsyth Park (more on that) and the Savannah River. Walking through the squares, you pass iconic houses; the house from the 1994 book (didn’t read) and movie (didn’t see) Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Flannery O’Connor’s house, and the campus of Savannah College of Art and Design (they own 67 buildings downtown and really contribute to the historic preservation of Savannah).

Flannery’s house (http://www.flanneryoconnorhome.org) and yes, read the books plus Juliette’s house (www.juliettegordonlowbirthplace.org) and yes, was a girl scout, was a camp leader and bought and sold cookies.
We would get another dog so we could go here. I wish dogs recuperated on the balconies.

Walking through the blocks, you pass some of the oldest places of worship in America; Mikve Israel Synagogue (congregation formed in 1735),  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congregation_Mickve_Israel

First African Baptist Church (first black congregation in the US, formed in 1773) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_African_Baptist_Church_(Savannah,_Georgia) and Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist (formed in 1796), it was later than the others because Catholics were initially not allowed to live in Savannah.

Bascilica

We did venture off the squares to cross the river in a 15 minute free ferry ride, get ice cream at Leopold’s, a 100+ year old shop and walk through the colonial cemetery with crushed shell walkways.

Walking through Savannah was just a massive Southern American history lesson. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squares_of_Savannah,_Georgia

Continuing on to Bonaventure cemetery, another Savannah site made famous by Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil*,  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_Girl looking for Harris and Fanny, Patricia’s great grandparents. As per our brand, we first made tea in the parking lot, then drove on a cemetery dirt road looking for parking (again on brand, down by the river) and walked for 30 minutes looking for them. Again, on brand, we got in the car again, and got a better map, and the Jewish section was right near where we originally parked.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonaventure_Cemetery

Fannie (Feggy Gittel her birth name) died 2 months before Geri (Frances Geraldine her birth name)

Like many Jewish cemeteries, there was a Holocaust memorial. In Germany and other places in Europe, we saw so many memorials and for better or worse, sometimes the design of the memorial itself overwhelms the message https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2019/01/07/they-do-make-you-stumble/ . And again, as in Europe, the personal or homemade memorials often felt so much more visceral. What happened on March 17 1945 in Alem, Hanover, Germany? Liquidation of the Hanover Concentration Camp? All we could find, is that the father of one of the victims brought these ashes to the United States and buried them here.

Our next search was to find the location of Patricia’s grandparent’s bar and grocery, it was for black servicemen (time of Jim Crow). That got nowhere. So next, we had this picture of Geri and her siblings (from the book Jews of Savannah) at the after-school program run by the Worker’s Circle or Der Arbeter Ring, a Jewish Socialist organization formed in 1900 to promote progressive social policy and teach Yiddish. Geri often told stories about the Yiddish plays they put on and how she hated being the oldest one there  (that is her on top with the bow, her siblings the two blonds in the front, far left). The picture was geo-tagged Forsyth park, where we had randomly happened to have parked for our day of wandering. Foreshadowed.

Finding the address of Der Arbiter Ring school, we first drove through the old Jewish section of town but street names had changed and freeways displaced.. The eclectic mix of building names, businesses, new storefronts, boarded windows and murals expanded our history lesson attesting to, like many other cities, the waxing and waning of urban neighborhoods. Some internet sleuthing led to what looked like the steps in the picture in a since torn down building in an old picture of Forsyth park. This somewhat confirmed that yes, we probably were very near or at least passed that place.

After meeting a woman who was on her third night sleeping in her van in the parking lot at Forsyth park, we felt the shadow of the foreshadowing from the Walmart Parking lot in Forsyth Georgia, and stayed the night parked beneath a giant moss-covered oak tree, nested, and enjoyed our Sun chips.

Uncertainty Principle

The Heisenberg uncertainty principle is defined as never being able to tell the exact position and velocity of an object at the same time.  That’s how we are traveling, that’s Santiago https://www.instagram.com/santiago_van_hovel/.  Each day is an uncertainty of how fast we should be traveling, where we are and where we’ll end up. As a result we’ve spent the night in a variety of places, not always well planned.

After Westworld, we actually were able to find a spot in a National Park at Pine Flat in the Coconino National Forest just north of Sedona, AZ.   It was a first come first serve campsite, anxious to secure the spot we arrived 4 hours before check in. 

The campsite was picturesque, but National Parks (at least so far in Coconino and our experience in Joshua Tree) lack consistent internet/cell service (infrastructure bill please help). For some people, that may be part of the charm of camping, not us. Once it gets dark (now with daylight savings around 5-6 pm), and you’ve looked at the stars for a few minutes, there’s a lot of time, a lot of time,  a whole lot of time to waste each night, and without internet time stops; that is the certainty principle.  

The Sedona campsites were awkwardly arranged to enhance the ability to hear every word being said by your neighbor. Our neighbors were the most polite and courteous couple we have ever overheard.  The compliments flew, “that is just the right amount of salt on that, babe” , “ the butter is perfect there, babe” “great choice of mustard, babe” “what a great way to set up the stove, babe”.  And yes, the complements were mostly about food, but we think they ate most of the time there, except when they went to the market. We did also hear them say that it was their first time camping with each other, so give them another week and then let’s hear them after a night in Westworld. https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2021/11/03/la-stands-for-life-in-auto-and-now-we-are-living-it/

Sedona was the first step in our planned spiritual journey through Santa Fe, Taos (the pilgrimage to DH Lawrence’s grave), Bandolier’s majestic cave dwellings, crossing back down to Gila National Forest for more cave dwellings and the famed Cosmic Campground https://sites.google.com/site/cosmiccampgroundinformation/.  We were hoping for some personal clarity. Our journey to enlightenment continued from Sedona to Walnut Canyon, to see the Sinagua (“without water”) cave dwellings that were inhabited from 1125-1250 ttps://www.nps.gov/waca/index.htm

Can you see the house nestled in the caves? If not, go to the website.

These were so awe-inspiring and in light of our current home, the half-assed van conversion, we realized introspection was not for us. Change of plans midstream, off to the blank expanse of White Sands New Mexico. https://www.nps.gov/whsa/index.htm

To get there we had to drive through rather desolate 356 miles of East Arizona/Western New Mexico high desert terrain.  Desolate quickly dissolved to depressing, leading to unnerving, especially as we unexpectedly passed through the plains of San Agustin near the town of Magdalena, NM. Here was a series of 28 very eerie looking incredibly giant satellites, the VLA, Very Large Array Centimeter wavelength radio astronomy observatory.  Look them up for the picture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Large_Array. They are used to study cosmological phenomena including black holes, which we absolutely fell into. 

As blackness fell, we needed a place to stay. What was more appropriate than the creepy Walmart parking lot (is that redundant?) in Socorro, NM. Socorro appropriately means Help! In Spanish.  There was a momentary blast of color in the darkness as we spotted fireworks randomly in the distance (also happened at Westworld).  Yet that momentary blast of pleasure was blown away by the pounding, heavy bass music slamming the van all night.  Patricia was a bit freaked out, Nick slept through it. All was good in the morning (well, maybe not good but acceptable) when we looked around and saw we were in the company a bunch of RVs and realized that the music was just fueling the graveyard crew working at the Walmart. 

Kinda picturesque?

The expanse of White Sands was enough to wash away Patricia’s crankiness from the Walmart night (Nick was rather pleased to have knocked that off his list of places to stay- thanks again iOutlander app). It was so disorienting to spend the day wandering around an endless beach, expecting to find the ocean over each dune, but the ocean never came. 

Considering the last 24 hours, we thought it would be appropriate to exit via Roswell, NM but instead, with no rational reason, we circled back west  to Las Cruces, ready for greatly anticipated New Mexican cuisine, plus a Halloween night hotel with shower, laundry  and recharging all of our all our electronics (including our 2000W Bluetti power station generator.) Only the food disappointed.  

How you celebrate Halloween REALLY changes over the years.

From Las Cruces we headed towards Albuquerque firmly committed to bailing on spiritual growth, and now focused on getting through Texas without stopping. After passing  through Truth or Consequences at 75 mph on the freeway, the car suddenly started repeatedly chiming and flashing red silhouettes of the car on the dashboard. 

Terrified and uncertain we pulled over, researched the owner’s manual, scrolled through the Metris owner’s forums without benefit.  Drove 15 miles out of our way through Albuquerque, to the Mercedes Benz dealership, also without much benefit, although he did recommend we bring it back in the morning for a full evaluation (sounded expensive and unnecessary). Finally,  further internet exploration mentioned a connection problem with the sliding side door.  We ended up using our 99 cent broom to sweep out the pure gypsum sand we tracked in from White Sands along the sliding door runners and problem solved.  Spiritually and non-spiritually exhausted we drove another 57 miles with no more terrifying pinging or flashing. iOverlander (and every free camping app) recommended  we spen the night in Cline’s Corner. So we did. Cline’s Corner is a “city” that is about 2 hours from the Texas panhandle border. A city that consists only of a 24 hour truck stop/gas station/curio shop experience.

The city and inhabitants of Clines’ Corners, NM

The night passed quickly, with a strong internet connection.

LA stands for Life in Auto, and now we are living it.

During our years of commuting and carpools in Southern California,  Nick used to joke that LA stood for life in auto.  It was not funny then, and still not funny but now it is actually true. The joke is on us. 

The Olympics last 17 days, but we condensed our time as Olympians into 9 days before heading south in our new home, Santiago Van Hovel. 

Chillie the penguin on board for the transcontinental journey to meet the granddaughter

Brief stops for flu vaccines (Portland), plant pick up (Eugene) and overnight in Yreka (why not), and we were back in LA.

Our pilgrimage began in East Hollywood, in the shadow of the massive Scientology building on Fountain Avenue.   This is where we spent our first night in our new hovel, in front of Marika & Trevor’s house.

Despite the constant sound of cars zipping by playing snippets of songs, the brevity and variety were like player walk up songs at a baseball game, we had the best night’s sleep we had had in months.  Ignoring the risk of someone crashing into us on this fairly major thoroughfare, we slept there 4 times during our three weeks in LA.  Bette Davis knew the value of Fountain Ave. 

We definitely saw LA- the hills, the oaks, the woods, the dales, the point and the creek.  We cat sat, we dog sat.

Osito was just not too sure about us.

We visited, camped or parked in front of houses in Beverly Hills, West Hills, Woodland Hills, Sherman Oaks, Thousand Oaks, East Hollywood, West Hollywood, Glendale, Point Magu and Malibu Creek.

1st night camping at Malibu Creek, home of MASH

We enjoyed seeing  long-not seen friends, family, dogs, cats, and Pacific Ocean (with porpoises & pelicans)

We left LA to begin our cross-country voyage on the first day of the World Series, and we had a few rookie mistakes.

We entered into Joshua Tree National Park as the sun was setting, the horizon turning blue to pink, the mountains glowing purple. We touched base at each “no reservations needed campgrounds”  but consistently struck out. We thought we spotted an empty spot, but then the Reservee showed up, pointed out the reserve placard in the pitch black night and hurried us along.  

By the time we exited the park, fully striking out after visiting all the completely full “no reservation needed” campgrounds, all was dark, but on the horizon, the bright lights of Tortoise Rock casino. Those obnoxious flood lights, never looked so good.  Using the iOverlander App, which details free overnight parking spots,  as our guide (we apparently need one), Nick walked into the casino to get an overnight parking pass from security.  Apparently he appeared a bit dazed, delirious, or maybe even drunk; more likely he was dazzled by the minor league casino since he was completely sober. The security team asked if he was all right and what was he driving.  Not realizing that RVs were welcomed but car dwellers not, Nick minimized our amenities ( is a luggable loo an amenity?) so the security officer asked to see our rig.  Nick, still seemingly disoriented, at first couldn’t find the van, and worried that Patricia would be using the loo when he opened the door for the officer.  Fortunately, not the case. Officer McG loved the van, even gave us an unsolicited extra 24 hours to stay.  But, as he left he made sure we understood no alcohol drinking in the parking lot.

Conclusion, we got a two night pass to stay in the parking lot, even a choice of EAST or WEST parking lots. Talk about opportunity! 

After Joshua Tree, inspired by the movie Nomadland (no, we are NOT nomads like the movie), we stopped in Quartzite, AZ, the home of the winter nomad rendezvous as well as at the grave of Hi Jolly, the most visited site in Quartzite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi_Jolly

The rock toppers made a lot of sense once we noted all the gopher holes where there no toppers

Reflecting on our good fortune of the Tortoise Rock Casino, and  trying to behave like the veterans we pretended to be, Nick consulted the iOverlander App to find our next night’s spot. Nick considered another casino, or maybe a parking lot at Cracker Barrel or Walmart, but  we settled on Westworld- the city of Scottsdale’s vision of camping. 

We turned off Frank Lloyd Wright Dr, past a giant horse sculpture, past a cyclone fence on to a huge dirt lot radiating Arizona heat.  The RV lot was adjacent to an equestrian center, under three enormous major power lines that audibly hummed and crackled.  The field was dotted with posts in a grid pattern, like speakers at a drive in theater with electric outlets and water for the camping spaces.  

There were clean bathrooms and showers a slight hike across a barren field out the cyclone fence enclosure next to the horse stalls. There were 4 other RV’s on the premises, management having grouped us close together despite the acres of dirt and rocks.  We were greeted by a barefoot 4 year old who wandered over fully costumed in pagan mask and harlequin pants (it was 4 days before Halloween).  The RV next to us held two cats that stared out at us as we set up.  But, soon the woman in that RV packed up and abruptly left at 5 in the afternoon, which was great as it gave us double the number  of outlets to charge up and be out at there at 6 am to go anywhere but here.

What have we just done (again)?

We started this blog in 2018 as a way for our wondering kids to keep track of their wandering parents, to research & contextualize our travels and give us something to do.  https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2018/08/23/we-left-8-14-2018/

Our “fugue”  began under  the definition of a fugue as ” dreamlike altered state of consciousness during which a person often wanders away”

Maybe what we were really thinking was the untranslatable French word flaneur (an idle or leisurely stroller) or the verb form flâner, flanuering (?)- a leisurely ramble whose only point is to soak up the beauty in the details we otherwise overlook (pardon our French). We certainly were fortunate to spend the last few years flanuering, with periodic breaks of productivity. The past year and a half has left us with a feeling of Fernweh (German)-being homesick for a place you’ve never been. As of 9/24/2021, 2 pm, we are ready to flañuer.

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Our travels across the US during COVID made us aware that in order to responsibly and safely return to wandering, we had to put some safeguards in place https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2020/08/07/driving-to-the-end-of-the-rainbow/
First, we vaccinated as soon as possible and have/remain masked everywhere we go, when we go anywhere which remains limited. Second, we needed a place to base ourselves, and as we found (and unfortunately many already know) it is difficult to access health care/banking/voting etc without an address.  So with pretty much all of our stuff hibernating in a 12 x 12 space, we have become serial hovelists, no that is not a word, at least not yet.

Our initial San Fernando Valley hovel set a high standard which our subsequent Northeast US hovel did not meet https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2020/08/18/our-year-of-living-dangerously-continues/ It was surprisingly difficult finding a studio apartment (again, as unfortunately many already know) that we could just park ourselves in between journeys or if we needed to go to Kaiser. We found a tiny, 350 sq ft apartment in a carriage house, perfect to fit a mattress, a chair and store the last minute what-do-we-do-with-this stuff. It is ours for the next 7 months during which we probably won’t be there much.

Moving northward from Eugene, we made Olympia, Washington our home-base.  Why Olympia? Ione, our grand-daughter is heavily into Greek gods so we figured we should live in Olympia. We are Olympians! Considering that we had absolutely NO basis for moving to Eugene, this seemed to be a solid reason. So this completes the stationary hovel trinity.
Will Olympia be a permanent home-base? Who knows.  That is the purpose of the current fugue,  and the question in the title, maybe by traveling through the US,  we can figure out our next semi-permanent home base. ( Semi-permanent? Is that an oxymoron? Does it mainly apply to hair dye?)

But since we are on the move, we needed a mobile hovel, Santiago, our safe + responsible way to travel (instagram- Santiago_Van_Hovel ).

We bought the van on 8/31/21, the house was closing on 9/23, so we needed to convert a van, quickly.

No clue, no tools, no time.

But, with lots of youtube videos, an incredible amount of help (and power tools) from our neighbor Thom (thank you, again) and encouragement from his wife Robbin we made… something.  With little time to work/finish we lost a week when we took the van in for a ceiling fan to be installed. The one-day shop job turned into a week-long wait while they installed the fan, and in the process ruined the ceiling we had just installed. This required us to redo the ceiling once Santiago was back in the driveway. Valuable time lost,  our 3 week project became 2 to complete and launch.  I was concerned that converting the van would destroy Thom’s and my liver, because every time he helped, we had a beer.

Showing other neighbors our finished product, their response was a resounding underwhelmed, but as Bruce Springsteen sings, “you ain’t a beauty, but hey you’re alright, oh, and that’s alright with me”.  So, onward Santiago. (instagram- Santiago Van Hovel). We are hoping for a buen camino through the US  https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2019/06/07/walk-this-way/

https://www.instagram.com/santiago_van_hovel/

Let The Fugue Begin, again

Let’s Recap…..

Mid 2013: We entered the Program, sold our house, grabbed our chickens,  dug up our plants fled to the safest and most inconspicuous area to easily blend in- Tarzana, the San Fernando Valley, into the cabaña hovel at  The Compound also known as Gma’s/ Mom’s / Geri’s /or the Mother in law’s house.

Mid 2016  Felt the heat of the Valley, time for a change, packed up and sold The Compound, dropped Gma off in Santa Rosa, grabbed the dog, gave away the chickens (and most everything else!), re-dug up the plants, headed north to rainy Eugene, Oregon.

Mid 2017  All the plants planted and thriving, and nothing to do. So when the dog passed, we buried her with the plants, and began an international disappearance/fugue to Europe

Late 2019 Stumbled back to the US, laid low with the Gma again, this time in another inconspicuous place- senior living in Santa Rosa. https://thechosenfugue.blogspot.com/2019/10/living-lodge.html We celebrated her 90th, and then sadly Gma passed in early 2020.

Summer 2020 Back in Eugene but feeling the heat and the need to keep moving. https://thechosenfugue.blogspot.com/2020/08/driving-to-end-of-rainbow.html We hurried cross country dodging Covid through some recklessly governed states to Amherst, MA, finding refuge in our underground hovel for 10 months and joy with our grand-daughter, her parents, her cats (Pip and Posy) and dog (Finn) https://thechosenfugue.blogspot.com/2020/08/our-year-of-living-dangerously-continues.html

Mid 2021  Needing to re-group, headed back west, stopped in the Twin Cities to find joy with our new grand-dog, Monty ( and his parent), and do some house-work on their new home. 

Summer 2021: Six weeks in Minneapolis, then a U-turn back to Amherst so Monty (and parent) could spend time with Finn and we all could help grand-daughter (niece) and her parents (sister/brother-in law) move into THEIR new house.  

After the move in, a quick cross-country back to Eugene as we raced through Covid hot spots again, unfortunately.

Now: The Witness Protection Program has told us we need to relocate, again, and they recommend as participants, maybe better not to blog our experiences, but we have decided instead to make ourselves a moving target (and changed the blog location, hence the weird change in styles).

So, back on repeat- quickly sold the house, made 14 trips to Goodwill/Restore/St. Vincent’s, bought and converted a van (good for living and surveillance, if necessary), rented an address (aka tiny apartment in Olympia, WA) and hit the road, fugue on wheels.

States of never mind

One of my sisters once told me, that on her deathbed, our grandmother told her one of the things she wished she had done in life was “go camping. It sounded like it would be so much fun.” Well Grandma Essie, it could be, but there is a lot of forced inconvenience which we have voluntarily welcomed (well, maybe not Patricia).  And, as a woman who owned furs, lived in a thoughtfully decorated San Francisco apartment and had a pet monkey, it may not be for everyone. But even as the weather has been turning colder, a lot of people are out camping, campground reservations are often hard to get and we are not alone at the Walmart parking lots.

We left Cline’s Corner truck stop in NM, traversing the very foggy edge of eastern NM. We would have been happy to bypass Texas but that is just not geographically possible. Santiago has a huge tank and for his size gets fairly decent mileage (23-27 mpg) so we figured we could get through without stopping. So we held our breath, and entered the state. We were so intent on getting through Texas, we didn’t bother to stop when we realized we were passing the Cadillac Ranch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Ranch.  It is easily visible from highway 40 (encompasses old Route 66 through Amarillo). Cadillac Ranch looked kind of run down and trashed, analogous to the patron of the project who later was identified as being pretty trashy so that eased the guilt of the viewing at 75 mph. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Marsh_3

We made it through the Texas Panhandle only stopping once to use the bathroom which perhaps was an appropriate stop in Texas. We had planned to blast through Oklahoma as well, but we had to sleep.  A  highly recommended camp site was in a park run by the city of Sayre, OK. And it was OK. Clean bathroom, clean showers, water, electric hook up and even Bob’s Big Boy (welcome home!).

  

We laughed at campsites reviews about the “goatherds” like who would complain about goats, until we realized that goatherds are thorny seeds that stick to everything and really hurt. Yep, still rookies. It was so cold and rainy, Nick had to climb up to the “attic” to get the winter clothes, no furs. It was a shame about the weather as the park looked fun with a swimming pool and mini golf. But we left no more footprints in OK and made it to Arkansas the next afternoon. Our only planned stop in AR had been the Hot Springs National Forest, but after a tip from our daughter Simona, we diverted to Northwest AR for the Crystal Bridges Museum.  It opened just 10 years ago, and is now considered one of the best American museums.  It was started by a Walmart heir Alice Walton.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t spend the night in the parking lot, so we opted by a nearby state forest campground but since Winter is Coming, bathrooms and showers had been shut down for the season, but the very helpful park ranger said he had opened the ones at the neighboring campground. After Nick went, Patricia refused.

But it was still surprisingly beautiful.

Crystal Bridges lived up to Simona’s hype, which was even better since this was the first museum we have gone to in two years and was another “how did we not know this existed” moments. Noteworthy was the bucolic sculpture garden with a Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian house and a James Turrell Installation made even better because it had heated concrete benches complete with a (embarrassed) sleeping security guard. We could put a bunch of pictures in but we have very little image space on this free platform, so best to just go toe website https://crystalbridges.org

But the big ticket item was this

This seemed to have been inspired by Nick’s installation “Reverse Ice Cubes” in Tarzana circa 2008ish

and the follow up, “Reverse Ice Cubes with Swimming Dog”

But, back to Bentonville, AR. We actually spent so much time in the area, that we opted for another close by campground in Beaver Dam in Eureka Springs, unfortunately also closed bathroom and shower but the neighboring campground’s was open!

All this beauty but again NO internet so we built a fire.

From day one of our trip planning, our goal was to spend several days visiting Hot Springs National Park https://www.nps.gov/hosp/index.htm.  We like to get ourselves in hot water.  Per the park ranger recommendation we took the very scenic Pig Trail drive to Hot Springs.

But, of course, as per our uncertainty principle practices, we pulled into town, parked and walked around, and that was enough for us. We had not known that now the hot springs only flow indoors and based on the number of unmasked people + the low vaccination rates, we were not going indoors.

Our inability to get in hot water and the plethora of Trump signs, Confederate flags and “Let’ Go Brandon” signs compressed our plan of a couple of days into one hour. Our AR stay concluded at the Cloud 9 RV park which was definitely more of a 5 or 6.

Thankfully, we were directed to camp on the edge of the park because the park was packed with people planted there long enough that they were getting their UPS and Amazon deliveries there (one woman excitedly picked up her Amazon package at the office as we checked in, saying it was her order of toilet paper). Voluntarily or involuntarily, there were a lot of people making Cloud 9 their home and a lot of people on wheels. Adults with walkers or scooters and kids on bikes. Riding bikes seems to be the main pastime of the (lots of!) kids we have seen at campgrounds, even midweek, school?

“Visitors” got to use the clubhouse and the clubhouse bathroom. Cloud 9 indeed!

The polarization of the US was so apparent as we moved south. Our appreciation of the vitality, the beauty, the distinctness of region, often got knocked out by political signs (frequently vulgar and crass) and the gradual reduction of mask wearing as we moved East from Los Angeles.

So, that’s why it’s called New England


Anchored in Amherst in a sea of continental Covid, limiting our ability to travel, we have explored what we safely could, either from the car or on a trail. Locally, we started with the Eric Carle museum, by reservation, a highly anticipated trip for Ione and her hungry hungry Caterpillar, Bonnie. 



Then we hit the literary hiking trails; https://www.amherstma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/609/literary_guide?bidId=


Of course we started with the Emily Dickinson

Followed with the Bob M. McClung, named for a naturalist and children\’s book author who wrote \”Bufo: The story of a toad\”.  Based on the length of some of these trails, most of these authors were not long winded.


Wrapping up with  the Robert Frost trail, where we took the road not taken and got lost ending up un-poetically in a cornfield. 


Which was consistent with other literary hiking adventures we have taken through England\’s Lake District getting lost between Ruskin and Wordsworth.

After we wrapped up Amherst, we started to venture out in the Pioneer Valley  and continued to feel some similarities with England and not based just on our confusion on hiking trails. Which makes sense considering most of these towns were founded in the mid to late 1600\’s by the English.  We felt like we were driving on the right side of the street in Scarborough https://thechosenfugue.blogspot.com/2018/10/scarborough-fair-moor-or-less.html or Cambridge, UK  xhttps://thechosenfugue.blogspot.com/2018/10/college-tour-and-cotswolds.html  seeing towns with cemeteries wedged between houses with renegade tombstones scattered throughout parking lots; beautiful old buildings turned into trendy stores; and iconic colleges.

                                              Stately home? Church? College? Urban Outfitters.


 Smith College in Northampton, the Encino or Studio City of the Pioneer Valley

                Lively street in Northampton, not to be confused with Easthampton, Westhampton or Southampton                        

Lots of old small village towns, each with a seemingly separate town of the same name except with a East, West, South or North prefix, and all with only 3 different street names-Main, East and Pleasant. 

We were excited to go to Holyoke and see the man-made canals which provided hydro-electro power for the city\’s manufacturing. Paper mills, cotton, thread, silk and wire factories made Holyoke an \”economic powerhouse\” 150 years ago, Both the mills and the town looked a bit dried up.  But we actually seeing the canals at their low point as we saw them just after the annual draining of the canals.  Timing is everything! We left equally drained of enthusiasm. Apparently Holyoke has also drained the \”l\” in it\’s name, as we learned from locals it\’s pronounced Ho-yoke.

                                                      giving LA river some competition. 

Another local highlight was Shelbourne Falls, this area seems to be populated with similar gems. 

Famous Shelbourne glacial holes


Famous Bridge of Flowers

Looking over the Connecticut River in Shelbourne Falls

And followed up that half hour by a trip to a combination apple orchard and sculpture garden in Northampton, but unfortunately no apple picking as windstorms destroyed the apple crop (2020, strikes again)

Having hit most of the local pandemic-safe highlights, we were now ready to go east and head to the coast through some more unoriginally named towns. https://thechosenfugue.blogspot.com/2018/10/wonders-man-made-and-natural.html. And since we were traveling, we kept our tradition of sampling the foods of an area at least once a country, and to us, New England is another country.  Our first try was on at the witching and fishing towns of Salem and Gloucester which ended up as most of our food excursions, failing and going back home and eating home made tortillas.  


Cove in Gloucester

 

Two cormorants enjoy the Gloucester view  
                

Next coastal trip to another town named after an English one was to Ipswich- another well preserved colonial fishing town with a rich industrial, history. Feeling repetitive. 



Historical Murals are always appreciated

Before the Ipswich trip, we actually planned ahead and found a classic waterside take-out to get 3 different fish soups (we sampled Chowdah! Chowdah! and Chowdah! – All three pretty damn good.) 


The view from our table at JT Farnums which means our car

The main reason for the Ipswich trip, though, was to pick up cats for Ione. Pip and Posy, another literary allusion .https://nosycrow.com/series/pip-and-posy/



The next big excursion covered 6 states over 6 hours.  Amherst to Kaiser in Kensington, MD, much more than a stone\’s throw away but necessary for kidney stone follow-up and flu shots.  https://thechosenfugue.blogspot.com/2020/08/driving-to-end-of-rainbow.html

Drive-thru tourism acting like locals on the turnpikes and toll roads with our own EZpass.

The Connecticut turnpike/highway/expressway (very confusing on the names here) wins for presentation.  Beautiful overpasses in a range of styles, well placed travel plazas- nicely named and tasteful bland architecture all wrapped up with a plethora of trees, just starting to change colors. Apparently, this road, Connecticut 15, Merritt Parkway is well appreciated https://www.knowol.com/information/connecticut/merritt-parkway-bridges-pictures-history/. Considering we did not leave the car through the drive, we appreciated it. Or maybe it was appreciated because we were not able to leave the car until we rolled to our destination.  

Another perk to this trip was that we stopped to see Nick\’s sister on the New Jersey shore.   Beachside towns share some type of cosmic connections;  Gloucester MA and the Jersey shore mirroring their relatives across the sea, walking along the promenade  we could have been in Eastbourne or Brighton, UK. https://thechosenfugue.blogspot.com/2018/10/bonfires-bandstands-and-beaches-in.html

                                                                         New Jersey Shore

On our return back, via Costco in Springfield, MA, it almost felt like going home to our hovel. Our basement apartment has mellowed with time as we watch the sunset lights and changing of the colors on the trees well framed by the ground level windows. The changing of the leaves is spectacular, the air has a bite you don\’t taste in the West.  

Winter is coming, we are curious to meet the challenge of a true sustained snowy winter and see if our wimpy west coast winter clothes (triple layered) work.  Although, the heater works, controlled by the upstairs inhabitants, reaching highs never experienced in our own home. We have had some new unwanted roommates, house centipedes. As with most roommates, they are creepy, disgusting  but these guys move very fast. This is a stock photo, because they don\’t photograph well from the bottom of our shoes. 

We hear mice in our ceiling heater vents but haven’t caught any so we moved the humane traps to our daughter’s attic, and in a month have caught 23 mice that we then release into the woods. 
Hence, welcome Pip and Posy, since their arrivals- no mice. 

So we got tested after our travels (negative), quarantined our 2 weeks and then returned to our quarantine-routine, our bubble life in Amherst, living the motto when in Rome avoid the Romans.

After 4 months here, it is hard to feel like we know the area. We can\’t visit most of the many museums in the area. Half the population (students) are missing. But the longer we have been in Western Mass  the more we are appreciating the beauty of the Berkshires but still longing to be home on the West Coast.  Besides Western Mass kinda sounds like a medical condition and while  you can take the girl out of Western Mass, can you take the Western Mass out of the girl?

                                          Another view/hike along the Connecticut River


 


 

 

 

 

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Our year of living dangerously continues

Amherst is located in Western Massachusetts, which is known for the close proximity of five well 
regarded colleges: Amherst College, Smith College, Mt. Holyoke College, Hampshire College  
and the flagship of the state university system U Mass, Amherst.  U Mask, Amherst?

Usually there would be thousands of students in the area but each school has significantly

scaled back or basically gone fully Zoom for pandemic academics.  Amherst feels like a sleepy 

college town with the iconic brew-pub (temporarily closed), art-house cinema (temporarily closed),

quirky restaurant-Judie\’s popovers (temporarily closed), artisanal ice cream shop (permanently 

closed), university museums https://www.carlemuseum.org (temporarily closed)  and 14 Asian 

restaurants within a 3 block radius. We have no idea if it really is sleepy or if it is just because there 

are essentially no students here yet. Can’t imagine what it will be like when the 27,000 students 

return (who knows when).   

 

A month ago, it was uncertain what was going to happen with the return of the students.  Even 

with that uncertainty, housing is limited and expensive in Amherst and very hard to find anything 

without a year’s lease.  From Oregon, we briefly FaceTimed with a potential landlord, felt

former-Californian connection and basically jumped in blind. We rarely learn from our past 

experiences, we did buy our house in Eugene from the internet.  

 

So our basement “garden studio\”, is located in a corner of a basement of a house (promising path to our entrance)

 

Immediately outside our room door, which doesn\’t fully close, are the stairs to the rest of the house.

Our room came with a futon and a college-dorm-style mini fridge. Patricia thought it was 

fine except for the bed and fridge, which is all it had. 

No kitchen, there is a sink but it is on the other side of the basement, next to the bathroom.   

We get there by traversing your typical basement décor of dust,  spiders, unidentifiable bugs that 

may or may not bite, boxes, dusty unwanted furniture, forgotten tools, paint cans, rugs, mattresses, water 

heater, roll of left over insulation, fuse box, an extremely large oil heating tank and  fireplace accessories. 

As with all traditional New England houses the washer and dryer are in the basement and for us, 

they are right outside our bathroom. Everyone upstairs comes downstairs to do their laundry. 

So we mask up to go wash ourselves or our dishes.  It\’s all rather awkward, even for us. 

We have called upon our experiences; our own and daughters\’ time in college combined with our

Eastern European Air BnB stays to create our home.  Added madras-like bedspreads on the wall, 

a microwave, electric teapot  updated the dorm fridge (they now come with separate freezer!) 

and an insta-pot (we are trying to learn new things).    

So we plugged in the yogurt maker and tortilla press and it now feels (almost) like home. Our hovel. Our buried treasure.

Didn’t think we would ever long for some of our more challenging accommodations in Europe,

but this basement has been able to do so. The ambience is further enhanced by the 24 hour background buzz of three fans, an air purifier and a de-humidfier (which almost drowns out the cicada) as they fight and lose the daily battle against the heat and humidity. .

The air is so thick, it feels like you are covered with double stick tape collecting sweat and bugs, 

bugs significantly larger then our west coast ones.  The ants are the size of dachshunds and the 

sow bugs are clad in Viking armor. 

The humidity also boosts the growth of trees, vines and grass and this verdant growth would be  

be really beautiful if the fear of ticks and Lyme disease had not redefined our definition of an 

attractive landscape.We look forward to  summer storms to ease the heat and have been 

rewarded with one tropical storm and two tornado warnings. 

Fortunately, we did not need to run to the basement since that is where we are living. 

Eastern Standard Time is not just a terrible weather time zone, it is terrible for the start of baseball

games and catching up on news.  We have a new respect for anyone who has lived on the 

East Coast. 

Our days, though, are full and make us happy to be here.  

 

                 

We have made a lot of day trips to the Target and Whole Foods parking lots for curbside pick-ups,

and have explored a new Trader Joe\’s (consistently handling COVID well).  We’ve walked past the 

Emily Dickinson house, and her grave, both of which are the crown tourist jewels of Amherst.  

 

We sat with Emily and Robert Frost (another long time resident). 

We strolled through many neighborhoods, one consistent with the town\’s emphasis on poetry (not just Emily and Robert but Edward Field author of Winken, Blinken and Nod was another Amherstian). 

We walked through the historic neighborhood of Holyoke (birthplace of volleyball), but missed the

canals there (we missed Italy and Venice canals too)  There was a trip to the DMV (called RMV here for Registry of Motor Vehicles) in Springfield (birthplace of basketball) for Alivia to renew her license plus a stop and see dinosaur footprints.

 

 

We went to a Covid drive-by quilt show in cute Easthampton, or maybe it was laundry day. 

A trip along a little river (why does everyone pile rocks in the universal Girl Scout sign for 

danger?) https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/rock-stone-stacking-hiking-cairns/2020/08/27/3059a9c8-e70d-11ea-970a-64c73a1c2392_story.html?hpid=hp_travel-right-4-0_travel-latest-feed%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans,

We have seen groundhogs (unfortunately one ate all our unripe tomatoes), chipmunks, bunnies, 

squirrels, a ton of really beautiful birds. No bears yet but others have reported sightings in town. 

 

What\’s next? More sweating and waiting until we can complain about the cold.  

We are effectively trapped in Massachusetts. Canada is closed. With our Oregon car plates, surrounding states are off limits. So we are (desperately) pretending that we are in Europe still as this old town, first documented in 1658 and incorporated in 1759, shares many characteristics with some of our favorite places in Europe. The classic town hall with clock tower

Old quirky cemeteries located  in the center of town, 

and in parking lots.

A  busy town square, not as picturesque as a German “Platz“, but consistent with the Yiddish  “plotz” which makes sense as the Yiddish Book Center is located here https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org

But reality sets in.  Tornado warnings, tropical storms, toll roads, Target pick ups, terrible time zone, no right turns on red, thousands of college students potentially ready to descend on the town constantly remind us that we are here in New England, USA. 

.