Being a nomad and living on the road instead of in a traditional house is just the right fit for Stumpknocker.
Continue reading “Stumpknocker”Stumpknocker
Hot + Cold
October extinguished itself in a rush of howling winds and driving rain and November arrived, cold as frozen iron, with hard frosts every morning and icy drafts that bit at exposed hands and faces.
― J.K. Rowling
Indeed, October is leaving Utah on a rainy, cold wind. And I still have no way to heat this cavernous steel ship I call Nautilus. But I have been promised a slot to install an auxiliary diesel heater to keep me warm this winter in my as-yet-uninsulated 2019 Mercedes Sprinter.
Continue reading “Hot + Cold”Stormy Weather
Nature’s Monuments
My plan was to divide into comfortable chunks the drive from the campground in Joshua Tree, where I had just spent about a week, to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.
Continue reading “Nature’s Monuments”Running The Gamut
The last time I slept on land under the care of the Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, it was sublime.
Continue reading “Running The Gamut”Happy Faces
The Joshua Tree Music Festival has wound down.
The campground is almost empty. All that remain are memories of the event — and photographs, many of them of happy people enjoying themselves.
Here is a group of happy faces, photographed on the last day of the festival, during one of the final musical performances on the main stage.
Chrysler and Tepi
Tepi is probably the fastest camp dog you’ll ever see.
She’s not classically beautiful. Her fur is scraggly (breeders call it “scruffy”) and while she lays no obvious claim to any particular breed, she could be part Border Terrier.
Continue reading “Chrysler and Tepi”A Place to Sleep — Part I
Sleep is all about recovering. So if you’re not sleeping, you’re not recovering. And if you’re going to break your body down a lot, you better find ways to build it back up. And the only way to do that is get a lot of sleep.
— Tom Brady
During the first few weeks of my journey from Middletown to Colorado and Portland, Oregon, I followed major highways — especially I-80, which carried me through four U.S. time zones and nine states.
Continue reading “A Place to Sleep — Part I”Benefits of Wandering
When I’m traveling, sometimes a need for some minor adapting travels with me. Obstacles do crop up from time to time. Such was the case when I pulled into Tacoma, Washington, a port city of nearly 220,000 about 30 miles south of Seattle.
Continue reading “Benefits of Wandering”A Bridge too Near
with the threatened floating homes at left, just below the middle of the photo.
Home for Sherre and Ted Vanegas is a two-bedroom two-bath house floating on the Columbia River in Portland, Oregon. They have lived here since 1993 in what people call the Moorage — a collection of about one-hundred-seventy-five floating houses moored to finger-like docks jutting out into the Columbia.
Continue reading “A Bridge too Near”