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
Tag: adventure
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
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”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”Ready for my Closeup
Dollar Slices
All men are hungry. They always have been. They must eat, and when they deny themselves the pleasures of carrying out that need, they are cutting off part of their possible fullness, their natural realization of life, whether they are poor or rich.
— M.F.K. Fisher, How to Cook a Wolf
I consider today the true start of my journey, my first chance to take a break from eight- and nine-hour days driving my diesel-powered Mercedes Sprinter van west on the never-ending I-80, and to slow down — the speed limits out here are typically as high as 75 mph — and observe what I’ve been passing by since starting out from Connecticut last week.
Continue reading “Dollar Slices”Bridge Ices before Roadway
Life “is like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
— E. L. Doctorow
I’m parked at the Portage Service Area off I-80 in western Ohio, balancing my laptop on my legs, and every tractor trailer that enters the rest stop passes right in front of me: Dominion, AmeriFreight, Prime, ITS Logistics, and so on.
Continue reading “Bridge Ices before Roadway”251 Court Street
Anna, whom everyone calls Queenie — a childhood nickname that took hold — lives down the hall from my now-empty third-floor apartment. It’s not really a hall — more like an elevated walkway with a full wall on one side where the apartment doors are and a half-wall on the other side open to a four-story atrium with skylights that sound like snare drums whenever it rains.
Continue reading “251 Court Street”