What Place Is This America?

I'm back inside the United States. I have observations, made on-the-fly.

Random.

They don't necessarily follow a sequence, add up, or fall into a hierarchy. Nevertheless, some things have struck me about this always odd land.

In a supermarket checkout line, I noticed that the people ahead of me, evidently a mother and nearly-adult daughter, had a lot of packaged foods. Among them five or six tubes of potato chips. Tubes. Chips packaged in plastic tubes that may outlast the pyramids.

I used the restroom at Millersylvania State Park one morning. The gent walking out ahead of me went from the restroom to the parking lot, got into his large SUV, and drove 200 feet back to his home-away-from-home, where he exited the truck and went back inside.

About half the land area here seems to be parking lots. There are no free-range people at large on the streets. Everyone is in motorized wheelchairs (Ford, Toyota, Mazda, Jeep, Kia, whatever).

The streets are desolate. (See previous item.) We are all isolates in our steel cans, drifting separately. Most afoot these days are homeless.

No one has children. In supermarkets, you see a few infants sitting in the grocery carts pushed around by Mom, and occasionally see one carried in a harness (usually on Mom's front side), but you don't see children walking with their parents. The three to 10 cohort is missing. There are no family groups walking around together anywhere, holding hands.

People are afraid of contact. Two years ago, out of practice from being away, I crashed my grocery cart into someone else's. The guy apologized, to me. It seems that one of the worst things a person can do is to get close to anyone else. Within two feet you hit the warning zone. People stop, jerk upright, look around, brace themselves for evasive action.

Within two feet things go critical. People begin actually taking evasive action, say "Sorry!", "Excuse me!", "Whoops!" in hopes that they won't under any circumstances actually make physical contact. Closer than that and anything can happen. If you actually touch someone they may erupt in anger and get in your face (without getting any closer), or erupt in an abject apology and slink away. Or do something completely unpredictable.

But on the road it's all close calls. While I'm driving safely and not holding up tens of vehicles behind, or any, I have people floor it and roar around me so they can slam on their brakes and screech to a stop at the impending stop sign just ahead — but ahead of me. That's the important thing. It's those two or three critical seconds that Americans will not let get away. Or will die trying to hold fast to.

Speed seems to be the most important thing in life.

Back to the supermarket: You get an apology from the cashier if the transaction of the person ahead of you takes more than 30 seconds. As if that mattered. On the road: The speed limit is seen as a minimum, especially so if the road is familiar and the person roaring out to pass from behind you has been over this stretch a couple of hundred times without crashing or murdering anyone's children, so hey, if the speed limit is 30 then it should always be safe at 50.

Aggressive, uncompromising moralism applied to random events: As I stood in the supermarket aisle reading the label on a can of beanless chili, a guy passing behind me yelled out "There's a lot of salt in that!" There wasn't, but he couldn't help it. He had to warn-criticize me in public for being so perverse as to buy chili in a can, possibly containing some of this week's evil edible. And why was it his business? Because he was moral and I wasn't. So there, guy, watch your salt.

The stores are full of the crippled. Especially food stores. They travel in motorized carts. Those able to walk do so but hobble. These are people who have never walked farther than from the cab of their giant SUV to the restroom door and back. They are stiff. Their spines no longer flex. Their knees hardly bend. They rock from side to side as they walk, and quit as soon as they can.

Obese. There are huge numbers of obese people here, growing all the time. They take up so much otherwise beautiful space. When I was young a fat person was a rare sight, something to wonder about. Now they are an ever-present shuffling obstacle course.

Packages. Nearly all the food is in packages, each fulsomely decorated with clever graphics. The raw meat, fruit, and vegetable sections continue to decline. They are not trendy, and at best represent yet more work to do once you get home. Instead of ripping open a convenient package and just stuffing the contents into your head, which is what God intended, after all, isn't it?

Shiver Me Nubbins

I can't say that I'm enjoying all of this. Not all of it.

I've been spending nights at a trailhead parking lot. It got expanded since I've been here last. The original was sort of a drive-through place: a loop at the end of the road with space for a dozen cars, if everyone was friends and played nice.

Now they've extended the road up a hill and have carved out a new lot. It's big and broad and flat and above the trees. There must be room for 500 cars up there, and the gravel is easy.

Generally, I've been using the lower lot, the old one. Hardly anybody goes there.

I park, go to sleep, get up, and leave. Anyone hiking or biking uses the upper lot and never even sees me. Most everyone. It's been good.

But it has been cold. The last clear night must have taken me down to about 20°F. Even wearing lots of fleece and hiding inside a 25°F bag, inside my car, I was still cold. Not last night though.

Last night was rain. I dreaded it but it was benign. I needed to get up just once during the night and that was during a gap in the rain. I have the windows covered so I can leave them open a bit for ventilation, which in this case, now, isn't freezing. And the weather was warm — around 40°F, which is a huge improvement.

Two mornings ago I had to scrape frost off the inside of the windshield. Not today, though I did have to wipe the fog off it with paper towels. I am not complaining. It took only seconds and did not immediately freeze over.

Now I'm waiting for the arrival of goods I've ordered, and trying to figure out how to register a vehicle and update a driver's license in Washington while not having a fixed address. Tricky

Jumping through hoops. That's what I'm looking at.

I queried the Department of Licensing about how I could do this without having to leave the state and become a resident of some other state.

As a result I got back a reply that said I could not become a Washington resident without living in the state. That sort of thing is why I quit working for government. I refuse to associate with idiots.

Wetless (Bath-Wise)

Closed.

Which is always fun. Even more fun than you can imagine, shower-wise.

I've been camping at a Capitol State Forest trailhead. It's really a day-use area but there are no signs prohibiting overnight parking so I'm going with it.

I arrive somewhat late in the day, keep a low profile, and burrow into my nest inside the car at dark, which is usually after everyone else has left.

So far Saturday night and Sunday night have been busy times, as expected, but my first night there, last Thursday, was totally quiet. This isn't surprising since Thursday, Thursday night, and early Friday were rainy. Friday night was clear and intensely cold, at least for around here. "Here" is Western Washington, which recently had a hugely atypical cold spell. But also totally quiet.

Spring is coming, and buds are out, but though heavy frost, and snow, are done with for the year (we all hope), the rain will continue for over two more months. I can handle it.

Sometime today I'll have my "side window deflectors" for the car. Once they're installed I'll be able to sleep in the car with ventilation in even heavy rain. That is only a matter of time.

The issue now is bathing.

Millersylvania State Park is my bathing home base.

The main restroom is open as usual, as it is all winter, but the shower is undergoing maintenance. There is a shower available at "Bathhouse 1" down by the lake, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., so the sign says.

It works, the shower. That is in fact better than a lot of the showers at this park, but the issues don't end there.

The problem is that the one available shower at Millersylvania State Park is not open when it should be. I've used it as late as noon, and as early as 9:30 a.m., but so far it's never open by 9:00.

If I wait around, or try to find staff, I waste time.

I was hoping to be at the library, working on things, by 10:30 today, a half hour after it opens. Well, I made it by noon.

I killed almost an hour waiting to see if the park shower would open, without luck. As a second and last resort, I went out of my way to buy a small bottle of soap that would fit in the tray at the Olympia Center. It has public showers. After buying soap in a small bottle then, I reluctantly went to the Center to see what the ground rules were these days.

Homeless guys wash there. True, I am one now, at least for a while, but it's not a great place to hang out, nor are most of those people.

The showers in this place used to be available from 8 a.m. to about noon, or until 10 a.m. on Saturdays. That was in May 2014. Now the hours are 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. (10:00 a.m. on Saturdays) I can't even get into town that early. Fun, fun, fun, but no woots.

No bathing for me! Kinda. Unless I have nothing else to do on that day, and can hang around Millersylvania all day.

So today I tootled on up to Priest Point Park in Olympia. I already needed to tank up on water, and today is dark, so even though I was there at 11 a.m., it was like dusk.

I wheeled around to a little-used part of the place where there's a shelter but no water or playground equipment or anything — the kind of place that people use as a last resort. The shelter was full of picnic tables standing on end, keeping dry until spring. Perfect. (If you have low standards.)

If not perfect, then usable.

I wet my head, soaped it, and rinsed. Done with that.

Next up: crotch.

I wetted a paper towel with rubbing alcohol, sidled backward, in and among the stored picnic tables, dropped my pants, and went over my pee-pee, then used the towel on my backside, which needed a good cleaning because of what I did with it earlier this morning.

Done.

Next, I took off my shoes one by one and with a fresh towel dripping with rubbing alcohol I went over each one.

After that I actually felt good.

The cold water on my head was a shock but nothing you don't get used to while backpacking. The alcohol wipes were quick and effective. My feet feel great. But the rest of me is still old and greasy.

Unless I knock off early and try the state park again, I won't be able to bathe until nearly another 24 hours from now, but hey. I have a partial solution for now, on days when no rain is falling — just trail-bathe. It mostly works, and anyone seeing me won't be able to tell: my hair won't be matted and greasy-looking. My crotch and feet will be cleaned off and disinfected. That's something.

Not enough, but something. Quite a bit, actually.

Anyhow, for today, I hereby declare adequate happiness and contentment.

Formless

"We've gone formless."

A sign I saw at a Fred Meyer store. It fits. I'm formless now too.

No daily routine, no old regulars to talk to, no familiar walking routes. Nothing much now is as it was only a couple of weeks ago.

I'm rebuilding a life.

My luggage got searched at the Quito airport because I was the last person to check luggage on that flight. They do that. If I was smuggling I hope I'd be smart enough to check my luggage a little earlier. As it is I'm not smart.

A member of the American Airlines staff pulled me off the plane shortly after I got pleasantly seated, then encouraged me to run across the terminal. Nope.

Anyway, I had to wait for the search to begin.

I've been through this once before, when I walked past my luggage, not realizing that I had to pick it up, even though it was supposedly checked all the way through from Cuenca to Seattle. That time I spent over three hours chasing it down, then got searched.

Nothing found, either time.

But by the time I got back to the loading gate, the plane had been sealed. Once they do that they don't undo it.

Maybe I should have run on the way back. Maybe I should have taken the wheelchair they offered, so they could push me real fast. But I think not.

So instead of going from Cuenca to Quito to Dallas to Seattle, it was Miami-Phoenix-Seattle for me, and 12 hours tacked onto my trip. Then I caught the last airport shuttle bus from Seattle to Olympia, mostly by accident. But I caught it.

After a few hours of sleep I woke to rain. Rain and cold. Beauty, eh?

Shivering, wet feet, leaky umbrella, but at least I had a place to stay. A terrific place to stay: Lori Lively's AirBnB hideout, so I was set. For a few days.

I had to buy a car. That worked. I got a Nissan Versa Note from Hertz Car Sales in Burien at a good price. The transaction was reasonably fast, and reasonably painless, but then I got back on the highway a few minutes past 3 p.m., which put me into the middle of the southbound rush hour.

It took me around two and a half hours to go around 50 miles. Woo-hoo, etc.

But getting to the U.S. and buying a car were the big humps to hump over, and I got those done.

After eight nights at Lori's place I was on my own. I parked in the woods. Then it rained some more, with me sleeping inside, with the windows up, because Nissan doesn't have "side window deflectors" available. They are those things that let you keep the car windows open a bit while keeping the rain out.

But I did find a place that still sells them for my 2016-model car. Though they wouldn't accept my credit card.

Night one. Check.

Night two I tried another place, one which is really nice, and closer, but gets heavily used on weekends. Less rain. Slightly better.

I did find a different vendor for the window shades, and accepted my order, but they ship via ox train, I think. Maybe due tomorrow, after about a week, just as the rain will be starting again, so I won't be able to put them on. (The weather has been much nicer the last few days.)

So now my life is more or less trying to get the car set up and stable in a known condition. First up was buying a second key, which cost me $121 plus change, and requires a battery. The old days were better, weren't they? While I was doing that, the dealer found a crack in the car's serpentine belt (what used to be called the "fan belt"). Had to get that fixed, for sure. $210 plus change.

While there they found a leak in the "transfer case". That has to be fixed too. But the serpentine belt was fixed under warranty at zero cost to me, so woot already.

Woot 2: The transfer case leak is also under warranty. While they do that I'll have the 35K service done, and get the car inspected overall, kind of like a pre-purchase inspection, post-purchase, so I know if anything else needs attention.

But I'm still sleeping in the woods.

And lost my driver's license.

Which I found was missing while reviewing mail that had piled up since December at my mail forwarder. In that batch of envelopes was one from my credit union, and inside that envelope was my new debit card, mailed on December 18, 2017. It expired on February 18, 2018, so I had to get that worked out. To do that I needed to show my driver's license, which wasn't there.

I guessed that I'd left it at the self-storage place I'd rented space from two days earlier. I let the staffer there use the address on the license, which is for an apartment I haven't lived in for five years. I was praying that she hadn't mailed it back to me. But she hadn't. She was holding it, and had called me and emailed me. I missed all that but I had my license back.

Then I high-tailed it out to my camping spot and started supper. Partway through I realized that it was going to be a night of hard freezing, so I was glad I had my heavy sleeping bag in the car. But it wasn't. I'd left it at the self-storage place.

So more driving then.

Got the bag, finished supper, nearly froze, and so on.

Things have been less interesting the last few days, but there should be rain again tonight, so at least I have something to look forward to.