How To Travel

So Mommy says don't put beans up your nose, but did she ever try it? Don't think so.

My mom came from a time and place where beans went into the ground (spring) or into the soup (any old time). And that was it. No nose beans, because everybody knew that beans and noses were not meant to be. No need to try it yourself. End of story.

A lot of things were like that where I came from. Common knowledge. Absolute limits. Duh.

• Look both ways before crossing the street, even an empty street.
• Wear your mittens.
• Brush your teeth once a day, right after getting out of bed, before eating.
• Always have on clean underwear, in case you're hit by a truck, so the people at the hospital won't be disgusted as you die.
• Never miss before-bedtime prayers, lest the god-thing rise to anger and reach for the whacking stick.
• Eat everything on your plate to make up for starvation somewhere.
• Respect authority. All authority. Everywhere. All the time.
• Rejoice in progress, for it will make us all happier, richer, and ever more content. Even if it hurts and is confusing.
• It's for your own good, so conform. Comply. Shut up.

If it now comes in a pouch, and costs less, and is never touched by human hands, and is harder to understand, and can't be repaired by ordinary mortals, and goes faster, and sluices you into the drain of complete faceless anonymity, then it's progress. So give up — you can't fight it.

I just finished a long airline trip. It was a miracle, a miracle of our age.

Imagine traveling thousands of miles in a single day, spending a day or two in a strange place, and then rewinding it all and magically returning home with all your original parts in place, albeit a tad tired. That's me, after an incident of progress.

And you know what? Poop on it.

Just poop on it all.

The best way to travel is the slowest. Not the fastest but the slowest. The most primitive, the most rudimentary, ordinary, most old-fashioned analog way you can. The way most open to fumbling, misdirection, error, and serendipity, with plenty of slow-motion time flowing all around so if something kinda goes wrong? You know? Wrong? Well, you still have plenty of time to fix it.

The way that gives you time to think, and time to feel. And time to sleep a little if you want to, and not be left stranded thousands of miles from home because your life, your self, didn't quite fit into an arbitrary schedule.

Multi-day, cross-country bus trips used to be an ordeal, but now that we have cross-continent and cross-ocean air travel, I long for a simple, agonizing multi-day bus trip, the sort of ongoing event that would let you get out and stretch your legs every now and then, and sniff the air, and hear a thing or two, and actually see, in person, whatever small town the bus happened to be stopped in, if only for a few minutes.

Air travel is fast, and that's all. Everything else about it is horrific.

I'm not big as people go these days, but sitting in my airline seat, I didn't even have room to cross my legs. That's bad enough. Two eleven-and-a-half-hour layovers, one going, one returning, were worse. It's now five days later and I'm still running into walls, and I have a head cold or something, and a headache and a sore throat, and I didn't even cross a single time zone.

I would much rather get on a boat and kill two weeks each way than to fly any more. I would much rather mount the stairs and board a gigantic fantasy airship that held a thousand people and cruised at 50 miles an hour and took a whole week or two, and be able to sit and look out the window and marvel at leisure, and walk around and be totally at ease than to sit, stuck in a tiny seat just barely big enough for my smaller-than-average self, for four-and-a-half-hour flights. Yes.

I cannot at all imagine a really long flight like the ones that cross the Pacific. I'm not even sure that humans can actually endure that sort of experience, despite knowing that they do. Some do — good grief how?

I'd even be willing to try walking or bicycling from one continent to another, if that could be managed. Perhaps not in the world as we know it, but it's a thought — in a better world, yes, maybe I could do that. Maybe I'd be willing to try. It would not be fast, but it would be real, a journey to remember.

But flying any more? Not really, no, unless I absolutely have to. Not any more. It's too much progress for me to comply with any more. I'm done complying.

 

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Have anything worth adding? Then try sosayseff+eff@nullabigmail.com
Me? Jetlagged, yet somehow not full of hope.

 

Etc...

so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction
definitions: outdoor terms
fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves
boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks
snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity
last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer
noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals

Living In Public

I got here too early. Way too early, at the end of February.

I wanted to get a good deal on a used car at a time of year when car sales are slow, and to pick up one from at least a year ago rather than a few months ago. Via Hertz Car Sales, anyway, more reliable than Bob's Random Car Sales Lot or a private party.

I have no home here anyway, so I needed to make a transaction happen within a span of days rather than of weeks or months. That part worked. And then what?

I sat. In the rain. In the rain inside the library. In the rain inside the car. In the rain, sleeping, at night, in the car, listening to the rain pound down. For a long time now. Like a week short of three months, although the rain let up about a month back. Despite that, I still have to wait.

First I waited for the rain to end, and now I'm waiting for high-country snow to melt.

I've checked. Anything above 4000 feet (1200m) still lies under snow. Can't walk there. Can't drive close enough to walk there. The backcountry is closed, the roads are. Even some low places I could go have washed-out roads, so I can't go there either. And now the Memorial Day weekend is here, and all sorts of nuts will be out driving around. Have to wait that out.

Maybe in a week. I will get out. I will. That's why I'm here.

Right now, though, I'm waiting. Still waiting. Waiting is harder than it sounds, partly because everywhere I go, I'm visible. Out there. A fixture of any public place I happen to be in, and there are no private spaces for me here.

I used to live here. I had an apartment. I liked it. I was in my apartment a lot, and when I wasn't in there, I knew that I could return to it, go through the door, shut the door, and be home. Alone. Alone and quiet and safe and private. I can't do that now, not here, not at this time.

I have a car. I can move, I can drive, I can go, but I can't drive home. I can't be home. I have none. I can be a guy sitting in his car eating in a parking lot, or a guy parked, sleeping in the back of his car, in what I hope is a place that no one will investigate.

Everything I do is public now — sleeping, eating, bathing, pissing, shitting, traveling, cleaning house, making my bed, reading, sorting, packing, unpacking. Everything. All of it.

Even if I'm out in the woods, privacy is temporary, if I happen to be in a place where no one else is, at that moment, then I am alone for that moment only. When others are around my privacy is partial — screened from one side if I'm on the other side of my car, which just leaves me open and visible and vulnerable, at least to being seen, on the side I'm on, anyway. There is no resolution, no absolute, as in closing the solid front door of my apartment and shutting out all the world without exception.

Now I'm out there, out here. I'm here, and if you are too, then you are too, and all I can do is to put up with it, or drive away. Meanwhile I have to do only those things that are allowed in public, and not do the others, and try not to look too "suspicious", which is a description these days.

It gets stale. It does.

If I do any more of this next year, and I might, or might not, I'm doing it in a van. It would not be glorious or luxurious but it would be private. That's all I really crave. I could sit on the floor of a van with a squirt bottle and washcloth and bathe. I could do that, with the cover provided by even a small van, and be satisfied, in my own little way, but I can't do that in the vehicle I have now, which is too small even for me, and all windows.

So later then. We'll let things stew for now. I have months to go. We'll let things stew and later on I'll decide yes or no, or stay or go, but I won't do things this way again. I am not a public person and need to live up to that

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.

Fly Me, Just Fly Me Already

I think I'll make it out of here but it ain't easy. Life these days — y'know?

It's the airport. The airport is still here but it's on vacation. It has problems so they said, "Hey — why not take a few off?"

Stories about the ultimate cause vary, but a couple of months ago a jet passenger plane did in fact slide sideways off the runway and come to a stop on the grass. Some say the root of the issue is that the runway was improperly resurfaced not too long ago. I don't know, but it needs work now.

The runway is apparently lumpy, with the problematic bits being the low-lying pockets that accumulate rainwater. Sky leaks rain, rain fills pockets, aircraft wheels hit waterpockets, hydroplaning happens, plane goes sideways, people get cranky.

The usual, except nobody hurt yet. Yet. But soon maybe (you never know), so they gotta do something. Until then the airport closes every time there is rain. At least too much rain, which is a judgment call. Even up to 10 minutes before you're due for a fine and tidy wheels-up situation you don't know if it's going to happen to you.

Reports vary.

Some say that half the recent flights in/out of here are not occurring. The story seems to be buy a ticket, show up, see what happens. If you make it into the sky, you're good. If the plane doesn't land, then you're on your own. No next flight, no bus, no refund, no nothin. So long, sucka.

I'm checking into the bus. Those who know say it's the way to go. Check. Eight bucks from Cuenca to Guayaquil in three hours. Versus maybe $80 to $100 bucks if you hire a private driver. Fifty bucks seems to be real steal deal lately but there are problems there too.

For years small companies have been driving vanloads of people back and forth, but that isn't legal for one reason or another. I guess they don't see the need of buying a license and insurance and all them other bothersome things.

One of the police forces has been stopping vans, confiscating them, and leaving six or eight gringos that were formerly inside standing by the side of the highway. I haven't heard anything about taxis, SUVs, regular autos full of traveling gringos, but I bet some of them get hammered to, special $50 rate or not.

Yeah, so if you take the bus you have a fairly high probability that someone will at least try to make off with your luggage. Keep it on your lap if you can, or at your feet, or sit on it. Never accept help from kindly strangers. Hope for the best.

One of these travel options will be mine, all mine, all too soon. All a part of the joy of living in paradise. (Eight bucks is really cheap, though.)

Flight

Pining for wheels.

I've been looking into airlines.

I want to go to Ecuador around the end of October.

I've flown a couple of times before but that's about it. Once or twice. There and back again, in a straight line.

I'm nearly a flight virgin.

It should be easy I think.

Every time before I went through a travel agent. Now we have on-line stuff. I can do it from home, in my underwear.

It seemed so easy. In conceptual form. Not so much in practice. For me.

I want to go from Seattle to Guayaquil. Which ought to be straightforward. But isn't. So much.

It seems I can go to Houston, and then to Miami, and then to Guayaquil. Or to New York, Miami, and Guyaquil. Or somewhere, somewhere, and Guyaquil. Or is there another somewhere in there?

Can't remember.

What I do. Remember. Is. Forty-some hours for the slowest trip, so far, maybe 14 and change for the quickest.

This is 2012 and planes travel over 500 miles an hour. But still, terminals travel at zero. And that's where most of the time collects. First in the corners, then up the walls, and finally collapsing down on your head to suffocate.

I long for 1968. I went 1200 or so miles by Greyhound. There. And back. Aside from having to walk past everyone to the back of the bus to take a leak, and going without any real food for a day or so it wasn't that bad. And not washing.

Every stop, you could get off and breathe some air. Walk around the outside of the bus. Look at the sky. Hear sounds.

Then go again.

It was real.

By air, it's a fantasy movie, sealed in a can.

The thought police run through your mind. Up and down your body, irradiating it, inspecting your shoes. Doubtful of your humanity.

After they get done you moo with the others while being herded along the tube, and then you sit, helpless, for hours.

Then another tube and you're in a strange terminal that's the same as all the others, where you sit. Maybe an hour. Maybe a day. Maybe it's 1 a.m. to 9 a.m. Maybe something else.

Water torture. Without the clean-ness of water.

Stuffy torture. Cramped-ness. Stale air. Receding life force.

There appear to be at least 1898 different ways to get from Seattle to Guayaquil. Most follow exactly the identical route, but over differing terrains of time and with shifting degrees of reality. They all hurt.

I spent half a day on it and know less than before.

I'll give it hell tomorrow. For sure.

There must be an answer in there somewhere.

I miss Greyhound, creepy as it was. Real as it was. It was real.