On The Road

I say, when given hard times, get a positive attitude and make them fun. The above photo is a picture of The Escape Pod, my beloved 1971 VW bus. It was taken at Point Lobos, on the California coast just below Carmel and just above Big Sur. I love my car. Currently she has seen some better days and could use some work, and a bit of scrubbing. I’ve had her since 1996 and I’m her second owner. The story of how I got her is kind of magical but too long for this blog post, maybe I will tell it another time.

I love to car camp. When I bought her, back in the days when I had steady work, I took the passenger seats out of my VW and put in a bed platform that has a nice five inch foam mattress on it. I have all of my blankies, a bunch of pillows and also a sleeping bag for really cold nights.

Underneath the platform I store all of my necessities, like my Coleman stove, a thermos, a cook pot, a cast iron skillet, my tea kettle, some utensils, a decent knife, a bowl or two, and some minimal food stuffs. I also carry a small med kit, extra toilet paper, and a few kitchen towels. There is always at least one sketchbook in the car. And I always have at least one novel to read - I usually take one for every two days I’ll be out. I have a camping hammock that stretches the length of the inside of the van to hold my clothes and other belongings.

When out on the road I like to camp in campgrounds. I like the amenities, like a hot shower, sometimes a camp store and laundry, a place to make a campfire, and my own designated space. But I have also been known to pull over to the side of the road, or into a parking lot, for the a night.

When I go for a hike, I make sure the car is locked tight.

One difference about car camping in a campground and RV camping in a campground is needing to find a level camping spot. RVs can adjust their height so they don’t have to be on a level spot. With car camping it’s a little more sensitive. I’ve never had a problem finding a level spot, although in some campgrounds, the ones that are geared more towards tent camping, I have had to search.

After losing my live/work painting studio in the dot.com bust of 2001, I threw everything I owned in storage and moved into the car. I have been living in or out of her ever since.

I figured that there might be a lot of people in the US that have come into my situation, if not recently, then soon, so I thought I’d give some tips on how to live in a car.

In many parts of California, and particularly in San Francisco and along the Big Sur coast, it is illegal to live or camp in your car. That doesn’t stop a lot of us from doing it though. To keep the police from rousing you in the middle of the night here are a few ideas:

Keep you and your car as clean, neat and tidy as possible, both inside and out.

Make sure, if you have a van, that you have curtains all the way around. Very plain ones are best.

Keep your car tuned-up.

Don’t keep a lot of stuff in your car. The car or van has limited space. Take only what you need.

Don’t hang out in your vehicle. Hang out in a cafe, or a bookstore, the library, at a friend’s house, or wherever until it’s time to go to sleep. Then go to your vehicle, be quiet about getting into it, and then go to sleep until morning. In the morning get dressed and be off for the day.

I’ve had full time jobs while living in my van. Which actually makes it easier with the concept of what to do with myself and the car all day.

Don’t park around other car campers. It may seem to be safer, but the police can recognize a gaggle of you.

Pick safe neighborhoods to camp in.

I like to park under, or close to, street lights.

I will also choose to park in front of the empty space between two houses rather than directly in front of a house.

If you can’t get out of bed without coffee or tea in the morning, that’s what the thermos is for. My thermos is good for keeping things warm for about 8 hours, so I if I need to, I fill it up at a cafe right before going to bed.

Join a gym for a good morning workout and a shower.

I think these tips might be helpful to someone. If you find yourself in this situation, just make an adventure out of it. Adjust your picture of reality and have a good time until the picture readjusts. Be a car camper, a traveler!

Want more tips? Just ask in the comments area!

What are your favorite road trip munchies? Do you tend to eat differently on a road trip than at home?

I had a revelation last weekend on my short road trip to Nevada. At home I eat well. I don’t have an unlimited income but I do tend to spend my money on good food rather than things. So I try and eat lots of yummy organic veggies and low-or no-fat foods.

Imagine my surprise when I gleefully found a Dairy Queen during my weekend in Reno! A chocolate shake and french fries. Lordy was that heaven. Yeah, yeah, I had the organic grapes and tortilla chips, soy milk and a bag of cashews, along with bottled water in the car. But holy cow I went ape over that shake and fries combo. And as any junk food junkie knows, the whole idea is to dip the fries into that shake!

My previous post reminded me of all of the times that I have totally screwed up my threads of communication in another language. Easy to do when the second (or third or fourth) language is learned later in life when sponge like absorption of vocabulary, grammar and syntax is not so sponge like.

There are words in English that are really hard for non-native English speakers to keep track of. Two that come to mind are kitchen and chicken. For an English speaker this is a no-brainer because, well a kitchen is a place where we cook, or sit around the table with cups of coffee and chat, and a chicken is well, an animal that lays eggs and tastes like everything. How can those two words be confused? Easy. Pretend you don’t know their meaning and say them one after the other …

Another pair is hungry and angry. Both are usually preceded by the phrase I am or Are you. My friend K., a native French speaker, always confuses these two. I always have to ask her if she wants to eat or is she mad. She is usually hungry.

My big twist is making up my own words. My brain uses its twisted logic to complete sentences when my dictionary isn’t handy. Like in French. For twenty odd years I used the word assiette for seat. Like a seat on a train or plane. Assiette is the French word for plate, but it made sense that it could also mean seat because the command to sit down is assier-toi. The word in French for seat is siege (two syllables not one).

The wonderful thing about this is that it can lead to great and confusing conversations and bouts of belly laughter. There’s nothing more fun, and more ice-breaking, than making an ass out myself in a place I know nothing about. Or even in places that I’ve known intimately for twenty years - a place so polite that the folks don’t even correct me.

We did a Lake Tahoe drive by. Very hard to take photos on a clear sunny day. None of mine turned out - between the light, the glare, and my polarized sun glasses, I couldn’t really see a thing through the lens.

Somehow the conversation between us riders, two of us locals and a German traveler, veered towards genetic engineering. I don’t quite know what led up to this bit of conversation as I was sitting in the back seat looking at the rocks and trees as they passed by.

But this part of the conversation began with the question “What do you Californians think of genetic engineering?”

“Of vegetables or animals?”

“Well, nothing like Dolly … ”

“Well, we aren’t as against it as the Europeans, but we aren’t all for it …”

“The Americans are always trying to sell us genetically engineered mice …”

“Mice?”

“Yes, of course mice. You Americans are always trying to make us buy them.”

“Why would we want to sell you genetically engineered mice?”

“We don’t want to buy them, they’re genetically engineered and we don’t like that …”

“They must be doing some research …”

“But how many mice could they possibly need for research?”

“No it’s not for research …”

“How many mice do we try to sell to Germany?”

“Oh, maybe 40 tons a year …”

“40 tons? Of mice?”

“Yes you know, the mice in the field”

“40 tons of field mice? Huh.”

“Oh yes, enough mice for everyone …”

“What would a single German want to do with genetically engineered American field mice?”

“Oh we eat them!”

“Eat them?!”

“Yes, you know, like this …” and he raises his hands and makes a nibbling motion between them.

“You mean corn?? We try and sell you genetically engineered corn? What does corn have to do with mice? …”

“Yes! Mice! (Maize said in English but pronounced with a German accent!)”

Laughing that hard was not good for the driver, but we finally settled down. Every now and then for the rest of the four hour trip, when there was a lull in the conversation, one of us would start to giggle and then mutter the word mice …