Vanishing Point

When I first saw people spelling the name of the town with the "S" in it, I thought it was a typo or someone who just didn't know how to spell. There is a type of rock called quartzite, so it seemed obvious to me that the town must be named for that. But not so! Quartzsite is indeed a site where one finds quartz. So the name does make sense as spelled. The ground here is very rocky and sandy and there is quartz pretty much anywhere you look. All I had to do was decide which way to aim my camera. Quartz is really pretty. Quartzite, not so much.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartzite In addition to the rocks and sand there is an interesting variety of vegetation. The one I was told to pay the most attention to is this thorny little thing that I'm told is the bane of dog owners in these parts, and that is a reason why perhaps I should wear closed shoes when walking around. Shown here next to my foot in an unclosed shoe: It's small, it can be very har

The landscape around Tucson is stunningly beautiful. The mountains. The cactus. Aaaaaaah. Here are some photos I took while I was there. Mission San Xavier del Bac: Saguaro National Park: I didn't notice until I saw the photo above later that a cactus skeleton had photobombed my shot (that thing that looks like an arm at the right). I was so focused on the late afternoon light that I didn't notice the skeleton at all. I suspect it would have made a more interesting photo than the prickly pear, but I have only a bit of it. It was a lovely afternoon and I really enjoyed not being the driver for a day. Mountains North of Tucson: Pima Air and Space Museum: Land sharks! Not really, just a lot of parked old planes seen from the car window as we drove by. This is the place I'm most likely to want to visit if I do more sightseeing in Tucson. 

I had a lot of enthusiasm for attending the RTR this year, but I was also aware that I wasn't sure how prepared I actually was for the experience. It turns out that my sprained foot was one of those blessings in disguise that you hear about. It forced me to slow down from the frenzy of trying to get ready for my trip. It forced me to be more conscious of my body while moving around. I didn't know how rocky and uneven the terrain would be at RTR, but if I had gotten there all wound up and not being particularly careful, the odds of my injuring myself after I got there seem really high to me. And managing the same injury if it occurred after getting there would have been much more difficult and unpleasant for me. If you've been reading this blog all along, then you may recall that when I left home, I wasn't sure I'd make it all the way to Arizona. I didn't know how my foot would tolerate traveling, and I didn't know what kind of weather I'd encounter.

Such a person is known colloquially, in some circles, as a "rubber tramp." "Rubber" refers to the tires on a vehicle and "tramp" refers to traveling. "Tramp" is also associated with living off of handouts, and I know that there are people who do live their lives like that. On this trip I've seen several examples of people hanging out with their vans or RVs near a gas station with a sign and an empty gas can asking for hand outs. But the people that I know who travel in their vehicles all have a means of support -- savings, retirement income, part-time seasonal work, full-time work done on the road: one or more of the above. From what I can tell, working from the road is not all that different from working remotely in a house or apartment, like I've done for the last ten years or so. Flashback: During the summer between my junior and senior years of college, I thought it would be fun to work in the amusement park near my school instead

This isn't the post where I talk about what I learned at the gathering of RV and van dwelling people -- I still have to put that together and I don't want to wait to record and share my impressions from the last couple of days. I crossed an important threshold in the last few days -- the one between the state of mind where my van feels like something I want to get out of at the end of the day to a new state of mind where my van feels like a cozy and comfortable place to spend the evening and the night. I noticed this because the night that I spent in the Planet Fitness parking lot, I felt really comfortable. I had asked at the desk whether I could park overnight and the answer was that while they couldn't explicitly give me permission, that they were open 24 hours and no one would notice. When I parked for the night the lot was bustling -- this is by far the busiest Planet Fitness I've seen. When I woke before dawn there were far fewer cars, but there were clearly p

Although I was at the event I had worked so hard to get to and was only parked a short walk away from all the action (maybe 3 or 4 blocks, in city speak?) the ground was rocky and uneven and I had to be very careful with my foot. One misstep could easily set me back by weeks. So I walked very slowly and carefully, and I didn't do as much as I would have liked while I was there, but I did get to do enough to make it worth being there. I stayed nice and toasty warm in my sleeping bag, but by morning my van was as cold inside as it was outside. The first night it only went down to the upper 50's, so it was quite pleasant. I had a lovely morning to remind myself how to use my stove and to make tea. I bought a very silly-looking teapot for this trip, but I love love love it. It works great and it folds up so very small to put away! This is it, if you're curious: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B013KZUULA/ The day started nice and warm, but it never got warmer that day th

Here's something I wrote on Wednesday, January 17: Today I crossed the Continental Divide in Southern New Mexico. It's only about 4800 feet above sea level there, so it doesn't seem like much, but it is partly a frame of mind. Now I'm truly Out West. I also crossed into Arizona, which puts me in the land of somewhat warmer days and nights, and in the same state as the friend I will meet up with either tomorrow or Friday. For the second time in my life, I had to go through a Border Control Checkpoint in New Mexico. I was a little nervous because one of my cousins told me that plain white vans are considered suspicious, and because the signs said "Cars left lane; Trucks right lane." I'm not in either a car or a truck -- where do I go? I was driving right behind an RV, so I decided to just follow it. I figured that whatever it was, I was too. We stayed in the lane for cars and I was waved through with a "Have a nice day, ma'am." Tonight

I had no idea how slow my internet connection would be here. I hope to post something meatier soon, but for now I just wanted to make it known that I have not dropped off the face of the planet, just the internet. 😄

Yesterday morning I decided to stop traveling for a day so that I could slow down enough to notice my current state of body and mind, figure out the logistics of where to stay after I get into Arizona, and rest a bit after an intense week-plus of traveling. I was able to do a lot of preliminary research on places I might camp in Arizona on my way to meet my friend near Quartzsite, but mostly that meant ruling places out. Near the end of the day I did come up with an idea I liked quite a bit, but since yesterday was a government holiday, I couldn't call and get my questions answered. Yesterday afternoon the weather service issued a wind advisory for this area. It never got very windy here in Las Cruces, but if I check the weather for each town along the route through New Mexico, the winds pick up to almost as high as those I encountered in Texas during the day today. I have no desire to repeat the wrestling match with the wind again, so I'm staying put another day before hit

The driving on West from Pecos, Texas continued pretty smoothly. I drove through the land of flaming smokestacks, looooooong trains (fortunately no need to wait for them at a RR crossing), dilapidated truck stops (see photo -- truck stops have come a long way since then!) and picturesque mountains (depicted on a map of El Paso from 1886). El Paso has come a long way since then too. The traffic was intense and fast-paced, which reinforced my decision to keep on going to Las Cruces before stopping for the day. This brings me to the Mountain time zone, and to New Mexico. My room had gorgeous natural wood furniture and tile work.  Continuing the bird sound theme from yesterday, I took this short video to capture the sound of the local owls. There's nothing to see here (except the outside of the motel) but you can hear the owl chorus that was coming from somewhere nearby. I didn't know what I was hearing, so I asked a local. It went on for quite a while in the

I'll start with a visual reminder that I'm not in the midwest anymore: a small tumbleweed by my van when I went out this morning. I felt nervous about Texas before I got here. It is huge, it's a little bit foreign (to my way of thinking), and rumor has it that you don't mess with it. :^) It turns out that I rather like driving through Texas. There's something about the big sky and the wide open spaces that just feels good. Until today, I've mostly tried to avoid the interstate highways, in part because they often go through big cities. I am glad I drove out of my way to skip the Dallas metro area, but now that it's not a consideration, I've settled into the rhythm of those roads a bit better. I've learned how to drive them and have a more peaceful experience. I drove past refineries and oil fields and Texas-sized RV dealerships. And miles and miles and miles of wind turbine farms. I saw lots of power being generated by wind, and yet the w

Mostly I experienced yesterday as being about weather, and I'll get to that, but first I'll talk about my experience of traveling a bit. Yesterday I became aware of moving through the countryside too fast. I'm passing by so many people, so many types of lives, and I feel curious about them, but I'm trying to get somewhere, so I keep rolling on to my next destination. Similarly, I'm aware that I've become overly focused on getting to my destination.  In particular this clouded my judgment about what to do when I entered a wind storm. Now for the weather... I saw some threatening looking clouds yesterday, and I drove on some recently-rained-on pavement, but not a drop hit my windshield. When I arrived at my destination, I took this snapshot of the weather map for Texas, and I'm not sure how that was possible. The red arrow points to where I started my trip today, and the blue arrow points to where I ended my trip today. That weather system was moving N

What can I say? I like driving back roads better than the interstate highways. That sums up this post. If you like details, keep reading... I put a fair amount of effort into staying off of highway 30 yesterday because my experience of it was so unpleasant in the Little Rock area. By taking the back roads, I wound up getting to see a lot of little lake and river resort towns in the Southwest part of the state. I also noticed for the first time as I was leaving town a sign identifying the town of Hot Springs as Bill Clinton's boyhood home. Having seen Hot Springs gives me a very different picture than I might have otherwise conjured up of a typical small city in Arkansas. It's a gambling and tourist mecca for the area, and the gambling industry creates a very different culture from, for example, agriculture. The other little towns I passed on my way South also seemed very tourist-oriented, but more of the fishing and boating and golf-playing variety. When I finally did join

The drive from Jonesboro to Hot Springs was a bit of just about everything. The first part was flat agricultural land with occasional tiny towns built around heavy-duty crop storage facilities. Next there were the miles and miles of interstate highway with the right lane worn by all the truck traffic into rhythmic bumps. Mostly it was just annoying, but at one point the cadence had me singing "a Wimoweh, a Wimoweh" in my head (I had to look up how to spell that -- here's the song if you don't get the reference or if you just want to listen to it:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7mDzwYcZiM ). Next was the messy road construction and urban congestion in the Little Rock area that commanded my undivided attention and a firm grip on the steering wheel. Finally there was the relaxing drive through the forested hills between the interstate and Hot Springs National Park. Along the way I stopped for lunch at Greek restaurant in Searcy, Arkansas. Tripadvisor and a smart pho

I didn't think about it before I set out yesterday morning, but as I briefly drove through the bottom tippy-tip of Illinois yesterday, I realized that this is the first time I've been on the ground in four states in one day whether or not there was an airplane involved, and no airplane was necessary. I really wish I could have photographed the frozen Ohio River with barges passing through big chunks of ice as I passed by, but I was on a bridge approach with no place to stop and take a photo. So today I am finally motivated to get a dash cam. This photo isn't seasonal, but it shows the two bridges I crossed, first over the Ohio from Kentucky to Illinois, then across the Mississippi from Illinois to Missouri. The second bridge I crossed was really high to accommodate commercial vessels, and opened in 1929, so it is the older of the two bridges. The first bridge is not quite as high and not quite as old -- it opened in 1937. Let's just say I was really glad to be we

Advisory: this entry is probably only interesting to people who like details about maps and directions. I'm still getting used to how my new GPS gives directions, and I don't have it set up so that I can see the screen while I'm driving because that's too distracting for me, so I don't trust it 100%. This morning I thought I knew what it wanted me to do and I was confused when I thought it was giving me an instruction at the wrong time, but I was actually at an unusual freeway exit that had two opportunities to turn left off the exit ramp, and I turned left at the first one when I should have turned left at the second one. Still confused, I ignored the next instruction it gave me because by the time I figured out that I really should have followed it, I was past the turn it requested. So I took the third-best instruction and wound up really confused for a while because I thought I was cutting over to a nearby road that I wanted to be on, but in fact I was parall

Plan C was a keeper, and I hit the road yesterday, Saturday January 6. This was the scenario leading up to my departure: I had a $120 Best Western voucher that expires Sunday, January 7. I asked if they could extend it and the answer was no, so I decided I would start my trip on Saturday and assess how my foot is doing after traveling for a day or two, and then decide whether to continue on to Arizona or head back home. Heading out Saturday was a bit of a gamble. It was bitterly cold (-1 when I woke up with a high of 23 predicted) and I would be scooting just barely Southwest of what might turn into freezing rain late in the day on Sunday. I considered changing my route to head due South instead of Southwest because that would give me slightly better weather, but it's a longer route and a much, much less pleasant one -- I-65 is a major truck route and a nail-biter under the best of circumstances. So I decided to play the odds and take the route I prefer and risk getting stuck