Hello wonderful friends,
I'm writing to you mere hours before I embark on my third LandSea adventure, disappearing from internet life for a full month. Before the hiatus I'll fill you in on my adventures in the US since arriving in May, talking a lot about how others have labeled this portion of the trip for me, that is going "home".
Roadtrip North
I arrived in the US after nearly three days of bus rides, flights and hanging around airports and offices. Although I was tired and stinky, I was exhilarated to be back. I often poopoo the US, and I think there are many negative things to be said, both about the politics that the government engages in and the lifestyle that thrives here. But try as I might to come off as international and without a real home country, and even though the US does not officially recognize me as one of its own, there is no question that I understand how life works here better than anywhere else. I can easily communicate with people when I am confused about something, I can use public transit just by reading the signs, I know what type of store will sell what type of product and roughly how late it's likely to stay open. There is a huge burden when navigating a foreign country, one that is many times multiplied in a country like Thailand where I didn't speak the language and the basic logic was very new to me. There is, in response, a great relief I feel whenever I return to the US and find myself familiar with my surroundings once again.
Not that I was that familiar. I landed in LA and promptly went to Claremont to join in my sister's graduation festivities as she finished her time at Pomona College. My surroundings were new, different, and yet there was the comfort of understanding the system, understanding it subconsciously. The graduation festivities were actually a good transition for me. Lots of food everywhere, few responsibilities, and even though I had just come back from a long trip, the attention was not centered on me, which I appreciated.
I originally planned to hitchhike to Portland from Claremont but that plan was not meant to be for many reasons. Instead I tagged along a roadtrip my sister planned with one of her friends. We got along well, although there were some strained dynamics, which I recently traced to the fact that I have not traveled much with other people in the last two years. Our ideas of how to best maneuver the details - what to eat, how much to drive each day, when to get up, when to go to bed - were somewhat different. That in itself was not a problem, but we were all trying not to impose too greatly on the others, and I think that regularly created difficulties. But overall we all enjoyed the trip and the company, we hiked and camped and chatted while driving. I got to sleep on the picnic table every night because we didn't have enough room in the tent. Ultimately it was helpful for me to stretch this slow transition back into the US, although by the time we arrived, I was antsy to begin my stay in Portland.
Going "Home"
Going to Portland was very exciting for me, though I was unsure and intensely curious how the city would feel. Before arriving, I had not been in Portland for two and a half years, and had not come for more than a very quick visit in four years. Portland is a city that draws young people, especially young people with a hippie and/or alternative and/or radical mindset the way bananas draw fruit flies. In my short time in Portland I met at least four, and heard about other, young people who came to Portland because they visited and had a great experience or because they heard or knew it is the place to go. I liked Portland as a high school student but didn't have the freedom or the political inclination to explore the wealth of opportunities it offers. I was excited for what I might find. I was also going to live in my parents house. This inspired a varieties of reactions. I had not been there at all since graduating college, since two years of free flowing independence. Family home politics from this new position was both intriguing and frightening. I was excited but also concerned about the prospect of having food and lodging covered for me for over a month. Determining where I will sleep and how I will eat plays meaningfully into my life, and while removing that creates many opportunities to relax, it also severely shifts the modes of interaction with my surroundings. And I was really interested in how I would react to going and exploring a place that was so familiar, the house and the city. Many people my age, even those who have settled meaningfully in new places with long term partners, refer to visiting their parents as "going home". The H word is one I am very careful with, but I knew the experience would be emotional and thought provoking nonetheless.
My time in Portland was split between a ten day visit post road trip, and a month long visit after my stay in Michigan. The ten day visit provided an opportunity to lay the groundwork, make the connections, and as a result I hit the ground running when I came back for my month long stay. I quickly overloaded myself. My days consisted of trying to balance spending time with my family, working on various projects around the house, trying to cook and attend three food not bombs meals a week, reading ferociously to keep up with a few reading partnerships I joined, a short term relationship, hosting couchsurfers, working out logistics for my trip back to Michigan, working as a pedicab driver (picture below), doing various activities to prep my mom's birthday, and trying to be politically active where I could, be it attending meeting on alteration to a public park, a Mt. Tabor protest to save the water, or a protest in Vancouver to stop coal exports on the Columbia river. On top of it all, most of what I did was 4-6 miles from my parent's house, and coming back meant climbing a big hill, so I spent on average an hour and a half per day bike commuting. The mental chaos did not provide the relaxation piece I was hoping for, but it did provide the feeling of exploring a city, in the way that I explore a new city all the time. I would say more than half of any given day was spent engaging in activities I had not engaged in much or at all when I used to live in Portland and in parts of the city that were fairly unfamiliar to me.
Family relations were impressively smooth. There were the bumps and hiccups here and there, but overall, my parents are very relaxed and grant me a lot of freedom. Because they were very busy and I was keeping busy, I think we had enough space to not force too many unnecessary clashes onto ourselves. I got to spend a decent amount of time plotting with my dad and my siblings to orchestrate several birthday events for my mom, who had a milestone birthday this summer. It was pleasant, natural. I don't know that I really felt at home more than I do in many other places though. One thing Portland does not have for me is a wide, solid friend group. I have friends there that I was happy to see. I was even able to time my visit to coincide with one of my better friends' wedding. But I don't often have the connected moments that I experience with some of the friends I was able to visit, for example, in Michigan. I'll expand on that more after discussing my Michigan experiences.
My Last Anchor
For most of the month of June I was in Kalamazoo, with a little under a week spent in Ann Arbor. Kalamazoo is a place that is very exciting to go back to, to visit. It is one of the very few places where I know I can show up anytime, unannounced, and I will have a place to sleep and many people to visit that night. Compared with my time in Portland, in Kalamazoo I had few to no responsibilities. My days were still full though, spending hours rotating between the wonderful people that live here. I went to bed late every night, chatting about whatever seemed most fitting at the time. There were few lonely moments.
Kalamazoo inspired many moments of connectedness, those moments that arise when I think of the word home. I had the feeling repeatedly when I visited my friends, Margaux and Grace. The minute I entered their house, I felt able to let my guard down. I could relax, did not have to over think, did not have to plan and calculate. I could just be, a release I don't often have. But it's not just that. The house was also full of love. Perhaps this was particularly intense because I was in a house full of women who had just finished their time at a four year small liberal arts college. Regardless what the reason was, love and warm feelings were flowing in all directions all the time. I felt it directed at me as well, but just being in such a warm place allowed me to absorb and connect indirectly. One example stands out in particular. When the first housemate was leaving the house I happened to be present. All of the housemates converged into a massive group hug that went on and on, through tears and laughter and even song. I was not a part of the group hug, I was just sitting off to the the side on the couch, but that was part of what was magical in my experience. They were having an intense, mixed, emotional experience, and I was not intruding by being present there. Although I may not have been a part, I experienced an intense sensation of belonging, one that is closely associated with the idea of home of me.
Visiting Kalamazoo is fascinating for me because it is the last place where I had a "permanent" residence. The last place I had a room, a bed, housemates, a long term community. It was the last place where I anchored, and the place from which I launched into my wanderings. Although I have created much space between myself and my college experience, in terms of time and in terms of emotion, there is something about arriving in Kalamazoo that feels remarkably like coming home after a very very long trip.
Kalamazoo and Portland are the two geographical places that are easiest for me to associate with home, that I am most likely to give as the place where I am from if I am cornered into presenting a city name. Spending my summer between the two has offered me some time to reflect on the motif of home, one that follows my journeys wherever I go, but from a different perspective. Instead of trying to create a home in a "foreign" place, I am testing what it feels like to "come back home". There are so many idea that fit into the concept of "home". In a discussion with my mom this summer, she argued that one of the key parts of home is the place that always welcomes you, the place you can always go back. I respect the idea, and certainly my parents home presents that ease of access more than any other structure I can imagine. But thinking of a structure that I can enter seems limited. Even if I have few individual friends that have the resources to take me in were I to really need it, my network of friends and connections provides a support, a retreat, a safe place to turn whose availability I feel just as strongly as that of my parents' home. In the discussion, this concept was juxtaposed against the idea of home being defined by the amorphous feeling of connectedness. My mom argued that this feeling can arise under many circumstances and that many would be difficult to define as home. I agree with her there, and have experienced connectedness in situations that I would not call home. And yet I think the propensity of a place, community, situation, etc. to create connectedness does allow for a determiner of home. This is where the experience in Kalamazoo has an upper hand. The scene is set for me to feel deeper connectedness on a regular basis. Meanwhile at my parent's house, I have personal connections but feel in many ways out of sync with my parents' rhythms, often blocking the deeper, amorphous feeling. The intangible stirrings are just as critical as the tangible resources in understanding and conceptualizing home.
I also think this TED talk does a wonderful job of addressing many of the ideas I have of home and of the obsolete concept of having a geographical home or being "from" somewhere http://www.ted.com/talks/pico_iyer_where_is_home.html . These is an important concept of home that he tangentially mentions and addresses but does not fully tie together. Stillness. I think it is great for "home" to be a loving, warm, inspiring, motivating, challenging, expanding place. But I also think that a wonderful element of a place like home is that it is relaxed enough, that it is calm enough, that the mind can be still. This does not mean quiet, or neat, or inactive. This means a well synced, appropriate harmony, so that the energy of the home matches that of the self, and the mind can relax.
Crisscrossing the Inbetweens
Going "Home"
Going to Portland was very exciting for me, though I was unsure and intensely curious how the city would feel. Before arriving, I had not been in Portland for two and a half years, and had not come for more than a very quick visit in four years. Portland is a city that draws young people, especially young people with a hippie and/or alternative and/or radical mindset the way bananas draw fruit flies. In my short time in Portland I met at least four, and heard about other, young people who came to Portland because they visited and had a great experience or because they heard or knew it is the place to go. I liked Portland as a high school student but didn't have the freedom or the political inclination to explore the wealth of opportunities it offers. I was excited for what I might find. I was also going to live in my parents house. This inspired a varieties of reactions. I had not been there at all since graduating college, since two years of free flowing independence. Family home politics from this new position was both intriguing and frightening. I was excited but also concerned about the prospect of having food and lodging covered for me for over a month. Determining where I will sleep and how I will eat plays meaningfully into my life, and while removing that creates many opportunities to relax, it also severely shifts the modes of interaction with my surroundings. And I was really interested in how I would react to going and exploring a place that was so familiar, the house and the city. Many people my age, even those who have settled meaningfully in new places with long term partners, refer to visiting their parents as "going home". The H word is one I am very careful with, but I knew the experience would be emotional and thought provoking nonetheless.
My time in Portland was split between a ten day visit post road trip, and a month long visit after my stay in Michigan. The ten day visit provided an opportunity to lay the groundwork, make the connections, and as a result I hit the ground running when I came back for my month long stay. I quickly overloaded myself. My days consisted of trying to balance spending time with my family, working on various projects around the house, trying to cook and attend three food not bombs meals a week, reading ferociously to keep up with a few reading partnerships I joined, a short term relationship, hosting couchsurfers, working out logistics for my trip back to Michigan, working as a pedicab driver (picture below), doing various activities to prep my mom's birthday, and trying to be politically active where I could, be it attending meeting on alteration to a public park, a Mt. Tabor protest to save the water, or a protest in Vancouver to stop coal exports on the Columbia river. On top of it all, most of what I did was 4-6 miles from my parent's house, and coming back meant climbing a big hill, so I spent on average an hour and a half per day bike commuting. The mental chaos did not provide the relaxation piece I was hoping for, but it did provide the feeling of exploring a city, in the way that I explore a new city all the time. I would say more than half of any given day was spent engaging in activities I had not engaged in much or at all when I used to live in Portland and in parts of the city that were fairly unfamiliar to me.
Family relations were impressively smooth. There were the bumps and hiccups here and there, but overall, my parents are very relaxed and grant me a lot of freedom. Because they were very busy and I was keeping busy, I think we had enough space to not force too many unnecessary clashes onto ourselves. I got to spend a decent amount of time plotting with my dad and my siblings to orchestrate several birthday events for my mom, who had a milestone birthday this summer. It was pleasant, natural. I don't know that I really felt at home more than I do in many other places though. One thing Portland does not have for me is a wide, solid friend group. I have friends there that I was happy to see. I was even able to time my visit to coincide with one of my better friends' wedding. But I don't often have the connected moments that I experience with some of the friends I was able to visit, for example, in Michigan. I'll expand on that more after discussing my Michigan experiences.
My Last Anchor
For most of the month of June I was in Kalamazoo, with a little under a week spent in Ann Arbor. Kalamazoo is a place that is very exciting to go back to, to visit. It is one of the very few places where I know I can show up anytime, unannounced, and I will have a place to sleep and many people to visit that night. Compared with my time in Portland, in Kalamazoo I had few to no responsibilities. My days were still full though, spending hours rotating between the wonderful people that live here. I went to bed late every night, chatting about whatever seemed most fitting at the time. There were few lonely moments.
Kalamazoo inspired many moments of connectedness, those moments that arise when I think of the word home. I had the feeling repeatedly when I visited my friends, Margaux and Grace. The minute I entered their house, I felt able to let my guard down. I could relax, did not have to over think, did not have to plan and calculate. I could just be, a release I don't often have. But it's not just that. The house was also full of love. Perhaps this was particularly intense because I was in a house full of women who had just finished their time at a four year small liberal arts college. Regardless what the reason was, love and warm feelings were flowing in all directions all the time. I felt it directed at me as well, but just being in such a warm place allowed me to absorb and connect indirectly. One example stands out in particular. When the first housemate was leaving the house I happened to be present. All of the housemates converged into a massive group hug that went on and on, through tears and laughter and even song. I was not a part of the group hug, I was just sitting off to the the side on the couch, but that was part of what was magical in my experience. They were having an intense, mixed, emotional experience, and I was not intruding by being present there. Although I may not have been a part, I experienced an intense sensation of belonging, one that is closely associated with the idea of home of me.
Visiting Kalamazoo is fascinating for me because it is the last place where I had a "permanent" residence. The last place I had a room, a bed, housemates, a long term community. It was the last place where I anchored, and the place from which I launched into my wanderings. Although I have created much space between myself and my college experience, in terms of time and in terms of emotion, there is something about arriving in Kalamazoo that feels remarkably like coming home after a very very long trip.
Kalamazoo and Portland are the two geographical places that are easiest for me to associate with home, that I am most likely to give as the place where I am from if I am cornered into presenting a city name. Spending my summer between the two has offered me some time to reflect on the motif of home, one that follows my journeys wherever I go, but from a different perspective. Instead of trying to create a home in a "foreign" place, I am testing what it feels like to "come back home". There are so many idea that fit into the concept of "home". In a discussion with my mom this summer, she argued that one of the key parts of home is the place that always welcomes you, the place you can always go back. I respect the idea, and certainly my parents home presents that ease of access more than any other structure I can imagine. But thinking of a structure that I can enter seems limited. Even if I have few individual friends that have the resources to take me in were I to really need it, my network of friends and connections provides a support, a retreat, a safe place to turn whose availability I feel just as strongly as that of my parents' home. In the discussion, this concept was juxtaposed against the idea of home being defined by the amorphous feeling of connectedness. My mom argued that this feeling can arise under many circumstances and that many would be difficult to define as home. I agree with her there, and have experienced connectedness in situations that I would not call home. And yet I think the propensity of a place, community, situation, etc. to create connectedness does allow for a determiner of home. This is where the experience in Kalamazoo has an upper hand. The scene is set for me to feel deeper connectedness on a regular basis. Meanwhile at my parent's house, I have personal connections but feel in many ways out of sync with my parents' rhythms, often blocking the deeper, amorphous feeling. The intangible stirrings are just as critical as the tangible resources in understanding and conceptualizing home.
I also think this TED talk does a wonderful job of addressing many of the ideas I have of home and of the obsolete concept of having a geographical home or being "from" somewhere http://www.ted.com/talks/pico_iyer_where_is_home.html . These is an important concept of home that he tangentially mentions and addresses but does not fully tie together. Stillness. I think it is great for "home" to be a loving, warm, inspiring, motivating, challenging, expanding place. But I also think that a wonderful element of a place like home is that it is relaxed enough, that it is calm enough, that the mind can be still. This does not mean quiet, or neat, or inactive. This means a well synced, appropriate harmony, so that the energy of the home matches that of the self, and the mind can relax.
Crisscrossing the Inbetweens
A quick summary of my location over the summer. After arriving in Portland I road tripped to Kalamazoo in early June, biked to Ann Arbor in late June, road tripped to Seattle a few days later and then took the bus down to Portland, then road tripped back to Michigan in late July. As you can see this involved many road trips that you haven't yet heard anything about.
For my first adventure from Portland to Michigan I joined a couple that was conducting a long road trip around the country and were collecting passengers along the way for company and to help with gas. The trip became a cross between a road trip and an attempt to quickly cut across because they wanted to get to Chicago as quickly as possible but also wanted to stop often and see some things along the way. We didn't go to any attractions, but we took it easy, started days late, stopped for long stretch, bathroom, internet, and meal breaks, and we camped every night. The crew rotated throughout the trip. From Portland to Boise we were joined by a young man from South Africa doing his travels around the US, and a young woman who was working with an organization that does various national park services such as trail maintenance, building, and demolition. We dropped her off in Boise and went on to spend a night farther out in Idaho (actually a morning, by the time we arrived and unloaded some stuff the sun was beginning to rise). The next night we stayed at a campsite in Wyoming with a friend of the couple driving. When we arrived in Boulder, the South African man took off and we picked up two folks who had actually ridden out with the couple from the east coast when they first left the month before. That crew went all the way to Chicago where I got dropped of, spent the night with some friends whom I informed I was coming only earlier in the day, and then I headed to Gary, Indiana to try to hitchhike to Kalamazoo. I kept getting removed from my spots by the police, who were just hanging out in gas station convenience stores all day long. I gave up and headed for the Greyhound station, although I managed to find a ride to take me there, and actually had some lovely conversations with folks at the station, waiting for the bus. This journey was my first time ever using rideshare in the US and I loved it. The travelling style may have been different from mine, but it was much more interesting to meet people and make friends along the way, even more interesting than the random conversation likely to happen on a train and possible though less likely on a bus. One of the important lessons I learned on this trip was that eating only fiber for two days straight does a number on the digestive system. I packed a lot of food from my parents' house when I left, but I ran out in Boulder. We were at an expensive organic-local grocery store, so even oats were out of my price range. The only thing I felt comfortable buying was wheat bran. I had never had wheat bran before, but it turns out it's not meant to be eaten on its own, rather added to soup or sprinkled on top of baked goods. This may be because wheat bran is made of fiber and almost nothing else. But it was cheap, so for a day and a half, until I arrived in Chicago, I ate wheat bran and water flavored with sugar, honey, and jelly packets I picked up at a fast food place. I tried taco sauce once with disastrous results. When I arrived in Chicago my friends did offer me some food but I didn't end up taking too much. However, they did use a juicer and were going to throw out the pulp which I volunteered to eat instead, even though they warned it was pretty much all fiber. Everything was fine aside from some interesting and brand new experiences when the fiber was done inhabiting my body. I don't think I'll repeat that decision.
I was so excited to be reunited with my wonderful bicycle that had been sitting and patiently waiting for me in Kalamazoo for two years, that I decided to ride it to Ann Arbor. I have never ridden so far in one day, was struggling with a mild knee injury, and was later told temperatures neared a 100. Including breaks, I was there in less than 14 hours, so it worked out in the end. After a spectacular visit in Ann Arbor, I picked up a large yellow pick up that someone in Seattle bought in Detroit and wanted me to drive to them. A very different type of cross country trip. I was grateful for the pick up because I was transporting my bike back to Portland and was worried for a long time about how I would manage. This way I just threw it in the back of the truck and had plenty of space. I had two passengers with me for part of the way. I picked up one woman in Ann Arbor and we drove to Minneapolis the first day. In Minneapolis we spent the night with friends of our third passenger, and went off early in the morning in attempt to reach Montana that day. The pace was very different. These people were committed to movement, so generally we did 4 or so hour stretches, whatever we could manage until we had to fuel up again. We also had long days. Our day drive to Montana we spent nearly 24 hours driving before we arrived. The company was also quite different. These two women were rainbow kids, heading off to the rainbow gathering in Montana. If you have not heard of rainbow gathering, imagine the most hippie, sustainable, middle of the woods gathering/party that you can, and then understand that it is much more hippie than what you have in mind. Or read about it from rainbow kids themselves here: http://www.welcomehome.org/rainbow/ . You will notice that the URL and the heading say "welcome home", fitting for what I have already been discussing this email. Our arrival at Rainbow was a little rough. We arrived in the area around 1 am, started looking for signs that we were getting close once we were on dirt paths in the national park. Eventually, we almost go the car stuck on truly rugged terrain without any sign of the gathering being near by, so we decided to turn around and head for internet signal to recheck the location. Turns out the location was changed, and we had to double back and drive an extra 2-3 hours to get to the new location. We were finally parked and ready to sleep at the rainbow gathering at 4:30 am. I had never been to a rainbow, something I might actually like to do some day, but I wanted to reach Seattle and see friends that I discovered lived there before I took the bus to Portland. Only two hours later, I got up and began heading back toward the highway. I picked someone up on the way out of the gathering and gave her a ride to Missoula (my first hitchhiker), where I also stopped to nap for 2-3 hours. The last stretch I beelined for Seattle, stopping only for gas and to make myself oatmeal, the only car food I had left. One of the best parts of that trip: the man whose truck I was transporting paid me for gas and gave me some extra which covered the bus to Portland. Ann Arbor to Portland: $0.
My final trip across was my trip from Portland back to Michigan that I finished just last week. I was having a very difficult time finding rides across the country for whatever reason. I had planned to have a wide range of times and dates and somehow ended up with very few available options, so everyone who I did manage to contact and hear back from was leaving either too early or too late. Finally I found someone who wanted me to drive his Uhaul to the Denver area. I agreed and began searching for rides from Denver to the Midwest, having spotty luck finding those rides as well. The morning that I left, I found a ride to Chicago from Denver and simply took the bus from there. The ride to Fort Collins, an hour north of Denver, provided a slew of new experiences. I was driving a 16' box truck, larger and heavier than anything I have driven before, especially on a highway or up hills and mountains. There were two couchsurfers I was hosting toward the end of my stay in Portland who said they were headed to Denver and I offered to take them. A couple days after making the offer I realized the truck had two bucket seats instead of a bench seat. I warned them but they decided they still wanted to come. I imagined our gear would go in the back with the rest of the Uhaul contents, but I was wrong. When the truck arrived, the back was locked, and the guy claimed it was too full to open. He actually asked us to carry some plants for him in the cab. With some amazing maneuvering and tetris skills, we fit three plants, three large back packs, three small bags, a tent, and three people in a space meant for two people and no serious luggage (picture below). I had to drive the whole way so I had a decent amount of space, but my couchsurfers were squished. They did well though. We often did 4-5 hour stretches without stopping, and ultimately drove for 20 hours in a 26 hour period, stopping for only a few hours in the middle of the night to sleep on the floor of a rest area. I loved having the company, and they loved the experience and the free ride. Free because the guy paid all the gas (and a fair deal of extra) before we even left. The best part about the ride from Denver to Chicago is I convinced the guy to give me door to door service. He picked me up where I was in Fort Collins and we rode off. I got less rest than I was hoping because we traded off driving his large vehicle with a motorcycle on the back, but I slept as much as I could while he drove. Because of the motorcycle we were going 60 much of the way and I actually nearly missed my bus, but we picked up the pace for the second half of the journey and I made it to the station just in time. The bus dropped me off in Ann Arbor where I had another wonderful, albeit confusing visit, and after a complicated attempt at coordinating ride shares a few times, everything fell through and I took the bus back to Kalamazoo where I have been for the last few days, training for LandSea. This last trip was full of adventures, but I am also particularly proud of the numbers. I made it from Portland to Ann Arbor in just about 50 hours, and earned close to $130 in the process, thanks to the generous amount the Uhaul man gave me for gas and other expenses. Further more, I had never crossed the country on a highway before, but now I did it three times in one summer and spent an average of $0 doing so. When people ask me how I can afford to travel, this is the answer.
The Next Hour and Beyond
Once I am done with this update, I will disconnect from the internet for the upcoming month and embark on my LandSea journey in the Adirondacks (don't let that dissuade you from writing and responding, I would love to have word from you waiting for me in my inbox when I return). After a week of mixed Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor time, I will fly to Europe and make my way to France, leaving this leg of "home(s)" and beginning a leg ""somewhere else".
Good luck on your journeys,
For my first adventure from Portland to Michigan I joined a couple that was conducting a long road trip around the country and were collecting passengers along the way for company and to help with gas. The trip became a cross between a road trip and an attempt to quickly cut across because they wanted to get to Chicago as quickly as possible but also wanted to stop often and see some things along the way. We didn't go to any attractions, but we took it easy, started days late, stopped for long stretch, bathroom, internet, and meal breaks, and we camped every night. The crew rotated throughout the trip. From Portland to Boise we were joined by a young man from South Africa doing his travels around the US, and a young woman who was working with an organization that does various national park services such as trail maintenance, building, and demolition. We dropped her off in Boise and went on to spend a night farther out in Idaho (actually a morning, by the time we arrived and unloaded some stuff the sun was beginning to rise). The next night we stayed at a campsite in Wyoming with a friend of the couple driving. When we arrived in Boulder, the South African man took off and we picked up two folks who had actually ridden out with the couple from the east coast when they first left the month before. That crew went all the way to Chicago where I got dropped of, spent the night with some friends whom I informed I was coming only earlier in the day, and then I headed to Gary, Indiana to try to hitchhike to Kalamazoo. I kept getting removed from my spots by the police, who were just hanging out in gas station convenience stores all day long. I gave up and headed for the Greyhound station, although I managed to find a ride to take me there, and actually had some lovely conversations with folks at the station, waiting for the bus. This journey was my first time ever using rideshare in the US and I loved it. The travelling style may have been different from mine, but it was much more interesting to meet people and make friends along the way, even more interesting than the random conversation likely to happen on a train and possible though less likely on a bus. One of the important lessons I learned on this trip was that eating only fiber for two days straight does a number on the digestive system. I packed a lot of food from my parents' house when I left, but I ran out in Boulder. We were at an expensive organic-local grocery store, so even oats were out of my price range. The only thing I felt comfortable buying was wheat bran. I had never had wheat bran before, but it turns out it's not meant to be eaten on its own, rather added to soup or sprinkled on top of baked goods. This may be because wheat bran is made of fiber and almost nothing else. But it was cheap, so for a day and a half, until I arrived in Chicago, I ate wheat bran and water flavored with sugar, honey, and jelly packets I picked up at a fast food place. I tried taco sauce once with disastrous results. When I arrived in Chicago my friends did offer me some food but I didn't end up taking too much. However, they did use a juicer and were going to throw out the pulp which I volunteered to eat instead, even though they warned it was pretty much all fiber. Everything was fine aside from some interesting and brand new experiences when the fiber was done inhabiting my body. I don't think I'll repeat that decision.
I was so excited to be reunited with my wonderful bicycle that had been sitting and patiently waiting for me in Kalamazoo for two years, that I decided to ride it to Ann Arbor. I have never ridden so far in one day, was struggling with a mild knee injury, and was later told temperatures neared a 100. Including breaks, I was there in less than 14 hours, so it worked out in the end. After a spectacular visit in Ann Arbor, I picked up a large yellow pick up that someone in Seattle bought in Detroit and wanted me to drive to them. A very different type of cross country trip. I was grateful for the pick up because I was transporting my bike back to Portland and was worried for a long time about how I would manage. This way I just threw it in the back of the truck and had plenty of space. I had two passengers with me for part of the way. I picked up one woman in Ann Arbor and we drove to Minneapolis the first day. In Minneapolis we spent the night with friends of our third passenger, and went off early in the morning in attempt to reach Montana that day. The pace was very different. These people were committed to movement, so generally we did 4 or so hour stretches, whatever we could manage until we had to fuel up again. We also had long days. Our day drive to Montana we spent nearly 24 hours driving before we arrived. The company was also quite different. These two women were rainbow kids, heading off to the rainbow gathering in Montana. If you have not heard of rainbow gathering, imagine the most hippie, sustainable, middle of the woods gathering/party that you can, and then understand that it is much more hippie than what you have in mind. Or read about it from rainbow kids themselves here: http://www.welcomehome.org/rainbow/ . You will notice that the URL and the heading say "welcome home", fitting for what I have already been discussing this email. Our arrival at Rainbow was a little rough. We arrived in the area around 1 am, started looking for signs that we were getting close once we were on dirt paths in the national park. Eventually, we almost go the car stuck on truly rugged terrain without any sign of the gathering being near by, so we decided to turn around and head for internet signal to recheck the location. Turns out the location was changed, and we had to double back and drive an extra 2-3 hours to get to the new location. We were finally parked and ready to sleep at the rainbow gathering at 4:30 am. I had never been to a rainbow, something I might actually like to do some day, but I wanted to reach Seattle and see friends that I discovered lived there before I took the bus to Portland. Only two hours later, I got up and began heading back toward the highway. I picked someone up on the way out of the gathering and gave her a ride to Missoula (my first hitchhiker), where I also stopped to nap for 2-3 hours. The last stretch I beelined for Seattle, stopping only for gas and to make myself oatmeal, the only car food I had left. One of the best parts of that trip: the man whose truck I was transporting paid me for gas and gave me some extra which covered the bus to Portland. Ann Arbor to Portland: $0.
My final trip across was my trip from Portland back to Michigan that I finished just last week. I was having a very difficult time finding rides across the country for whatever reason. I had planned to have a wide range of times and dates and somehow ended up with very few available options, so everyone who I did manage to contact and hear back from was leaving either too early or too late. Finally I found someone who wanted me to drive his Uhaul to the Denver area. I agreed and began searching for rides from Denver to the Midwest, having spotty luck finding those rides as well. The morning that I left, I found a ride to Chicago from Denver and simply took the bus from there. The ride to Fort Collins, an hour north of Denver, provided a slew of new experiences. I was driving a 16' box truck, larger and heavier than anything I have driven before, especially on a highway or up hills and mountains. There were two couchsurfers I was hosting toward the end of my stay in Portland who said they were headed to Denver and I offered to take them. A couple days after making the offer I realized the truck had two bucket seats instead of a bench seat. I warned them but they decided they still wanted to come. I imagined our gear would go in the back with the rest of the Uhaul contents, but I was wrong. When the truck arrived, the back was locked, and the guy claimed it was too full to open. He actually asked us to carry some plants for him in the cab. With some amazing maneuvering and tetris skills, we fit three plants, three large back packs, three small bags, a tent, and three people in a space meant for two people and no serious luggage (picture below). I had to drive the whole way so I had a decent amount of space, but my couchsurfers were squished. They did well though. We often did 4-5 hour stretches without stopping, and ultimately drove for 20 hours in a 26 hour period, stopping for only a few hours in the middle of the night to sleep on the floor of a rest area. I loved having the company, and they loved the experience and the free ride. Free because the guy paid all the gas (and a fair deal of extra) before we even left. The best part about the ride from Denver to Chicago is I convinced the guy to give me door to door service. He picked me up where I was in Fort Collins and we rode off. I got less rest than I was hoping because we traded off driving his large vehicle with a motorcycle on the back, but I slept as much as I could while he drove. Because of the motorcycle we were going 60 much of the way and I actually nearly missed my bus, but we picked up the pace for the second half of the journey and I made it to the station just in time. The bus dropped me off in Ann Arbor where I had another wonderful, albeit confusing visit, and after a complicated attempt at coordinating ride shares a few times, everything fell through and I took the bus back to Kalamazoo where I have been for the last few days, training for LandSea. This last trip was full of adventures, but I am also particularly proud of the numbers. I made it from Portland to Ann Arbor in just about 50 hours, and earned close to $130 in the process, thanks to the generous amount the Uhaul man gave me for gas and other expenses. Further more, I had never crossed the country on a highway before, but now I did it three times in one summer and spent an average of $0 doing so. When people ask me how I can afford to travel, this is the answer.
The Next Hour and Beyond
Once I am done with this update, I will disconnect from the internet for the upcoming month and embark on my LandSea journey in the Adirondacks (don't let that dissuade you from writing and responding, I would love to have word from you waiting for me in my inbox when I return). After a week of mixed Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor time, I will fly to Europe and make my way to France, leaving this leg of "home(s)" and beginning a leg ""somewhere else".
Good luck on your journeys,
awkward selfie in WY
Perhaps the coolest play structure of all time
Rock scrambling in WY
Pedicab driver (birthday present for my mom and sister)
squeezed in the cab of a Uhaul. We're smiling because this is before the drive.
