Owls & Bears

Merry Christmas to all our friends and family in Texas and elsewhere. We are looking forward to seeing some of you soon, and the rest of you later. Hope you have/ had a joyful and peaceful holiday!

We’ve been doing some product photography recently, taking photos of all of our vintage items that we’ve been collecting in preparation for selling on Etsy. There are still many hours of wrestling with my piece of crap digicam to go before we’ll have photos of everything, but here are a few examples of our progress. We constructed a softbox out of wood, cardboard, super glue, nails, lots of duct tape, mylar emergency blankets, some light fixture housing, and the biggest CFL evarrr. It’s almost a foot long and can toss more light than anyone can imagine in their wildest nightmares.

Oh boy, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything on here. What can I say? Life on the road is hectic. HOWEVER, we are not on the road anymore. We’ve betaken ourselves to Portland, OR and have holed up in a studio apartment with all the trappings of a normal life, and we plan to stay for at least a few months. We’ve even gone so far as to join a local CSA and plan to become members of a nearby YWCA as well. (stationary life seems to involve a lot of acronyms…) The plan is to continue traveling after we get tired of P-town, but we’re keeping our options open and I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Here’s our place shortly after moving in. We’ve since added some more furniture and such.

So how did we end up here? Well, after Brooklyn we went north to Acadia National Park in Maine, stopping briefly in Boston along the way.

Typical cold and rainy weather.

Tolkien.

Sci-fi.

We had sunny weather for one day.

After Maine we just went west. Our itinerary was something like Lake Champlain > Niagara Falls > Lake Erie > Chicago > Minneapolis > Fargo, ND > Billings, MT > Bozeman, MT > Glacier National Park > Spokane, WA > Portland.

Lake Champlain in New York. Very close to Canada.

Fire!

The Canadian side of Niagara Falls as viewed from the USA.

Lake Erie beach in New York.

Minneapolis. This is the most interesting shot we have from there. And we really wanted to include one.

Glacier National Park, Montana. Same with the next two shots.

It was kinda pretty here. That’s Wild Goose Island in the lake.

Indigenous species. I love how these guys look so cute but have no natural predators.

I wish we had done a better job of keeping up with the blog, but c’est la vie… Maybe I will post more now that we are here in Portland, maybe not. Depends on whether or not I end up having time to write/ something interesting to write about.

In the meantime we are taking Portland by storm and it shows; the very weather is all shaken up here. In the last few days, decades worth of high temp records have gone down the tube. Yesterday’s high was 106 and today was supposed to be even hotter. And unfortunately for us, fans and air conditioning units are sold out across the city - not surprising when you consider that the average high temp for this time of year is 81 degrees.

Most people probably don’t realize it, but I’m convinced that the heat is directly related to our arrival. The weather has been our constant adversary ever since we set forth on this trip. It has rained on us 9 out of 10 times that we have set up a tent, and now that we have a home that doesn’t leak Mother Nature is doing her best to roast us alive.  Being from Texas I’m sure we can survive this, but I do feel a little uneasy when I wonder what might be coming next. An earthquake perhaps? Or another eruption of Mount St. Helens? Or 8 months of constant drizzle? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Last night BW and I dropped in at Etsy headquarters for their weekly craft-together known as Etsy Labs. Every Monday they invite anyone who’s interested to show up at their office/”lab” in Brooklyn for a communal crafting experience. Usually there’s an organized activity, but last night was an “open craft” night where everyone was invited to either bring a project they were already working on or begin a new one using whatever tools/ supplies happened to be lying around the lab. I brought a crochet project to work on and BW used the time to create some cool collages which are pictured below.

It was fun to get to hang out with other crafters for a while and work on stuff. Crafting is always more fun with other people, and I have missed having friends around to show my work to/ bounce ideas off of/ etc.

I felt a little timid throughout the evening, being the relatively inexperienced crafter/ Etsy-er/ New Yorker that I am, but everyone there was friendly and helpful and I look forward to having another go at it and hopefully coming out of my shell a bit more next time.

Here we are approximately two months in and so far life on the road has been good to us. Sure we’ve hit some rough spots, but (contrary to what my blog posts might lead you to believe- I do tend to play up our little mishaps don’t I?) the good has far outweighed the bad. And right now things feel particularly good.

Right now we’re in Braddock, PA just outside of Pittsburgh. We’re here to WWOOF for a week with Grow Pittsburgh/ Braddock Farm and so far we really like it. They’re putting us up in an old convent that is in the process of being renovated. The building is huge and old and cool and we are the only ones staying here. It was a little spooky the first night actually, partly due to the steel mill across the street that intermittently emits eerie shrieks, groans and hisses (as well as an array of acrid odors which, having grown up in Pasadena, make me feel right at home). But we’ve begun to adjust already and now some parts of the building feel downright cozy.

Today was our first day of work on the farm and I spent the entirety of it weeding raised garden beds. This was actually quite pleasant for me, the weeds here being much easier to remove than the Wedelias that we encountered in Orlando. It felt good to grub around in the dirt for a while and it was definitely satisfying to see the pristinely weedless beds after I was finished.

So far everyone we’ve met here has been really nice. The farm manager/ our boss’s name is Marshall. He is relatively new here and we are apparently the first WWOOFers that they’ve had but he has made us feel really welcome and at home. The atmosphere here is very relaxed and friendly, yet without being chaotic and unproductive as so many nonprofits seem to be.

In addition to coming here, we’ve been bouncing rather hectically around NC, VA, MD, NY and PA since our last blog post (ya, all that in ten days). We hooked up with an old PA/Habitat/AmeriCorps friend of mine in Greensboro, NC; we crashed in Richmond with another friend (not Americorps) of mine from the PA days; we drove to Annapolis, MD to check out a VW Vanagon that we ended up deciding not to purchase (not now anyway); we drove to Brooklyn to find a room to rent for the last three weeks of May; and we went back down to VA, this time into the Shenandoah Valley, to visit our friend Tim whom we met back in Mississippi when we helped (tried to help) build a house for a Katrina victim.

Tim (who is about my age) lives with his family and helps run their dairy farm in Bridgewater, VA. He and his family are Mennonites, so instead of a car they drive a horse and buggy; the women wear only dresses and those who have joined the church wear white, gauzy looking bonnets; the children go to Mennonite schools through the 8th grade and then go to work on the family farm; they don’t listen to music but do enjoy singing hymns; and they maintain a generally simple lifestyle and try to live according to the principles of the Bible as they see fit.

Tim and his siblings were all away from home when we arrived, but his parents gave us a very warm welcome in spite of never having met us before (and in spite of us not being Mennonites). I felt a little nervous at first because of the cultural differences - I don’t even own a skirt - but the Kooglers quickly put me at ease. I don’t know when I have encountered a more friendly and generous group of people in my life. We stayed with them for three days and during that time Mr. and Mrs. Koogler, Tim, and his two sisters, Katie (19) and Carolyn (14) all went out of their way to keep us comfortable and entertained.

We were given a tour of their dairy farm and I was allowed to pet/ play with the animals (mostly cows and horses, also a lamb and a pygmy goat) to my heart’s content. They also took us to visit neighboring farms so that we could see chicken houses and greenhouses. Katie, who was growing vegetables to donate to the local food bank, let me help her mulch a patch of peas and showed us how to plant corn. She also drove us to church on Sunday in one of their horse-drawn buggies. Carolyn was in charge of bottle feeding the baby animals (lamb, goat, calves) and let me tag along for that. And on Sunday afternoon Tim and Katie took us out into their woods to hunt Morel mushrooms, which Mrs. Koogler later fried for our dinner (YUM). They also showed us their cellar where they store a lot of the food that they grow, much of which is home canned. It would be the understatement of the century to say that we were well fed, and most of what we ate had been produced on their farm. When we left, they presented us with a Mennonite cookbook replete with information and instructions about everything from canning and butchering to soap making.

I could go on and on about what a wonderful and unique experience we had on their farm. It is hard to believe that, had we not decided to go on this trip, we never would have gotten to do any of it. We have experienced such an outpouring of generosity from so many people during our travels, and it is really satisfying and encouraging to see the friendship and hospitality that so many people are ready and willing to give to a friend/ old acquaintance/ stranger. To me the best parts of traveling are the many connections we have had with different people along the way, from family to friends to WWOOF farmers to the guy in Starbucks who heard we are traveling for the year and gave us free drinks, a sandwich and a mango along with his phone number and an invitation to visit. There seems to be a kind of openness towards people who are wandering that those who are not don’t typically experience. We are learning so much about ways that you can give yourself to other people and all I can really say is that it feels great and I’m in no hurry to go home.

It has been less than a week since we left our friend in Anderson and we’ve already fallen back into the gentle embrace of indoor living. You see when we first set out back in March we had our plans loosely laid leading all the way up to our arrival in Anderson. We figured this year was about learning to go with the flow, so we didn’t worry too much about the fact that we had no plan for what to do after that.

Well it didn’t take long for our lack of planning/ preparedness to catch up with us. We had a couple of days of peaceful enjoyment in the Blue Ridge Mts of South Carolina before the shit hit the proverbial fan. We got sick, it rained, it was cold, our camp stove failed, our car started making an unpleasant noise, campgrounds were all booked/ not open for the season yet, and so on and so on… Because we had no plan, there seemed to be no light at the end of the tunnel of misery we found ourselves in.

Not that it was all bad. In our own muddling way, we took the lemons that the road handed us and made a kind of watery lemonade (something akin to the kind you make when you order a glass of water because you’re too cheap to pay for a soft drink, then you squeeze the lemon wedges they give you into the glass and add a packet of sugar, which of course never really dissolves). We slept in our car a couple of nights; we returned our defective stove to REI and thanked our stars that it had only caught fire and had not blown us to smithereens; we begrudgingly but cheerfully succumbed to the mediocrity of fast food; and we encouraged each other with pats on the back and even hugs in spite of the respective malodorous states of our diseased and unshowered bodies.

But in the end we decided that a little planning can go a long way, and we realized that planning ahead is much easier to do when your whole day is not consumed with the myriad tasks of just trying to survive with no shelter (well, other than a compact car crammed full of wet and sour-smelling camping gear), no shower, and no way to prepare food. Certainly you can survive that way (sleeping in your car can actually be not that bad at all), and probably there are a lot of people out there who could have thrived under the same circumstances, but we decided that it was not how we really wanted to spend our trip.

So we have tucked ourselves comfortably into a hotel room for a couple of days in order to accomodate a massive bout of brainstorming/ assessment/ planning. We can afford this partly because of those free nights of car camping and partly because Priceline’s name-your-own-price feature is badass (we are staying in a very nice hotel for significantly less than the cost of a Motel 6, even less than some campgrounds). We are determined not to leave until we have every last minute of our remaining year mapped out… ok, ya rit. But we do want to have a loose framework set up for the next month or two so that next time we find ourselves in a jam, we’ll at least have a way out eventually/ something to look forward to. And also hopefully we’ll spend more time doing the things we really want to do, and less time wandering aimlessly around in a dreary haze of chaos and body odor.

There is a certain feeling of satisfaction that one gets from overcoming hardship and, for me at least, that feeling is in no way diminished when experienced from the comfort of a snowy white king size bed in an air conditioned room after a long, hot shower. Sweet dreams, my friends.

Digicam is back online! Apparently it was the memory card and not the camera that was broken - a cheap fix. New pics on flickr now.

We had a pleasant weekend roaming around some of the areas north of Anderson. A 20-30 minute drive north will put you in Clemson, home of Clemson University among other things. Our visit to Clemson took us to the South Carolina Botanical Garden and the Bob Campbell Geology Museum. The museum was interesting and the garden was very peaceful and relaxing. Many of the flickr pics are of these places.

About 20 minutes further north you can visit the Hagood Mill, a historic grist mill built in 1845 that is still operational. We enjoyed looking at the mill and the accompanying buildings, including an old moonshine still. I still don’t understand why it’s illegal for a person to make their own liquor.

A one hour drive north from Anderson will take you into the Appalachian Mountains and there are a handful of state parks in that area with a lot to offer. On Saturday we chose one at random and headed out, written directions in hand. I don’t know if it was googlemaps or if I made an error when I was jotting down the directions, but either way we got a little lost. Lucky for us, the scenic route really was scenic and we enjoyed a meandering drive that eventually did lead us to our chosen destination.

We didn’t stay very long because it was quite late in the day by the time we arrived, but we plan to return this weekend with camping gear in tow. We did have our bikes with us though, and we unloaded and mounted them with expectations of a short but pleasant ride.

The ride was indeed short, at least for me. By the time I reached the top of the first incline, my lungs were in excruciating pain. The park road was very narrow and winding and I had been followed by a hulking SUV whose driver I imagined to be seething with impatience as we ascended the hill together at approximately half the pace of an unusually lethargic snail. There was no room for him to pass me safely so I pedaled as hard as I could and made it to the parking lot at the top of the hill only a few minutes after BW, who was serenely enjoying the scenery while he waited for me to catch up.

After a few minutes my frenzied gasping had subsided somewhat and I managed to say that I had had enough and would wait back at the car until BW was ready to leave (it probably actually sounded more like “so hard… puff puff puff… bad idea… wheeze wheeze wheeze… going back… puff wheeze gasp…). With that I turned myself sheepishly around and found myself back at the car in a flash.

BW rode on alone, although he ended up abandoning the park road and taking the bike lane along the highway instead. When he got back to the parking lot he was approached by a man who had passed him on the highway in his car. The man spent several minutes praising BW for tackling the mountainous terrain (on a single speed no less!) and encouraging him to keep riding. Meanwhile I sat meekly in the car and wondered if the man could guess what a wimp I had been.

Looking back I wish I had stuck it out a bit longer, although maybe it’s just as well since I probably would have ruined the ride for BW by slowing him down considerably. But the memory of that inglorious descent will be with me this weekend and it’s just possible that I might ask that hill for a rematch. What is mere breath, after all, compared with one’s self-respect?

BW and I spent the day at Furman University in Greenville yesterday. I have been poking around on the internet looking for ideas of fun things to do during our stay here in Anderson, and that is how I happened to find out about Furman. As a matter of fact, I’ve found that events calendars of local universities can be a generally excellent resource when you’re looking for something to do in a strange place. Of course some have more to offer than others, and in this area there happen to be two particular schools that seem to have a lot going on: Furman and Clemson.

So yesterday afternoon we drove out to Furman. Their campus gives an immediate impression of affluence, with perfectly manicured expanses of grassy lawns populated by imposing brick buildings, each bearing their respective names lettered in glittering gold above their entrances. For me it had an almost surreal feeling to it, that feeling being underscored throughout the day by the lack of anything - a noise, a movement, a blade of grass - not perfectly congruous with the impeccably cultivated environment of a tranquil American utopia (even BW was subdued and mannerly, hehe). It felt like walking into a Better Homes & Gardens magazine, only there were lots of young people instead of a bunch of middle aged women. Even their compost bins, standing unobtrusively along the fence of a picturesque vegetable garden, were spotless.

Our purpose in visiting was to attend a screening of three short movies about the effects of Soviet occupation on Moldova, and also to attend an evening concert given by the university’s jazz ensemble.

For some reason we were both expecting the films to be documentaries, but instead they turned out to be comedies that attempted to use humorous scenarios to communicate anti-communist themes. Between presentations, a Moldovan Furman student and one of Furman’s professors talked about their views of Moldovan culture, politics and economics and highlighted points of interest in each of the films.

After the movies we had a few hours to roam around and ended up walking down a hiking trail that skirted the edge of the lake on the back border of the Furman campus and eventually led to another off campus trail where a railroad track used to run. While we were walking, we saw a swan that had made a nest near the edge of the lake and there appeared to be an egg in the nest. There were also lots of ducks around, several of whom were in hot (but quiet) pursuit of a particular female duck who was demurely playing hard to get. One of the other ducks actually swam along the bank of the lake, keeping pace with us as we walked and conversing with us every now and then in soft quacks. He, like everything else at Furman, seemed quite tame. I wondered if he was used to receiving dinner in return for his companionship, but unfortunately had nothing suitable to offer him.  

After leaving the university trail and wandering down the train tracks a short way, we came across some abandoned commercial buildings where some kind of material presumably used to be loaded on/ off the passing trains. The buildings were covered in graffiti and littered with trash. In the middle of the complex we ran into three guys on mountain bikes who had stopped to drink some beer and smoke some weed. The contrast of what was literally just outside the campus borders was striking. I don’t think I was really at ease in either environment.

So after a while we walked back to Furman and arrived a bit late for our concert. The music was superb and was definitely the highlight of the day. It was great to relax into the darkness and enjoy the richness of sound that came pouring forth from the stage. I’ve probably heard jazz music performed live before, but nothing like this. I didn’t know any of the songs they played, but I liked them all. It was a fun way to usher out the last day of our first month of travel.

So with one day of Furman under our belts, I am now curious to see what Clemson has to offer. And with one month of travel behind us, I am eager and excited to see how the rest of the year unfolds.

We are now in Anderson, SC where we have installed ourselves and our possessions in the apartment of a generously obliging friend. And, while there is definitely something to be said for spending time in nature etc., I have begun to feel that the comforts and conveniences of modern dwellings may not be entirely without merits of their own.

It’s almost impossible to believe that we left Houston less than a month ago. So many things have happened since then that it feels like it has been much longer (maybe one of these days I will attempt a post recapping some of the more interesting events that we haven’t had time yet to write about). We have been kept busy all month, moving from place to place and from activity to activity, but now we are having a bit of a rest and it is a welcome relief to have a quiet and private place to sit and reflect (and use the internet…). We’ve had a lot of great experiences, but I am reminded now that fullness of life is not necessarily equivalent to the fullness of one’s schedule. 

Anderson is a nice town. Big enough to have all the big box stores that one has come to expect in any well established US municipality (i.e. consumer market); small enough to retain a pleasant amount of “mom and pop” influences that resist assimilation into the mainstream.

My chief complaint against Anderson is that its weather has turned foul at almost the exact time that BW finally resolved a problem with his bike that has kept us from riding since we left MS. (yes, I could ride on my own, but for me half the fun is being with BW) The problem turned out to be a tiny tiny poky thing that was embedded in BW’s tire and kept giving him flats. O the frailty of human contraptions!

One of my favorite things about Anderson is the yarn shop I discovered today, the door of which was attended by a vigilant black bear named Andy (he wasn’t “real” of course) who dutifully kept watch over the shop entrance and patiently allowed the ladies who ran the shop to festoon him with knitted/ crocheted garlands and costumes. He was obviously a faithful and long suffering creature and I’m sure that the shop ladies would be quite at a loss for how to run the store without him, so it seemed fitting to pay him my respects here. I only wish I could have taken his picture for he was quite a handsome bear, garlands and festoonery notwithstanding. 

It’s unfortunate that BW’s digicam seems to have kicked the bucket, but on the upside it has given him more incentive to break out the TLR, which has gone unused until recently. There are rumors circulating of the possibility of a digicam resurrection, but in the meantime our readers will have to exercise their imaginations or satisfy themselves with repeated viewings of the same photos. I did recently  post some pics on our owls & bears flickr,  ranging from our time in MS up until the time when B’s camera pooped out on us, including many pics of Econ Farm. Enjoy.

My Sony™ Cybershot DSC© W100® has decided to crap out on me. I’m not sure why, but it no longer reads memory cards. So I can turn it on and take a dozen photos or so on the internal memory, but that’s about it. I’m glad it was free. I might try to pick up second-hand replacement at some point.