Idealism vs. Unemployment

I'd like to start with a quote:

"Unemployed workmen in eastern cities were not ordinarily able to go West and succeed as farmers. They seldom had the money needed to transport their families to the free public lands and to feed and shelter them until a crop could be made; and even if such a worker managed to establish himself on a western farm, he was not likely to succeed without skills that could be obtained only through long apprenticeship."

Wow... story of my life right now. The bad part is that was written in 1950... about westward expansion in the 1860s. Apparently I never got that history lesson.

The quote is from Virgin Land:The American West as Symbol and Myth by Henry Nash Smith. It is an excellent book which I have been reading throughout our travels, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the theme of westward expansion. I am just now getting to the part where all the myths of the "Wild West" and the "Garden of the World" and the happy and virtuous "yeoman" are being debunked. But not only am I reading about these things... I am having a hands-on learning experience.

So Oregon may be the land of milk and honey... but only if you have a job. Or land, but preferably both. We have neither of these things, and the savings are quickly running low. Apparently we had the genius idea that we could move to the state with the highest unemployment rate, at the end of the growing season, and instantly find great jobs and/ or be graciously welcomed into a hippie commune where we could start our humble career as homesteaders. We were wrong. And I swear this motel room gets smaller every day.

After seeing a promising job opening in Austin, we started to dig deeper into our options for plan B. After a few hours we still couldn't figure out why we didn't go to Austin in the first place. It had been our plan for a long time, though mysteriously fell to the wayside. Austin's job market is one of the fastest growing in the country, and we have family there. After spending a few weeks in a town where we didn't know a soul, the idea of being closer to family gave us a warm tingly feeling.

Austin also boasts plentiful organic and sustainable agriculture, so our dreams of homesteading will certainly not die at the end of the Oregon Trail. We are still going to try to have our cake and eat it too, it just might take a little longer than we had hoped.

So, with the OK from Rob's uncle that we could crash at his house until we find stable jobs, we decided to quit this rainy little town in Oregon and move to Austin Texas!!! And guess what.... winter, like, doesn't happen there. I am all about season evasion.

So here we go... again. On Tuesday we will be on the road... again. 2400 miles to go, through lovely California, Arizona, New Mexico, and west Texas. We still don't have air conditioning.
When we arrive in Texas we will have driven 7,743 miles since we left Greenville, SC.

View Larger Map
Above is a map of our trip.

Over the next few days we will be packing and getting ready for another exciting week of travel. We will of course keep you updated. Over and Out.

Like....Whoa.

Oh man oh man oh man oh man. I went to Burning Man. 50,000 people in the desert making art and music and magic in a temporary city and then burning it all down.
Heck yes.
How do I even begin?
Rob dropped me off at Bruno's Bar and Casino in Gerlach Nevada where I met up with a guy named Paul (who I found on the internet...sketchy, I know) and his family. It took us all night to make it through the gates at sunrise, where the greeters welcomed me home, had me roll in the playa dust and ring the virgin bell. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Well I had ideas but they were mostly wrong. The week was dynamic, beginning with a deep loneliness and utter confusion, and ending with sublime lucidity and a heart bursting with love. Love for the desert, the dust and the wind and fire, and for the people who shared it with me.
I will not pretend to be able to tell you much about it, but I will mention a few highlights (check out the BM website...they do a good job of describing the event in general, and have some amazing photo albums).
#1-The storms. You're riding your bike out into the desert to find a flame throwing hot pink dinosaur when all of the sudden you cannot see three feet in front of you. You quickly put a bandana over your face and turn to face directly into the dust carrying 50mph wind. Your body says "OMG WTF get outta here!!" but you keep riding, barely missing the guy in nothing but a tutu, and then out of the dust comes a giant Pirate ship bumping awesome music and serving ice cold margaritas. Thank you pirates.
#2- The fire. Fire is not just a big part of burning man. It is not simply a theme or even an obsession. It is god. There are hundreds of fire dancers, breathers and tamers. Giant sculptures shooting flames high into the night sky, gentle temples lovingly lit by rings of fire, people parachuting down trailed by fire. The fire gives all and consumes all.
#3- The dancing. By day three I was doing ecstatic dances with the Hare Krishnas, salsa with the neighbors and african with some of the best drummers I have ever encountered. One blissful moment after the man burned I looked around to see who I was dancing with: An african woman painted like the Masai, a Colombian man in a sequined evening gown and arab head wrap, a unicorn and a naked man in a viking helmet. And we were dancing like we had been dancing together for lifetimes. Perhaps we had been.

I fell in love with many and many fell in love with me. We shared everything. We washed each others hair, hand and feet. We cooked for eachother, listened to each others' secrets and stayed up all night staring at the brilliant milky way. It was like the best party ever, summer camp and Christmas had a sinful and solemn threesome. I highly recommend it. Watch this:

Now, in Eugene with Rob and Penny, I am exhausted and relieved. Refreshed and filled with courage and hope.

Now all we have to do is figure out how (and if) we can find a life here. It feels like we can. Today we went to Terwilliger hot springs, aka paradise. In the wet and verdent jungle the hot spring water flowed into a series of natural pools where men, women and children bathed naked and shameless. I spotted the mark of Burning Man on a child's arm and struck up a conversation with his father, a Eugene local called "Cookie Dave" who serves goodies at the Saturday market. I am pretty sure he offered me a job. Things are really looking up.

Cortez to Telluride to Arches to Salt Lake City to Elko...

So we decided that we couldn't just skim the Rockies, we had to go into them. We left Cortez early in the morning and wound our way up to Telluride. It was my favorite drive yet. I almost wept it was so beautiful, with high rocky crags above ponderosa pines and the Dolores River. Telluride, though a little too kitchy for our tastes, was located in one of the most amazing valleys I've ever seen. We got some breakfast and headed back down the mountain. Before long, after following the San Miguel River for a bit, we just couldn't resist taking a little break to go skinny dipping. The water was frigid but invigorating. Penny jumped in to come swimming with us, but the current was so strong that she was almost swept away. She was just paddling hard with a worried look on her face and we had to spin her towards shore so that she would swim back out of the river. We dunked ourselves in the icy water a few mores times and headed back downhill towards Utah. The rest of the day, memories of that swim would be the happy place in my head that I went to while driving hours and hours in 100 degree heat without air conditioning.

We drove west out of Colorado and into the deserts of Utah. We wound through Arches National Monument, which was stunning though the heat was absolutely vicious and we were drying out like jerky. From there we had a harrowing and emotionally tumultuous 2.5 hour drive through the eastern deserts of Utah. Penny was one unhappy camper and we were seriously worried about her well-being. It looked like the moon for hundreds of miles. Grey, bleak, empty. And extremely hot and dry. No plants, no towns, just strange little mounds and hills of grey gravel... forever. We were exhausted and creeped out so after 13 hours of driving we decided to skip the camping and headed to a motel on the outskirts of Salt Lake City. It was an incredible and dynamic day and we crashed hard.

We got a good night's rest and got right on the road again the next morning. We had gotten through the city and were flying through the Bonneville Salt Flats in the Great Salt Desert when our luck ran out again and one of our back tires exploded. Not popped, it wasn't a simple flat, that thing exploded in a dozen different places. So, after emptying everything out, putting on the spare, putting everything back in and backtracking 15 miles, we arrived at the auto shop only to find out that we needed not one but four new tires. One hour and hundreds of dollars later we were back on the road, hungry but in good spirits. It could have been much worse. We flew straight through the desert and into Elko Nevada where we are spending the night before heading on to Reno tomorrow.

Elko is home to a large Basque population, so we decided we should go to one of the many local Basque restaurants for dinner. We ordered one family style dinner, intending to share it. Little did we know that one order was going to be 12 huge bowls of food. Here is a list of what was covering every inch of our table:

1. Bread
2. Soup
3. Salad
4. Corn
5. Beans
6. Spaghetti
7. French fries
8. 2 large Lamb chops
   
9. 2 Beef Tongue filets
   
10. 2 Cod Fish filets
    
11. 2 pieces of stewed Chicken
12. 6 large Meatballs

And that was supposed to be for one person (they charged us extra for sharing it). They should have put a warning label on the menu. We barely ate 1/4 of the food that was brought out, and took home for Penny the meatballs and tongue. It was just unreasonable. The lamb was amazing but besides that the food was...eh...ok.

Elko is full of bars, casinos, drunk people, falling down people, guys with 2 black eyes, drunk ladies screaming "where the fuck is the ATM?!" etc. etc. It's interesting for sure, but I'm glad we are moving on tomorrow.

Tomorrow we head for Reno. More deserts. yay.

The Past Five Days: Santa Fe to Cortez

WHEW.... The last five days have been incredible! Let us share with you some of the highlights...

We finally got off of I-40 just inside New Mexico. Even though we were still driving, we felt like at last we had arrived at our destination. The loud and terrifying highway gave way to a lonely two-lane highway through wide open plains filled with sagebrush, mesquite, cacti and stunning mesas. We decided that it says a lot about a place when people wave to each other as they drive by. We like wavin' country.

Santa Fe was charming. We could definitely live there if we had to. We camped 8 miles out of town in the Santa Fe National Forest, which was such a welcome relief to stuffy motel rooms. Penny loves camping and ended her hunger strike. We made friends with a bat we named Betty.

The farmer's market was truly inspiring. Farmers markets are where we meet our heroes. We bought some chorizo from a guy who treats his pigs well... they have their own hot tub.

After two nights in Santa Fe we made our way into Arizona. Again driving along tiny state roads, we got to see some really amazing (and empty) scenery, including the extensive lava fields and sandstone bluffs of Malpais. Not long after we crossed the state line, we started to climb into the mountains. This was not what we expected of Arizona. By the time we reached our campsite at Big Lake, we were in Alpine meadows and the temperature had dropped about 35 degrees. It was magnificent and gorgeous and pristine. The next morning we heard the menacing howl of a pack of Mexican wolves who had recently been reintroduced into the area. Penny hid on Rob's lap.

We then departed for.....The Grand Canyon!!! On the way, driving down old Route 66, we passed some interesting relics from the heyday of American tourism in the region. There was a motel with a giant sign reading "Sleep in a Wig-Wam!", with a cluster of eight or ten giant tee-pee shaped structures. No matter that a wig-wam is a far cry from a tee-pee or that the native peoples of the southwest never lived in tee-pees. Right next to that place was a Flinstones themed motel complete with a giant plaster Fred and colorful purple bedrock style dwellings. I also saw my first tumble weed that day.

But that big red hole in the ground really stole the show. The Grand Canyon at sundown was..... divine. Not much more can be said. The next morning at sunrise I did my morning yoga practice on a rocky precipice overlooking that valley of temples and spires. Gravity is much more tangible when you can see how far you might fall. That canyon demands your attention and wills you into itself. Penny thought it was terrifying and would not stop shaking. She has had nightmares about it for days. Rob had two very poignant thoughts on the place:

1. "It gives me hope... hope for everything"
2. "I feel like I got a spiritual hand job. I feel very at ease."

We will be back to that place for sure. It is very calming and refreshing to be reminded of how small you are, like looking at the stars.

Our drive that day was the most intense yet. We drove through the painted desert, monument valley, in and out of Utah and into Colorado. We crashed into our hotel room, enchanted and spent.

Today we were right back at it, and took a tour of some of the ancient cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde. Around 900AD the ancient Anasazi decided it would be a great idea to live on precarious little cliffs below the rim of the Mesa Verde Canyons. They did so until around 1200AD when they disappeared. Unfortunately what sticks out the most in my mind about that tour are the first three questions that were asked of our ranger/guide by our fellow tourists:

1. Were they cannibals?
2. Did they fling their dead over the cliff into the canyon?
3. Did they disappear because of the black plague?

I giggled at the first two, but I had to swallow a gasp of disbelief at the last question. Luckily, someone was nice enough to correct the person who asked, stating, "Nah, that was a hundred years later." At that point I lost a good bit of faith in my fellow American tourists.

Tomorrow we head up to Telluride and then over to Price Canyon in Utah. Due to a combination of my own technological ineptitude and weak motel internet, I cannot at this moment upload pictures. Check out facebook if you want, Rob put an awesome album up.

Over and Out.

Day 4: Amarillo, TX to Santa Fe, NM

Yesterday way spent getting through Oklahoma and into Amarillo, TX as fast as possible. Oklahoma was considerably more pleasant that Arkansas, mostly because there weren't nearly as many people on the road and we left at 6:30 am, which allowed us to escape most of the heat of the afternoon. There's not much more to say about yesterday. Rob didn't eat until 5pm, though before bed he ate a large chicken fried steak platter and an orange beef platter. I don't know how he still amazes me with his capacity to eat large amounts of mediocre southern food.

Today we leave Texas for Santa Fe, New Mexico and I couldn't be more thrilled. I don't know much about Santa Fe, but I know that it is not part of Middle America and when I order a salad it probably won't be mostly cheese and ranch dressing. We will be leaving route 40 in favor of smaller state roads, and we will be camping for two days in Santa Fe. Actually, we will be camping for the next 5 days, so postings may be sparse for a bit.

The last three days of driving all day on the same highway have taken their toll, and we are ready for some fresh air and some authentic Southwest experiences. Penny is bored and unfortunately on a hunger strike. She is ready to go home, but I don't have the heart to tell her that we don't have a home anymore. I hope she likes camping.

Over and Out.

I'm in Arkansas.Wierd.

So, Memphis was hot. Real hot. Rendezvous ribs... not so much. Kind of a rip-off actually. I thought the beans and slaw were way tastier but then again, I am a recovering vegetarian. Beale Street looked like we would have really enjoyed it at night and after many drinks. After lunch we rushed out of town and crossed the mighty Mississippi into Arkansas.
I was reminded today how horrifying highways are. They're even scarier in Arkansas. There were way too many people and trucks going way too fast to get to FUCKING NOWHERE. It's Arkansas... where the hell are they all going as they drive 2 feet behind me because 10 over is apparently way too slow. I bitched and screamed like a little girl all the way across the state.
We made it to Fort Smith, on the border with Oklahoma (our next victim). My only comfort for our harrowing journey was listening to Grisman and Garcia's Not Just for Kids and watching the light show made by our little disco ball hanging from our rear view mirror. In fact that is pretty much the sole purpose of that mirror now because we can't see anything through it besides our obscene amount of stuff.
We had some excellent crayfish etouffe and seafood gumbo for dinner. Good thing our budget is really just a series of suggestions. Rob has created an amazing work of spreadsheet art, an all-encompassing budget complete with formulas and some very complex guess work. It's truly amazing, most of all because Rob made it. This is the same guy who two years ago in Mexico, when we were nearly broke and contemplating tattoos, had the sudden epiphany that "We can do what I've always done in this situation: overdraft."
That will not be happening on this trip. This time we are playing grown-up.
Oh and I am going blonde...wierd. I know.
Wish us luck through the fields of madness!!!

Prologue: Bouncing Into Graceland....

This is a blog about Melissa (me), Rob (my best friend and husband) and Penny (our pooch). We have packed up our car and are traipsing across the country to have adventures and maybe find a place to call home someday. If all goes as planned we will arrive in Eugene Oregon from Boone North Carolina in about three weeks. In other words, we are taking the archetypal road trip across our large and majestic continent in search of our own humble version of an American Dream...what that will entail I haven't the faintest.

Despite our best intentions of living fast and dying young, we have found ourselves married, with a dog and a Subaru. We have a bank account and AAA. We are both college graduates. We don't smoke and barely drink. So, inevitably we found ourselves with clear heads and plenty of time to daydream and think about how we would like to live our lives together. We decided that we wanted something other than working in restaurants and passing the time at the Boone Saloon.

What we want is big. Audacious. Completely unreasonable.
We want to homestead. We want to do this in close vicinity of others who do the same. Others who, like us, feel like the most of the "normal" options for how to lead one's life in America are completely insane, not to mention unsustainable and destructive to everyone and everything involved. I want to be able to support myself and my family by teaching yoga, growing herbs and vegetables, and providing others the opportunity to learn to do the same. Rob wants to raise hogs and cure his own pancetta and learn how to turn corn into liqour. Penny wants to frolic in fields of wildflowers and roll in dead stuff in the woods.

We think we might be able to do this in Oregon. This is based mostly on hearsay and rumor, as neither my husband nor I have ever even been there. I myself haven't even been west of the Mississippi since I was 6. But here we are, driving down Route 40. We are in Brownsville TN this morning. Unfortunately I don't have much more to say about this place. Rob is saying it's time to get on the road. He is anxious to get to Memphis, where we are going to the Rendezvous to eat some of their famous dry rub ribs.