prairie schooner

Hot Springs or Busk: Chapter XV (moored at home port)

Ok… i get it. It was the week of Independence Day. I showed up to home port with a holiday approaching. But i made a point to stress i wasn’t in a hurry, i just wanted to get the process of ordering parts and whatever other rigmarole necessary for the repairs underway in a timely manner.

But when i returned, a week later, seeking a date for the drydock, the shipmaster’s eyes glazed over like a barnacle-encrusted hull. “Oh, we know about yer plight,” he said, voice as flat as the Kansas prairie. “Parts were on back-order. They’re on their way now… Tuesday like clockwork. We’ll have ye shipshape by Wednesday.” A week and a half after dropping anchor.

A likely tale, that. The truth, me bucko, is they’d forgotten me, a speck on the horizon of their regular business rhythm. But the mate had the grace to keep a straight face. “Parts Tuesday, repairs Wednesday,” he repeated, as if reciting a nautical prayer.

Now, i’m a man of modest stature, a captain of a vessel dwarfed by the tour busses of the world. And like any short-legged wayfarer, i’ve weathered the doldrums of indifference. I may be refreshingly charismatic, fit, talented, smart, even at times, kind, but yea… short. Oh well, it is what it is. I refuse to put my body through dubious contortions to compensate for shortcomings. Seriously, who unloads hard-earned cash for corsets to make their belly look flatter, or stealth elevator shoes to add a few inches to their height? “hair transplants?” Seriously? Naw, none of this for me, thank you. If i can’t charm driver’s license examiner or a prairie schooner repair representative with my authentic self, i’m just fine sitting out the delay, hanging out with me and myself. I’m fine. That said, our Hot Springs or Busk tour has taken a mighty wrench in the gears.

In addition, Rocinante hit a rogue wave in the Utah outback. A semi’s kicked-up rock, hurled from the road like so much earned karma, punched a hole in her windshield. So… our choices were, a.) wait for the repair in the Utah outback, all the while perpetually searching for shade in the July inferno, or b.) head back to home base (Hays KS), where friends and family graciously allow shaded parking for Rocinante while we wait for the windshield and power link parts to arrive.

And the topper…? Mother Nature saw fit to provide a sustained string of rainy days in the Hays area, so our moored time was downright pleasant. And what do you think of that? Now i don’t believe in interventionist supernatural forces, and i’ve had my share of bad luck, but also, this. You see, without these setbacks, Rocinante and i would have made our way to Northern California by now. This morning’s weather report mentioned how Northern California was breaking heat records. So, rather than our temporary repose in Western Kansas with 80 temps in the day and 60s at night, we could be baking in 108 temps, there.

I’d say we’re right where we need to be, and like Joe Walsh once sang… “Life’s been good to me so far.” By gawd, the universe has been fairly good to me, all things considered. And we’ll leave it at that. Whatever the case, i’m moored at home port, but content, a solitary sailor in a sea of prairie grass. If you are somewhere in the extreme northwest USofA, and you were waiting for me to arrive, i offer humble apologies. I am detained by the random rock-kicks of fate. I will get there when i get there… and i’m looking forward to experiencing your slice of This Land.

Until then…

Onward through the fog… R.H.

And so… it begins!

Greetings, Loopers…
And great day in the morning!
Finally… a break from that weeks-long taste of Arctic-brisk.

Argh… over it, i am.

Now, as i was shedding the “bearskin-thick” protective layers, it hit me between the eyes. My 65th birthday and exit from the professional treadmill is mere months away. I promised myself in the doldrums of the post-y2k “dot-bomb” that i would, upon retirement, either A.), buy a wind-powered craft and sail the seven seas or B.) obtain a “Prairie Schooner” and roam the earth like Kwai Chang Caine. Well… the time has arrived, and a few hard truths have forced a semi-sudden pivot with the vehicles i’ll use to fulfill this visualization. For one, this middle of everywhere, landlubbin’ flatlander is a horrible candidate for single-handed sailing, and two, the pop-up tent/awning solution i, only last year, acquired for prairie schooning will work only in perfectly temperate zones. So… people i trust were advising i go the “stealth urban camper” route of acquiring a converted cargo van and turning it into a rolling tiny home. So, i started researching turn-key options and came up for air gasping at six-figure price tags… GAHHHH!

Solution? Acquire an empty van as blank canvas (see above), design, and construct the interior myself (project to begin post-haste).

Once that is accomplished… strap in, loopers, because this ain’t your drunk uncle’s road trip. We are professionals… we have “objectives.” This is a 52-week, 48-state odyssey through the heart of American academia, fueled by equal parts French Roast, guitars, and pure, unadulterated curiosity. We’re hitting Hays America’s sister cities… public college towns, mind you, the kind where dorms smell like stale pizza and regret, and the professors are either jaded veterans or wide-eyed grad students with tenure dreams as fragile as a bong hit in a mosh pit.

But hold on, this ain’t just about singing for my supper in college-towns across the nation. It’s also a quest for the literary Grail, a boozy, bookish bacchanal that’ll have us chasing Hemingway’s ghost in Key West, Kerouac’s shadow in Desolation Peak, and Faulkner’s phantom in Oxford, Mississippi. We’ll be spelunking through dusty library stacks, communing with ghosts, and trading wild stories like currency in smoky campus dives.

And when the sun sets on another day on the road, we’ll seek solace in our nation’s natural cathedrals: Yosemite’s granite giants, Yellowstone’s geyser symphony, the Grand Canyon’s mile-deep abyss. We’ll soak our grumpy bones in hidden hot springs, letting the geothermal magic mend our aching glutes and rekindle our wanderlust.

But be warned, this isn’t for the faint of heart. This is a road paved with potholes and detours, populated by characters as colorful as a Thompson-esque fever dream. We’ll encounter campus radicals and redneck renegades, peyote-toting professors and chain-smoking librarians, all with their own stories to tell, their own demons to chase.

So, are you ready, loopers? Ready to trade textbooks for bibles, lecture halls for dive bars, and term papers for loopy podcasts? Then buckle up, grab your Delta8 Vape, and let’s hit the gas on this loopcircus odyssey across the American landscape. We’ll be blogging our descent into madness every step of the way, so stay tuned for dispatches from the fringes, where academia meets anarchy, and the pursuit of knowledge gets a whole lot more interesting.

FOR EXAMPLE: Appalachian Ambiance and Moonshine Melodies

This stop begins in the misty hills of Boone, North Carolina, home to Appalachian State University, a haven for bluegrass pickers and outdoorsy types. We’ll be swapping songs for sammichs, trading Chaucer for cheap moonshine, and getting our Thoreau on in the shadow of Grandfather Mountain. Stay tuned for tales of wildlife encounters, existential campfire chats, and communing with the local legends who call these mountains home.

This is just an example, loopers. We’ve got 47 more states to explore, 48 stories to tell. So keep your eyes peeled, your minds open, and your courage prepped for the mother of all road trips. Because in this loopy odyssey, the only constant is the open road, and the only map we need is a tattered paperback with a dog-eared page for every adventure.

Cheers… Rohlfie

Hot Springs or Busk Chapter I =>