sailing

Hot Springs or Busk: Chapter XIV (isolation)

Ah, the siren song of the open road! Trading the work-a-day cage for a rolling studio apartment, a veritable steel dinghy sailing the asphalt seas. Freedom beckons, middle fingers extended at the tyranny of the treadmill. But hold onto your bucket hats, loopers, for this isn’t all fair weather and calm seas. There’s a choppier side to this self-imposed exile, a truth the #vanlife Instagram influencers won’t tell you. It’s a truth as vast and tangible as the Montana sky – solitude is a many-splendored beast, with teeth that can chomp down on your sanity faster than a hammerhead on a sea snake.

Now, before you dismiss me as some hayseed landlubber, hear me out. For weeks, nay, months, you’ll be traversing landscapes both majestic and mundane – from the sun-bleached skeletons of forgotten gas stations in the Mojave to the soul-crushing suburban sprawl of Anytown, USA. You’ll be Jack Sparrow, with your 20-foot Ford Sprinter, a tin can on wheels holding the weight of your dreams and melting ice supply. This solitude, if you aren’t careful, can be an overfilled helium balloon waiting to pop.

Think of those iron-willed bastards sailing the briny blue alone. They stare into the abyss, and the abyss, stares right back. There are times where fear, a primordial ooze, will rise from the depths of your psyche. It’ll start as a whisper, a nagging doubt about the wisdom of this whole escapade. Then, it’ll morph into a full-blown symphony of anxieties, a heavy metal concert conducted by the maestro of self-doubt.

But here’s the rub, loopers: Don’t be a damn ostrich with its head shoved in the oblivious sand! Embrace the fear! Like that over-ripe orange in the back corner of the crisper drawer – peel and all, it can be a sweet and zesty kick to your morning smoothie.

Here’s a recipe for fear management, courtesy of those masters of isolation, those solo seafaring circumnavigators: First, confess your anxieties to the universe, shout them from the top of the mast (in this case, a post on your blog). Then, list those fears in a tattered notebook, like some crazed Dostoevsky scribbling his next masterpiece. Next, develop a personal risk-assessment routine, a daily dance with the what-ifs. Analyze the situation, eyeball the worst-case scenarios, and if taking action beats the paralysis of analysis, then for God’s sake, take action!

Finally, soak up every freakin’ experience, the good, the bad, and the utterly bizarre. Let it all marinate in your soul, because when you finally crawl out of your metal cocoon and rejoin civilization, you’ll have a treasure trove of stories to share with anyone inclined to listen. Just remember, loopers, van life isn’t all sunshine and hashtags. In fact Mike Tyson’s “everyone has a plan…” comment makes more sense with every passing day out here in “This Land.” It’s an exercise in self-discovery, a confrontation with inner demons, and hopefully, a chance to emerge, blinking in the light, a stronger, slightly less neurotic version of yourself.

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 =>