01-28-11 “I can’t keep from crying, sometimes.”

01-28-11
“I can’t keep from crying, sometimes.”
Ponderosa Grove - Northwest of Kanab, Utah
A Very Cold Night Tent and car were frost covered in the morning.
When the sun finally did come fully up (about 8am) it’s path fell right on our site - Space 2!
Some yahoo’s came into the campsite around 9pm the night before and started carousing 6 am this morning and were gone by 7:30. Fine by me.
Mischa & I liked the place well enough, but not enough to suffer that degree of cold again. Also there was no cell reception. The Campsite was only $5 so that was the upside. The cold was the downside. Cold decided the issue. So, we’re off to lower elevations and warmer climates.
Perhaps Glen Canyon.
Back in Kanab I used the Library’s internet access and then off to someplace near Page, Arizona. I was told of a place on the Utah side of Lake Powell called Lone Rock that is only $10 for primitive beach camping (pit toilet only/no water).
It’s a little over 80 miles there and at about 26 miles along the road I notice a persistent warning flash for coolant/battery. I pulled over and looked up the signal meaning in the manual. It indicated that the coolant level might be low. It was. I’m now over half way between Kanab and Page. I’m hoping for a gas station between where I am and Big Water, the next town on the map.
There’s nothing between there and Big Water except a little town with no business frontage. I pass it by and hope for luck in Big Water.
I stop at the BLM office first to get more Arizona Camping info from that office. None. They day Flagstaff will be the best choice.
They tell me the only place in town that might have coolant is a convenience store across the road but that a gas station just over the border will definitely have it.
I try the store across the road and the sign says “Open” but a paper note says “Gone to Page back by 3:30 pm”. It’s 2:35pm.
I’m walking back to my car as a pickup truck comes up from the town side of the road (the other direction from Page) and the guy waves at me and pulls into the parking lot. It’s the store operator and his dog. This strikes me like a scene out a Tony Hillerman book.
They have the coolant! Pre-mixed! And only 11.58! I go to pay and he says it’s cash only. I only have $12 and I need the cash to camp at Lone Rocks. So it’s on to the gas station across the border. The place that definitely has it.
They’re out.
On to Page!
I find a Safeway. It had the coolant. $12.98 but I can use my debit card. The cashier is a very helpful hopi or Navaho woman. I look around an I realize that if I’m not in the minority it’s at least a 50/50 balance of Native Americans and “Anglo’s”. It is an interesting experience and I’m enjoying it.
I add the coolant and the light remains. Frustrated - but daylight is running out . On to Lone Rock.
I’ll pass by Glen Canyon Dam three times today (at 25 mph!) Each time it is Impressive, interesting, even a little scary. The north side is the dam holding in Lake Powell, but the south side is an immense chasm equally impressive with the depths of Hoover Dam or some of the great plunges of the Grand Canyon.
I stop by Weawamp Campgrounds to check their rates for the Arizona week. $23 a night plus there is a $15 fee (for a week) just to be in the Federal Park Service grounds making it a $38 cost. A hotel is cheaper.
I get to Lone Rock and find that it has the same deal - the double fee. My $10 stay just became $25!
I count my resources and realize I’m down to $57 total assets left between cash and my 3 accounts.
Today has not turned out well. As Al Kooper sang “I can’t keep from crying sometimes”.
I look at my resources again and find in the AAA Camping Book the Page-Lake Powell campground is listed between $18-26 with special AAA rates. I can get a tent site for $16,28! Done.
I am the only tent camper. And it seems for good reason. There is a trench dug along all of the tent sites and no evident parking spot adjacent to the “Tent” area. (You’d guess that the parking spot would have been across the area where the trench now forbade access to)
But I lug my gear over the trench and set camp as sundown hits. My price also includes a shower, Indoor Pool and free wifi! (If only I could have used it!)
My resources down to about $40; half a tank of gas and my “week” in Utah apparently prematurely ending, I go to sleep with cracked skin on my fingers and fractured hopes in my heart.
But “tomorrow is another day” as Miss Scarlet said in the foyer with a curtain rod…and look how it turned around for HER!
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Thoughts of the day from the tent.. Places to research online:
Montezuma’s Treasure - A few miles north of Kanab/ north of Moqui Caves on 80 (Almost across the road from each other)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moqui_Cave
http://www.so-utah.com/feature/montzuma/homepage.html
White House Road turn off - elevation descent after canyon pass - a panorama like something out of John Ford’s beloved Monument Valley. Vistas. Rock Columns. Colors change from the realier Reds to milk chocolate & pink parfait like hues.
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I do hope to include many interviews with people along the way. But so far much of my journey has been on a survival level.
Finding libraries to communicate and places to stay at night.
Little is spent on food. I have a lot untouched in my car trunk larder.
I think that if I was on some street corner looking for hanouts, I could conceivably generate much more than I am asking for over a years time.
At the $24/year rate that’s about .06c per day. At the $52 rate, that’s .14c/day and of course the $365 is a dollar/day. So if I sat on street corners and got only .1.22/day I would excel the budget I’m looking to generate for this project I believe is immanently more useful and dignified than begging on street corners. But why is is so difficult to find support?
Is it the fear that my homelessness might be “catching”? I suppose it’s like when a friend’s loved ones die; there is a short period of support and condolences - but after that people start to distance themselves. It’s not that they are heartless, it’s that the subject matter is too disquieting to dwell on for long. People simply disconnect to prevent having to think about it. Simple self-preservation . No one wants to think too long about the reality of death…or the prospects of living homeless. Put simply -
They can’t hang.
I live day to day like a nomad. Packing my tent, moving on. Trying to find a suitable place to pause for the night or maybe a few nights, if I’m lucky; and then moving on again.
I eat very little each day. And Sleep. I’m lucky if I get more than 4 ½ hours of consecutive sleep per night. Most nights I am kept awake thinking about the resources/possibilities for the next days move.
While I do plan to interview many people along the way, this is primarily my journey. Mine & Mischa’s.
How we make our way. The people we meet, the things we see. The effects of an endless homeless journey for the major part of the year.
If I can last the full year; best Steinbeck’s state tally; write daily of my experiences - I believe my journey will have merit on it’s own.
I hope to learn much of the scope of my character; of the many & varied American Peoples (beyond the politicians empty pronouncement upon what “America “
want’s, says or believes - they are in NO position to ever make suck blanket statements.)
Believe me. I’ve tested John Boehner and found him severely out of touch, unresponsive and assayed to be found lacking.
Will the drama of my journey lead, with my tragic flaw of hubris, to misery, tragedy;? Or to Comedy with me as the protagonist joining in laughter with the cosmic joke nad rejoining at some point with society supporting my actions in the end?
Whatever course things may take, I hope to find out something deep. To learn some things about my country, my friends and myself..
And to be the wiser if not richer for it. To my friends who believe I am on a fools’ errand, tilting at windmills: I can see your point and your fears.It is not something you would do. Or could do. I am uniquely qualified to do this. It may be my life’s great adventure, the thing that tests my mettle and perhaps makes my fortune and provide the basis of my future right livelihood.