10 Years Ago: Christmas Eve in Louisiana and a Look at Christmas Eve Past

Original post here. 

Other Christmases: 

2012: Alamogordo, New Mexico

2013: Louisiana: Pierre Part: Christmas Parade and Gumbo

2017: Ferguson, Missouri

2019: Livingston, Texas

2021: Mobile, Alabama

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Christmas Eve in Louisiana and a Look at Christmas Eve Past

Christmas Eve 2012 on Canyon Drive, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Credit: Mzuriana.

Last year, my mother and sister and I were in Santa Fe for Christmas. The folks at the Silver Saddle Motel were so kind to invite us and some other motel guests to join them on the traditional farolito walk on Canyon Drive.

Today, Christmas Eve in Lafayette, I remembered how special it was to enter the St. Joseph Apache Mission Church in Mescalero, New Mexico, during Christmas season last year. My mother and I visited the church once when it was empty, and we also attended Mass. 

St. Joseph Apache Mission Church, Mescalero, New Mexico. December 2012.Credit: Mzuriana.

What a beautiful space.

So today, it made sense to me to attend a Mass this year also.

St. Mary Mother of the Church, Lafayette, Louisiana. December 2013. Credit: Mzuriana.

A new friend is in the choir at St. Mary Mother of the Church, so that's where I went.  Heard graceful song and breathed deeply of the exotic frankincense.

St. Mary Mother of the Church, Lafayette, Louisiana. December 2013. Credit: Mzuriana.

 
... and then, I thought, what the hell - no I mean heck, because, shhh, we're in church! - what about going to midnight Mass?

Our Lady of Wisdom, Lafayette, Louisiana. December 2013. Credit: Mzuriana.

For this, I selected Our Lady of Wisdom Church on St. Mary's Boulevard, on the University of Louisiana - Lafayette campus.

I'm so glad I did.

Our Lady of Wisdom, Lafayette, Louisiana. December 2013. Credit: Mzuriana.

The church was full but not overcrowded. The altar is an open one where there is seating in front and in back. Or better said, the altar is set perpendicular to the attendees.

Our Lady of Wisdom, Lafayette, Louisiana. December 2013. Credit: Mzuriana.

The music, vocal and instrumental, was exquisite, and the acoustics or sound system or both, superb. Violins, cello, deep drums, soaring voices en masse and solo and twinned. It was possible to close one's eyes and simply dwell in the sound .... there were a few moments where it felt like being in the lapping water in the hot springs of Truth and Consequences.

Our Lady of Wisdom, Lafayette, Louisiana. December 2013. Credit: Mzuriana.

The reader had a mellifluous voice; the priest(s) chanted the liturgy. The incense and its attendant smoke rounded out the sensory experience for the eyes, ears, and nose.

Our Lady of Wisdom, Lafayette, Louisiana. December 2013. Credit: Mzuriana.

 

What a satisfying Christmas Eve in my new land.
    

Jefferson City, Missouri: COVID-19 Unfolding, Part 8888: The Seduction of Denial

 

Preface

I am a mistress of denial. I have skills in denial. I excel at denial.

So my comments below - about what appears to me as denial - is not about being judgy or belittling - and in no way - not even a microscopic bit - disdain. It is simply about who we often are as humans. 

The Seduction, Chapter 1

Both my hostess and I took trips over a long weekend. I went to Livingston, Texas. My hostess went to Kansas City. 

One of us came back with COVID. 

My hostess knew that her sore throat and general not-up-to-par-ness pointed to a common cold. She knew it.   

Nevertheless, I pulled out one of my government-used vanilla and orange sherbet test packets so she could take a test. 

Free rapid COVID tests from US government. March 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

 

So she did. And here's the power of denial. The C line was, of course, clearly evident. That's the control line. The T line (for test result) was faint. 

Because it was faint, much fainter than the control line under the C, my hostess felt that the test was likely negative. Because it couldn't be positive. Because she knew she just had a Before Times cold. 

Unfortunately, if you can see the T line, no matter how faint, that's a positive result. But don't take my word for it: 

• March 2022, SF Gate: What Does a Faint Line on Your COVID Rapid Test Mean? 
• June 2022, NBC News:  What to Know About COVID Tests: Accuracy, Inconclusive Results, Faint Lines, and More
• February 2022: UC Davis Health: How to Do an At-Home COVID-19 Rapid Antigen Test Correctly: 

"After 15 minutes, you’ll look for two things:

A line under the “C,” which is the control. 'It’s imperative that you get a line under the “C.” It lets you know that the test is working. If there’s no line under “C,” you’ll need to re-test,' Alvarado explained.

"If the area under the “T,” or test section, has no line at all, that means it’s negative for COVID-19. If there’s a line under the “T,” then the test is positive for COVID. 'It doesn’t matter how faint or how bright the line under the “T” is, if it’s there, it’s a positive test for COVID,' Alvarado said. [Underline added by me.]

 

Faint line on COVID test card - positive. Credit: SF Gate via Getty Images

 

My hostess' response: "Well, shit. .... Shit." This from a person who rarely swears.  

 

A sidebar on the CDC

You may wonder - and you should wonder - why I don't have a link to the CDC's guide on the at-home rapid test results info. I wanted to. And I looked for the information. But the information is for shit. 

The accompanying text for this video, for example, says it tells you how to interpret the result, but it does not. It slides right over to: "If you have a positive result ..." 

And this video, which the CDC linked to for my orange sherbet and vanilla test, which purported to have usage information by the manufacturer, was .... I don't know what the hell it was. But it didn't tell me how to interpret any results. Hell, it didn't even tell me how to conduct the test. 

Another test that the CDC links to, for a different manufacturer, was a link to an error page. 

Finally, in the third link, to the Abbot BiNox Now test kit link, I found actual instructions. Including this: "Even a FAINT line next to SAMPLE is a positive result." The video even included a magnifying glass image to reinforce the need to look closely at the test result.

I used to have great confidence in and respect for our country's Center for Disease Control. Both of these evaporated when Trump bullied and politicized both the agency and the pandemic itself. 

I only just today pulled up this 2020 Pro Publica article on same: Inside the Fall of the CDC. I make this point about the timing because I had come to my own conclusion about the CDC's loss of legitimacy as I watched Trump's rhetoric against the CDC and his appointments unfold in 2020. 

A dismal excerpt from the Pro Publica article:

"When the next history of the CDC is written, 2020 will emerge as perhaps the darkest chapter in its 74 years, rivaled only by its involvement in the infamous Tuskegee experiment, in which federal doctors withheld medicine from poor Black men with syphilis, then tracked their descent into blindness, insanity and death."

Note: The article is not just a thrashing of Trump and his subjects - it's about vulnerabilities within the CDC that already existed, and which exacerbated the failure to fulfill its mission to protect the public health of the United States. 

Another astounding excerpt from the Pro Publica report: 

"At a time when the pandemic had killed nearly 130,000 Americans, McGowan spent an hour and a half on the phone with the HHS general counsel and other senior officials to figure out how to make an exception for a dog. All the while, he told colleagues, his mind kept returning to the fact that the same administration was using the CDC’s quarantine power to deport thousands of children at the border with Mexico."

 

 The Seduction, Chapter 2

A few days ago, a New Mexico friend fell sick. When I say he "fell sick," I mean that he felt sick. Felt rather miserable, in fact. 

He, too, took an at-home rapid test. He told me the result was questionable. I asked why he called it questionable. He said "because the test result line is so faint." 

He'd scheduled a PCR for the following Monday. 

I explained, well, there's nothing questionable about your test result. Doesn't matter how faint the result line is: You're positive. 

I explained this wasn't just my opinion - it's in the test packet instructions. 

Just as it was for my hostess, who had to reorganize a number of commitments after her diagnosis, this was a real bummer for my New Mexico friend (in addition to having COVID, that is) because he'd been set to serve as an election worker on Tuesday, the 8th. 

On Monday, he took the PCR. Positivity confirmed.  

The Seduction, Chapter 3

Now to me. 

I was squarely negative when I took the at-home rapid test two days after my hostess' return from her long weekend trip and her positive test result. (It didn't seem to make any sense for me to take it before I'd even been exposed for any length of time, hence the two-day delay.)

In the meantime, I was hyper-vigilant about distancing, sanitizing, masking, and staying in different parts of her house. 

I re-took the test on the evening of the 9th day after her return from Kansas City. 

I had a thought process for waiting for the nine days (and I'm actually drafting this before I've taken the test), which was that: 

• If I've been infected, it will surely show up in the test result after so many days of exposure; and
• If I've not been infected after so many days of exposure, I am probably OK. Because in theory (my theory), each day that passed she was closer to end-of-quarantine time.

Magical thinking? Denial? Could be! I'm gifted at that! 

 

The result:

Negative!

Oh, and my hostess took her test again this evening also - negative. Huzzahs all around. 

Nevertheless, I'll take another test in two days just to ensure there haven't been any viruses sneaking about incognito in more recent days.

 

Negative COVID test result. November 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

Stuff: Trials and Errors in Alabama

Before I left Tucson at the end of May 2020, I edited my stuff to the barest of bare minimums so I could car camp in ChezP while en route to wherever my new digs would be for the year. This approach contrasted with past years, in which my criterion for how much stuff I schlepped from one tourist-in-residence to the next was that it fit into my car. 

 

Car packed for move to El Paso. August 2016.

 

Below are minimizing actions I took before my Tucson exit:

• Reduced flatware and tableware to four or fewer pieces in each category
  
• Cookware released: Cooking pots and pans, plastic spatulas/spoons, silicone oven mitt, cutting board
  
• Kept only one bath towel
• Bedding released: Airbed and its accompanying electric pump, fitted sheets, all pillows except one, pretty comforter, a knitted throw
  
• Travel items released: Two coffee thermoses, smallish Coleman water jug
  
• Also released: Smallish fan

 

Now that I've been in Birmingham for awhile, I can assess my mistakes and wins.  My first assessment on same is here.

Mistakes

1. Keeping only one bath towel

One bath towel was fine right up until the day I went on my road trip in October. Wanted to take a shower the morning I left Birmingham for Texas, only to realize, oh, right, my sole bath towel will be damp, so instead of packing it up, I'd have to drape it over stuff in the car while I drove.

On the other hand .... On a road trip, I can lay bath towels atop my coolers to protect my cooler(s) from the heat and sun pushing through the windows or just to cover up items that opportunistic thieves might think appear interesting enough to break a window for. 

I should have kept two bath towels.

 

2.   Keeping only one pillow

In theory, my decision to insert blankets and linens into pillowcases and use these as pillows was a solid one. But they aren't comfortable and they're also kind of floppy. 

I should have kept two pillows. 

 

3.   Bed

I don't regret giving away my airbed and pump. It would have taken up too much ChezP real estate for this year's interregnum between Tucson and Birmingham. Just as importantly, I learned how much I valued a comfortable bed! My experiment with a stretched-fabric cot, topped by my ChezP's foam cushion, has been a comfort failure, and not one I want to suffer through for a year. I hereby reject the punitive adage: You made your bed and now you gotta lie in it.

 

                                                        Bed fail in Birmingham. October 2020.

 

I ordered a new airbed and electric pump after I returned from my Texas road trip. Same brand for the third time: an Intex Twin with Raised Pillow. I like that it's almost the height of a real bed. 

I again sleep like a queen! 

3. Cookware

I grow weary of thrift-store cookware that doesn't sit evenly on stove burners, oven mitts that don't quite do the job, and no-scratch spatulas with dubious chemical integrity.

It is time to invest a little dough into decent kitchen tools I can use in a bricks-and-mortar or on the road. 

So the mistake in this case wasn't that I released my Tucson cookware and bought "new" in Birmingham; it's more a mistake in lost time and unreliable results from thrift store hunting and buying each time I move. It's the latter I intend to rectify. 

4.   Tableware

I made no mistake in reducing my number of dinner plates to two from four. My mistake was the size of the dinner plates I was using. They were too big. They were too big to fit into my decades-old, Girl Scout ditty bag to dry after I washed them. They were too big to fit easily into my camp kitchen box. 

 

Vintage Girl Scout ditty bag at campsite, Lake Livingston State Park, Texas. October 2020.

 

Notwithstanding the pretty, pastel turquoise color and the pleasing curvature of their lip, I left them in Livingston.

I could do so because I'd already found their replacement:

When I landed in Birmingham, I undertook my annual search for a replacement broiler pan with which to roast my boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs, my zucchinis, my squashes, my potatoes, and my yams. I found a taped-together assortment of metal ware that included not only the PERFECT size broiler pan (fits well into a kitchen sink for washing!), but two sets of toaster-oven pans, which I didn't think I needed (and I don't have a toaster oven).

But the petite, rectangular toaster-oven pans are cute as kittens, in their way, and I'm using them as my new plates. I can't use them in a microwave, but no matter. I don't have a microwave. (Hahaha! This reminds me of how, in Ferguson, I didn't have a stove!)

My wins

I should have dispensed with fitted sheets long ago! They are a pain in the ass to fold after laundering, they are a pain in the ass to put on an airbed, and they're too big for my ChezP "bed."

Although I had some sentimental attachment to the flatware, one of the two thermoses, and the Coleman jug that I released, the storage space they didn't consume in my car and kitchen cabinets dried my nostalgic tears. 

My decision to furnish my Tucson (and future) apartment with camp gear that I can also use for road trips and camping was a good one! My bedside table is a collapsible camp table. My bedside lamp is a camp lantern (powered by rechargeable batteries). My comfortable living room chair is a backpacking chair. My ottoman is the medium-large plastic bin that houses my camp kitchen, topped by a pillow. 

 

Living room ensemble. Birmingham, Alabama. October 2020.

                               

Related stuff on stuff

"Office" chair

Every year, I buy a new-to-me chair for my "office." Usually, I do find a chair that is the right height for my loyal folding table, and is comfortable. But not always. This year in Birmingham, I bought a very solid, pretty, wooden dining chair. But the seat is just a little too high for my folding table, which means that every day, I'm slightly uncomfortable when I work on my laptop. 

I'd like to find a sturdy, folding camp chair with the correct seat height, provides good support for my lower back while sitting for long periods, hold up to daily use, and which will not take up too much space in my car when I use it for camping and moving. 

 

                        My office 'desk' and chair in Opelousas. Louisiana, March 2015.

 

 

Cardboard boxes

I'm experimenting with the use of cardboard boxes for shelving and side tables. This practice holds promise for future living set-ups.

 

 

Back to Texas: COVID-19 Unfolding, Part 888: My Site Mates

 

 

 Notwithstanding COVID, I was not alone in my campsite. Strangers pushed into my corona bubble. 

The night before my departure from Lake Livingston State Park, as I sat outside in the gloaming, I felt-heard a small rustling beneath my chair. Discounted it. Then I heard it again. Pulled out my phone and hit the flashlight feature. Who - what - goes there? I panned the leafy floor. 

A frog. 

 

 

The next morning, as I broke camp, other site mates revealed themselves. 

Tucked into the space between my tent roof and the rain fly, a walking stick.  

Gripping the side of my colorful tablecloth - a sentimental artifact from the road trip my daughter and I took to Alaska when she was 16 - a green lizard. 

 

Neither the walking stick nor the lizard gave me any mind. 

 

Back to Texas: COVID-19 Unfolding, Part 888: A Wee Walk

 

Pineywoods Boardwalk Trail, Lake Livingston State Park, Texas. October 2020.

On my Voting Pilgrimage to Deep East Texas, I camped at Lake Livingston State Park for several nights. 

On Sunday, I took a wee walk on the park's Pineywoods Boardwalk trail. 

A bit drizzly, but I'd brought my umbrella with me in the event of an actual rain.

A lizard on a trash receptacle cheered me, as the sight of lizards always does. 

Lizard, Pineywoods Boardwalk Trail, Lake Livingston State Park, Texas. October 2020.

 

Ooooh, and a mushroom that looks like a golf ball on a tee! 

Mushroom, Pineywoods Boardwalk Trail, Lake Livingston State Park, Texas. October 2020.

My online research does not culminate in an ID consensus, but the closest description seems to belong to amanita subcokeri. 

  

Back to Texas: COVID-19 Unfolding, Part 888: A Toast to Dan

 

 

Yesterday afternoon, when I neared Livingston, Texas, I pulled into a Walmart to select a sparking white wine. 

I prefer reds such as a pinot noir or cabernet sauvignon, but the wine wasn't for me. 

It was for my best Tucson buddy, Dan. He liked good sparkling whites. I bought a prosecco that he would have likely sniffed his nose at (both literally and figuratively), good-naturedly, but, well, he wasn't there, so ...

Dan wasn't there because two weeks ago, he died. 

Last night, in the dark, beneath the lacy lingerie of treetops and a deep blue sky, I lifted a toast to Dan, and thanked him for enriching my Tucson year. 

 

We met in 2019 at the weekly blues fusion dance event, held at CeeCee's Jamaican restaurant on Speedway. Dan was a superb dance partner! He liked a little drama in his dance step, as do I. He was all about both of us enjoying the dance, and he forgave all of my missteps. Dan made me look good and we synced well. He made it easy to be a follow.

Dan took me to my very first hockey game. He took me to my first football game since I was a high schooler. As an alum, he proudly showed me around the UA campus before the football game. 

We took a day trip together so that Dan could introduce me to various Arizona points of interest. A man who liked organized planning, I drove, but he carefully plotted all of our stopping points for the day, including a lunch break in Sierra Vista. Dan showed me Tombstone, Bisbee, Naco, Miller Peak, and even Miracle Valley. 

Dan loved good wine, especially white sparkling wines. I'd call him a sensualist, with his love for blues fusion and tango dancing, for the flavors of cheeses and meats and olives and sweets, an ear for the instrumentals in music of all genres, for the visual and perhaps tactile adventure of his cactus collection. 

I know this sounds like I'm stating the obvious, but: death wasn't in Dan's plan for this year. 

However, even before COVID's heavy blanket descended, 2019-2020 was different for Dan. 

There were unsettling, seemingly discrete, medical things that cropped up. Not trivial, but not un-fixable. A treatable this. A treatable that. An elevated this. An ophthalmological issue that popped up, and which required prompt treatment and slow recovery. Then a scarier thing presented itself, for which he underwent a course of treatment of some months, which resulted, he was told (at least at first?) in a clear report.

There were disconcerting and unexpected changes, too, in some social and cultural activities that he'd lovingly participated in for decades, which became suddenly, somehow elusive, for a variety of reasons.

The cloud of COVID settled in, and Dan sometimes struggled with the isolation. 

Dan suffered a grief, as well, for someone close to him, who was gravely ill. 

Twelve months, being worn down, bit by bit.  

There is a gap in the universe where he once stood. Where he danced.

Goodbye, Dan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to Texas: COVID-19 Unfolding, Part 888: The Caesar's Pilgrimage

NOTE: My COVID-19 posts are all over the chronological map for now; I'll number them down the road. 

 

On Saturday morning, I set off for my legal home: Livingston, Texas. 

 

This trip to Livingston – the planning, the doing, the arriving, the voting – I am one of a million or more on a pilgrimage to cast out the current, corrupt president who has subjected all of us to his verbal, emotional, physical-by-proxy, financial, and sexual abuse for the last four years.

But why not a mail-in vote, like I did for the primaries? 

I dare say that the majority of my fellow pilgrims, like me, lost trust in the integrity of the mail-in voting process, thanks to the imperial ravings of Caesar Trumperius. 

 

It was worth the 1000+ miles round trip for me to personally push some buttons on a machine. 

 

At a rest stop along the way, I saw evidence that suggested a Caucasus Georgian family had also stopped there: 

 

I consumed a picnic lunch at a Love's at that high-priced gas junction that is bookended by exits with more reasonable gas. 

 

 

 

To slice my roast chicken breast and sweet potato, I employed the brand-new folding knife that my New Mexico friend sent me: 

 

 

On Saturday night, I passed the night at a Flying J / Pilot truck stop near Shreveport, Louisiana. As with my maiden overnight earlier this year at another truck stop, it went seamlessly! To remind me that I was in Louisiana, there was this welcome sign: 

 

On Sunday morning, a Louisiana friend visited me at the Flying J, and we gabbed for more than two hours on a grassy space at the truck stop, exchanging a careful but heartful masked hug at our parting. Gosh, it was good to see her! I think it had been five years since we saw each other in person, as we typically communicate via text.  

Note: Speaking of Livingstons, let's take a commemorative visit to Livingston, Louisiana. 

 

Livingston, TX: COVID-19 Unfolding, Part 888: Voting

Propped-up building across from courthouse. Livingston, Texas. June 2020.

NOTE: My COVID-19 posts are all over the chronological map for now; I'll number them down the road.

Typically, a Texan run-off election that follows a spring primary occurs in May. My Plan A had been to be in Livingston, Texas, to vote in person for the run-off. (I'd voted absentee in the spring primary.)

But!
Because of COVID-19, I'd stayed in Tucson a month longer than planned, and I didn't apply timely for an absentee ballot.

But!
Because of COVID-19, Texas postponed this year's run-off until July, and the early-voting period began on June 29.

Huzzah!
I was in my new hometown of Livingston, Texas, at just the right historic moment to vote in person!

I arrived mid-morning. A clutch of candidates waved and greeted me from a corner, mindful of legal campaign distancing limits for election-day protocols.

Inside the courthouse, COVID protocols were evident, with proper spacing for voter queuing taped on the floor, and masked election workers.

Two COVID-related practices caught my attention:

1. The first with trepidation, and then delight; and
2. The second with rueful acceptance. 

The first: The woman at the final voter-processing station sat before a large, white, fold-up case. In front of the case, laid onto the table, were cotton swabs atop l-o-n-g, thin, wooden sticks. As I proceeded along the line, I eyed these swab sticks with a bit of decision anxiety. COVID testing at the polls? Kind of like being able to register to vote when you get a driver's license or library card? Those long swabs - they hurt, right? Knock up against your brain pan to pull out sinus cells? Should I get tested? Yes? No? I mean, I'm right here, right? But this doesn't make sense, does it? COVID testing right here? I don't know ..... Cognitive dissonance.

Upon arrival before the woman and the long, skinny swabs atop those wooden sticks, I learned: Oh! Each voter gets one to use on the touchscreen of the voting machine.

Super clever! I loved it! And myself and I had a big laugh together.

The second: If only two, maybe three, are in the voter-processing area, the set-up was OK for distancing. Alas, the two processing tables were too close together + the two people at each table were too close together, and therefore, voters had to be too close together if each table handled two voters. The problem, in my mind, lay not in the intentions, but the small size and layout of the voting space, including the queue line area.

A better plan, if the weather permitted it (and it did when I was there), might have been to have the first table outside on the sidewalk. Or beginning in the building foyer. Or set up one of those big tents (like for a wedding or beer garden) in the short street to handle the whole thing. Or find a larger space in the building. Or in a different building.

But overall, I was delighted to be able to vote in person!      

On the Road Again: COVID-19 Unfolding, Part 28: Flags and Traps

 

Fire and brimstone in an Arkansas tract. January 2012.

 

From Salado Rest Area on Highway 167, on the way to Livingston, Texas, my route included spans on:

1. Highway 167
2. Highway 67
3. Highway 57
4. Highway 595
5. Highway 59
   

My take-away sights

Highway 67 and 57 (Arkansas): Dotted by many flapping Confederate flags that proclaim quasi-American citizens' fealty to a dystopian ghost nation that lurks in the United States like plaque on a heart's arteries

Highway 595: Speed traps! 

Atlanta, Texas: The town of Atlanta, Texas, has a big ol' billboard close to its entrance that announces to all comers: "One City Under God." .... Not to be disrespectful, but by the looks of things there, God don't like Atlanta too much. Depressing.

Between Atlanta and Livingston: More speed traps!

On the Road Again: COVID-19 Unfolding, Part 27: Overnighting in an Arkansas Rest Area

 

Salado Rest Area camping area, Highway 167, Arkansas. June 2020.

After a week in Missouri, it was time to strike out again toward the southwest ..... to Livingston, Texas. My goals to achieve there: 

1. Vote in the spring 2020 runoff election, which had been postponed, because of COVID-19, from its usual May time to July
2. Simply spend time (and some money) in Livingston to cement my relationship with Texas as my official home state
3. Meet up (safely) with my Houston and Livingston friends

 

When I left Missouri, I knew I'd overnight in Chez P at Arkansas' Salado Rest Area on Highway 167, a bit south of Batesville. 

I have a history with this pretty rest area. Every time I swang by here on my way up or down to South Louisiana, I stopped at Salado Rest Area. Because it's pretty and because I so love that it is a rest area with actual campsites. 

It was with some excitement that this time, I would actually use one of the campsites! 

I arrived before dinner, and chose my site for:

• Attractiveness
• Proximity to restroom 
• Relatively short distance for a rapid exit, if needed
  
• Proximity to night time light source for a feeling of security (not actual security, mind, but the feeling of security)
  

 I backed Chez P into the campsite driveway so I could shoot straight out if necessary.

View from my campsite, Salado Rest Area, Highway 167, Arkansas. June 2020.

 For dinner, I pulled out a can of Chunky soup, a bag of carrots, some crackers, and an apple. An unexpected visitor arrived and I shared some soup with her.

Dinner guest at my Salado Rest Area campsite, Highway 167, Arkansas. June 2020.

After dinner, I anticipated that other overnighters would begin to roll in on this Friday night. I welcomed the additions, as I feel safer in the middle of a herd of other overnighters in a rest area.

But no one came. No. one.

Anxiety about being the lone camper in a rest area that attracted stoppers-by throughout the night punctured my buoyant camping spirit a bit. I reminded myself of this: The vast majority of humans simply want to go about their business, neither wanting to be molested nor wanting to molest others, so get a grip on reality, girl. 

When I arose the next morning, I saw that a couple of other travelers had, after all, stopped for the night, including one in a tent. 

Every time I pass a night like this, it makes the next time easier. Which is good because I aim to camp in the future in a dispersed camping area on public lands, where I'd be far from a main road and facilities. 

When I say "easier," I refer to a process that moves me toward right-sizing safety fears. It is out-sized fear that keeps us from doing so many things.  

 

A campsite at Salado Rest Area camping area, Highway 167, Arkansas. June 2020.

 

Tucson, AZ: COVID-19 Unfolding, Part 14: Plans --> Pouf!

Dandelion seed head. Source: Wikimedia. Photo credit: Greg Hume

My original plan was to leave Tucson at the end of this month - the end of April.

My original plans for this summer were grand!

• A 20-year commemorative road trip to Alaska.
• A road trip with my mom. 
• A week's trip each with my youngest descendants, one of which is to Washington, D.C.
• A circuitous recon romp through spots in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi to scope out potential spots for my next year-in-residence. 
• Leisurely visits with friends in New Mexico. 

My original plans are ....... pouf! Scatter shot like an aerosol blast of pollen from a dandelion seed head. Or virus.

As COVID's tendrils wickered through our populations, I thought, OK, maybe the Alaskan road trip isn't realistic. I'll be so ready to emerge from my cave, comfy though it is, wanting to trade hundreds of contemplative solo miles for social connections. Instead I thought: Maybe by summer there'll be an all-clear that will bring outrageously affordable plane fares to faraway places. Vietnam, maybe! South Korea! Romania! Maybe this was the year for Rwanda! A door of possibilities opened!!


Delaying Tucson departure

In March, I peered into the future and tried to guesstimate when COVID would peak in various locations. Realistically, I thought, things in my target recon trip aren't going to peak before mid-April, at least. So if I left in April as originally planned, I'd probably just have to find a new hidey-hole.

Several options presented themselves to me until I asked myself: Why leave a perfectly good hidey-hole where I've already got things set up for my comfort? And in which I am the queen of my own little queendom of one?

My landlords and I were mutually happy to extend the lease another month.


Now, where after Tucson?

 In the moment I'm writing this, I don't have a fucking clue.

At the end of May, I believe things will still be dicey in many locations. At the moment, I'm only thinking about the month of June.

My assumptions

1. It will not be safe to take that trip to D.C. in June with my descendant. (BTW: He is graduating from high school this year. Only there won't be a graduation ceremony in May as originally planned. BTW: And one of my nieces cancelled her original wedding arrangements for June, postponing them til June 2021.)
2. Wherever I decide to go, it will be east of Arizona, as this gets me closer to my year-in-residence candidates and other summer plans that might be possible to resuscitate. 
3. There may still be restrictions on what we can do and where we can go, so choosing a destination because of, for example, its BC (Before COVID) music and dance scene is likely to disappoint.

Do I want to work in June? If yes:

Deal-breaker: Needs to be a place with reliable, fast internet access. Libraries (which usually have decent internet access) may still be closed in June in most communities, so that means that my home needs to have the requisite internet access. Given how "developed" and "First World" the US alleges to be, it's absurd how many US homes with internet have sucky internet or phone service. (What's that you say? You want an example for comparison? OK. Almost a DECADE ago, I had phone service in Ethiopia no matter where I was, from big city to a spot in the middle of nowheresville. And, oh yeah, they had solar phone chargers, too.)


Option 1: Rent a room from a friend eastward of Arizona who has fast, reliable internet. Not all of my delightful friends have the requisite internet capacity. Also, the friend-potential landlord needs to be willing to bring in a possible contaminator (me) to their infection-free bubble. And we each need to feel comfortable with the other's behaviors in mitigating infection threats when we leave the bubble.

Option 2: Motels might offer drastically-reduced rates to month-long guests such that I could afford to hang out in one.

Option 3: I can likely find an airbnb-like arrangement through friends-and-friends-of-friends (FFF?) and craigslist inquiries. (I say airbnb-like because I divorced actual airbnb.)

If I go the motel or airbnb-like route, I'm considering Livingston, Texas, in Polk County. This is my new hometown, after all. Living there for a month will build my domicile cred. I can get a library card, visit a dentist (if offices are open and feel safe to me), and use that as a base for day trips to two places on my recon route for year-in-residence candidates. 



Do I want to work in June? If no:

An attractive proposition is a camping spot in a place that isn't too hot, and which, ideally, has some amenities that are functioning, such as: at least a pit toilet, access to clean water, access to electricity for charging devices, and enough cellular bars to make phone calls possible.

Polk County, Texas, remains a possible candidate for this scenario. There are some nearby state and national park lands. Whether their campgrounds (and any of the campground amenities) will be open in June is a question mark.



Today, I know nothing about what June will bring. However, it is something to have the beginnings of an outline of a pre-plan.

Road Trip: Livingston, Texas: Part 6: Second Night Boondocking

Being reborn as a Texan, feeling a new-home-base glow, I headed westward again. Knowing I will come back east only a few months from now.

I spent my second night at an I-10 rest area, again in Texas, this time at the one that lies between Comfort and Kerrville.

It confounds me that evidently I took nary a photo of the place.


I learned some new things about rest-area boondocking with this second go.

Yes, try to arrive earlier in the evening than I did, particularly on a Monday following Thanksgiving.

I rolled into the rest area around 5:30, I believe. Already there were RVs and vans in occupation for the night. Some trucks, too. I had very limited parking choices.

At this rest area, it is parallel parking only. When I first docked, I chose a spot that was parallel to the women's side of the restrooms. My slot was just behind a red zone, so there would be no vehicles directly in front of me, but there were slots in the spaces behind me. I quickly discovered that this meant I had regular and frequent headlights shining directly into the back of my vehicle.

I looked for a less-trafficked spot. In front of the accessible parking, there was a van, and immediately in front of that, a camper. And then that was the end of free spaces at the front of the car-parking line. I walked over to see how much space existed between the van and the accessible spot. .... Just enough. Just enough for me to scooch my Prius in there. Which I did.

Having learned my lesson from the first rest area car-sleeping, I pulled out my clothes for the next day and placed them in a red bag with my toiletry bag.

Although the temps dipped into the 30s that night, I felt cozy. I slept very well. If there were 18-wheeler truck sounds in the night, I must have quickly become inured to them.

Based on my two experiences sleeping at a rest area, I feel good about doing it in the future.

Road Trip: Livingston, Texas: Part 5: Reconnecting With Fellow Travelers

Lamp glow in Missouri. December 2006.

• Destination: Livingston, Texas
• Mission A: Become a Texan
• Mission B: More field testing of Chez Prius (and me), which will prepare me for a hoped-for road trip to Alaska in summer 2020

False sun in Jefferson City, Missouri. December 2006.

Before going any further in today's article, I invite you to read On the Way to El Paso: A Remarkable Thing, as it introduces you to "Travis" (and indirectly, "Lark"), who I met at a Motel 6 in Junction, Texas, one sunny morning back in 2016.

After I published my post about that day, I sent a link to Travis, and ever since then, we have remained in touch, mostly by email and the occasional phone call.

But all three of us were able to meet up at a Burger King in Houston when I passed through there on my way to Tucson in early 2019. Again, all of my belongings filled my car. A newer car. 

And now, almost a year later, we could meet again on my road trip to Livingston.  Grand!

Lark and Travis drove up to Livingston from Houston on a crisp Sunday morning to see what was what at Escapees RV campground and CARE Center. 

The two pulled into my dry-camp site and peered into Chez Prius while I led a rig tour of my bed, kitchen, toilet, and dining room.

The three of us sank into big, soft furniture in the CARE Center's living room. Lark and Travis listened, without the diversion of snacks or commercial interruptions, while I regaled them with telenovela plot lines from real life.

Eventually, we drove into town for lunch, settling in at Joe's Italian Grill after a bit of a look-around at the options. Savored the best garlic rolls I've had in years. Warm, buttery, garlicky, yeasty. Decent fettucine alfredo.

Lamplighter on Baratashvili Street, Tbilisi, Caucasus Georgia. May 2012.

On travel styles and the freedom of Motels 6

Like me, Travis and Lark are travelers. Not nomadic, as they maintain a home base in Houston, but frequent road trippers.

Watch a handful of or a hundred youtubes about #vanlife or #rvlife, you notice that "freedom" is a common theme.

Yeahhhhhhhh, well, "freedom" is a relative term.

Downtown El Paso, Texas. September 2016.

Van dwellers and RVers are most free if they possess all of these:

1. A rig that is short enough to negotiate most roads into and out of desirable camping destinations; 
2. A rig that performs well in most weather conditions, i.e. hot, cold, snow, rain, wind, and typical thunderstorms; 
3. A rig that that can be self-contained for food storage, food prep, and toileting if one is stuck inside due to a day or more of inclement weather;
4. Sufficient financial resources to support both boondocking and hook-up fees, at will;
5. Sufficient financial resources to move from one location to the next, at will, irrespective of fuel cost to travel from one spot to the next; and
6. Sufficient financial resources to execute Plans B and C when their rig is admitted to the hospital.

A lot of van- and RV-dwellers must rely on boondocking to make the lifestyle economically feasible, because campground fees (private or public) - and fuel, for the most frequent movers -  ratchet the cost of living to unsustainable levels. With boondocking, one's direct, overnight costs are "free," but there is a cost exacted in time taken to find new sites. There are limits to how long one can stay in a place; the durations are a function of how long the land manager allows boondockers to stay (generally up to two weeks only) and how long one's supplies and power last without having to drive from what may be a remote spot to a distant town.

So the "freedom" of boondockers is circumscribed.

When one considers the direct and indirect, and tangible and intangible costs of RV living, being a "moto6er" vies, in my opinion, for equal "freedom" status.

Delta Queen Hotel, Chattanooga, Tennessee. October 2013.

As moto6ers, Lark and Travis enjoy a similar level of freedom, albeit in different formats, as most RVers and van dwellers:

1. While driving a fuel-economy car, Lark and Travis can road trip almost everywhere (or close to everywhere) in the country; 
2. Private toilet and shower (with no worries about black water tanks or water storage or power for hot water);
3. Electrical outlets to recharge one's devices;
4. Most of the time: small fridge, microwave, access to coffee
5. When they're ready to leave, they pack up their car and go - no battening down the hatches of a rig, hooking up a tow car, or even making the bed or cleaning the bathroom
6. They can bring in their own food if they want, with various options for cooking same, either in or outside their room
7. On-demand climate control
8. They can leave stuff safely in the room while visiting more remote locations in their car for sightseeing, hiking, etc. 

Da Gabi Hotel, Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, Mexico. November 2010.

If a moto6er desires an economy of scale by moving from nightly rates, they can go to weekly or monthly rates - or opt for short-term rentals in an apartment or house as sole or co-housing inhabitants.

Bottom line: All "freedom" has limits; we can find freedom in a style that works for us.  Some find it in RVs, some in vans, some in cars, some in tents. Lark and Travis enjoy freedom as moto6ers.

Goha Hotel, Gonder, Ethiopia. January 2011.