Ready to Hit The Road? Not Quite…

My departure date of October 1 is fast approaching and I’M NOT READY!!! This trip has been over a year in the thinking and planning, so one would think I’m all set and ready to go. NOPE. Here’s what the last few weeks have looked like as I watch the calendar quickly and relentlessly count the days to my “lift-off” from Ann Arbor.

What I AM Doing To Prepare

My brain is a frazzle as I bounce from one task to another to another to another. Kind of like a pinball. Everything is equally important at this point and so much has to get done before I leave. Here’s a sampling of the various priorities that are yanking me to and fro as I careen from one task to the next to the next.

Maintaining My Social Schedule

Spending time with close friends and family is important to me and ensures that the frazzle threatening to take over my brain as I obsessively focus on the logistics of the trip preparations doesn’t completely overwhelm me. That’s why it is at the top of this priority list (that doesn’t mean that any of the other items on this list are in order of priority. That’s just the problem - they are all top priority). While time-consuming, I wouldn’t give up these social encounters even if it meant that something objectively more important doesn’t get done. With this in mind, in the last two weeks I have had several dinners out with special friends and attended two unbelievably amazing concerts (Shakti and Django Reinhardt Festival). I also attended two cooking classes and learned how to make pasta as well as a Moroccan soup, whole wheat pita, and a lovely sesame cookie (Zingerman’s, highly recommend - they do virtual as well as in-person classes). I get together with my friends for “Drinking With Dogs” whenever we can make the time. Spending treasured moments with my buddies here in Michigan feeds my soul and keeps me emotionally grounded. I will miss them while I’m gone and am busily planning get-togethers all the way up to just days before I leave. I’m even inviting those who may be looking for a few days respite of their own to join me on the road once I’m underway. Stay tuned to this blog to find out if anyone takes me up on it!

Finalizing the travel schedule

*This is what October looks like for me. Start in Ann Arbor and end in San Francisco.*

Researching and booking places to stay is a time-intensive, but absolutely necessary exercise. I have been working on this for several months and now have a pretty good plan for where I’ll be each night beginning October 1 and ending when I get back to Ann Arbor on Dec 3.

To keep everything straight and easy to visualize, I use a combination of Google Calendar, Roadtrippers, Microsoft OneNote, and paper folders to keep all the dates, reservation numbers, addresses, contact information, etc. straight. It’s complicated because I need to anticipate how far I can safely and comfortably drive in a day in order to get to my overnight spot in the mid afternoon (generally I’m keeping to 300 miles or less per driving day). Mapping all this out is tedious, especially because I am travelling to areas I’ve never been before. I don’t know what the roads will be like, whether my GPS will work when needed (yes, I will have my trusty atlas with me), how many stops I need or will want to make for myself or for my dog Sadie, or how the weather may be a factor. I’m crossing Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana smack in the middle of hurricane season and all my best-laid plans could get totally derailed in a moment.

Assuming the best rather than the worst, I plan to stay in a combination of:

State Parks and Privately Owned Campgrounds - which require you to pay up front when you make the reservation. If you cancel you may or may not get all or some of your money back. So every reservation I made at a state or national or county park, I consider it to be a “lock.” That reduces flexibility and adaptability if I want to make a change later, but it increases the certainty that I’ll have a place to stay when I arrive to a particular location that is unfamiliar to me.
Freebee Places - mostly Boondockers Welcome and Harvest Host sites, maybe the occasional truckstop, Walmart or Cracker Barrel. These places are very flexible and while I have already sought and received approval to stay at farms, wineries, breweries, wild animal preserves, and church parking lots, I can change my mind on a dime if something comes up that makes me want to do something different. Not locked in whatsoever.
Public Lands - while free and open, there are rules for how long you can stay and where you can set up your rig. That said, these national parks and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands don’t require reservations ahead of time (for the most part) and offer flexibility as well as some of the best scenery and wide open spaces to be found anywhere. This option is potentially the most isolated and remote, so as a “newbie” in the boondocking world I may or may not make frequent (or any) use of these spots until I have thoroughly scoped things out.
Airbnb - providing a respite, space and laundry - these will be rare, but strategically spaced out over the two months.
Friendly parking lots/driveways - I have some ideally located (meaning I don’t have to venture very far off the 1938 trail I’ll be following) friends and relatives who have allowed me to invite myself for a) Thanksgiving and b) for a short visit with some special people I have not seen in a very long time.

Organizing My Writing-Related Stuff

At the moment all my copious amounts of information, photos, documents, notes, books and papers are scattered on every available surface in my office and in multiple folders on my computer and the internet cloud. I don’t know that I will have easy access to the internet all the time. Prior experience tells me probably not, so in order to write the articles I want to write when I want to write them, I need to have the information I will need at my fingertips in a format I can get to easily. I won’t have the luxury of two monitors and a large desk with lots of drawers that is flanked by shelves and other surfaces to spread out on, plus a big dining room table in the next room. Everything I think I’m going to want needs to be stuffed into a small space (think backpack to serve as my portable office) that I can sort through easily and quickly. It has been pretty time consuming to figure out the best organizational system for myself and then configuring everything to fit the new system, but I’m hoping it will be worth it once I’m on my way. And thanks (once again!) to my brother Sam for putting much of the information he has collected and stored online onto a portable drive so that I can easily access his genealogy reports and scrapbook photos (among many other items) and work offline whenever I need to.

Shopping and Making Essential Purchases

Ok, I admit it, this one has not been a burden, nor has it been mentally taxing. Shopping online is way too easy because if you ever wonder whether a certain type of thing such as ___________ (fill in the blank) exists, all you have to do is google it and inevitably you discover to your joy and amazement that not only does it exist, but there are many in stock at an affordable price and you can have it delivered (for free) to your doorstep by tomorrow (if you are truly lucky and shop early in the day you may get same-day delivery). With this in mind, I’ve been trying to anticipate what I will need on this trip that will protect me from the elements whether it is blistering hot in the South and Southwest (October) or frigidly cold and snowy in the mountains and upper midwest (November). Also I decided I needed some “quality of life” items to make my camper experience the very best it can be (as far as I’m concerned, retirement is nothing if not enhancing quality of life in those final decades - of which I hope there are many). So far my purchases and “must haves” include:

heated blanket that will hold a charge for 10 hours (i.e. overnight).
a camping towel and washcloth that take up a fraction of the space that a normal size towel uses. Given the number of large, bulky, unused towels I took with me in July, this could be a game changer in terms of saving and utilizing space.
a Garmin satellite communicator so that I can ping my siblings of my whereabouts every night. Not a phone, this device will look for a satellite signal to latch onto and let me send a text message when there is no cell tower or internet service. It also has an emergency button so that if anything really dire happens and I am stuck somewhere, I can still call for help (assuming I can find the Garmin and push the big red button). I like thinking that I am in the same company with serious mountain climbers and backcountry campers - yes I know, I'm more of a Glamper with all the modern conveniences my van provides, but can’t I indulge a little fantasy from time to time when I’m out in the desert with only my dog Sadie and the Saguaro cactus to keep me company for miles around?
a CLAM pop-up screen porch to expand my living space for the times when I want to spread out and not feel so confined, especially on rainy days. I’ve been looking since my month-long trip in July, and finally found one that I think will suit me well. The most important criteria was that it packs small and light and that I be able to put it up by myself with no help. The one I bought is 6 feet by 6 feet, weighs just 20 pounds and goes up in 60 seconds (once you figure out how it works, which YouTube kindly demonstrates). Once you position it properly, it literally pops right up. That’s the upside. The downside is that I need enough strength and dexterity to simultaneously a) step on the bottom edge of the wall to hold it on the ground, b) hold the wall at the top edge with one arm while c) using my other hand to firmly pull the handy handle and pop out said wall. My son Conrad, of course, had it up in less than a minute, after watching me fight with it for quite a few minutes trying to hold it down and keep it from folding up while trying in vain to pop it open. My arms and legs are not as long as Conrad’s, nor am I as strong as he is, so my ability to leverage my weight and center of gravity to support the pop-up motion is compromised in comparison to his. I will continue to practice putting it up and down until I master a technique that works for me. I’m optimistic that I can make it work.
clear plastic bins and containers so that I can be more organized with all my “stuff” and be able to find what I need when I need it. I’m particularly excited by this one and will be retrieving the camper this week so that I have almost two weeks to organize and stow everything in its place. I’ve always been pretty good at Tetris; in this camper version of the game, I not only need to pack everything into the camper, but I also need to know where everything is once it gets packed. Clear containers will help, I’m sure of it.
collapsible water jugs and spouts that I can use to carry water to fill my tank when I’m not able to use my hose hookup.
thermal protective undergarments - I’m beginning to get concerned about the fact that I will be coming across Missouri and Illinois up to Chicago in late-November and early December. My camper has heat but I don’t want to push my luck and I definitely don’t want to be cold when I’m moving about the camper (and not snuggled cozily under the electric blanket).

Historical research

I know doing as much research as possible before I leave will save some time and effort once I’m on the road. It is important to me to be able to provide a 1938 perspective for the various places I’m visiting so that there is context for where my ancestors went, what they did, and what they saw.

*Anybody know what this is? In 1938 it was the largest one of its kind in the world. You’ll have to check back in a future article to find out!*

The historical events that were happening around the travelers as they made their way to California will be woven into the 1938 experience of my relatives, and also give me a chance to reflect on what I find in these same places in 2023.

Family Genealogy Research

I’m interested in fleshing out some of the backgrounds and back stories of the various family members visited and the places they lived. This one is time-consuming but super fun as I go down one rabbit hole after another trying to learn as much as I can about the people who travelled in 1938 and the people they visited while on the trip. I am making discoveries and filling in gaps and figuring out how different people and events are connected. Their stories will be woven into the history of the 1938 trip and my own experience as I follow the same path my ancestors did.

What I’m NOT Doing Because I’m So Focused on What I AM Doing

Gardening

I haven’t weeded in weeks, and desperately need to trim down some of my plants that have been going strong all summer but are now fading. My window boxes are droopy because I haven’t watered often enough, my patio is full of fallen walnuts and leaves that I and the dogs invariably step on every time we go out there because I haven’t swept it off. My house plants are also suffering, although my neglect of the orchid plant has proven beneficial.

Cooking

I love to cook, but no time! no time! no time! (hence the cooking class where I can justify it as a needed social and emotional respite).

Housecleaning

I hate to clean, so not having time to do it isn’t that much of a hardship. However, I do love having a clean and tidy house, so normally I bite the bullet and try to stay on top of the situation so that I am not surrounded by clutter, dust, dirty dishes, dog fur, etc. My tolerance level for buckets and buckets of dog hair everywhere has gone up exponentially this summer. Every now and then I try to remember what color my carpets are and when I can’t I know it’s time to vacuum. Oh yes, now I remember! I always feel guilty because this is one of the first things that takes a back seat when I’m feeling that I have to make choices about what I have time for (or rather, what I’m willing to make time for).

Exercising and Walking the Dog

Poor Sadie is lucky to get 3 good walks in a week. My body is suffering even more from all the time I’m spending in front of the computer. That needs to change in the coming days, however, because I’m going to need to be agile and strong as I navigate all my camping tasks and adventures over the next two months. I want to do some serious hiking when I can, and that will no doubt include scaling rocks and hills and mountains. I might even try to do some horseback riding. Mmmm… as I write this aspiration, I’m realizing the costly nature of the last two weeks of doing almost nothing except sitting and researching and writing… need this one to go in the above “What I’m Doing” category. Quickly.

Practicing the Banjo

Continuing with my neglect over the summer, now that fall is officially on the immediate horizon I decided that the banjo will have to wait until I get back for me to get serious about practicing and improving. I’m aware that this is a recurring theme, and some of you are probably thinking “yeah, right. Sure you will.” Clearly, at some point I’m going to be faced with making the final decision about whether I’m just going to talk about it for the rest of my life, or whether I’m actually going to follow through and learn how to play the blessed instrument that I love so much. I know if I do make the time for regular daily practice that I will get better and enjoy it and maybe even get to a point where I’m ready to join the local bluegrass jam group. The problem is that I don’t want to practice in front of anyone, which means it will stay behind on my upcoming trip. So for now I’m going to fall back on the no time! no time! no time! excuse. Come January, we’ll see…

Next Steps

This week I will pick up the camper and begin the packing and storing process. I also want to get it serviced by the dealer and make sure all systems are road ready. In between all the planning and organizing and socializing and packing I do have a couple of additional Larson articles I want to post before I depart on October 1. Those remaining pre-trip articles will finish laying the foundation and context for who all the people are that I will be talking about from the road, and also there is some historical context and family tragedy that led up to the decision to make this trip in 1938.

‘Til next time…