I'm sitting in a real saddle at The Million Dollar Cowboy Bar in Jackson, Wyoming. Looking around, I think it's time they realize a goodwill impairment charge on the name. They don't have draft beer, but they have a live dog lying by the front door and some dead game on the walls. A friend suggested I come here because it's schlocky and hokey. He's right. Jackson is schlocky and hokey as well as sophisticated and exclusive. I should probably have a drink at Amangani just to balance out my experience.

Sometimes I think I'm the only the only woman in the US who doesn't have a tattoo. I don't get the need to self-decorate to the point where often I rue having pierced ears (single holes only). I developed a love-hate relationship with jewelry from working in the jewelry industry for a decade. I like looking at jewelry more than I enjoy wearing it because it's time-consuming to put it on. Most of my attraction to jewelry stems from my interest in geology – precious and semi-precious stones, and just plain rocks. Two weeks ago I bought a bumble bee Jasper ring in Big Fork, Montana just because I liked the colors. It didn't matter that the ring is a nine and I wear a six. Now, I have my first forefinger ring. The silver setting was tarnished beyond belief and the owner didn't know it. Last Saturday, I cleaned it and the rest of my jewelry, so I started wearing it again. I've even worn mascara a couple of times. Girly me.

I just gave up my saddle at the bar and I'm tempted to throw back the rest of my Stella and bolt. The saddle was a form of genital mutilation as I tried to sit up straight and lean forward to type. I could have left my iPad in BOB and just walked here to have a beer, but I don't like sitting alone at bars and I hope that being busy will be a sufficient deterrent to anyone who might want to chat with me.

There is some sort of kayak slalom course event in the Olympics. It takes place in a man-made setting. What a stupid fucking idea to make kayaking an Olympic sport! It should just be a thing one does on a river, a lake, or an ocean, and the competition is between the kayaker and the water. I don't watch the Olympics because it's full of other stupid events like synchronized swimming. Rhythmic gymnastics sounds like something couples do when they're trying to get pregnant. Olympic sports should be tests of speed, strength and endurance with a quantitative outcome whose participants are amateur athletes. Period. Track and field and swimming meet my criteria. I would add other endurance events like listening to Enya or the Japanese "Who Pees Last?" game show where the contestants eat cold noodles and drink cold beer while sitting practically naked in a cold rain. Actually, the Olympics should just be replaced by Japanese game shows. My favorite is the one where six or eight guys are lined up on a stage, asked questions, and take levers to the nuts if they answer incorrectly. It's brilliant. Everyone (well, really just women) loves seeing guys get hit in the nuts.

I was speaking with Jean before I went to the bar. She was ranting about the sizing of Under Armour's and Nike's activewear. She said it’s so small that I could wear an extra-large (I'm a medium). She said they need to make clothes for fat, active people. "Ah!" I said, "Factive wear!" Is Jean a party of one? Jean is among many women who rant about the sizing of clothes, including me, but for a different reason. I wear clothes two to three sizes smaller than I did in college, yet I'm the same size as I was when I graduated. If this vanity-sizing trend continues, I'll either be a naked 80 year-old or shopping in the tall boys department. It's bad enough that as a 51 year-old woman I'm shopping at places which cater to women half my age, but there's nowhere else for me to shop. I'm neither wealthy nor trendy, so that leaves out better department stores and designer boutiques. I just want simple clothes which fit me and don't make me look like an asshole. Why aren't there specialty retailers which cater to 40- and 50-somethings like me? Am I a party of one?

The other problem I have with the Olympics is that none of the athletes is the size of an average man or woman: for most sports you either have to be a midget or a giant, and mostly the latter. I was a pretty good athlete in high school and I played soccer, volleyball, softball and boys' tennis at the varsity level. I am too small to have played any of those sports at an elite level, regardless of talent. I mentioned this to Jean as a follow-up to the clothing size problem, and I pointed out to her that she is too short to have played soccer, swam, or ran track-and-field beyond high school. We were lucky to have grown up in an era where kids played every sport - changing sports each season - played outside, went to everything camp, etc. Our generation has raised a bunch of kids who only play hockey or soccer from birth, and they travel to compete from the time the kids can walk. My favorite is the parents who have teenage daughters in gymnastics who compete at the club level. "So, how tall is your daughter?" I ask while staring at a picture of a girl whose facial structure indicates she could row on heavyweight eight team. "Oh, she's 5'10" and still growing!" the proud parent replies. Really? Have you seen the size of elite gymnasts? Stop the madness! There is no D-1 scholarship in the offing. Teach her how to throw darts, and play pool, beer pong, and poker: teach her these lifetime sports and get your life back!

Jean just called to ask about my cowboy bar experience. I gave her my spiel: I prefer drafts to bottles, I like IPAs, I don't like wheat beers, and I hate flavored beer. She said, "I'd rather lick the bottom of a pair of shoes I've worn in New York City for a week or drink toilet water than drink an IPA!" (I didn't ask her if the toilet water included that of The Port Authority in New York City mostly because I was too busy laughing.) I told her I'd drink a fruit flavored wheat beer well before I'd lick shoes or drink toilet water.

When I arrived a couple of days ago, "Grizzly Adams" and his wife "Mona Lisa Smile" occupied the travel trailer to the south of BOB, and super-self-aware-of-how-awesome-they-are-yuppie-scum-California couple occupied the Class C to the north. Grizzly and Mona left yesterday morning. It took them four hours to decamp. Grizzly did all the outside work. Mona walked the micro-dog, but Grizzly carried him to the truck. The Yuppies got in a car Sunday night and were gone for 24 hours. Another couple with a car with Montana plates drives them around the area. I'm not sure whether they slept in their rig last night. He doesn't shower in it, probably because she's using it as a closet. It's like a set change: she enters her rig in one costume, changes, and emerges in another. He is either shirtless or dressed head to toe in expensive action garb.

​Everyone has probably seen the Enterprise-Rent-a-Car ads where they deliver the car and return the driver to his/her pick-up location. Well, they don't really do that. When Dad and I were in Gig Harbor, he rented a car from Enterprise and was told that we'd be picked up and I'd be returned to the RV park the next day. We were picked up, but when we got to the Enterprise desk we were told that it was closed on the weekend and I'd have to make my own way back to the RV park. Fabulous. It cost me $20 to take a taxi. Today, I called Enterprise at the Jackson Hole airport to inquire about the pick-up/drop-off service. "Oh, we only offer that for the insurance customers, not the retail ones." Did you ever hear anything during the ad which disclaimed the service for retail customers? No? Me, either. Fuck you, Enterprise. And, you should be sued for false advertising, either per se or for the inconsistency of the offering. I'm walking to National to pick up a car on Thursday morning. I have a seven person minivan for $60 including taxes. It’s too bad I don’t have six friends.

Speaking of ruining my clothes, last night I dumped a glass of red wine all over me and BOB, so I had to do two more loads of laundry this morning before I left Arco.

I stopped at the Experimental Breeder Reactor 1 (EBR-1) this morning. It is now a museum having supplied Arco with electricity in the 1950s. I was the only visitor having arrived five minutes after it opened. I opted for the self-guided tour rather than wait 25 minute for the hour-long (kill me) guided tour. A breeder reactor works by bombarding U-238 with neutrons to create Pu-239. Since more Plutonium atoms are created that Uranium atoms are used, it's called a breeder reactor. Doesn't this violate both the law of conservation of matter and the law of conservation of energy?
The landscape between Arco and Idaho Falls is other-worldly since it is volcanic and occupied only by the Idaho National Laboratory and free-range cows. The weather was an odd mix of localized rain squalls and sunshine, and for a while there was a single patch of clear sky beaming rays to the earth. It was an "X-Files" experience and I kept wondering whether BOB's people would beam him home.
​
One of the most interesting experiences I've had is that it is impossible to intuit from a map or a book what the scenery will look like. It makes the journey magical - a constant discovery process - that is unless you are driving the Teton Pass. Almost 20 years ago, I bicycled the Teton Pass from east to west, and I only saw the asphalt and my front tire. Today, I drove BOB over the pass from west to east, and only I saw the line of vehicles stacked up behind me in my sub-30 mph ascent and descent on the 10% grades. It's probably beautiful if you aren't either dying of exhaustion while cycling or crying from terror while driving. Actually, I'd rather cycle or drive up than down, since there is no ability to lose control and careen off the cliff. And, I think I'd rather cycle than drive up, because there is something immeasurably satisfying about conquering mountains on a bike. I think I need to start cycling again this fall.

I just colored my hair. It's the first time I've done it myself on the road. I had to think it about how I wanted to do it. The kitchen sink and the shower stall are made of porous materials, so I didn't want to use either at the risk of staining them. I didn't want to use the park's shower because I wanted some privacy. I used BOB's outside shower and a bucket to catch the dye water and it worked perfectly.

The ribs were great. They came with a "smoked" baked potato with bacon and sour cream, and a side of coleslaw which was really just cabbage with sauce and eight fucking raisins. Raisins are OK in oatmeal cookies if they are accompanied by walnuts, but I typically use dried apricots and roasted pecans in my oatmeal cookies which are far superior. Raisins are OK in trail mix, too, but raisins are NOT OK in anything else. Carrots are NOT OK in anything except cooked in a beef stew. Carrots are ONLY OK raw with Ranch dressing. Shredded carrots in a salad piss me off beyond belief: sure, the orange color is pretty but they suck the flavor out of the rest of the salad. And, whoever invented frisée should have it stuffed up every orifice he or she has: if I wanted a mouth full of feathers, I'd eat a chicken that wasn't plucked.

The park's restaurant closed at seven last night and is doing the same tonight. Usually it closes at eight which is the time I start cooking dinner. According to the woman who sold me the ribs, they are short-handed and therefore tired. I planned to do laundry this morning but I didn't have any quarters. I burned through $20 of quarters doing laundry last weekend, and I didn't refill my supply before departing from Polson. I waited until nine o'clock this morning before going to the office/restaurant to buy quarters. There are neither office nor restaurant hours posted on the park's map or website, but eight or nine o'clock is the typical time for parks to open their offices. The office was closed at nine. It was still closed at ten. I ran into a couple who said the office was open at 11 last night checking in Rvers. I guess the staff decided to sleep in this morning. Incomprehensible. While I had all day to do my laundry, I wanted to do it as early as possible to cross it off my list. Sometime after 10:30 a new camper pulled into a site, so I knew that the office was open. I got my quarters and said nothing about their failure to understand that they are in the hospitality industry.

​I am systematically ruining my clothes. It started at Kim and Kate's house in Delaware: their water is so hard that the minerals in it must bind to or be suspended by in the emollient in sunblock. All of my white clothes have turned orange around the neckline. Bleach works, but either it is ephemeral or I keep encountering hard water - probably the latter - and the orange stains return. I wear a uniform of a sort: either a linen shirt or a cotton/linen v-neck sweater (with a cotton tank under both) and khakis. A couple of the khakis will be threadbare by the fall, so I just ordered some replacements. The combination of making 10 weeks' of RV park reservations yesterday and doing laundry today have made me think about changing over my uniform for the fall. On my way east in October, I'll pick up the clothes I left in Columbus, Ohio and take them to Providence where they will join the rest of my homeless possessions. I'll extract in Providence what I need for the winter.

The Sawtooth Mountains and Craters of the Moon National Park.

Yesterday, I left North Fork and drove the rest of the Salmon Scenic Byway (having started it at the Lost Trail pass en route to North Fork) to Stanley, Idaho. Two days of winds out of the northeast had blown the smoke out of the Salmon River valley, so the skies were clear. However, they weren’t in Stanley where I picked up the Sawtooth Scenic Byway. BOB took the Galena Pass like a champ, and we descend into Ketchum and Sun Valley where the rich people play.

I’m now at an RV park in Arco, Idaho, the first municipality to have electricity generated solely from nuclear energy. I'm afraid I'm going to glow after 72 hours here. There is absolutely nothing to see or do in Arco, so I have once again marooned myself. However, it is the closest town east of Craters of the Moon National Monument which was the last scenic vista on my drive. It's staggering how beautiful this country is and how the terrain along river valleys can change dramatically from narrow, rocky gorges to broad farmland and rolling hills. That, however, is nothing compared to finding yourself surrounded by fields of lava. The sage-covered hills in the distance were once volcanoes.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a geologist because I fell in love with the fault-shifted sedimentary rocks which streamed past my backseat window on our biannual drives to Philadelphia from Upstate New York. Although I was born in Key West, we left when I was two-and-a-half, and I wasn't reintroduced to the ocean until I was 10 or 11. Then I fell in love with the ocean which made me want to be an oceanographer. A couple of years later, I realized that I could be a geological oceanographer - Bingo! And, a couple of years after that, I realized that if I majored in chemistry in college I could study any physical science in graduate school, so I decided to hedge my bet. (I also majored in psychology because I had met a bunch of crazy people by the time I was 17.)

The lava in Craters of the Moon comes from a series of deep fissures known as The Great Rift Zone which crosses the Snake River Basin in a perpendicular direction. The eruptions from the fissures happened 2-15,000 years ago, which is yesterday on the geological time scale. Apparently, there are more to come. However, these eruptions would be nothing compared to the volcano that is Yellowstone National Park: if it blows, it will reset the geological clock back four billion years. Maybe Clinton vs. Trump won't happen in the great geological do-over.

When I rolled into Arco, I headed for a propane station to top off my tank. I use propane to heat water and cook, so it's pretty important unless I want to eat cold, dry food and take cold, cold showers. While I was paying for the propane, the woman who was handling the transaction complained about her allergies. "Have you tried Flonase? My friend Kate turned me on to it in May, and I haven't used more than a box of Kleenex since then. I used to use Claritin and a box of Kleenex each day." I offered. She said she'd try it. Her colleague added, "Flonase? That sounds like something you'd put on a sandwich!" I countered, "No, Flonase is what happens when the guy who's making your sandwich sneezes on it."

Kim has a label on his dash which indicates the height of his truck. He suggested I do the same for BOB. Since I have better than average numeric memory, this had not occurred to me. I have, however, offered the use of BOB to some friends when I am once again gainfully employed and BOB will be woefully neglected. Since I should not assume that they have my numeric memory, and I like to organize things, I bought a labeler. I have now labeled just about everything in BOB. I love my new labeler!

Checking in yesterday was a little slipshod. The park is also a restaurant and its specialty is ribs. The girl who checked me in was dining with her family when I arrived, so they and the endlessly ringing office phone distracted her from me. In between interruptions, she gave me a combination of verbal and hand-written instructions regarding the park. Most parks issue a brochure with everything on it (park map, Wi-Fi code, TV channels, rules and regulations, etc.), and the route to your site is highlighted by the person who does the check-in. Some places escort you to your site where they record your license plate and take blood and stool samples: those are the nicer places. The ribs smelled good, so I've pre-ordered a quarter rack for tonight. I don't eat ribs, so I don't know how large a quarter rack is or how much I should pay for them. And, I don't care.

Around noon today, I left BOB to walk to the office to pick up my package from Amazon. The occupants of the RV beside me were sitting outside and I greeted them by mentioning that they are a long way from home. It turns out that they are full-timers - have been for a year - and, like me, had never RV'd before when they decided to do it. They said the ribs are overpriced. They said they have been here for over a month. Put a bullet in my fucking head.

​What are ribs, anyway?

I've had several "ear worms" since I've been on the road, not that having them is a new experience for me. I used to be plagued by people's names as ear worms - mostly foreign, and frequently Butrous Butrous-Ghali in the 1990s, but never Kofi Annan or Ban Ki-moon after he left office. I have a rather vast and eclectic taste in music which is only relatively current in the Alternative genre, but is unfortunately, and largely, centered on the 1970’s pop. Fortunately, the ear worms typically don’t arise as the result of recent listening. For example, Kate and I had a disco sing-along one night, but the lyrics largely dissipated within hours and therefore didn’t plague me. Recently, Dawes' "A Little Bit of Everything,” Eminem's "Lose Yourself," and Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying" have been worming. Added together, I get this: don’t allow the accumulated “little things” to break you, carpe diem, and don’t say “someday.” This is my modus operandi in three tracks.

When Kim left, he asked me if I was looking forward to being alone again. I think he asked it because the three of us just shared less than 200 square feet of living space for over two weeks, and because I am a control freak who has lived alone for seven years. It was a Sophie’s Choice question because I both enjoy their company and being alone. I'm unwilling to cast a comparative judgment on the difference, just like I've become unwilling to say that a day of cleaning or work is worse than a day on the Beartooth Scenic Byway: each day of my days is different from the others, and while my “Beartooth” days are likely to be more interesting to other people, all my days are interesting to me.

However, the question presents an alternative Sophie’s Choice between resuming my new “normal” life and being on vacation. Being with Kim and Kate was a vacation for me: the Beartooth Scenic Byway, Big Sky, Bozeman, Butte, Chico Hot Springs, Flathead Lake (privately, by air, boat and car), Glacier National Park, Livingston, Missoula, The National Bison Range, Triple Creek Ranch, Yellowstone National Park, and the Yellowstone River (by kayak and camel). What struck me the most while I was with them is how much easier it was to enjoy “vacationing” when there was no dread arising from the return to "normal" life. Perhaps that is why people look forward to retirement – something to which I’ve never aspired – because there is no return to “normal” life. Why don't people like their “normal” lives more than they do? Why do they live their lives in “when” and “if only” mode? Perhaps “people” should listen to my soundtrack.

​According to OPB, it is illegal in Yamhill to leave one's cellar door open for an extended period.

Before I gave up watching “Elizabeth” last night, an SUV pulled up next door and a man emerged from it and entered the trailer. This morning, a little after eight, the woman emerged dressed for the day and departed in her SUV. They obviously live here. The man emerged half an hour later and greeted a communications service provider who entered the rear of the trailer. Interesting, since there are no cellular or cable services here, and they don't have a satellite dish. The communications guy left after 10 minutes. Then the garbage truck arrived to empty the overloaded dumpster. The man came out of the trailer wearing nothing but shorts. His hair was wet. He watched with the fascination of a six year-old boy while the truck empty the dumpster. It is 57 degrees outside. It's ten degrees warmer inside BOB, and I'm wearing clothes and still freezing. There is something about guys, regardless of their ages, which stops them dead in their tracks, mouths agape, whenever they see heavy equipment operated, even if it's just a garbage truck. And, what is it about me that I watched a guy watch the garbage truck?

Sometime after 10 last night, the site to my right was occupied. If I hurried and had no parking problems (level as possible, proximate to the hook-ups without impeding the slide-outs, etc.), I could probably set up BOB in 30 minutes. If I had enough fresh water in my tank, I could just hook up the electric and leave it at that; or, if I didn't need the AC, I could just park, and do the whole set up in the morning. I drive and live inside BOB which simplifies things. When you pull a trailer, you have to disconnect it from the vehicle and jack it at the very least. I watched the hipster guy scramble to do this last night while his wife moved their toddler and baby into the trailer.

This morning, I went outside to flush my black tank. I said, "Good morning," to the hipster guy and mentioned their late arrival. He said they were in Stanley and decided not to stay because of the smoke from the Pioneer Fire which covers 38,000 acres. What? That's 10 times the size of the Selway-Bitterroot Fire and I hadn't heard anything about it! I mentioned that I was going to drive through Stanley and Ketchum on Thursday, and his wife suggested that if I get there by 11:00 I might beat the smoke which accumulates as the day progresses. She said the mountains are beautiful. I hope the roads aren't closed.

Then the hipsters departed for Missoula. He brushed his teeth while hitching the trailer. I guess they were in a hurry.

The woman came home from work just as I was leaving for Happy Hour. The man left between two and three this afternoon. He was wearing different shorts from those he had on this morning when he was fascinated by the garbage truck. He was also wearing a shirt. She has emerged twice since I returned: once to roll in the awning and once to get something out of her SUV.

I went to Happy Hour again tonight. The Balloon couple were also there. The RV park is owned by a husband and wife who were in attendance today. They have a house down the road. I met him, but she was busy with guests – checking them in and answering their calls. He bitched about how little money he makes when people with big RVs run their ACs all day. He bitched about the other indignities he suffers as an owner, then proclaimed he wasn't bitching. Of course, not. This place is a shit-hole in my opinion: the sites are uneven and patched with fields of gravel, the grass is spotty or dead, the trees have been stumped, there is metal construction detritus, etc. between the sites and the road. He's an ex-trucker, furniture-dealer who fancies himself an entrepreneur, but doesn't understand that he's in the hospitality industry. I stayed at an RV park outside Missoula that was beautifully gardened. The only reason to stay there is because it's on the way to somewhere else, yet the owners made the most of the visual experience which made guests want to stay and return. This place is also on the way to somewhere else.

I used to like asparagus a lot, but now I just like the idea of it. I eat a couple of pieces then realize that there really is no wine (good or bad) which pairs with asparagus, so what's the point of eating it? Peas go with everything. I like peas, but only if they are shelled. I would never harvest and shell peas to cook them: it's just too much work. I feel the same way about lobster: someone else can cook it, shell it, give me the tail and claw meat, and I'll pay for it. Otherwise, forget it. When I was nine years old, my friend and I caught some calico bass (aka, crappies) on her grandfather's wildlife pond. We cleaned and cooked them. It was the worst meal I've ever eaten. It's not just that we were nine and not great cooks, and that calico bass taste like shit, it was just so much work that it couldn’t have tasted good. This is why I don't mind overpaying Whole Foods: give me my food washed, plucked, scraped, shelled, de-boned, de-skinned, de-fatted, etc., and I'll take it from there.

​I have an acute sense of smell which I view as a blessing, unless I'm in New York during a summer garbage strike. My favorite scent is rosemary but it's hard to find anything other than candles with the essence. Lavender, which I also love, is available in everything, apparently because it's calming, whatever that means. When I was provisioning BOB, I bought Mrs. Meyers lavender dish soap, hand soap, surface cleaner and room freshener. I had long been addicted to Kiss My Face lavender soap and Dessert Essence lavender lotion, so Mrs. Meyers just filled out my portfolio. The first week I was in Polson, Montana, I passed a terrific shop with "high-end" sundries on my way home from the hardware store. I looked for my soap, but it wasn't there. Instead, I bought a fig-scented French milled soap. My lavender bar wasn't at its end, but I couldn't resist using the new fig bar having been wooed by its essence. I bagged the lavender bar for later. When I returned to Polson two weeks later, I took Kate to the store and I bought another fig soap, plus one in lemon and one in rose. I bought my favorite lotion in lavender, and I bought two in coconut. Yesterday, I bought Method dish soap and hand soap in differing non-lavender flavors. I am evolving from lavender! More importantly, I am letting go of the vestiges of a former home and creating a new one.

I'm in North Forth, Idaho alongside the North Fork of the Salmon River. I would have liked to have stayed in Salmon 19 miles south of here, but the reviews of the parks there were atrocious. The place I'm at scored a 10 for appeal from Good Sam, but all I see are tree stumps, uneven gravel, and dead grass. When I arrived, I was informed that the septic system was down, and that I shouldn’t hook up for an hour or so. No problem: I dumped before I left.

The site to my right is vacant, but the one to my left is occupied by an older travel trailer, an older Ford Explorer, and an older woman who is younger than I am. She drove her dirty laundry 200 yards to wash and dry it, then drove her clean laundry back. She could have carried it back and forth, but it was in the high 80's and at this altitude we're about a mile from the sun. (Tomorrow, it will be 99 degrees, so the dogs and I will likely sublimate.) There is a large t-shirt on her drying rack, and a pair of Nike high-tops by her front door, which lead me to believe that she has male company.

At five o'clock, I went to Happy Hour at the park. No one was there. I went inside to the store/laundry/registration area where some long-termers were chatting. I perused the store with my glass of wine. As I was making my way to the rear to exit, I was invited to sit down at a table in what seemed like an office area. Soon thereafter, I was among three septuagenarian couples who knew each other to varying degrees. I learned from one couple that I would be in Albuquerque during the Balloon Festival and I'd never get an RV site. "Where do you stay?" I asked, then immediately booked the night using my KOA app. I also learned from them that there is a product called "Awesome" which dissolves bug guts from RVs. I immediately bought that on my Amazon app, then I was chastised for paying too much - it's only a dollar at the Dollar Store in Salmon! But, I don't have a car!

Sidebar: If you are twenty- or thirty-something stop tanning right now. Women who sunbathe throughout their lives end up looking like their husbands’ mothers by the time they are seventy. I learned that tonight, too, but my companions didn’t use words to convey that information.

My female neighbor cooked two chicken breasts on a George Forman grill, either for efficiency or because there is a man inside the trailer. I haven't seen him, and she does not pause at the doorway to talk to anyone. If he's in there, he's either the laziest mother-fucker on the planet or she has him duct-taped to a chair and she's going to smother the chicken in Velveeta and Doritos and make him watch her eat it while she watches "The Young and the Restless." If so, he will himself dead before the sun goes down.

I cooked a piece of fish in the oven. In 13 minutes at 350 degrees, it shrank to half its size – another reason not to go outside tomorrow.

There is no cell service here. The Wi-Fi is very good, but we aren't allowed to stream – which makes me want to do it. Last night in Polson, I watched part of "A Beautiful Mind" before switching to "Gladiator" because it's easier for me to watch Russell Crowe succumb to physical rather than psychological torture. After dinner tonight I tried to stream "Elizabeth." Cate Blanchett has the most melodious voice of any contemporary female actress and I felt like listening to her. I got five minutes of viewing intervals between buffers which allowed me to do my chores. But, after 10 minutes of the movie, I ran out of chores and quit.

​The woman next door took in her laundry. Maybe the t-shirt wasn't as big as I thought, and maybe the high-tops are hers: maybe, like me, she is alone.

Yellowstone National Park.

As a kid, I tried to learn from watching adults. One of my aunts divorced in her early thirties and never remarried. At one point she rented an apartment from a landlord who was very sensitive to noise and that experience had a lasting impression on her. When I visited her as a teenager I was aware of the order in her life and that my very existence could disrupt it - my things in her space, the noise from my music, etc.

​I probably don't meet the clinical definition of OCD, but I think I have been hurling myself toward it for a long time. Before I became homeless, I lived alone for almost seven years. My kitchen had drawer organizers, I rotated my dishes, glasses and flatware, and nothing lived on my counters except for the coffee maker, coffee grinder, and toaster. Guests would ask me if my refrigerator was new when they opened it. A woman who I interviewed to clean my condo, asked if she could move in with me. Occasionally, I would leave a dirty coffee cup in my sink when I went to work just to test my OCD status. Could I leave a mess? Not really. But, the thing is, when you live alone, you have to put your dirty dishes in the dishwasher because no one else is going to do it for you. (And, if you don’t live alone and you leave your coffee cup in the sink, you’re a dick.)

When I was a kid, my bedroom, like most kids’ bedrooms, was a mess – clothes, athletic equipment, schoolbooks, stuffed animals, etc. were strewn everywhere. I hated cleaning my room for the same reason that I hated helping my mother clean the house: everything had to be put away before I could dust and vacuum. However, I knew where my things belonged in my room, but in order to clean the house I had to remove my mother’s possessions from each room and transport them to my parents’ bedroom. I would take her things out of the living room and she would move them to the dining room. I would take her things out of the dining room and she would move them to the TV room. It was maddening! When I returned from a high-school year abroad in England my father acknowledged that I wasn't the “chief” source of the mess in the house. Thank you. Can I mow the lawn while you clean the house?

Each of us has differing standards of order and cleanliness, so when any two people cohabitate their differences become apparent. When my father or parents would visit me in Providence, a trail of their detritus would lead from my front door to the kitchen and living room. Usually, without saying anything, I would slowly move as many of their things to the guest bedroom, trying not to twitch in the process, and trying to remember that the challenge of living with disorder (by my standard) for a short time is psychologically better for me than living in alone in my a constantly controlled environment.

My condo was a 2,100 square foot loft construction with one bathroom. The guest bedroom had a door, but the master didn't, so once guests emerged there was no privacy for any of us, the space notwithstanding. BOB is 160-180 square foot box with one bathroom. The master bedroom has a door, and the guest bedroom is a bunk above the cockpit. Obviously, there is neither space nor privacy.

Kim and Kate were my guests in BOB from the 15th of July until this morning. I enjoyed their company immensely, but unbeknownst to them, I also enjoyed their presence challenging my control issues. I struggle on my own with BOB: in order to change the linens on the master bed, everything has to be relocated to the dinette; and, in order to do the laundry, the dinette has to be disassembled to access the storage compartment for the detergent and fabric softener. In BOB, order and cleanliness can only be created by creating disorder. Sometimes I am paralyzed by it because there is so much stuff out of place. Adding two more adults into such a small space meant that EVERYTHING was out of place ALL OF THE TIME. But, I adapted. Twitch, twitch. And, that was good for me.

I’ve always been a pretty good traveler: I adapt to culture, language, time, weather, altitude, currency, etc. differences relatively easily. I adapt to these changes because I expect to be out of my element (no control) and therefore I know I have to adapt. Learning to adapt in my own environment by surrendering control is a new experience, and learning anything new is good. Twitch, twitch.

Beartooth Scenic Byway.

Glacier National Park.

I had my teeth cleaned this morning in Polson. I have them cleaned three times a year, and I'm thinking about upping it to four. I love having my teeth cleaned – the outcome, that is, not the process. Why do hygienists stick all 20 of their latex fingers in your mouth and then proceed to ask you questions as if you are on a first date together? And, don't they get sick of talking about themselves? In spite of her questions, I had to let this hygienist off the hook because she said, "You have beautiful teeth. How old are you? 35?" The heck with the first date: marry me!

Yesterday, I called AMEX to inquire why the fraudulent charge from lyft.com was still appearing on my card activity. The other-side-of-the-world-guy in fraud protection told me not to worry about the charge and said that it would be removed.

My new AMEX card arrived in Polson last Friday – the same day I did. However, it was declined at the dentist's office today. I called AMEX and the other-side-of-the-world-guy in customer service said that my new card had been inactivated due to fraud. Fabulous. It turned out that what I thought was the original fraudulent charge by lyft.com was actually a new fraudulent charge by lyft.com posted on July 6th – TWO DAYS BEFORE I RECEIVED THE CARD. When I asked today's AMEX customer service how that was possible, she said she didn't know. Fabulous. She issued another replacement card to be delivered to my next RV park in Livingston, Montana.

I spent the next hour-and-a-half getting the worst pedicure and manicure of my life. The nail technician didn’t cut the evil cuticles on either my fingers or my toes, nor did she grate or shave the callouses on my feet. She also talked the entire time. I pretended I still had 20 fingers in my mouth and mumbled answers.

As soon as I left the nail salon, I called AMEX again to get an answer on how my new card was hacked by the same entity before I received the card. Danielle in fraud protection speculated that the hacker guessed the replacement card number.

The AMEX card format is xxxx-xxxxxx-1y00z, and each “new” card only replaces the "y" and "z" numbers. The "y" number always increases by one with each replacement card issued, whereas "z" has ten possibilities from zero to nine. Therefore, once a hacker has an AMEX number, the replacement card can be deduced in 10 guesses.

​I told Danielle that I was concerned that 1500z was also going to get hacked, so she suggested that I close the account and open another which would change ALL of the numbers. Good idea.
I was transferred to a customer service representative who told me that by opening a new account my interest rate would increase, my credit limit would be lowered, and that the new card would HAVE to be mailed to my registered address in Pennsylvania. Great. Because of AMEX’s stupidity and laziness regarding replacement cards, not only do I have to change all of my AMEX auto-bill relationships again, I’m also being punished financially by AMEX. Terrific.

As long as I can remember, I’ve had “nightmares” about getting a bad haircut: bald spots, too short, uneven, half-finished, etc. As a little girl, my wig-wearing mother would trim my long, straight, baby-fine hair six inches at a time with three snips of her scissors. Then my father would complain that she had cut off too much. (I speculate that this could be the origin of the nightmares.) I, in turn, cut the hair of every doll I ever owned. This made my mother think I’d grow up to be a serial killer. (There’s still time.)

When I was 11 years old in 1976, I got a “Dorothy Hamill” haircut as did almost every other American girl of a certain age after the Winter Olympics. Shortly thereafter, my father’s karate sensei mistook me for his little brother. My father was flattered by the suggestion that he looked young enough to have a little brother my age; but, I wasn’t, so I grew out my hair. From eighth grade until I was 41 years old, the closest I came to hair that short was a chin-length bob.

As I approached 41 with longish hair, I realized that the only celebrity haircuts that I coveted were shorts ones. There was something about the perfect short haircut that looked effortless and uncontrived. I also realized that I was in a hair “rut.” Whether I had a bob or long hair, layers or none, my haircuts were just variations on a theme which had started in eighth grade. So, cutting my hair into a Pixie became part of a strategic decision not to have hair for life. It also meant having hair nightmares.

Other than the first haircut I got in Providence, Rhode Island during my decade there, one stylist did all of the rest. Greg gave me my Pixie at 41 and I loved it. However, at 48 I decided I was in a rut again and that I wanted to grow out my hair. It took two years and it ended unhappily: I loved my hair, but at 50 I didn't love it on me. I quickly grew disenchanted with styling it only to resort to putting it into a ponytail. So, Greg started cutting my hair: first with layers around my face, then an all-over layered, above-shoulder cut. I left Providence and went to Columbus, Ohio. I saw the same stylist there three times in eight weeks trying to find the right cut: I ended up with a Pixie.
In May, at 51, I nervously colored my own hair for the first time. I wanted a medium brown color, but I couldn’t tell which color “number” (lightness-darkness factor) would produce my desired results, so I bought two shades. The first color was too light, and the next, darker color looked orange at the roots. I sent an instant message to my friend Cristina who had been a stylist before she got married. She told me to buy hair color with an “N” (for “natural”) next to the number and that would eliminate the orange roots. I went back to the drugstore and bought a 5N color in a different brand. It was significantly darker, my roots weren’t orange, and I liked it.

A week later, I went to a woman in Lewes, Delaware for a haircut. Kate had been to the salon where she worked, but a different stylist had cut Kate’s hair. She ran her fingers through my hair and asked, “Did a guy cut your hair last time? Guys just don’t get women’s hair: they cut like barbers.” She then proceeded to give me an uneven cut. She also asked me if I ever color my hair. “Yes,” I said without following up with, “Why do you ask?” because I was afraid that she’d say that it looked like I did it myself. Now, I’ll probably have hair color nightmares.

Yesterday, I had my hair cut and colored at a salon in Polson. The 24-year-old stylist gave me a great cut, but the color is cooler than I expected. Unfortunately, I also had her color my eyebrows, and the color adhered to my skin. My eyebrows look like they’ve been drawn on with a Sharpie! I look like an asshole, and I don't fucking care. Nightmares: I banish you!

​When I returned to the RV park, I struck up a brief conversation with the guy in the fifth wheel parked beside me. I was walking the dogs and he said that when I returned he would give me a few suggestions about my tanks and hook-ups if I was interested. I said I was, and in 15 minutes he taught me more than I had learned from the dealership, the manuals, and by doing. He told me to buy a brass elbow to separate my water filter from BOB’s fresh water intake valve because the former was torqueing the latter; and, to buy a separate hose of a different color to use to flush the black tank so that I wouldn’t contaminate my fresh water hose if back pressure occurred. I am eternally grateful to him, and I said so as he and his family departed for home in Iowa this morning.

From the comfort of my dinette in BOB, I can see a woman strumming an acoustic guitar and singing. She is looking down at a binder while doing so. I can't hear her because my window facing her is closed and I am streaming the radio version of "The PBS Newshour." I don't care if she's Joni Mitchell (whom I love), but what makes her think that anyone else in the park wants to hear her sing and play? Christ, she might as well busk. I'm going to loan her a hat and give her 50 cents to launch her career. Wow, she just stopped singing and playing to turn the page! Her husband is on his second case of beer and is grilling a side of beef. This could be a fun night.

When I checked into the Polson RV park on Friday, I had a package from my father, a replacement card from American Express, and two packages from Amazon. I use my parents’ mailing address as my own, so my father forwards, holds, tosses, or shreds my mail, depending on what it is. His package included a light fixture and GFCI outlet cover sent by BOB’s RV dealer, some mail, plus duct tape and bungee cords that he decided I needed. The Amazon packages contained RV toilet treatment drop-ins, plastic drinking glasses (to replace the ones I dislike), koozies, Casabella kitchen gloves (to replace the ones that didn't fit and neither do these!), and lint rollers. Today, I placed my 62nd order with Amazon in the last six months. They'll probably double my Prime membership fee.

Saturday was laundry-clean-repair day. The laundry and cleaning were routine, but the repairs were not. The replacement GFCI outlet cover that the RV dealer sent didn't fit, so I used duct tape over the outlet. The gasket which houses the wires that extend and retract the rear slide-out was semi-detached, and the wires were never properly fed through the gasket's housing. I detached the rest of the gasket, then I couldn't get it back on. The light above the master bedroom has never worked, which is why the dealer sent me a replacement fixture. I went to the RV park’s office to ask if I could borrow some tools: one, something to facilitate the gasket replacement; and, two, a wire cutter/stripper. I was told that a maintenance guy would come see me. He did. He said he would bring me a wire cutter/stripper and some wire nuts (because they were better than the electrical tape I planned on using). He said he'd look for something I could use for the gasket. He got paged and never came back, so I walked three-and-a-half miles round-trip to a hardware store. I bought a third GFCI outlet cover, a wire cutter/stripper, wire nuts in two sizes, and a siding remover which looked like it could help me with the gasket.

The third GFCI cover didn't fit, so I used the duct tape again. How many fucking configurations can there be? I killed the shore power, cut the circuit breaker to disable the battery power, and replaced the master bedroom light fixture. It still didn't work. My current detector said there was amperage. I fed the wires into the gasket housing and successfully reinstalled it with the siding tool and sheer willpower.

I was bruised, hot, and exhausted from the work, and when it was finished I had to put away the tools, clean up the mess, take a shower, and cook dinner. I felt much better after taking a shower and drinking a gallon of wine. I had assembled Chicken Marabella from The Silver Palate Cookbook two days prior, so all I had to do was add white wine and brown sugar before baking it. After dinner, I watched "The Hunt for Red October" just to hear Sam Neill's character say before he died, "I’d liked to have seen Montana.” Everyone should see Montana before dying – even bruised, hot, and exhausted it’s a beautiful state.

Yesterday, I signed up for Obamacare. I had expected it to be a horrible experience since the URL ends in ".gov," but it was actually rather painless. Although my employment ended in January, my former employers and I have continued our company healthcare policy through its term which ends August 31, 2016. One can only apply for Obamacare within sixty days of having lost or losing private coverage, so I had to wait until the beginning of July. I also had to wait until I had the fortitude to do it. Like so many things humans put off because they think they will be unpleasant, the anticipation of negative experiences exceeds their outcomes. Now, I'm anticipating that using Obamacare will be a horrible experience just so that it won't be.

​The busker has gathered a small crowd.

The Northwest Passage Scenic Byway is part of the Lewis and Clark Trail. Technically, it is US Rte. 12. I can see why Lewis and Clark chose US Rte. 12: it is a two-lane road with pretty good pavement, and the lack of shoulders was probably inconsequential in their day. The road parallels the Lochsa and Clearwater Rivers west of the Lolo Pass.

​Today, I drove The Northwest Passage Scenic Byway between Clarkston, WA and Lolo, MT where I picked up US Rte. 93 north to Polson, MT. US Rte. 12 traverses the Nez Perce reservation, and US. Rte. 93 traverses the Flathead reservation north of Missoula. Neither the Nez Perce nor the Flatheads had a written language, yet there are brown road signs spelling out the tribal names of rivers, valleys, lakes, etc. Often, there is a superscript "w" in many place names. For example, The Flathead River is ntx̣ʷetkʷ, ntx̣ʷe and Flathead Lake is člq̓etkʷ in Salish. How do you say that? Also, note the lack of similarity between the names: that means the Flatheads didn’t use the word “Flathead” in their names for the places. If I discovered a language which was only spoken and not written, I would hire the people who invented "Hooked on Phonics" to create the Roman script. I would not hire the people who invented Welsh to do it. Further, if the Indians called a place "The Little Valley behind the Hills," I would call it that, too: I wouldn’t rename it Evaro when their name was perfectly clear.

I think the real pathway to presence is to learn how to enjoy each moment of each day whatever that day offers. Yesterday, I did the Snake River jet boat ride. Tomorrow, I'm going to drive The Northwest Passage Scenic Byway which I anticipate will be breathtaking, even under cloudy skies. And, today? Today, I'll clean, grocery shop, cook, buy a Mi-Fi device, i.e. do the mundane things of life. Today is not a worse day than yesterday was or tomorrow might be, it's just today – a day in my life and therefore important per se.

I love Honeycrisp apples. Since I discovered them I haven’t found an apple I enjoy more. For years, I only ate Granny Smiths. One has to be a sadist to eat Granny Smiths because of their tartness. That being said, they are reliably crispy, and mushiness is the attribute I despise the most in an apple. When an apple doesn't cleave mid-bite, my brain says it’s rotten and probably full of worms. Yuck. Thirty years ago, I watched a toddler bite into something he didn’t like so he wiped his tongue on his mom's sweater. If I bit into a Macintosh, I’d wipe my tongue on his mom's sweater, too. Yuck. In Providence, RI Honeycrisps were only available from the fall through the early spring, and I consumed half an apple per day throughout the season. So, imagine my delight when I discovered them in Safeway in Beaverton, OR in the middle of the summer! This afternoon, I ate a whole, large Honeycrisp. Then I felt like a kid who had just consumed too much Hallowe’en candy. Yuck.

When my father and I were driving across Nebraska, I asked him if he knew what crop was growing beside the road. (For the record, there is one unending crop planted along I-80, stretching across the entire state of Nebraska.) He said, "I don't know. I only know corn. That's not corn."
My father has a flip phone. In January, I asked my father if he wanted my iPhone 5S if I upgraded to a 6-something with a wet bar and riding mower. He said no. The night before we left on our cross-country trip, I asked him if he wanted me to show him how to use my iPad so he could answer the plethora of questions which he will generate while we were driving across the country. He said no. That also meant he couldn't answer any of my questions, e.g. about crops. I could have let him drive so I could answer my own questions, but every corner of his Toyota Sequoia has house paint on it so I thought it would be more prudent to wait for the answers.

Driving alone through eastern Washington two days ago was beautiful: rolling hills of blonde crops which either become food or beer or Miss America, and short, leafy green plants which may be alfalfa, peas, onions, potatoes or something completely different. When I camped, I tried to identify the crops through Wikipedia and Google and neither helped. What I wanted is Crop Identification for Dummies. It’s probably just as well that my father didn’t want to use my iPad because he would have thrown it out the window when it failed to answer either my crop questions or any of his.

I lived in Portland, OR for two-and-a-half years in the Aughts. I have to say that it's the best place I've ever lived because of the city itself and its environs: Forest Park, the food scene, the Willamette Valley wineries, the Oregon Coast, Multnomah Falls, Mt. Hood, etc. If you are active, eat, drink, and are tolerant of everything, there is no better place to live. Plus, there's no sales tax which makes it a good place to buy an expensive car. I hadn't been back to Oregon in more than 10 years until last week. I hadn't forgotten its beauty, but I had forgotten that it doesn't trust people to pump their own gas. Ironically, Oregon does trust people to pump their own diesel. I don’t get it.

When we left my parents' home on our cross-country drive, my father loaded up BOB with: six liters of seltzer, two half gallons of artificially sweetened iced tea, a 750ml bottle of Scotch (for him), a 750 ml bottle of bourbon (for me), two four-packs of child-portion servings of Pinot Noir, a bottle of wine he was given in Germany last fall, six bottles of foreign beer, four servings of Gatorade, an unknown amount of Boost, a quart of applesauce, and five-sixths of a frozen lemon tart. Then we went grocery shopping.

​He drank three liters of seltzer, and I still have the rest. He drank one half gallon of iced tea, and I threw out the rest because I hate artificial sweeteners. He drank the Scotch, and I drank the bourbon. He drank the Gatorade. Since he flew home, I have systematically consumed the items he left behind: seven of the eight child-portion wines; the German wine (which was surprisingly good); five of the six beers; one Boost; and, the lemon tart (which I ate in two sittings). The applesauce, which is half finished, is still in the refrigerator. As long as I can get Honeycrisps, I'm not going to eat applesauce. I still have sausage breakfast patties and bacon in the freezer from our inaugural grocery shopping trip. Maybe I’ll mail them to him.

I just returned from a five-and-a-half hour jet boat excursion to Hells Canyon on the Snake River. My face hurts and I'm exhausted from trying keep my lips together against a 40mph wind. Of course, I could have sat on the boat somewhere other than the stern where I wouldn't have taken such a beating from the wind, but the ride was more fun there.

The Snake River is over 1,000 miles long and is the largest tributary of the Columbia River. Hells Canyon is the deepest river gorge in North America. We started in Clarkston, WA where the Clearwater River flows into the Snake, and we traveled about 40 miles south to Dug Bar, below where the Salmon River flows into the Snake. People do multi-day rafting trips from the Hells Canyon Dam to Lewiston, ID, and every time I saw a raft all I could think of is the "The River Wild." Once you get into the canyon area, there's really no way out other than on the river, unless you want to try scrambling over arid basalt and limestone mountains which are home to black bears, cougars, rattlesnakes, elk, big horn sheep, etc.

The Snake River is as flat as glass in some places and has Class V rapids in others. We stopped to look at ancient Indian petroglyphs at a place where the river is 100 feet deep. That is where the 12 feet long, 1,000 pound sturgeons live. Swimming? No, thank you.

​Shortly after we started down the river this morning I experienced a moment of pure happiness. I had the same feeling last Thursday morning when I pulled off the Pacific Coast Highway to enjoy the scenic overlook above Manzanita, OR. In both cases I was looking at beautiful natural scenery, but my happiness stemmed mostly from the recognition of being present. I suffer from what I call "preparation syndrome." I spend so much time researching, scheduling, reserving, planning for contingencies, etc. for an event that the event itself can become anticlimactic – as if I’ve done it already. I also suffer from what I'll call "bucket list syndrome," in which the idea of being able to say that I WENT THERE AND IT WAS GREAT can make the destination more important than the journey. My trip down the Oregon coast from Cannon Beach to Netarts wasn’t planned in advance, rather it was the suggestion of a man who couldn’t accommodate me in his RV park. I hadn’t planned on going to Clarkston, WA until the woman at the RV park in Netarts suggested I drive The Northwest Passage Scenic Byway en route to Polson, MT. I didn’t plan to take a jet boat excursion on the Snake River and it wasn’t on my bucket list: I just did because it was there to do and I knew it would be fun. It was spontaneous – like buying BOB – so perhaps spontaneity leads to presence and presence leads to pure happiness. 

On BOB’s starboard side is a couple from the suburbs of Portland. They have a Class A, a truck, a boat, a Labrador, a large herding mix, and a small, white, fluffy dog that could fit in a sandwich bag. The man is always busy. I chatted with him briefly once while he was puttering, which is how I know where they live. I rarely see the woman, other than when she is walking or carrying her tiny dog. Her hair is the same color as yellow American cheese. I closed my windows and door last night before the sun set to avoid heat loss inside BOB. Apparently, the man thought I closed up because his campfire smoke was blowing into my RV. I learned this when he knocked on my door and handed me a plastic cocktail cup full of crab he'd caught, apologizing for the smoke. "Did you catch this today?" I asked after explaining why my door was closed. "No, I caught it two days ago," he corrected. Great, I thought: a serving of E. coli. Nevertheless, I ate the crab with its homemade cocktail sauce, and it was the best I've ever eaten! Note to self: close up BOB when the people beside him are grilling, and they'll bring me food.

Three truck campers have been parked behind me since Friday. The one with an old couple and three dogs (a standard poodle, a Chihuahua, and a bulldog) left this morning. For three days, they mostly just sat at their picnic bench or in their camp chairs, changing from place to place either for comfort or to follow the sun. There are four dogs between the other two truck campers: a French bulldog, a pug, an English bulldog, and a large, goofy-eared mutt named Bubba who yowls a lot. The three squished-faced dogs are all in a pen and Bubba is tied to the red truck. There are 30-40 people staying in these two trucks, half of whom are teenagers. Yesterday, two of the teenage girls decided to serenade each other - a cattery would be more melodious than they. Fortunately, one of their mothers told them to stop in relatively short order.

Why did people bring teenagers to RV parks? Oh, I know: so they can watch movies, thumb their smartphones, stuff their faces with junk food, and make runs to Starbucks and fast food restaurants in Tillamook. It's too bad there is nowhere else for them to do these things, say, perhaps, at home! Short of crabbing or clamming, there is nothing to do at this RV park: there is no pool, no game room, nothing. The space around their trucks is strewn with bicycles, yard games, yard art, dog bowls, and towels. The picnic table between the truck campers hasn't been cleared of food and beverages since they arrived. If they were your neighbors back home, you'd put your house up for sale.

There’s a guy in the park with a bunch of stickers on his truck. I hate vehicle stickers, with three exceptions: “Mother-in-law in trunk,” “My kid beat up your honor student," and, "0.0." The last is my favorite, especially when it’s affixed to a gas-guzzler dragging its muffler. It's also the only sticker I have ever been tempted to get, since I have neither a mother-in-law nor children. Whoever started the "Baby on board" movement should be drawn and quartered. What, really, is behind the message? My precious cargo is more precious than your precious cargo? Really? Your baby's life is more important than another human’s life so I should be extra careful to obey the rules of the road when following or passing you? Fuck you. Stay home. And don't take your fucking baby camping.

But wait, there’s more – and it’s worse! There is a guy in the park with a Class A on which is painted his name and profession, as well his dog's face and name. He's a "novelist." Interesting. It's too bad that "Asshole" isn't a profession, otherwise I'd put that and my name on BOB.

Now...
​I’m sitting at my picnic table. It's shaded by my awning and the temperature is pleasantly cool. It is the first time since I've been RVing that I have spent any time sitting outside. Often, it has been too sunny or windy, or I have been too busy fixing or cleaning BOB.

The truck campers, in addition to their multitudes of people and dogs, have several other vehicles associated with their troop. One, a five-seater, just disgorged a dozen of them, no doubt returning from a trip to McDonald's. The squished face dogs are now loose, and Bubba is screaming because he isn’t. When their geriatric friends departed this morning they occupied their site as well. I've seen fewer things and less people at a flea market. Their current activity suggests they are packing to leave, but check-out was three-and-a-half hours ago.

One of truck camper women just walked by me with the pug and French bulldog, so I asked, "Are all of the dogs yours?” “No, just these two. The English bulldog belongs to my sister, and the mutt belongs to her son.” she responded. In the background I can hear the adult men trying to figure out whose stuff is whose. Will the sorting also include the wives and teens? I can only hope. One of the teenage girls needs gas for her car; another is informing her father that only three of the bikes are hers.

The novelist is talking to one the truck camper men who is explaining to him that only some of them are leaving. The novelist sees me and my dogs sitting outside. The novelist is coming to talk to me. Oh, goody.
 
Later...
I dislike people who only talk about themselves. Years ago, NYNEX did these fabulous Yellow Page commercials which were double entendres. My favorite was a cocktail party scene where this woman was droning on about herself. Then she declared, "Enough about me! Let's talk about you! How do you like my dress?" The camera then zoomed into VANITY CASES in the Yellow Pages. I now know a lot about the novelist – much more than his name. It’s my fault because I asked him a question, and followed up, and followed up, and followed up. When he finished answering my questions with unnecessary detail, he asked me what I do. I said that I was full-time RVing until I got a new job. He didn’t follow-up. Instead, he asked, “Would you like to stop by for coffee later?” Because you need an audience, I thought to myself as I responded, "Thank you, but I don't drink coffee in the evening." “How about in the morning?” he persisted. "Thank you, but I'm leaving early." I said, ending the matter. He never even asked me my name.

While I was getting to know the novelist, two clown cars with all 30-40 truck campers and the four dogs exited the park. The disarray of their sites made their exodus look as though it had been done in apocalyptic haste.

In an attempt to listen to “All Things Considered” on OPB on TuneIn Radio tonight, I inadvertently selected KUOW from Seattle. KUOW is sponsored by blueberries. That's cool, if you like blueberries, which I do, unless they're unripe or mushy. Both OPB and KUOW were playing “All Things Considered,” but I wanted to hear the local coverage from OPB. When I was in Washington and listening to KUOW, all the local stories were about the bodies that were pulled from rivers flowing through the Cascades. The friend of one deceased woman explained that she went into the Cowlitz River at one in the morning for its healing powers. Well, whatever she needed healed certainly isn't bothering her anymore. She should have had a blueberry instead.

The Wi-Fi here is awful. I can't hold an Internet connection for very long. To make matters worse, AMEX emailed and texted me indicating they suspected fraudulent activity on my card. No, I didn't spend over $200 on lyft.com yesterday. I'm pretty sure Lyft doesn't operate in Netarts Bay, anyway. Yes, I have used Lyft: once, on April 8, 2016, in Columbus, Ohio, if you'd like to know. So, I got hacked over the crummy Wi-Fi connection while shopping on Amazon. "Mr. Knox, we've canceled your card and we'll be sending you a new one," explained the AMEX guy from the other side of the planet. Fabulous! Send it to Polson, MT. No Starwood Preferred Guest points for me this week.

I didn't bother to tell AMEX guy that I'm NOT a guy. I never bother to tell the >80% of telephone customer service people I'm not a guy. It doesn't matter, really. MY OBGYN's office seems to be able to figure it out, but only after I say that I'm the patient. What really irritates me about my OBGYN's office is that every nurse asks me when I last had my period. "Right before your boss removed my uterus." If you bothered to read my fucking chart, you wouldn't need to ask me. I should have burst into (fake) tears over the loss of my beloved uterus just to see what happened. (Remember, I don't like roll-playing.) Instead, I complained to my doctor about it right before he put something cold and ouchy in my vagina. I probably should have waited until the post-exam consultation. Note to self. I am, however, very careful about what I say to dental hygienists, speaking of cold and ouchy.

​OPB is listing its stations again. I'm listening to "A Prairie Home Companion" and it Garrison Keillor's last show (again). I thought last week was his last show, but it must have been his last show in whatever city he was in last week. President Obama called Keillor and they bonded over how much they'll miss each other's respective service to the Blue States. Chris Thile, the MacArthur Genius of Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers fame, will take over as host of the show later this fall. While I respect Thile's musical talents immensely, I'm confused by the choice of a musician to replace Keillor, a quintessential story-teller whose guests were typically musicians. Perhaps there are no storytellers who want to follow in Keillor's footsteps. I wasn't enthused by Thile's guest-host shows in the Keillor format last year, so I hope he is allowed to make the show his own. If he doesn't, I'll be signing off, too. Mr. Keillor, thank you for entertaining me over the last 30 years. For the record, "Duane" was my favorite skit.

I spent the night of the 29th in Cannon Beach, OR. Of all the beach towns in Oregon, Cannon Beach is my favorite and the place where I wanted to stay. The beach is long and wide, and Haystack Rock at nearly 300 feet is a perennial source of attraction (and illegal exploration at low tide). The RV park couldn't accommodate me for more than one night, so as soon as I set up BOB I scrambled to book sites for the holiday weekend.

I made a rather lackluster decision to go to Bend or Sisters. In the shadow of Mt. Bachelor and along the Deschutes River, they are cool places to be, but the probability of enjoying what the area had to offer would be a function of where I camped and the cost of taxis (Uber and Lyft aren't in service in Bend). On my third unsuccessful call to book a site, the man suggested I try their sister park in Netarts on the coast near Tillamook. Bingo! The park could accommodate me for four nights, and the woman even talked me into staying a fifth so I could go to the barbecue on the afternoon of the 4th of July.

I initially hesitated at spending the fifth night since I have reservations in Polson, MT, and I wanted to take a scenic route and spend three nights somewhere interesting along the way. As it turns out, the woman at Netarts is from Whitefish, just north of Polson. She suggested I take US Rte. 12 which I could pick up near Kennewick and it would drop me into Lolo, MT which is on US Rte. 93 northbound to Polson. Whoa! The Northwest Passage Scenic Byway! Ding, ding, ding...excitement, fear! Can I do it? She said yes, and to come see her for more information on Sunday when she's back on duty. Cool.

My RV site in Netarts is in the back lot, away from the view of the bay and away from the breeze. It was less than half filled when I arrived, so I knew that would give me the time and solitude to back into my spot regardless of how many attempts it took. There are two kinds of RV spots: pull-through and back-in. When you buy an RV, there is neither any driving instruction nor licensing requirement. Your loan clears, and the dealer hands you the keys. Good luck. See you in the repair shop.

When my father and I arrived in Greybull, WY, we were escorted to our back-in site by one of the owners. After guiding me into my spot, she suggested I buy some cones and go to Walmart to practice backing up. Thank you. Probably not. I mentioned this to the owner of the next site in Pray, MT. He advised me always to pull farther ahead than I think I need to in order to back into any site. With his simple instructions, I parked on my second attempt. He also suggested that I use the side mirrors in lieu of the back-up camera. Fabulous! The camera has a fish-eye lens which distorts all dimensions. Now, I hike out the driver's window while I'm backing up so I can see where I'm going! I'm getting better, but I'm not perfect at it...yet.

Yesterday afternoon, a Vietnam Veteran (it says so on his truck and license plate) attempted to back-in his fifth wheel next to me. Normally, this wouldn't be interesting except that the building in front of me and the parked cars in front of his truck were making it impossible. Worried about him hitting BOB, I went out to chat with the vet. I mentioned the cars and offered to swap sites with him, since getting into mine would be an easier maneuver for him. He declined. Finally, one of the owners of a vehicle parked in his way offered to move it. I told her that that would be helpful as was I moving the picnic tables on either side of the vet’s site. The vehicle owner had been in her RV watching the vet struggle the entire time. And, I'm certain the jackass who owned the Range Rover (they're all jackasses) parked beside her Jeep was also watching from the comfort of his Class A. It took the vet about 10 minutes to get backed into his site. At times his truck was perpendicular to the fifth wheel (jack-knifed). I taxi-whistled twice for him to stop when I thought he might hit his water hook-up. Other than that, I offered no guidance. It was impressive driving on his part, but I really only cared about BOB.

Apparently, there is an unwritten rule that RV owners must also own at least one dog or cat, but preferably a dog. I have two Westies, Addison and Jasper, who are eight year-old litter mates. They are used to traveling in cars having commuted to work with me, but they hold nothing over their predecessors, Chloe and Duncan, also Westies, who were born in 1993, and died in 2008 and 2006, respectively. Chloe and Duncan, aka The Chunkies, made four cross-country trips: two for relocation and two for fun. Last week, while recounting our excursions, my father and I realized that The Chunkies had been to every state except Alaska, Hawaii and Alabama. (As a point of comparison, the average American has been to only eight states.) And, other than a flight to Florida, they had traveled to the other 46 states by car. Addison and Jasper have a lot of catching up to do.

The vet has a terrier mix and two cats which ride in the truck with him. I have seen Labradors, doodles, poodles, pit bulls, chihuahuas, Mastifs, Wheatons, French Bulldogs, English Bulldogs, pugs, Shih tzus, Schnauzers, Yorkies, and a number of large, mix-breed and designer, pocketbook-sized mutts. The little dogs (which seem to predominate) often sit in the windshield of parked Class As as do the cats. I'm not a fan of cats because: one, I'm allergic to them; two, the litter box; and, three, unless they behave like dogs, they're boring. BOB has approximately 180 square feet of living space with slide-outs deployed. My father met a guy with a cat in a Class A which has 400 square feet of living space. The guy said it was $2.5 million dollars new. I couldn't have found a place for a litter box I my 2,100 square foot loft, so where the hell do you put a litter box in an RV whether it’s 180 or 400 square feet? And, does the guy with the expensive Class A realize he can get a much bigger place in either New York or San Francisco for that kind of dough?

Apparently, there is another rule regarding decorating and accessorizing your RV, both inside and out. I haven't actually been in anyone else's RV, but here's what I've seen decorating windshields, other than cats and small dogs: wood carvings, flags, doilies and other hand-sewn craft, lamps, and neon signs. In the "yards" around RVs I've seen: satellite dishes, fish and flowers on stakes blowing in the wind, statuary, potted plants, hanging plants, full-size Weber grills, smokers, clam boilers, camp chairs, hard chairs, tables, rugs, tented rooms, plastic bins, and dog fencing. And, then there are the toys: 4-wheelers, 3-wheelers, motorcycles, bicycles, classic cars, and boats.

I have been streaming Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) for the last few days. Between each hour-log program is a voiceover indicating where you can find OPB: “KOAC in Arlington, Astoria, Corvalis, Ontario and Pacific City; KOBK in Baker City; KOAB in Bend; KOTD in Biggs Junction, The Dalles, Halfway, and Goldendale (WA); KOBN in Burns, Cannon Beach, Manzanita, Nehalem, and Rockaway Beach; KOPB in Depoe Bay, Salishan, Elmira-Alvadore-Noti, Veneta, Walton, Roosevelt, Rufus, Salem, Vancouver (WA), Richland, Silver Lake, Wagonfire, and Portland; KETP in Enterprise; KOGL in Gleneden Beach; KHRV in Hood River; KOJD in John Day; KTVR in La Grande; KOAP in Lakeview, Lincoln City, Mt. Vernon and Newport; KRBM in Pendleton; and KTMK in Tillamook and Valley Falls.” Why don't they just say that if you're listening to the radio in or near Oregon, you're listening to PUBLIC RADIO because there are NO OTHER STATIONS! Now, send us a check and drive your Prius to the recycling center and leave it there with another check to pay for being a stupid-bleeding-heart-fucking-liberal and not doing your homework on the carbon footprint you care so much about! I love Oregon, almost as much as I love Public Radio, but the state needs a couple of more Republicans west of the Pacific Crest Trail for the sake of diversity.

​I just took the dogs for a walk. I met some poodles and their owners. The mom was friendly: we bonded over our respective non-traditional grooming of dogs. I never have my dogs groomed in the traditional "Westie" style because with all that hair in the undercarriage you might as well stick a broom handle up their asses and sweep the streets. I don't want the contents of the streets in any of my homes, whether they are stationary or on wheels. The poodles were similarly groomed, although the boy dog had a mustache. The woman's son, husband and father-in-law all appeared to be the same age. Walking further, I met a couple whose family once owned over 300 acres in Beaverton, either adjacent to or what is now a part of the Nike campus. He reminisced about milking cows and having rose bushes as "fences" when he was a child. He's bitter about the change in the use of land, but I bet he's not bitter about the change in his bank account.

I left Rainier at 07h40 Wednesday morning. I had lost cell service shortly after I entered the park, so I expected to regain it before I exited. I didn't. An hour and nearly 40 miles later, I finally had bars. I fueled up and pulled into a parking lot to reconnect with my digital life.

Driving south from Federal Way to Rainier, and two days later driving south and west from Rainier to the coast of Washington, I was reminded by how poor rural people are. I grew up in Addison, NY, a town of 2,500 people, many of whom farmed or worked for Corning or Ingersoll Rand (now Dresser Rand). My father was a lawyer whose practice was as broad as that of a "small-town-country-doctor." Occasionally, his clients paid him in real estate or meat. In December of my ninth grade year, we moved two miles out of the village to a hilltop within the town's limit. One of the neighboring houses had snowmobiles in the yard. I asked my father if we could a snowmobile. His response: “Which would you prefer, a snowmobile or eating?”

​I saw a lot of broken-down toys, cars, RV, etc. during my drives through southeastern Washington like I saw in my childhood in Steuben County. These people are scraping by, either self-sustained or with marginal employment. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump don't know these people, and neither can help them. Like the Londoners who were blindsided by their non-urban vote for Brexit, most of us live in cities and therefore live in a bubble. Mega-cities like London and New York have a plethora of employment opportunities, both skilled and unskilled, product and service. Yes, their costs of living are high, and yes, there are poor people in those cities, but there is also a larger, stronger tax base and therefore a wider social safety net. Small cities rise and fall on their limited supply of natural resources, creation of or adaption to technology, and availability and cost of employment. Addison, NY was a glass city before Corning, and Corning, Inc. doesn't sell Pyrex anymore. In a monopsony town, when the employer folds or downsizes substantially so does the town. No politician can put more coal in the ground, create the technology to extract it efficiently, find the skilled labor to add value to it, or make coal the desired fuel (e.g. cheaper than natural gas). So, if you live in West Virginia and your coal mine closed, where do you work? "Would you like fries with that?" is not meant to support a family, so poverty results. And, increasing the minimum wage just redistributes the poverty.

It's 08h00 PDT. I logged 10-1/2 hours in the rack. I went to bed at 21h30 and perused my travel books, having no other source of engagement. I do everything digitally: listen, communicate, read, take courses, play Sudoku, shop, research. I'm an NPR junkie, and a morning without Renee, Steve and David is tough...and quiet. How will I frame my day without learning another interesting yet useless piece of information with which I can torture my friends?

Gunner just escaped from the tent. I can't say I blame him.

I mentioned last night that I'm low on fresh water. Sunday afternoon I was listening to Guy Raz's "Ted Radio Hour," and Reshma Saujani was discussing how boys are raised to be brave and girls are raised to be perfect. Bingo, sister! While I am my parents' only child, and I am mostly my father's only son, so much so that my male roommate in business school once remarked to me, "Dude, you're like a guy with tits!" Yes, I'm wired more like a guy, and friends and former colleagues would say that not only am I brave, I'm fierce. (Actually, my friends really say that I have a big pair.)

So, what does this have to do with being low on fresh water? Bear with me. My bravery and fierceness have two roots: one is loyalty and the other is a sense of right and wrong. When they are combined, i.e. someone wants to hurt a friend or steal from my employer, primal wires connect in my brain and I become unstoppable: I will NOT die and I will NOT lose. But, when it’s only me involved, I'm plagued by the fear of failure. The question of "Can I do it?" irrationally shifts to "Can I do it perfectly?" because if it's not perfect then its failure, right? Wrong! While I said that I will NOT die and I will NOT lose fighting for those to whom I'm loyal, I did not say that I won't get injured or that I won't lose a battle in the war. So, if I don't have to be perfect for others, then why do I have to be perfect for me?

When I chose to spend two nights in Cougar Rock, I knew that water was available at the campsite so I left Gig Harbor with a third of a tank of fresh water - approximately 14 gallons. A gallon of water weighs eight pounds. BOB can hold 43 gallons of fresh water plus 56 gallons of waste water which equates to about 800 pounds. Unloaded, BOB weighs around ten thousand pounds, so driving him with loaded tanks has a significant effect on the tires, the suspension, and the mileage. In Gig Harbor, I had a full hook-up at my site: fresh water in and waste water out as needed. There are two types of waste water: grey, which comes from the sinks and shower; and, black, which comes from the toilet. Each has its own tank, but both are eliminated through the same hook-up - a flexible hose connected to BOB at one end and the "dump" at the other. During the hour-long check-out when I bought BOB, I was instructed to wait until the black tank was at least two-thirds full before emptying it (otherwise the solids may remain behind - yummy), then dump the grey tank to allow the "cleaner" water to rinse the hose. At Gig Harbor, the black tank read only one-third full, so I dumped the grey and departed.

BOB has a diesel-and-DEF-guzzling Mercedes 3.0L V6 24-valve turbo engine, and his Coachmen Prism 2250LE cabin sits on a Mercedes 3500 Sprinter chassis. I was told that I'll get 20 mpg, but I wasn't told when. Right now, I'm getting 10-12 mpg, varying with speed, elevation changes, and wind. BOB was assembled near Elkhart, Indiana, the capitol city of RV manufacture. The RV industry was devastated as a result of the housing bubble burst in 2008, but a stronger economy (not that it feels that way) and lower gas prices have fueled a recovery. The pride of American workmanship apparently didn't return to Elkhart, however, if BOB is any indication. The kitchen sink plumbing wasn't installed correctly, a wall panel is broken because a screw was over-torqued, the shower leaks, and the pilot light on the water heater stopped working after 10 days.

My father discovered the leak in the kitchen sink when we stopped for lunch on our first day across country: the paper towels were damp. When we got to Port Clinton, OH that evening, I removed everything from beneath the sink. There was one screw-like-thing-a-ma-jig on the downspout which I manually tightened, but to no avail. The plumbing leaves the downspout at a 90 degree angle through a hole cut in the side panel which separates the sink from the stove. I could see that it was cut incorrectly therefore causing the downspout to torque. The panel needed to be re-cut. In my wine-fueled rage at the shoddy workmanship, I announced to my father that I would drive BOB to the Coachmen headquarters the next day and make them fix it - the bastards! In the morning, I realized that going to the HQ would most likely result in a substantial waste of time, so I began calling dealerships en route to Utica, IL, our next destination. Of the two I reached, one was booked through August and the other through November. Perhaps Elkhart is the Detroit of the Eighties.

The squeaky wheel in every company for which I have worked is each employee's personal computer. The minute a PC stops working, the employee cannot work and therefore calls the IT department. The IT department has vast duties beyond individual PC repair and maintenance, so dropping scheduled events for any individual PC crisis wreaks havoc on the department's overall operations. I came to understand this from Mike, one of the smartest people I met in the apparel industry, who was the CIO at the company for which we both worked. In general, the apparel industry is largely staffed by good-looking women, and the IT department by straight men. Guess who got their PCs fixed at the peril of the IT department until Mike laid down the law?

Taking a page from the hot apparel-buyer's playbook, I showed up at one of the dealerships which was too busy to help me. I explained the problem to the woman at the desk who informed me that warranty work requires pre-authorization and that that takes two to three days. I said I understood, but I'd pay cash and it was 15 minutes of work if my diagnosis was correct. She said she'd have to ask her boss. He came out we had the same conversation. He grumbled about the scheduled work he had in house, how those repairs were more serious, the time interruption, etc. I said I understood. He cut the panel to relieve the torque on the downspout. The leak stopped. It took less than 15 minutes. "What do I owe you?" I asked. "Nothing," he said wiping his brow. "How about a beer?" I countered, trying not to breathe in his aroma. "I can't, and besides I'd need a funnel for it," he anteed, laughing for the first time.

I left Gig Harbor for Federal Way to have the pilot light fixed. It turned out that the motherboard was shot. I wasn't surprised. My condo in Providence had a combination water heater-boiler. I must have spent $1,000 having everything replaced on it before I spent $2,000 to have the motherboard replaced. When in doubt, do a brain transplant: it's more expensive up front, but less so in the end. I'll submit the $270 bill to Coachmen for warranty reimbursement when I return to civilization. The guy who replace the board had been doing RV repairs for a while. He gave me some advice regarding likely sources of wear and failure, then he added, "Coachmen uses pretty cheap materials and labor to make their RVs affordable." That's just what I wanted to hear.

The process of diagnosing and replacing the motherboard gave me time to do other things, like plan my route and make reservations. I am all about planning and executing, considering the consequences of my actions, etc., purchasing BOB notwithstanding. I had made advanced RV site reservations for every night of our trek across the country. I also made reservations for RV sites for the last two weeks in July when Kim and Kate will join me in Montana. However, I didn't have any plans for the three weeks between the end of my cross-country trip and meeting them.

Before departing from the East Coast, I Googled "bad roads for RVs." That led to buying an app and an atlas for truckers. BOB is nearly 12 feet high, so height restrictions apply. At 12,000 pounds loaded, road grades are threats to the engine and brakes. The app warns, "You can go down a mountain a thousand times too slowly, but only once too fast." Harry Chapin's "30,000 Pounds of Bananas" comes to mind, too. Gulp! All of a sudden, I couldn't go there, wherever it was: I was paralyzed by fear, yet limiting myself to the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System would be boring.

Bodie's ADHD medicine is already wearing off. The father is yelling at him because they only have 30 minutes to decamp and he needs Bodie to FOCUS!

By the time Dad and I had driven 2,000 miles to Greybull, MT, my confidence in handling BOB had increased substantially. I had endured 16-18mph cross winds in Nebraska as well as the gradual climb to 6,000 feet in Cheyenne. The passes between Cheyenne and Greybull proved to me that BOB had a good engine and transmission such that he didn't runaway on the downgrades. I called my former boss and asked him if he thought BOB and I could handle Dead Indian Pass and a portion of the Beartooth Scenic Byway so we could drive through the Silver Gate of Yellowstone en route to Pray, MT. He said yes on both accounts.

After we left Cody, I turned off Google Maps on my iPhone to preserve the data burn. I assumed there would be a sign noting WY-296, the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway. We were about 30 miles passed it before my father remarked about our location after consulting the atlas. Continuing north to I-90 would have saved time, but we had all day and an extra 60 miles on top of a relatively short 220 mile day was nothing. We turned around. BOB handled Dead Indian Pass at over 8,000 feet like a champ. And, northeastern Yellowstone provided the bison, pronghorns, black bear and elk as a reward. By the time we arrived in Pray, I had the confidence to read the road grade warnings as just cautionary.

The Loud Family just left. I'm starting the generator.

The apps I use to find RV sites list their amenities. When I saw that Cougar Rock had water I assumed I could connect my hose somewhere. I caught this rookie mistake during the replacement of the hot water heater's motherboard (no hook-ups means no water for the tank, just drinking water). The repair process had used a fair amount of water during the post-replacement test phase. In addition, the black tank was now reading two-thirds full. Fear set in: what if I run out of fresh water or can't flush the toilet? I should have reviewed both apps, but instead I began searching for a site en route to Rainier where I could fill up my fresh tank and dump my black (in spite of the grey being empty). One site said no to both and another said I could dump for $10, but not fill up on fresh water. Then, I stopped and thought about my situation: I have two gallons of drinking water in my cargo hold for emergency purposes. I have an empty gallon jug which I can fill repeatedly from a water fountain to heat water (on the stove) for dishes and a shower. The campsite has toilets, God forbid I have to use them. It's Okay: I can go to Cougar Rock in an imperfect state and it is not a failure. I have a funnel I can use to pour the heated water back into the empty gallon jug. Last night, I showered and washed my hair (all two inches of it) in a gallon of water. It was one of the best, albeit a little too hot, showers I have ever had.

BOB has taught me a few things about himself already, and I'm sure the lessons will continue. Mostly, I suspect BOB will teach me that I can be fierce for me alone. Currently, my fresh water tank is reading empty and my black water tank is only one-third full. However, BOB is not level: he lists to starboard, so my tank readings are affected by that. The good news is that I have more fresh water than the reading indicates, but the bad news is that I also have more black water. I'll have a beer and add that to the black water in an hour.

Why do parents take their babies camping? Is it so the rest of us can listen to them scream? If so, mission accomplished. Even while sucked into the mania of the Loud Family last night, I could hear a toddler screaming. Every high-school sex-Ed course should include an entire 45 minute class devoted to the uncontrollable, inconsolable screams of an otherwise well 18-month-old child. If that isn't enough for both the boys and girls to simultaneously use contraception, then they will grow up to run daycare centers. The screamer’s parents drove here from Portland in their birth-to-graveyard-infinitely-larger-carbon-footprint-self-righteous-fucking-Prius, proving to the world that their lives don't have to change after they've have a kid. Really? Just wait until the ADHD diagnosis.

I mentioned previously that the Mount Rainier NP literature said that I shouldn't hike alone. It adds the caveat "unless I tell a friend where I'm going and when I'll be back." Since I'm traveling alone and there is no cellular service here, I have no friends to tell, thus I have been relegated to walking campsite roads. I became antsy this afternoon and decided to take BOB for a ride to see more of Mount Rainier NP. Narada Falls isn't far, and at 168 feet, it should be quite dramatic to see. The weather today has been glorious. I'd tell you the temperature, but how would I know without an Internet connection? Yesterday, it was in the low eighties and a little humid, so based on that I'll conjecture that it was in the mid-seventies today and 10% less humid. I'll also conjecture that this type of weather happens at Mt. Rainier NP with the frequency of Haley's Comet.

The Road to Paradise, as it's called, was no paradise for BOB. Construction abounded, interrupted by gravel surfaces and precipices without guard rails - as if they'd keep BOB from plummeting had they been there! I was the lead vehicle at a construction delay which lasted 15 minutes. I used the time to take some pictures and bond with the traffic control woman who was as new to her job as I am to driving BOB. Via radio, at my bequest, she asked colleague if I could turn around at Narada Falls: the colleague replied yes, followed by maybe. I drove 13 miles which took 90 minutes. I couldn't see much of Narada Falls from its parking lot, but I was able to turn around there. Rainier is specular and worthy of further exploration, just not with me driving BOB…yet.

When I returned to Cougar Rock, I discovered there was both a dump station and a fresh water hook-up at the entrance to the campsite. In the future, I need to ask what might sound like obvious questions when making reservations for dry-camping, e.g what does “water” mean. And, I need to read the site map and facility information more carefully.

​The Loud Family's site has been occupied by a man on a motorcycle who has a tent the dimensions of the plastic bag into which one slides a baguette. He is sitting at a picnic table with a woman he obviously knows who has a pick-up truck and a four-man tent (which is really only comfortable only for two). They have his and hers tent sites. I can hear and understand everything she says, but his voice is just a wah-wah, like the teacher in the "Peanuts" specials. Like their Loud Family predecessors, they are eating mac-n-cheese for dinner. Will s’mores follow?

​I had intended to make Salmone al Farfalle tonight for dinner, mostly for the bragging rights for having said I'd done so at Mt. Rainier. Unfortunately, I was missing an ingredient, something I had misappropriated for a prior dish which had proved to be disappointing. I had a salad instead, rueing my choice of spring mix and how quickly it dissolves into a slimy brown liquid, courtesy of the red leaf lettuce. I did the dishes, and took my trash, wine and dogs for a post-prandial stroll. I dispensed with the trash and wine rather quickly, yet somehow retained the dogs. During our C Loop lap, I engaged some strangers in conversation. Unlike my father who will talk to anyone (whether or not the person speaks English), I never do that. What is BOB doing to me?

I'm dry-camped at on the C Loop of Cougar Rock in Mount Rainier National Park. That means I have no campsite hook-ups to water, electric and sewer, and I'm low on fresh water and high on black water (sewage). It was over 80 degrees and sunny in Seattle when I left today - probably due to global warming. I have 20+ hours of generator power which means I could run the AC if I wanted. I'm not sure whether there is a moratorium on generators in national parks, given the noise, but I'm not sure whether I care. A slight breeze is stirring now that the sun is setting - some two-and-one-half hours early due to the tall, dense conifers which have the same effect as the skyscrapers in Manhattan. Unfortunately, it's also carrying the sounds of the Loud Family who have just returned to their campsite. The boy, who is perhaps nine, has proceeded to whack everything in his reach with a small tree branch. The father yells at him constantly. The girl has to go to the bathroom. The father doesn't know where it is. If there is a mother, she is an invisible mute.

I also have 20+ hours of battery power. Unfortunately, the batteries don't feed the wall sockets so my i-Things won't charge. (The generator will do it!) By this time tomorrow, I'll have to resort to writing by hand – how low tech! There is no cellular service here either - at least no AT&T service. I told my father and a couple of friends I was going to Mt. Rainier for two days. My friends will expect to hear from me sometime on Wednesday. My father will call the state police tomorrow and tell them I've been missing for 24 hours.

The girl is crying. She's four or five. She was sitting in the window of the pick-up when the father backed it into their campsite. I think that's legal in Washington as long as the child is over three and holding a shot gun. The father is wearing sunglasses while cooking hot dogs and mac-n-cheese. It's dark enough outside that I have a light on in my cabin. There is no mother with them: she's home with her new husband basking in her self-congratulatory glory at having traded up. Next year, she'll realize she's married to a different looking version of the campsite father and now she has to deal with both of them.

I think the boy's name is Gunner. Oh, wait, that's the dog. I forgot about him...because he's so quiet.

There's enough grill smoke in the C Loop to pollute Beijing. Maybe that's why the sun is gone.

Mt. Rainier is the second highest peak in the lower 48. My father and I saw it on Saturday when I drove him to the Seattle airport. Most of it is still covered in snow. Earlier today, I tried to photograph Rainier from the camp area, but the best view is from a distance - like Seattle. When I returned to BOB and read the National Park literature, it advised that one should not walk alone in the park. So, now I can't walk alone to photograph the peak I'm too close to photograph.

The boy is Cody and the girl is Kai...or something completely different. Theirs are the only voices I have heard tonight. "Do you want cereal or oatmeal for breakfast?" the father asks while the kids are eating s'mores. My friend Jean will ask you what you want for dinner while she's feeding you breakfast. She admits that it's annoying, but she still expects an answer. The whole family sleeps in one tent: that will be fun for the father with the kids amped up on sugar. The temperature is going to fall thirty degrees tonight.

Holy shit! There's a third kid named Asha! She's the window-sitter - the quiet window-sitter. Her sister Kai is about seven. I didn't see Kai get out of the truck, and apparently I didn't see Asha afterwards which is why I thought there was only one girl.
The boy's name is Bodie!

​Now, Bodie and Kai are racing Razors through the campsite. The father doesn't care about their noise because he is doing everything he can to cope. And, when I can't cope with my dead iPad, I'll fire up the generator give the park someone new to hate.

I have been homeless for over a year, and jobless since January.

I turned 50 in December 2014. Earlier in the year, my friend Jean and I were comparing our bucket lists to see if there was a union of our two sets. Almost all of mine were travel-related, and most involved foreign travel. Jean's list was more varied, and most of her travel-related items were domestic. Patagonia was the one place on both of our lists. Oddly enough, her friend Rick owned a travel company that does small-group adventure tours to Patagonia. We booked a tour in January 2015. Now, truth be told, the trip was a little too expensive for me, but I didn't care: I would make it work - I always did.

Patagonia was great! Jean and I learned some disappointing things about our 50 year-old bodies - we weren't in as good shape as we thought, some of our parts were more worn out than we thought - but I would do it again in a heartbeat. It was an auspicious start to 2015 which quickly turned. That month, my employers received a hostile takeover bid for their company, I picked up my new car, the Boston area began to receive what would amount to 100+ inches of snow that winter, and I garaged the new car for the duration. Between February and March, I listed and sold my condo, I traveled three weeks for work, and I was t-boned in Boston and totaled my old car. I also began negotiations with the buyer of my choice for my employers' company while working with our lawyer to stave off litigation with hostile one. In April, I packed. Surprisingly, it took more than an afternoon. At the end of the month, my furniture went to long-term storage, my personal items to self-storage, my jewelry to a safety deposit box, and the dogs and I moved into a two-star hotel where we would remain for nine months. In May, I had bunion correction surgery, my parents took the dogs for four weeks, and one of my employers swapped cars with my because I couldn't drive my new standard transmission car while wearing a booty. In June, I limped. In July and August, I finalized terms with my buyer of choice and in doing so covered our downside with the hostile party, all while traveling for work. In September, my parents and I went to Europe - our second "Driving Mr. & Mrs. Daisy" tour.

The sale of my employer closed at the end of 2015, and on January 22, 2016, I became unemployed. The dogs and I moved out of the hotel the next day, and other than the two weeks I spent in Italy in April, the dogs and I have been living as the guest of friends (in New York, Ohio and Delaware).

Last Friday, I bought an RV. His name is BOB.

A little over three weeks ago, I drove to Delaware to visit my friends Kim and Kate. The day after I arrived, the three of us went out for breakfast. We passed a local RV dealership en route to diner number two, after giving up trying to find diner number one. The next morning, Kim departed for Philadelphia and I asked Kate if she wanted to go RV shopping with me. Her answer was a resounding, "Yes!"

Part of the fun for Kate was the expectation that the salesman would think that she and I are a couple, and she wanted to go with that. (For the record, Kim is her husband.) While I am not a hair-make-up-shoes-and-jewelry girl, there is nothing masculine about me except my voice (I am often mistaken for a man on the phone). Since I don't like to role-play, I spoiled Kate's fun by mentioning to the salesman that Kate's husband might like to join us for a test drive at a later date.

I told the salesman that I wanted to see the Class C Motorhomes. There are a variety of types of RVs: those you drive (Classes A, B and C), those you hitch (5th-wheelers), those you tow (travel trailers, toy haulers, pop-ups, etc.), and truck campers which mount in the beds of pick-up trucks. A Class A is a bus chassis, a Class B is a van, and a Class C is a van or truck chassis with a box on it. I was attracted to Class Cs because of their size and affordable price points. The Class A is too big and the Class B is too small for me, and my car can't tow anything. Kate and I surveyed BOB, poking and prodding his insides. I exchanged information with the salesman and left thinking it would be more prudent for me to rent an RV in the fall (less expensive than the summer) to see if I liked it. After all, I had never been in an RV other than BOB.

Over the next several days I became increasingly disenchanted with my game plan to spend a month each in Seattle, Portland, Boulder and Austin, euphemistically pounding the streets for a job. AirBnB et al. rentals were proving to be too expensive, and I just couldn't bear the thought of living in two-star hotels (again). I wanted to be somewhere interesting while I was looking for work, and all I really needed was an internet connection. I did the math and discovered that living in BOB would be less expensive than living in a crumby hotel, so I went back the RV dealership to take BOB for a test drive. It was love at first drive. I left the dealership to secure the financing.

USAA turned me down. I've been an insurance customer since 1986, but I have never borrowed from USAA. Apparently, it doesn't matter how much cash you have in your bank account, lenders want hard assets that can be seized and wages than can be garnished . Oh, where were the good old days of the Aughts when banks financed everything for everyone - no documents required? My parents offered to loan me the money to buy BOB. I gratefully declined citing I had the cash. I didn't want to use my cash or my parents', I wanted to use OPM (other people's money). I learned that concept in business school. I also learned how to calculate present value. Two lessons for $75,000 (tuition, room and board for two years). Classes were a dollar a minute, and the school gave us "free" beer on Thursday nights. All-in-all, I think it was a bargain.

My father called USAA. They said they'd finance BOB if he co-signed. Good thing he gets Social Security.