Base Units, Inches & A Kitchen = Home

Almost got Rosy stuck in the sand. She's not the speediest or most powerful thing on the road.

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That's some crazy.

Back in D.C. I tended to think of time in minutes, or maybe hours. But things have changed and now hours are the small unit, and days are the larger. A three hour drive no longer seems far, and stringing a few drives together means 1,000 miles doesn't sound so tough either. 

Move slowly. 

The van is packed with gear, a nonsense cluster of stuff that spills out the back and leaves no doubt that someone is ... travelling in this thing. And so space is important. Two days ago I found an inch -- a single inch I could reclaim by cutting a small overhang off the bed/storage I built. Just one inch, but it meant I could completely rearrange the trunks inside.

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Home, for a few days.

I worried initially that I'd brought too much stuff. This seems simultaneously obvious and absurd -- how much more can you pare down? And yet ... did I need a full kitchen? 

Turns out: Yes.

Having a kitchen means having a sense of place. After spending the first days of the trip eating granola bars and canned ravioli, moving place to place, I finally landed at a site I liked on the water. So I set up the stove, pulled out my knives and cutting board and made a simple dinner. And then eggs in the morning, And it all felt a little more like home.

Dave

I was standing on top of a dune, looking down into the pristine and empty campsites on North Carolina's Ocracoke Island. The government shutdown closed the national parks, and the sites were a surreal maze of vacant lots.

“It's a shame, to see them like that.”

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Rocco's.

A man rolled up on an old bike and for a moment we surveyed the park together. “It is,” I said. “I remember coming here as a kid.”

We talked for a bit. His name was Dave, and he was from Memphis. He had been a carpenter, but when the economy tanked he had to go back into sales.

“I learned carpentry when I was 29. My first boss said I was too old,” he said. “It's good to work with your hands. To be productive. Made me less crazy. I got all the energy out, and could sleep at night.”

I wasn't going to ask about the “crazy.” He seemed sad.

And then he said, “My wife passed away six weeks ago.”

“I'm sorry.”

He caught his breath and stopped and I turned and then asked some benign question. He didn't answer. Instead, he asked me if I liked Italian food, and when I said yes he told me to go to a place called Rocco's.

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“It's just past the ferry, when you get back to the mainland,” he said. “We used to go, every year. They have great pizza. You should go.”

He seemed to want me to go. As if someone should, because he couldn't. I told him I'd look for it.

“It's good to have something like that,” he said. “That you do every year. Tradition.”

We talked a little more. He has six kids: two with his first wife, four with the second. He'd met his second wife in Memphis, “running away from a Yankee girl,” he explained.

“If I can give you a piece of advice: Find a southern girl.”

I went to Rocco's. It was large and almost-empty, decorated for Halloween. Lite beer signs mark the bathrooms. It was quiet and sad, and the place reminded me of Dave and the empty campsites.

Quijotada

I'm on the road. There are no wrong choices because there is no goal.

I finished Conspiratorial in a sprint, up against a deadline and without a real home. I wanted to take the final chapter to Richmond Zine Fest, but more importantly the project – a story about a journalist and a paranoid government employee – had become my goodbye to Washington, D.C. I wanted, needed, to finish it before leaving.

Meet 'Rosy.' I'm finally a homeowner.

A few weeks ago I quit my job and bought a van. The only plan is to explore the country for a while, shooting photographs and writing. I haven't gone camping in more than a decade, but now I own a tent and sleeping bag and a hatchet.

The hatchet. It was instinctive: I just wanted it, though I couldn't think of a real need. But before I left a friend asked, “Did you buy a hatchet?”

“I did, but I'm not sure why.”

“They're just satisfying to own.” 

So there you have it. Some things serve their own purpose. Like this, The Trip.

Richmond Zine Fest was Saturday, and I woke up early to drive Rosy (because that damn Steinbeck used Rocinante) 100 miles south. I didn't own a car in my 10+ years of living in D.C., and sometimes I forget how good it feels to drive.

Richmond Zine Fest

Zine Fest was fantastic. I spent the day talking to other artists and writers, hearing about their projects, and explaining Conspiratorial to people. It's inspiring to talk to creative people. Their energy is positive, and there is a mutual interest in making and sharing things.

I'm proud of Conspiratorial. It took a year to complete – I got sidetracked a few times along the way, and was never in any rush to begin with. But the end product is complete. And that was always a part of the inspiration: to finish something, to tell a story.

And maybe Yuri Realman and Max Fischer have further adventures ahead. I've thought about continuing the characters in sketches set in places I visit on this trip. And honestly, I've come to like the two guys. The story of Conspiratorial was always a story about two people becoming friends, and these guys seem like the kind I'd have a drink with.

So this is the thing. It's feels real now, though it always was. There's no plan or desired outcome, just the search. And the search is always the thing.