Clattering Home

We’re on our last legs.

After visiting our children once again in Denver (and doing several weeks worth laundry in my daughter’s washing machine, no coins required), we turned toward home returning to the modern interstate highway that has replaced Route 66 as the ‘mother road’ — I-70. The already full van was now stuffed to the vents with the modest gifts we’d purchased and souvenirs like coffee mugs and pint glasses whose use we hoped would bring back nice memories in the months and years ahead. With various parts of the van rattling, it having been shaken like James Bond’s martini on potholes and gravel roads for months, we were quite literally, clattering east.

We’ve made the trip to Colorado and back home several times since our kids moved out there but each time we seemed to be in a hurry — covering the near 2,500 km drive in three days and blowing by the attractions touted on the highway signs. This time with neither of us having jobs or other obligations demanding our return; we decided to take our time.

Harry is still giving ‘em hell!

Aforementioned attractions included:

• The Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and boyhood home in Abilene, Kansas.

• The National Historic Site of Nicodemus, founded by emancipated slaves in 1877 and still a functioning (albeit tiny) community today.

• The Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum.

• Hannibal, Missouri and Mark Twain’s childhood home on the banks of the Mississippi.

• Mackinaw, Illinois where we saw fields of corn as far as the eye could see and an old friend.

We enjoyed all the sites and visits but everything was imbued with a strange feeling. Looming over everything was ambivalence that we would soon be home.

Three months is a long time to be away. It is long enough that the rhythms of life on the road have long felt completely normal and natural. Long days of driving, buying just enough fresh food for a day or two at a time, living outdoors with whatever weather conditions are presented on a given day, always worrying about where our next bag of ice is coming from, become simply the way one lives. The thought of returning to four walls and the confines of living within just a few square kilometers seems terrifyingly bland.

The name of my website and blog, Clattering East, comes, of course, from the title of my poetry chapbook published in 2013. The chapbook title in turn comes from the last line of one of the included poems, Yizkor.

Yizkor is an homage to my maternal grandfather, Alfred, who left Germany in 1927 as the Nazis were moving towards power. His own parents didn’t escape until 1939 departing on literally ‘the last boat.’ Sadly, many family members including my grandfather’s two uncles did not get out in time and were murdered in concentrations camps. The poem is an attempt to frame Alfred’s life in the context of his ‘survivor’s guilt’ as I imagine his reflections on the very different train journey of his family’s members. Although my grandfather’s journey took him ‘clattering west’ toward a ship and freedom in American, his uncles and cousins went ‘clattering east’ toward the camps and death.

However, for most of its time in the human imagination, the direction east has been associated with the rising sun and with adventure, spiritually, and the gods. Both Jews and Muslims pray toward the east (at least in the Western Hemisphere) facing toward Jerusalem and Mecca respectively.

By calling the book and the blog Clattering East I was trying to capture that dual sense of a life’s journey, simultaneously moving toward both a higher plane of spiritually and at the same time the doom of ones own death, which none of us escape no matter which train one rides.

I am cognizant of both these realities as we finish this get close to home. The odometer says we have traveled 12,736 miles but a journey is so much more than the distance traveled just as a life is more than the number of years lived. Homecoming is always both and end and a beginning.

Standing guard at the Palace of Gold

On very final stretch, we stopped at the New Virndaban Hare Krishna Temple near Wheeling, West Virginia. Established and lovingly build by spiritual seekers in the 1970, the temple today houses a small community and attracts both believers and the curious from all over the world. Our timing was in the words of one resident “auspicious” as we happened to arrive just as a free vegetarian lunch was being served. Well, not exactly free since we made a donation for the food and then paid an additional $12 per person to tour the incredible, hand crafted Palace of Gold originally built as a residence for the founder of the Krishna Consciousness Movement. He never resided there, having died before it was completed.

The temple and palace campus deep in the hills of West Virginia was peaceful, quiet, and filled with lush natural beauty. It offered a glimpse of a way of living with nature and ones fellow humans in respect and harmony. Whether the reality of life there matches the vision or falls short as most human endeavors seem to, I was not there long enough to say. But the vision was moving and inspiring nonetheless.

Home now for five days, it feels in many ways as if we were never away. The tasks of everyday life return with vengeance as if resentful of our neglect. The Honda needs new spark plugs. The bathroom sink is leaking and the toilet is running. The van needs a solid cleaning and windshield repair. I still haven’t gotten all the camping equipment put away. Quarterly taxes are due. The yard…. I don’t even want to think about it.

But journeys change one. Living outside, sleeping in a minivan, cooking our simple meals on a camp stove for  three months and experiencing the vast open spaces of this continent, must change the way one regards luxury and necessity. The people we met, the wildlife we saw, and the in-our-face miracles of daily life on earth can’t help but cause one to reevaluate destinations and priorities.

What’s next, I am not sure but I know it is vital not to get too comfortable.  To paraphrase Twain’s eponymous adventurer in his final words in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, “I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead before I get too sivilized, I been there before. I can't stand it.”

Life in the Public Eye

As evening at the RV Park and Campground in Valdez, Alaska was closing in, I was sitting at the picnic table at our campsite while Barbara was switching the van from day mode to sleep mode (a process that takes 5-10 minutes). I looked up to find an older gentleman standing before me.

“I’m a dentist,” he said “and I want to tell you that I am impressed as hell!” I looked up at him with what I am sure was an expression of profound confusion. He pointed at my hand. I glanced over and saw a limp piece of dental floss that I had just used still wrapped around my right index finger. “Terrific oral hygiene!” he exclaimed before strolling back to his truck camper in the adjacent site.

On another occasion, while we were camped in a very crowded campground outside Denali National Park, a woman from the neighboring site wandered over to see what we were cooking for dinner. “That smells delicious!” she said peering into the skillet of onions, peppers, and mushrooms that I was sautéing for pasta sauce. She proceeded to explain that she was a nutritionist and expounded at some length on her and her husband’s dietary practices on the road providing somewhat more details of the digestive effects of said diet than I truly required. Then she invited herself to take have a tour of our matchbox-sized camper while her husband confided in me that the reason that they had had to rent the full-sized RV they were driving is that his wife was claustrophobic in the teardrop camper he had previously purchased. 

Welcome to life lived in full view. Life in the public eye is not just for politicians and the famous. When you are camping and living out of a vehicle virtually everything you do except perhaps using the toilet is open to public inspection.

Speaking of the toilet, the beginning of this week found us in a beautiful campground in the Canadian Rocky Mountain National Park. I have gotten quite used to sharing washroom facilities with my fellow campers. It is normal for showers to be in short supply, particularly at the most popular shower times (morning and early evening). Usually there are only 2-3 showers for each 5 or 6 toilets, because, to be honest, getting a shower can be important but it is rarely urgent.

For some reason, however, the men’s washroom (and women’s too, I was told) at this particular campground near Jasper, Alberta has just one toilet and 7 showers! The effect of this was that a queue formed every morning for the single commode. I saw this line get as long as five-deep in the morning with each of the waiting silently praying that the person currently taking his turn required just a “brief call.” Yes, the cubicle did provide a modicum of privacy, but those just outside the thin metal walls took a profound interest in the goings on inside notwithstanding. When it was finally my turn up at bat, I could not help but feel a little self-conscious when contemplating the discomfort of those still waiting on the bench. Performance anxiety at its worst!

I never had to wait for a shower though!

One of the things that many campers share most generously with each other is the gift of sound. If you do not camp, you may think of a campground as a place where the sounds of nature predominate and human voices are kept to a whisper. I am sorry to disabuse you of this idyllic notion. Loud music, yelling, boisterous (i.e. drunken) laughter, and snoring are among  the least offensive audibles our neighbors produce. Gasoline powered generators are among the most offensive.

Oddly, generators are often not permitted in private campgrounds but they usually are in government run ones. Imagine someone running a very loud lawn mower right next to your deck while you are trying to relax with family and friends. That will give you a sense of how disruptive they are.  Sometimes there are restricted hours when generators can be used but often not. One campground in British Columbia simply suggested that generator use be ‘limited.’ What limits our neighbors there were planning to adhere to, we never found out. At 10 pm, we packed up and move to another site in a different section of the campground where we couldn’t hear it. I am guessing they ran the thing all night.

Generally, we’ve figured out if a neighbor starts up a generator the best thing is just to grab your stuff and move to a new spot. They will run it as long as they are allowed or even beyond. Last week a dude was running his two hours after quiet hours began. Finally, a complaint to the authorities shut it down (only because we were in Canada where citizens respect authority).

For whatever reason, I have very bad campground karma. If there is but one camper in the campground playing loud music or running a generator, he will invariably be in the spot right next to mine.  Sometimes I am camped next to someone who runs their truck for several hours for no discernable reason! Maybe they just enjoy buying fuel.

In Hardin, Montana one night we camped next to a guy taking a motorcycle journey on his gleaming orange Harley-Davidson. Nothing wrong with that, I was a rider myself in a previous life. However, in addition to playing very loudly a radio station whose format would be best described as “Worst music of the 70s” (think Captain and Tennille and Firefall), every 10 minutes or so he would walk over to his bike and kick over the engine. Then he would rev the accelerator for 2-3 minutes and before shutting it off again. The pipes were among the loudest I have ever heard.  I wanted to ask him if he was afraid that the bike wouldn’t start up again if he let the engine cool down and suggest that he get a more reliable motorbike like a Honda, but I suspected he wouldn’t receive my counsel with the goodwill that was intended. He finally quit the engine revving at about 10:30 pm. When we left the next morning, he was still sleeping so unfortunately, I never got to see if a Harley is able to turnover with a cold engine.

As if the inquisitive eyes and intrusions to the ears from one’s fellow campers weren’t enough, many campgrounds have signs informing you that cameras are recording your every move. Others have bright lights that keep the premises lit up like day all night long making sleeping in a tent nearly impossible.

So why camp at all? Well, for one thing it costs perhaps a quarter of what a bottom end motel would run. We simply could not afford to travel for this length of time if we were not camping. But that aside, every once in a while, you end up at that perfect place that is quiet and dark on a night where the stars fill the heavens and the air is just cold enough to keep the mosquitos wherever it is mosquitos go when it is cold.

Such a place is the nearly perfect Two Jacks Campground near Banff, Alberta where we are ensconced for our last two nights in Canada. Midweek and at the tail end of the season we have this heavily wooded and spacious park largely to ourselves. Human noise has been at a minimum, just the occasionally car or truck going by on the service road.  

Sadly, it’s only nearly perfect. On the first night we still had to put up our blackout curtains before sleeping because the washroom which is about 100 meters away was lit up with bright lights that stay on all night long. On the second night a party arrived just as we were ready to turn in and spent 45 minutes trying to shimmy the backside of their large RV into the site next to ours. All the while the diesel engine of their truck protested with noisy groans and belches of burning oil. At least they didn’t have a generator.

On the plus side, with so few campers in this park there is rarely a wait for a toilet.

Neither is there ever a wait for a shower here.

There are none.  

Roads End

The Alaska Canada Highway (Alcan) is, along with Route 66 and the Pacific Coast Highway or Highway 1, one of the great North American road trips. Stretching from Dawson Creek in British Columbia and terminating in Fairbanks Alaska, the highway runs more than 2,200 kilometers through BC, Yukon and Alaska, traversing ice capped mountains, mighty rivers, and seemingly endless wilderness. Every year thousands of travelers make their way along this iconic road on their way to the 49th state.

We, however, did not. Road conditions and the particulars of our direction of travel, led us up the Cassiar Highway which runs north well west of the Alcan. The Cassiar is smaller and in general less well maintained than the Alcan but in June there was a massive bridge washout on the Alcan and though they had a bypass functioning within a few days, traffic was ‘single tracking’ through the affected area. We had already been planning to go up the Cassiar and this sealed the deal.

But knowing that every Alaska overland voyage requires driving every inch of the Alcan, as we began the long journey back from Fairbanks, we set out to reverse drive the highway from Mile 1422 to Mile 0.

Perhaps one reason that the road is so iconic is that it “feels” like Alaska most of the way. The most noticeable change in the topography when crossing the border into Canada is that the speed signs switch to kilometers per hour (ah, I feel so at home here!). Otherwise, there is little change. The road passes through mountains, meadows of wildflowers, and every few hundred kilometers a tiny village with a motel, a gas station, maybe a small grocery store, and if one is lucky, a campground. Miss an opportunity to get fuel and you may be taking an unplanned 200 km hike.

If you think it’s Alaska but it’s not, it may be the Alcan. Here a view of Muncho Lake in British Columbia.

The attentive will be rewarded with wildlife sightings. We saw a lone wolf, which appeared to be chasing down some prey. Many birds, waterfowl, and an elk or two were in evidence. Bear and moose made their appearances.

The Alcan was built in a rush. Started in March of 1942 in the midst of World War II, the first draft of the road was finished just 6 months later and as you might expect, it was a hot mess. The impetus for the road was driven by a U.S. fear of a Japanese invasion of Alaska. The road was needed to get troops and military equipment in place to defend what was, at the time, a U.S. territory. The road had been discussed previously but the Canadian government, fearing US domination, had put the kibosh on it. The threats posed by the war to Canada as well at the United States softened the Canadian opposition considerably.

Construction never ended. The ice and the shifting permafrost wreak havoc with the tarmac every winter and driving south we found a road surface that alternates between beautiful, smooth, freshly laid asphalt and roadway that is crumbling and full of potholes. In other places the thoroughfare is only gravel for many miles, or one is following ‘pilot vehicles’ through construction zones at speeds of around 40 km/hour. One must stay well back behind the car in front of you if one is to avoid a cracked and pockmarked windshield. I learned this the hard way with a nice dime-sized chip in the glass to show for it. Every summer the Canadian government rushes to repair and repave the road only to have winter weather wreck it again. I am trying to imagine Sisyphus happy but I am glad this task is not mine.

It took about a week to arrive at Mile 0 in Dawson Creek. The last miles are a rude return to civilization with lots of industry and even strip shopping centers and fast food restaurants. But the town of Dawson Creek itself has an incredible Pioneer Village with many relocated buildings and furnishings from the early 20th Century, giving one a feel for what life on the frontier might have been like.

After exploring the village, we stopped long enough to take the obligatory photos at the Mile Zero marker before turning toward the vast prairies of Alberta. All remaining vestiges of the North Country vanished instantly as the land became endless vistas of long brown grasses, rolling hills of summer-bleached yellow grains, and massive rolls of hay waiting in the fields. The temperature quickly rose to 30 C and the sky was hazy though cloudless. Soon we were in the city of Grand Prairie complete with a Costco, a McDonalds, and probably a Starbucks though I didn’t see one.

Though am sure Grand Prairie has much to offer those willing to plumb her depths, we didn’t linger. We stopped long enough to fill the tank ($1.49 CAN/ liter, the cheapest gas in Canada to date on this trip!), grab a bag of ice, and get back on the road. We hoped to escape the plains and be back in the Canadian Rocky Mountain National Park before the weekend.

With our completion of the Alcan, it feels that an important part of our trip has ended. After all, Alaska was the primary destination and now it is more than a thousand miles behind us. At the same time, we are still a long way from home and likely have 3-4 more weeks of adventures ahead. Up next - a deeper dive into the Rocky Mountains of Canada and then down into Montana and Wyoming to check out parts of those states we have not seen. Glacier National Park? Yellowstone? Maybe. We don’t plan that far ahead but no doubt there are wonders waiting around the next bend.

A friend of mine used to say after a satisfying meal, “The thing about an appetite is that there is always another one right behind it.” So too, at every road’s terminus, another track begins. At ‘Mile 0’ there is a roundabout with four exits headed in different directions. Even roads that lead to the sea always seem to terminate at a dock.  On a round earth, you never have to backtrack.

Roads end. Journeys never do.