rocket motel, custer, south dakota (black hills)

crazy things happened today.

we woke up bright and early to the sound of groaning bison, made a pancake breakfast on the nifty camping stove, then sat around reading until 10 am.
we went for a hike through peach gray canyons. it was hot, the trail was challenging (log ladder up a rock wall, narrow pathways, dry and crumbling ground), and we were euphoric by the end of it.
the badlands is an incredible and unearthly place, yet the landscape is true earth, earth stripped absolutely bare.
there are these rather big yellow grasshoppers all over sage creek (the place where we pitched our tent) and they will eat anything, including their dead.
this morning i found them piled on top of each other trying to get at my toothpaste spit from last night. despite their tendency towards invasion and scavenging, they look like pretty little intricately painted bug figurines.


the winds picked up around noon and by the time we returned to our campsite (about twenty miles from the trail) our tent had collapsed on itself and a pole had splintered. we decided to pack up immediately and try to fix the tent elsewhere, since the sky was darkening, the wind was not subsiding, and rain seemed near.

to backtrack, we've had a particularly rich reserve of energy lately. i mean, we arrived in the badlands after eight hours of driving through the early morning.
we left omaha at 1:30 am after hanging out in someone's basement at a punk/hardcore show.
i guess it wasn't easy to leave - we ended up really getting along with the people who housed us and found the city interesting in an indescribable way.

courtney drove from 1:30 until 6:30 and saw the sun rise in south dakota while i was passed out, and she slept while i drove from 6:30 until 9:30.
rural south dakota in the early morning is enough to bring on a spiritual experience.
we set up the tent around 10:30 and napped from 11 until 5.
dinner was black beans with nutritional yeast and wild rice.
the sky made its way from indigo to the palest lavender to dark cobalt and we were asleep again by 10.

so since we've been in the swing of spontaneous departures, we decided three in the afternoon would be a good a time as any to travel from the badlands to the black hills. unfortunately, the map we have handy doesn't designate campgrounds; all the motel rates are ridiculous because of the sturgis motorcycle rally.

luckily, we found an affordable room at the rocket motel.
a real sink and shower and flushing toilet. and a bed. and a portrait of mt. rushmore above it.

omahahaha

still enjoying ourselves in omaha.
the thrift shops are terrific, the food is good, though the city streets are very wide and usually empty, which always gives me a pre-apocalyptic vibe.
last night we drove across the river for cheap mexican food in iowa. alvarado's - pretty decent rice & beans, awesome spanish jukebox rendition of 'i will survive.' 2 for 25 cents gumball machine.


we'll hit the road later today and we plan on driving through the night to the badlands, where we'll camp for three nights before our next farm stay in northeast wyoming.

oh, and we cut our hair. look.

omaha, nebraska

some real nice rockers are putting us up here in omaha. last night we slept on a pullout couch in their boy-messy living room - significantly more comfortable than the rough ozarks ground, but i missed waking up to roosters and fog.


things we've done in omaha:

walked for hours looking for vegan food

ate at a place called amsterdam's (falafel salad and curry fries)

went shopping at a thrift store (scout dry goods and trade)

tried to nonchalantly shrug off honks and catcalls on the main drag (and we thought omaha was a wholesome city)

drank cheap beer on the porch and chattered away with true nebraskans until 2 am

shooed raccoons from tattered trash bags

practiced yoga on a little sliver of clean floor next to the pullout (after a week of not drinking and only two beers last night, i moved rather slowly)

had breakfast in a not-excessively hip cafe in a modestly cute neighborhood



today we plan on exploring the city. i'd like to go to the library.




p.s.

i am reading kenneth patchen's we meet and what should i find? little one to two sentence poems entitled 'a night song.'
his night songs are much more beautiful and succinct than my one.






for example:


64) A NIGHT SONG

It has been a long time getting here, your letter. The leaves are nearly gone from the trees now. Saw something today in a shopwindow which I wanted very badly to buy for you. - No matter.



69) A NIGHT SONG

Each step down the lane to the mailbox is a kind of hell. There in the morning...the sun...the birds singing all around me...everything green and clean-looking...No letter from you. - From anyone.

wedding portrait

my great-grandmother and great-grandfather in the early 1930s.

and oh, hey. we have photobooth back.

courtney says: hey, you smell like east wind.

holt, missouri

visiting uncles philipe and christopher for the night.
delicious dinner - vegan mushroom burgers, salad, grilled corn.
i have two glasses of white wine and what do i want to do?
weed their little garden.

escape from east wind

we just had to go.

en route to kansas city, then to omaha.



"either the east wind prevails over the west wind or the west wind prevails over the east wind."
(chairman mao)

chick teck

pickle, pickle & can

pinch of peppercorn
three sprigs dill
two cloves garlic
four to six heads dill flower
apple cider vinegar & white vinegar brine, water, boiling water
seventy mason jars worth

harvest garlic
trim garlic
braid garlic

talent show in the herb garden hosted
by an eight year old girl (we sang an original song)

rain so read in the tent

wanderlust!


happy birthday, mama

selections from the east wind library

day four

6 am - 7 am: yoga

7:15 am - 8:30 am: breakfast

8:30am - 12:00 pm: weed & harvest beans

12:00 pm - 1:00 pm: lunch

1:30 pm - 2:30 pm: harvest tomatoes

2:30 pm - 4:30 pm: siesta, read, walk around the grounds, peruse library

4:30 pm - 6:00 pm: harvest tomatoes

6:00 pm - 7:30 pm: dinner

7:30 pm - 9:00 pm: hang around, read, yoga

9:00 pm/9:30 pm: settle down in the tent for sleep

east wind community, the ozarks

wild.

two miles down a winding dirt road, in the middle of rambling rural southern missouri, is the east wind community. made up of 65-80 people (i can't get a straight answer about the population size), east wind is egalitarian & income-sharing.
they grow a variety of vegetables, fruits, beans, and nuts.
they make sandals, hammocks and nut butters.
most members have been friendly, some have been naked.

the communal kitchen is enormous and usually bustling. there is a 'commie clothes' room, a big walk-in refrigerator full of produce, a small internet room (where i am writing this), an impressively well-stocked library, a jacuzzi, a sweat lodge, a game room.
the toilets are outhouses without running water, so you breathe through your mouth and you do your business and pour sawdust on top of it. it isn't difficult to get used to, i assure you.

courtney and i woke up between six & six-thirty and practiced yoga in the fitness room alongside an as yet anonymous gray-haired fellow.
it is so cold in the morning here and you can hear the cows and roosters from our tent.
we were given the grand garden tour by richard, a very sweet and soft-spoken man with plenty to tell us about soil conditions, harvesting, weeding, etc.

we spent four & a half hours yanking stubborn weeds from the ground.
sweat, heat, sunburn.
weed, water, lunch, siesta, weed, water, weed.

we are expected to do approximately five hours of work a day, or 35 hours a week, but it's possible to distribute the hours however you'd like - seven hours one day, three the next.
labor isn't dictated, it is self-assigned, and you turn in your hours chart at the end of every week.

i don't think i can accurately describe this place in full vivid detail. it is unlike anything i have ever seen and every moment is rather strange and exciting.

to those who fed and sheltered us

[shells from a north carolina beach]




thank you thank you thank you:

the day family (charlottesville)
the moreiras-vilaros family (durham)
the bastin family (asheville)

hardcore in tennessee

asheville to memphis, eight hours.
the trees along the highway looked like awkward children (some lanky and some round) rubbing shoulders.
the man on the radio told us all about a thirty-one year old man who was arrested by police when he was found wandering down the highway with dozens of women's panties stuffed in his trousers.
down here they post the ten commandments on billboards and truckers have pro-life stickers on their sixteen wheelers.
pilgrim house is a neat hostel hidden in a church. we are staying in the rainbow room and we have chores to do - courtney: vacuum the living room, melanie: sweep the rainbow room.
we are trying to make a space for yoga.
rice & beans for dinner.

asheville, i love you

courtney and i left durham, north carolina around noon. we drove down route 40, were briefly lost looking for route 19, which we eventually found and followed to the blue ridge parkway. the hour and a half we spent on the parkway was full of joy - courtney adeptly maneuvered around the sharp bends, through the clouds. the air was moist and clear, we were positively intoxicated.
i've never seen so many mountains, all clustered together, radiant and soft blue.

we made our way down the mountain into asheville, where my uncle mark met us and showed us around. a huge music gathering was taking place on lexington, and after milling about the show we went to rosetta's for dinner, a crowded little vegetarian/vegan restaurant.
there were lots of babies and lots of tattooed parents and vegan cheese and i was happy happy happy.

we met my aunt monica and her family (in town from georgia and maryland) at malaprops bookstore, where i found a highly coveted and hard to find ashtanga practice manual; we wandered towards a weekly wild drum/dance circle, then had drinks at a little cafe next to an old hotel/apartment complex where financiers apparently jumped to their deaths in the early 20th century.

tomorrow morning, courtney and i will wake up as early as possible and head to memphis, tennessee. we have reservations at a hostel called 'pilgrim house,' and we'll be spending the night there before driving to missouri for our first farm stay.

durham, north carolina

camila's backyard in the early evening.
the afternoon drive was all trail mix and sweat.
we listened to andrew bird and the dodos.
i read 'the river' by flannery o'connor to courtney as she drove.

stolen peach

late night on a southern porch (widely spaced pillars, angular wood floor, lanterns and candles, couches, chairs, a hanging bench, a wicker couch frame turned on its side so that it nearly touched the ceiling).
today:
sandwiches from a tiny shop, tea, beer.
hilltop orchard: peaches, nectarines, tiny apples, blackberries, watermelon, blueberries, zucchini, peach cider slushies. frog jam, peanut brittle, toffee popcorn.
it's hot but not too hot.
tomorrow morning we head down to north carolina.

charlottesville to midlothian, midlothian to charlottesville

courtney: "i'm so hungry my frontal lobe hurts."

virginia

morning at theodore day's house

we passed the mason-dixon line at 7:35 pm

it took us nine hours to drive from long island to charlottesville, virginia. the toll from new york to new jersey was $11. we bought coffee at a target in new jersey for $1 and i brushed my teeth in a pennsylvania gas station bathroom.
lots of big white crosses, skinny cows, misfits cows with white faces and black rings around their eyes.
we passed through a small sliver of west virginia: hills and farmland gilded by the setting sun and strip malls and massive wal-marts.
virginia is mountains and 'endless caverns' and wet air. the last two hours of the trip happened in the dark.


reading list


the orchard keeper - cormac mccarthy
the collected stories of flannery o'connor
push - sapphire
the short stories of ernest hemingway
plainwater - anne carson
the bhagavad gita
all the pretty horses - cormac mccarthy
the upanishads
a flower does not talk: zen essays
the grapes of wrath - steinbeck
snapshots - robbe-grillet
goat dances - ron loewinsohn
seeking air - barbara guest
on revolution - hannah arendt
will you please stop talking, please - raymond carver
walden - thoreau
on being blue - william gass
we meet - kenneth patchen

preparations

1 suitcase full of clothing
1 duffel bag full of clothing
1 pair brown sandals
1 pair tan sandals
1 pair black blundstones
1 pair dirty pale green converse

toiletries
22 books
yoga mat, backpack with special yoga mat holder
vegan cookbook
large book of francesca woodman photographs (to be returned to one camila moreiras)
1 wide-brimmed hat
sleeping bag, bed roll
towels, 2
notebooks, 4
laptop computer
blankets, 2
tea, assorted
dry goods (rice, lentils, fruit, trail mix)
canned goods (beans)
1 sour apple lollipop
4 bowls
4 jars (2 small, 2 large)
several mix cds
camera, manual


(courtney has all the camping gear [flashlights, tent, knives, etc.])

mother's house

[this is my portable bookshelf]



[kitchen]

strange weather

on the way out of town

here where every woman has a child cradled in a sash slung around her torso.
here where grown men dress like children.* all carrying cloth bags full of carrots and peaches back to their small quiet homes. the lonesome, the soft-eyed, the bowlegged.
practitioners of spiritual calisthenics.
here where everyone is an artist & righteous. glass jars & bicycles. bread & coffee, candy, kale, & rhubarb. salt & metal in the groundwater, babies in the sink stinking of iron.
here where they speak about the heart. the tides. moral fitness. expansion, spaciousness.
the importance of being right and clean of conscience, money in violin cases, lost teeth & tractors, & what sleeps in the hills, always what sleeps in the hills.