Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Another sunny day.

Journal Entry: Stardate: Saturday, 1-30-2010:

Today was a good day also. Susanne woke me up at about 8:00am and we hung by the river in the misty morning under the Mitchell street bridge, watching father sun come up and burn off the fog. After a bit Nick joined us, and we sat talking, planning, and looking at water, earth, sky, and the grafitti (some of it quite good) that decorates the Bridge supports. We watched the fish jump, the birds fly, some squirrls climbing, feral cats stalking our food supplies, and even a Muskrat (or maybe a beaver, but I think they are extinct around here), motor around leaving a wake behind himself in the river like some kind of furry speedboat.

Once the day was well and truly started, around 9:30, Susanne took of to get in a run while Nick and I went to work. We walked down Mitchell, passing through McDonald's and the Wal-Mart parking lots, then crossing and hitting Starbuck's and the Food-For-Less before continuing on down the street casually panhandling those we came across. “Ma'am, Could you spare forty-two cents towards some breakfast?” one of us would ask.

“Forty-two Cents? Why forty-two cents?”

“Well, we actually need more, but we don't like to ask for too much, and forty-two is the answer to life, the universe, and everything—you know, from The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy.”

She laughs, “Well, let me see what I can do,” she says, digging in her purse. We know from long experience that once they stop to talk it is nearly certain that they are going to give us considerably more than forty two cents. We have had this conversation, or one much like it hundreds of times in the past six months, and on this particular occasion she gave us four ones. And excellent omen for the day.

“God bless you ma'am, have a nice day now, y'here,” I stick the money in my pocket, and we walk on down the road.

That is the way we work, casual, friendly, humorous.

By the time we got to the corner of Mitchell and Whitmore, we had enough for lunch at Taco Bell, the sun was shining and it was reasonably warm but not so hot as to be uncomfortable even carrying forty pound packs and wearing sweatshirts. The clouds and the vault of the sky are beautiful here in the central valley, we whistled and sang snatches of songs as we walked, and we kept making money. We walked to the Ceres library from Taco Bell and got some new books, then along the frontage road by the CA99 north to Hatch again, by which time we had made over thirty dollars for the day. Back on Hatch, we hit the Dollar Store for some necessities: steak knives, rope, self charging LED flashlights, 50ft. Cheap rope, canned chili and soup, and so forth. Then we went to Starbucks to have some coffee and read for a bit before heading back towards Mitchell.

On the way we stopped by Susanne's house and gathered her up. She drove to the Starbucks at Mitchell (Our Starbucks) and we got coffee and began discussing routes for the art walk we are planning to begin around spring break. The plan as it is currently envisioned is that we will begin walking in San Francisco, and head north.

We went to coffee that night to hammer out a route and use Google Earth to inspect the details along the proposed path. Didn't get far with mapping though because we had sat at a wobbly table. After getting frustrated enough to try to do something about it, I ducked under the table, which spilled coffee on the keyboard of Susanne's mom's laptop that we had borrowed since both my AC adapter and Susanne's had recently taken a permanent vacation from providing electrical services. Amidst a flurry of cussing, we poured coffee out of keyboard, held computer upside down, dried it off, and tried to get back to work only to find that we had somehow managed to turn on hotkeys in the process. Every time you hit Lkey, whatever you are working on drops to taskbar, and there are a dozen other keys that do weird shit also. Worse yet, we couldn't figure out how to turn them off as that laptop was configured differently than Susanne's HP or my Compaq.

So we gave it up, and continued the discussion without maps. After looking over the terrain before the coffee incident, we decided that going north out of Frisco might be problematic in that there is no good way to make a loop out of our course without getting too far off the coast, and too far away from habitation for longer than we want to. In the end we discussed what supplies we would need, ways of earning money on the way (hopefully without panhandling), such as selling some of the paintings and drawings we do along the way in towns and National/State parks, making hemp jewelery with found items like shells and stones (there is quite a bit of jade on the beaches along there), and so on.

Susanne determined that she would need a tent, sleeping bag, and pack as soon as possible, so that she could start camping out with us on weekends in order to get used to sleeping outside, and humping a pack around during the day. We discussed things such as Tents, sleeping pads and bags, pans, knives, hatchet, machete, and a camp stove of some sort. Clothing will be minimal and light, bio-degradable soap for washing dishes, bodies, and clothing. Food will have to be mostly beans and rice supplemented with jerky and dried vegetables which we will purchase and dry ourselves to save money. We will bring salt, pepper and spices, and further vary our diet by fishing and picking wild greens and mushrooms.

The conversation turned to how to get the word out about what we are doing, how to contact local churches and such to set up art days, how we might change route to maximize our possibilities without lessening the beauty or campability of the path we travel and so on.

We are beginning to realize just what a large chore we have set for ourselves, and just how little time we have to prepare. I have to get a new AC adapter, fast, and so does Susanne. This trip cannot be organized in time without extensive work on the Net, and it is going to be hella difficult anyway. That is ok though, this is really a trial run. We will learn from this trip, and use what we learn to plan better for a bigger/better one to follow.

Anyways, in the end, Susanne dropped us off at about midnight and headed home. I slept well and woke.

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