Ash & Joe take the
show on the road
How many Americans ever get to go to the far Upper Left of the continental U.S.?
How many of us will stand at Cape Flattery looking past the rocky cliffs pummeled by Pacific crests, pondering how far we are from the rest of the continental U.S.?
That bracing view, that feeling of the whole world wanting to rush in on endless waves.
In southern Oregon there is a lake that is a crater, and it is the deepest of all the lakes in the US. The crisp blue color is in a league of it’s own, holding up next to any of the best sunsets you’ve seen. The fact that there are no rivers or inlets attached or flowing to it, makes for some of the purest water in the world – it is a clarity that goes undisputed. It is a landscape that Life painted – one that Gaia made for you. Welcome to Crater Lake.
The Apache Trail Scenic Byway is a decently maintained dirt road that leads from Apache Junction, Arizona (a suburb of Phoenix) to the Theodore Roosevelt Dam.
Traversable though it may be for most vehicles – including our 23-foot 4x4 dually van – the winding curving crumbling clinging to plunging mountainsides can be harrowing nevertheless.
We had a great site with a view of the lake, as well as a view of the night sky through clearing clouds and intermittent tree branches, on the night of the full supermoon lunar eclipse. It was magical.
Highly recommend Spring Lake Regional Park in Santa Rosa, California!
Here’s a video of our sunset jog around Spring Lake, and a couple of photos.
(January 20-21, 2019)
Life mirroring life, the inside reflected on the outside, the external a match for the internal, and again, the micro and the macro. Nesting dolls. Perfectly sized objects inside perfectly shaped holes. The innies and the outies. The cosmic and the cellular. The big raps on turtles’ backs aaallll the way down.
We’re just tripping on through! And currently our trip takes us to parts known in a van that we call home. It’s our Sprinter Starship and we’re driving on Route 40, heading West.
I don’t know if you all know this, but good coffee shops and public restrooms (both converging into this thing called Starbucks) are mission-critical for us, the Nomadic American Workforce (NAW) (not to be confused with the shittier imposter organization with far fewer members – whom, while they have a better acronym than us, will never be as productive as our fine membership – Nomadic North American Worldwide Workforce [NNAWWW], screw those guys).
To that end, I have been keeping a short list of really good coffeeshops across the West, in case it helps anyone else. And if you do end up going to one of the following places, tell them that guy who talks about Macs and iPhones on his AirPods for two+ shift changes sent you.
Note that the following list may change without notice.
You’ve been warmed.
“Anywhere that's wild.”
On the way to Yosemite Valley for the first time, Muir shunned the "orthodox route," for "we had plenty of time," he said, and proposed “drifting leisurely mountain ward by the Santa Clara Valley, Pacheco Pass, and the San Joaquin Valley, and thence to Yosemite by any road that we chanced to find; enjoying the flowers and light; camping out in our blankets wherever overtaken by night and paying very little compliance to roads or times."
