Day One - Yakima River Canyon

My first day on the road to Tierra del Fuego was meant to be short and unadventurous.  The goal was just to get out of town.  There’s nothing worse than an ocean-bound clipper becalmed in the harbor after all the flag-waving farewells.  So I went for unromantic efficiency, taking the Miata onto the interstate out of Seattle and riding over the Cascades on boring old I-90.  It was raining; I was off to a late start; my plan was to go 90 to 82 and just get to Yakima.

But something happened at Ellensburg.  Well, a couple of things.  The sun came out.  The top went down.  And my eye caught a little squiggle on the map called Rt. 281.  Next thing I knew, the interstates had been forgotten.

I’ve lived in Washington State for almost two decades, but somehow I never knew about the Yakima River Canyon.  Perhaps I wasn’t meant to discover it until I could drive it in a Miata on a bright Spring afternoon, with each bend of the smooth two-lane blacktop unveiling new walls of lawn-green slope mounded against the sky, or sudden tumbles of pebbled gulches to the Yakima River on my right below.  The turns came fast and fierce, and the challenge of keeping my eye on the road instead of gawking to left or right was made harder by the Miata offering the third axis of epochal scenery above.  Good thing for its lynx-like reflexes on curves. 

Even so, I grew a tail of faster cars behind me and had to use the frequent turnouts, where the new challenge was not to stay for a while, enjoying the purling rush of the river and the dry, faintly sandy air playing a faint breeze over the grasses.

At Yakima it was back to the realities of Road Trip Day One.  The sky darkened ominously and a dusty gust whipped trees and flags throughout the low, prim little city.  I reached my campsite at the Yakima Sportsman State Park just as the thunder was rolling.  I was reminded of the scene in the movie “Wild” where hiker Reece Witherspoon struggles with her equipment on her first day out; by the time I got my tent set up and my several inefficient bags into it the rain was pouring down and both I and the tent were soaking wet.  I wriggled acrobatically into dry clothes, and the rain fly was nicely waterproof, but my pillow was the wrong height and gave me a crick in my neck overnight.  In the morning nothing that unrolled from a small bag would roll back into it.  Ah, Day One.

But I never expected the day to hold something like the drive through the Yakima River Canyon.  And when the campground dawn showed a line of RVs and trailers alongside my Miata, I wasn’t in the least envious.

Departure - May 30

It wasn’t quite the departure I’d hoped for. 

The last night in my own bed was disrupted at 2:00 am by raucous socializing and loud car engines in the parkinglot below my window -- very unusual for my quiet condo, and somehow of a piece with the apartment stripped bare around me.  I couldn’t really get back to sleep...

My morning was geared to 9:30 am, when my rental manager was coming by for a last check.  So I did my flurry of final tasks with an eye on the clock.  Make the bed with fresh sheets for the renters, throw out the unused food, run a last laundry, squeeze a final pack, water the plants, wash the breakfast dishes.  Then hurry my bags downstairs and pack the Miata.  I had test-fitted my cargo before, but suddenly this morning the mass didn’t fit, and the long sunny week picked this morning to rain as I struggled to close my trunk over different Tetris combinations of luggage.  It worked -- conditionally, poorly, requiring new thinking, probably culling -- but now my rental agent arrives...

I was looking forward to the hour after he left for a little quiet time to honor the moment.  But what he hadn’t told me was that the carpet cleaner, who I thought was coming tomorrow, was actually there with him today, and as the agent was leaving the man was already running hoses into the apartment, disarranging furniture, spraying the carpets.  So much for my moment.   “I thought you were just going to go,” the agent said.  So I did a last sanity check through my rooms against the noise of the pumps, and then I just went.

My first stop was an errand in town, to drop off my cable modem at the Comcast store on Westlake, and I’d been running so many errands lately that this felt like just another, though for some reason with my drone in the passenger seat.  Likewise, getting on the highway was nothing new -- here I go again, off to Centralia or wherever -- though for the moment I wasn’t sure where or for what. 

It wasn’t until I stopped in Issaquah for lunch at The Egg & Us, drank three coffees in rapid succession, ate a plate of eggs, and stared at myself in the rest room mirror that it hit me.

It’s today.  I’m going to Tierra Del Fuego. 

Oh my God.

So there are no videos of my departure (it was raining too much to set up my tripod in the parkinglot), and for dashing game-afoot photos you get only this Oh My God cellphone selfie in the rest room.  But the huevos rancheros at The Egg and Us came with fried bananas, I had a bag of cherries with me in the front seat, and the Miata was humming happily.  As I hit Ellensburg the clouds rolled away over the wide swales of pale green field, the top came down, and I turned off the highway onto the small road for Yakima. 

I’m on my way.

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P.S., in case the above isn’t clear, I’m renting my apartment furnished (the tenants, a nice post-collegiate couple, move in Thursday).  To my surprise I became obsessed with leaving them a spotless and charming apartment, with fresh pillowcases and interesting books, etc., as if I was running an AirBnb.  Hmm, maybe that’s an idea for the future...

Reflections: Why You Go

On The Day Before Departure

Is why you go to wonder why you go?

Saying goodbye to fond and yonder friends

I see that this too is one of the ends

Of the Earth. “Bon voyage!” they cry.  I know.

My wander-severed self newly aglow

Illumines both, and somehow it depends,

This bond, this heart-home, now the journey sends

Us separate, on just this leave to grow.

I need to see the world to see the world,

Open my habit-eye, knotted and knurled,

With visions that enliven and astound.

The globe has these.  But lo, the road is curled,

A shining circle homeward onward bound.

Let’s both be happy that the world is round.

Final Preparations and the Great Missing Vlog

Last night I had a strange moment.  It was 8:00 pm, the windows were open to the hot Seattle night, and I stood alone in my apartment.  I was wondering, as usual, what it was that I had to do next.  And then it hit me: my preparations were done.

Everything is organized.  Everything is packed.  Everything is bought.  I’m ready.

I had a glass of wine.

Today was spent socializing.  I had a “Bon voyage” brunch with a good friend, and I’ll be having a “Bon voyage” dinner tonight with more.  Tomorrow I roll up my sleeves and clean my apartment for the renters.  The day after that, I hit the road.

Of course I’m not “ready.”  There are many things I wish I’d done that I haven’t, like study Spanish harder, or make an effort to stay in shape after I canceled my gym membership, or hire a mechanic to give me a tutorial on my Miata under the hood.  Ah, I had grand ambitions!  Those castaways will likely haunt me on the road, and I’m sure I’ll have a chance to regret them.  But I only had so much time.

However, there’s one missing item that causes me the most grief, and the sharp-of-eye can spot it in the right-most column of my list.  I haven’t prepared for my vlog.

(The sharp-of-eye might also spot the middle column on my list, called “Book Etc.” This relates to another project of mine: trying to market a novel I’ve written.  More on that in later posts).

From the very beginning of this dream, I’ve wanted to vlog it: to make an ongoing video travelogue with regular posts on YouTube.  I bought equipment for it: cameras, tripods, microphones, video editing software.  I set up a YouTube channel.  I even bought a drone!  And yes, it’s true, I can still do it.  The trip hasn’t started yet.

But I was supposed to be practicing the art.  And I haven’t been.

Of all the failures, this one bothers me the most.  Because it comes from being camera-shy.  The fact is, I hate turning a camera on myself.  I get terribly nervous.  So I didn’t just “lack the time” to practice vlogging, I actively shunned it and procrastinated on it.  And now a long-standing dream and a significant investment may come to nothing.

As of this writing I don’t know whether I’m going to make that vlog or not.  I still WANT to do it. Obviously, to start now means I’d have to learn as I go, practice on the road itself.  My first videos would be awfully clunky.  But will I get over myself enough to make them?

Stay tuned to find out.

Spare Tire Fail

One of the biggest worries with taking my Miata on a long road trip is its lack of a spare tire.  It’s true! The third generation “NC” Miata does not come with a spare tire.  Instead, in the trunk it provides a little black box containing the Mazda Instant Mobility System (IMS): a tire puncture repair kit, complete with squirtable goo and an air compressor.  According to the manual, it is for “temporary repair” to a “slightly damaged flat tire,” after which you must “take your vehicle to an Authorized Mazda Dealer to have the tire replaced.”

Not very reassuring, since there ARE no Authorized Mazda Dealers in South America.

So I came up with (what seemed like) this great idea to carry a spare tire with me.

First I ordered a luggage rack for the trunk, courtesy of Moss Miata.  The rack was easy to install, and is fully removable with no damage to the trunk, and not only does it provide extra storage but I think it looks great.  Its only downside is that the steel bars reflect the middle brake light, so whenever I hit the brakes a red beam flares point blank at me from behind -- a little unnerving until I got used to it.

Then came part two.  From eBay I ordered a full-size spare wheel that matched my size (16”, I’ve got the 2009 Sport), and when it arrived I had a new tire put on it.  Then -- up on the rack it went.

And that’s when my grand plan came crashing to a heap.  No, it wasn’t too large.  In fact I had gotten the measurements exactly right: the top would open and close with no problem.

But the wheel was both too wide (high) and too heavy.  The thing completely blocked my rear view.  The weight, while within the advertised limits of the rack, threatened to dent my trunk.  And with that enormous mass so high off the ground, the car’s center of gravity was unhinged.  In short, it defeated the entire purpose of driving a Miata in the first place.

So off it came, my happy Miata is lithe and agile again, and I now have a flat tire Plan B.  For punctures on the road, I’ll use the furshlugginer Mazda Instant Mobility System (IMS).  But if I need to “have the tire replaced,” and I can’t find the appropriate rubber down there, I have my spare tire stored with a friend here in Seattle, whom I’ve paid up front for shipping.  It should get to the little Peruvian village in about a week.

I Quit My Job to Travel -- What About Money?

There are a lot of great resources on the web for budgeting the “Overlander” journey (driving the Pan-American Highway), compiled by people who’ve done it.  For a great example, see the www.liferemotely.com blog.  I’ve studied as much as I can and I’ve budgeted my road trip very carefully, and at some point I’ll make my own blog post about my proposed budget for the six-month trip from Seattle to Tierra Del Fuego.

This isn’t that post.  What I want to spotlight here is something different: crossing the psychological line from Earning into Spending.

I have done that wonderful thing: I have “quit my job to travel the world.”  What does that actually feel like?

Well, from the minute that lifelong fantasy became reality, I have been flailing around, as it were, for the umbilical cord of an income.  Like I say, I’ve budgeted this trip and saved for it, and I know I can afford it.  But that’s the rational mind talking.  For someone like me, coming out of variably grey decades working unrelievedly charcoal jobs, the very meaning of my life came to be defined by my income.  Yes, the whole purpose of this trip is to throw over that terrible and life-denying attitude.  But it doesn’t go quietly.

Proposing to spend a lot of money, without money coming in, is hard.  It goes against a very long-standing grain.

And, as if to aggravate the sore point, in these last weeks before departure I’ve had to spend thousands of dollars willy-nilly like there’s no tomorrow.  It’s an irony of budget-conscious road trips that the prep expenses clump all together at the beginning in a horrifying spree.  In recent days alone I’ve spent over $2,500 -- on camping gear (tent, sleeping bag, backpack, etc.), on my Miata (tuneup, new tires, etc.), on electronics (video microphones for my DSLR, a mobile printer, etc.), on readying my apartment for the 6-month rental (agency fees, new sheets, etc.)...

It’s been a crash course in watching my savings dwindle.  And that edifying sight is due to continue, albeit more slowly, but to much more drastic eventual depths.  How will I deal with that?

If you’re like me -- that is to say, not a jet-setter, not someone who can World-Tour themselves seven times on different orbital tangents without denting their pocket change (in Trump’s America such people will be more common) -- then the point to hold onto is Income Reinvention.  It’s not about coming home at the end of six months to resume the same life with less money.  For me it’s about redefining my life in a way that’s closer to my real talents, closer to my real principles, closer to my heart.  (I promise not to overloads this blog with Rush quotes.)

I don’t know what form my new income possibilities will take, but I’ll be looking for them down every mile of the road.  It could be as simple as teaching English in Buenos Aires and exploring the city every day for a year.  It could be that I connect a hook to a lifelong dream and do travel writing.  In any case, I choose to look at the money I’m spending on this trip as an investment.

So one could say that the real purpose of “quitting my job to travel the world” is --- to get a better job.

One Week to Go: Excitement and Fear

Excitement

The countdown is entering the final days -- after months of preparation, I leave in a little over a week!  Departure date is Tuesday, May 30.  That morning I’ll pull out of my condo parkinglot in my yellow Miata and keep going until I reach Tierra Del Fuego.  I’m giving myself six months.

The last weeks have been a blur of errands, preparations, and purchases.  Although this trip has been actively in the works since February, I still have a yellowpad to-do list that comes to 33 items, ranging from little things like “Buy voltage adaptors for Peru, Chile, and Argentina,” to little things like “Start a YouTube vlog.”  (Neither of those is checked off yet.)  Every morning I wake up and am out the door in a highly scheduled panic, and when I have a moment at home, I worry that I should be busy ticking more things off somewhere.

I’m not organizing my list correctly, either.  Yesterday I spent four hours at the big REI store downtown, stocking up on essentials like a new backpack, air mattress, water filter, camping cookware, etc.  The night before, I gave my new tent and sleeping bag a test run, spending the night at local Millersylvania State Park.  See the problem?

So am I excited?  If you’re tuning into my blog at this point, you’re probably hoping to vicariously share an overflow of Traveller eagerness.  After all, that’s why people read travel blogs, right?  But the truth is -- and this is probably typical -- I’m so busy that the excitement comes out only in stolen moments.  The other day I had breakfast at my favorite local spot in Ballard, The Dish, and alongside the eggs, bacon, coffee and deep breaths I thumbed through my Lonely Planet Guide to Mexico.  Copper Canyon...Old Mazatlan...San Miguel de Allende.  Got a glimmer.  Then it was off to buy a jack and a steering wheel club, reorganize my insurance, buy new bedsheets for my subletters...

Fear

The busy days tumble black into busy dreams, and at 3:00 am I wake from barely replenished exhaustion to stare at the four corners of my ceiling in horror.  “Why am I doing this again?” is the echo of my whisper.

It’s a big life change from working the steady job.  And then, of course, a trip through Mexico, Central and South America is ripe ground for every kind of fear -- not just my own, either.  I had dinner with a well-intentioned friend who’s a veteran world traveller, hoping to pick his brain, but all he did for three hours was try to talk me out of my insane trip.  The man actually spread a World Atlas out on his rug and volunteered, unasked, to help me pick a better destination.  It was hard to remain polite, harder to keep his words from coming back to my ears at 3:00 am.

The 3:00 am voices never lie.  It’s perfectly true that I’m unprepared.  Oh, I’ve been trying as hard as I can to tick all the boxes before I leave.  But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m setting out in a Miata to vlog a road trip to Tierra Del Fuego and: I don’t speak Spanish  / I’m not handy with car repair  / I have no experience making YouTube videos.  Those are all things I’ll have to learn on the road, bridges I’ll have to cross when I get to them  -- if I can.  It’s very possible I can’t.

Let's put it this way.  It would be easy to simply hop a plane and book a package tour through Patagonia and Buenos Aires for a month or two.  It would be safer, cheaper, more normal, probably even more fun.  Do other Pan-American “overlanders” face this same dangled alternative, even a week before they go?  At this point one hasn’t left YET.  As of this moment one can still save, along with a lot of money, one’s sanity.

But the problem is, I have no interest in such a trip.

So why AM I doing this?  There are so many reasons that they boil down to one: adventure.   Say that word and there is no why.  And it wouldn’t be an adventure without fear.

That’s why it’s exciting.