It’s Good to Achieve Something… Anything

My new goal is to see in how many different states I can get pulled over for different things without actually being fined. Why is this a goal, you ask? Simple, because goals should be attainable and I’m already on a roll. Here’s the tally so far:

• Wyoming: Broken headlight
• South Dakota: Speeding
• South Dakota: Driving too close to the car in front of me
• South Dakota: Object hanging from rear view mirror
• North Dakota: Broken headlight

What is it, the long hair? The Oregon plates? The back seat filled to the brim with everything I own? The deer shrapnel hanging out of what used to be my headlight? Whatever the case, I feel I’m a magnet for highway patrolmen and small town cops. And they all ask me about five times if I have any marijuana in the car. Do people actually say yes to that? At least no tickets yet (knock on wood). Plus, I now have no shortage of fire starter with all these written warnings.

Nebraska will be next. Keep your fingers crossed that I get a nifty written alert for dragging a muffler four feet behind the car.

Yeah, the Infiniti could use a little work right now.

Tracing Roots, and They Look Lutheran

I had a blast visiting my friends Brian and Julie in Minneapolis (I only made one touristy stop on the way there to see the corn palace in Mitchel, South Dakota, and who can blame me?) We hung out, ate amazing food, hit the farmer’s market and reminisced about the good old days. Alas, I only had two days to spare in that lovely city and had to hit the road again, but not before visiting the Lake Wobegon Trail near St. Cloud. Yep, I’m a Garrison Keillor fan. I come from a long line of Lutherans—both sides—so it’s in my blood:

Since I’m trying to see all fifty states, I decided to cruise through North Dakota on my way to the res. I also wanted to track down my mom’s roots, and she was born in a small town near Bismark.

I snapped a bunch of photos of that town, coolly named Zap, and also a few other towns where she lived before she decided to go to nursing school and join civilization. Although these towns are still quite small, they’ve come a long way since her day. When my mom was a kid, her home phone number was 1-2-3. No lie. And my grandfather, a Lutheran minister, used to be paid not with money but with surplus farm goods. Grandma used to have more milk than she knew what to do with, so she’d let it curdle and make cottage cheese pie with lots of honey—my mom’s favorite dessert.

These small towns, all very beautiful and welcoming, had a lot of similarities. I couldn’t help noticing that every single one of them centered around an enormous grain mill and had a water tower bearing the town’s name. They each also had a Lutheran church right off Main Street. This is definitely where my people came from. No doubt they eat lots of bratwurst and have an abundance of church ladies named Susie and Ruth.

Believe it or not, I’m the first person in my family to visit this area in about fifty years… and most likely will be the last for a very long time.

What's Out There Anyway?

I still had several days before I needed to arrive on the reservation, so I hit as many national monuments and tourists sights as I could. My first stop was Devil’s Tower, which I actually thought it was in Colorado. When I saw a sign for it along the Wyoming highway late at night, I decided it was worth it to pull over and sleep in the car so I could take a few pics in the morning. After all, it’s not every day you can see where the aliens landed.

I may be dating myself here, but did anyone else carve this into their mashed potatoes as a kid and then turn to their mom and say “This means something… this is important!”

After the tower, I raced to the southwest corner of South Dakota. There isn’t much in the Dakotas, but what is there is located in this small region. Not long after crossing the state line, I found myself in the infamous town of Deadwood.

I didn’t watch the Deadwood TV show past its first season, but I caught enough to know that this place is where Wild Bill Hickok met his end. He was playing poker with his back to the door—something he almost never did as a lawman with lots of enemies—and was shot in the back by the cowardly villain Jack McCall. The poker hand he held was a set of aces and eights, thereafter known as Dead Man’s Hand (I wrote a book report about Wild Bill in junior high and it had a big influence on me, so there). I toured the town, then found Hickok’s grave with Calamity Jane’s right next to it (her last words: “Bury me next to Wild Bill”). As for the town itself… well, it definitely has it’s wild west look and tourist museums. What I wasn’t expecting, though, were all the casinos. Deadwood is like a cowboy’s Vegas.

Hickok's Grave

A couple hours south of Vegas is Mount Rushmore. For some reason I can’t totally explain, I’ve wanted to see Rushmore for years. And when I finally stood in front of it, my first impression was “that’s all?” I mean, it was cool and I was impressed after watching the history video that showed how it was built, but still, it just seemed kind of… small. I guess I had it built up in my mind as this humongous, towering sculpture that would leave me completely awestruck. Really, I think it should be called Rushmore Hill, as the “mount” seemed like a bit of a misnomer. And, even more disappointing, Elvis still isn’t up there.

I'm not quite sure why they put a bust of Lenin at Mt. Rushmore, but whatever. It's cool.

The Crazy Horse memorial, just a few miles down the road, was considerably more impressive—or at least it will be when it’s finished. All of the Mount Rushmore heads will be able to fit in Crazy Horse’s head and hair, and it’s three-dimensional! Since the builders of the project have refused all government support and have chosen to have it privately funded, the work is taking a bit longer. I can’t wait to see it when it’s finished in a few thousand years.

The mountain and the sculpture of what it should eventually look like.

That night, I came across another unexpected surprise and found Wall Drug. I didn’t know much about the place, except that I had a couple friends on the East Coast who proudly bore Wall Drug bumper stickers on their car. I always thought it was in South Carolina, so when I saw a billboard (or thirty) advertising it, I felt compelled to check it out. Turns out it’s quite the tourist hot spot now. What was formerly the only drug store in Wall, South Dakota (famous for giving out free ice water), now takes up a whole block with a gift shop, restaurant, second gift shop, drug store, third gift shop, etc. I’m afraid I arrived ten minutes before they closed, so I didn’t get to see the animatronic t-rex. I did stock up on free bumper stickers, though.

Those friends with the Wall Drug bumper sticker now live in Minneapolis. I haven’t spoken to them in about five years, but sent them an email from the Deadwood library asking if I could come see them on this trip. The ironic thing is that they called me just as I was pulling out of the Wall Drug parking lot. Now it was a race to see how fast I could drive to east Minnesota!

Fat Man Karma

Since karma was already on my mind, I think I paid my dues for making fun of that mean fat man in my last blog entry. The evening after my encounter with him, I drove across a very foggy Wyoming mountain and hit a deer. There were deer everywhere on that road, and I was actually driving about fifteen miles below the limit to steer clear of them. Nonetheless, a mommy deer and its fawn jumped in front of my car and were immediately entranced by my high beams. I managed to take out the small one, and it cost me a headlight and a turn signal. Before you think I’m pure evil, let me point out that I hit the brakes as early as I could and ended up skidding quite a ways before Bambi ate it. And that little brat got his vengeance by leaving all these little tufts of fur in my broken headlight glass that took me a good long time to pull out!

Exactly two hours later, a highway patrolman pulled me over for a broken headlight. Go fig.

For the record, the deer ran off into the woods.

Despite all that lost fur, it didn’t even seem fazed.

A Fat Man Yells at Me

I left Yellowstone heading East across Wyoming. Not long after leaving the park, I saw this funky log cabin perched high on a hill:

I drove on for about a quarter mile before convincing myself to turn around to take a picture of it. After all, who knows when I’ll ever see something like it again. On the way back, I looked for a good place to pull over and found a little RV park conveniently right below the hill where the cabin stood—perfectly located for a good photo.

I pulled into the RV park’s entrance and saw several funny metal signs that showed a picture of the cabin with a red ghostbusters-like slash through it. No words, just that image. I sat there for a bit, scratching my head and trying to figure out what that sign meant. I used to be a graphic designer, and I know somebody spent a lot of money making these full color metal signs. I wish I got a picture of that sign after what happened next, but here’s a rough Photoshop rendition of what it looked like:

So I took a couple photos of the cabin, then turned my car around to leave. As I was pulling out, a really fat guy with a caterpillar moustache and big plastic glasses ran out and waved me down just before I exited. I rolled down the passenger’s window to see what he wanted and he asked, in a very friendly voice, what I was doing there. I told him I was just turning around and asked if he knew what that funky cabin was on the hill. Still friendly, he said he saw me taking pictures of it. I said yes, I did, adding that I’ve never seen anything like that before.

Then his voice took a darker tone and he asked if I didn’t see the signs posted by the entrance. I told him I did, and asked what they meant since they seemed weird in themselves. Then his formerly jolly face turned into some kind of manifestation of Satan and he started yelling at me, telling me I knew damn well what those signs meant. He went on yelling that I was trespassing, breaking the law, being disrespectful and disturbing everyone in the RV park (I think I saw a total of two RV’s there, parked far off in the distance). I got a word in edgewise and told him I didn’t mean any disrespect and that I really didn’t know what his weird signs meant. He just went on yelling that I did, then asked—at full volume—if I thought all the people in the RV’s wanted me stopping there to take pictures of the hill above them.

That was a strange question to me. I sat there for a moment trying to think of the right way to say that I really didn’t think they’d give a shit. After all, I’ve met a lot of folks in RV’s on this trip and they usually take a zillion photos of everything themselves, even if it’s just a squirrel crossing the road.

As I thought about it, he asked again. Then I decided it wasn’t worth the hassle of trying to make peace with the evil fat mat, so I told him I wouldn’t waste any more of his time, gave him a wave and drove off as he yelled after my car.

I will say I’m glad I didn’t squirm and turn into an apologetic wuss like I would have done when I was younger. Nor did I get aggressive and yell back, as I’ve become tempted to do as I’ve gotten older. I’m proud that I’ve learned to stay polite and assertive with difficult people (with some exceptions). Driving away, it really made me wonder what kind of life this guy had. I mean, he lives a few miles past the exit to Yellowstone and probably gets hundreds of tourists driving past his place every day—maybe even thousands during peak season—and I imagine a good percentage of them must pull into his drive to snap a photo of that cabin. His signs are vague at best, so how many times a day does he come out and yell at people for taking pictures? He must have paid some good money for those nice ambiguous signs when all he needed was a piece of plywood painted to say “please do not take pictures here.” I wonder if he gets a kick out of being tough and mean when he can.

That poor lonely evil fat man.

Incidentally, a quick Google search revealed that the cabin was built by one man, Francis Lee Smith, and is made entirely of recycled materials. He spent 18 years building it until he fell from one of the roofs and died in 1992. More info here: http://www.smithmansion.org.

Too bad the fat man didn’t realize he was sitting on a potentially profitable tourist hot spot.

Kamp Karma

It was tough to say goodbye to all the beautiful people and places I met in Montana, but once I hit the road I couldn’t get out of the state fast enough. It sank in that I stayed in Montana for about two months, summer was almost over and there was still a lot I wanted to see and do before winter set in.

I had about a week before I needed to show up at my next farm, so I decided to cram as many sights (and miles) into it as possible. My first stop was Yellowstone, which, of course, kicked ass.

I only had to drive a few miles into the park before I saw my first herd of elk. They were just lying around the lawn at the Mammoth post office (a small town inside the park). Aside from a few rangers keeping the crowd at a safe distance, they seemed to fit right in. Ten minutes later, a humungous buffalo crossed the road in front of me.


I took about twenty pictures of that buffalo, thinking the whole time that this was such an incredible and unusual experience… how lucky of a visitor must I be to see this right after entering the park… when will I EVER see a buffalo this close again? Turns out I saw another buffalo alongside the road again about an hour later, then about an hour after that, and an hour after that. Halfway through my second day, I was pretty sick and tired of those damn buffalo blocking traffic all the time. I also started thinking they should allow hunting in this park to help solve their buffalo infestation problem.

Aside from the amazing wildlife, the place was full of waterfalls, geysers, steam beds, and countless pools and lakes full of bubbling ooze every color of the rainbow. I never imagined there could be so many boiling pools and pockets of steam anywhere in nature. It was like a mad scientists’ playland. And I totally lucked out with Old Faithful. It goes off every ninety minutes, and most people wait over an hour to see it. I walked up to the site and within two minutes it went off!


My first night at Yellowstone, I made looking for a campsite my top priority. I learned that lesson after getting shafted at Glacier about six weeks ago. As it turns out, all the campsites were full by the time I arrived. I was ready to give up and see if I could find a place where I could park and sleep in my car for the night without getting in trouble when I met Vera and Jim, a friendly old couple from Ontario. Not only did they insist that I share their campsite with them, and not only did they adamantly refuse my offer to pay for half the site fee, but they also insisted on feeding me. The conversation went like this:

VERA: Can I make you a hot dog?
ME: No thanks, I have food in my car.
VERA: Are you sure I can’t make you a hot dog?
ME: Thanks, but I’m not hungry. Really.
VERA: Are you sure?
ME: Yeah, I’m sure. Thanks.
VERA: Well, I’m making you a hot dog anyway so you might as well eat it.

And later…

VERA: Here are your hot dogs. I made you two. Can I make you some dessert?

On my second night at Glacier, I shared my site with an Asian couple that came too late to get one of their own. I think this was a karma thing coming back to me. I’m not a fan of processed food on Wonderbread buns, but after living off cold oatmeal for a few days, those hot dogs really hit the spot.

I Get Nekid

After six weeks, it was finally time to say goodbye to the orchard. Claire made sure I loaded up with plenty of apples and snacks for the road. It took me a while to pack everything into the car, but on a rainy Friday morning I finally hit the road.

I had ten days before starting at my next farm. It was tempting to stay at the orchard a bit longer, but after the long workdays, seven days a week, I was ready for a little vaca. I didn’t go very far right away, though, because my good friend Anna was having a party in Missoula on Sunday. It was a celebration of the 20th anniversary of her friendship with her best friend, and all of the friends I made at my previous farm were going to be there, so I didn’t want to miss it.

My solution for staying close was to visit the well-known Jerry Johnson hot springs just over the Idaho border. I found the place easily enough, then lucked out with an amazing (and free) campsite a few miles up the river. For the next two days, I spent my time sleeping late, staring at the river and soaking in the hot springs.

I haven’t had many hot spring experiences, but there were a few in Oregon. I learned early on that I prefer the natural hot springs to the paved pools full of screaming kids. These natural springs usually involve a hike into the woods and lots of naked people. That was a little weird for me the first time, but once I learned to let go and join the crowd the awkwardness faded fast (it also helped to realize that people in much worse shape than I weren’t ashamed of their bodies).

Jerry Johnson was the natural kind. It involved a 1.5 mile hike into the woods that led to a big, rocky clearing full of several warm and hot pools. People came and left every few minutes, and many of them had no qualms about baring all. It was a chilly weekend, so the hot soak felt great.

And yes, I got naked. Not for the picture, though:


I returned to Montana just in time for Anna’s bash. It wasn’t anything crazy—a potluck in her parents’ backyard with a few drinks and games. Later, a few more drinks and dancing. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my last night in big sky country with my closest Montana farm friends. Oh yeah, and the party had a dress code: wear a one-piece.

Death of a Tipi, and the Consequent Erotica

Sadly, my precious tipi met a gruesome end last week.

A few months ago, the tipi was occupied by a WWOOFing couple with a dog, and that dog put a small tear in the bottom of the canvas. My farm family didn’t think the minor tear was worth fixing, which would have involved taking down the entire canvas and hauling it across town to a friend who owned an industrial sewing machine. It certainly didn’t look like anything serious to me, but when a fierce storm hit us a few days ago, the wind picked up that little tear and ripped the whole canvas in half!

I discovered the tattered tipi corpse when I came out of the farm house after dinner. Since it was getting dark and expected to rain, I had to quickly move into a guest room inside the house. That room was always an option for me, but I preferred my quaint tipi space. Once I settled in, however, I really started to appreciate life indoors. It was getting pretty damn cold in that tipi at night, and more than once I woke up to find a chicken or a muddy dog in bed with me.

My unfortunate tipi, before & after.

The day after I moved in, the family’s ten-year-old son snuck into my room, stole my laptop and hauled it up to his tree fort to look at pictures of naked women online. He got caught when I found my computer in a different room of the house than where I left it—blades of grass stuck between the keys—and decided to check the internet history. Unfortunate for him, he also visited his favorite gaming site. Might have suspected his father otherwise.

Suffice it to say, the kid got punished. No TV or video games for a week, longer if he didn’t apologize to me. Took him about two days to get around to it, but he sounded sincere.

The cool thing was that he was only punished for taking the computer out of my room and lying about it when first confronted; nobody was upset that he was searching for naked women. I think that’s cool because my strict Lutheran upbringing would have seen that as the biggest fault, whereas this family acknowledged it as a normal part of growing up. I almost didn’t mention the nudity part to the parents because I didn’t want to embarrass the kid more than necessary (heck, I was ten once), but I decided they should know what they were dealing with. I’m glad I did, too, because the father was in complete denial for most of the evening. He just kept saying “No, he’s not interested in naked women yet… he’s too young… that’s impossible!” When he insisted that his son knew nothing about sex, I said “Well, he does now,” and played the video the kid watched.

The scandalous tree fort, where boys become men.

Now that I live in the house I really feel like I’m part of the family, which has both its pros and cons (every family has drama—no exceptions). I’ve been at this farm over a month now, and in Montana for over two months. I never meant to stay in the same area for so long. The reason I’ve stuck around is that I have some good friends here and Montana is so freakin' beautiful. After so many weeks, however, the thrill is wearing off and I’m starting to feel the itch to move again. I have one more week left at this place, then off to my next destination: a sustainable homestead project in South Dakota, with a little camping and exploring on the way…

I Birth a Buddha

I turned 33 yesterday! As a stark reminder of my age, I woke up with an intense new back pain. So it goes.

There’s a Buddhist garden less than a mile away from this farm. It’s a huge space, still under construction, and it centers around a statue of Yum Chenmo (which I learned represents the Great Mother of Transcendent Wisdom). The space is called the Garden of 1,000 Buddhas, and when it’s done it will be decorated with 1,000 Buddha statues, each 2 feet tall. The big news is that the Dalai Llama agreed to visit and consecrate the site after its completion sometime next year. With the promise of his holiness’ presence, construction efforts have been on the upswing, and that includes a pressing need to finish the statues. To stay connected with the community, the monks living at the garden have asked for volunteers to assist in the Buddha-making process.

Yum Chenmo

I was raised Lutheran and still identify as such, but I have a big respect for Buddhism and very much enjoy reading works by the Dalai Llama and other Buddhists teachers (if you’re feeling stressed and have never read the books of Pema Chödrön then I highly recommend it—she’s saved me from going to the nuthouse more than once). With the garden so close, even visible from our orchard, it seemed like a wasted opportunity not to make a statue. After a few quick phone calls, I learned that the only volunteer day that fit my schedule happened to land on my birthday. What better day to birth a Buddha?

Anna, my old Montana friend, was very sweet and took time out of her busy schedule to join me. We picked a few apples to donate to the monks, then drove down the road and entered the infamous Buddha barn.

A super friendly guy named David was our host. He worked during the day as a sales manager for a medical supply company, but lived on the garden premises as a full time volunteer and experienced Buddha-maker. After making his acquaintance, he showed us around.

We saw the concrete casting room, the molds, a table where statues are sanded and patched for finishing touches, and then the storeroom, which I prefer to think of as the waiting room. This is a large space in the barn where completed Buddhas wait for their time to shine. So far, they have about 625 ready to go. I can't say I totally understand the Dalai Llama's consecration ritual, but if he's planning on bringing these things to life then you'd better hope they're on your side.

After the tour, we jumped right into it. Anna and I were each given dust masks and went to work mixing cement. David looked over our shoulders to make sure we did it properly, then showed us how to brush lubricant onto the mold to keep concrete from sticking to it. When that was done, we clamped the two mold haves together as tightly as possible and started piling it full of the fine concrete as David used a vibratron—his name for the vibrating rod—to smooth out air bubbles.

The process was very simple, with the one stipulation being that we had to do it all with positive energy. Anna and I each worked on a mold, and when they were filled we prepared for the finishing touch of inserting the sog shing. This, we learned, is a hand-wrapped package containing precious relics, printed mantras and prayers, incense, flower petals, and fragrant herbs believed to empower the statue with positive energy that will bless anyone who connects with it—and, I suspect, will play a key factor if these things do come to life (remember that in case you find yourself struggling to kill them because it could be the source of their power).

Anna and I each had the privilege of inserting a sog shing into the backbones of our statues before the cement set, and we were instructed to do it only when our minds were clear. When David found out it was my birthday, he told me to channel lots of positive birthday energy into my sog shing insertion. Of course, it was hard not to be positive making a Buddha on my birthday with one of my best friends.

The statues required about 20 hours to set. Anna wasn’t able to return the next day, but I swung by to see the big unveiling. Everyone on the garden was busy getting ready for their annual peace festival, scheduled for three days later, but David pulled himself away to show me my finished product. With a little grunt work, I helped him pull the mold apart to reveal a beautiful little Buddha. He propped it up on the detailing table to knock off the extra cement from the cracks between the molds, then spun it around in the light and told me all that good birthday energy paid off.

Sadly, I won’t be able to identify my Buddha in the garden. I jokingly asked David if I could tell mine apart from the birthday energy it emitted, but he pointed out that egolessness was a key factor behind Buddhist teachings and that the statues were meant to be indistinguishable from each other. I did sneak a little ego flair at the peace festival the following Saturday because they left my birthday Buddha on display for visitors touring the statue-making barn. After that, it joined its fellow Buddha-buddies in the waiting room. Nonetheless, I'm confident that my special birthday energy will compel my statue to protect me when its cohorts rise up to wipe out the human race.

My beautiful birthday Buddha!

Not quite how I thought I'd spend my birthday, and radically different from what I did last year (if you were there then you no doubt know what I mean), but far from disappointing. Today made me wonder where I'll be or what I'll be doing this time next year. I keep reminding myself to follow Pema Chödrön's advice of embracing groundlessness and letting go of expectations. I think it would be very difficult to live as a WWOOFer otherwise.

So far, 33 is kicking ass.

Join them now, before it's too late!

Applerama!

Apple foods I ate this week:

• Applesauce
• Apple Brownies
• Apple Cake
• Apple Cider
• Apple-Carrot Muffins
• Apple Butter
• Apple Pancakes
• Fruit Salad (with apples as the only fruit)
• Dried Apples
• Peanut Butter & Apple Sandwich
• Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal
• Apples!

Apple foods I still want to eat:

• Caramel Apples
• Apple Crepes
• Apple Dumplings
• Apple Strudel
• Apple Pizza (don’t knock it till you’ve tried it)
• Apple Cobbler
• Apple Juice
• Hard Apple Cider
• Apple Pie—duh!
  

I was warned many times that life on this farm would get crazy when the apple harvest began. I don’t think that warning could be overstated.

Back in August, we picked three or four trees of Jonamacs and Livelend Raspberry apples that ripened early. Last week, about 80% of the trees in the orchard started dropping fruit. Once an apple tree starts dropping, it has to be picked fast before everything ends up rotting on the ground. Now we spend long days plucking a wide variety of Summer Reds, Early Golds, State Fairs, Discoveries and the occasional mystery apple. Only Spartans, Galas and Honeycrisps still remain for a late season harvest.

It takes a long time to pick an apple tree—at least for me, anyway. I’m getting faster, but I’m also still working on the technique of twisting the apple just right so that I don’t take the spur off with it. Pulling off a spur means no apple will grow at that spot next year. I’m also reminded frequently to be gentler when unloading my apple bag into baskets on the ground to prevent bruising. I’d like to think that means I’m stronger than I realize, but even after hauling apple bags and boxes all day long my arms are still quite puny (my secret is that I look fit if I wear enough layers).

After picking throughout the morning and afternoon, we spend most of our evenings sorting the goods. Freshly picked apples are divided into three categories: big and pretty apples are sold at local farmer’s markets, small apples and apples with minor blemishes are sold for juicing at a local natural food store and anything worse than that is set aside for making applesauce and apple butter. You could say there’s a fourth category of “pig feed” for apples that are too ugly and rotted for sauce, but those get tossed into buckets as we’re picking.

I decided before I started WWOOFing that I should only work on farms that grow food I want to eat, and that turned out to be one of my wiser decisions. I love apples, and I’d say I consume close to a dozen a day while working in the orchard—not including the apple baked goods and entrées served at meals. I only eat the smaller, less salable fruits while picking, but that’s still a lot. I definitely have no shortage of boron in my blood these days.

If anyone knows any potential health hazards of overdosing on apples, please feel free to drop a line. I once went through a carrot addiction phase in college and my skin turned a noticeable orange color as a result. Another time, I ate way too many prunes thinking more would only be healthier, and because I want you to keep reading this blog I won’t go into the details of what happened next. I’ve learned to be careful to avoid eating too much of the same food, but after a couple weeks on the apple diet I feel pretty good. Nonetheless, I still have a mild fear that I’ll wake up one day to find out that all my toenails have fallen off or that my skin will start melting like that guy in Robocop. Can anyone relate?