Man In The Maze

by Rich Luhr, Editor of Airstream Life magazine

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Archaeology tour in New Mexico

Things have been a little quiet in TBM-land, with work dominating far too many days, so I scanned the local events calendars and found something to do off the reservation.   The Old Pueblo Archaeology Center in Tucson had organized a once-a-year tour of ancient Mogollon (native American) sites in New Mexico. I don’t usually go in for multi-day guided tours, preferring to explore on my own (or with E&E), but this was a special opportunity to visit some sites that I’d never see without a qualified guide, and to get some detailed interpretation as well.

So I booked the last two days of the four-day tour (I had prior commitments for the first two days) and drove three hours from Tucson to join the group on Monday morning in Silver City, NM.  Silver City is up in the higher elevations of central New Mexico, about 5200 feet, amidst rolling hills and beautiful scenery.  There’s a nice historic downtown and a strong western style.  The famous outlaw Billy The Kid lived here.  I didn’t see any gun-slinging — these days the hotels are crowded with fire fighters, taking a break or setting up to go to the wildfires that are all over New Mexico right now.

Our tour specialized in Mimbres sites, a subculture of the Mogollon.  There are dozens in the area, most of which are protected as best they can be by laws, fences, and secrecy.  In the past pot-hunters have devastated many of the sites, even using bulldozers and backhoes to excavate them, so many of the sites have been ruined or looted thoroughly.  But those that have survived have an abundance of artifacts at the surface, primarily potsherds, pictographs, flakes of small stones, and architectural remnants like stone alignments of huts and depressions of former kivas.

As tourists, we were not there to dig.  At most of the sites we were allowed to pick up anything we found, as long as it was returned to the same spot.  We looked, and tried to connect the little artifacts we found with the living village of people that once existed that spot.  Archaeology requires a fair amount of imagination: you have to interpret the humps and dips of the land, and visualize the layout of a village that has been mostly reclaimed by the earth for centuries.  The sites we visited were at least a thousand years old, a thrilling thought when you find a fragment of that ancient life still sitting on the ground for you to see and touch.

The Kipp Ruin, near Deming, was our chance to see a real archaeological dig in progress.  Led by Dr William H Walker of New Mexico State University, a bunch of graduate students were toiling cheerfully in the heat of the low Sonoran Desert near Deming NM, looking for tiny fragments of Mimbres culture in tidy pits dug into the earth.  The work is dusty and tedious, and the results from this particular site are mostly so small that dozens of them fit into a lunch-sized paper bag.  Unfortunately, the site was almost completely obliterated by pot hunters years ago, so even the stone structures were reduced to mere lines of stones less than a foot tall.  Still, they were finding things, and learning, and they were happy to share the knowledge with our group.

The southwest is having a little heat wave right now, so even in the supposedly cooler atmosphere of the high country we endured 100+ degree days and extremely dry conditions in full sun.  When we toured the Western New Mexico University’s Museum, which had a superb collection of Mimbres pottery, there was no air conditioning.  We ate our lunches outdoors where we could find shade, and we cooled off in the cars during the long drives from one site to another, but mostly the best survival strategy was the right clothing and lots of water.  I went through 120 ounces on Monday, and it was even hotter on Tuesday.

Still, it was worth it.  A little climate challenge helped us feel less like tourists and more like explorers.  The cars got dusty on long gravel roads, the people got sweaty, and the gear got dirty.  I have a bag full of laundry “souvenirs” and a car in the carport that looks like it was dropped in a bag of flour, but I also have 314 photos that I treasure (54 of which are now on Flickr for your browsing pleasure).  I’d do it again.  In fact, I probably will do another archaeology tour this fall.  There’s a lot of incredible pre-historic culture in this part of the country, much of it very close to home, and it’s an element of the southwest that deserves exploration.

 

End of the line

We are at the end of the line, for a while.  From home base in Tucson, the Mercedes has hauled the Airstream across desert, plain, and mountain to end up in Vermont.  Except for our week at Alumapalooza and two days in Toronto, we never even unhitched.  Now the Airstream is backed into its summer parking space underneath the cedar trees and the Mercedes is sitting next to it.  I think I heard a sigh of relief from the car as it was finally released from its harness.

The trip through the Adirondacks is always nice.  We’ve established a path that we follow from the NY State Thruway, northeast along Rt 8 and eventually to a crossing of Lake Champlain at Crown Point.  I think we’ve towed the Airstream this way at least three times, and it has never failed to rain at least part of the trip, but regardless it is always a beautiful winding drive through the forests and tiny hamlets, and alongside fast-running scenic rivers. Along this route you pass over the Hudson River while it is still a moderately-sized flow, and through towns with curious names like Speculator.  It takes hours to pass through the massive Adirondack Park, even if you aren’t tempted to stop at the village ice cream stands or park next to one of the many delightful clear-water lakes.   Best to take your time and enjoy the scenery.

The new bridge over Lake Champlain is still under construction, so the states of New York and Vermont are still running a free ferry from Crown Point NY to West Addison VT.  In the photo you can see the Airstream and the blue Miata taking the ride, with the bridge under construction in the background.

When we arrived it was 55 degrees and raining lightly, as it had been most of the day.  As I write this, a thunderstorm is overhead.  We’re running the furnace.  This is June in Vermont — equal parts cold/damp, and hot/humid.  You can never be sure what to expect, but we know that it’s likely we’ll arrive and need an extra blanket on the bed for a while.  That’s definitely the case today.

Such a contrast from where I will be heading in only a few days.  Tucson is expecting 104 degrees later this week, and typically the humidity runs in the single digit percentages.   I can deal with that a lot better than the constant dampness that afflicts us in Vermont in June, so while the thought of 100+ degrees every day might horrify many people, I’m looking forward to it again.

I won’t miss the mosquitoes. The record rains have produced record mosquitoes.  This morning at the Delta Lake State Park campground’s dump station I was doing my mosquito dance again.  While trying to fill the water tank I was so thoroughly swarmed that I finally gave up until Eleanor could come over and run interference for me.  Like a fighter group surrounding an aircraft carrier, she provided protection from aerial assault while I completed the mission.  Many of the nuisances were mashed in mid-bite, and I wore the mark of squashed bug remains on my ankles for a while.  A few mosquitoes slipped into our cars too, for a few final nips as we drove.

I still need to check the GPS for the final tally, but I believe our trip has covered something over 2,500 miles.  We had no mishaps, no tire failures, no breakdowns (other than the Check Engine light on the Mazda, which turned out not to be serious) — really nothing to report in the way of drama.  In fact, we made a few small improvements along the way, and with quick stops and friendly visits we managed to make a long driving slog into something pretty fun.  It was a good trip, which makes me want to consider a slightly indirect route back home this September.

By the way, I want to show you this picture of Eleanor and me at Alumapalooza.  It was taken by our official Alumapalooza photographer, Alison Turner.  Alison is one of the most talented photographers I know, and a real joy to hang out with, too.  Whenever I can, I use her photos in Airstream Life because she imparts such magic to her images.  She has done a cover for the magazine and illustrated several articles.  I’m sharing this photo because I think it shows how she can take a fairly ordinary request (“take a picture of us, please”) and turn it into something really special.

This photo means something to me because it was taken at the tail end of Alumapalooza, when we were tired, stressed out, and sweating in the humidity.  By all rights we should have been cranky with each other (and in past years after an event we have been), but this year felt a little different.  The photo captures how we really felt: happy to be together despite all the challenges.  Life hasn’t gotten any less complicated, but perhaps we’ve gotten better at seeing what’s really important.  I don’t know.  For me at least, Alison captured all of that in one frame, and that’s why I like this picture.

Delta Lake State Park, Rome NY

Every time we make this trip there’s a moment when we arrive in a heavily shaded forest of deciduous trees, replete with buzzing mosquitoes and the smell of green things growing, and I think, “Well, we’re really back now.”  All the time up to that moment I’ve been able to disregard the gradual encroachment of the little cues that we are entering the northern forests, but inevitably there’s a day when the Airstream is camped amidst the leaves and grass and suddenly it hits me.  Dorothy, we’re not in Arizona any more.

It’s not a bad thing.  It’s sort of a novelty after living in the desert for a while, so I like listening to the birds of the boreal forest and watching the dragonflies dance over the ponds.  But like the first snow, or the first crocus of spring, it’s a symbol of big change.

This moment happened today, when we pulled into Delta Lake State Park near Rome, in central New York.  Our campsite is in a wooded area next to a calm blue lake.  It’s so shady here that we needed to turn on lights in the trailer several hours before sunset.  (Reminds me a bit of those days camped in the redwoods back in 2006.)  We are on the edge of the large Adirondack Park that overlays most of northeast New York state, which means we are within a few hours drive of our destination.

We seem to be a long way from where we started today, in downtown Toronto, battling against commuter traffic.  We zipped past Niagara Falls, grabbed the Airstream from Darien Lake, and have trundled down the New York State Thruway to end up here.  We could have easily made Vermont this evening, but there was no rush and so we have taken the opportunity to have one last night on the road. We’ll take a few hours to pause here and there as we pass through the Adirondack Park tomorrow, and then the Airstream will be parked for the next three months.

But fear not:  parked the Airstream may be, but adventures await nonetheless.  I have to get back down south next week, and there are many interesting things on the agenda.  Among them is the task of recovering the Caravel from north Texas, a logistical challenge that has yet to be resolved since my tow vehicle will be in Vermont.  (And of course, long-time blog readers will remember Temporary Bachelor Man — he’s coming back shortly.  Things will likely get gritty.)  There are other travels planned, too.  The change that I feel today marks the transition to an interesting summer.

Springfield, IL

We’re 1,500 gritty long miles down our voyage.  The Merc is decorated with hundreds of smashed bugs, or at least it was before I ran it through a car wash tonight.  (The Airstream is likewise adorned, but it won’t get cleaned for a while yet.)  We’re camped in an old city park/campground in Springfield IL, the kind of place we never would have found if it weren’t for RVparkreviews.com.

The campground has a fairly crazy layout, with campsite driveways crossing each other at apparently random angles.  Some sites have water, most have electricity, a couple have sewer, but they’re just as unpredictable as the layout.  Our site has sewer and electricity, but no water.  To reach the utilities we have to block access to another site, but there’s nothing we can do about it.  Nobody cares anyway, since the place is only about 1/3 full and the atmosphere is mellow.  Fifteen bucks got us what we wanted, 30-amp power so we could run the air conditioner against the onslaught of increasing humidity and gradually rising temperatures.

Give me Tucson heat any day.  It was only about 86 degrees here, but with humidity and a flock of mosquitoes to greet us, our only thought was to hide in the Airstream.  Problem was, we were stir-crazy from too many days in the car.  Yesterday’s break in the state park wasn’t enough to make up for all the mileage, even though Eleanor and Emma took the afternoon off to walk around the park and then cruise around the almost-town of Cameron MO in the Miata with the top down.

So at today’s stop I broke with our standard policy, and unhitched the car from the Airstream on this one-night stay so that we could meander into town and hoof it around in open spaces for a while.  Once the sun went down, it was a nice night to roll down the windows and open the moonroof, and feel the damp air blowing around inside the car.  Combined with dinner, milkshakes, and a mile or so of walking, we all started to feel normal again.

We are approaching the point at which we can wind down a little.  We’ve got one more long drive, about 290 miles to South Bend IN, which will include the always-frantic stretch of I-80 from Joliet to the Indiana Toll Road.  Jersey barriers, rough concrete, rabid commuters, and plenty of toll booths are in my future.  It’s an interesting challenge for a trailerite.  Once we survive that, we’ll be able to chill for three nights in South Bend enjoying the company of civilized folk (at least as civilized as our friends get) in the shade of trees.

 

 

Wallace State Park, Cameron MO

Many people wrote and called us yesterday to ask if we were OK, so let me get that out of the way first:  We’re fine.  The devastating tornado in Joplin MO and the other thunderstorms were so far east of us that we never even saw a cloud.  It was smooth sailing and clear skies all day as we cruised across Kansas, continuing on Rt 54, and eventually to Kansas City.

But our free pass has ended.  We’re now on the edge of the turbulent weather that is causing the thunderstorms and rain that have plagued the central states for months. There’s no doubt we are going to get the bugs washed off the car soon.

We spent the night in a parking lot in Independence MO last night, so that we could take the Miata in for a check early this morning.  At 7:30 I dropped it off at a local automotive shop for diagnosis of the “Check Engine” light, and it turned out to be a warning that the front catalytic converter wasn’t performing to spec.  Rather than drop $700-900 on a new converter, we reset the code and are waiting to see if it was just a fluke (the washboard road or a tank of funky gas).  Probably the light will come back one, but it won’t hurt the car to fix it later.

We’ve moved about 35 mile north to Wallace State Park in Cameron MO.  It’s a beautiful spot with a little lake and lots of deciduous trees for shade.  We’re nearly alone here, except for one tenter and the landscape staff who are rushing around to get the park ready for Memorial Day weekend.  Peace and quiet, no annoying smoky fires, no mosquitoes (how is that possible?) and Verizon Wireless is pretty solid here.  It’s gotten a bit hotter and more humid, so we sprang for an electric site at $21, and are now set up for work and homeschooling for the day.

We’ll move onward Tuesday, rather cautiously because of the constant threat of severe thunderstorms.  Fortunately, we only need to cover about 540 miles by Thursday, so we can afford to have a slow day or two, and park as needed to avoid heavy weather.  I’ve been using the iPhone and various apps to see the weather as we go, just for geek points.

The constant rain up in the Ohio Valley has been the inspiration for many conferences in the past couple of weeks with the Alumapalooza team.  It’s no surprise that conditions are wet up there, and the weather forecast says we can’t expect much drying before the event date, so we are making alternate plans to ensure that Alumapalooza comes off successfully no matter what.  We’ve secured dozens of parking sites on asphalt both at Airstream and the former Henschen plant, plus we’ve coordinated with Airstream to electrify several dozen alternate sites behind the manufacturing building.  That way we’ll be able to park trailers where conditions are most acceptable, and avoid the really wet spots.  The tent is bigger than last year too — big enough to house all 440 attendees with seating and room for the stage.  So no matter what the weather is doing, we’ll be dry and having fun.