Mortaine’s Blog

We’re here in the Adirondacks, in upstate New York, near Warrensburg, with limited Internet and cell phone reception. This is part of the band of greenery that stretches across the northern states– the same terrain and pine trees you see in Wisconsin, Michigan, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Also, very similar bugs. Mostly mosquitoes. We have discovered that the mosquitoes can get into the RV through some vent or something, and they do so in the evening, which is kind of not cool. Knowing me, I will have 30 mosquito bites by the time the week is out.

Our plans have changed somewhat. Previously, I’d wanted to spend the whole summer flitting over Montreal and Quebec, then down into Maine before heading southward for the winter. Now, we may curtail those plans and take a weekend trip to Montreal, then spend some time in Niagara Falls before heading south and west for the winter. We will be flying out to Portland, Oregon for my birthday and a friend’s wedding, so we’ll need to finalize our plans before then. Part of the complications are that my grandmother is, frankly, not long for this world, and I would like to be able to attend her funeral.

The cat is now so finicky he will only eat baby food, but at least he ate his breakfast of puree’d turkey. This is temporary; there are vitamins cats need to have, and which are not present in baby food, so he must wean back to cat food soon. I’m just starting to worry because, even though he acts perfectly fine, I can feel his bones and I don’t like it one bit. Tomorrow, I will make an appointment for him to see a vet. He’s due for his shots anyway.

Before we left New Jersey/Philadelphia, we stopped at the Battleship New Jersey, which has been retired to Camden, NJ. We went on a tour focusing on the guns, and had a great time, and learned a lot. Some of what we learned was family history; John’s father served on the New Jersey, and John himself went on a “tiger cruise” down the West Coast when he was a teenager.

One of the things I found really cool about the New Jersey was the fancywork, which is all over the ship. This is specialized knotwork which was passed down from shipman to shipman, and which could not be demanded of the crew– it could only be requested or offered. A ship with no fancywork is a ship with an unhappy crew.

Tonight is our first night “Walmarting” in a commercial parking lot, overnighting for free with quasi-permission. We are in a (location undisclosed) parking lot in Kingston, New York, on our way up to Lake George (in the Adirondack mountain range). We’ll be there for at least a month, through the 4th of July and probably a bit beyond, depending on my sister’s travel plans.

It’s eerie, parking in a public place, being all stealthy and stuff. We closed the blinds. The store just closed, so the lot should empty out pretty soon. If worse comes to worst and the cops arrive to tell us to move along, even though a store employee gave permission, we will move up the road to the Wal-Mart. We avoided it this time because their lot is fairly small for a Wal-Mart and there simply wasn’t room for us to get in, much less to take up 8 parking spaces.

Also, their lot slopes quite a bit– here, the slope is gradual enough that we eventually got level.

However, one interesting effect of this stealth mode, aside from the standard things like not putting out lawn chairs and being on “boondocking” rules (which include not showering unless necessary and conserving water and power): I don’t feel comfortable putting up the satellite dish– I think it’s too conspicuous. As a result, I’m blogging on my laptop, but uploading via my cell phone. Sharing the cell phone connection is tenuous– we tried several times, but John had a lot of trouble and was only able to download mission-critical emails.

Limited Internet access means we’ll be less accessible until Sunday, and won’t be able to read blogs. As a result, I hope everyone has a terrific weekend– drop a message and let me know what you did, how your weekend went, when you get a chance!

The travel media is very excited about “staycations” these days. Airlines and destinations are their advertisers, so perhaps they’re getting new ad campaigns for staycation services? Otherwise, you can bet they’ll be back to pitching how great it is to spend Christmas in Buenos Aires in a few months. Anyway, the idea behind a staycation is that you take the week off of work, but you… stay home. With your family, friends, kids, dog, neighbors…. etc.

Anyone who has ever been laid off of work for a week knows what a ridiculous idea this is: you’re home, broke, and bored. Here’s how I imagine a typical staycation going: you set up the pool in the backyard for the kids, pull out a lawn chair and the margarita mix. By 10 AM, you’ve had four phone calls– three of them are work “emergencies,” and one of them is your neighbor asking if, since you’re home and all, you wouldn’t mind picking up her kids from daycare and watching them till she gets home at 5. The margaritas turn sour in your mouth and you go into the kitchen to pour it out. While there, you realize the remains of the nice dinner you made for your family last night is still sitting on the plates in the sink, and you spend the next hour and a half washing dishes and cleaning up. At the end of which, the kids run through the house, dripping wet, screaming for peanut butter sandwiches and a side order of marshmallows. You suddenly realize that there’s a reason you work full-time, and it’s only partly so you can afford a roof over your head.

The main reason touted for staycations is to save money, of course. This is because we are all broke. We are broke from spending more at the pumps, more at the grocery store, and more on our IRS forms (do not be fooled by the rebate check– that was your money to start with, and the government made interest on it before returning it to you!) We’re broke from having our home values plummet, stranding our empty houses on the market for a whole year and hemorrhaging money. And yet, the financial impact of the staycation? Since you’re already at home and don’t have anything new to entertain you, you’ll go shopping. Unlike when you travel, though, you don’t have a limit to how much stuff you can buy or bring home, so the next thing you know, there are piles of lumber from Home Depot in your driveway, five bathing suits “motivating” you in the closet, and four video games to distract the kids, now that the neighbor’s 4 year old barfed in the pool after daycare and ruined the fun for everybody.

For the green staycationer, you can fool yourself into thinking the staycation is a great way to save fuel, and maybe it is. All I know is that you’d probably save more energy and have a great time if you spent your week bicycling through French vineyards or on a beach within walking distance to a hotel.

Employers love the staycation, because there’s a good chance they can bother you if you’re at home, whereas if you’re on a beach in Jamaica, you can reasonably get away with ignoring the phone and pretending you just didn’t hear it. If employers really wanted you to save money and gas, they would let you telecommute 4 or 5 days a week. My commute used to be almost an hour each way. Having an extra 8 hours of daylight every week would have been like a vacation all its own. Most working women say that they would take a pay cut if it meant they could have 2 hours in the afternoon once a week, without kids, to run errands.

In the RV, we think often about the concept of being at home, work, or on vacation when all three can take place in the exact same place. Since we’ve regained the commute hours, we both get to pursue personal projects a lot more. My conclusion is that your environment does have to change to give you a real “get out of your head” kind of vacation. For us, that means either leaving the rig, or taking it somewhere too remote for Internet and cell phone service. Otherwise, being in touch means work or other commitments can and will interrupt. It’s not that we mind that much– when you have more time for leisure (no commute) and a lifestyle that lends itself to not being bored by your surroundings, the need for a “real” vacation lessens, and you can get away with a short jaunt here or there.

I’m sure a lot of my readers will disagree with a lot of this, but then, a lot of my readers are very resourceful people for whom boredom is never a problem, and home is an ongoing source of amusement, energization, and spiritual awakening. These folks have my envy, because the majority of us have a really hard time getting away from it all without getting away from ourselves.

We spent the last 2 weeks outside Boston, visiting my family. John went back to California to take care of some business, and I spent my days working and going to visit my grandmother. I, of course, stupidly brought my camera with me every day, but failed to take pictures when I went, so I only have one pic of my family from the trip:

That’s my aunt, me, uncle, and second cousin, at a bar last week. Cousin Marion knits, too, and does many other crafty things. She and her husband have been married over 50 years!

On Thursday, we drove from Massachusetts to a town outside New Haven, Connecticut. A close friend of mine from high school is getting married tomorrow, and a bunch of the Evanston crowd are gathering there to celebrate with him and his lovely bride, Karen. The campground we’re in is a sidelot with hookups, but it is what it is: a cheap place to stay while visiting people.

And now, I must go shower and get ready to go out. Everyone is arriving this afternoon, and we’re all gathering at the happy couple’s house to meetup and such.

My Adesso keyboard is an ergonomic split-keys keyboard with a trackpad in the middle of the board.

I like it, and find it usable, but it’s the only splitty ergo keyboard with a trackpad in the middle of the board available, so I’m a bit locked in for keyboards to like.

As of today, it’s dead. The right shift key gets interpreted as a capital “D.” The left shift key is read as “find.” I am now on the prowl for a replacement keyboard.

There is a spare one in my storage locker in Scotts Valley.

Where John was, less than a week ago.

And didn’t go into the storage locker to get my keyboard (I did ask him to before he left, but he never made it there).

*cries*

In unrelated news: We are in Connecticut this week for a wedding. Arrived yesterday. We’re staying in the smallest campground ever– it’s 13 sites in a small parking lot. But it’s fine, and inexpensive for the location.

There’s a wildfire burning in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It is not near our (soon to be former, I hope) house. It is, however, close to my mother-in-law’s home. John is checking in with the sisters to make sure she’s fine. It’s 5 miles away from her. Last time it got that close, we thought about evacuating her, but it turned out to be unnecessary.

I’m now a writer over at Suite101.com as of yesterday.

And about 2 weeks ago I quietly launched/started Vagabond Writer, to showcase my travel and freelance writing efforts. Check it out, let me know what you think!