Biscuits and mutton, snow and sand, old friends and new - a trip across America

This morning I lie in bed in the dark, with the wind howling through our hatches and a gently wave rolling us to and fro. I couldn’t sleep as I struggled to remember his name. Was it Cornbread? Dinky Donut? Snickerdoodle?

We’ve been back on Shiloh from our US road trip for just over a week. And the memories are fading. The states blur along a path of my mind, further and further back and sadly I know that most of it will disappear forever. But there were some places, some people, some experiences you just can’t forget. Things you couldn’t make up if you tried…

Mr. Muffin was a State Park Camp Host who took his job seriously. Tucked up under Hot Springs Mountain in Arkansas, the campground was beautiful, framed by a clear river on one side, and in the distance a highway of some sort. Pumpkin Toes protected the premises, circling constantly on his golf cart. And his curiosity led him to slide his two stubby legs, under two gargantuan bum cheeks, down off his perch, and he’d waddle into each campsite bright eyed, to meet the visitors. He was all grins as he slid out his pudgy pink hand to shake. “Welcome! I’m Fudge Ball!” (or something like that). He explained in his syrupy southern drawl, that he and his wife had been camp hosts for a few years at this site. He gave us the camp rules, then asked us what it was we had there on the table?

“Smoked oysters. Great with crackers and cheese.”

He crinkled up his childlike nose but his eyes remained excited and alert. “Can I try? Never heard a nuthin’ like that!”

So we fixed him one and watched, amused, as he stuffed the fishy little package in his mouth. And the reaction was priceless. He barely managed to swallow and quickly asked for some Coke or anything sweet. We rolled around laughing but found him a drink.

And with that, we had a new friend. He stayed for quite a while, completely enthralled by these foreigners from so far away. He’d never left America. Figured they all ate weird stuff like what we’d just fed him! His accent kept us a captive audience as well.

Marita & Biscuit

The next morning Cream Puff pulled up in the golf cart with his wife Love Dumpling to meet us and we all laughed and stood for photos. He gave us his business card. And there it was written in black ink. ‘Biscuit’. It was Biscuit! He explained that it was a nickname that stuck hard and he’d accepted it and embraced it long ago. Biscuit sold Dutch ovens and ran Dutch oven cooking classes. And Biscuit became a dungaree wearin’, twinkie lovin’ memory…

And he and the bath houses and gorgeous town we found there in Hot Springs would not have been discovered if we had done the road trip we’d imagined. Road trips should be fluid in their planning. So that when Harvey and hurricanes like him try to thwart your fun, you simply re-route. Arkansas and Oklahoma were not on our agenda. Never imagined discovering the suburban bliss and gentrified downtown of Tulsa. Couldn’t have known the remote beauty of Beaver Lake and a log cabin complete with true southern hospitality and a lot of massive spiders to welcome us! And it was through cruising we met the friends who welcomed us to these places.

Bath House in Hot Springs, Arkansas

Our friend Dale's lake house, Beaver Lake Arkansas

And then there was Texas. Americans joke that Texas is a country in itself. It definitely has a personality. In Texas the endless fields are dotted with head bobbing machines that suck oil up from the deep endlessly. In Texas we tasted other-worldly brisket. In Texas you can also get a 72 ounce steak. Free if you can eat it all. It is advertised everywhere. It’s all about BIG in Texas. And there are rodeos. 

We found ourselves a real, genuine rodeo. And now I can say I know all about mutton bustin’! In most states it would be considered child abuse but in Texas it’s a lively sport. Toddlers and little’uns hang on for dear life to a fluffy sheep who is let out of the pen and dashes at full speed across the muddy arena. The fans go wild in the stands, music blares from the speakers and the MC urges them on. Meanwhile down in the arena, a tiny child has slipped down under the animal with the speed and agitation and has fallen hard onto the dirt and most likely been stepped on by the panicky animal. Mothers and fathers run out and scoop up the bawling kid while the fans cheer. Texas. 

New Mexico was enchanting. All terra cotta homes and Native jewelry and art galleries, and small towns and Pueblos up in the mountains that are a catch all for hippies and cowboys and Mexicans. And more cruising friends welcomed us into their beautiful home. I fell in love with their green hatch chili peppers.

There was Durango in Colorado, which led to Silverton – a place lost in time. A cowboy town nestled between two mountains where you can imagine the stand-off in the street just like in the old Westerns. Where the old steam train pulls in twice a day, chugging black smoke and hooting to announce it’s arrival.

And the knuckle biting mountain edge, no railings drive up into the mountain town of Ouray, the Switzerland of America. Places you didn’t know existed but now will never forget.

 

And then there are the places that you planned for, imagined in advance and held the highest expectations for. The four corners where New Mexico meets Arizona, meets Utah, meets Colorado. The actual Four Corners Monument is a Native run gathering of ramshackle curio stands and abandoned food trucks surrounding a stone plaque. The $5 entry fee covers the salary and bus fare for the grumpy lady who has come from a reservation far from here. A bit of a let down really.

However, all around is beauty. Places where atheists believe that gods have been here. Where a natural world unfolds like a fantasyland of rock in epic proportions. Shapes, caverns, colours. It is all one could imagine and so much more. And the hikes down into the depths of the caverns are humbling. Mesa Verde, Bryce Canyon, Canyon de Chelly, Zion, Valley of Fire. Wow.

From the swamplands of Florida, we found ourselves in forests and then deserts. Such diversity!

But there was also routine. Technically, a road trip that lasts longer than a month is a lifestyle. It begins to take on it’s habitual schedules and rituals. Even if it involves driving somewhere further, somewhere new nearly every day.

Daily, after a three hour drive or so, armed with carts and a humble shopping list, we found ourselves in a Walmart in Sulphur Oklahoma or Tucumcari New Mexico or New Iberia Louisiana, we would buy a bag of charcoal, a bag of ice, some meat, some salad, some sweet potatoes, some six dollar wine. And then we’d set off in our travelling beds, to find a campsite for the night.

Campsites in southern Texas where mosquitoes descended in thick black clouds of doom and banished us to our vans for the evening. Swatting, swearing…

Campsites in the mountains of New Mexico where elk in heat screamed in the distance and frost collected on our wine glasses.

Campsites in remote reservations where we refused to pay $15 for a bundle of firewood, found ourselves completely alone with nature, and ran around gathering in the wilderness instead.

So many campsites. 

A couple Airbnbs, a few nasty motels. One so nasty it belongs on an episode of crime scene investigation instead of my blog post.

And in between, Route 66! Graceland! Las Vegas strip. Hoover Dam. A corner in Winslow Arizona. New Orleans! We even visited Chip and Joanne’s Magnolia in Waco Texas on my Mom’s leg of the trip. We got around.

We covered some miles. 6100 to be exact.  Not all miles are the same though. And they definitely can’t be measured in number.

We can only measure by Biscuits and mutton busters, Hello Kitty glasses at the Mexican border in El Paso, the Tabasco Factory, beignets at Café du Monde, random grazing bison on the side of the road, and priceless moments with Mom. 

Unfortunately I had to share these beignets

Good times with Mom!!!

  
And then there are friends. It ties us back to the magical world of cruising and I marvel at how far and wide the ties take us. 

We had three massive cruiser reunions as our trip finale. St Pete, Punta Gorda, Fort Pierce. Taken in by friends, we shared sailing memories, shared our trip stories and confirmed for ourselves how special this life we live, truly is.

 

A lifetime in a year - lessons in doing without and gaining so much more

The things I’ve learned in one year:

I can live without toasters – if we really need some dried crispy bread, we can throw it under the broiler for a few seconds on each side… sigh too much work. So as I said, I can live without toast. Plus, there's french toast which involves a frying pan and butter... I can DO that!

I can live without a microwave – though reheating leftovers is more of a challenge and more incentive to eat everything on the first night!

I can live without long hot showers – this just makes me appreciate any visit to a marina or trip to visit family. Not sure I could live without a long hot shower FOREVER….

I can live without ironed clothes – if someone hadn’t ironed our clothes for us in Ghana, I’d have discovered this much earlier. Ironing is NOT an essential in my life! Bring on the wrinkles and creases.

I can live without high-heeled shoes – I could barely walk in these on land, now imagine wobbling and crawling in and out of a moving dinghy onto a moving boat or a non-moving jetty. That spells broken ankle. I’ll take flip flops any day. Wouldn’t mind if I never saw a close-toed shoe of any description again in my life. Plus since I spend lots of time on beaches and boats, I can wear my sole-less bead shoes!

I can live without cable TV – provided I can download some good movies from time to time using a good wifi, for those rare quiet evenings on board.

I can live without air-conditioning in 32 degree weather and 90 percent humidity – this is only because I have no choice. But let me tell you, I gasp with pleasure on every shopping trip when we step inside a crisp cool store… ahhhhhh

I love games! – we’ve become hooked on playing a domino game called Mexican Train. I could gather a group every day and play and play. I lose every game which might be why I need to keep playing. Statistically I’d have to win at least once if I kept playing, right? We’ve also been doing a weekly trivia quiz which I love, even though the prize is a bottle of toxic rum punch – made with 70 proof blindness-inducing pure alcohol. Yikes

I need to learn how to provision – It’s impossible for me to hit the grocery store less than twice a week. I can’t imagine buying kilos of rice or flour at once. I buy the small size of everything and wonder why the hell I did that when I wake up to an empty coffee jar and I’m floating out in a bay, that’s a dinghy and bus ride away from any store…

Cruising is a real lifestyle. All around me are people who don’t work in the classical sense – as in, they do not get paid – but whose days are filled from morning to night with chores, jobs, projects. But the upsides are infinite. They travel, they party, they try new things. They sacrifice and compromise on stuff. Things. Irrelevant really, in the big scheme of things. They swim with turtles and sting rays and lie in hammocks under swaying palm trees any day of the week. They might have had no sleep on an overnight passage or a windy, stormy night in the anchorage, but by morning they’ve arrived in a new bay or wake up to a bright warm sunshine.

You DO NOT need a lot of money to be a cruiser. There are boats out here that cost anywhere from USD$20,000 to $2,000,000. People live on budgets of USD$500 to $5,000 a month!!!

What you need to become a cruiser is a leap of faith, a willingness to ‘let go’ – of things and of the everyday ties of family and friends. You need to love freedom and adventure and a few challenges around every corner. The lifestyle gives you lots of pleasure and a fair helping of frustration. Oh, and lots of rum. In the Caribbean that is.

You must not be a planner, as every plan we have, from when to do laundry, to which country to travel to next and when, CHANGES. On a whim. Or during a chat with other cruisers over a game of Mexican Train and a rum punch.

But contrary to what my blog would have you believe, you do NOT have to be an extrovert or big socializer. In fact, many cruisers keep completely to themselves. Some prefer the lapping of the waves to the company of boisterous boaties, and that is perfectly acceptable. Some of us partiers appreciate the down days too!

I never knew how important the weather could be. To be a cruiser, you must be obsessed with the weather. Or at least it helps. Cruisers discuss storms and wind and tropical waves daily. Many times a day. 

We look at this site... alot.

 But if the weather is right, you can find yourself on the full moon, in the evening, rafted up in your dinghy, with 6 or more others, with snacks and drinks, drifting through the anchorage, cajoling the boats as you go, and marveling at the bright glowing orb in the sky. It beats sitting in front of reruns on cable TV, I’ve realised. 

There's the full moon! Just right of the beer...

It’s better than coming home after a stressful day in an office, with recirculated air, feelin frustrated and stagnated… even if you do get caught in the rain or soaked in salt water on your little journey.

I’ve realized I’m in exactly the right spot, even if that spot moves constantly, and knowing there are a million spots to anchor that could take us the rest of our days to discover, I’m in!!!!! 

One of our favourite uninhabited anchorages - Anse La Roche, Carriacou