Day Two... Adjustments
I wake up to the view of the lake out the back doors of my van that I’ve been dreaming of. I want to sit at the table and drink a cup of coffee and write. That’s what I’ve been picturing for some weeks now. I heat up water on my gas stove in a little kettle I’ve taken from my Mom’s house. That’s a mitzvah, by the way, an act of charity, the best gift I can give as a son is to take things from her house. There are two options for my Mother, the first is that every single item is in its proper place. The second is that it gets out of the house. Myself, I alternate between fitting in either category. I’ve also taken her coffee press. And a few spoons and a salt and pepper shaker. I’m a good boy. The camper is dotted with curated items from each of my family members that pretty much represent them. On my dashboard I’ve mounted a clay sculpture of Bojack Horseman my sister made me. (If you’ve never seen the episode Escape From L.A. it’s essential viewing.) She also contributed a small bundle of sage that oughta come in useful for a dude living in a rolling doghouse. When there wasn’t extra room for the cooler he offered, my brother filled the freezer with homemade chili and his favorite bottle of salsa. He doesn't know it, but I snagged a mug he made when he was into pottery at 16 and I drink my coffee out of it every morning. He's an epidemiologist. I'm sure he'd have some opinion on what I might catch from the cracked glaze. My Dad gave me a single razor blade. He hates when I don’t shave. Maybe he should’ve thought of that when he kept a beard through the entirety of my adolescence. Oh well, he’s taught me other things, and I guess it’s never too late to teach me how to shave. The razor’s a good start. Of course, he also gave me my instructions to find love on this trip, so that’s not to be undervalued.
I get my pages down and I take the dog for a walk in the woods along the lakeside where the rocks are coated in moss and huge white and red mushrooms spring from fallen branches. I walked through here last night upon arrival and doubled back to gather firewood and kindling so I’m starting to feel at home. Sadie sniffs around, unfamiliar smells, new smells, there are creatures living in here. They kept her up at night.
Our first night was not easy. The campground is practically at full capacity, we were lucky to snake a lakeside spot, but there are two or three or four families who’ve built a 5th wheel city directly behind us and they play an American Classics mix all night long of Springsteen, Guns n Roses and Tom Petty while their kids ride golf carts and dirt bikes around the road. I’m not sure where all these people sleep, but the younger ones disappear around 11 at the simultaneous yells of all the parents leaving the folks to circle their campfire and speak of nothing at extremely high voices. They look to be about my age. I throw them a head nod and a wave, but it doesn’t go any further than that. I heat up leftover pizza and crack a beer and build a fire in a rock ring by the water and burn what I’ve gathered for an hour or so. When I decide to turn in, it takes Sadie a few beats to realize I’m converting her couch into my bed and she keeps jumping back up before I can finish. We end up in an awkward jammed inefficient configuration that would infuriate any Tetris addict or OCD or person sleeping there which is us. Maybe three times in the night she wakes and stares out the window and I think that she’s on guard duty or that the human creatures or woods creatures have got her attention until she actually climbs into the driver’s seat and looks out that window. She really needs to go out. We get up maybe three times and each time she races off to circle a lap around one of my neighbors’ campsites. Directly beside us is a separate family, highstrung and fat, with two dogs who seemed to be happily playing in the shallows when we first arrived, but were later less than happily fighting with each other. I’m slightly conscious of the potential for danger, I’m not a giant fucking idiot, but close. I’ve got a pocket knife in my shorts which are uselessly hanging in the back of the passenger seat while I chase my dog around in my underwear until she’s calmed down enough to go back to sleep.
This is gonna take some practice.
It’s a pretty significant disruption, for anyone, but Sadie takes disruptions in stride as long as there’s a couch and a bed. I think she’s confused that they’re one and the same in here.
Anyway.
It’s pushing noon check out time and I’m debating staying another day when a 40something woman in a golf cart and a Summersville collared shirt rolls up to ask me my plans. I’d like to stay and let my thoughts catch up with me and me with them, but I’d have to move spots and it seems like if I’m moving I might as well be moving on. We get to chatting and she tells me her name is Paula and she’s from Ohio and a few years back she and her husband sold everything and now they take jobs working campsites around the country. Sometimes they get paid, sometimes they do it volunteer. Summers in West Virginia pay for them to spend the winter pro bono in Georgia. Everywhere they go they “got their bills paid” which is very important to her. She repeats it, “We got no bills.” I don’t ask if she’s got other family, but she’s got a toy hauler and some motorbikes and all they really need to pay for is food and gas. She assumes I’m looking for the same deal. I’m not sure I am. It’s tempting, but the website she suggests is something way too on the nose like workcamps.com and when I look it up it seems to be written in German and I’d just as soon pass. It’s a good scam though. Respect.
Sadie and I roll out south on 19 then head west on Route 60 following the Gauley River all the way to Charleston. It’s winding and hilly most of the way and we have to keep it under 40 for the most part. Many of the houses we pass are decorated with 5 point stars which seem to represent state pride. I’ll have to ask someone about it before we cross into Kentucky. If there’s one regret I have on this leg, it’s that I couldn’t find a good place to double back and stop at The Mystery Hole which appeared to be a log cabin built around the body of a late 60s VW Bug and decorated with garbage and antiques. Otherwise, it’s a series of fishing spots, waterfalls and river hikes. I stop to gas up and confirm with the fisherman at the next pump that the houses on the far side of the river can only be accessed by boat. Looking down the bend, this could be the Danube, this could be Europe. All that’d change is the accent.
The lumberjacking suddenly gives way to coal country and I’m looking at long haul trucks in all directions and huge processing facilities the size of cities along the river. Towers and tipples and conveyors and my thoughts turn to passages from my father’s book he wrote after spending 4 years representing the survivors of a massive coal mining disaster in West Virginia. His book, The Buffalo Creek Disaster, has long been a cornerstone of my life, a guide to being righteous, to doing the right thing especially when you don’t know what to do. I’ve put in a call to a friend of his named Tod Kaufman, a judge in Charleston, I’m hoping he might be free for a cup of coffee when we roll through.
I’m 40 miles out of Charleston when Judge Kaufman calls me with wishes that I’d given him a little more heads-up. He’s right, like I've said, I’m not a very good planner, not with the day to day stuff, at least. The Judge has a full docket and a trial starting at 2, he’s been on vacation for the past couple weeks so it’s all stacked up on him. But he tells me about how much he loves my Dad and asks after everyone in my family and I tell him my little sister who he met years ago is pregnant with her first child and my brother is about to have his second and my father is enjoying grandparent life. Now they call him Pop-Pop. The Judge asks what I’m about and I tell him I’m on my way to Texas to see if I can help out on a campaign to get a good candidate elected in November and he wishes me well and tells me to drive safe and be careful, but if I get into any trouble give him a ring. I like this state. I blow by a block long coal barge pushing the last stretch into Charleston and I’m not sure I want to spend much time in this city, in any city really, but the golden dome of the Capitol calls to me and I can’t remember, but I’m pretty sure that’s a sentence from my Dad’s book. Or the like.
We park at a meter in the Capitol complex of state buildings and I snap the leash on Sadie and we hop down to explore. She pulls me to the military memorial on the lawn and inside where the names of West Virginians are etched. I can’t help but think of all the billboards for the Marine Corps I’ve passed along the road, all the flags, all the sculptures and monuments in the small towns, all the VFWs. This is beautiful land and it’ll nurture you if you don’t want much. It’ll give you lumber and coal and if you put your back into it, that might be enough for a house or a piece of fertile land. But if you want out, if you want to see more, if you want access to the rest of the world, there’s a couple of ways offered in abundance: get yourself an RV or enlist. This land’s been secured by all these names, these rows and rows and rows of names. And they’re longer in World War I and World War II. The lists get shorter in Korea and Vietnam. They settle down to just a handful by the time the war stories reach the Middle East. That has to be considered progress, as difficult as the implications are, fewer West Virginians are giving their lives in service and that’s progress. Sadie chases squirrels across the lawn and we pause to check out the statue of Lincoln on the riverside of the Capitol and the marker declaring that President Lincoln signed West Virginia into statehood. The same marker speaks of the 32,000 West Virginians who gave their lives in the Civil War. On the Union side. Let’s be clear. Whoever’s waving Confederate Flags in this state… is confusing.
I eat a sandwich at the base of the steps by the river and stare across at the University of Charleston on the other side before we head back to the camper. There’s a busload of sash-wearing pageant contestants clicking pictures of each other in front of the dome and Miss Rhode Island smiles and pets Sadie before the lot gets hustled back on the bus. I reach the camper just as a parking attendant is descending and I’m prepped for tension as he asks if we’re pulling out. “Just about to,” I say and he says he was gonna alert me that I left my running lights on. I notice he’s got a sack of peanuts tied to his belt and my tension vanishes. “That for the squirrels?” I ask. “Oh yeah,” he smiles, and we spend 15 minutes talking about the road. Drew’s his name, local, cheery, round, curious about Los Angeles. The traffic can’t really be as bad as they say, right? I tell him some horror stories about hourlong commutes that cover a couple miles, about pounding the wheel and shouting into lines of cars, “Why? What is the meaning of this?” He laughs at me. Welcomes me. Throws me some advice on driving to the Buffalo Creek Valley which is where I’m headed next, following my father’s footsteps. The advice was to drive safe. I don't think I got it.
The next leg’s gonna get hairy.
