5/30- The Great Left Turn

Amy and Corrin were long off to work at school by the time we awoke that morning. The house was freezing, but they had left us coffee and a fridge full of things to cook. We had only coffee, as is our way, but we thought about cooking it for a bit. The decision not to cook came from the fact that Stacey was soon to be arriving to drive us out for a day at Bash Bish Falls together. This was to be our big left turn west that we kept talking about. It did, however, mean that we wouldn't be taking Alex up on his offer to train as street performers in Boston that day. I made sure to give him a call the day before to let him know, and it turned out it was actually Monday we were supposed to go anyway. Ah well.

After a bit of futzing about Stacey showed up around 11:30. I had one pit stop to make, that I thought would take maybe ten minutes, which was to cancel my cell plan with Verizon and switch to a prepaid arrangement. The aggravation in that was that I would have to pay the $100 contract breaking fee, which I really didn't like the idea of mostly because I think signing a two year contract is absolute bullshit for attaining a phone. In the end, however, it would save me about $300. For all those who wish to call me, the switch to that plan leaves me with a Saturday phone day. On Saturday's I'll turn my phone on and get all the voicemails sent to me, and I'll be able to make all my calls that day and talk as long as I want until midnight. The rest of the week the phone will be off.

This switch took about an hour and a half rather than the ten minutes I was hoping for. In the meantime, Stacey took care of some of her phoning business then sat with Todd in the car the rest of the time. As they sat there whiling away the minutes an novel idea struck her. She had apparently taken a few days off next week connected with her weekend, but hadn't really come up with what she was going to do with them. She knew she was due for a road trip but was uncertain as to where to go. We were looking to make our way out to Michigan for Todd's family reunioning end of this trip, so she connected the dots and decided she wanted to road trip with us out there. This altered everything in a heavenly way.

Once finished at Verizon we flew down the back road of route 57 to Bash Bish Falls working this idea of getting to Michigan in a week around in our heads. The adventure sounded great, and on top of it she wouldn't be leaving until that Saturday which allotted us the rest of the week to fuck around in the woods. It was precisely what we needed.

Bash Bish is a park tucked away in the southwestern corner of Massachusetts on its border to Connecticut and New York. We took our time getting out there in true Stacey travel fashion, stopping in at the Granville General Store to get some local cheese and just to look around as we go. Once at the falls we hopped over rocks, experimented with underwater pictures, and just relaxed. Because of our lackadaisical delay Stacey had but an hour or so there before having to turn back, but this was done with the promise to return in four days for our road trip to the Midwest.

After she left, Todd and I dove into the forest. The park is relatively far removed from any towns nearby for those hobbling around on foot with big packs. It was only a few miles from the little town of Copake Falls, or Hillsdale, NY nearby, but for us we were in the wilds at last. Crossing over the creek by a fallen tree we made our way into seclusion where we decided we would practice our camp craft.

For three nights we stayed tucked away literally seeing no other people until we emerged again on Friday. Most mornings we'd hear kids playing down the stream, but other than that nothing. To add to our wilds, however, it did rain on and off the entire time we were out there. For me it was nice though. After the first night of unanticipated wetness we decided to build ourselves a lean to from the tarps. Todd had already constructed a fire pit in our site, which we used nightly despite the rain, so this tarp home added to the sense of semi-permanence for our stay. The stability, seclusion, and roughness to the setting was perfect for us to detox from people. All the events that had just unfolded over the past month were given time to simply settle in my consciousness in preparation for me to truly process them over the next few weeks.

I filled the days with wandering off on hikes on my own, or messing about with the camp, often just sitting and talking with Todd as well. By Friday, however, we felt ready to uproot again and move a little further west before Stacey came. We packed up slowly and meandered down the little winding road to a campsite on the New York side of the park. There we looked over the general store, talked with the cute ranger girls there to find out about park fees for camping, and sat at the picnic tables for a while munching on peanut butter and tortillas reading the wise words scrawled across the wood. Todd also got himself a pack of cigarettes after a few days of not smoking. The intriguing part I thought about that was that he said he wasn't craving them, he just wanted them.

A little before sunset we pushed past the park and got on to the north/south running road of route 22 heading to Hillsdale. A few miles down there we ducked into the woods and nested in with another lean-to for the night. These constructions had suddenly become quite important because that first rainy night in the woods left Todd discovering his new Minimalist bivy was simply water resistant and not water proof. The resistance had not held up that first night, and for all of this time he was dealing with a damp sleeping bag which the lean-to prevented from becoming a soaked sleeping bag.

Saturday we made our way up the road a little further to a farm stand. As we were passing it it was almost a whim as we looked at each other in agreement that we could use some grapes or fruit of some sort to breakfast on. We got well more than we bargained for and made some new additions to the great people we've been meeting on this trip.

Sauntering in hoping for coffee and grapes we ended up talking with the owner of the place, Tony. He's an old vet who's nestled in now to this little stretch of land and runs the family farme stand. He seemed intrigued by our packs and after getting into some conversation with us invited us to sit on his patio out front. We got some coffee and a bag of cherries and took him up on it while he roamed about doing his chores.

Not long after sitting down his son, Keith, wandered over to say hi. We got to talking with him for quite a while about our travels, his interests in history, and general family history of the place, but most keenly we got into our strange brand of politics as well. It always intrigues me the number of people one runs across who will talk about their preparations for societies crumbling. Its always been a fascinating subject for me since I was a kid, and of course people don't generally talk seriously about it, but there is always this shy hinting when like minds get around each other that they are ready. Paranoid and crazy, perhaps, but its an interesting notion, and I for one see it more as a period of rebuilding rather than destruction.

While we were there Keith would come and go as customers came and went, but he kept coming back picking up on the last thread we'd leave off on. At one point he came back with a couple of gatorade bottles for us to have, then as we were leaving his mom gave us a box of lemon cookies. It was just a great meeting, and to feel that generosity again and have the common bond of interest and inspiring conversation was good for our reemergence back to people after Bash Bish.

We made our way further up the road from there and soon enough we were in Hillsdale proper. Our first stop was the library were we stopped in to do some email checking and updating. Todd got a bit more time than I did as I was nominated to walk down to the nearest pay phone and upload our Pocketmail posts. The nearest pay phone turned out to be almost a mile down the road, so I had just time enough to check an email or two before the library closed at 4.

From there we hit up our old standby, a diner. Cheap good food, bottomless cups of coffee, and almost guaranteed to have a good feel with good people. We weren't disappointed as we sat talking a bit with the folks there and watching their kids play. Around 6 we crossed the street and hung out in a park for the last hour before Stacey was expected to arrive. It was a Saturday, so it was the first of my new "phone days". I turned it on and made some calls out to get in touch with people, but mostly reached voicemails. I did, however, reach my sister who I talked to most of that hour we waited. By 7pm we found out Stacey was right down the road and we'd soon be in her car traveling west.

Click here for Todd's perspective.