I always promised I would come back to this. That I would finish Vespa Vagabond. Well, I'm here. I am back!
Late last night, when I dug out my notes and journals from the ride, two loose sheets of paper fell out of one of my journals. Columns of numbers scribbled in smudged pencil. A tally of my expenses from the ride.
If you read Honey Rock Dawn - this post in particular - you've glimpsed my obscene compulsion to organize data. When the ride was over (I don't remember doing this, but the handwriting is most certainly mine, as is the motive) I tallied up my receipts. In categories. With my gas receipts, I made note of the date, the city and state, the cost per gallon at that particular station, the amount of gallons (or fractions thereof) purchased, and the dollar total.
Some highlights ~
First gas receipt: July 28, 2005; San Francisco, CA
Final gas receipt: September 28, 2005; Rockville, CT
Lowest price of gas: $2.369/gallon in Cokeville, WY; August 10, 2005
Highest price of gas: $3.379/gallon in upstate NY; September 18, 2005
Minimum fill-up: 0.220 gallons near Baker, NV; August 6, 2010
Maximum fill-up: 1.493 gallons in Emmetsburg, IA; September 6, 2010
Total spent (two months, 6,000 miles) ~
on gas: $152.95
on lodging: $288.13
on food + misc: $406.38
My remarkable little Vespa used just 46 gallons of gas to cross the continent. I'm so glad I make (and keep) these obsessive charts; I never would have remembered these details otherwise!
2.27.2011
8.01.2009
Hello Out There..... (echo... echo....?)
It's been a year and a half since I've been on this blog; I'm amazed I remembered the password! I'm here to say that yes, I am coming back to Vespa Vagabond. ((I just don't know when.)) My ride across the continent was too spectacular and too special to simply leave this blog and this story half-told.
But I can't dive into it right now. Writing memoir, at least for me, demands that I go back completely to the time and relive it - every detail, every smell, every feeling - I have to see it and feel it in order to write it. I become fully immersed to the point of probably seeming crazy and the past is more real than the present. I don't know how other writers work, but this is the only way I know how.
While writing The Daily Coyote, I split my time between working with Charlie, and going into the past and writing. I did nothing else. I did not cook, I did not see my friends, I rarely showered. I lived and breathed my first year with Charlie in order to write the book, breaking only to spend time with Charlie.
And while I loved living that way for the time that I did - it was surreal and dreamlike and so utterly romantic - I am not ready to go back into that space quite yet. I want to live in the present. I want to do things, notice what's around me, create with my hands, have adventures with my animals and the people I love.
And with the way I work, I can't do all those things and write about the past (Vespa Vagabond) at the same time. I have no idea if I'm explaining myself very well, but the point is, I love Vespa Vagabond. I will return to it. Sorry I can't give you a timeframe.
Happy Trails!
But I can't dive into it right now. Writing memoir, at least for me, demands that I go back completely to the time and relive it - every detail, every smell, every feeling - I have to see it and feel it in order to write it. I become fully immersed to the point of probably seeming crazy and the past is more real than the present. I don't know how other writers work, but this is the only way I know how.
While writing The Daily Coyote, I split my time between working with Charlie, and going into the past and writing. I did nothing else. I did not cook, I did not see my friends, I rarely showered. I lived and breathed my first year with Charlie in order to write the book, breaking only to spend time with Charlie.
And while I loved living that way for the time that I did - it was surreal and dreamlike and so utterly romantic - I am not ready to go back into that space quite yet. I want to live in the present. I want to do things, notice what's around me, create with my hands, have adventures with my animals and the people I love.
And with the way I work, I can't do all those things and write about the past (Vespa Vagabond) at the same time. I have no idea if I'm explaining myself very well, but the point is, I love Vespa Vagabond. I will return to it. Sorry I can't give you a timeframe.
Happy Trails!
1.10.2008
Ciao For Now
Some things have come up which necessitate putting this blog and the stories of my ride on hold. It's not over, nor forgotten, just on pause while I finish some other projects. I'll be back in the fall.
EDITED 12/8: Yes, I know it's winter, it's a blizzard out my window at the moment. Am touched that many of you are eager for more installments, however, I am trying to survive my life right now, and until my band of clones gets delivered, I would appreciate your patience. Posts will resume when they do.
EDITED 12/8: Yes, I know it's winter, it's a blizzard out my window at the moment. Am touched that many of you are eager for more installments, however, I am trying to survive my life right now, and until my band of clones gets delivered, I would appreciate your patience. Posts will resume when they do.
12.02.2007
Q & A: The Camera
A week before I set out on the ride, my beloved Canon A2 camera body broke after seven faithful years of hard use. One of the dials lost its traction and spun freely, rendering the camera useless.
I really didn't have money lying around for a new camera. I had just bought some spendy leather pants, and the details of the trip ahead were all unknowns, including the financials. So, instead of buying a camera equivalent to the A2, I decided to throw down $99 for a cheap, discontinued Rebel body - my logic being that, essentially, a camera body is just a little box that keeps the film dark. I shoot strictly manually and never use the programmed settings.
However, the body is only half the camera; there is the lense, as well, and though I like shooting with a more basic body, I never compromise on a lense. I only took one lense on the trip, my delectable 28-70 f2.8 Canon L Series lense, a lense that still makes me swoon every time I hold it. It is gorgeous; heavy; worthy of being the centerpiece on a dining room table - if I had a dining room table...if I had a dining room.
Anyway, along with being cheap, the Rebel body is extremely light, and with my lense attached, it was totally unbalanced - it felt like I was holding a lense with a growth on the back of it rather than a camera with a lense on it, and it made shooting with one hand impossible. None of this was the end of the world, but it was definitely a nuisance.
It should be noted that everything I have said about camera bodies here pertains to film cameras. I shot film on the trip, not digital. I love film, with a deep, romantic love that will never die. The names alone - Portra VC, TMAX 3200 - make my heart flutter, as does the smell of processing chemicals, the time alone under a dim red light bringing images to life.
But, these things are as foreign in Wyoming as palm trees, and so when I moved here, I began shooting digital. Charlie's early photos were shot with a borrowed Nikon D70, which was a great camera, but I yearned for my sexy Canon lense and recently bought a Canon EOS 30D. It reminds me of my A2 - fewer bells or whistles than the other models, but savvy enough for one to be confident in, and it has a nice heft, creating the perfect balance.
I really didn't have money lying around for a new camera. I had just bought some spendy leather pants, and the details of the trip ahead were all unknowns, including the financials. So, instead of buying a camera equivalent to the A2, I decided to throw down $99 for a cheap, discontinued Rebel body - my logic being that, essentially, a camera body is just a little box that keeps the film dark. I shoot strictly manually and never use the programmed settings.
However, the body is only half the camera; there is the lense, as well, and though I like shooting with a more basic body, I never compromise on a lense. I only took one lense on the trip, my delectable 28-70 f2.8 Canon L Series lense, a lense that still makes me swoon every time I hold it. It is gorgeous; heavy; worthy of being the centerpiece on a dining room table - if I had a dining room table...if I had a dining room.
Anyway, along with being cheap, the Rebel body is extremely light, and with my lense attached, it was totally unbalanced - it felt like I was holding a lense with a growth on the back of it rather than a camera with a lense on it, and it made shooting with one hand impossible. None of this was the end of the world, but it was definitely a nuisance.
It should be noted that everything I have said about camera bodies here pertains to film cameras. I shot film on the trip, not digital. I love film, with a deep, romantic love that will never die. The names alone - Portra VC, TMAX 3200 - make my heart flutter, as does the smell of processing chemicals, the time alone under a dim red light bringing images to life.
But, these things are as foreign in Wyoming as palm trees, and so when I moved here, I began shooting digital. Charlie's early photos were shot with a borrowed Nikon D70, which was a great camera, but I yearned for my sexy Canon lense and recently bought a Canon EOS 30D. It reminds me of my A2 - fewer bells or whistles than the other models, but savvy enough for one to be confident in, and it has a nice heft, creating the perfect balance.
11.27.2007
11.05.2007
Fifty-Nine Days In
I can’t stop grinning this morning - and it’s more than grinning; hysterical laughing, actually, and cackling, and uncontrollable stoner giggling. I wonder what I look like to passing cars - leathered out on a Vespa, ponytail flapping, cracking up laughing.
The mellow highway turns into Main Street; a boy, about thirteen years old, hangs out of the back window of a minivan in the lane next to me. He’s smiling right at me, half his body leaning out the window, one arm raised in a strong and enthusiastic thumbs-up. It gives me a smile that lasts for blocks.
I notice that when I’m spontaneously smiling down the road, kids on the sidewalks and in cars around me smile and wave in return.
The mellow highway turns into Main Street; a boy, about thirteen years old, hangs out of the back window of a minivan in the lane next to me. He’s smiling right at me, half his body leaning out the window, one arm raised in a strong and enthusiastic thumbs-up. It gives me a smile that lasts for blocks.
I notice that when I’m spontaneously smiling down the road, kids on the sidewalks and in cars around me smile and wave in return.
10.13.2007
Going Somewhere, Always
Between the head and the heart is the voice, and our voice reflects our choices: the way we reconcile what we think and what we feel; what we know and what we desire. Our voice reaches the world through the manner in which we live - sound is unnecessary; we show others who we are by the way we go through life, and touch everyone we meet with who we are in that moment.
9.04.2007
7.17.2007
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