05/12/02, 10:07pm:

I took it easy today - didn't do much more then move into the trailer. I did go to town and take a shower.

This evening I visited with my new neighbors Kyle and Nikki, a nice couple. They are renting Tom's place since he has moved away to his new job. Kyle just got out of the Marines and is now a deputy boot sheriff, meaning he will be attending a cop's boot camp into September. They spend about 8 hours a day in a classroom, plus hard physical training, etc.. When you think about it, those people have to know all the laws, inside and out, as well as any attorney, who are often the ones they pull over for speeding.

After I varnished the sides of the trailer, I patched the bigger gaps with wood filler, belt sanded the whole thing, and then more varnish. This took a few days.

Then the magic began. I primed the entire trailer white. By now I was into late nights, painting by van light. I wanted to get this done so I can head east, but I also really wanted to see what it was going to look like. The next day, I applied the white top coat. The next, the beige, and that I did a few times because it was doing a nice job of filling in the gaps I hadn't gotten with wood filler. The Walmart paint is great stuff - it stays on the bristles, thick, and yet spreads nicely into a smooth tough finish.

It really looks nice, even without the windows. It is like looking at an old wrinkled but attractive lady who has carefully applied successive layers of makeup until she looks young and beautiful again, if you don't look too close. The trailer is young and beautiful again.

The next day I scraped the interior floor, and the next. My right arm ached the 1st night and began to the next but this time my tired brain remembered the Advil - there were no aches that night. I removed all remaining partitions, except the wall to the bedroom, and all of the trim that covered every seam. I dribbled glue into all floor seams, then wood filled them and all nail & screw heads. I could have done a lot more of that on the walls & ceiling but that, and various repairs, will have to wait for my return.

Then began the interior belt sanding which turned out to take about two days and was grueling. I was after the graffiti and the loose paint only, and of course the floor. For this I wore my air filter mask, ear muffs, glasses and baseball cap. My clothing turned a bluish green. My knees turned black through the holes in the pants. To take a coffee or noon or night break meant first hanging my weary head under the cold but cleansing tap at the water tank and removing my cruddy clothes outside. I never want to do that again, and yet there are guys that belt sand for a living - every day - my God!

Yesterday, after a final vacuuming, I varnished almost everything I had sanded and all seams. The seams are important, if just to immortalize any microscopic creatures that may have escaped the "409" and the vacuumings. This was also in preparation for taping and wood filling the seams when I return, instead of attaching new trim (molding). I'll then paint the entire interior.

Today is a wonderful day - all the crud work is done.

Nothing filthy shall enter this trailer! So I went for a shower, but first laid my velour double air mattress out on the stone driveway, spilled buckets of water all over it, sprayed it with "Simple Green" and scrubbed it. Thus was gone six months of mouse pee. I tied it to the top of the tent to let the sun do its thing. Beginning with the plywood bed, one by one, I cleaned each Rubbermaid box of clothing or whatever and carried it into the trailer and found a good place for it. Only the kitchen stuff remained because I don't want to cook in the trailer until all the windows are in and the bugs are out.

It was interesting to note that as I carried my temperature gauge out of the tent, it said 101 degrees. After having been in the trailer awhile, it said 87 degrees.

I took my nap in there today. It was nice. A cool breeze passed over me from time to time. Mo and I shall sleep in there tonight. He is filthy from laying in the dirt, so I have him laying on the blanket covered bench seat in the van, and I'll run him to the trailer before he can lay in the dirt again. I'll have to remember to shake the army blanket out from time to time.

Tomorrow, the tarp wrapped platform and frame I call a tent will go on top of the box trailer. This will be backed over the rock drive to the new site and set on blocks out of the way. Then the house trailer will be towed over the drive to the new site and set near its new location but angled so I can hopefully get the van out without moving more rocks or cutting down bushes. That will be a trick. Then somehow with a combination of selective wheel blocking and cabling from the rear, it will be turned, rolled and jockeyed into position. I was going to simply back it in and set it down, but this would leave it with the picture window facing up into the hill, which is fine with me. When I told Eileen about this plan she said "Oh no! The picture window must look out over the valley." And I said "That means I would have to drive the van through rocks, boulders and bushes to get it out". She said "I don't care - you can do it".


05/13/02, 10:27 pm:

Mo and I slept in the trailer last night. It would have been nice except that he kept making a grumbling whine all night long. I assumed that he just didn't like the change or something and he would get used to it. But he didn't! Finally, I got up late in the night and let him out, and waited out there in my underclothes. In less then five minutes, he was back and ready to leap back into the trailer. So, okay; he needed to go to the bathroom. Strange time though.

Then the whining began again after awhile. I yelled at him to "Shut up and lie down!", which he did, for awhile, then I yelled again. In the morning, I got dressed and feeling a bit grumpy, I let him out the door. Then I saw it - a brown lumpy puddle christening my newly varnished floor - diarrhea. I got my stash of used but cleanish paper towels, water, "Simple Green" and an empty bread bag and cleaned it up. I like to do this kind of thing before my first coffee because I'm not really awake yet, and therefore it does not revolt me as much.

I really felt like a heel. I apologized and he was visibly relieved that I was not mad at him. He seemed to be fine all day, maybe a little lackadaisical, but it was hot out. He is fast asleep in the back of the van now so I guess everything is okay. If I hear him whine tonight, I'll get up and open the door.

I have moved the tent to the new site. However, it took all morning just to get it on top of the box trailer. I spent the first few hours doing it the hard and risky way, that of sliding it up two long 2x4s by using another 2x4 to leverage it up from behind & below. When it suddenly slipped back down about two feet, I took a coffee break. This is when the easy, safe and faster way came to me. I ran my 3/4" nylon rope up over the platform and down to each bottom corner. Then I attached my new comealong winch (broke the old one) to that and ran it to my 8' iron leverage bar which I tied vertically to the front of the box trailer. This worked real nice. The tent just slid the rest of the way up and then tipped down onto two more 2x4s that were laid on the roof of the trailer.

I tied it down and towed it out with the van and backed it down to its new location. This must have been a fascinating sight, but I don't think anyone was around to see it. After my noon nap and coffee, I reversed the process and it gently slid down the 2x4s and came to rest on the ground. I jostled it into a corner and drove out with the box trailer to leave as much room as possible for maneuvering the house trailer tomorrow.

Then came the big moment - the one I had been anticipating with trepidation for over a year. I removed a tire from the box trailer and rolled it over to the house trailer. I jacked up one side of the latter and tried it out. I couldn't get it between the wheel well bottom edge and the spindle at the center of the wheel hub. However, I found that with a bit of careful prying with a small pry bar, I could slowly work the tire up behind the wheel well edge until it passed the spindle and slipped on up into the well and onto the hub.Then, would the lug nuts and holes match up? They did, exactly - the tire fit. What a relief. I guess the house trailer used to have smaller tires, especially since there is less then a half inch to spare between the tire and the front of the wheel well. I'll have to move very slowly tomorrow - no bouncing allowed.


05/14/02, 10:17 pm:

The trailer is now sitting in its new and semi-permanent location. One day I'll get a good road up into the hill and then the trailer will be moved again, but that may be a few years. There are a number of nice arroyos (mini-plateaus) with magnificent views.

It still needs some maneuvering which I'll do in the morning. I ran out of daylight. I was only able to pull it as far as the bottom of the rock drive at the top of the site. I needed the remainder just to jockey the van around so I could get it out. As it is, I did have to drive through a few bushes that I had hoped to preserve. They'll grow back. The rest of the move, I did by hand pulling it until the wheels were off the drive and in the dirt, then rotating it 90 degrees and moving it down into the site until the tongue reached the rock wall at the bottom. Tomorrow I'll rotate and jostle it until the picture window is looking directly south out over the valley and the rear is not blocking the driveway.

Before I detached it from the van, I attached my 60 foot 3/4" nylon Marine Corps rope to the trailer's axle and a loop in the rope to the winch secured to my 8 foot iron bar running behind two boulders 30 feet away. Got that? (Look at the picture.) This I did so the trailer would not run over me and crash into the tent or the rocks.

My only quandary was that the tongue now needed a wheel. What I did was get my dolly out of the far end of the box trailer. That is a small rectangle of solid oak with a rubber cap on each end and 4 good rubber wheels. However, it is only about 5" high. I also moved boxes of tools etc. back into the bedroom at the rear so that the tongue at the front would become relatively light. I then got my portable work bench where everything is adjustable, inverted it, set it on top of the dolly between boards, and cranked the upside-down bench top open until it locked in. I then rolled it into and around the jacked up tongue until it came to rest on a crossbar of the bench. This I secured with a web clamp. Now the tongue had 4 wheels. So basically all I had to do was guide this contraption along after releasing some of the pressure on the winch at the other end. There were glitches here and there, but another iron pry bar took care of them. My shiny new white paint on the tongue took a few dings, but I can live with that.

One frustrating episode was when half way through the move, my camera hit 0. Well, no way was I going to miss chronicling this adventure, so I stopped the move in freeze frame and unloaded the 138 pictures that were in the camera into the computer. This took about an hour and three quarters. Then, not too long after that the camera's batteries lost their charge, so I had to stop and recharge them. This was good in a way; it gave me time to think my maneuvers through over cups of coffee and my noon beer. Oh yes - I got breakfast out of this too, which I probably needed.


Something else:

I drink a lot of water out here, or I thought I did. One night, about 3 or 4 weeks ago, I awoke with an extraordinarily dry mouth. I could hardly open it because everything in there was stuck together as though the saliva had dried up and turned to glue. I had never experienced anything like this before. I can't say I was all that thirsty; just dried up. I assumed this was a symptom of dehydration. A few slugs of water from the jug fixed the problem and I went back to sleep. I had to nearly pry my lips open just to do that. It happened again to a lesser degree almost every night after that.

I began to pay attention to what I was doing - during the day, usually out in the sun, I would feel a pang of thirst and almost unconsciously say "I'll get a drink of water after I finish this", "this" being whatever I was working on, and end up getting that drink maybe an hour or so later. I got to thinking that maybe this was not a good idea.

The body asks for water. If it doesn't get that water, then it draws on the H2O that is in less important parts of the body, such as the saliva. Something like that. This leads to dehydration.

Now I have a rule: whenever I even think of getting a drink, thirsty or not, I stop what I'm doing and go get it. I generally have a jug within reach at all times now.

Funny, I am adamant about making absolutely sure that the animals always have water available, even in the car or van. My dad, from his upbringing on a Montana ranch, had always emphasized that you take care of the animals before you take care of yourself. Well I did that, except I guess I didn't worry about the latter part too much.

May 27, 2002 8:58 AM Your websites are so unique, colorful, and really, really nice. I have another picture site,,,, go to clubphoto.com and type in jcarterATcapecod.net. The slide show mode is neat. See you soon, Janie
(Van's note: change the AT to an @. Another note in 2007: it no longer works.)


05/31/02, 9:57 pm EST:

The thunder is rumbling across the night sky like a hundred bowling balls 100 feet in diameter rolling across a long wooden bridge invisible to the eye. Sharp, bright crackling barbed sabers of lightning are splitting the sky in all directions turning it as bright as day up above the tall trees for an instant, and then pitch black, sometimes repeating this display of raw power 2 or 3 times a second. One slams straight down overhead splitting the ear drums, shattering the eyesight and tingling the nerves. Mo moves closer. Missy continues to sleep comfortably. The rain pours in a steady flow straight down - no wind. You can hear it falling down the roof and into the gutters above and splashing out onto the ancient brick below the downspouts. Sirens begin to scream on the highway beyond the alternately silhouetted bushes out front. Storms like this are one thing I miss when I'm in Joshua Tree, that and the endless deep green of the trees, bushes, underbrush and grass.

I've been back about three days now, sleeping a lot. I'm out on the screened porch to watch the show and tell you about it. Eileen is upstairs in bed stitching her new quilt to be, or perhaps asleep by now. That big bed over the soft off-white carpet and under the lightly flowered walls and ceiling is what she missed in JT. The show is over, but it may return and the rain will probably continue through the night.

............

Now I'm back in my office deep inside this big house. Two hundred years ago it was a "birthing room". It is torn apart and I'm having trouble remembering how to put it back together. It is a small office and things need to be placed right or I'll be banging into file cabinet corners, door edges and such. Eileen snuck in here while I was gone and thoroughly cleaned and painted it. It took courage for her to eventually tell me on the phone before I arrived, so that I would not be as shocked when I discovered it. There are a lot of high and low tech wires to run behind the legs of things that will become too heavy to slightly move aside for that purpose after I load them with books, paper, computer paraphernalia and odd things I've found over the years like dinosaur eggs and scale weights. If I forget one wire, then that one will tangle around my feet over the years to come because I laid it in front of the legs that had become immovable. That is why I said "NO!" in panic each time she suggested over the last few years that the room needed painting. But, it did need it and it looks nice.

.............

It took 3.5 days to make that 3000 mile transition - about 85 hours including 3 motel nights, 7 fill-ups, breakfasts and dinners, a few stops for additional coffee, and a number of urgent 'rest stop' pull-overs to get rid of it. It included the 60 mile detour around the horrible tragedy in Oklahoma that preceded me by about 9 hours. It also included a coffee visit with my sister Hannah, Chet and Ginny in New Jersey. With the exception of the horrifying nighttime plunge through the congested and twisted narrow stretch between the George Washington Bridge and New Haven at a compulsory-or-die break-neck and tooth-jarring speed, the going was very smooth. I-40 through the southern states was generally a very nice and spacious road with 70 MPH usually the posted speed limit. Being Saturday, Sunday and a holiday, the traffic was light and the numerous construction zones were unmanned and of minimal hindrance. I must remember to schedule future trips around that configuration, though I-40 will not be a good option until the Oklahoma bridge is rebuilt. Traveling north on I-81 from Tennessee to Massachusetts in one final flat-out push was almost as good through Pennsylvania, but that was Tuesday and people were back into rush-hours and the full flow of commerce.

.............

On Friday the 24th at exactly noon, the job was done. The exterior of the trailer was tight, sealed and looking good, except for some trim I'll put around the picture window when I return. By 1:30 that night, everything was put away or packed into or onto the van and I went to sleep with that quiet good feeling of having accomplished something. At 6:30 I was up and making my final cup of coffee. By 8:00 I had said goodbye to the neighbors I had missed the night before, taken another 50 or so pictures, and quietly slowly drove out without looking back. Lightfoot was not around but he had spent a couple days with us two days before.

We stopped in town where I ate a solid breakfast of cakes, eggs, bacon, OJ and coffee at The Country Kitchen. At 9:00 we headed east along Route 62 and then northeast over a hot two hour stretch of old cracked back roads through arid desert until we reached I-40 and crossed the river.




.............

I did not take many pictures on the trip because I wanted to keep moving. On the trip out I found that taking them from a moving vehicle generally did not work out so I didn't bother - besides, I like to keep my full focus on the road. There were a few times where if I had been messing with my camera at that moment, I would have ended up wrapped around or bouncing over something unexpected in the road.

Mo has had a bath and I a couple of showers since our return. Eileen made me a delicious fluffy white cake with fudge icing, the promise of which would have been reason enough to get me home. The van has been thoroughly vacuumed and Windexed inside and hosed (and rained on) outside so it looks enormously better then it did on arrival. There is an interesting observation in that. Wind blown and foot trekked Joshua Tree soil and small stone has traveled 3000 miles to ultimately mingle with the soil of our Sandwich home. I like the feel of that. I plan to empty the Shop-Vac into the compost pile so that its contents also end their journey here. There are even a few cactus burrs in there.

I have resumed my ad in the paper, "Van Blakeman, The Computor Tutor, computing since 1969...", and that is the focus that I am now returning to. This will probably be the final newsletter. However, I have plenty of photo work to do and I'll let you know when that is done and on the web site.

It has been a true blessing having you wonderful people to share this journey with over the last six months.

Thank you.


June 01, 2002 11:24 AM
Glad you are back home. At one time I thought a big black bear was going to come out of the woods and get you when you were taking one of those nice long showers with a bucket of water. Jerry

June 01, 2002 4:00 PM
My dad had one of those bears come upon him in a similar manner. He growled at it and it ran away. Van

June 01, 2002 4:44 PM
Glad to read that you made it back to the Cape. From some of your experiences I sometimes thought he's going to kill himself. It has been interesting following your stories. Clem