Imaginary Me-

I have an Imaginary Me. I think I always have. I suspect most of us do, but many people don't feel comfortable with multiple entities living within the same cranium. They won't talk about it, write about it, or even admit it to themselves. This writing is about a particular Imaginary Me. My Imaginary Me.

Imaginary Me has been wintering in Slab City, for the most part. The winter temperatures are tolerable for a van dweller. Imaginary Me lives in the Mobile Man Cave, a Chevy conversion van adapted for camping. Life in the Southern California desert is rather simple, which appeals to Imaginary Me.

Imaginary Me doesn't have to share his pension with anyone. He doesn't have a mortgage, and has established residence in Nevada due to the lack of state income tax there. While Slab City is a central location and general place of dwelling, Imaginary Me has been wandering around the connecting corners and edges of California, Arizona and Nevada. No particular plans. Just wandering.

It is now getting warm in the desert. Imaginary Me had planned to go to Death Valley to view the spring flowers, but the Internet indicates that the flowering will be sparse this year. Perhaps another year. Even so, the time to migrate is coming upon Imaginary Me. Some uncomfortably warm morning will compel the movement to begin.

This year Imaginary Me will move through the desert to the southern terminus of U.S. Route 395, and journey north the whole length of that route. Slowly. Available free camping at comfortable temperatures will dictate where to stop, and how long. Still, over time the whole of 395 will be traversed. Once the border with Canada is reached, a new direction will be selected. That, however, is in the future.

Imaginary Me is a coping mechanism. He is the embodiment of many of my desires. Reduced responsibilities. Simplicity of lifestyle. Solitude and freedom. I do not regret my responsibilities. Managing complexity in life can be rewarding, and I do not despise that. Solitude is not a longing for loneliness, and I value family and friends. Yet I Imagine. I Imagine Me, in another life.

The life of Imaginary Me is achievable, and more rewarding now than at any other time. My iPhone provides communication, a wifi hotspot, Internet connectedness, and serves as an entertainment center within a small living space such as a van. A laptop computer provides much of the same, and a more comfortable work space. Most of what is truly needed fits in a van, and is quite portable. Imaginary Me has much to do within the context of desert days and nights. It is not a life of loneliness and boredom. It is a rich yet simple life.

Imaginary Me watches the weather on the iPhone. Temperatures and precipitation, here and there. So do I. Real World Me. We scan maps on the computer and iPhone, seeking places to go and see. Highways and byways. I await spring in Southern Oregon. Imaginary Me awaits the compelling heat to motivate a migration. I anticipate getting out into the yard and doing some projects. Getting the barbecue going. Going fishing. Imaginary Me seeks a longer journey, full of simple adventure.

Camping. Exploring Southern Oregon and Northern California, even if just a bit. Not quite life on the road, but a bit of living on the road. So many roads. Real life isn't so bad, really. Real World Me can taste what is presently only imagined.

Perhaps I shall run into Imaginary Me as I get out on the road this season.

Imagine that.

Soquel Drive, Santa Cruz, California-

I have posted my photos on Picasa, and wanted to make them available for virtual travelers. The place where I fell and broke my foot is in the mix, with a notation regarding the accident.

For those who have not read about virtual travel, I am encouraging those whom I contact on the Internet to post photos of where they live on shared photos sites, such as Google's Picasa. That way we can all travel to these places at least through shared pictures.

The idea came to me when I was doing my first virtual travel project. I was exploring some of the perimeter highways around the continental United States. I noticed that it was hard to find photos of the smaller towns around the country. I knew people lived in these places, but there were just very few photos available.

So, I thought that it would be a good project to collect photos of the area around where I live and post them. The Soquel Drive collection is the first such project. Other than falling and breaking my foot, it went rather well.

Unfortunately, people often don't find the place they live to be interesting. It is too common. However, it might prove quite interesting to other people. I know that I enjoy passing through towns as I travel. I miss the old highway systems that actually passed through towns. I go out of my way, when I can, to travel such roads.

Anyway, my little walk along Soquel Drive is presented for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

Stumble bum-

So, last Thursday I took my wife's PT Cruiser to the dealer contracted repair facility to get a leak fixed. The passenger side carpet was a puddle and set to become one of those lovely mildew factories. Stinky car. Not good. New cars should be water tight.

In arranging for the repair I met an old acquaintance, Glen McPherson. He grew up in the church my wife and I attended for many years, and like most such persons I had lost track of him. He made the service arrangements. Thursday, eight in the morning.

I arrived and dropped off the car. My plan was to get some pictures of that part of Santa Cruz to use in working on a project I had proposed on the Internet. That project was to encourage people to put photos of where they live on the Internet for virtual travelers to enjoy. I wanted to use this time to follow through on my own suggestion.

My first attempted shot told me that the batteries were depleted.

"Crap." I said. So, I did some general waiting around. The dealership associated with the service center had some nice cars. I really liked the VW convertible with the fancy letter/number name. I sat in it. I walked around it. I envisioned myself and my wife touring the country in it.

Time passed. Glen advised me that they would need more time. I agreed, and left the place. I went next door to a Walgreen's store and bought some batteries to refresh the camera. If I was heading home by bus I may as well take a walk and get some photos.

So, starting at Walgreen's on Soquel Drive in Santa Cruz, California I began my little photo tour. I walked and shot, walked and shot. At the corner of Soquel and Frederick I took a picture, then took a step.

I was on the ground before I realized that there was a curb off of which I was stepping. Pain, and concern for my camera as I managed to deflect it's fall and send it skittering across the sidewalk. I snatched the camera before it scooted into the street and began gathering my damaged self and self-esteem to get myself on my feet.

As I groped for the pole holding up the traffic light, hoping to be able to use it to stand once again, a Santa Cruz city police car pulled up next to me. He was in the lot of the gas station where I had been photographing the chocolate shop across the street just moments after my fall.

"You alright?" he asked from his place in the driver's seat. I had achieved my goal of the pole, scrabbling across the sidewalk and clutching my camera. I managed to get myself upright and began assessing what my body was telling me.

"I don't know, yet." I replied. As I made my internal assessment of my injuries I looked at the camera. He made a comment about my interest being mostly about the camera, and I am sure he was assessing me for drunkenness. It probably did not help that my taste in clothing is for the rugged and functional, a style not uncommon among the regularly drunken part of any population.

Actually, I was assessing the pain and slowly flexing various muscles to determine my physical state.

"I think I am ok." I said.

"Give us a call if you need us." the officer replied. I thanked him and shuffled toward the intersection. I reached the far side of the street before the injury to my right knee complained. I checked, and found a fist sized knot on the knee. There was a small abrasion, but the joint was functioning well enough and I figured the swelling was superficial.

The left foot was another thing. About four on the ten scale of pain, and functional. So, I began.

Shuffle, limp. Take a picture. Shuffle, limp. Take a picture. The biggest positive was the slow pace. I had time to assess potential photos, and think about my final product.

Two miles I walked. Shuffle. Limp. Take a picture. Got some good ones. I made it to the County Building, where I paid some taxes. Then off to the bus stop. I chose to stand, waiting on my damaged feet. I knew the real pain would come after I sat awhile.

I got on the bus and sat awhile. I got off at my stop and had about a two hundred yard walk to my door. It really hurt. I peaked at about seven on the pain scale.

I assessed the injuries when I got home. Not much color, little swelling in the foot. The knee had reduced to just a bit of puffiness. Not too bad.

By Saturday the swelling in the left foot had increased and generalized a bit. I finally decided I needed professional guidance. Off to the emergency room. One reason for waiting was to get in at an off time to avoid the busy hours. I hate waiting in the emergency room.

In and out in less than two hours. Pretty quick for an emergency room visit. X-rays, an expensive ace wrap and crutches. A peculiar fracture where a tendon pulled from the bone and broke a piece of bone away. It was on it's way to healing well. Not too bad.

So, I still need to finish processing my photos and get them up on the Internet. That, and perhaps I need to schedule a class or two in remedial walking.

Virtual Travel-

A while back I did a virtual travel project. I plotted a course around the perimeter of the United States, and then tried to visit points along the way over the Internet. I collected photos and bits of information and made a file for each day of travel. I still have the collection in a rough format.

By the way, the virtual journey took about 270 days.

As I did this project I found that I really wanted more pictures and blogs relating to the many small towns I virtually passed through. Unfortunately there are not a lot of photos of the places. Some places will have family photos and friends photos, but few photos to show the place.

At this time I have a project idea growing in my mind. One that I can actually do, and encourage others to do. It is a virtual travel library of photos of places people might want to visit over the Internet. People who cannot travel at the moment, but who might want to visit some place via photos, videos and writing.

As I said, it is embryonic. At this point it is just the idea of people going out and photographing the place they live. Trying to get images that would share with the world the place they call home.

Many people don't value the place they live. Having lived there a long time they cannot see the place through new eyes. That would be the challenge.

The reward would be a wealth of place photos on the Internet. The reward might also be a new perspective on that place called home.

We just got a new camera. The images we can get with this camera are good enough for this particular project. It is just a digital snap-shot camera, and not particularly expensive. However, it is a tool I can use to begin my project.

So, if you happen by this blog and find the idea intriguing, get out there and take pictures. Share the place you call home with people like me.

I will do the same.

The world at my finger tips-

That is what the bloggosphere seems like to me. In one of my many serendipitous explorations I bumped into Antarctic explorers. I was just poking around, and I found scholars exploring changes in Antarctic climate. Through their blog I got to share that adventure.

What was amazing was that they wanted to know a little about the place from which I was doing my exploration. That is the place I sit right now, in the bowels of a jail facility. I am charged with monitoring the 34 inmates in this unit. Imagine that, explorers far away asking about my job.

From this place I follow several other bloggers who live on the road. Tioga George, Wanderwolf, and several others. Some travel in vintage RV's, compelled by economics and wanderlust. Others are better off economically, traveling in wonderfully designed and equipped rigs. They share one thing no matter what their traveling gear. A passion for being out there. Travelers.

Steve Roberts is a traveler whom I have followed, off and on, the longest. Ages ago he melded high technology and bicycles, and hit the road. His adventures are recorded in several locations, this one being central enough to take you to most of the others. Steve has moved his experiments with nomadic technical lifestyles (technomadics) onto the sea at this time in his life.

I have longed for the road for much of my life. I chose to sit in one place, however, and pursue the path of family. Oh, I get to go someplace now and then, but the life of the road has not been mine very often. On the whole my family has been very satisfactory in exchange for that mythical road that still calls me. I do not regret the choice.

Now, Steve Roberts just recently made an observation regarding life on the road in comparison with life in one place. The two are quite different. I cannot say it better, so I shall quote him here.

Although we have only been on the water for a month, the skewed perception of time that I first observed in my bicycling epoch has returned... and with it, a sort of virtual life extension. In retrospect, this journey feels like some indeterminate time on the order of 3 months, yet the present is so full that it appears to flit by with the days barely able to contain all the activity.There are plenty of changes, and those form waypoints in the memory.In contrast, staying in the same place all the time — even a nice place — yields the opposite temporal perception: real time seems to drag, but the past seems to have flown by. ("Has it really been 6 years since we saw each other??? Yikes!") This phenomenon is very hard to overcome, since the setting is constant and it all blurs together into a single undifferentiated jumble of memory, un-indexed by moments of discovery and the epochs of travel.So that's my secret for living longer: keep moving. The number of years may be identical, but it will feel like more...

He may well have found the essence of the siren call of the open road. Change. A constantly changing environment of experience. A difference in awareness, and a different way of thinking. A different way of being.

I am still not at a place where I can answer that siren's call. I have responsibilities I have freely assumed, and I cannot just hit the road without being unfaithful to many people. I just will not do that.

Until the day arrives that I can go forth and journey with abandon, I must be satisfied with this world at my finger tips. It is not a bad world at all. I can sit here at my desk, and as I monitor my sleeping charges I can also visit with the bloggers I have met. I can view their photos, and virtually travel to the places of which they write, simply by touching the right keys.

For the moment, I am content. That is enough.