I didn’t sleep well my first night in Studio 6 Motel. I left the air conditioning on and it made a nice white noise to drown out anything going on outside, but actually, I think everything was quiet. In a strange place (and this motel was indeed a strange place) Cosmo barks at every noise. He slept well, even if I didn’t.
There was a guest laundry room and I wanted to wash my sleeping bag. I put it in the washer and put in $2.50 in quarters and pressed the start button. Water trickled for a few seconds and stopped. So I had a sleeping bag covered in Tide on the edges and wet on one corner. I went back to my room and discovered that there was no water there either. I called the front desk and was informed in a ridiculously heavy accent that the water would be off for 45 minutes. Fortunately, I had already had my soak in the tub. It would have been pretty unpleasant if I was all soaped up and they cut the water off without notice. Eventually the water did come back on, I got my sleeping bag washed and laid it out over the table in my van to dry overnight.
This could have been a nice motel, but it wasn’t. It had been a Super 8 (the signage was in the process of being changed). It was under construction, so some rooms were finished, and some were being gutted. When I tried to check in early, the woman at the front counter said “Check in time is 3:00. Come back then.” I explained that the online reservation system said I could request an early check in and I had done that. She said “Did you get a reply?” I said “No” and she shrugged as if to say “Well, there you go.” She said “Come back at 2:30 and I’ll see if I can get you in.” Meanwhile, I could hear over her walkie talkie that a maid was saying a guest was leaving and was refusing to pay. I didn’t get the details, but as I sat in my van waiting, the police showed up, had a long talk with a woman in a second-floor room, and then went back into the office, presumably to explain the situation. I wonder how many times she was without water.
The room next to mine was being gutted. The workers continually pounded on things, and every time they pounded, Cosmo barked, thinking someone was at our door. I tried to stop him initially, but then figured if they are pounding, he can bark. Small pieces of wreckage from the rooms was placed temporarily outside on the walkway. There were broken cabinet doors, pieces of old plumbing, etc.
Adjacent to my room was a Cracker Barrel. I saw my fellow nomads had filled the back parking lot. There were skoolies (one rather big one), vans, large 5th wheels parked sideways taking up multiple parking spaces. There were a couple makeshift trailers that had seen better days. People were making themselves at home, setting up chairs and tables under the few trees to try to get a break from the blazing sun and heat. It wasn’t a very inviting gathering of humanity. Along the frontage road that the motel was on, were parked a variety of old busses and Class A RV’s even though the signage said “No Overnight Parking.” Most were there when I arrived and still there when I left two days later.
I haven’t figured out Flagstaff. My opinion of it is that it’s a fairly low-class city, full of poor, uneducated, extreme right-wing rednecks. But that really isn’t fair. When I go into town, I usually go to Walmart and a trailer park to get propane. Not exactly Saks Fifth Avenue. This week I was parked at “Motel Row” next to Cracker Barrel. I’m sure the upper crust of Flagstaff (if there is such a thing) doesn’t frequent the places I end up. I don’t ever feel totally safe in Flag. Drivers are aggressive (I suspect that is true in most cities and towns across the country), the help in places like Motel 6 and Walmart are rude and seem to hate their jobs and their lives and everyone they come in contact with. 80% of the vehicles seemed to be oversized white pick-up trucks with tinted windows so you can’t see who is inside. It felt like the precursor to Road Warriors. But the motel room was a cool 69 degrees, so I locked myself in, except for the frequent visits to my van parked directly outside my motel room door, to get odds and ends I needed to be comfortable.
Monday morning came and the forecast was for the temps to drop by a whopping 6 degrees. I thought on Saturday when I checked in that I may stay an extra day if Monday’s forecast didn’t change. It didn’t change, but I couldn’t tolerate another day of this motel room or Flagstaff.
I got up early and packed stuff up and moved everything I’d brought into the room back into its proper place in the van. I got my final bath while Cosmo watched TV. (I get such a kick out of how much Cosmo LOVES watching TV). Then we got on the road, stopped to get propane and water, and headed back to Marshall Lake. I ended up in the same site that I’d occupied in May, but unfortunately, the lake has all but disappeared. It is overgrown with reeds.
We settled in. It was blistering hot with not much air moving. I opened all my doors and windows to try to get some relief from the heat. I soaked Cosmo’s scarf and tied it around his neck to help cool him off. By mid-afternoon, there was thunder in the distance, and some dark clouds rolled in. I hoped for even a miniscule rain shower to cool things off. And that’s exactly what we got: A MINISCULE rain shower, but the wind had picked up and the light sprinkle did cool things down just a little.
Tuesday, my friend Greg texted me. We’d met when I stayed at Marshall Lake last month (he is the one living in a small skoolie). He was on his way up to Vancouver and wanted to stop and say hello if I was nearby. I told him I was once again staying at Marshall Lake, about a football field away from where the two of us camped last month. He joined me later in the afternoon and we hung out until dark. The next day we sat out in the shade. His dog Roadie gets along very well with Cosmo, so the two of them played while Greg and I got caught up on where we’d been and where we thought we would head next. It was nice to see him again.
The heat has been bad, but not nearly as bad as the weekend was, and I suppose not as bad as it is in much of the world. The planet is burning up, so I presume I can learn to cope with some hot afternoons in July. We had very brief thunderstorms a couple of afternoons (I believe what the Arizona natives call “Monsoon Season”) and that cooled things off just a little bit without everything getting too muddy.
I met a man down the Road named Chris with a Tennessee drawl as authentic as his big smile. We talked in passing a couple of mornings early in the week. He seemed to be a very polite and humble kind of guy. Throughout the week, he stopped to see me a couple of afternoons and I went down to visit him on several occasions. He was gutting his small, pull-behind trailer. Unseen from the road, on the side of his trailer, were all the scraps of lumber, some fixtures, doors and even a kitchen sink that he intends to use as part of the refurbishing. He had spread out in his site, looking very much at home (in a Gilligan’s Island sort of way) with an outdoor, makeshift kitchen consisting of a generator on the ground with a tiny microwave plugged into it. He has another table with a Coleman stove, a guitar stand with a beat-up guitar that has a crack just below the sound hole, and which has the varnish worn off in the spots where he has strummed thousands of times. He reminds me of my friend Rob who went missing near Joshua Tree last winter—He’s somewhere between care-free and careless. Cosmo and I went down to see him on Thursday morning. I asked for a song, and he obliged. He has an excellent singing voice and although I didn’t recognize the song he was singing, his words were so clear and it moved him emotionally to the point where he had trouble continuing. I was on the verge of tears myself. He seems a good soul, if a bit reckless.
Thursday night, a woman in a small bus (I think it had been some sort of shuttle in a previous incarnation) pulled in. My spot was a semi-circle off the Marshall Lake Road. At the peak of the circle, there were two pull-offs into separate campsites. I stayed on the top of the semi-circle. The woman in the bus pulled in, backed up and turned around. I thought she was going to pull into the other spot to the right of me, but instead, she backed up again, and stopped about 20 feet from my van. She got out, I thought to survey the other site and decide whether to pull in or back in, but instead she did a few stretches and stood looking at my van. I immediately disliked her. Her clothing, hair and manner of stretching screamed “Look at me!” I’m a “solo woman” traveling in bus. I’m all too familiar with this type from YouTube. She could have pulled into the adjacent site, but instead she encroached into my campsite. I decided if she was there in the morning, I’d move. But the next day, before noon, she left (but left her chair and bike behind, marking her spot. When she came back, she pulled all the way into her camping spot, giving me my space back. I still thought about moving into the other spot off the semi-circle, where Greg and Roadie had been parked for a night. It was nice, and felt a little more off the road and private. While I was in the process of deciding, a monster truck, with huge tires and quite jacked up, came in pulling a large, new trailer. The occupants of the truck (I presume a family—youngish man and woman with teenage son and daughter) got out and went to work like soldier ants. They smoothly unpacked the trailer, setting up tables, chairs, hammock, cooktop all on top of a large outdoor rug. They did this with such precision and fluidity that I was sure they had done this dozens of times before.
Saturday morning, the traffic up and down the road (mostly small cars) stirred up lots of dust and I started getting claustrophobic. I had to get out, so I packed up and drove down the road to Ashurst Lake where I’d come from. Marshall Lake is prettier, even with the lake overtaken with reeds. It’s much more idyllic, with cows, pines a large meadow (that was once the lake) and mountains in the background. But it’s somewhat touristy, and unbearable on weekends when it is overtaken by off-roaders and partiers. Ashurst lake (I stay in the forest for free about 3 miles south of the lake) is not quite as beautiful, but the sites are very large and quite spread out. It is so much more private. When I left a week ago, there was nobody in any adjacent sites. I was alone. I’d hoped to find it as I left it, but the first 5 sites were not only occupied, but occupied by multiple rigs. I pulled farther down the potholed road, and managed to find a somewhat secluded spot. I got settled in and let out a sigh, glad to be far from the weekend partiers.
Lessons From The Road: When I departed Delaware in my van a little over two years ago, I thought perhaps once a month, or maybe every 6 weeks or so, I would get a cheap motel room along the road. I thought it would be a good way to regroup, take a long soak in a bathtub, maybe eat breakfast in a restaurant, etc. After two years on the road, this was only my second motel stay. The first was in South Dakota last summer. I needed to do that in order to prove “residency.” (Yup. To get a South Dakota driver’s license, you need to show proof that you stayed in S.D. for one night, and a motel receipt does the trick.) I hated it. I guess I forgot, because when I decided to take a break from the scorching heat, part of the decision process was thinking “It will be fun.” After about 4 hours of motel life, I thought “I can’t wait to go home.” I was grateful for the cool room, and I certainly loved my daily soak in a steamy hot bathtub, but it seems I ran out to my van every hour (at least) to get something I needed. I have no suitcase, so each time I thought of something I needed, I had to go get it from the van. I went out to make coffee (the coffee maker in the room was sort of pathetic), to make Cosmo’s breakfast, to get food and snacks and to retrieve hair care products, clothing, laptop, etc.
I thought watching TV and relaxing in a Queen-sized bed would be luxurious. The TV signal was a bit snowy. It made me feel like maybe the rabbit ears needed to be adjusted. (If you don’t get that reference, ask your pop-pop.) I remember when cable first came out, the big selling point was that you’d get 300 channels (instead of 3) and THERE WOULD BE NO COMMERCIALS. Well, I think I probably got 300 channels. 297 were things like Bar Rescue, Cheaters, Catholic Mass, Father Chapin (and at least three other channels featuring Catholic priests and aging nuns), Ranger Rob, Joel Osteen, Nascar, golf and even pro pickleball. There was a variety of local Sunday News with giddy women who gesticulated wildly with their hands as they tried to make their idle chit-chat seem important. They reminded me of the movie “Don’t Look Up.” I kept clicking until I found Forest Gump playing on a movie channel. They’d show 7 minutes of the movie, and then we had to sit through 10 minutes of commercials. I finally gave up, turned the sound off and let Cosmo watch. Cosmo LOVES TV. He watches intently knowing that every 7 minutes will be a commercial and 95% of commercials have dogs, cats, horses, squirrels, or any number of 4-legged animals. He leaps from the bed, stands on his hind legs in front of the TV and growls. He seems to appreciate that, so I let him enjoy TV while it was available.
Being back at Marshall Lake felt very much like being home. I know the lake, the more hidden sites (I am currently in a spot I occupied in May this year), and where to get water, propane, and food. It’s easy. Having Greg stop in for a night made it seem very much like “old times.” The New Moon was Monday, and on Tuesday, after the tiniest sliver of a moon set, I went out and let my eyes adjust until I could see the Milky Way again.
That never gets old. It is not only beautiful to gaze up into the dark sky, but just mind boggling to take a minute to remember my place in the grand scheme of things.