Urban colloquialisms really do it for me. A ways back there was a push to classify a new language “ebonics”. It struck me as a little bit silly because it's not just African Americans who speak what would have been called ebonics. Further, within said language the changing the grammatical structure is so haphazard and varies to such a degree from place to place that it's really more a matter of an extended vocabulary. So my personal term is urban colloquialisms. It's a very cool thing because in many cases words are created where standard English falls off or sometimes terms are coined that very easily explain something that otherwise might have taken a full sentence. “Hood rich” for instance basically explains the idea of overextending one's credit. You might make make very little money or you might make decent money but no matter what you live in a manner that makes your finances hand to mouth. “The E Class on E”, driving a new Mercedes but keeping the gas tank 1/4 full. Running the car on vegetable oil always reminds me of this saying because there's not a huge reason to keep my diesel tank full and it's usually pretty close to empty. The major difference of course is that my Mercedes doesn't involve payments, it's an S Class (not an E Class) and instead of an “E” marking an empty tank there's an “R”. Originally my thought was that the dominant German word for empty started with an R but the car was bought before Google Translate was such an easy tool. Now I'm pretty sure it stands for either “refuel” or Mercedes engineers love the Jetsons and call empty "rempty" in the dog's honor. At any rate, for most of my drive from Florida the Veggiewagen and I have been riding with the needle either near or on R.

About a week ago a few buddies of mine flew out here. Since linking up the trip has been much more adventurous. They rented a Jeep which has enabled us to leave the Benz behind at times and do some back country camping. It's also provided both a fail safe in terms of having an extra car and a juxtaposition in the sense of being able to see how I live from other people's view point. The other day's drive was particularly interesting. It was gorgeous scenery as always but those mountain climbs seem to be catching up to the car. The veggie oil system doesn't work as well and after a few hours or spirited driving I started to lose power. In Florida where there are no hills this is a sign to switch back to diesel. Here it might just mean the car is climbing a grade that's imperceptible to the driver. Given my proclivity to avoid using diesel and being very into jamming out to some 90s music at the time my assumption was that the car was climbing up a mountain. Apparently that wasn't the case. Starved of fuel, the engine died on me. I switched back to diesel and very stupidly turned the car off while still rolling so as to try and restart it. The wheel locked up and the car and I nearly ended up hitting the railing on the side of the road. Luckily it didn't play out that way.

To compound issues there are two parts which might or might not be construed as necessary that were flat out broken at the time. One pertains to the veggie system, the other is a stock part on the car. For my purposes at least ONE would make life a lot easier and more stress free. Long story short, my only option was to wait for my friends to catch up in the Jeep and then chug on the starter until the engine purged itself of air and started. After they arrived my plan went into action. The first bad sign was that the battery died. This was a part of my plan though so we simply connected the two vehicles via jumper cables and continued trying to start the car. Still nothing. Finally I relented to our more cautious comrade's take on the situation and we pushed the 4,500lbs of German steel and Nylon's life off of the main road onto a very conveniently located side road. At this point the mad scientist driveway mechanic side of me came out in full force.

The other nice thing about having more people along for the ride is that when it comes to camping issues and car issues two heads are better than one and four heads are better yet. Somehow the topic of fuel level came up and I responded that I'd been riding on R for a few hundred miles. “Haha. Dog, you ran out of diesel”. Duh! So wrapped up in the problems on the veggie side the possibility that running out of diesel might coincide with other problems wasn't prominent in my mind. Clearly this was the ticket.

The car had decided to break down in an extremely fortuitous spot. First, we were neither climbing nor descending a mountain. Secondly we had just exited a blind curve. Third there was a little road on the left to push the car onto. However, the coup de gras was that on that little road was... a fuel processing plant! You have to understand how well we're doing at getting away from society. Cell phone service is a more often non-existent than usable. The closest gas station was at least thirty miles. This was essentially parachuting out of a crashing plane into a desert oasis. One of my friends and I trekked through their gates past haz-mat combustible signage and asked the people working on their trucks if they by chance had any diesel or kerosene we could purchase off of them. Whatever they were collecting or refining wouldn't run my car but the work trucks were filled up on the company's dime and they were willing to let me siphon some out at no charge. After a mouthful of diesel and profuse thanks we walked away five gallons of fuel richer.

There was still no guarantee that the car would start. The Achilles heel of running vegetable oil is a very complex part called an injector pump and the symptoms were vaguely similar to a dying IP. While in the throes of jerry rigging mechanics a gleaming white pickup truck rode up on use. The window rolled down and from a nicely air conditioned interior the gentleman driving asked if I needed a hand. The truck had actually ridden past us before and it seemed as if he had gone pretty far out of his way to help us. A simple no would have been a skosh rude. The truck was a diesel and we were in Wyoming so the guy was very likely to have a decent grasp of automotive mechanics. Thus, I went into the entire explanation of running the car on WVO and driving from Florida and our backpacking adventure and siphoning the diesel and the whole nine yards. Looking over at my Reagan era mechanical steed he with no irony said “you have more balls than I do”. My internal response was caught by my filter before it came out but it was a pretty apt description of the situation. “It's either balls or stupidity, time will tell”. The car started running within a few minutes and amid some congratulations we convoyed off to Dinosaur National Monument.  
 
Once upon a time in Nashville I visited the library to get some peace and quiet in order to study for the GRE. Nashville's public library is a stately affair with marble, Grecian columns and the whole nine yards. So it was a little bit surprising to see a fair amount of homeless people in the grandiose reading room. It only took a second to warm up the juxtaposition. Homeless people in libraries are a common sight.

The amount of libraries I've been is probably in the vicinity of fifteen, a number most likely greater than the average person. School libraries are a different story, but public libraries are an interesting thing. Certainly they are no longer what they were orignally intended for. Currently I am in Frazier Valley library. It's the nearest country library to the wealthy skiing enclave of Winter Park maybe sixty miles west of Denver. It's pretty nice. Beyond being clean and well equipped, it is clear that an top architect was well paid to make it look modern and swanky. Much nicer than that of rural Gunnison (which is most likely going to get a grant from the Gates foundation, more on that later). But no matter the type of building, the services a public library provides are generally the same.

The periodicals rack here is about half depleted. What type of periodicals are there? Maxim, Mad, Entertainment Weekly. National Geographic and the Atlantic are on there too, but Foreign Affairs most certainly is not. At Tallahassee's public library (great place to go when FSU's library was overflowing) the most prominently featured items were DVDs. Few people were actually checking out books. In West Palm Beach's spanking new public library a spate of activities are offered and there are many floors of reading materials. Yet, the only areas that are really packed are the computers, and the screens more often than not are telltale Facebook blue and white.

Public libraries have become free internet cafes and free DVD rentals. They don't offer access to knowledge so much as free entertainment. The main reason I'm in a library right now is because of my life on the fringe. It's free wifi and shelter from the elements.

So what is it that I am prescribing here? When one thinks of tax dollars at work there are a few discretionary expenses that come to mind. Schools, roads, libraries. Libraries are a good thing and compared to entitlement spending they're probably pretty cheap. But it seems to me that libraries were originally meant to ensure public access to knowledge. The internet has coopted that mission and in the information age they've been searching for a meaning. The only way to keep people coming in and to justify their existence was to put Maxim and Entertainment Weekly onto the periodical shelves and become a free movie rental for the destitute. This isn't to say that there aren't some people in here and in Nashville and in downtown West Palm who use libraries in search of higher knowledge. It's also not to say that free movie rental for the destitute is a bad thing. But instead of looking at the internet as a competitor, what if libraries saw them as an enabler of that original mission?

Being a student at FSU meant access to a plethora of fancy journals. At times the content was hefty and difficult to get through. Others like ipoll were flat out cool. But in any event it was the real deal. There was no spin, it was original thought from the world's smartest people. The Palm Beach County library system does have an electronic database, but it's paltry and focuses on things like auto repair. But what if Palm Beach County, Gunnison County and Davidson County all got together and collectively hammered out a deal with prestigious journals in the same manner that FSU has? Public access only through library computers with a limited amount of views. It couldn't really be that expensive. I would imagine that foregoing one of the downtown library's four floors could cover the cost.

While in Gunnison county's library someone from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation asked if I didn't mind having my picture taken showing the cramped working spaces. The foundation is considering giving the library a grant. So Bill Gates and some other rich people are about to shell out a few million dollars building a fancy daylight hours homeless shelter and free DVD rental out in the sticks. If they directed that money a little bit differently it's possible that the real life Will Huntings out there could have access to information that enables them to come up with some idea that changes our world for the better. Why are we abandoning that original mission?
 
The other night I came to a realization. 

The day's drive was unduly harsh on the Veggiewagen. While only 100 miles, the mountains and backroads are some pretty intense conditions. Couple with the fact that my route is now backtracking to some extent (something I absolutely cannot stand) by the time I linked up with I-70 toward Denver any sort of campground was welcome. The first choice was called Gore Creek. That was too easy to get to though and as such, definitively full. To the untrained eye the backup campsite would have appeared closer on the map than Gore Creek, but to a seasoned road veteran it appeared extremely inaccessible from the get go. Technically, the type of road should have been no worse than what most of the day's driving had been on. There was just something about the way it curved that smacked of an experience at a place called Davenport Gap in North Carolina/Tennessee.
 
County road 700 was hellish. From the beginning it was an arduous climb. Then it turned into a steep downhill grade (tough on a transmission). Sometimes up, sometimes down but in either direction it was generally pretty steep. More foreboding yet, a dirt road to begin with 700 became pocked with potholes and large rocks in a most expeditious manner. Soon enough these potholes were deep enough to break steering components if hit carelessly. Average speed slowed dramatically.

Ironically enough there were a lot of vehicles traversing this road. As it turned out the campground I was destined for was the site of a wedding and supposedly swarmed with people. Brilliant cost cutting measure on someone's part. Half of the invitations sent out were most likely met with “They want me to drive where?!?” However, before getting to Piney Crossing Campground I saw a group of hippy-ish types with their camping gear set up. By this point asking for directions was prudent and they told me both about how to get to my destination and about the wedding. What their “campsite” was, was in fact not actually a campsite but instead the trail head for Lower Piney Trail. My first instinct was to try and follow through with the original plan. But with my car having been built in “West Germany” instead of just “Germany” another two miles was a tall order. Turn around, ask this group if they didn't mind my setting up nearby. Upon Neil's suggestion I walked in a particular direction and as it turned out there was an incredible little site down near the river. It already had a sizable mound of firewood from the previous campers so I took it to be fated. My site being a brisk ten minute hike from that of the hippies I would have been perfectly happy to start a small fire, eat some canned food then hit the hay. However, social protocol dictated at least a full round of introductions and a few minutes of conversation.
 
The group had come from a concert nearby. Most of them pretty interesting people and half of them native to Colorado I learned a bit in the hours that ensued. Grizzly bears are a fascination of mine. They seem closely analogous to alligators in terms of level of danger, temperament and general rules for dealing with them. Sort of the “soda” versus “pop” of the animal world. Most Coloradans seem to indulge in the outdoors a good bit and are versed in these matters. Just like with alligators you run in zig zags, go limp if they clamp down on you and try to gouge out an eye, growing up in Colorado little kids learn how to handle encountering a grizzly bear.

Talking about godless killing machines at some point brought up a boilerplate question: what's your single biggest fear? Neil's greatest fear was almost as fascinating to me as hearing about grizzlies. The idea of being dropped in the wilderness, completely alone. In particular that moment of realization that you're not getting out. We don't have outdoors the way that Coloradans have outdoors. Florida's environment is forgiving and it's hard to get as far away from people as you can up here. It's difficult to convey the vastness. As such, they have a reverence for the outdoors that most Americans do not. Neil's description of the ordeal which would entail his worst fear did indeed sound scary. Yet for all his explanation the primary component seemed to me to be the concept of being alone. With a shark, alligator or bear fear you're going to die. It's the same result. The difference is anywhere between a few weeks and a couple years of being alone before you bite it.

After wrapping up the evening with a stargazing session (how awesome!) I returned to my little tent. With knowledge of the real danger of grizzlies there was something about the pitch black which hit me differently than the few situations in which I've encountered it thus far. My incredibly bright LED flashlight pierced the all encompassing blackness as if waving a sword wildly at some unknown enemy. Stop, Nylon. Think like a caveman. Fire! Yes, good old fire. Warmth, light, fear into the heart of shy woodland creatures. Fire would bring an element of safety. Going to sleep without a bed of embers would be quite foolhardy indeed. Despite an abundance of dry wood, this turned out to be the most difficult fire I've ever started. The lesson: remember to gather kindling along with firewood as firewood is useless without kindling. Kindling has never been something to think about for me because with car camping you can always find some sort paper in your home on wheels and in Florida pine needles are generally closer than your car anyway. After tearing the label off of my walmart black beans I had a decent fire going.

As the flames gradually turned into flickers and finally into a nice pulsing glow of embers I settled into my cozy little tent. That's when my realization struck me. Being isolated to this extent, it's comfortable for me: I don't like people. A psychiatrist would probably use the term social anxiety. No, in most circumstances I genuinely do not like being around people. Moving to China was an odd way of escaping society. The language and culture barrier kind of puts the 1.3 billion Chinese people in a different world than the expatriate. While drowning in a sea of people, you're rarely engaging on any more than the most superficial of levels. The complete opposite of southern all up in your business friendly social etiquette. Alas, I made good friendships and built a social support network. It shot my quasi unconscious plans to hell and back. Throughout education, group projects were the bane of my existence. Study groups were effective and fun, but being forced into some interaction and forced to accommodate others, give some deference to their opinions... terrible. Then there's this, whatever it is that I'm doing right now. At face value it's the opposite of Dalian. Really though, the two are quite related in that it's the epitome of escaping society. Drive. Just drive and leave it all behind. Driving is my element. 99% of that driving is alone. In years past, while talking to people about my road trips it truly befuddled me to learn that they would not like the idea of driving alone for three weeks or more. From my point of view, other people in the car might provide some interesting conversation and companionship, but they hinder my ability to make decisions because they need to have input. Worse yet, they completely destroy my thinkin' time. The initial reactionary response in my mind: why the hell would I want such an albatross when I'm perfectly capable of projecting human emotions onto my car? On this trip I rarely stop for fuel and most of my lodgings don't exactly involve talking to someone at a front desk. So even the superficial interactions are yet more limited. The isolation is much more extreme.

Living on the fringe can and should still encompass an occasional good shower, has been my most recent thought on whatever it is that I'm doing. As a result today I got a skeezy motel room. The interaction getting the room was simple. But then walking into a restaurant full of people, it was like being in that deep blackness of night in the woods and then having a light shined in your eyes. It was uncomfortable. I felt out of place. Googling “preference for being alone” right now to try and find a medical term for it, most people online frame this sentence in terms of not being in a relationship. This idea of actual isolation is apparently a strange thing.

Now, there a handful of friendships that mean a good deal to me and more importantly a few which mean a great deal. The idea of being cut off from my friends forever is upsetting to say the least. But Neil's worst fear of being dropped into the middle of the wilderness, it honestly doesn't quite faze me. My state of mind would probably become a little off balanced as would anyone's under total isolation. Actually, judging from my experiences isolating myself from society thus far, it seems plausible that total isolation could drive me slightly insane. But then again, sanity is like body odor. If there's nobody else around why should I care? All else aside, if dropped into the middle of the wilderness in a survivable situation, my level of contentment with life would most likely rise dramatically. To know that there is absolutely no possibility of interacting with another person ever again. Maybe it's hard to explain, but there's just this level on which that really appeals to me.