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.
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.
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