It’s not technically summer, but I am halfway through one of two weeks I get off from classes this summer, so yes, it is summer for me. I start an internship and a couple classes next week, so I thought I’d unwind this past weekend while I had a little bit of free time by heading to a remote, relaxing location: Washington Island, Wisconsin.
I just got back from India! Between a long last day, spending the night in an airport (and not sleeping for most of it), and then another 26 hours flying halfway around the world, my body’s not really sure what day or time it is. Fortunately I wrote a lot while over there and have something to share today.
Today’s excerpt is from an experience I had visiting a Dalit village. Dalits are gypsies, one of the lowest castes, but you wouldn’t know it by talking to them because they were so happy, so glad to interact with us.
Intricately beaded necklaces cover half a blanket on the ground, and rubber stamps are displayed on the other side. Rajeesh turns her hand over, then studies the stamps before selecting a large rose which he dips in the ink, then presses onto her palm. Tenderly he inks each finger with a dotted leaf pattern. Again he studies the stamps, finally selecting one. “Fishies.”
“Fish,” she corrects.
“Fish,” he says as he grins at her and she grins back. He quickly presses the stamp against her skin, six fish swimming to Chennai, to Paris, to wherever they want, while he stays here in his village.
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Most people hate icebreakers. That said, they’re often a necessary inconvenience, so you may as well sweeten the deal with food. My favorite/least hated one for the classroom involves giving everyone a handful of Starbursts, then requiring them tell something about themselves based on the color. Red is a hobby, yellow is a random fact, orange is a goal for the class, orange is your bucket list. Or something like that.
I always include the bucket list category because it’s so telling about my students, to find out what they want to do in life. And they love learning about me.
Last time I did it, I used my orange Starburst to tell them I want to both pick up a hitchhiker and be a hitchhiker. And when I say this, the kids universally freak out. “You can’t do that! That’s not safe! That’s really f’ing stupid!” Yeah, whatever.
A year-and-a-half ago, I found myself wandering around Door County, Wisconsin. I took the ferry as a passenger, no car, to Washington Island, which really confused the ticket lady. “You realize it’s a three-mile walk to town, right?” Yeah. No problem. I didn’t tell her this, but I figured if I got tired of walking, maybe someone would give me a ride back to the docks.
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| Washington Island stavekirke |
Sure enough, after I’d checked out an awesome little church in the woods and was heading back, an old guy in a pickup stopped and offered me a ride. It’s not quite what I had in mind when telling my kids I wanted to hitchhike, but concerned friends assure me that yes, it was hitchhiking. One thing down.
Since then, I’ve been trying to find someone to pick up, but it never works out: either my kid is with me, or they have too much stuff/dog for me car, or I’m going the wrong direction.
Last week, I was at the gas station airing up my bike tires when I noticed a scruffy kid and dog, surrounded by scruffy gear, sitting in the shade. I asked him if he needed a ride, and where he was headed.
“South.”
“How far south?”
“As far as you can take me.”
“I can take you to the next town. Let me ride home and get my car. I’ll be back in about twenty minutes.”
I was absolutely thrilled by this. I wrote a story about an inexperienced hobo, “Riding the Rails,” which was published by Hobo Camp Review in 2012, but I’d never really had a chance to talk to anyone about their experiences. This would be my chance for some great research.
“Cricket,” as he preferred to be called, was very quiet at first, barely answering my questions. He’d been traveling for about nine years (I’m guessing he was about twenty-five), had been to forty-eight states, and was making his way south to train to become a truck driver.
As the miles passed, he opened up more. He explained how to hop a train, why people in Massachusetts are crazy and Indianapolis is not a nice place, and the best ways to deal with asshole police officers on power trips. He didn’t finish high school, he said, and had been traveling since, staying with friends and working odd jobs, but he was getting tired of it and wanted something more permanent. I told him a little about the students I worked with, the at-risk kids everyone gave up on, and how sometimes they just needed someone to put things in a perspective they could understand. Sometimes, they just needed someone willing to give them a chance.
And then I got to see his sense of humor.
I asked him who gave him more rides, men or women. He told me I was the first women to give him a ride in nearly two years, and I mentioned people thought it was a bad idea because he might be a serial killer.
“If I was a serial killer,” he responded, “don’t you think I’d have my own car? Or five or six of them?”
As we neared our destination, nearly seventy-five miles from where I’d picked him up, we discussed the best place to drop him off. Downtown was out, because it was mostly just college kids walking or biking.
I asked him if he’d considered getting a bike.
“Well, actually,” he said, “I’m gonna get five more dogs and hitch them to a sled, to pull me around. I do too much walking.”
I was really kind of disappointed to drop him off. I’d had a great conversation with him and learned a lot. For his part, he told me it was the best ride he’d had “in a long minute” (he told me that most rides he got were about two-five miles, just from one tiny town to the next, usually in the back of a pickup with no one talking to him). If it hadn’t been for his dog frequently licking my face, and me needing to pick my kid up, I would’ve kept driving him.
I make a point of talking to people who are different from me. Everyone has a story, everyone can teach you something, if you’re just willing to give them a chance.
I know I am; are you?
I know I say it a lot, but I love road trips. Not only do I get to see beautiful/weird new stuff and eat great food, but the trips are a great way for me to recharge, think my way through stories I’m working on, and gather ideas for new stories.
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| Niagara Falls’ rapids |
But I’m currently a bit on the broke side, so I have to find ways to get my fix as cheaply as possible. I’ve taken two big trips this summer – camping in Minnesota and Thunder Bay, and a recent sightseeing trip to Detroit and Toronto – as well as multiple trips the summer before – New Orleans and Pensacola, FL; Door County, WI; and Duluth, MN – and have come up with some useful tips I thought I’d share.
First, all road trip expenses can be broken into four basic categories: transportation, lodging, food, and activities (I guess you can make the case that souvenirs is a fifth category, but I don’t tend to buy any). No matter where you go, if you’re staying overnight you’re going to have costs from each category.
Transportation
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| abandoned pirate ship outside Hamilton, ON |
Lodging
Food
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| Our Toronto hotel came with free snacks! |
Activities
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| Sometimes I have to physically restrain the kid in order to get a picture |
What are some travel tips that work for you?
As I’ve pointed out previously, I love road trips. I went on a short one a couple weeks ago, up through Minnesota to Thunder Bay, Ontario, then down through Duluth and over to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, down to Green Bay and across Wisconsin back home – 4 days, 5 states, 2 countries, 2000 miles, and 1 bear I almost hit when he ran in front of my car. And today I’m off again, this time with my kid, to Detroit, Toronto, and Niagara Falls.
And yes, I know what you’re thinking – “Why Detroit? Doesn’t she know she’s going to get shot?”
This road trip, however, is happening for a reason. A real reason, not just to say I’ve driven the entire length of Hwy 61 in North America, or because I’ve never been to a particular city, or because I want a new book cover.
First, my novel-in-progress, A Handful of Wishes, has decided it wants to be set in Detroit instead of its current Chicago. I’ve never been to Detroit, so I want to check it out to make sure my story is accurate.
But there’s a personal reason for this trip too.
In addition to writing and reading and crocheting and gardening and taking random trips, I also love genealogy. Besides the fun of researching family members, I also love the stories their lives hold. And for one branch in particular, there are a LOT of stories (variations of which are told in my upcoming short-story collection, The Futility of Loving a Soldier).
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| My great-grandparents’ wedding photo |
My grandma’s parents both came over to the States from Belgium when they were in their 20’s. They met on a farm my great-grandmother’s relative owned, where my great-grandfather was a farmhand. They got married, had my grandma, and moved to Detroit. Lots of relationship problems culminated in my great-grandmother falling in love with a bootlegger/truck driver living in their boarding house; she ran off with him, my grandma, and a sewing machine, and together during the Great Depression they traveled all over the Midwest under an assumed name before eventually settling down to run a tavern in the town I live in now.
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| My great-grandfather and his second wife |
All I know of my great-grandfather is that he stayed in Detroit, worked at Chrysler, and later remarried someone named Agnes. Oh, and he had a temper, and during a fight with her one night he stabbed her. Filled with remorse at her death, he then killed himself. Or so the story goes, 50 years later.
I want to find out the truth, be it through obituaries or newspaper articles or anything I can find. And why pay the Detroit Library to do the research when I can go and do it myself?
So we’re off to Detroit. My son has been fascinated with Toronto’s public transportation system – subway, bus, ferry – for several years, so we’re spending a couple days there. And then Niagara Falls is so close, we may as well see it too (and yeah, maybe I do want to be able to brag that I’ll have seen all five Great Lakes this summer – we’re detouring up through Sarnia, partly because yes, it rhymes with Narnia).
What lengths have you gone to while researching a story? And any suggestions for what to see or do while in Detroit or Toronto (besides “not get shot”)?
One day a few years ago while I was driving down a western Minnesota highway, I saw a castle in the distance. Perplexed by why a small Midwestern town would have its own castle, I promptly exited the highway and went to investigate. And lo and behold, yes, there was a castle.
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| Fergus Falls State Hospital |
When I got home, I Googled it and discovered that it was actually an old mental hospital, of the Kirkbride design. In the mid 19th century, some guy named Kirkbride realized crazy people didn’t do so well locked in cramped cells or shoved into crowded, windowless rooms, so he designed a type of hospital that allowed for plenty of light and movement and retained dignity. There are probably 80 or so of these scattered around the country, some in use and some, like this one, sadly awaiting demolition (or already torn down).
This specific building featured prominently in my short story, “Tim and Sara,” which I released for Kindle last summer. The story is probably best categorized as psychological horror. I liked the original cover, but didn’t know if it really conveyed what the story is about. I really wanted to use a picture of the inspirational building, but that was nine hours away in Minnesota.
Last week, however, I had some free time. My kid was staying with an aunt, and I’m currently between temp jobs. It would be simple to drive up and get a picture.
But then I looked at the map. I’d always wanted to visit International Falls, which is only 2-3 hours away. And once there, it’s only a 4 hour drive to Thunder Bay, which sounds like it would be an awesome place. An easy trip quickly expanded into a two-country excursion.
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| Why buy a postcard when you can hike 3.5 miles up a mountain and take the picture yourself? |
But then I thought, why not? When will I have the chance to go to Thunder Bay again? So I grabbed my camping stuff and passport and headed north. A drive for a picture became a four-day, five-state (I detoured back by way of Michigan), 2000-mile road trip. And it was wonderful and definitely worth it.
I’ve noticed I tend to un-scale-back a lot: in grad school, where I’ve decided to add a school social work endorsement (extra classes) and a thesis; in my way-behind-schedule short story collection, The Futility of Loving a Soldier, because what was to be one more story grew to a five-part, multi-generational story; and in another short story, half-written, that’s turned into seven novellas.
But as my students loved to say, YOLO (you only live once). If you’re going to do something, why not go big? It’ll take some extra effort, but looking back, you’ll be glad you did.
And at the very least, I got a great new cover out of the trip, and some great story ideas.
Author Sophia Jones tagged me this time, for some random questions:
Favorite Color: Blue. Light blue, dark blue, bright blue. I also love the combination of a blue sky with a few thunderheads drifting over an asphalt road surrounded by prairie in late summer – such a bright mixture of blues, greens, and yellows.
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| Tree along the Missouri River south of Bismarck, North Dakota. |
Favorite Animal: Jellyfish. And penguins. Possibly lab rats. I would love to get a pair and teach them tricks, but my cat, Sappho, would probably eat them.
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| I plan to be reincarnated as a jellyfish. |
Actually, no, she wouldn’t. She’s old and fat (the vet politely said she’s a “full-figured lady”), and if she can’t be bothered to catch the chipmunk living in the front flowerbeds, I doubt she’d go for a rat either.
Favorite Number: 17 and e. Whenever I crochet a blanket, I use e for my sides ratio.
Favorite Non-Alcoholic Drink: Iced tea, unsweetened because I’m a Yankee.
Facebook or Twitter: Twitter for writing stuff, Facebook for real-life stuff.
Your Passion: Road trips; I would live in my car if I could. And education equality. I start grad school in a couple weeks, going for a master‘s in social work, and today my adviser suggested I go for a school social work endorsement, to which I said, “More classes? Hell yeah, sign me up.” I’m slowly writing my students’ stories, and some day I’d like to publish a big collection of them.
Giving or Getting Presents: Giving. I don’t like getting them, actually. I especially like giving them as guerrilla acts of kindness.
Favorite Day: I tend to be really phlegmatic and don’t get excited about much, including days: Saturdays, birthdays (I prefer to not even acknowledge my birthday, not because I worry about getting old but because it’s just another day), Christmas, etc. Days are days.
Favorite Flowers: I love blue hydrangeas. And the massive sunflower fields in North Dakota in late summer.
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| Heaven = fields of sunflowers as far as the eye can see |
And once again, I’m tagging everyone who reads this. Ha!
Day V of the 2013 Blogging from A to Z April challenge. Today’s topic: a van down by the river.
I love road trips. Love love love love love them. My plan when I retire is to move into an RV and travel around the country, just me and whatever cat I have at the time.
And according to motivational speaker Matt Foley, if I want to be a writer when I grow up, or if I want to live in a van down by the river (which I totally would do in a heartbeat), I too can someday end up living in a van, down by the river.
Day R of the 2013 Blogging from A to Z April challenge. Today’s topic: road trips.
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| Pensacola Beach, Florida |
I’ve said several times on my blog, I love road trips. There’s something about hopping in your car and just going somewhere, hours in the car listening to music and enjoying the scenery and thinking about stories or life or whatever, that I can’t get enough of.
Growing up, my family did road trip vacations. When I was 6, we went to Mt. Rushmore and the Black Hills. The next year, we went to the Grand Canyon. This was before car DVD players, before Gameboys, and I can’t read in the car without getting sick, so my brother and I had to find ways to entertain ourselves: car bingo, Legos, the “I’m not touching you” game.
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| Stavkirke, Washington Island, Wisconsin |
Last spring break I went on an epic road trip. Despite some family members’ misgivings, I drove 3000 miles in 8 days, by myself, following Hwy 61 along the Mississippi River. Down to St. Louis; Cairo, IL, and Memphis; a detour to my Lone Wolf MC’s hometown in the Mississippi Delta; Baton Rouge and finally New Orleans where I ate catfish that melted in my mouth. I then cut over, through my beautiful future retirement town of Pass Christian, MS, to Pensacola and an afternoon lying on the beach and photographing the waves and jetsam. Then up through Birmingham towards Chattanooga, veering towards Nashville; my college town and a long chat with a former professor; and finally back home.
It was wonderful. I got several new story ideas, including “Of Gods and Floods” which was published in Shadow Road Quarterly, and hashed out some novel plot points. I saw parts of the country I’d never been to before, and can now brag that I’ve driven the entire US length of Hwy 61.
Last summer, I made a few shorter trips north as well. Both involved a Great Lake, wandering around in beautiful scenery, and plenty of time to think in the car.
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| Split Rock Light House, Duluth, Minnesota |
Of course, I can’t wait to go somewhere again. Some of the bigger trips I have in mind:
What are some memorable road trips you’ve taken, or ones you’d like to take?
Day L of the 2013 Blogging from A to Z April challenge. Today’s topic: lakes, rivers, and oceans.
I have a strong affinity for water. Maybe it’s because I’m a Pisces? Whatever the reason, I find bodies of water, no matter the size, relaxing and rejuvinating. They help me focus, help me think.
When I’m looking for a quiet place to read or write, there are several spots along the nearby rivers that I head to. And when I lived in North Dakota, I frequently found my way to a secluded spot along the Missouri River (if not randomly driving along it to the South Dakota border).
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| La calanque d’En-vau, Cassis |
One of my best memories of my semester studying in France was a weekend spent in Cassis, just lying on the beach watching the water.
And when I lived in North Carolina, I loved weekends spent at the beaches near Wilmington.
Last spring I went on a massive week-long roadtrip, following the Mississippi River down to the Gulf of Mexico to spend an afternoon lying on a Florida beach, alternating between reading and writing.
I also made a couple weekend roadtrips to Lake Michigan and Lake Superior, and this summer hope to hit lakes Erie and Ontario, Niagara Falls, and maybe Lake Huron too.
I write about water as well. My story “Of Gods and Floods,” published in last year in Shadow Road Quarterly, is about two kids living in Cairo, IL, when the Army Corps of Engineers blew up levees to alleviate flooding along the Mississippi. And I’m currently working on a story about a guy who lives near the Kerguelen Islands (see map), which is probably my #1 destination right now.
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| photo from http://prullmw.xanga.com/ |
That being said, I don’t do boats because I get seasick very easily. I can do canoes, but anything larger – motor boats, small cruise ships, ferries, etc – is out of the question. And I don’t go in water deeper than my knees or where I can’t see the bottom because of sea monsters – sharks, squids, jelly fish, Leviathans, etc.
Which element do you most rely on to relax and focus?
