New Beginnings, Now with Old Stuff!

Hey guess what??

Remember a while back I wrote a post about how, when I was 20, I had more attitude than brains and I tried to be a firefighter? Then I grew up and got "smart" and figured out stuff and junk and decided I would try to stick with what I'm good at and do things for the right reasons? Unless I got side-tracked by astronaut school?

Well, I signed up for astronaut school. Only it's not exactly for astronauts. And it's not even school. We bought a junk store.

I am not even kidding.

A for real honest to goodness junk store. The kind of place that has everything from vinyl records and cookie jars to books and coffee makers. There's so much stuff in there I keep expecting to hear the theme song to Sanford & Son every time I walk in the door.

I am excited and slightly nauseous about being the owner of so much stuff. But mostly excited.

You know the term fixer-upper right? It's like that to the power of infinity times three.

But there are so many possibilities and it's a real part of the community. *And* all my dishes and glasses came from there and if it closed where would I buy my next mini-bundt pan that I could ruin?

So it looks like you won't have to hear (very often) about Safeway being out of chicken.

Although, today they were out of cucumbers.

Cabbage, Criminals, and Cracker Jacks

As you know, the Tumbleweeds are off the road and home in their cozy (read:blazing hot) little Wyoming town and while I figure out the future of my life and this blog and also write really long run-on sentences, I thought I would share with you the latest Safeway outage:

Shredded cabbage.

Yes, this week they had all the chicken I would never need, but exotic shredded cabbage was nowhere to be seen.

Whole cabbage is cheaper, but I hate shredding it myself and it never comes out as thin and ribbony as the pre-shredded kind and my award winning fantastic vinegar-y cole slaw suffered as a result.

***

In other news, Himself and I are criminals. We didn't mean to be and it was a long time ago; I'm hoping the statute of limitations will keep us out of jail.

Kinder Egg contraband

On a trip to Germany several years ago, we smuggled brought back some Kinder Eggs to share with the neighbor kids, because we are the cool childless adults in the 'hood. Well, apparently it is illegal to bring these toy filled chocolate eggs onto American soil and we didn't just bring them in we distributed them. To minors. I feel so dirty.

I'm sorry America. I didn't mean to break your laws. I'm a rule following, tax paying patriot who believes in the American way--Mom and apple pie, (but not baseball because that is the most boring game in the world).

And Cracker Jacks. Where the cheap toys are mixed among sticky popcorn goodness, not tucked away in a plastic shell surrounded by fascist chocolate just waiting to choke some poor American child.

This is my
 George Washington-crossing-the Delaware-face
not a duckface.
Because patriots don't do duckface.

Home is where the Heart is....for Good.

Well, it's official, we're no longer vagabonds. We are home and in the truck no more.

Jas doing an upside down
Snagglepuss of happiness.

The truck is a small space right? An upper and lower bunk, about 4 square feet of floor space, and the driver and passenger seats. So how in the Heckle and Jeckle is there so much stuff to take out?

No more peeing over kitty litter!

Jas was a big help during the
mass exodus of stuff.
Not.

Mr. Big emptied of stuff.

It took over three hours to get it all out, and that's not counting the tools. After five years of living in the truck, every nook and cranny had something in it and I swear the stuff was multiplying as I removed it.

Also, there were 4 weeks of dirty laundry, plus the bedding. I may have blown up our washing machine.

***

No more public bathrooms.

No more truck stop showers.

No more truck stop food.

No more walking across pee soaked parking lots.

No more trying to add and subtract numbers while bouncy up and down in the passenger seat.

No more heart-attack inducing traffic.

No more yelling over loud truck noise.

No more sleeping in separate beds like Lucy and Ricky.

No more breathing air in a small space with a farty dog.

No more weirdos hiding in the bushes with red-nosed pigs.

No more New Jersey.

***

I just noticed that today is Confessions of a Tumbleweed's second anniversary. My first post was July 18, 2010. Wow, it's like I have ESPN or something, to have accidentally picked such an auspicious day to share this post.

Know what else I just realized? The abbreviation for Confessions of a Tumbleweed is COAT. This blog could be like a covert ops for the CIA or FBI or at least the Men in Black.

***

I hope you'll stay tuned, because there's more to come. I still have stories to tell. And that's a good thing, because Safeway had chicken *and* ice cream this week.

Westbound and Down

Hey! Guess what??

The Tumbleweeds are going home!

Finally.

For good. The trucking life is coming to an end.

What will happen?
What will we do?
Will Safeway have chicken*?

I don't know. But I am super excited to find out. And also to have my own bathroom again. Whoopee!

Jas hiding under a bush during a rainstorm
in Georgia. At least *one* of us
was dry.

* It's a recurring threat theme here, that once we get home I won't have anything to blog about besides the fact that the local Safeway is out of chicken. It happens a lot. But on the bright side, they are also out of milk quite frequently so at least there will be some diversity.

Got Goat-Heads?

Did you ever have a burning desire to know what the drought tolerance of concrete is or what kinds of crops grow in New Jersey? (Hint: One's a trick question.)

Well, you can find out if you go here and read my award winning in my own mind column in the Douglas Budget, my hometown newspaper.

Please?

In it, I mention goat-heads, but I'm not talking about a chupacabra snack, I'm talking about these:

We have them in Wyoming and I've seen them in the southwest and California.

Do you have them where you live?

You might not see them on the ground at first glance but you'll know it if you ride a bicycle through them because they will poke a hole in your tire. Jas has a sixth sense about them, when she gets near them she just comes to a dead stop and refuses to budge; I don't blame her.

They're very hard, like manly sandspurs, which is kind of appropriate since they are used in herbal supplements as a man-aid, if you know what I mean. *wink, wink*

Happy Friday!

Home is where the heart is and also lots of work.

The Tumbleweeds are home so this is not a real post.

Also, I thought by now we would be home for good but it ain't happening, so it's back to the road for us again.

Whatever.

Here are some thoughts from home in Douglas, Wyoming:

★ It is extremely dry and windy here and there are fires burning everywhere around us because of it.

★ This is all very dangerous and sad and stuff, but do you have any idea what dry air, 100 mph wind, and extreme heat does to skin?

This is my face before I slather on
half a bottle of lotion.

★ Also? The combination of freshly applied ChapStick and dusty wind gusts make for very gritty lips.

★ My life as a Professional Passenger requires that I sit for very long periods of time. Strangely, this is not a good way to prepare the body for manual labor.

★ Himself and I tore off the roof of our house so we could have a new on installed. The lilacs that run the length of our property are trying to kill me by reproducing at a freakishly alarming rate and the leaves. My God, the leaves.

★ I have enjoyed some kitchen time and been able to make some pretty decent meals. With vegetables, even! But today I failed spectacularly in the dessert I am supposed to be taking to a cook-out and now I have to start completely over.

These are supposed to be
lime-honey mini bundt cakes, not
deflated, sticky disasters that drip
all over the oven so that
the fire alarm gives me an aneurysm.

★ Why is it that, if I make a meal or bake something for just the two of us, it turns out fantastic and pretty. But if I make something that other people will see, the fire department has to get involved and I have to make multiple trips to the grocery store and have a Plan B.

★ It has been nice to have my own bathroom and just be still for while. Even Jasmine got some spa time in the bathtub and she was a clean, dirt-free dog for almost 30 whole minutes.

***

As you can see, life at home is really exciting and I bet you're really looking forward to the day when I will bore you to death with more tales of gritty lips, failed cakes, and dirty dogs.

Oh and by the way, Safeway had chicken this week. But they were out of ice-cream.

The Trucking Life; Extreme Weather Edition

Two days ago we were in the middle of Nebraska in a fierce hail storm that was so loud it sounded as if a million angry fairies were throwing rocks at us. The sky was dark and the weather cold and wet.

I have a video of the hailstorm and all its loud fury but blogger is not cooperating.

 Here is a picture of a tumbleweed instead:

And also Jas's behind.

Yesterday we crossed the Mojave Desert, again. It was 105 degrees, the sky was white with heat, haze, and the funk of approaching Los Angeles, and the pavement so hot that Jas jumped back in the truck as soon as her feet hit the ground.

Ah, the lovely smog
of southern California.

In between those two days as we headed west and up in altitude into Wyoming, we were treated with a loud POP! as the bag of tortillas exploded.

Ooh, and traffic too!
I want to live here.

Such is the trucking life.

Remember how I said way back a long time ago, that we were soon quitting the trucking life?

We had forcast that we would be home by May but it didn't work out. The sage grouse were having sex, for one thing.

Source
Poor ugly things need all the help
they can get.

Did you know that Wyoming's sage grouse population is in decline but they are still considered a game bird and you can kill one during the right season in Wyoming? To make up for the fact that you can't disturb them when they have sex, presumably.

It's not really their fault we couldn't stay home, but the best laid business plans of mice and sage grouse and men, often go awry when you think you have a job but don't.

I'm only saying this because I'm getting all kinds of new readers and I don't want them to feel ripped off and confused when we do get home and I quit blogging about the exciting road life and start blogging about how our local Safeway is out of chicken, again.

So maybe the uncertainty of our life and future can be looked at as a selfless act to keep you dear people from having to read boring chicken crises.

You're welcome.

Little America and the Nameless Sheep Herder Who May or May Not Have Snuggled with Heath Ledger

Driving on I-80 in Wyoming is chock-full-o-fun things like:

*Dirt
*Wind
*Dirt
*Sage brush
*Dirt
*Antelope
*Dirt

And freakish weather conditions that often close the highway for hours or days at a time while the rest of the state enjoys mild weather.

That's why Little America, Wyoming is such a welcome oasis in the southwest part of the state.

What began as a young sheep herder's dream is not only the name of a town, but also a chain of hotels and travel centers in the west.

If you believe it, that is.

This is not a sheep. It is an American bison.
Another hole in the story?

According to their postcards, menus, and website:

In the 1890's a Wyoming sheep herder became lost in a blizzard and was forced to camp out all night by himself. There were 50 mph winds, the temperature was 40 below, and he had no fire, food, or blankets (or Heath Ledger to snuggle up with). 

He longed for a warm, safe, shelter from the storm. He survived and the experience stayed with him. 

Years later, in 1934 after hearing of Admiral Byrd's Little America base station in the Antarctic, a light bulb went off and he opened a refuge for travelers on the exact spot of his harrowing experience of so many years ago. 

I'm sure this is all true, mainly because Heath Ledger wasn't even alive back then. But what I find odd is that nowhere do they mention the sheep herder's name.

My skeptical mind says it's all just hokey propaganda but my romantical mind says Heath Ledger was kind of hunky, so who knows?

This penguin is on the roof of the restaurant.
They are everywhere.
Kind of like symbols in The DaVinci Code
only with penguins.

For this Tumbleweed, what really matters is that they have *classy* showers and bathrooms. And for Himself it's the 50¢ ice cream cones.

You know it's classy when you can sit in the
bathroom while holding up a ball of light next to
a brass lamp surrounded by
groovy red velvet wallpaper.

As I may have mentioned once or twelveteen times before, life on the road means a LOT of public bathrooms and showers, some more cootie-ridden than others.

Little America is known in the trucking world for their nice facilities that feel nothing at all like a grungy truck stop.

A full size bathtub

Or a nice roomy shower

And the absolute mark of class in a bathroom:
the folded point.

Another thing that Little America is known for is their foreign worker program.

They get work visas for people from Turkey, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, and elsewhere in exchange for housing and a year of work and training in their establishment.  Apparently, local workers are hard to come by because the oil field and mine jobs pay so well.

Nowhere else in Wyoming will you hear such diverse accents.

Conversation with a clerk in the store:

Himself: "Excuse me, do you have any bananas?"

Clerk: "No bananas. Eeet epple."

Himself: "Excuse me?"

Clerk: No bananas. Eeet epple." (points to apple display)

*****

Road Food a Weird Dog and a Fact

My Douglas on the Road column is up at the Douglas Budget website and it's all about lumpy food, bathroom cooties, and hand harvested yak milk.

You're welcome.

Also, just so you have something to look at while you're here:

*action photo*
This is Jasmine mid-lick.
Someone may or may not
have put whipped cream
on her nose.

The aftereffects of eating whipped cream.
It gets a dog high, apparently.

Just in case you don't read my column (why aren't you reading my column?) here is the fact: rice is not a vegetable.

Read All About It! A new column and a random fact.

Today's column in the Douglas Budget has been posted to the website and you can read all about it here.

It's all about hurricane speed winds in a state that has nothing to blow down and why I like to live there despite that.

This picture has nothing to do with wind or Wyoming but I love the light.

We were driving along in rural northern Nevada before sunset and air just turned all glow-y and golden. Kind of like a Doris Day movie without all that virgin-ness.

Random Fact:

Sedona, Arizona has the only McDonald's in the world to have turquoise arches on their building, instead of the ubiquitous golden arches. City officials thought yellow would look tacky near all the natural red rock of the area.

Wildlife Facts and Western Beauty

If you've ever driven through a mountainous area, you've probably seen those truck escape ramps built on steep downgrades, to be used in case of brake failure.  They usually go straight up the side of the mountain and are covered in a deep bed of gravel or sand, to help slow you down or rocket off the mountain, whichever comes first.

Well, in Utah and other big game states, they have wildlife escape ramps. These are designed to give animals like deer, elk and wombats (presumably) a safe place to escape the highway if they find themselves on the wrong side of the fence. This lowers the chance of hitting one of these creatures with your car and totally ruining your day. And your underpants.

We saw these in southern Utah on I-15 at a rest area.  I thought it was a pretty good idea to put them so close the the vending machines.  Do you have any idea how fidgety and paranoid an elk can get once they're hepped up on Snickers™??

Jas doing an impersonation of a hepped up elk.
It's not pretty, people.

The Tumbleweeds have been out west a lot lately and I love it.  The sky is bigger, there are less people and even the dirt is pretty.  In Wyoming we have yellow, pink, orange and even purple dirt.

There's just something about the western half of the United States that draws me in. The land itself is a force to be reckoned with; it makes its presence known all around in the form of canyons, mountains, rock formations and outcroppings, and rushing rivers.  Not buildings.

I love the scenery out here so much I'm going to shut up and leave you with the views out of my office window this week in Wyoming and Utah.

Wide Open Spaces

Himself and I moved to Wyoming eight years ago from Florida as kind of an experiment. We needed a change, there was a job opportunity, and it sounded cool. Unlike a lot of life choices I have made based on cool factor, this move was a good choice.

Five Reasons I Love Wyoming:

Wyoming is sparsely populated. I love people, in a theoretical, stay-out-of-my-bubble kind of way, so to move to a state that has half the people of my former city? Well, that's a good thing.

About 30 miles south of town, we escape to the
 Laramie range and Medicine Bow
National Forest.

Wyoming has sky and lots of it. There's room in the Wyoming sky for everything and yet there's nothing in it but sky. It's as if, in other places, I'm standing in a box with a beautiful lid on it that's painted to look like a sky, but when I come home to Wyoming, the lid is taken off and the real sky is revealed. I imagine Dorothy felt much the same when she landed in colorful Oz after being ripped out of black and white Kansas. I need some ruby slippers.

Himself and Jas doing some rock walking.

People in Wyoming are friendly. This is most likely due to the fact that they're aren't many of them, but whatever the reason, it's true. People look you in the eye and say hello, they wave from their cars, (and not just with one finger, like in New Jersey), and they make good neighbors. Whether you need a cup of sugar or a box of thirty-aught-six, they've got your back.

There is no traffic in Wyoming, except for the occasional cow or tumbleweed stampede. Actually, it's so windy in Wyoming, the tumbleweeds aren't a problem, since they are usually going faster than the cars. I have been passed by a tumbleweed on the way to the grocery store. (Me, not the tumbleweed. I don't think tumbleweeds shop at Safeway.)

There are rocks in Wyoming that are easily climbable. These are so fun to climb around on, feeling all Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible-ish, without all the hassle of skill, athleticism, or that weird religion.

Nothing is better than a picnic at the top of the world.

Three Tumbleweeds, Festus and Some Wyoming Facts

****Breaking News****

There is a new Tumbleweed in the truck. Her name is Jasmine and she is awesome. A 3 year old brindle Boxer who has been in foster care for 6 months after being surrendered by people who starved her because crack is expensive they could no longer afford to feed her. 

Deep thoughts.

Serious face.

It's been a year and a half since we lost Harley our first Boxer. I have written about her some, but she died before I started this blog so she never really got to be a famous Tumbleweed like us. Now that there are at least 3 people who read this who aren't related to me I'm sure the movie of our lives is being planned in Hollywood right now. I'm sure they'll want Festus to play my part. *fingers crossed*

We got her from the angels at  Black Hills Boxer Rescue in South Dakota, which is about 3 hours from where we live in Wyoming. We picked her up last Wednesday while we were home for a week and I forgot my #1 rule for driving around Wyoming and it's neighbors, which is to always bring food.

We had a light breakfast and a busy morning and left around noon, excited at the prospect of getting our four-legged daughter. In the first 100 miles we had passed a gas station and a Subway but held out because we thought we could wait for something a little better; we eat so many sandwiches in the truck that I avoid them when I can in our off time.

One of the sprawling urban areas of Wyoming.
Yes. Population 1.

You know how in cartoons one character looks at another and sees a steak dinner? That was how I was beginning to feel. We found a Taco John's around the 200 mile point, before Himself lost a finger, but I won't make that mistake again. I love the sparseness and open spaces of Wyoming and the fact that it's not very populated but it's not a good state in which to have low blood sugar!

Sidebar:

Did you know the population of Wyoming is only 563,000? The New Jersey Turnpike has more people on it at any given time than we have living in the whole state!
Wyoming was the first state to give women the vote, the first to appoint a female justice of the peace and elected the first female governor. Wyoming is so friendly to women that even in our small town of Douglas (pop. 5,000) there are no fewer than 14,987 hair salons.

Can you believe she wants her seat back?

This is our first week in the truck with Jasmine. The truck is a little more crowded, a little more stinky but there's a whole lot more love and we are tickled to have her!