Hitting the Road — Love and

A little over a week ago, we hit the road. We embarked on an open-ended road trip, living and working from The Bubbler (our trailer), hoping to make the most of the pandemic by getting out of San Francisco and seeing a slice of the US.

We left our beloved San Francisco apartment in a swirl of packing up to rent it out, tidying up, socially-distanced but wonderful good-bye hangouts, and final orders from the world’s largest online retailer. We felt some resistance as we left our comfortable 1700 square foot home where the water, power, and gas flow inwards in unlimited quantities and the copious waste we produce, bodily and otherwise, flows outwards with equal ease. But our excitement for this adventure together was stronger, and we left, our truck (Shack, short for Shackleton) piled high with possessions, supplies, and our bikes.

Our plan is to travel slowly so we can stay focused on our intensive work schedules. To see the varied and intense natural beauty of California and the South West, to allow space for hidden, unlikely gems to divert us. We spent the first two nights in a Walmart parking lot.

The Walmart in question was in Dublin, CA, just a BART ride away from San Francisco. Walmart has a national policy that campers and trailers can overnight in their parking lots. There’s something comforting about nodding to the occupants of the couple of other road-trippers in the lot, and it’s obviously convenient to be able to buy almost anything for almost nothing just outside our front door.

I met a friendly trucker who offered us a bag of surplus hash browns. He was sporting a Trump mask (at least he had a mask), so I asked him if he thought Trump would win. He was confident, and proceeded to inform me that most of the media constantly lies, and that you if you want real news you have to get it from credible, international sources. I wondered inwardly what outlets he was referring to - the BBC, perhaps, or Al Jazeera, and asked the question. “I get mine from Fox”, he said. “They’re the only ones who can be trusted.”

We walked to Bed, Bath & Beyond to buy two warm duvets for our trip (side note: we find we avoid waking each other up at night by using our own covers; in our marriage there are some things we don’t share). I was skeptical that we could walk it, anticipating being blocked by 8 lanes of traffic on the 1 mile walk, but the facilities for pedestrians were surprisingly workable. We surmised that we might be the first people ever to walk this particular mile, from one enormous parking lot to another, across a major freeway.

At BBB we spent what felt like an extravagant sum on down duvets, but any doubts about the wisdom of this investment vanished in the subsequent nights as we luxuriated in nature’s light, breathable insulation, which seemed to know how to keep us at the perfect temperature. “I feel like I’m sleeping in a cloud,” said Roxy. Another reminder that even with all the technology we have, we still can’t produce materials that beat nature’s.

Escaping Walmart’s gravity, we moved on to our next stop, a small coastal community with a grand vision of regenerative agriculture. We were welcomed with open arms there (not literally of course, COVID), and spent an easy few days at this windswept outpost, an odd scatter of derelict buildings and long-abandoned trailers mixed with cushion-filled lounges replete with mandalas and psychedelic art. We walked on the gusty, breaker-pounded beaches and sheltered at night from the dripping fog. We earned our keep by making homemade ice cream flavored with what we harvested from the land (first fennel then basil). I hadn’t been able to leave the ice cream machine at home: minimalism was never my strong suit.

Roxy and her portable dance floor (I guess she’s no minimalist either), Bubbler & Shack in the background — Roxy with her portable dance floor (I guess she’s no minimalist either)