We’ve been on the road nearly a month now. It doesn’t feel like it. Leaving DC on our anniversary, it took 3 days, 2000 miles and a side trip to FLW’s Fallingwater to get to the West. After two weeks operating in the populous front range of Colorado, we’ve crossed over into the West, shed our Scurry pace, and are leaning into Plod.
There is a comfortable cadence to #tentlife. Each location brings new patterns of roads, weather, and terrain, but some things stay the same. Life’s necessities are distilled into their essential elements. Life’s tempo requires a town day every three or four days. The objectives are always broadly the same. The details are unique to each place and make the process its own eventful discovery.
The pattern of life follows natural rhythms. A shift to inside the tent comes around 8pm as the day’s light ebbs. In the dry air of the Colorado Plateau, temperatures drop quickly. We’ve cleaned up from dinner and finished our hot tea and dessert. A walk to the historic bathhouse and into the tent for a game of cribbage or an episode of “Into The Badlands,” downloaded from Hoopla, the online library. Tucked into our protective Trango shell, we sleep soundly in 40 degree temps and ponder how we can put a deep chill into our bedrooms back East. There’s a biological awakening around 6 and by 7 we are in the Clam. With panels up and the Little Buddy propane heater on, the cold morning air is kept at bay. Coffee and old fashioned oats keep the Magma Propane stove running hot, adding precious heat to the kitchen. With one bar of LTE, we tackle the NYT crossword to keep our now 243 day streak alive.
The breakfast pantry contains oatmeal, bananas, dried cranberries, walnuts, brown sugar, and granola. It takes time; time to heat the water over and over again; for oats, for coffee, for clean up. And, that’s good because the coldest hour of a day is at sunrise until it climbs above the horizon and shines on the Clam panels like a heat lamp. Two bowls, two pots, two mugs, two sporks. We wonder why we run a full dishwasher everyday at home. After breakfast we get dressed in the sheltered Clam which has changed from kitchen to bedroom. This day started differently as we were out of coffee, creamer, oatmeal, lunch, dinner, socks, underwear, towels, and clothes, so the day would be chores.
The McDonald’s app is full of deals. Do you eat there? We never eat there at home. On the road, it is our go-to morning stop on travel days when the Clam has been packed the previous night and we are moving fast from asleep-in-the-tent to packed-in-the-truck. We arrived at the Fruta franchise around 7. Ordering separately, we each get a $2 Egg McMuffin and large coffee with 4 creams, and one of us gets the hash brown to split. Why they don’t sell an Egg McMuffin with a hash brown directly on the sandwich is a mystery to us. We listen to locals talk too loudly about politics, the economy and everything that’s broke in this world. We spread out our devices and power cords sucking down precious electricity while connecting to high speed WIFI. Our photos get uploaded to the cloud and the blog that was written in the Notes app gets loaded into Go Daddy (our website host). We pass the laptop back and forth, editing, finessing, and landing on a headline while waiting for the disturbingly hot McDonald’s coffee to cool a little. McDonald’s is always mobile office friendly, and it’s hard to mess up an Egg McMuffin. By the time we publish we’ve got the map up for the next stop … laundromat.
Grand Junction, like most of Colorado, has a pervasive element that was on full display at the Lucky Laundry next to the Lucky Dispensary and Lucky Liquor store. At this strip mall, everyone gets Lucky. We do laundry everyday in Florida and at least twice a week in DC but when we’re on the road we wear the same clothes a time or three or four before we switch them out. At $3.75 a wash, the commercial machine fits up to 25 pounds of clothing. We stuff four pair of jeans, bathtowels, assorted shirts, underwear and socks with an All free and clear detergent pod for a 36 minute cycle and people watch the comings and goings of the Lucky clientele. Washing, drying and folding is a universal chore that unites us. The country is made up of two economic classes of people; those that have a washer and dryer in their abode, and those that do not. On the road, we are not retired privileged homeowners living the life of Riley. Our socks, underwear, and T’s are spread out for matching and folding on the community table as we pet the tiny lap dog of the patron next to us, joined for a moment by our different circumstances but common needs. 21 minutes, 2 dryers and $1.50 later, we are second-hand-high picking up a Segram’s for later, and navigating to the mostly highly rated Ekahi Grill to Go for a no-chain lunch.
Ekahi sits in a plaza shared with a Fed Ex Office and Jimmy John’s that has a drive thru line as long as Chick-fil-A. There is no one in line for Hawaiian. A long glass cold-food case has just two small mysteriously labeled Sushi Burritos for sale. That’s a Hard Pass. The disheveled Hawaiian giant behind the counter takes us through the menu options in a sing song laid back tone. Not to be dissuaded by the lack of customers, empty food case and less than clean appearance, we order their specialty, Volcano Katsu Chicken plate the only way it comes – To Go. At nearby Lincoln Park we sit in the cool air but warm sunshine as teenagers scurry around at their track meet, EMTs break for lunch, and dog walkers stroll the grass. Despite all appearances, the Volcano Katsu Chicken plate is uniquely Hawaiian and decadently delicious. We’d return everyday if not for the two thousand mile drive.
After lunch, the Mesa County Library inspires with a corridor of original art, part of a books-to-art recycling program and a $1 bookstore. We switch out our books picking up a hard luck story of two boys from Baltimore and a memoir of an investigative reporter trying to live life on a minimum wage in America today. The donation bookstore is wonderfully curated and we could have chosen a dozen, but two will do. There are more libraries in our future and our shelf space is severely limited.
Ice and gas go together. Ice is precious. We cannot make it without freezing all the rest of our cold food. Our Yeti tumblers can keep a supply around for a day or two and most convenience marts will let you fill your own cup if you are getting gas. Some charge 50 cents, which is also quite fair, but not as fair as free. A slow roll through the center of the historic district in town confirms that we will not be returning later in the week for First Friday. Grand Junction is simply too big for our taste. It works for today, but in all likelihood we will never be here again, which is a weird thought.
On the way out of town we spy Museum of the West, a full square block building with a reciprocal membership to The Ringling in Florida. Fortuitous, as our membership expires on exactly this day. The attendant welcomes us and directs us to the Tower for a grand view of Grand Junction, Grand Mesa and our home base on Grand Loop C before the afternoon clouds roll in. We see the replicas of migration era life on the main floor – planes, fire engines, saloons, opera and school houses, Native American pottery and of course, guns.
Finally we provision at the City Market, another Kroger entity. All of America is actually just a dozen companies. The appearance choice is an illusion. Perhaps that is why we cherish the Mom and Pop Hawaiian lunch. But Kroger by whatever name it calls itself today works just fine and we load the truck with 72 hours of food – all that will fit. We let the sales dictate the menu. A last chance filet pairs nicely with marked down mushrooms.
Somehow the entire day has slipped by and while the clothes are clean, the pantry is stocked, and the gas tank is full, it does not feel like any effort has been expended. There has been too many new sights, new sounds, new tastes, and interesting persons to make the day anything but a fun exploration of Grand Junction. The only item to rehab is ourselves. Our tent life on the Colorado National Monument ridge lacks just one amenity, a shower. We have a solar shower hanging from a high tree branch, but there is also a Colorado State Park one our way “home.” Our one-year Colorado pass continues to gain us park entrance and while the RV sites may be full, the shower house is empty. We are not sure about the privileges of “Day Use,” but assume it could very well include a shower after a particularly messy picnic.
When we return to camp all is as we left it. We are alone on Loop C, the tent only loop. There is hot tea and last chance weirdly died cupcakes before the tent. And new episodes of “Into the Badlands” on Hoopla courtesy of the Mesa County Library WIFI. Tomorrow, the three day countdown to Monumental Chores begins again.
