You know I like my freedom. To come and do as I please. But I’ve also thought about settling down, finding people to hang out with who have common interests.
Espeically now that I don’t have a vehicle, I should spend more time on weekends trying to meet up with people, find things to do as winter progresses.
Truth is that I am very concerned about what is happening in our country but I’m not very interested in political activism at this point in my life. I voted for Trump based on the obnoxious gun control and some of the more extreme environmental views on the left and let’s be honest some of the financial liberties and lack of personal responsibility professed to on the left. Truth is Trump kind of at one level represents that freedom I want at my off-grid cabin, the kind that the liberals want to restrict by banning things like guns and burn barrels in favor of plastics recycling, electric perfect temperature heat-pump climate control, and cars full of enormous colorful screens that remind us how much fuel we are saving in theory.
Things had just gotten rather unsettling during the President Biden years. While he was a decent man, he didn’t inspire hope and he didn’t seemed rather not up to the job. Inflation was bad, especially gas prices, but everything else just seemed to push upward during his years. The economy was good in all years but 2022, but while paper values went up, things in life seemed to stagnate, and it always seemed we were one step away from the next big recession. Truth is it seems like the left just wants to leave us numb in comforts wrapped in plastic, in denial about the real world that is full of problems.
Looking at my replacement for Big Red, I can’t help but reflect back on the malease that set in post-COVID time period. Not certainly all Joe Biden’s fault, indeed many of the policies that have made cars (and all other societal institutions) so bad came decades earlier – the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and subsequent tightening of safety and fuel economy standards in 2010s – and the high tech revolution brought forward by touch screens and powerful microprocessors. All things that have dramatically inflated vehicle costs and forced technology which at least in my mind is very suspect like turbocharged very small block engine to overcome pumping loses. Maybe I reject technology but I also feel like things are getting more complicated and worse for relatively non-existance fuel improvements. And it’s not just cars that have gotten bad – houses have many of the regulatory-generated flaws of modern cars, zoning and codes are just insane. They’ve made houses too expensive, too comfortable, and in reality too safe and waste generating. Conservatives might not have the answers, but liberals in their effort to keep people safe and green have done such harm to society.
Maybe because I am more of a low-information voter, despite being a Democratic political insider, I was unaware of the most awful things Trump said and did on his rise back to power in 2024. Honestly though, politicians say a lot of things, but don’t really mean it. And even the worse behavior in office is tampered down by the diverse sources of political power in our government. Trump is a maximalist, as his critics and supporters point out, not afraid to use power as he says fit. But somebody will start to apply the brakes to him, it’s going to happen. I could be angry, activated, but I choose to be another passive victim of the times we all live in. I am just stuck in the malease. Skeptical as hell. But Trump does do a good job into tapping into how broken American is today, how government rarely serves the people as it comes up with yet another mandate to make our air cleaner and our lives safer in theory, even when the practice leaves people to dubious to say the least. Maybe the motto of the decade is, “The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions”.
I do read the NY Times and lots of news magazines from the library. And I do read and listen to audiobooks about contemporary topics like climate change, pollution, and waste. And poverty. Maybe the books on poverty are what I am most fearful of, as I feel so poor even if I know I could live a much more prosperous life but I am frugal in search of owning my own land and that off-grid cabin. And apparently another big truck. But I also enjoy getting away from such things, reading about cabins and goat farming and homesteading more general. Something reading about cattle diseases or electrical wiring is somewhat removed from today’s bigger urban problems that are so disturbing, maybe because I realize I could fall so far.
I think my parents have attended some of those anti-Trump rallies. Myself I shrug it off, I don’t love the President but I can’t keep thinking what is alternative? More gun control, more badly broken safety and pollution controls on cars and houses? Just whining, pretending to make things better, and more colorful dashboards? More plastics recycling! That will solve the problem we are told! Not owning a television, I don’t see the orange man blasted into my apartment in high-resolution color, spewing hatred and xenophobia. I don’t keep up on the latest TV shows, I like seeing real off-gridders and dairymen on Youtube rather then some made for TV production. And just learning how real systems work in reality, and not the colorful screens that everybody is trying to force down our throats with enormous full color views of the President in all his most problematic views.
Next summeer, I am planning to take a trip to Northern Michigan and Wisconsin. For years I’ve been talking about going out west, but I’m generally unsatisfied with the idea of boarding an airplane, renting a car, staying in motels and mostly cities along the way. I want to be free to be driving in my own vehicle, taking the side road in search of a scenic view or a farm – or for that matter a smoldering burn barrel.
Of course the first thing tourist bureaus want you to know about is ways to spend money in these rural communities at the very ordinary clap-trap roadside stands and designated parks with their designated parking areas and scenic viewing areas with picnic tables, mowed grass, and safety railings. Generally canned entertainment like seeing that Giant Block of Cheese. Which don’t get me wrong, I’m very pro-dairy, but I’d rather see that rhamshakle old farm with the broke down ol’ truck and heap of burnt out cans and broken bottles in backyard. Spent the bulk of my time in woods and wilderness, far from humanity and others, that roadside campsite in the wilderness.
I’ve looked and it’s about 8 or 9 hours drive from Albany out to Chautaqua County where I could overnight at one of the state forests at a primative roadside campsite on a dirt road. From there it’s another 8 to 9 hour drive to the National Forests in Northern Michigan and another day to the Upper Peninsula to explore up there before heading to Wisconsin and ultimately the most farthest west part of my trip in Wisconsin. I’m think the Aldo Leopold Museum wouldn’t be a half bad place to be my final destination just because it’s a logical ending and not because I am some Aldo Leopold cultist. Truth is I don’t agree with all his views.
The thing is I don’t want to stay in crowded motel rooms or even campgrounds, though I do agree that once and while in a developed campground is good for hygiene and staying clean. Much rather have that dispersed campsite with the nearest neighbor a mile or further away. I want to have big fires and listen to the music at night – or wander in the wilderness with no one around to bother.
Maybe it’s the impending sense of being trapped in the city this winter, knowing all too soon I’ll look out my window and not see Red. But on the other hand, I do mostly ride my bike and take the bus around town, and normally rack up few winter miles except going to Walmart and my parents house once a week in the winter. And lots of visits in vein to manual car wash. Really giving up driving during the winter is hardly a loss, as I only occasionally was able to get out in country, camp in snow, have fires and giggle along with the Dire Wolf.
Still not having a vehicle seems a bit imprisoning, though I realize it’s from choice. I have the money that if I want to cut a big enough check, I can get a SuperDuty truck, even a fancy one tomorrow. Not that I want a fancy one, indeed the low feature set on basic XL heavy duty trucks make it much more appealing in my mind then the standard full-size and mid-size trucks that are full of big colorful screens and technology. And I could certainly get one of those used Honda Civics to drive to your suburban office and plastic-covered home or whatever the frugalists say you should drive as a financially responsible people say you should drive.
Certainly not having a truck will be inconvient at times. Probably the biggest issue will be when I have to do my wash and can’t get a ride out to my parents house, it will be trudging the wash to the laundromat a mile in snow either on my back or bus and asking my neighbor to use his trash bin. Or having to haul groceries home from the bike. I probably will shop primarily at Hannaford as that’s closer, though I can ride over to Walmart from time to time. And no more drives out to the country, up to camp for overnights in snow, watching the flicker of the flames as the stars rise overnight. But winter is cold, and honestly I should be saving money without a truck to gas up or insurance to pay.
I have such a bunker mentality, trying to get as much food and supplies from Walmart before it’s too late to conviently get what I need from the store. Trying to get as much rice, beans, flour as possible, as those things will last several months, are heavy to carry on my bike and are cheaper in bulk at Walmart. They also are staples in my diet. And other things that will last for a while like onions, and frozen fruits and vegetables though freezer space is a bit limited, though I can certainly take out the ice blocks if I’m not heading out camping. An extra pair or two of jeans if it’s while between getting down to the laundromat. It’s not like I can’t ride my bike or even take a bus to Hannaford, but it’s inconvient.
I often have to remind myself not owning a vehicle is a temporary situation, I will get a truck once the salt season is over and I want to travel again. I will get back out to wilderness, see the hills and hollars again. Despite my rundown apartment and my often dated and broken equipment, or riding sluggish local the bus to work, I am much better off then most Americans. I choose to live as I do, to camp in winter, to ride the bus and bike to work. Many people choose frugality out of necessity, I do because I hate excessive consumption, the bright colorful lights of modernity and all that plastic except of course besides those big pickup trucks with the old fashioned dashboards.
