DAY 526: Good Night

Up early and driving off on a cheerful note, I traveled the first half of my journey to New Jersey with ease, having to make no more than six turns, and half of those were to get out of my boondocking place. I was feeling powerful and confident, enjoying the backroads when I was directed down a road with a bridge with a 9-foot clearance. I am 9 1/2 without solar. I managed to turn around without blocking more than one car. 

From that point on was a carnival ride, or rather, every ride at the No Amusement Here Park. I had a bridge that said trucks weighing more than five tons should use low gear. Well, I weigh more and I am not all that different from a truck in many ways, yet I thought you could never drop down gears like you can in a standard shift. 

There were hills that had signs that said there was a 9% grade for the next half mile, or mile, or in my case, a mile and a half. With twists and blind turns, narrow bridges and down the main streets of Towns I’d Like To Stop And Get To Know But There Is No Where To Park My Bus, and along lakes that were so over their banks the beachfront homes had no beaches. I was totally wrung out, wondering if I could have done that much brake riding with my old hip. But I made it with only tapping a curb with one wheel, so I started telling myself I was a bad ass crone. And I’d seen two waterfalls, one cascading stream, many farms and views, and this sign that made me piss off the driver behind me while I just had to snap this picture. I spent 14 years of my life on Camp Street, I was born on Washington’s birthday, and I was driving my skoolie down a mountain named after a distant relative, I assume.

Then, minutes after pulling into my parking spot alongside a house, all my appliances running on current straight from the solar batteries went out: the heater fan, the refrigerator, a string of fairy lights, and a double USB port. Oh, and one has a splitter. So I began to get all wrung out again, emptying the storage unit in front of the wiring and crawling between shelves to look at it – another something I couldn’t do with my old hip. Then after a brief panic, I realized that when a lot of things go off at once, it’s probably a fuse. I know to change exactly one fuse. And because I could get on the floor and reach into that cabinet, I was able to replace it. I began feeling the power of the “Warrior Woman” pin I was given for my journey; it rides atop the magnet that holds the strings to a black velvet bag containing a piece of black turmaline and a hematite stone. I had to cross a bridge yesterday that made me grab for them.

So the day is ending as it began, with a cheerful note.

Good night.