Don't Fence Me In

Give me land, lots of land and the starry skies above
Don't fence me in
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love
Don't fence me in
Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
Send me off forever but I ask you please
Don't fence me in
-Cole Porter and Robert Fletcher

I find it highly ironic that in the middle of a pandemic, instructed to stay at least 6 feet away from other people, I find myself feeling trapped. My first instinct when this thing started was to get in the truck and take off to the desert. Anywhere away from the city, from the six-feet-still-feels-too-close and the eerily quiet streets and the grocery stores packed with spaced out patrons and the pharmacies with empty shelves and the hospitals with white tents erected in parking lots in anticipation of a surge of patients.

My mood has bounced between, "hey this is ok, better than being sick!" to "i hate this, i hate this, i hate this."  I've self-medicated with chocolate to the point my adventure pants are starting to tighten, and those are the stretchy ones. I pace the house from one room to the next, seeing projects I could start but never quite get settled enough to begin. I thought it would help to have a list going. So far, I've only managed to check off "find yeast online to buy" and "change toothbrush." At least my dental hygiene won't suffer from all the chocolate I'm eating.

I am now working from home, having been part of the third wave of workers to be outfitted with all the necessary equipment to work remotely. I have a pretty sweet work station set up, complete with dual monitors and headset. All the conveniences of work with none of the free snacks. Damn office mates keep interrupting my meetings with their snoring, not to mention the pile of fur that accumulates under my chair from all the extra scratching they insist upon.

My coping mechanism has been to allow myself a really deeply satisfying wallow in pity about once a week. I just let myself go there, morose self-pity, full on oh-woe-is-me-this-sucks-and-it's-not-getting-better depths of despair. The lower I go and the whinier I get starts to strike me funny, then I come back to the "hey, it's better than getting sick!" stage.

Easter Sunday was a weird experience. I'm not religious and have never associated it with much more than a chance to eat a nice dinner with family and consume a terrifying amount of chocolate eggs, but that chance was not available this year. We did have an hour Zoom session with most of Mark's family, which was fun but not the same. My favorite chocolate house of worship has closed for the duration: Sees Candies, the makers of the best chocolate Easter eggs in the world, has ceased production until it's safe for their workers to come back. In place of exercise that day, we went for a neighborhood walk with the goal of passing by all the churches we could find within our area. We hit 10 on our three mile walk, all closed for business. Even Jesus was depressed, and it takes a lot to get that guy down.

I realize how lucky Mark and I are to still be employed, housed, and (over)fed. So far, all our relatives are well and we are healthy and live in a nice walkable neighborhood with many helpful and friendly neighbors we could rely on in a pinch. But if freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose never meant anything before, it surely does now. If we take off to the desert now we risk not being here if something happens to our folks. We risk possibly spreading the virus to others through gas pumps and quick grocery stops along the way. We risk tracking something home from a far away place and spreading it to our community which has, so far, been spared the worst of it.

So I will sit in my work chair, mute my headset when the snoring commences, wallow in self-pity occasionally and ride this out with the rest of you. Freedom can wait, and I know we can do this.

I just don't wanna.

Land, lots of land, nary a fence in sight.
Alabama Hills, Eastern Sierras CA

Strange Days Indeed

Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Strange days indeed...
-John Lennon

I'm beginning to regret my decision to re-read Stephen King's The Stand. I started reading it when I first learned about the Coronavirus outbreak in China and it's more than a little creepy that its progression is following the storyline of the book so closely.

No, this virus is not killing 99.4% of the population, but the societal parallels are absolutely haunting. It starts in a small region and quickly skips across the country, carried by highway patrolmen, traveling salesmen, and vacationing families. In the book it's spread worldwide by airline passengers and some nefarious doings by the CIA, but who needs them nowadays, with the relatively cheap travel offered around the world? Cruise ships anyone?

At first, people are sympathetic and helpful. Gradually, they start getting paranoid and defensive, blocking off towns from outsiders to try to stem the spread. Hoarding and looting ensues and fights break out over loaves of bread. Stephen King didn't mention anything about toilet paper, but I guess even he couldn't have imagined that little tidbit.

I'm still working and I can't figure out if that makes me lucky or not. On the one hand, I'm still getting a paycheck and I'm not stuck at home all day with only food and TV to keep me occupied. On the other, I'm being exposed to 50 people each day who go home and are exposed to their families and possibly tracking things in to work with them every morning. We have some really good safety measures in place—they take our temperature before we enter the building, someone sanitizes all shared surfaces three times a day and we are all keeping the required 6' away from one another and washing the skin off our hands—but there's always that creepy feeling in the back of my mind. We're all hypersensitive to any sign of illness. A sip of tea went down the wrong pipe the other morning and I held the cough in all day long not wanting to get that look from my co-workers. I was so relieved to get in the car that afternoon, my own cootie cocoon where coughing is allowed.

My company makes parts that are used in medical testing devices, the optical filters we make are used to detect viruses. We are literally working on the Coronavirus problem, so we are considered an "Essential Business". I even have a letter in my glove box to prove it, in case they start cracking down on people moving around when they should be home social distancing. I would love to say I designed these life-saving parts myself but lo, I am but a lowly customer service person. I think I'm going to keep that letter even after this is over, just to make myself feel more important.

Mark is working from home for the foreseeable future. There's only so many production meetings one can have when there's no production going on, but managers find a way to keep busy. There's going to be some heavy-duty planning when it's announced that things will open up again. When he's not checking emails and holding virtual meetings, the house has arranged to keep him busy. So far, the washing machine has popped a hose, the kitchen sink sprung a leak, and our home computer died. He's a handy guy, so he fixed the first two and arranged for repair of the last. And he was so looking forward to TV and snacks...

It's highly ironic that our typical vacations would be much safer than staying home, but we are barred from leaving. Camping out in the middle of the desert is pretty much guaranteed virus free. Our camper has come in handy though, even here at home. We store extra food, water and even the ever more valuable toilet paper and sanitizing wipes in there. All that teasing about the zombie apocalypse vehicle was worth it in the end, eh?

I've learned a lot from this experience, but I'm not sure what to do with this knowledge.

Hand sanitizer tastes terrible: the first time you pick up a snack without letting the hand sanitizer completely dry will be your last.

My almost 80 year old mother has a better grasp of emojis than I do: she texted me a Coronavirus symbol before I even knew such a thing existed.

There are two types of people in this world: Those that can joke about the new reality, and those that slip into panic mode immediately and consequently really REALLY don't enjoy the other type of people. You might be able to guess what category I fall into. Sorry Jeremy.

I hope you are all safely holed up somewhere, or doing the best you can to limit your exposure. In this day and age of internet connectivity, there are ways to stay in touch without touching so we're all lucky that way. I'm hoping this thing will be contained as soon as possible, and things can get back to somewhat normal for everyones sake.

In the meantime, I'll be cruising back and forth to work in my cootie cocoon, coughing when I feel like it and waving my Very Important Person Letter for everyone to see. Not to worry though, my tongue has been thoroughly sanitized.

Iceland Part IV: Camping in Iceland

Here's how it works: pull into the campground and idle the vehicle slowly around the grassy field. Scan the grounds for anything that could stand in as a windbreak (bushes, fence, berm, larger vehicle). Note the location of the bathrooms–you'll want to park closer if it looks like rain– then find a space big enough to accommodate your vehicle as well as your travel buddy's, since you lost them a bit ago to a grocery store, museum, or unscheduled sightseeing mission but you know they'll be turning up sooner or later. Make a choice, back in, then put the car in neutral, letting it roll until it finds the flattest, most level position possible. Get out of the car and stretch. Now you're camping in Iceland!

A berm and some foliage goes a long way to protect us from the wind that seemed to be ever-present in Iceland.
Drangsnes Campground

If you're going camping to get away from it all, slip away and have some alone time to spend in the wilderness, Iceland is not your place. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of spots where you'll find yourself alone with nature, spectacular viewpoints and amazing vistas, they're just not located in the campgrounds. You might get lucky and be the first one to arrive at a site and have a bit of peace and quiet for a bit. Sooner or later though, you will have company.


Wild camping is prohibited in Iceland. I think they want to discourage people from driving off road (also strictly prohibited) and destroying the thick layers of moss that cover all that lava rock. It takes years to recover from just human foot traffic, I can only imagine how long is would take the land to recover from off-road vehicle tracks. They also have a big problem with public defecation. I know, it's disgusting to think about. Imagine how disgusting it would be to look out your farmhouse window and see some tourist squatting in your field? For all these reasons (plus I'm sure they appreciate the fees collected) staying in campgrounds is required.

Not much more than a place to park, camping in Myvatn was crowded,
but close to many attractions in the geothermally active area.
It had a great view of the lake though.

The sun sets over Lake Myvatn. Ok, this place isn't half bad.

The campgrounds in Iceland are generally big open fields. You can chose your spot with care, leaving a bit of room between you and the closest neighbor, but eventually you'll have another vehicle slide in beside you. The coziness extends to other areas as well. Most of the campgrounds we stayed in had shared facilities; you might find yourself brushing your teeth next to a big burly guy standing next to a cute twenty-something woman. The feet in the next stall might be petite pink tennis shoes or giant hiking boots. Showers were often the same setup. Nothing says togetherness like stepping out of the shower next to a hairy dude that's been backpacking his way around Iceland for the last three months.

This campground was located on a farm. Being in a remote spot, we expected to have to pay cash. Our host came out with a hand held card reader and took care of our payment with little fuss, although she had to walk up a hill and hold the reader in the air to catch the wifi from the farmhouse.

The barn, and another great sunset

One of the most notable facilities was in the Northern Iceland town of Drangsnes. There was a large building that I think was used as a hostel (it appeared to be closed for the season). In the room to the side of this building there were two bathroom stalls, a washer/dryer with a laundry sink and counter, two shower stalls with two shower heads each, and a picnic table in the middle. One rainy evening there were at least ten people in there: a couple doing their laundry, someone in the toilet stall doing what one does in a toilet stall, and a group of campers making dinner at the picnic table. All this in a healthy cloud of steam rolling out from one of the shower stalls, the ambience being enhanced by the freshly showered young lady dressing in the corner. It took some getting used to, coming from the strictly segregated facilities of our apparently prudish U.S. National Parks.

In truth, after a few nights we did get used to the arrangement and came to appreciate the fact that the campgrounds were so numerous. There is so much to see in Iceland, and such a large amount of ground to cover, it was nice to know the nearest campground was never too far away.

This was the least crowded, most remotely located campground we visited.
The bridge led across a warm river to a hot spring, fed by a hot waterfall.
I'll let you find it if you decide to go. It was spectacular.

Sometimes you stop when it's convenient.
This campground in Hofn was huge and sort of industrial. It had tiered parking areas built on a slight rise in town.
Here's Mark surveying our 15 foot slice of heaven.

The Skaftafell National Park campground had great views, and was very crowded. It was also the only one that had some  laid out sites you could choose from. It was an interesting social experiment; we noticed mostly Americans chose the separated sites, the Europeans opting to park side by side in the parking lot style area. Go with what you know I guess.

High in the mountains nestled between two active volcanoes, Landmannalaugar was our coldest, dampest night spent in Iceland. We got rain then snow, and the campground was just a gravel parking lot, but in the morning we woke up to an amazing view.

The view from our rear window in the morning.
Landmannalaugar

Our campground host one night.
This one was closed for the season, but we stayed there anyway and were treated to a Northern Lights show that night.

Watching the whales swim by from the berm above our campsite.
Drangsnes Campground
(Photo credit: LeeWhay Pasek, OverlandWithUs)