Usually I’m the one asking questions. For the last couple years I have found myself in a world I never would have imagined myself twenty years ago: journalism. In the last year, I have sold six stories. I am also a full-time content creator, and part of my job is to interview people to get the story about anything we are promoting on the websites I cover. As an introvert living in the middle of nowhere with my dog most of the time, you would think this is my idea of hell. It’s actually an awesome part of the job.
Mostly I call someone up or sit down with them and have a conversation. I do my best to just listen and feed into the conversation to learn more without making it about me. That’s the hard part. After I visit, I go through my notes and my audio recording and any photos I have taken to jog my memory about our conversation. Then I try to piece together the story out of all of this. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle made out of a broken pane of clear glass. It can be whatever I want it to be, but whatever it is has to be interesting. And all the pieces need to fit together right.
Today was an errand day and with that comes a lot of driving. I headed in to Yuma, AZ for groceries, propane, gasoline, and coffee. I had hoped to make it a week before heading into town again for anything, but propane was a necessity. That and a couple bags of trash that had been starting to stink, which I needed to dispose of.
After getting a gallon of propane at a Cal-Ranch (think Murdochs for the west coast), I wandered around the store, looking for the elusive fleece collared jean jacket I’ve been searching for during the last few months. There’s not much need for fleece anything in southern Arizona, but I still keep an eye out. After skipping overpriced dog chews and tools I don’t need—and sampling some essential oils, because I’m looking for a way to stay odor neutral on the road—I went back out to my bus.
I heard a voice behind me. “Gotta love the smell of crystal meth in the afternoon.” My ears pricked up. Unfortunately there is a stigma in the skoolie world where lots of nomads driving the skoolie are simply up to no good. Which, of course is par for the course with literally any community. Even knitters, I’m sure. I figured someone was slagging my bus off, and I was feeling just froggy enough to say something about it. I had the power of tea tree oil, after all.
I turned back just as they were saying something about, “I’ll bet its coming from those apartments over there.”
I looked back to see a middle-aged looking man. Either hispanic of Native ethnicity. Nobody else was around me. He continued his conversation, talking to me now. He had an audience.
“They cook crystal meth over at those apartments,” he said. “I know that smell anywhere. I used to smoke meth all the time. I’ve been clean for five years, except last year. I sorta fucked up.”
“Oh man,” I said. “That sucks.”
“It’s okay. I’m not tempted or anything. I just know that smell very well.”
We were about twenty-five yards off from my bus. I could have been driving any car in the lot, but he said, “That’s a great bus. Where are some of the places you’ve been in that thing?”
I stopped walking toward the bus. My situational awareness kicked in. I kept my hands neutral, with one hand covering the knife clipped into my pocket. I didn’t want to get into a bind right next to the bus. I wanted room to be able to move if I had to.
Then he started with all the questions. His teeth were the next thing I noticed. All of them were brown and either broken or snaggled, looking like the ancient mountain range of the Kofa Wildlife Area where I had camped the night before. He wasn’t lying about the meth problem. I answered questions, sizing up the situation. Not looking to provoke or put him on the defensive. People out here are wild sometimes, and unpredictable at best.
“How many miles you put on that? Is it gas or diesel? Four wheel drive? How many gallons of water does it carry? How many watts on the solar?” The guy knew his vanlife for sure. It felt like less of an interrogation and more like an interview I might have done. He was on a fact-finding mission.
Then he said, “I ask all sorts of people this, but what would you do to create positive change in the word if you had a billion dollars to spend it on?” Damn. Solid, good question.He asked what I would do about fixing health-care in this country. Unfortunately for my situational awareness, it dragged me right into some topics of conversation I have become very passionate about lately. I was in this conversation with both feet now. He shook my hand and introduced himself, and I told him my name as well.
He asked all sorts of questions.We talked about the drug problem and how Yuma and Arizona are meth and New Mexico is cocaine. He talked about where he lived in the Four Corners and how all the young people there are on drugs or booze and how the elders are dying off without anyone to pass on their traditions to. He seemed genuinely upset with this. I told him about the homeless encampments in the PNW and how one day there were tent cities and suddenly they were all gone and nobody seemed to question where all these people had gone.
We visited for about ten minutes, talking about everything from the CEO shooting to human rights issues and some suggestions of campsites on the Rez near Quechan and how all I needed to do was go to the casino and ask. What’s strange about occurences like this is how on guard you usually need to be. You’re out by yourself and there’s no telling what kind of psychos are out there, just waiting to slit your throat to take your vehicle.
But I have mostly come across how 99% of people out here are not out to murder you. They have colorful pasts. Many have struggled with addiction or run-ins with the law, but that doesn’t make them bad people. A hard life doesn’t usually made a bad person. It just sets the bar at a different level of what they will do for survival. It’s important to not judge others on a moral level, but also keep your head on a swivel to keep yourself safe. Nobody is coming to help you. But that doesn’t mean everyone is out to get you either.
A few nights before, something unsettling had happened at my camp. The sun had gone down and I was working. The desert was quiet and the wind had stopped blowing after sunset. Outside, I could hear muttering. Low voices like men outside my bus. To keep myself safe on the road, I am armed, and rather than get ambushed by someone, I went out to investigate, flashlight and boomstick in hand.
I shined my light around in the desert and saw four pinholes of light close to the ground. Two small critters with big ears and long bushy tails were snooping around outside. I watched them for a while and took some pictures with my iPhone. As near as I can tell, they were fennec foxes, or maybe grey foxes. I had heard them talking to each other as they checked out the strange intruder in their nightly hunting grounds.
I felt a sense of relief, since it very well could have been people. People are the scariest thing out here, and there’s no good reason for them to be in your camp after dark unless you’ve invited them there. Penny slept through the whole thing.
I parted ways with the guy in the parking lot, and he said, “Maybe I’ll see you and your bus around!”
“Yeah!” I said. But inside, I was saying, I hope not. There’s a big reason I don’t dress my bus up or put much on it that makes it stand out. I don’t want that kind of attention. I don’t want to make it easy to be tracked. I would rather someone forget I even existed after they see me.
This interraction went off pretty well, and I kept my eyes open, checking my corners. Keeping my distance, and almost always having a hand on my knife in case I had to fight. But one thing that was pretty cool about this experience was seeing someone else out there who I decided was genuinely curious about how other people are getting by in this world right now.
He told me he had been homeless. Addicted to drugs. He said he wanted to live on the road much as I was doing, and that it was something he was working towards doing. Sometimes I get these little reminders from the Universe that this life I have chosen isn’t half bad. Lots of people would like to do this. From the kids at Dutch Bros to the 90 year old Japanese man at the laundromat in Los Alamos.
These messages usually come to me right when I feel like giving up. Days when this solitary life seems pretty tough and wondering what direction I am headed in life. Like a sailor who has aimed his ship for the horizon without any course set and no stars or compass to guide his path. I’m sure there’s some point to all of this. Either way, I need to remind myself that I get to do this. I don’t have to do this.
And considering the successes I’ve had for the past year, which only a life on wheels could have afforded me, I think I’m making the right choice. Who knows where the next year will take me?
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