Night Shower and Hitting The Road

My time at the Slabs has come to an end.  I spent most of yesterday getting ready for my departure today.  I took breaks and time out to talk with people.  I didn’t want my last full day in Slab City to be nothing but a grind of packing and organizing, so I wasn’t as fast or efficient as I might have been.  But it’s ok.  It will all work out.

I had originally planned to leave yesterday, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to give myself one more day.  Nobody knows what next year will bring.  Will this be my last stay at the Slabs?  With that question in mind I’ve been paying more attention, trying to memorize the smell of the desert wind at night, the scatter of stars, the way the darkness makes the space out here seem endless, the sense of wildness and mystery at the edge of the firelight, and the feeling of safety in the little circle of my fellow Slabbers as we sit around the fire and tell stories.

One of the things on my to do list was to have a final shower, but somehow I never got around to it.  Then it was sunset and the fire had been started, and it was important to be there for my last night.  The last couple of nights there has been a furious firefight going on at the gunnery range on the other side of the canal as the Navy Seals train.  The chatter of automatic weapons fire is punctuated by deep, thumping booms and flurries of red tracers streaking across the horizon.  These came from teams on the ground, but there were also airships firing down at targets, streams of tracers aiming down and then ricocheting  up to make a V of flying ammo.  It was quite an entertaining show.  And it’s about time my tax dollars gave me some entertainment!   I’m told those exercises were happening less than 2 miles away from where we sat in our camp chairs, which was a sobering thought.

After most folks had gone in for the evening I excused myself and came back to KD to keep working on packing.  I’d already packed away most of the dishes and cookware.  I am concerned with keeping weight off the tongue, so I don’t leave the kitchen loaded up when I’m towing.  Those bins went into Goose, along with food I won’t be needing on the road.  I left some basic stuff so that I could still make coffee and a simple meal in the morning and on the way home, but much of it has been packed away.

I did some more work, packing my Crosley Trio stereo, and a set of multi-colored LED candles that seemed like the height of foolishness when I bought them but turned out to be loads of fun, entertaining everyone who sat at the table with improbable colors and goofy effects.  I got my clothes rounded up and put back in the duffles so they could be used as weight balancing ballast, and then I started regretting not taking that shower.  I really didn’t want to wait until morning.

Well, I didn’t have to!  KD has a light in her bathroom now, which is finally almost completely finished.

There’s hot water, and Mr. Heater will help dry me off if needed.  So I checked the water level in the tank.  Rut roh!  It was looking pretty low.  I’d already taken one shower using that tank and washed a couple loads of dishes along with the usual hand washing and random water running that happens every day.  But not to worry.  I had another 28 gallons in containers, although it meant I’d have to go out and put the aux water intake into one of them and turn the valve.  

I decided to go ahead and do it.  That way I wouldn’t have to deal with taking time to shower in the morning, as well as the time it takes to clean up and dry out the bathroom before putting it back together.  So I did.  It was my first nighttime KD shower, and it went swimmingly.  The light worked great and the water was hot.  I had 7 gallons to luxuriate in before the container was empty, but that’s more than I needed.  I feel so much better

The gunnery range is finally quiet as I write this and midnight slips by, but a long freight is rumbling off in the distance, blowing the horn at regular intervals and the sound is mournful and lonely.  There are so many posts I wanted to write.  So many things I intended to do.  I wrote some of them, some of them are still in draft form and hopefully will get put up in the next week or so.  Some of the things I wanted to do I did, but it’s a rare adventure where everything goes as planned.  But it’s OK.  I'm done packing and almost ready to hitch up, then hit the road for home.  And that will be its own adventure.

Stone Soup for a Rainy Day

Today was not a good "solar day".  Meaning it was cloudy, so not much solar radiation reached the panel. Sprinkles of rain came and went, the typical brief showers that occur out here.  This is a desert, but it does still rain.  Often the rain passes quickly and all traces of moisture vanish within the hour.  Today there were periodic brief showers, starting in the late morning.  All day the sky was overcast, a flat gray light covering the landscape and making it seem like the hour was later than it really was.

Raindrops dashing against KD's back window.

I felt like staying in bed, but I'd slept a long, hard sleep and I had somehow promised to make black eyed peas for a four o'clock supper for some of our group.  I had intended to make them on the first day of the year so we could eat them for luck like you are supposed to, but I got that dang virus and just wasn't in any kind of shape to cook then.  Last night at the fire I mentioned I was thinking about cooking them up before I left, asking around to see who would eat them if I did them vegetarian style.  We have a couple of vegetarians in our group and one of them is allergic to onions, so I was trying to figure out how I could make black eyed peas palatable with no ham hock and no onion.  Part of that problem got solved when Seann, who gets sick unto death if he eats onions, told me he hated black eyed peas.  I figured at least that meant I could use onions.

I was thinking out loud about how I would make them, regretting throwing out that last quarter of a fresh onion I'd had and wondering what I could use instead of ham for flavoring.  Aaron piped up that he had an onion I could use and some meatless imitation bacon bits.  Chili Bob said he would fry up some of the big sack of red potatoes he had to add to the meal, and before I knew it I was committed to cooking those peas.  Everybody seemed excited about it and somebody said "Stone Soup!"

So I had to get up and get going, because around here four o'clock comes a lot sooner than you think.  I made coffee, put the bed away and tidied things up a bit.  Had some cereal, swept the floor, and switched the pump back onto the tank.  Biela and Luo took the 55 gallon water drum with them when they left, and I'd been drawing water off a couple of 7-gallon jugs.  Those didn't have enough left for a shower, so it was time to start drawing off the trailer tank again.

I took a conservative shower.  Without that 55 gallons out there I need to be a little more careful of water use.  I don't want to have a lot of water left when I leave, but I want it to stretch over the next few days.  I can still get more, but I don't want to be making multiple water runs in my few remaining days out here.

I needed to pick up a few things for this evening's dinner as well as get rid of garbage and make one final water run, so I checked to see if anyone needed a ride to town or needed anything brought back, then mounted up.  I managed to make efficient use of time, grabbing a couple more 7-gallon water carriers, which I've been meaning to buy, and another 10-foot freshwater hose so I didn't have to detach my other one from the auxiliary water intake.  Fresh ice for chilled drinks and a few other necessities, and I was heading back to the Two Rivers rest area to water up for perhaps the final time.  Pelicans were wheeling overhead in great flocks, residents of the nearby wildlife refuge.  They are huge birds.  The sight of pelicans soaring on their enormous wings inspired Tere Rios to write The Fifteenth Pelican, the book that was the basis for The Flying Nun TV show.  I watched them while the jugs slowly filled and they did make me think of the cornets of the Daughters of Charity.

I stopped for ice at the Market Square grocery store in Calipatria, then hurried home to start those black eyed peas cooking.  The day was dreary but a hole must have opened up in the clouds over a section of the Chocolate Mountains, because suddenly what looked like a wide plateau was hanging there in the brilliant sunlight.  It looked like a mysterious, hidden land made momentarily visible, an Asgard or Shangri La shining in the golden light, framed between frowning peaks on either side that jutted up like shadowed teeth.  I watched it all the way to Slab City, seeing a fiery road, gleaming fields and a forbidden, immortal city.  It stayed visible all the way through Niland and down Beal Road until I turned away down the canal road.  By the time I had Goose tucked in close to the trailer it had disappeared back into the dim mutter of vague tumbled shapes, dark and indistinct again in the gloomy afternoon light.

It started to rain in earnest as I got out of the truck, and then the air was filled with that marvelous sweet and spicy fragrance of a rainstorm in the desert.  The drops were fat and warm as they struck me and I realized I didn't mind them at all.  Rain is such a blessing in the desert, all the surrounding creation seems to turn up its face gladly to the sky to receive it.

It's been a while since I've made black eyed peas.  The conventional method is to simmer them slowly over many hours, but I am too impatient for that.  Besides, I have a pressure cooker.

 Unsoaked black eyed peas cook in about 6 to 7 minutes under high pressure, though it's best if you can let the pressure fall naturally after the timer goes off.  That allows the peas to continue to cook in the residual heat and spares them the shock of an abrupt pressure change that happens when you suddenly release the vent, which could cause them to burst their skins and turn to mush.  There are opinions on both sides about whether it is necessary to presoak them before cooking.  My pressure cooker goddess, Lorna Sass, reassures us that the peas are so small they don't really need to be soaked.  Aside from soaking them overnight, there are ways to speed soak beans using the pressure cooker.  This just seems like more work to me, so I haphazardly rinsed the bag of dried peas and pawed them over to remove any obvious debris, then threw them in the pot with 8 cups of water.  I diced up about half a large yellow onion, several ribs of celery including some of the tender leaves, and chopped up about a dozen baby carrots.  I usually buy peeled baby-cut carrots when I'm camping for convenience sake, but you could obviously use regular carrots and just peel and slice them any way you want.  I also added 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.  The oil is important to keep the beans from foaming up and going crazy in there, possibly blocking the steam vent and causing bad things to happen.  I've read a lot of dire warnings about beans and peas in the pressure cooker.  Apparently there is the risk that a bean skin can catapult up there and block the steam vent, causing an explosion to rival the Tunguska Event.  But I've never had that happen.  Add some oil to prevent foaming, don't overfill your cooker and everything will be fine.  Besides, that's what safety release valves are for.

I shook in some dried onion flakes just for good measure, and a generous handful of Aaron's imitation bacon bits.  My original idea had been to get some liquid smoke and add that to make up for the lack of ham or salt pork, but I thought this might work as well.

I added a little salt and pepper (best to save the final seasoning adjustment until the end so you don't accidentally overdo) and was valiantly resisting the urge to sneak in my favorite chicken bouillon cube for a flavor boost since that would violate Aaron's strict vegetarian requirement.  Just then Aaron himself showed up to see how things were going.  He came bearing a little jar of Marmite.  He suggested I try adding about a teaspoon for flavor.  I have to confess I was a little dubious about Marmite.  I've certainly heard about it.  Usually the person mentioning it has to suppress a shudder when describing it, a thick, salty yeast-based concoction beloved by British cooks and useful for vegetarian dishes in place of the usual meat stock concentrates.

I sniffed it and it didn't smell bad.  Seemed like it might be just the thing to calm down my chicken stock withdrawal jitters, so I promised to add some during the finishing stages.

I remembered I had a cornbread mix in the cupboard, so while I was waiting for the pot to come up to pressure I mixed it up and poured it into my trusty cast-iron skillet, well buttered, then put it into the hot oven. 

When the timer went off after six minutes I turned off the heat on the peas and let the pressure fall.  It takes a long time for that big 10-quart pot to drop pressure though, and eventually I couldn't stand it and had to move the valve over to the release position.  All Abooooooarrd!  Steam blew out in a long whoosh, and then it was time to see how things turned out.  If you've never used a pressure cooker before, one important safety tip is to open it facing away from you.  Just tilt the lid up like a shield between you and all that billowing steam coming up out of the pot.

The peas did great.  They were fully cooked and the broth looked rich and brown.  I added a teaspoon of Aaron's Marmite, adjusted the salt and pepper, and threw in a bit more imitation baco-bits for fun.  It tasted surprisingly authentic.  The cornbread came out of the oven and then people were at my door, dancing around and offering to help me carry things over to Chili Bob's Bounder.  It wasn't cold exactly, but rain kept threatening and it just seemed like a good idea to eat in the cozy, dry Bounder.

Chili Bob's fried up red potatoes and onions were AWESOME!  I would have been content to just fall face down in the bowl, but I figured I should probably at least eat some of the black eyed peas.  We ate til we were ready to burst, then Chili Bob broke out beer and ice cream.

I wish I had taken a picture of the pot of black eyed peas or the skillet of cornbread, but I didn't think of it until it was too late.  I made it clear I didn't really want to take home any leftovers so Chili and Aaron divided them up.  They'll be even better tomorrow.  Maybe I didn't think that whole no-leftovers things through too well.  On the other hand, Aaron looked so happy bearing away his big container that it was worth it.

Chili Bob agreed with me those black eyed peas came out good, but they might have been a tiny bit better with real ham.

Oh, and we polished off the corn bread too.

Leftovers

KD doesn't have a microwave.  She did, sort of, when I got her.  There was a cheap little microwave oven in her when I bought her, and I hauled it all the way home with a bunch of other crap I had no intention of keeping in the trailer.  Microwaves take power to run, and there's no power out here unless you bring it. Someday I might, might, want to have a generator, but for the time being I don't have much use for one.

I've borrowed Biela's 85-watt solar panel and her Xantrex charge controller again so that KD's two 6-volt deep cycle batteries, wired in series, can be charged up each day by the sun.  Sun is something we have a lot of out here and solar panels are a necessity in Slab City.  I don't even want to speculate on what kind of solar farm it would take to run a microwave oven.  I guess theoretically you could do it, but as a practical matter, if you want to 'wave your dinner you need a genny.  I can get along just fine with the stove top and KD's little oven.

I also brought my 10 quart pressure cooker, which is way bigger than needed here but my smaller ones are packed away and hard to get to, so I just brought the one I had handy.  A pressure cooker is a great thing to have out here.  In some cases it is faster than a microwave and it uses a minimum of fuel and cooks things beautifully, once you get the hang of it.   You can reheat things with the superheated steam, but sometimes it's simpler to just do what we all did in the old days:  heat leftovers up in in the oven.

Before Biela and Luo left, I did a flurry of cooking.  We started out with a monstrous lasagne that took us days to finish.

 I made some kind of concoction that I'm going to call Shepherd's Pie.

 I made my famous Mountain Kimmie's Can't Fail Chicken N' Dumplings (in the pressure cooker of course), and I made meatloaf.  The meatloaf was a KD first.  A totally old-fashioned, American Mom thing to make.  I had to mix up the ingredients the old fashioned way, by getting my hands right in there and mushing them around in the bowl.  I couldn't take a picture of that because my hands were, you know, meaty.  But here it is ready to go in the oven.

Just like at home!  It doesn't look substantially different once cooked, but I had to do a shot of it just to mark the occasion.

Yum!

Of course this meant we had leftovers, and despite my best efforts to foist, uh, gift, some of the many leftovers off on neighbors, the result is a fridge jammed to the gills.  In true Mountain Kimmie fashion.

With Biela and Luo gone, there's no danger of me starving.  And yes, that's a new fridge!  Well, a used fridge, but new to KD.  It came out of some derelict RV.  Something very bad had happened in it.  It was provided with a brand new cooling unit, but the evil mildew explosion inside made me shudder.  The guys told me they'd clean it up for me, but they cleaned like you'd expect guys to clean.  Meaning it was still pretty disgusting when I got here.  I spent a few hours scrubbing that bad boy before firing it up, and it is much better now.  It still needs attention around the frame where some rust happened, and when I get home I'm taking the door off so I can attack the gasket with bleach.  At least the crummy icebox from last year is gone.  There has been a great deal of progress with KD, and a working fridge is a big part of that.  I still can't get over the sense of wonder and awe I feel that the thing gets cold without a smidgen of electricity.  It runs on propane.  It can also run on household current if I ever go where there is a place to plug in, or even on 12-volt, although that's not recommended due to the high power demand that makes 12-volt operation impractical in most cases.  They never even hooked up the 12-volt part at the shop and that's fine by me.  I'll mostly be running it on propane.  And like I said, IT'S LIKE SOME KIND OF MIRACLE!

I had leftover meatloaf last night.  I thought I'd warm up some leftover chicken n' dumplings tonight.  Put it in a little pot and straight into a 350 degree oven for a few minutes.  I'm smelling it now.  I think it's time for dinner.

Now that it's just me, I'm using paper plates and trying to keep the dishes to a minimum.  Kenny would be proud.

A New Year

Yes, 2014 is well over, and good riddance I say.  It wasn't the worst card in a generally shitty hand, but it wasn't the best either. Some good things happened. Some bad things happened.  A friend passed away, I lost a family member after a long final illness, I lost something, or someone, very dear to me.  On the other hand my niece Ruby was born, and I was filled with the wonder of having a new person so closely related to me after I had given up on that expectation.  Someone with my eyes and maybe my pointed chin, and my brother's goofy, sardonic grin, and her sisters' and mother's unmistakeable stamp as well.  So that I look at her and think, Ruby is the bridge.  She is the one related to all of us and thus she ties us together.  She is a little miracle, or more probably a big miracle.  I can't wait to get to know her.

But I also want to get to know my two other nieces.  It wasn't Ruby who made me an aunt and gave me an anchor in the world again at a time when I was filled with a sense of loss and irrelevancy.  It was her sisters Bela and Myka.  They are so beautiful it takes my breath away.  They are like goddesses, and they are apparently very interested to meet me which naturally endears them to me.

Perhaps it is only a wish to find the comfort of meaning after a long stretch of difficulties, but I believe that the end of 2014 signals the end of a 7 year cycle for me.  Things started to slide south in 2007 so my hope is they'll get better following 2014.  Seven has always felt like a lucky number to me.  The idea of the 7 year cycle, (the 7 fat years and the 7 lean years) has been around a long time, so it's not just my idea.  I'm ready for a brighter year.

I am sitting in Slab City as I type this.  I have been here since the 22nd of December and I have not made a single blog post, despite all my best intentions and promises to loved ones.  I've had ideas and plans for posts, and throughout the last few months have even put together drafts which I never got around to polishing up and posting.  The plan was I'd turn over a new leaf once I got here, what with the rich fodder of writing topics this place provides.  But a weird lethargy seized me and I just haven't been able to bring myself to get the laptop out.  I arrived still battling the tail end of a nasty virus and on New Year's Eve came down with yet another, so my energy level hasn't been what I'd hoped it would be.  And time seems to drift out here, a dreamy, sleepy flow of hours, sunshine and bird song and sunrise and sunset and the sound of trains and generators and calls to supper and nightly campfires, all blending into an unbroken, dreamlike flow.

KD at sunset, Christmas Eve, 2014.  Slab City, CA. 

I am so behind on chronicling everything that I couldn't figure out where to start, and then I remembered someone once giving me the advice to start right where I was.  And so here I am.

Biela and Luo left yesterday because Biela has to be back to work on Monday or the world will end.  I have another week of vacation, so I had the choice of cutting it short and driving back with them or being brave and going home by myself.  Since I came down here by myself last year and since I survived the Big Adventure, I reckon I can manage to make my own way home.  But it is lonely without them and without our de facto camp hosts Rich and Mary, who also left early this year to do a house sitting gig for some traveling friends.

We have fewer people in general this year in our little corner of Area 10.  Some are gone and never coming back.  I learned of one person's permanent exit from the world by his own hand since I was here last year, and others have moved on, camping elsewhere in Slab City or traveling in other parts of the country.  A pall rests over this place, a funky desert settlement unofficial by every measure, illegal and hipshot and crusty and crazy, yet a refuge of sorts for the brokenhearted and the lost.  There are all kinds of people out here, some of them pretty functional with incomes of some kind and decent rigs to live in, and money for gas and propane and food and access to medical care.  And there are the totally broken angels, the ground down alcoholics and addicts, the lifelong fuck ups and petty thieves and drug dealers and career criminals.  I've had moments of insight about who shows up here, and sometimes I think there isn't all that much difference between any of us, no matter how much we tell ourselves that we aren't like those losers.  Talk to people out here and given enough time their secret pain leaks out.  The cheerfulest and the kindest and even the wealthiest eventually let it slip, the horror and loss that lurks back there somewhere in the years before they got here.  The thing that haunts them, gives them that thousand yard stare when they think nobody is looking.  I have often thought, we are all broken here.  We are all brokenhearted and seeking solace in the desert, hoping for healing as though we were TB sufferers in the days when they could do nothing for you but send you to a drier climate.  We have come out here to find the light and the air and the clean, open spaces, the spare landscape with its spiny bushes and thin-leaved trees, its pure sunrises and its piping birds and clever snake and coyote.

But the pall which rests on us all is the spectre of change.  The inescapable agent that constantly tears down and renews, like the very earth remaking itself through eons of volcanic action.  Our biggest vulnerability out here is water.  More water than we could use flows right by us through the Coachella Canal, clear and cold from Colorado, destined to supply cities in Southern California.  Naturally it is illegal to take water from the canal (not saying that doesn't happen), and it has not yet been treated for consumption as it runs by us.

So most get water in Niland at the Chamber of Commerce, or did.  That tap has been turned off for reasons which are not entirely clear, though many say it is part of a plan to get rid of the Slabbers.  The other main source is the Two Rivers Rest Area on Highway 111, just a couple miles past Calipatria.  That water is good, cool and tasty and free-flowing from two taps.  There is also an RV dump station there, garbage cans and the usual picnic and bathroom facilities.  After years of threats there is now a plan in place to close that rest stop in the fall of this year.  The informational sign said it was to save taxpayers the cost of operating a "seldom used" facility.  Which is a crock.  Wealthy recreationalists with giant toy haulers on their way to and from the Glamis Dunes use that site regularly.  As do truckers and everyday travelers and RVers who stay at the Slabs and elsewhere in the area.  It is one of the few things that I feel good about my tax money being spent on.

If that vital source of water is shut down it will become extremely difficult to stay out here.  Water can be purchased at considerable expense from other sources, but that will be out of reach for many Slabbers and those of us who could pay will refuse to do so when there are other places we could explore, places that offer free boondocking and free or low-cost water.  Slab City is dear to us.  Like other desert towns, temporary or otherwise, this place has a way of getting under your skin, and so the idea that this is the last year we will visit this place is depressing.  But when we have only a few weeks a year to spend on our vacations we won't be spending them in a place that has become impossible to stay comfortably in.

There are other issues boiling up out here besides the water.  A small group of hardcore year-round Slabbers has been stoking the rumor that they are going to buy this land from the state of California.  There are myriad problems with that plan even if it is an actual plan with any hope of going through.  And since there's been a marked lack of transparency about the whole scheme, many are left suspicious and pissed off, unwilling to buy into what seems like a hopeless cause at best, or a sneaky plan to get power and control at worst.  Maybe it all comes down to the same thing, a struggle for power between those who want to dictate what happens in this wild and broken place and those who just want to live free.  To quote a line from Powwow Highway, "It's the same 'ol thing.  Always some asshole tryin to tell you what to do."  Is it a lust for power or a desperate desire to hold onto a way of life that sparks these things?  Who knows.  Is it a desire to tie off an artery that seems to be hemorhaging money that has caused local government to turn off municipal water supplies and threaten private parties who give or deliver water to Slabbers?  Because there is a cost to having this place here.  The fire department, police and ambulance services that regularly have to truck out here to deal with the latest disaster do cost money.  But if Slab City costs the county money, it brings money in as well.  Our small group spends thousands every year and there are several thousand people out here during peak season.  In a scruffy, half-closed town like Niland, every penny counts.

Defunct old building, Niland, CA.

In the poorest county in the state, every bit of money is needed.  I just don't see the logic in doing things that will not only drive off the wealthy snowbirds who bring their money here every year, but will also piss off the rich folks bringing their big toy haulers out here, the hunters and RVers and off-road recreationalists.

But time will tell.  There is a tremendous inertia to this place, which has been around in one form or another for decades, just sort of here with no official legal status.  For years it's flown more or less under the radar, but for good reasons or bad, noise has been made, the hornets's nest has been stirred up, and whenever that happens unfriendly eyes start to focus on what is better left quiet.

Nothing stays the same.  We thought last year might be our final year out here, now we are wondering if it's this year.  You can't control these things.  We've signed petitions and written letters about the rest stop, and the local press has been out photographing the convoys of expensive rigs lining up to use the dump station, thus putting paid to the bogus "seldom used" claim on the CalTrans sign about the closure.  And speaking of that sign, it's gone.  We don't know if someone pulled it down in a fit or rage or CalTrans took it down to quiet a rising tide of anger about the the situation.  But it's gone, as if it never was there.

Meanwhile, life goes on.  The wind moans at KD's corners, a neighbor's generator buzzes sleepily in the hazy afternoon sun.  A couple is having a screaming fight at the Internet Cafe on the next block, a sort of serial fight that seems to break out about once a day, ending in gut-wrenching, agonized sobbing by the female party, so that even though you know there's nothing you can do to help her you still want to drop everything and rush over and put your arms around her and comfort her.  But you don't, because by now you know better.  Every person out here carries the seeds of their own destruction and their own salvation.  We cannot by force of will reach into their lives and fix what is broken.  Which is not to say that we shouldn't be kind, that we shouldn't help one another like good campers do in our interdependent little group which needs each other to survive out here.  But there's a certain sense that develops that tells you when that gutshot sobbing can't be helped by a kind word.  When the screaming fight must just run its course.

It's just another day in Slab City.

You either love it or you hate it.  And sooner or later you'll probably do both.