New Feature

In order to help qualify and quantify the problems of this world (how can we fix them if we don’t know what they are), I have decided to add a new feature to the Daft Musings Hall. This new feature will be named “Too Many/Not Enough,” and for our first installment, I offer:

There are far too many Franklin Delanos in this world, and not nearly enough Theodores.

There are far too many Barrak Hussein Obamas, and not nearly enough Ronald Regans.

There are far too many Jimmy Carters, and not nearly enough Winston Churchills.

An open letter,

To the Swiss gentleman who originally owned and cared for the Swiss Karabiner Model 1931, serial numbered 657803.

Dear Sir,

Thank you for taking such good care of your rifle, which was dated May of 1941. I recently purchased it from a military surplus vendor, and you will be happy to know that it still is in very good condition. If you left an identification tag under the butt-plate, I regret that it has since been lost to time. However, the bluing is still in good shape, the trigger still breaks cleanly, and the handguard is still lighter than the rest of the stock. Your rifle still has all of original major parts it had when it was issued to you, as all of their serial numbers match.

I will never know the stories that you could tell, but I have your rifle now. I will treat it well and use it well. I own two other military surplus rifles, each of which cost me the same as your rifle did. Of the three, yours is the oldest, and the one in best condition. I have not fired it yet, but I look forward to.

Kindest Regards,
The Editor.

Day 6 – 29 December 2006

The Great Eastward Migration

We began the morning of the trip home at 7:00 AM. Amy had set her alarm for 6:30, but it failed for some reason that we never investigated. My plan was to be on the road by 9:00 AM, and I knew there was but little hope for that. As I said, Marc had lost his phone in the woods last night, and before 8:00 Amy and I were retracing our steps in reverse of the circuit we took the first time. Before we got too many hundred yards from the house, I asked Amy to call Marc’s phone to see if he’d found it. He had done, so we turned around and finished breaking camp.

Once everyone was finished packing, I asked Amy to box-up the cats, and move them to a more secure location. The ground around the camp site was hilly and uneven, and I was worried about the possibility of capsizing the trailer while trying to turn it around. Marc has much more experience at managing trailers than I have, so he helped me work it out. He was very patient and never resorted to strong language, even when I performed the most boneheaded maneuvers he’d ever seen. Ultimately, we were able to turn the rig around quite by accident with no broken bones and no damaged equipment.

In fact, the only person the worse for this adventure was Odin the cat. Though he was securely in his kennel, he managed to pull a claw from his left forepaw. Our host owns a 130 pound Alaskan Malamute who seems to be a very friendly and sociable fellow, though he smells execrably. Now, I must remind the reader that Odin is normally a very cowardly fellow, rather like his predecessor in the Wizard of Oz. Odin runs and hides when anyone new comes in the house. He even hides when the doorbell rings. He normally seems to know that he is safe in his kennel. However, upon being sniffed by this large, friendly dog, Odin made the Charge of the Light Brigade against the door of his kennel. He placed a valiant left-hook to the door of the kennel, and hooked a claw on it. He was swiping so hard that he pulled a claw out of his foot.

All of this occurred before 9:50 AM, because by that time, my Kimber was in Condition One on my right hip, the truck was on pavement, and we were heading into the sun. This reminded me of my summer shrimping. We spent all of our time far to the west of home. While shrimping, you normally work through the night. I remember that we were always happiest when we saw the sun rising over the bow. It meant then, as it meant now, that we were pointed toward home.

We stopped quickly on the eastern outskirts of Little Rock for petrol. I didn’t want to stop for long because my concealed carry permit is not valid in Arkansas. Arkansas state law makes an allowance if you are traveling through the state “on a journey.” I felt that I was entitled to be carrying my Kimber because I was “on a journey,” but I didn’t want to become any sort of test case for the Arkansas legal system. I wanted to be quit of the state as soon as possible.

We got back on to Interstate 40, and continued plying our way east for another two hours. Only once we had crossed the Mississippi River, did I consent to a lunch stop. Amy’s mother had been behind us for the length of the drive so far, but after lunch our routes would diverge.

We feasted on Whoppers and french fries at a local establishment which served that sort of thing. There is a latin phrase, “Ex Africa semper aliquid novi,” meaning “From Africa, there is always something new.” I caught myself wondering what the latin phrase for “From America, there are always french fries,” would be. The proliferation of the simple chip on the North American continent is emblematic of all that is good, bad, and ugly in the world today, in a golden-brown-delicious crunchy wrapper… That is unless they are soggy, cold, and horrible, in which case they are only emblematic of the bad and the ugly.

After lunch, we parted company with Amy’s mom, brother, and two nieces. Amy and I set our minds to the task I’d been dreading since before we left Huntsville. Yes, that task. That most dreaded task of first time RV’ers the world over, emptying the black water and grey water tanks. We located a fueling establishment that was about two miles off our trail and on the road to Tupelo that had suitable facilities. The process was painless. Not enjoyable. Not fun. Not pleasant. But it wasn’t bad. I didn’t even vomit. I simply gritted my teeth, put on my gloves, and got to work. No spills, no messes, nothing. Then I put the hose away, secured the cap, tossed a perfectly good pair of leather work gloves in the trash, washed my hands three times, and let Amy drive us home.

Up until this point, I hadn’t let Amy drive. Not because I didn’t think she was capable (she is, I know it, and to make matters worse, she knows it), but because I didn’t know what to expect. I don’t like not knowing what to expect, so I drove, and I learned most of the things I needed to know. For instance, don’t bother trying to start-off fast. You can’t, and you’ll just burn up a boat load of fuel.

Also, before you make your first trip, go and purchase some oil, transmission fluid, and anti-freeze of the type your tow vehicle will be using. After you’ve driven home from the auto parts store, open your hood. Now, one at a time, pour a cap-full of each fluid you’ve just purchased onto your hot engine manifold. Memorize the smells. I learned the hard way that our truck re-engages the over-drive once you’ve turned the truck off. So, we towed for about 30 minutes in city driving conditions with it on, and lost a little transmission fluid. This turned out to be good, because occasionally if we’d been running at 65 miles per hour for a while, the transmission would get hot, and I’d notice it because of the smell. A few minutes of running a little slower would allow it to cool.

We were running into a head-wind the entire trip home, and measured our burn rate at 7.1 miles per gallon of fuel, the lowest of the trip.

The elapsed time from Little Rock back to home was ten hours, ten minutes. This turns out to be entirely too long, but we were happy to be home all the same because we were sick of hearing that Saddam Hussein would be hanged in but a few hours. After seven days, we had to come back to the reality that both of our vehicles need brake jobs and on the day before we left our microwave oven/range hood detonated. We are also somewhat confused over the utility of beginning any list at number zero instead of one. We know that it will be an expensive new year, but we don’t mind. Unlike Saddam, at least we know we’ll have one.

Day 5 – 28 December 2006

At 09:20, we all left the house in an attempt to clear out for the house cleaners to do their magic. This would mark the single time that I left “the farm” during our stay. We ended up but a sad few miles from our base to eat breakfast at a truck stop. Breakfast turned out to be good, but our entourage was in the number of about eleven people. Any more than six people sitting at one table in a restaurant comes as near to unbearable as I can enjoy.

Later that afternoon, we were privileged to participate in the celebration of Amy’s grandfather’s 90th birthday. I don’t know if I ever have participated in a 90th birthday party before, but I can attest to the fact that 90 is a lot of candles for one small cake. Gifts were minimal, but when presented with one that was obviously a wrapped book, grandpa’s girlfriend boisterously declaimed that she didn’t care what book it was, so long as it bashed George Bush. Grandpa’s girlfriend was too old to be acting like a spoiled child, but she still insisted on so doing. Knowing that it would be dispolite to cause acrimony at grandpa’s 90th birthday, I clammed up. This was quite difficult when Grandpa’s girlfriend insisted on telling the story about the time she smoked weed on her way to a cock-fight… in front of the children… Sigh.

At some point, grandpa asked Amy what-all she knew about “numerology.” I nearly laughed out loud. Fortunately, he never got around to asking me the same question, because I planned to respond with innocent-enough sounding “misunderstanding” about me being terrible at arithmetic.

At some point, Amy’s nieces and our host’s seven year old daughter (Amy’s cousin) went outside to jump on the trampoline. As our Mr. Shiver is fond of saying, “A trampoline is what you buy for your kids when you want to teach them the hard, cold realities of life.” This borders on the most profound statement Shiver has ever made, and he is certainly right. Inevitably, there was the requisite four or five injuries. All of them were accompanied by tears, but none were serious. Eventually, both Amy and brother Marc joined in on the fun.

After the trampoline exercise, the girls went inside to do some modeling clay projects with grandpa, who is an accomplished potter. While this was going on, I decided that I’d had enough, and went outside to set up my trap and shotgun. After not too much time, grandpa left, and brother-in-law Marc and father-in-law Bryan came out to investigate.

We took turns with my Beretta A390 12 bore, shooting at clay pigeons of various sizes. We shot probably no more than two boxes of shells, and unfortunately most of our clays survived even after hitting the soft ground. So, we scooped up all of our empty hulls, and walked down into the field to collect the salvageable pigeons. At the distance we were working, I thought that the tighter pattern of the full choke would help us do better, but it didn’t seem to. I think that perhaps being a beginner, I am going to switch to a cylinder choke, use “spreader” shells, and loosen the spring on the trap arm to slow-down the clays. I’d gotten up to about seventy-percent hits against clays thrown from a hand-launcher, but only when the tosser could manage their part properly.

At some point, Marc and I determined to hike to a nearby bluff and get in a little sidearm practice. In time we collected my wife, her father, and our host. I was carrying two model 1911 pistols in .45 ACP, my Springfield Armory XD-9, and all the spare magazines that I could. By the time we got far enough into the woods, twilight was approaching. Rule number four requires that we “know our target and what is beyond it,” so there was no hand-gunning that night.

We returned to the house after half an hour’s march through mud, mire, and cow pies. There was a roast of beef in the oven that promised to make a good meal after several hours, though we all were hungry at the time. Everyone moved outside to the pile of old wood and brush that had been stacked up behind the barn. Though the ground was soggy, this pile of debris was dry, and in a few minutes it was lit and producing quite a lot of heat and light. It was at this time that several unpainted coat-hangers were produced. Some adult that should have know better untwisted and straightened them.

In a few moments, the three children were attempting their first marshmallow roast. It was unelegant. It was frightfully hot. It was a major miracle that none of the three succeeded in the poking-out of one or more eyes.

It was about at this time that Marc realized that he’d lost his mobile phone on our earlier hike in the woods. In any event, he’d have to go find it tomorrow because it was too dark to go looking now.

After too long, the roast of beef was ready. We all ate to our satisfaction, or at least I hope that we did because when we’d each finished our first course, there was none left for seconds. After dinner, the children regaled us with a splendid puppet-show, featuring a plush pink poodle, a plush duck, and several of their friends. At 22:00, I’d had all that I could stand, made my good-nights, and pushed-off for the camper. I was never happier to be in bed, because I knew that at 07:00 tomorrow, slightly less than nine hours time, I’d be waking up, breaking camp, and going home.

Day 4 – 27 December 2006

Once again, Amy rousted me out of bed earlier than I would have enjoyed. However, I slept really well, and awoke with a clear head. I got cleaned up a bit, dressed, and went in for breakfast. Amy had been inside for at least ten or fifteen minutes. She’d started the coffee, and had begun cooking breakfast for those not still a bed.

Breakfast consisted of some good bacon, eggs which Amy foolishly got into the habit of asking people how they wanted, and I made the grits. The grits were of the type that I normally use, Quaker brand “Quick Grits.” These I cook, according to the measurements on the back of the package, but replacing half of the required water with milk and adding quite a good deal of butter. Occasionally, I will add some shredded cheese and chipotle chili powder. These turned out to be quite good. The coffee was passable, but Amy’s paternal grandfather makes pottery. The pottery is of very good quality, and many of the pieces that I have seen are colored in a cool blue color that I find pleasing. However, the mugs did not seem to hold heat very well, and my coffee cooled too quickly.

After breakfast, Amy and her mother needed to make a trip to Walmart for a few necessities. Knowing how long such a side-trip was likely to take, I declined. Besides, my last trip to Walmart had only been three days previous. I don’t like to frequent the establishment too frequently, unless I need to stock up on ammunition (you can never have too much). Amy’s father and brother summarily disappeared as well. I later learned that they’d gone to Amy’s grandmother’s house to perform a few repairs around the house. This struck me as rather sporting, and a good thing to do.

Thus, I was on my own in fairly hostile territory with little to do. So, I read a little, and plugged in my laptop in the trailer. Someone out there in the middle of nowhere had a wireless access point open and broadcasting. The signal was good, but the through-put to the internet was low. I was able to establish an SSH connection to my home machine, which gave me some assurance that my house hadn’t burned down. After a while, I decided to assemble the “Do All” clay pigeon launcher that Amy bought me for Christmas.

This “trap” is a heavy affair, weighing about fifty pounds. It looks much like an oyster bench, only with a launcher arm in front and a bar protruding aft along the axis of the bench. The purpose of the launcher arm is obvious, but the bar is designed for mounting the device into a two-inch receiver hitch commonly found on the back of pickup trucks. In half an hour’s time, I’d assembled the device, and worked out the mode of operation. The only thing left was to go back to the trailer, and watch the DVD that came in the box. Twenty minutes more, and I’d learned the finer points of operation.

I opened the box of clays that Amy had purchased, and took out three “standard” sized ones. With the included wrench, I loosened two of the three bolts on the trap head that allow the operator to aim the clays. After adjusting the retaining spring that holds the clay on the launcher arm, I locked the arm in place and pulled the release. The clay went soaring out into the empty field about 80 or 90 yards down-range very quickly. I had mounted the trap on a hill overlooking the field. The clay was easily sent 30 feet high, but had to travel down about 50 feet to land. The ground was so wet and soft that the clay didn’t break on impact. I turned the trap head slightly, changed my angle, loaded another clay, and launched again. This time, the clay traveled through a few high tree branches, and came tumbling down. This one did not break either. Nor did the third, so I walked down-range and collected my three clays. Each of these, I fired a second time.

Again, I collected them up, and attempted to launch them. This time, I didn’t have good luck. The first one went wide to the left, through the tree branches, and finally went to its death on impact. I improved my aim on the second target, and hit the tree trunk squarely, creating a spectacular shower of shards. I wondered how high one launched at a high angle would go, so I loaded my last one up, retracted the arm, and lined up. Then I pulled the release, and immediately wished I hadn’t. The leading edge of the launcher arm hit my right leg about 20 degrees out of its locked position. The bird shattered milliseconds after the pain registered in my feeble little brain. There was no one around, so I needn’t have refrained from using strong language. I abstained for the time being, and was relieved to find that no one had seen the incident, though I still have a nasty bruise to prove it happened.

Later that evening, Amy’s father and brother arrived with Amy’s grandmother. The plan was to have dinner, then go outside and light a bonfire. Dinner consisted of a nice salad and skinless chicken thighs that had been severely charred over a grill. Our host apologized profusely, but there was no need. They were perfectly done in my estimation.

After dinner, our host received a phone call that put the brakes on our plans for the bonfire. A distant relative who lived next door had just died in the hospital. This gave me a rare window into the mind of the average atheist. In the mind of the non-believer, death is final. The end. Ultimate. Death makes the non-believer angry because it is human nature to see one’s self when anyone dies. This arms the believer with something that the heathen can never and will never posses: hope.

Day 3 – 26 December 2006

Day three has seen us down from Piggott, Arkansas to near Cabot which is about thirty minutes travel north of Little Rock. We are at the house of Amy’s uncle, this time on her father’s side. The trip was fairly easy, once we managed to get moving. It was past 13:00 before we were able to get on the road. We made one wrong turn, which we easily corrected for by turning around in the parking lot of a large grain silo. Still, including the brief misdirection, we made the trip in three and a half hours.

Upon arrival, we made camp. Amy’s brother Marc helped me get everything properly arranged. Due to parking on an incline, we had to jack up the front of the camper rather higher than I was comfortable with, but it has held so far. Before going inside for dinner, we topped off our fresh water tank, and turned on our furnace. The weather in Piggott was cold. Fortunately, Little Rock was warmer, but I wanted to be sure my feet would not be cold during the night. The cats fared well during the short hop, but they were glad to be out of their kennels and back in the warming trailer.

For dinner, we were served an excellent sandwich of barbecued pork, complete with sauce, on toasted buns, and dressed with shredded cabbage. I was at first dubious about the cabbage, but my suspicions were quelled at the first bite. The cabbage was sweet, and held up well. We were also served a dish similar to the creamed spinach that I am used to, but bearing the addition of artichoke hearts. This was quite tasty as well. To wash it all down, I was provided with an excellent Jack Daniel’s “Single Barrel” Tennessee whisky that Amy’s step-father had sent along as a gift to Amy’s uncle.

Everything was going quite well, until my host started talking about politics. Now, to be clear, I think that it is most unsporting, dispolite, and rude to verbally spar with your host. This particularly when you’ve been invited into his house, you’ve been there less than two hours, and he’s just served you a nice meal and his best whisky. With this in mind, I offered that we should perhaps talk about wine or literature again. He wouldn’t hear of it, and since I suspected that he is rarely taken to task, I did so with much pleasure.

Within ten minutes, he’d defended communism, socialism, jihadis, and abortion. Within twelve minutes, he’d lost his cool, and was quite yelling at me. In this respect, he hadn’t a chance. Many people, as they drink more, get louder and more boisterous. I am the opposite. I go all quiet and introspective. I think that this helped me keep my cool. In any case, it infuriated him. At the end of half an hour, I was a crypto-racist, a sexist, a bigot, a homophobe, a fascist, and smiling broadly with the knowledge that I’d bested him. I knew he would try to bait me several more times in the coming days, but I felt that I’d given him a significant enough thrashing to ignore any future attempts. After all, in only a few minutes time, he’d turned into a furious, raving lunatic, and I had remained calm and dispassionate. If he wasn’t embarrassed, he should have been. He didn’t even have the decency to laugh at my “Clinton Library and Massage Parlor” joke.

For those who don’t know, a “crypto-racist” is a person whose racism is so deep and hidden that even he doesn’t know that he’s really a racist. In layman’s terms, any white male will do, but conservative ones especially.

That night, we gave Amy’s mother a berth in the travel trailer to prevent her having to hire a hotel room. I think that she was a little dubious at first, but she slept on the fold-out couch that I suspect is the most comfortable berth on board. She was happy to have a warm place to sleep, since her father in Piggott insisted on turning off the heat before bed. I am normally given to enjoy cold weather, but is was abominably both cold and wet in Piggott. It would have been most miserable to have slept that cold. She was an excellent guest, and comported herself admirably as always. For my part, with a belly full of barbecue and fine whisky, I slept the most refreshing and satisfying sleep of the trip thus far.

Day 2 – 25 December 2006

Christmas day arrived noisily. Freya and Odin were playing rather roughly, and it was raining with some force. Again, Amy woke me saying something about breakfast that she knows I never eat, and being “social” which is something that causes me to use strong language when I’m trying to get a nap. At least it was eight in the morning this time, I’d had an extra hour from yesterday, but was still looking for more.

A cup of coffee was just the thing to curb the strong language, but I had to walk across a cold floor to make it. Life is hard sometimes. Going inside the house, and being “social” got me a pumpkin biscuit for my trouble. Though, I don’t normally eat breakfast, it was there and I would have been unforgivably rude to turn it down.

At ten, the family started arriving in the form of cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and the like. At around half ten, presents were opened and photographs were snapped. Lunch was served at just past twelve, and was excellent. Several smoked hams and turkeys were produced and eaten with gusto, as were various side dishes and desserts. Many of the desserts were pumpkin based, and reminded me of the pumpkin beer that I once brewed. I used an all-grain english ale kit, with two medium sized pumpkins (around eight pounds each). I sliced the pumpkins into small three or four inch wide strips, and roasted them well in the oven. After the pumpkins cooled, I removed the rinds, and mashed their meat. At mash-in time, I added the mashed pumpkin. Using Whitbread’s ale yeast, I bottled-off four and a half gallons of 7.5% pumpkin beer that turned out quite well.

Despite the convivial atmosphere, I refrained from retelling this anecdote during lunch. About the only thing that I could find to complain about during this whole affair was that there were too many people and too few comfortable places to sit. This is a small and meaningless complaint that I would have forgotten about by tomorrow had I not taken pains to write it down.

After lunch, I was unable to keep my eyes open for longer than about twenty minutes. I boldly walked out of the front door, through the blustery wind and rain, braving the ten pace march to the travel trailer, cranked up my space heater, and had too short a nap. Once again, my wife seemed to be plotting against me getting the sleep that my body seems to want. On this day, I never cranked the truck, thereby defeating my insidious enemy. I know that he was waiting for me because it has been raining all day. I have every suspicion that he will try to attack me again tomorrow, either whilst breaking camp in Piggott or remaking camp in Cabot.

Day 1 – 24 December 2006

The last thing that Amy said at the end of day zero was that her Brother, Marc, was getting up at 6 am to prepare for church, and that she though that was a good time. I was most unsatisfied with this arrangement, but declined to voice my opinion at the time.

The night was a little chilly, owing mostly to my dread fear of running the twin 30 pound propane tanks dry. We had a little space heater which more or less failed to take the nip from the air. We had plugged into a spare electrical outlet in the garage of Amy’s uncle Duane, however this outlet is a standard household 15 ampere circuit. The travel trailer wants one rated to 30 amperes, but will run on 15 provided that you don’t overload it.

I rolled out of the bunk at a little past seven with some prodding from Amy to go inside and take some breakfast. I don’t normally take breakfast. I made a cup of coffee in the trailer whilst gathering up the various things I’d need in order to go to church. Once I’d properly showered and dressed, I returned to my almost too-cold coffee cup, and drank it dry.

We left Duane’s house with Amy’s brother Marc and his two daughters Emma and Hanna, in a frantic hurry at four minutes past nine, late for church. Piggott is not a big town, and the church is only a few minutes away. When we arrived at the church, we were the only ones there. I suspect that I was the victim of a timing fudge factor from my mother-in-law, designed to insure Marc would have the girls ready in plenty of time. I could have easily taken an extra hour of sleep that I felt I needed and was entitled to.

We rolled along to the house of Amy’s maternal grandfather. He seems to be a good old man, with many stories to tell. On previous trips I’ve known him to smoke a pipe, but this time it seems to be absent. Some fifteen years previous, he was the owner and proprietor of a doughnut shop in Piggott town square. Upon pulling in to his driveway, Amy directed me to not block-in his truck. So, I backed our truck into the spot that I knew I’d parked on several previous visits. Upon exiting the vehicle, I noticed my new enemy, mud, completely slicking over the treads of my rear tire. I knew we were stuck again. When we left for church at half ten, I let Amy drive, and yes we were stuck. We quickly switched vehicles, and made church on time.

After church, lunch was had at the local Chinese establishment, the treat of Amy’s absent step-father. It was sufficient, and I avoided eating too much of it.

Then we returned to the Mowery’s house to attempt to extricate my truck that we had backed too far down the hill in search of ground firm enough to give us a running start on. Marc fished about in the garage, looking for some rope or chain to give us enough length to fasten a come-along to a near-by tree. After about fifteen minutes, we were properly hitched-up to the tree, with our tow-line properly tensioned for the extraction. I straightened the front wheels, and applied steady pressure to the throttle, while Marc cranked the come-along to prevent me losing ground. Using this method, I was again on firm ground within 30 easy seconds.

Afterwards, Amy and I made the short trip to the Kennett, Missouri Walmart to secure a few extra provisions. Among these were a larger space-heater and a bottle of automatic transmission fluid, as we appeared to have burned-off a small amount in the journey. We also had to take fuel for the truck, and measured our burn-rate at 7.8 miles per gallon across the freeway.

The night ended with Duane showing us a slide-show of pictures from his recent mission trip to the Ukraine. Duane had family who immigrated from Ukraine in the early 1900s, before communism took hold. The focus of his mission work was the funding and assistance of several state-run orphanages there.

I would like to interject at this point that many of the people of Piggott, Arkansas are very poor. Much of the housing is small and dilapidated. Many of the people here are on government assistance, of which they are grateful to receive. Most of them, from what I am able to tell are able to get help when they need it. Most everyone that I have seen, selflessly offers help when they’ve got it to offer. This appears to be a part of the rural south that is in a desperate situation. There isn’t much industry here to be had with the exception of farming. There appears to be somewhat of a drug problem, and many of the young people seem to be despondent. But Piggott is in America, and there is hope.

The situation in the Ukraine is much more dire. While the people of that land are better-off than they were during the reign of communism, it is taking rather a long time to improve the situation. We have much to be thankful for, living in this country.

Day 0 – 23 December 2006

And so it happens that 23:23 CST, we find ourselves some few hundred miles from our home with our bed, pillows, whisky, and felines in tow. We are quite ready to be rid of day 0.

We have learned some valuable lessons about the management of a twenty-five-foot long recreational vehicle that we should have been unable to learn any other way. The first lesson is this: Mud is your enemy. Unfortunately for you, he is indomitable. You cannot win, at least not without a protracted battle, the end of which will find you swearing angrily, and he none the worse for wear.

The second lesson is this: Wrong turns can be very difficult to remedy.

Our tow vehicle, the 1998 Dodge Ram 1500, equipped with the smaller of the two V8 engines offered that year and weighing in at 5.2 litres was sufficient to the task, but only just. I believe that we have intersected the maximum useful tow weight of our vehicle. We think that perhaps a diesel powered coach may offer a better solution than the weighed and measured 7.4 miles per gallon of mid-grade gasoline this trip consumed.

Another thing we learned about towing a large trailer across country (and through a large metropolitan area, such as Memphis), is that you get very close to God. I don’t think that any ten-mile stretch of road between Harvest, Alabama and Piggott, Arkansas went un-prayed-over. For the first 50 miles or so, you watch your mirrors, gauges, and the road before you. You ride for miles behind the slowest vehicles, in sheer terror of simply changing lanes. At some point, you take the chance. Lanes are changed. No cars are crunched. No metal is bent. No ambulance is needed. No tow truck is called.

Eventually, you sort things out, and manage well enough until some new texture of highway or some disreputable turn crops up to joyously reinvigorate your humility. Nevertheless, we embarked at 13:30, and hobbled as we were, pulling a combined truck and trailer weight of six tons, we made 360 miles. I do not have my copy of “Roughing It” available for reference, but I believe that our Mr. Twain took no less than eighteen days to make the same distance on his ride to Carson City.

The cats, for their part, performed well enough, and did manage to sleep quietly for part of the journey. Odin was never happy, but then again he has not been happy at any point during the last three weeks that we have used to train him up for the trip. Freya held up admirably, and barely made a peep the whole trip.

The whisky, in this case a fresh bottle of Johnnie Walker black label also performed well. I don’t know why, but I find both whisky and good beer go down especially well when consumed from a cold enameled metal camp cup.