On a dark night in the White Sands of New Mexico

Napalm Dragon enjoys the Houston Silo

Houston has been a whirlwind adventure unto itself.

I feel enthusiastically rejuvenated to follow a dream I’ve wished for a long time now.

In the coming days there will be a nice post with some great photos about some wonderful people. For now, enjoy a little video taken at “the silo” in Houston.

The Silo (Kennywood)

Artcars inside the Houston Silo

On the Saturday night of “World Artcar Day”, we joined a wedding party at this fabulous location in the 5th Ward of Houston. It’s a reclaimed Rice Mill. A giant factory space that had a “roof collapse” leaving behind extremely tall walls, that create the most fabulous courtyard.

The owner is a passionate lover of Art and Artcars, and calls it a place “where artcars come to sleep”. When Artcars no longer run, they are still very beautiful, and this community that gathered there were equally beautiful.

Fire Cracker Hats

A highlight of the evening was “The Firecracker Hats”, where some brave souls put Fire Cracker Hats on, and then lit the fuze. One fellow told me he thinks it’s way more dangerous for the people watching. Either way, it was REALLY funny. I have a feeling I’m going to be making a few of these.

Here is an uncut section of footage taken with my Iphone. The Music was added, and I aplogize for the giddy, shaky video. There is some good bass in the music, so it’s nice to hear with good headphones.

Enjoy.

On a desolate beach near Port Aransas

After leaving Port Aransas, we drove to the beach, then on the beach. It was a real novelty to drive for miles along a desolate beach, before setting up camp three feet above the High Tide Mark.

Despite the irritation from the Red Tide, it was beautiful. We woke to this marvelous sight.

A 4 ft tall wooden mask

It seems that you never really know what an adventure holds for you. Knowing too much of the road ahead, having a tight itinerary, or being unwilling to explore would just be a tour.

Tourist

Touring is alright, it’s a valid experience. But touring, and tourism have an intrinsic quality that separates the tourist from that which is being toured. I’ve heard it said that the tourist experiences the journey from the inside of a mobile fishbowl. As a tourist we find ourselves at a place, but not necessarily in a place.

As tourists we bring the trappings of our lives and look out from these trappings as the scenery goes by.

Adventurer

Adventuring is a bit different. There are times when it feels like touring, and there can be long stints of nothing happening. Adventuring is less predictable then touring, and sometimes a little less “pleasant”.

Arguably that is part of the point of adventuring; to experience your surroundings in all it’s unpredictable glory. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. It just so happens that we have experienced all three in the last week.

The Good

We arrived in Austin after a month on the road. We were very excited to meet the faces of the “Austin Flipside Warehouse” that is the gathering place for the Burning Flipside community. Every week, on Wednesday night there is an open ended gathering of anyone who feels like it at the warehouse.

Church Night

It’s a great way to meet and joke around with the people here, and we happened to arrive in Austin on a Wednesday. The Flipside Folks, call it Church Night. I asked why, and there hasn’t really been a clear answer. One person mentioned that there are allot of churches that gather on Wednesday evening, so it seemed the right name.

To me this idea makes sense. I am not a church person. I have respect for people who feel a need to congregate under a religious banner, but I don’t feel a personal affinity to the religious club. So, for me, there is no real congregation that I can participate in, unless it’s sports related, or art related. Church Night is Art related, and as a community that gathers and congregates at this fabulous art space, calling it church night makes sense.

We arrived on a Wednesday night to find out that it was Church Night. We rolled in with the Love Shack, flipped on the lights and said “Hello”. The people we met were not only receptive and inviting, but loved that we had built something with our own creative impulse.

The Love Shack at the Warehouse

Many faces told us how cool it was that we were dropping in on them, and invted us to stay through the weekend to attend the LLC Town Hall for Burning Flipside, and stay for the Sunday event called “Reintegration”. So we’ve been here for a week, seeing the city, meeting beautiful people, and enjoying a little pause in the constant travels that have been our last month on the road.

So to our enjoyment we have enjoyed great music, great food, great drink, and wonderful people.

The Bad

But, the road is not always a pretty creature, and on Monday morning this community lost a member to suicide. It was a pretty heavy experience to be here when this happened. We had met him, and the evening before, he stopped by the Warehouse where we have parked our Love Shack and spent a bit of time with us.

The Ugly

On the day of his passing there was a gathering of the community at the Warehouse. We listened to 700 Hobo Songs. A “song” he made everyone listen to over and over while building effigies, and well worth listening to. We drank, cried and hugged. There’s nothing you can do about such things. But somehow this helped people accept and process.

Here is what I wrote to the Austin Community.

An open letter of condolence

The Red Lady

The White Lady

The sign over the entrance to the Warehouse

Dear Austin,

Ripley's Museum near Dallas, TX

On a Dark Desert Hwy in New Mexico.

My first reaction was to reject the project and to stay in my comfort which really was relative.
I was sharing a home with wonderful people but I was tethered to things that did not fulfill me as an individual and did not ignite my passion for life.
I was fearful of leaving my ‘comfort zone’.

But I realize that the world I had come to know although lovely in its own way, held a limited perspective.
I do not hold a crystal ball, I can not tell what the future will hold for Napalm and I but I have something now that I did not have before.
I have a sense of the enormous scope of the world and the myriad of lives that fill it.
It is a wonderful and liberating experience to be somewhere you have never been, meeting wonderful people that you could swear you have known before because you share a something familiar, a perspective that unites us in our humanity even if for only a few minutes.

I have traveled a little, but this experience has offered something that can not be found in the obvious places.

Well, its been over a month since Napalm and I blazed a trail with the Love Shack in tow and set our sights on an open ended journey.

We have been delighted and uplifted through the many wonderful experiences that we have had on this journey, with the people that we have met and the beautiful places we have seen.
From the low open flat farms of Idaho and Colorado to the impressive and jagged peaks of the mountain range in Shiprock New Mexico and the beauty of the Navajo people.
The experience like the scenery has been awe inspiring.

I have received a great deal more then I bargained for.
I think I can say the same for Napalm.
This journey has rewarded us in a wide variety of ways in which we could not anticipate and this stokes the flames of inspiration and desire in both our hearts.

We have been joined on our journey by many beautiful spirits.
Those of you who set us along our travels with warm wishes and hugs and those of you we have met along the way who cheer us on and put peace signs to the air when we drive by.
Smiles through your windows and chats in parking lots telling us how much you love our little home on wheels.

Then there are the stops in various cities, such as our stop at the Flipside warehouse here in Austin.
We drove up to a welcoming crowd who quickly surrounded the Love Shack and serenaded us with introductions and delighted comments on our little home.
But with travel come some challenges and changes are to be made along the way.
We can not get the necessary repairs done on our vehicle to make it safe to drive into Mexico as we were both hoping.
So we have opted to find a beach to get in a little more sun bathing before we have to head home.
Corpus Christi comes highly recommended by various Texans.

And to satiate our Mexican desires we will be joining friends and members of Flipside for the Day of the Dead parade here in Austin on Saturday.
Finally my home made and well loved costume inspired by Mexico and its artwork will actually make an appearance.
I am quite stoked about that.

I have also been quite lucky to be working on an illustration contract as we travel, it feels like a dream come true to be able to travel and participate in a project using my talents and doing something that I am so passionate about.

I LOVE art.
I love to draw and express my world with pen to paper or brush to canvas.
I am drawn to it, I actually had a hard time as a kid understanding what people did with themselves for fun if they did not draw or paint or build things out of cereal boxes.
Art and creativity provid endless excitement and joy for me.
So I would like to share a piece that I did early in this journey when we spent a week in Kamloops with some very close friends.

I later became quite intrigued by the fact that through the production of this image I had seemed to be channeling what would be a future experience for us with the Navajo people as we entered New Mexico.
Because of our experience travelling, this piece has become deeply personal to me and I am great full to be able to share it with all of you.

Thank you for joining us!

Blessings
Snowdragon

The Pentagram on the Love Shack

What a strange and wondrous adventure this has been so far. Only a month on the road and I long to explore this experience to the ends of the earth.

So far it’s been a wonderful experience and amongst one of the stranger moments so far is the loss of the pentacle off the porch of the Love Shack.

Art is in the details

The Love shack is an art project, and as an art project we added a few knick-knacks from the past to take with us on the road. The Lotus Flower was part of our wedding platform art project at Burning Man. Kermit and his chair are mementos from my youth, and the star (pentacle) was gifted to me by John Taylor as part of costume he gave me in 2007 for Burning Man.

When we were putting the Love Shack together, all the pieces fell into place, the only thing missing was something above the Lotus. So when I found the pentacle amongst my costume pieces, I thought it would fit well in the space between the gable. It filled the spot perfectly and looks pretty when lit up by the lotus flower.

Assumptions

We had debates about it…

• Would this incite people?
• Would it make them feel uncomfortable
• Would the border guards hassle us?
• Would they take the time to ask us about it rather then jumping to conclusions?

After much discussion I felt strongly about exploring preconception, or the act of jumping to conclusions without taking the time to investigate. I figured (if anything) it might frighten off people who would judge me harshly anyway, and let the Love Shack be admired by open minded, or forgiving people.

The Pentacle

A moonlit night in the middle of nowhere, NM

The pentacle looks beautiful when lit up by the lotus flower, and from my personal perspective it speaks to the idea of honouring that part of ourself that “feels” rather then “rationalizes”. The pentacle (shown with a circle around it) is a very old symbol based on the five pointed star.

The five pointed star was drawn as early as 3000 BC in Mesopotamia, and was admired by Pythagorus as a perfect mathematical design. Structurally the use of triangles in the pentacle give it strength, and the five points reference the five limbs of the torso, found in all mammals and most animals on the planet.

This particular pentacle has been embellished with the signs of the zodiac and red gems on the points to give it a more “magical/mystical” tone. It’s an interesting symbol (mystical or pragmatic) and has a poetic quality that makes it a bit more interesting to ponder as it fills the space and makes the shack a bit more rustic.

Lost Art

The pentacle went missing somewhere between Vernon and Kelowna.

To our dismay, when were staying with our good friend Olivia in Kelowna, we notice it had gone missing. My mind jumped to a negative conclusion first, “Someone snatched the pentacle”. I wanted to think otherwise, I wanted to believe that it just fell off, but my brian wanted it to be stolen.

I felt guilty assuming this first, my brain envisioned a hateful person, upset at the symbol, reaching up and breaking it off. My brian jumped to this conclusion pushed on by the fear of the poeple we might encounter and what they might wish to project on our creative project.

Conclusions

Snow Dragon and I went back and forth feeling a bitter cloud overhead, we’d only been on the road for a couple of weeks, and it was already gone. Then I told myself that maybe someone snatched it out of desire to own it. Maybe they admired it, loved it, wanted it, and in a moment of selfish impulse picked it from the Love Shack.

Snow Dragon was upset at both scenarios. Then we talked about it with each other, and then talked about it with our friend Olivia, and decided that jumping to a positive conclusion would be better then letting a negative vision of events play out.

Perception VS Knowledge

All we knew was that it was gone, so we decided that either it fell off, or someone loved it enough to keep it. Either way it was a bummer that it was gone so early in the trip, but we figured that something would eventually replace it at some point later in the trip.

If someone had taken it, then they probably really wanted it, and it would just be an artistic gift to them. So it goes that for us, there was an empty space there, and for the rest of the trip, we would know this even if most people would never notice.

We then crossed the border on the east side of Washington state, headed south through Oregon, then across Utah (very Mormon), across New Mexico, all the time winding our way through small towns off the interstate. Then after passing through the UFO capital of North America (Roswell, New Mexico) we decided to pull off the road in Bottomless Lake State Park, New Mexico.

Lost and Found

Water Tower at Bottomless Lake, NM

There in the park next to a beautiful Lake under the water tower I was rearranging the Love Shack and noticed something odd inside the lotus flower.

To my absolute surprise, hung up on the post that protrudes from the center of the brass flower was the pentacle, waiting for us to come to our senses and drop the very preconceptions it had come to symbolize for us.

Self-evaluation and projections

By this point in our trip, it was both funny and telling.

We suffered the same preconceptions that we fretted others would project onto us. When we let go of these negative mental loops, we discovered the open road and the pentacle found us again (metaphorically speaking of course).

It’s only a coincidence, but it’s become a poetic one that reminds us to just enjoy the moments as they come, and let go of the ones that are uncertain or negative when they have no substance.

We realized the simple truth of the matter was that the wind had wiggled the weak pewter metal, and fatigued it to the point that it just dropped down in the flower.

In the end it was a strangely positive moment. If the flower had not been there, it would not have caught it. If the wind had blown the star a bit harder it would not have landed in the flower. But the most interesting part of this is that the pentacle was hidden while we traversed the border, the midwest, and Mormon Country.

Only now, as we have replaced it, did an officer ask us “Are you Wiccan?”.
We were in Azle, and had the feeling that this symbol wasn’t very welcome in that town.

Let’s see how people feel in Austin, Texas.

More Kismet on the road…

Jerry in Baker City, Oregon

But one of the stangest things happend to us yesterday. We pulled over near Baker City, Oregon to rest for the night. At about 4:30am I woke up with the urge to get on the road. I figured I would drive non-stop for at least a few hours, but decided to get coffee at the first stop.

There we were in the middle of absolutely nowhere Idaho, and the truck stop was open. We decided to go in and have a bite, rather then moving onto a later point and cook our own.

This is where strange meets awesome.

We’d been seated for about five minute when I looked up to see a couple sit at a table across the room next to the window. I stared in a confused shock as I recognized Jerry from Vancouver. I said “Of all the weird places in the world that I can run into someone…”

Needless to say, we were both slightly shocked as he said “is that yours out there?”

Jerry is an absolutely wonderful man. He makes the most amazing food, loves life, and knows how to have a genuinely great time. We cross paths like this in the strangest ways every few years and have a chuckle when it happens.

It turns out he’d just passed through a snow storm north of Vegas that had dropped a foot of snow on the blindsided locals. Trucks had jackknifed, cars slid off the road and he drove slowly north. By the time he’d reach Baker city, he was a bit tired.

Earlier that day he’d been sitting pool side in vegas, enjoying drinks, and tanning.

Well, after an hour of great conversation we parted ways unsure of when we might ever cross paths again. We parted ways slightly amazed at the random and bizzarre way this happened.

Be Dynamic

Sunrise over Nephi, Utah

More then anything as I woke up south of Provo, Utah overlooking an amazing landscape. I reflected on the nature of this trip so far. So early in our adventures, we’ve enjoyed the road the most when we have reamained dynmaic and willing to change directions as we go.

Our latest change comes from enduring days of cold rain, and wind. We’re tired of this weather and would rather bake in the sun, cook outside, and be thirsty; then hide out in our van waiting for the weather to clear.

We’re skipping colorado and kansas, looking for something more interesting then endlessly flat farm country. There’s a “whole lot of nothing” out this way.

A gloomy Soap Lake

This morning we awoke in the dreariest gloom of low lying clouds over Soap Lake, Washington. We had rolled in the night before and stopped in on the local bar to ask about the area and hear some local stories.

The bar tender didn’t live in the area and she had no idea what the name of the street was.

So, when we woke up this morning to see the lake abandoned by the cold fall skies, we only wanted to head south.

Ironically as we left town, we found some great image (posting later) and stopped to capture them.

Change of plans

Next to the Arts Center in Soap Lake, WA

Our experience of crossing the border was more adventurous then we planned. When I mentioned that I had a pellet gun, they decided to pull us over. They brought us inside, asks us to fill out paper work, then informed us that because of the driftwood railings on the Love Shack, we might have to go back to Canada.

Then we sat there for 15 minutes waiting…

After some time, a fellow walked by and asked us our story. We told him, he sent us to our car and told us to “head south”. To our surprise they let us through and we were on our way.

With the most difficult hurdle behind us, we decided to reassess our plans.

Through the Mid-West

Middle of nowhere (Washington)

Now we have decided that the rain has been getting us down. If we were at home, settled into our Fall-Winter routine, it might not bother us so much, but we hit the road to skip at least one of these cooler seasons. So we have decided to drive through Utah, and B-Line it straight into Texas for Myschievia, then hang out in Texas for a week or so before going to Mexico.

Breakfast in a corn field

This morning we pulled over down a quiet road in the middle of nowhere. It was a beautiful spot overlooking a cornfield. Snow Dragon cooked the best breakfast, and we breathed easy anticipating the strange sights ahead of us.

 It was a special moment, and now that we are passing though the mid-west, we look forward to more of these moments.

I want to meet a Utah Mormon.