whose shoes?

we are headed back to brawley after a stay at the slabs. got to visit with tom and charlene and bob. bob and i took two hikes in the desert with the dogs, and mutt leapt with joy at his freedom, and the chance to hang out with his buddy homer. he also got to trade sniffs with Sheriff Victoria and Squirrel, but Bus Dingo was no where to be found. he is passed out on the bed in the rondyvan now, luxuriating in the relaxation a good romp in the desert can bring, and twitching with jackrabbit dreams.

i happened upon a pair of footwear in the desert, abandoned in the midst of an untold story. can you guess which pair is mine?

heading for warm

well, the first week of the trip has passed in a flash. i was determined to get to warm as quickly as possible, but did take some time to meet up with a few vandwellers on the way. i got to meet judith in north carolina, and she is sweeter and gentler in person than she is online. her place is tucked into a quiet piece of woods, and mutt was delighted with a little off-leash time there. i got to see bernie and mar again....i had met them at the mini vandweller convention in early november at john nomads place during my first kayaking adventure with michael. while at judith's we spent time touring and comparing our different rigs.....it is always such a learning experience and very inspirational to see how everybody is set up. judith seemed to like the astro rondyvan for it's compactness and good gas mileage. it sure was cluttered at the time from my frenzied pack job the day before.....

the next day i met possum in south carolina for breakfast at perkins. it is amazing how comfortable i feel with people i have never met in person before, having only established on-line friendships, but possum and i were yakking like the old friends that we were, chowing down and surfing the fastest wifi i had ever seen. it was so good to finally meet up, possum!

now the trip gets a little fuzzy here. i drove straight through the day and evening. it turned out that by altering my trip south to I-10, i would be able to meet up with phoenix near baton rouge. i know i passed through atlanta that night.....the skyline of the city was breathtaking. what i can't remember is if i made baton rouge that night, or if i had a stop in between. either way, i finally met up with phoenix at the tiger truck stop, where i had my first cajun food. it was good, except the part where he told me that the crayfish etoufe had frogs in it! ewwww. our visit was, as always, too short!
something about gas pumps makes people spit out their gum. look at this gum universe. i never see that anywhere else. this truck stop is called the tiger truck stop for a reason. there is a tiger there. things in cages really grieve me, and i had to be convinced by phoenix not to set the tiger free. the next morning, i was excited to see a sign that said "save the tiger" but when i got closer
it was nothing about saving the tiger, it was about saving the profits they made by having an exotic animal in their truck stop :-(
tony has never known anything but captivity in a tiny cage. he has no tiger family, no companions, no purpose. while i was there, he simply paced, around and around, in an endless circle to nowhere. it was a stark reminder of the gorilla in "ishmael" who banged his head slowly and endlessly on the bars of the cage, not knowing what freedom was, but instinctively knowing there was something else beyond this existence.....
i hate cages of any sort, but a zoo would be a blessing for tony, with more room to move and other animals around. i hope they lose their bid to keep the tiger in grosse tete.
okay, on to happier stuff. i was having a hard time keeping the kayak from shifting to the right and off the siderail of the roof rack. a little duct tape, and a hammer, and that baby hasn't moved in over 2,000 miles :-)
the "islands" in truck stops are mutt's oasis. we always park with the sliding door next to one, so we can look out at something besides asphalt. this one was in mississippi, and one of the prettier ones i've seen.
and finally, texas! in a truckstop outside of houston, i traded out my mukluks for my teva sandals! one of my first "vandweller" dreams actually involved a horse and saddlebags, where i would roam the west with what i could pack on the back of my horse. of course, i was in grade school, and mad to meet johnny yuma, but the same essential theme repeated itself throughout my life, trading the horse for a bicycle and panniers, or a stick and a bandanna, a backpack, or a van....it took a few decades, but i'm living my dream, and it makes every day kinda breathtaking.....

stay tuned, because on my way to austin, i stumble across my first cowboy and the coolest house of worship i have ever seen......

san francisco part 1

here ya go, heidi! ya wanted a pic......you got two!!!! i tried for an hour to put a pic on myspace< but it wouldn't go. so i put them here. happy now :-) ?

staying out of jail

this mukluk contains many weapons. it makes a great arrow holder....

i had to go to the post office today. i went down pretty much directly from my morning hike with mutt. since i hike alot lately, pretty much anywhere i go is directly from the woods.

my neighbor and good friend works at the post office. she laughed when i asked her how much a stamp was, she thinks i'm from another century as it is. she says "if it's too high, are ya gonna shoot me?". that's when i remember that i've got a gun in my boot, tucked nicely between the moosehide and the felt liner. which is, like, a federal offense to have one in a post office.

now, i'm not worried about cindy, she's not about to freak, but i don't know about all the folks doodling around the lobby. the gun is tucked down snug, but the minute i turn from the wall, it is gonna be clear that it is a revolver sticking up there. this is not no little pocket gun, no sir. and come to think of it, i don't know how legal all the sharp things are that i'm sporting on my body. i may use them to peel my apples, but they don't know that.

so i say to cindy "cindy, i've got a gun in my boot, what should i do?"

she snickers and says "well, don't pull it out, for god's sake, you can have the stamps for free" which gets both of us a little hysterical , laughing. so if i had any hopes of not attracting attention, they were long gone.

ultimately, i dawdled by the counter while she waited on the other customers, until i could safely leave the building unobserved. we had a good laugh over the whole thing in our little country post-office, but it was sobering to think what trouble i could get into if i'm not more careful about disarming in civilization.

now, i normally wouldn't be sporting a gun in my boot, but i ordered a holster from Simply Rugged in Wasilla, Alaska. Rob Leahy makes the best leather stuff for guns on the planet. my holster came on saturday, but it was for a 5 shot, and mines a 7, so he shipped me out the right one today. so soon, i will have a georgeous sourdough pancake holster that will enable me to concealed carry in the proper manner.

but that doesn't change the fact that i have to actually think about my weapons before going into civilization. so i put the little sign that you see above in the picture, right where i'll see it when i exit the drivers door. i also made one for by the slider in the back. that will remind me to both disarm when the circumstances call for it, or get armed if i'm in a hinkey area. that oughta keep me out of trouble.

my other option is to stay in the woods permanently, which gets more attractive all the time.....

____________

post-script: tara, who always has my back, pointed out that the sign could attract unwelcome attention from police officers. i'll have to think of something better. thank-you, tara love....

one for the fan club

steger apache moccasins. ankle high moosehide with long laces to wrap around your ankles to adjust the support. not insulated, so cool for summer. warm with wool socks in all but the coldest weather. light and silent. great stalking shoes. those boys never hear me coming, spear in hand......

the story that was trampled

mutt and i were in the woods last week, and he came bouncing back to me after one of his little forays into the brush. he slid into a crooked heel, tossed my left hand with his nose, and took off again. i followed him to find a pile of feathers and some blood in a fairly pristine area of snow in the pines. i was curious about the lack of tracks surrounding the feathers, and the story of this birds death.
the snow wasn't giving up it's secrets, and since i didn't have my camera at the time, i decided to return the next day.
a nearby family, who's farm adjoins ours, homeschools it's kids. we sometimes go on "lesson hikes" together. we pick fiddle head ferns to eat and peel birch bark from downed trees for fire starting. we study tinder fungus. we spy on squirrels. there's always something to be learned in the forest more important than anything in books.
that next day, i decided to take the kids and see if we could solve the puzzle of the birds death.i was inclined to think maybe an owl had done it, accounting for the lack of predator tracks in the area. but the kids, in their enthusiasm, surged ahead with mutt, trampling the site with eager snow boots and paws. this pic is what remained of the mystery.
i guess the lesson here is to explore a story while you can....life has a way of obscuring them if neglected too long.

so i get questions

so i get questions. i love them. someone wanted to know if i owned any other shoes besides mukluks. so here are my favorite summer boots. actually, they are woodland indian 18th century era high topped center-seam moccasins. i love footwear that molds to your foot. they are light, they breathe, and you can move nimbly and quickly. these are great for bushwhacking, they protect your legs. when the soles wear out, it's easy to sew new ones on. the downside? they are as slippery as shit. i don't know how the indians stayed upright on wet grass.....

another recent question....."do you have a foot fetish?" haha! no. if i have a fetish, it's kindness. kindness is the sexiest thing going. try it.

in the upper left corner of the pic is some roving. i was thinking of spinning the yarn for tara's socks, but changed my mind. i'm gonna use the canadian polworth/ kid mohair so i can get them going quicker. can't have my girl with cold feet.

new old jeans and the joy of socks

just a pic of the jeans i found in my closet, and the sock i just finished.....you can see the beginning of the second sock on the needles. this is a labor of love. i was so burnt out by production knitting for the shows over the fall, that i thought i'd die if i cast on another hat. so i decided to get me a pair of socks done. for me, this time. i haven't had a handknit pair of socks since catherine made me a blue pair some time ago.....which i still wear, i might add :-) i wear her love this minute, in the form of a shawl she spend countless hours spinning and then knitting. thanks, catherine!

catherine is my best friend. she is one of the very few people who truly knows me, and accepts me as i am, and makes me a better person for it. she is one part of a collaboration we call tribalfyber. she does magic with her colors and dyepots, and i aspire to learn the craft as well as she knows it.

so, socks. oh, the joy of socks. these are being knit from a canadian yarn-- part polworth wool, part kid mohair. soft and strong, they will make the perfect mukluk socks.

i think i should knit tara a pair for cold nights in her van, so she could be warmed at once by the lofty yarn, and the knitting love.

internet blues

i am at the library. i am having internet access and monitor problems. i am switching service providers, and will then see what problems still remain. i've been using the cheapest, slowest isp, but now with needing reliable access for ebay and etsy to generate income, not to mention blogging, change is due.

i am a hot person. i don't even own a winter coat, i just layer long johns and some fleece zip t's depending on the weather. it's great for winter camping or living in alaska, but it limits me in social situations where people use heat. humans keep their buildings too warm...... 5 minutes in this place and i'm uncomfortable. i have removed as much clothing as i can and still be legal, so i'm not going to stay and try to do any blogging like i intended.

i will be back soon, with a blog about border crossings, and how tara came to be my hero. thanks to all of you for your comment love :-) and i will be having some responses to specific questions.

kate

p.s. can't do pictures at the library, so how about a song for the day......"man who sold the world" sung by jordis unga. she's got a voice that hurts my heart.

have mukluks, will travel

so i have this friend. for real. and he made a comment to the effect of knowing what i look like from the mukluks down. and i got an idea.

remember that tv show a couple years back when the neighbor talked to the tool guy over the backyard fence? and half the fun was the thrill of thinking you were gonna finally see his face?

well, combine that with the idea of people who steal flamingos and garden gnomes and travel all around and take pictures of them and write about their adventures. together, you would get:

"have mukluks, will travel" maybe i should name the blog that :-)

maybe i'll do that..... it could be interesting. there would be a downside though. i'd really have to go to all the cold places....too hot to wear these babies in the southwest.....but i would finally get to alaska and british columbia......

i love mukluks. i wear them almost 24/7 from fall til spring. i even sleep in them in really cold weather (camping, not indoors).

my muks are by steger in ely, minnesota. they are moosehide with wool felt liners. my current pair are the "wide" version. i had to get the wides after the broken ankles because it took forever after cast removal for the swelling to go down. it ended up being a good thing though, since they are very roomy now, and i can add extra liners or socks for really cold weather.

steger muks cost alot, but they are a bargain for me. i buy a pair, and wear them them for years. when you figure it out, i spend a fraction of what most women spend on footwear, since i only own the muks, a pair of hikers, a couple pairs of mocs, and a pair of knock-off crocs. oh, and my teva water sandals. but except for the mock-crocs, i've owned all the others for years.

the best part about muks are that they are flexible and comfortable. they don't restrict your feet, and allow better circulation. they breathe, so you can wear them indoors without ever getting sweaty feet. they do have a straight last, so it's a good idea to switch feet now and then to get even wear on the soles.

stay tuned for more about the view from the other side of the mukluks.