Brittany and Jesse Are Running Away
A trial and (mostly) error guide to changing our lives and (frequently) changing our minds
“Someone once wrote that a novel should deliver a series of small astonishments. I get the same thing spending an hour with you” -We Were Liars
So if you hear me talking strategy, well it’s only to myself. -The Front Bottoms
You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and then you have, my opening sentence. Life is a good news, bad news situation. Good news is all of these cells and molecules came together just right and you are alive. Bad news is that this miracle alone does not entitle you to anything and now you have to figure out how to actually live or die trying. There are a few essential rules of course such as do not kill anyone, do sort your laundry before washing, and do not forget to reapply your sunscreen after 90 minutes. Besides a handful of things you are essentially on your own to excel and soar into enlightenment or crash and burn in self destructive as you see fit. I personally am somewhere between self actualization and remembering to wipe toothpaste from my mouth when leaving the house, it’s a very slippery slope. On the bright side no matter how much you think that you are failing there is most definitely someone who is failing way harder than you and with much less fashion sense. Every time I fall, I fall better with more grace.
We are currently waist deep into the camping season in Northern California on the edge of Mt Lassen. This adventure has been as much fun as it has been both educational and terrifying. Not a day goes by where we are not smiling, laughing, or questioning our sanity. Valuable life skills that I have learned so far include the art of making the perfect milkshake, how to disembowel a dyson without ruining your shirt, and the appropriate amount of time to wait between handing someone a menu and asking them what they would like to order (I still struggle with this). There was a lot of awkward and embarrassing trial and error involved in the learning process. Actually that last part was a lie, it was pretty easy, you do not realize what you are capable of until you try it.
Do not get me wrong though, not everything has been easy. When we first arrived there was so much snow (and still is in Lassen National Park) that our roof decided that is was not meant for this world and spring multiple leaks. Remember that song about the girl who cried a river and drowned the whole world? The world was my living room and the girl was the ceiling. We and by we I mean Jesse spent a week cleaning and removing old roof coating and laying down fresh sealant while whispering to the roof sweet nothings to try to improve it’s countenance. It has been a month since and I can safely say the roof has not leaked once, although it has not rained since. We have also had to contend with a community of mice making a home in our engine compartment and declaring their own sovereign nation, the paper work to evict them was horrendous. Most recently one of my biggest fears has come true. I slipped my feet into my white and red converse and walked 15 steps, shortly after crossing a makeshift bridge over a small stream I felt a sharp pain in my left foot. Have you ever tried to take off a tied shoe while panicking? It was not pretty. When I finally eased my tender foot out of my now mangled shoe I saw a large black spider crawling out. I reacted as any sane adult would do, I screamed “fuck!” As I flung the offending shoe complete with eight legged passenger into the stream and in dismay watched it float away. Relizing what I had just done I limped after it and did the walk of shame, soggy shoe in hand, back to my little home. Inside my shoe I found the large egg sack that the spider had been protecting and considered that had it have had time to hatch I would’ve been stepping into hundreds of spiders instead of just one. My toe seems fine but I never got to figure out what kind of spider it was. One thing I do know for sure is that I will never be the same carefree girl who puts on her shoes without checking first.
In the mean time, in between time we are exploring every chance we get and making the most of our time here. Northern California will take your breath away and due to the high altitude will never fully give it back.
“The life you have led doesn’t need to be the only life you have”
Anna Quindlen
Florida to California, the finer points..
That’s right we made it to Mill Creek Resort nestled among towering trees in the shadow of Lassen Volcano in Northern California. Our love story with Mill Creek began as many modern love stories do these days, with an email. The owners, a young couple named Jillian and Joseph saw a resumé that we had posted on a site called workamper.com, the resumé explained that we were hard workers and not serial killers which is a hard combo to beat. Thru a series of emails we made a plan to spend the summer exploring Northern California while working and living at their small resort/restaurant. Mill Creek has a handful of employees who already feel like family and is held together by a love for the area, fresh local food, and a revolving cast of mountain folk, cowboys, travelers, adventurers, and kind hearted locals. The owners take a lot of pride in what they do and joy in their work or at least fake it well, and it is felt throughout the resort from the good food to the cozy cabins. We came here looking for something different from the corporate run campgrounds, not only did we find something different but also a reason to make a difference.
A quote that really resignates with me is by Cesar Pavese; Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all the familiar comforts of home and friends. You are constantly off balance, nothing’s is yours except the essential things -air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky. -All things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.
We get so wrapped up in our lives, our stories, our versions of reality, that we forget to look at the bigger picture. In any single moment there are a million different things that you could be doing or places you could be going, what will you do with your one wild life?
You don’t have to be rich to travel, maybe a little creative but certainly not rich. We funded our trip with 5 months of hard work at minimum wage jobs, achievable goals, and the support of family and friends. I have had the nice house and well paying job but traded it in for the chance to live instead of make a living. I’ll take being rich in experience over wealthy in life any day. It’s amazing what you are capable of when you gain control of your life and forget about what others may think. Not happy at your job? Get a new one. Don’t like your town? Leave. Want a pet Guinea Pig? Adopt one. Need extra money? Call 877 cash-now. Live within your means and make the best out of every single day that you have the ability to do so. I’ve got 99 problems but regrets ain’t one.
“Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run, but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
Current Location: Lake Powell, Arizona
Date: I think it’s Thursday, but I haven’t checked
Soundtrack: Third Eye Blind
Our Adventure began on April 10th when we woke to the shrill consistent buzzing of an alarm set the previous night for 6am. Untangling from the blankets and sheets and shaking off the quickly fading dreams that settled the previous night, we clumsily began to pack. There was a halfhearted attempt at organization that was short lived and vastly overshadowed by the excitement in the air and the urge to flee. Windows were closed, switches were flipped, the refrigerator unplugged, and the front door locked. We were ready, we were going, we were gone.
Scene: Vortex Springs, Ponce De Leon, Fl
80 degrees, Wednesday April 10
“Gin Clear Water”
Maybe it’s because it was a Wednesday or maybe the apocalypse started while we were too busy to give it any notice, an email moved to the spam folder without a second thought containing nothing less than the fate of mankind. The park was empty of people excluding a group of 5 steadfast partiers alternating between gyrating to loud club music and swaying to soulful country ballads when the whisky took hold. As promised the water was clear as gin and felt cold as sin. We sipped wine from cans and watched from afar as the now intoxicated spring breakers threw their sunburnt bodies down long dry water slides. Shuddering every now and then when hearing the inevitable and unmistakeable sound of flesh sliding against the dry cracked plastic.
Natchez State Park Mississippi
80 degrees Thursday April 11
“If the gators don’t get you, the ticks will”
Driving up to this park we sent up a quiet prayer to whoever was listening that these ruddy backwoods roads were not leading us to our death. I know that I have said this before but I will say it again. You will never learn more about a person then when you have to check them for ticks, it is the equivalent to a trust fall at a work retreat. Of course there is much more skin but the same feeling of fear and trepidation and of relief when it is over. Love life aside, Mississippi was exactly as imagined, air heavy with mosquitos and the sky thrumming with the wings of unseen things. We ate Ramen noodles and listened to the rain pounding on our roof.
Wind Point Texas
Friday April 12 – Sunday April 13
75 Degrees, Severe Storms, Tornados likely
It was Texas in the beginning of April at a place called Wind Point, we should have known that there would be tornados. We spent our days here faces pressed against windows only pulling away long enough to clear the fog that our warm breaths created, looking for the tell tale funnel cloud with fear and excitement. We grew up watching Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt chasing twisters, we had been preparing for this since 1996. We spent restless nights here listening to NPR and sifting thru our DVD collection for any type of distraction. At night there was a thick haze over the lake that turned out to be swarming insects and in the mornings you could make out the shadows of deer watching lazily through the brambles.
Wichita Falls Texas
Sunday April 11, 80 degrees
“There were Geese”
We had a few minor inconveniences on our way to Wichita Falls including the rubber roof coating on top of the RV peeling off and flapping in the wind like a white flag of surrender. On the plus side I had the opportunity to feed a pair of Canadian Geese and we got pizza delivered.
Tucumcari NM
Monday April 15, 75 degrees
I forgot about this place until looking back on our reservations
The entire drive to New Mexico we were assaulted with gusts of wind up to 40mph of hot dry air. Past the towering oil pumps and spinning wind turbines in the heart of BFE you find Tucumcari. We stayed at a KOA and blew thru our laundry money drinking red wine and playing pool in the clubhouse.
Albuquerque NM
Tuesday April 16, 81 degrees
Home of the Chupacabra
Eyes to the skies we pulled into Albuquerque, I was sure that if we were going to see a UFO this was the place. My neck is still stiff from constantly scanning the horizon while visions of the movie “Mars Attacks” danced through my head. We hiked over desert terrain at Petroglyph National Monument and marveled at the etchings left behind from a long ago long gone people. With a new perspective and fresh sun burn we shared beers at a local brewery whilst discussing the pros and cons of running into the infamous Chupacabra. We camped next to a man in a van who was clearly running from something and awoke to a desert storm.
Lake Powell Arizona Wednesday April 17- Thursday April 19
71 degrees
Just hold your breath and we’ll stop time
With looming canyons and perfect climate I imagine that if there were an afterlife it must resemble this. Nothing makes you more cognizant of the shifting sands of time than the well worn canyons of Arizona forever standing testament to the power of wind and water and bearing the layers and secrets of our planet. We plan to spend our time here drinking too much white wine and getting more than our fair share of sun. I could never find the right words to describe the world, this alternate reality that we have tripped and slipped into. If given the chance to visit do not hesitate or let the opportunity pass you by. Our days are filled with dirt biking across the ancient terrain segmented with the occasional fall to keep things interesting and lounging in the early spring sun watching the world wake up.
I have learned a lot about our country and its inhabitants on this trip. From the Homo Gluteus, the elderly man who chose to forgo underwear and whose pants subsequently slip a good six inches every time he bends to adjust his bearings. To the Homo Maximus, the guy with the 50ft RV pulling his 2019 lifted Jeep and refusing to leave the sanctuary of his AC and satellite TV regardless of location. It has been a very humbling experience to leave everything we know behind and travel across the country. I have never felt so small and I have never felt so alive. With 2 cats, a dog, and a handful of bad ideas and good intentions we do what we always do, we carry on.
“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”
—Arundhati Roy, The Cost of Living”
What can you live with and live without?
Ten things to survive and thrive living in an RV..
Ten things to throw out the window
In a little over ten days we will be packing up and heading out on our next adventure. It seems as though it was just yesterday that we decided to take the leap and reshape our lives. It’s been less than a year since we sold our home and all of our things in search of a life of our making and we have not looked back once. You will amaze yourself with the things that you are capable of once the weight of the world is no longer holding you down. In the five months since returning to Florida we have met amazing people that we will miss terribly but who have also inspired us to be the change we wish to see in the world. Experience trumps possession any day and I can not wait to see what the future has in store. It’s not easy to take a leap but it’s the fall that wakes you up.
I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And what do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited.
Sylvia Plath
The question that we kept asking ourselves before taking the “leap” intruded over and over again into conversations, asserting it’s dominance like an angry customer demanding to speak to “the manager” over a bad coupon. Squeezing into sentences and falling out of mouths before the speaker, hand to lips to catch the slip, even knew what they were saying or had a chance to pull it back in and reverse that taboo sentence. But yet against all efforts it would escape and our vocal chords would vibrate in defiance of our brains and put sound behind our greatest fear and the words would be uttered “what if it doesn’t work out?”.
The question that we should have been pondering was not “what if it does not work out?”, but instead “what if it does work out?”. Do we dare contemplate the idea of the consequences were we to actually achieve what we had set out to do. It is a scary thought, that realization that you may just might make it work and come out on top. It is rare to find someone who thinks themselves deserving of the hand that they have been dealt in life and rarer to summon the courage to stack the deck in one’s favor. I don’t think that we have gotten “lucky” to fall into this lifestyle, we merely got desperate. Start with blog entry #1 and you will hopefully get some idea regarding the work that was put in to get us to this point in our lives. If anyone is considering leaving a job that they hate, a city that drains, or a house that is haunted, I hereby pledge my support and my love. It is not an easy step, in fact it is more of leap, I take that back, it is a free fall. Remember though that you cannot get ahead if you are stuck in the past, and life after all is only a series of moments, tied together by actions, which are defined by our choices, and the occasional rash decision. We waste a lot of breath talking about living when we could be using it to live instead.
Speaking of living, the countdown has begun and we have officially reached that “Oh Shit” moment in terms of getting the RV ready for a 3,000 mile road trip. New tires have been ordered, new brakes are being shipped, we found a sketchy businessman who “knows his way around a Winnebago” to do some minor adjustments. Money is coming in at the same rate it is going out and I could not be more excited. We do well under pressure, without pressure we are coal, with it on the other hand we are still coal but there may be a hint of diamond in there somewhere. My biggest concern is reorganizing the rv, (I should mention that this is due to the fact that it is the easy task to tackle). I learned in life that if you are taking the easier job you better be the damn best at it, so that is my goal. Here are some tiny living organization tips that I have picked up..
Those are just a few helpful tips for living small, there will be more such as lighting all of your high school yearbooks on fire (your crush didn’t sign it anyway), and rolling your fitted bed sheet into a ball and then stomping on it in frustration for storage, I’m assuming everyone folds a fitted sheet in this fashion. Life is short, make sure you live it.
“The world is a big place and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark”
Planning a road trip.
Supplies needed:
“In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse”
We are 80 days away from our 11-14 day road trip to Northern California and have officially begun all of the projects that we meant to begin 2 months ago. Cheers to adventure and exploration and everything that goes with it. We are preparing body and mind, I don’t want to brag but I did 10 sit-ups today so yeah there’s definitely a 6 pack hidden under my baggy sweatshirt and I could probably kill a man with my vice like grip. Now that we officially have a departure date things are becoming a lot more real and I can’t tell if I’m really excited or really terrified but I am beginning to accept the fact that these two emotions generally go hand in hand. Anxiety, depression, and fear are all symptoms of the human condition, if you do not feel these things on occasion (or all of the time for some) you are an alien and need to phone home, if you do you are not alone. I for one am constantly terrified that I am making the wrong choice, going the wrong way, or saying the wrong thing. Most of the time all of the above is true for me but at our very worst there is still room to try our very best. Remember that it’s okay to sometimes feel the need to run away. Stay Sexy and go on an adventure.
“Oh how we’ve shouted, how we’ve screamed, take notice, take interest, take me with you”
-Dashboard Confessional
As I sit, we sit in Georgia. Douglas Georgia to be exact. I’m not 100% sure how to accurately describe Douglas except for the fact that we don’t fit in, we were a little nervous about the idea of spending the night here. As I told a friend, I took one last picture on the off chance that Jesse was leading us to a cannibal camp so that I could properly document the story about the time that I lost my left arm. First impressions can be entirely deceiving though and “General Coffee State Park” was unexpectedly serene and beautiful. Don’t get me wrong though it could still be the perfect setting for a great “B” horror movie.
What led us to BFE Douglas, Georgia? The end of the season that’s what. High fives to us for starters for successfully completing our first working season at a camp! Reading our first posts where we merely dreamed of owning an RV and traveling for a living I would have definitely not held my breath in terms of us actually reaching our goal (there were a few who told us this in less words). We have officially overcome and become the kind of people that I always wanted to be when lusting over the “idea” of this lifestyle and it is everything that I imagined it would be and more. I say more because I could have never taken into account the people that we would meet and the effect that they would have on our lives.
Somehow unbeknownst to me the incredible experiences that we have shared have cemented themselves into unbreakable bonds and memories worth their weight in propane. By October this rag tag group of workers somehow morphed into the most dysfunctional family that I have ever seen or ever been more proud of calling my own. We owe a lot to Bill and Sharon the first managers to take us on as part of their team. They took a chance on two inexperienced campers who had yet to even officially resign from their careers at the time of the long distance interview and gave them a shot. You two are what helped fuel our flame for adventure and helped us gain the confidence to realize that we have what it takes to succeed in this gypsy lifestyle.
“In the mean time, in between time”
By this time tomorrow we will have traversed the cotton fields and red clay hills of Georgia and be back in Florida left trying to answer the question of “what do we do now?”. My top priority is making money so that Jesse (silent J) can complete his arduous and boring list of RV modifications without depleting our savings account. I hired him based solely on looks and I’m starting to regret it as his hourly wages are outrageous.
I have a job lined up assisting a woman with two finicky Grey Hounds and an interview scheduled with a local dive shop. I am doing everything I can to shamelessly promote myself to avoid both losing my mind and losing any money during the “off season”. Most employers do not want to hear that not only do you wish for an entry level position with your background of management experience but you would also only like to be employed for a four month stint. This makes finding employment very interesting.
Our biggest struggle currently is the fact that Jesse (pronounced Hesse) keeps trying to play the blu ray copy of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo on our standard ray DVD player. If that is my only complaint in life thus far I think that we are absolutely doing something right and that we will surely figure out the details as we go. I currently in the process of writing a book titled Truck Stop Bathrooms and the People You Meet There, a romantic comedy.
Here are a few other things that occurred this month:
PS during the writing of this Jesse (pronounced Asshole) thought that he would be helpful and changed my writing light from standard lighting to “submarine” lighting resulting in our most physical fight in years.
“If you’re going to try, go all the way otherwise don’t even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery-isolation. Isolation is the gift. All others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the Gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is”
-Charles Bukowski
I left off on a looming trip to Florida. We piled into our hatchback with two cats, a miniature poodle, and full sized dreams. Florida was conveniently located right where we had left it, south of Georgia and sitting at 95 degrees with 100% humidity, the air so thick you could choke on it. The purpose of our journey was this, to view a home in our hometown of Crystal River. The ho
use had miles of character but unfortunately also had miles of cardboard DIY duct work and a slight lean to it, the character I spoke of would be a down on his luck part time astronaut with a glass eye that never really aims in the right direction. We decided that this was not the house for us and that we needed a new plan. A building plan to be exact and a plot of land to build on. No ordinary home would do though, the plan was “Quonset hut or bust” because there’s something to be said for rounded walls and a blank canvas. We arrived with nothing but left with a plan. We waved goodbye to our family and headed back to the mountains eager to shake off the mosquitos and the lingering Florida heat.
In the meantime in between time..
Excerpt from Adventure Journal- Today we are going to Maggie Valley. Today we are going on a road trip. First we need fuel- 2 redbulls and 10 gallons of gas (only the best for our 2007 Ford Focus). We will pass Harrah’s Casino where the Thunder Down Under recently performed in all their Australian Glory and continue over the mountain…
To Maggie Valley we went and stumbled into a Christmas themed store where the air hung heavy with incense and premature holiday cheer. Jesse crossed his arms and with a huff loudly proclaimed that he was having “zero fun”. Upon leaving Jesse’s personal Hell we headed to Waynesville which is basically a tiny version of Asheville NC. In Waynesville I purchased a snake bite kit for $1 and Jesse a leather bag containing two thermoses and a lunchbox. Alcohol was consumed and there was football on TV. We smiled a lot and though we may not have realized it at the time it was a perfect day.
As park life goes.. well it goes. We have had a multitude of minor battles but thankfully no major wars amongst the staff. These range from Dee the “newbie” eyeing sweet Caroline’s Husband Jim, to the great housekeeping fiasco of 2018 and the mystery of who is stealing the toilet paper. Don’t even get me started on Mean Gene the maintenance man who has a heart full of dirty old socks which is two sizes too small. I’ve worked in every position in the park, from rolling my eyes in reservations to rolling around in the dirt in grounds. Housekeeping has been the most interesting hat we have worn so far as we have found a tooth under a pillow, fried fish in the bathroom, and when we’re lucky beer in the fridge. You truly do not realize what goes into a job until you actually do it.
From Rattlesnake wrangling to domestic dispute untangling we have seen a lot, included but not limited to..
November will be here before we know it and with it the closing of the park and the great RV exodus. We have been offered to stay the winter but who wants to spend the holidays stuck on witch mountain? In preparation we have updated our resumes and started looking for our next adventure, we are considering everything from a llama rescue in the Texas hill country to a start-up farm in the middle of Georgia. Wherever we go we will have our home, our pets, our sense of adventure, and most importantly our sense of humor.
“How wild it was, to let it be”
Oh Darling, Let’s Be Adventurers
In the past month a lot has happened and at the same time it feels as though nothing has happened at all. Being out here is like being in a completely different world, and both time and people seem to move differently in the mountains than the swamps of Florida. There is something about venturing to a new place, meeting new people, and experiencing different ways of life that you may have never knew existed, or if you did know, didn’t spend more than a second considering. It hit me like a ton of bricks, the billions of people living separate lives with their own hopes, dreams, goals, and ideas, just doing their best to make the best out of their own reality. There is a word for this; Sonder- “the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.”
We’ve been here a little over two months and it still blows my mind that what began as a dream and turned into an idea which morphed into a plan is now our reality. I once read longingly about people like us and lusted over the lives that they lived wondering how they got so lucky. In retrospect it wasn’t luck that got them there it was courage and faith, not faith in a higher power but faith in themselves and the will to succeed. Most work campers are not in it for the money (what money?) or prestige, the driving force is the opportunity to live. Apparently it takes most people decades to reach the decision and take the leap, decades of trying and failing, rising and falling, and decades of working but not fully living. We are the youngest work campers here so we either realized it sooner then most or just lost our minds at a conveniently young age. I’m leaning heavily on the latter.
To anyone considering work camping here are some Pro’s and Cons:
Pros
Cons
Now that you have the pros and cons, here are a few reasons that work-campers have left so far this season:
Since I’m listing things here is a helpful wiki article about tick removal
As I am ending this post we are ankle deep into July and have three and a half months to decided where we want to go when the park closes for the season at the end of October. It is both terrifying and terribly exciting to have so many options and zero plans. We could buy a plot of land and resettle with the money that we have saved, we could take the winter off of working and travel up the west coast, or we can find a paying gig and work-camp for the winter. The only thing that we know for absolute certain is that whatever we do we’ll be doing it together and making the best of every step along the way.
Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully you leave something good behind.
–Anthony Bourdain
Brittany and Jesse Are Running Away 