When you’re happy, art’s hard. That’s what John said when I was struggling to kickstart this final post from our 5 months on the road. And he’s right- our time rolling around in the Wonder Wheels has left us giddy and full-bellied from the fall-to-winter feasting on America. We gobbled up a good chunk of this place and got sauced on the sights. Hey, when a crumbling desert mesa tosses you a biscuit, you take a bite; when the Oregon Coast offers you a drink, you hand it a glass. (And when the Rockies raise a giant, iron fist, you say, “Which eye?”)

But for Nature, art is neither hard nor easy. It’s just another day at work. She clocks in, gets to it, hangs her labors on the wall and doesn’t charge a fee to take a peek. What a peach. It was good to step inside and go from room to room in her American gallery: Northeast to Northwest to Southwest and home. A good chunk, yeah, but a nice size to chew on. It’s like a thumbnail on Earth’s hand. But an outstretched thumb can take you far, and this trip…. ah, this trip….

To put it into perspective: Yesterday I dug a black shard of cactus thorn out of my leg – and I was thrilled. It was there for more than a month, still hard and persistent like the Chihuahuan desert that raised the cactus that grew the arm that launched the thorn that stabbed my leg. I remember the moment it speared me – and this makes my heart wag! We were hiking in Big Bend National Park, racing the setting sun…. and the sun won…. so we were navigating the dark, and the sneaky sucker got me. It was painful, even shocking, but I loved it. I hope the scar sticks around to remind me of that wild, star-flared, chilly dark desert night.

I hope for many things: That somewhere in the northwest, beached jellyfish are still catching the moon, lit up like lanterns in the wet Pacific black. That winds are rising like witches from the top of the White Mountains.
That the silky, grey sand from the Salish Sea still hides in my shoes. That the ghosts of highways haunt my heart. I hope the inky Sawtooths nip at my thoughts and the soft, wheat-whipped prairies sweep my dreams.

If the memories flicker and fade, luckily we’ve got our film H6LLB6ND6R as a moving monument of our adventures. As always, the road is the best location scout. You just have to wander down one. So thanks, America. (And thanks, John-Z-and Lulu, for making the wandering so much fun!) Perhaps art isn’t always hard when you’re happy.

***And thank YOU for drifting with me as I explored our ride in words. Much appreciated. All my love. – Toby

Arizona.

The desert in snow.  Like a sea on fire or a tree growing on a rock, some things just don’t seem to mix.  And when they do, it’s weird.  A little jarring. The kind of thing that can alter the DNA of one’s perception, which is always a good thing.  Please, give me that.  Crack me open and pour in a cup of Never-seen, a hunk of Unknown, and a dash of “Huh?” 

When we pulled into Dead Horse Ranch State Park in Cottonwood, Arizona,  the terrain was a familiar Sonoran desert scene: dusty, crusty brown, and fringed in the muted grey-greens of juniper, sagebrush, and puffy cottonwood trees.  We rode our bikes up-down-all around a high loop in the Coconino National Forest (a desert forest!), during which I learned I am a royal chickenshit when my bike finds itself on anything other than pavement or dirt.  (Hell, thy name is Gravel!) But when not terrified by the natural rollercoaster of rock, sand, and eye-gouging shrubbery (my heart going full steam lub-dubbery), it was a desert ride to remember.  

By evening, winds stoked angry clouds, and the first flecks of snow began to whirl like ash from a white scalded sky.  The heat from the desert day shrank lizard-like into the cold desert night, and by morning the DNA of my perception had changed.  The desert in snow.  A strange marriage of star-crossed lovers fully draped in a veil of white.  Cacti transformed into funny whiskered snowmen; yucca into narwhals, their shoots piercing a sea of sparkling fluff.  And in Sedona – striking, vibrant, sexy  Sedona- the red cliffs and ragged mesas looked like massive hunks of half-eaten Devil’s Food Cake, white icing dripping down the sides.  

Snow aside, the desert is full of characters.  You could write a classic Western opera on the cacti alone.  You’ve got your saguaro, tall and proud, like a hydra-headed sheriff. The deputy might be a squat, jovial barrel cactus.  Then there’s the ocotillo, your villain, all spidery and barb-wired, with its sneaky thick-fingered sidekick, the cholla, quick to stick with daggered burrs.  The Joshua trees are your preachers, arms raised in prayer for the souls of the sinners.  And the prickly pear are your busomy damsels flashing their purple succulence, batting thorny lashes.  Coyotes hide in the wings crooning a sad, hungry ballad, and hawks saw thin rusty chords in the rafters.  Winds jangle like spurs.   

Of course there’s more to Arizona than its deserts.  There are some cool towns we love revisiting, like Jerome.  Built up high on a mountain overlooking the Verde Valley, it’s a strange kind of slinky, living ghost town, all switchbacks and steep streets lined with both galleries and crumbling facades.  And then there’s Bisbee, an artsy old mining town near the border of Mexico. The massive red open copper mine could swallow whole the charming historic district.  Haunted hotels, cracked walls, and antique shops stipple the spindled town, its tiers spun out and stitched together by thousands of stone steps that zig and zag up the mountain like ivy. 

We’ve got another ghost town (or two) on our horizon.   In Texas!  We’re headed to Big Bend along the Rio Grande.  More desert opera.  Maybe a tarantula or two.  Big skies and brazen stars.  

The Pacific Northwest is demanding. Rain and wind hammer the coast and gnaw at our little home on wheels. Washington looms like a masthead over its gusty, water-bound corner of the country, and the wet drama is captured in names that all make sense: Deception Pass, Dismal Nitch, Cape Disappointment. It’s easy to feel the haunt of ships and souls lost in the deep dark drink. This place is wild. Unpredictable. It has a pirate heart. While we sleep the Pacific swallows massive trees, plays with them its mouth, then spits them onto the shore. I can hear the boom and crunch, the beaches a pick-up-stick display of dried grey bones.

In a state that isn’t shy about its natural gifts, Washington’s Olympic Peninsula is especially talented. The Pacific Ocean pummels its western edge, muscles its way through the Strait of Juan de Fuca (nudging Canada above), eases into the Salish Sea, and finally sinks into the Puget Sound. In Port Townsend, a lovely town in the peninsula’s top right corner, we watch river otters, sea lions, and orcas just a stone’s throw from the trailer. The views here make you feel like you’re plopped inside a giant caldera, distant snowy mountains puckered around the watery town on all sides: the Cascades and Mount Baker, the Olympics, and Mount Rainier shining like a silver yolk in the faraway sky. And then there are the rainforests: fuzzy, lush, dripping in hot forest breath, steeped in fog.

After two months in the Northwest we are pretty much addicted. Washington and Oregon are iconic, like eagles perched high up on their wild edge of the country, and we are easy prey, happy to be hunted and ripped all to love-pieces. We flit between parks on both state coasts and it never gets old. And we can see Lulu. She comes to us; we go to her. It’s an odd but beautiful bonding in the time of Covid: campfires and rooftops and virtual hugs. Love always lurks in all the things we cannot see or do.

So we’re shooting and living. The Wonder Wheeler leaks, her furnace broke, and sand has found a forever home in the cracks, but she keeps on rolling. And, thankfully, so do we.

P.S…. there’s a rich indigenous life on the Olympic Peninsula. I covered some of the Makah’s cool seafaring history in my previous 2010 blog:
We were rooted in the Olympics of WA like its native Sitka Spruce.   Not ready to leave yet, we visited the Makah Museum, which taught us that the coastal Makah and Orvette tribes were tough whale and seal hunters.  They would sail out in groups of eight on boats carved out of entire tree trunks, and each man had a job, one of which was to dive in and sew the whale’s mouth shut so it wouldn’t sink.  (When sharks arrived, the hunters would toss rocks off the boat– a tactic that seemed to distract the sharks and send them chasing the rocks down.)  Everything they caught they’d eat or use:  seal bladders for bags, intestines for bow strings, sewed up seals for floats to tow whales back to land…. Fascinating stuff!

Is there a happier sight than a dog and a ball on a beach? A sexier view than a hot peach sun setting over a wet denim ocean? A silkier song than the hush and coo of waves whispered through the teeth of grassy dunes? Think monster crags that stand in the surf, and the herby, almost medicinal air of evergreens.
Or moss, the shag carpet of choice, bearding trees in minty around-the-clock shadow, mushrooms sticking out like fleshy warts.
This is the Oregon coast. It’s big, it’s beautiful, it’s bound to break your heart. Even as you’re standing right there with it, its lush green arms wrapped around you, the ghost of its looming absence is already haunting you.

Our favorite thing to do on the Oregon coast is ride our bikes on the beach. When the tide is out, the tire patterns on the hard damp sand make me smile, reminding me of old good friendships: the lines run side by side, then converge, cross, then join again. John, Z and I go for beach rides in the morning, the late afternoon, and even under the starry night sky. We chase the shiny edges of the ebb-and-flows, dodging jellyfish glittered up by the moon, our wheels making a soft “shluss” in the thin surf. John says, “Is this romantic enough for you?” I say, “It is.” Z feels it too, because as she comets by she sings she loves me even more than the ocean, and I’m guessing that’s a lot. Sigh.

Of course the thing we love most about Oregon is Lulu, who lives in Portland. Seeing her here – so independent, hardworking, and ever adventurous in the city and beyond …. blue eyes twinkling above her mask and body strong like a bull’s…. my heart just flops onto its back, holds its sides, and rocks with ache. It’s not a bad ache. More like a love sickness that can’t be quelled. Or a rip in the ol’ ticker, raw and swollen open from adoration…. a small tear that can’t be stitched, so it stays open, like a gill, letting all the big love seep in and out.

Meanwhile, Zelda turned 17. She’s sitting alone under a tree sketching, curled over a pad with pencil in her long graceful hand. And now the ache returns, this time to be that lucky paper, or perhaps the pencil, bent to the wise hand’s will. 17, with the aim of an arrow. Now she’s waking a napping Lu, cocooned and warm in her blue hammock, and I can hear them laughing in the Oregon sun. The sweet ache again. It twists and pulls like taffy in my belly…. so much sugar and a salted joy. It’s a heady swoon, like falling from something sky-high into something bottomless and true.

Today is Halloween, my favorite holiday of all. It’s fun giving nightmares their due; fun getting spooked by shadows and creepy things under a stark moon as the days trip ever closer towards winter. Of course much, much scarier things lurk around the globe these days, and they’re not so much fun. But this post is about love. And beauty. And as I sit here in a state park along the Pacific coast, where fires have dulled and the air cleared; where dogs grin, all wet-whipped from the waves; where strangers wave hello as they walk by, or from their morning-dewed tents, or lifting their noses from books they quietly read outside their motorhomes…. I’m less scared, and more hopeful. Less bitter; more inspired. Not empty, but hungry for more.

Good to Be Bad(lands) and Why Oh Wy-oming

The Badlands of South Dakota are cool in a dusty, rusty, ruthless I-only-smoke-Marlboro Reds-and-nothing-green-survives-my-burnt-crusty-stare kind of way. It’s as if primary colors were outlawed then banished from the landscape, leaving behind long gnarled fingers of grey rock that jut out of a beige dry land. Sometimes blocks of earth fall away as if the sky had boots and stomped the earth in random fits. You can’t help but think of sagging, weathered sandcastles, lonely remnants of a dinosaur’s playground.
We hiked in, and as the sun began to sink behind a jagged skyline, we set up to shoot. You’d think it would be easy: dark edges against a pumpkin sky. But we couldn’t get the shot.
The Badlands scoffed at a close-up, and the camera got shy. But it was cool. The Badlands are really a teaser for what lies West…..

Wyoming. And the sovereign badassery of Yellowstone and Teton National Parks and the all-around vastness of everything in between.

Yellowstone is a huge natural amusement park full of endless attractions. Upon entering from the East through the Shoshone Forest and Absaroka Mountains, we were greeted by a lone bison strolling all hunchbacked and casual smack-dab down the middle of the road. Soon the bison and elk were on constant display, although we didn’t see any grizzlies this visit. The wind is bearlike, though, and it riles the massive Yellowstone Lake into an angry ocean. Rainbow colored thermal pools smoke…. mud pools bubble…. fumaroles spit, hiss and thump…. and geysers burp straight up to the sky. Steam and the stink of sulfur bathe your face. It’s a strange kind of beautiful Hell. And then you find yourself jaw-dropped and head spinning by a carousel of new views: snow capped mountains lording over wide bison-flecked valleys, waterfalls crashing, rivers cutting through rocky canyons, cliffs hanging out with eagles…. Damn, it’s good.

En route to The Tetons we wound through the striking Owl Creek and Wind River Mountains. The winds turned fierce and we found a ranch to host us for the night. Parked outside the horse and bull arena, for three hours the trailer shook and rocked through a downright dirt and sand blizzard. Then the winds calmed and we were surrounded by a psychedelic sunset and miles of sagebrush hosting horses and playful fluffy-butted antelope at home on the range.

100 miles west we were eye-slapped with our first view of The Grand Tetons, which roughly translates to The Big Tits. Oh, those frisky French. The more elegant Shoshone name for them translates to Hoary-headed Feathers. Either way, they’re unmistakable: dark, stark, stabbing the cloud cover with sharp brilliant white snowy peaks. The Snake River slithers at their ankles, spilling in and out of Jackson Lake. Dark shadows reveal themselves to be moose hulking beneath the pines, in heathery meadows. Oh, and in Jackson you can find the best croissant this side of Paris, Z says. (Persephone Cafe- thanks Nancy Lee!)

OK! On to Idaho and Craters on the Moon! Thanks, Wyoming. Ding!Ding!Ding! You’re the champ.

Here’s the lowdown on the slowdown.

It’s about a bone-straight country road, flanked by legions of corn stalks grayed and at post-summer rest, their papery swords bent by the winds. It’s about faded metal water towers, all long neck and fat head, proudly mouthing small town names like Sun Prairie, Baraboo, and Jolley. It’s about soft peanut butter and jelly sandwiches assembled on a dusty gravel shoulder that smells of cow and dirt and is kind of nice. It’s about feet on the dashboard and wind in hair; about singing to the radio and sharing apples. John horse-gobbles them down to the core – my favorite part- which I then gnaw into a heart-shaped nub. Zelda studies quietly in the backseat. Weeds tumble across the road like feathers. Windmills tickle the horizon. Watching the views sprawl outside the car windows John says, “America’s just so fuckin’ big.” Z turns down the music and says, “I’m gonna write my history essay.” I say, “Good luck.”

Indiana, Illinois, Iowa. Heartland; hard land. The Wonder Wheels like the long flat roads, but not the occasional strong gusts. Strange how they can make a 5,000 pound trailer wobble and reel while the watching cows stand solid and, uh, un-mooved.

As we head west, chasing the sundown, I can’t help but feel like happiness is a road. Or a cloud. Or an old truck rusting in a field. Sometimes you need some space to feel small. To slice through stillness with a set of wheels and a pair of eyes. Tonight we’ll reach South Dakota. The West with its big beauty dangles like a tasty carrot, and the ache of anticipation is like waiting for a second kiss from the person who knocked you out with the first kiss. A little dizzying, a little scary, a lotta thrilling. I like it.

Nature has the best breath. And in late September Maine it smells of pine, rain, salt, seaweed, and sweet decay. If you can pull your peepers away from the water (nonstop ocean, lakes, coves, and those pretty bogs – you know, the kind of low wetland riddled with thin steeples of grey dead trees that always catch your eye), the forests are holding their own. Ferns are the woodland jewels, all flashy in their burnished gold. And mushrooms, the earth’s great coexisters, hang nonchalantly off logs or pop out of the mulch with a sleepy wet yawn.

It rained most of the time we were there, but rain and Maine suit each other. The mist hugs the coast and kisses your face so tenderly. Makes you all giddy. We stayed near Belfast on Swan Lake, then closer to Acadia National Park. Acadia…. I mean, come on. Be still, my sea-swollen heart. We like to get around on our bikes, so we rode around some lakes and through the woods to the ocean. The rocky coast had slipped on its silkiest veil of haze and draped itself in long beads of slimy weeds and shards of pearly shells. Z and I took off our shoes and donned our black Hellbender dream-clothes, and John shot us on the rocks against the grey dull sky.

Maine marks the end of our first stint on the road. I think we’re getting the hang of pulling the Wonder Wheels. Z has been able to keep up with remote schooling. Autumn in the northeast has tattooed its image into our memories. Kind of comforting, the death of a leaf. And with the wet weather, ten days of dirty duds, and popcorn kernels hiding in the creases of our bed, the trailer is even starting to feel a little lived in. Which feels good.

Next? Another stunning corner of the country: the Northwest! That ought to throw some major eye-pie our way. But the sweetest sight to see out West? Our lovable Lulu Em!

The White Mountains of New Hampshire were hiding from us. They were hanging out in their shadowy northeastern corner like a silent spider waiting to pounce upon our neglect.  I mean, whoa.  Spectacular.  Who knew?  We didn’t!

We drove up to the  highest peak, Mt. Washington, watching the trees mellow in hue and dwarf into a shrubby carpet of tundra.  The air chilled, and the sky exhaled eye-level endless grey clouds that coolly slinked by as if to say, “Welcome to the big kids’ playground.” 

 At the top, the mountain dives down then opens and unfurls into rocky, peaty tiers like a massive god palm.  We scrambled down the face, a tumble of silver and black-pocked boulders and smaller cracked chunks laced with yellow lichen.  Patches of spongey crimson, white and green vegetation squeak and spring beneath your feet.  We hiked down 2 miles onto one of the wide bumpy fingers and shot a dreamy (or nightmarish) Hellbender scene.  The wind was righteous and perfect for that witchy whipped black cloak kinda shot.  And the spectral haze was a generous gift for the likes of nothing-but-a-camera-and-tripod-keep-it-simple us.  

It was really cold and getting late… and then it started raining.  This made for a slippery climb back up as the last licks of sun sank deeper behind the mountains.  We made it up, frosty but unscathed, to find we were the last souls up there.  There was a tiny piece of paper on our windshield saying the Auto Road was now closed.  Hmm.  We made the steep winding ride back down, and sure enough the gate was closed and locked.  We were wondering if we’d be sleeping in the truck for the night when we got lucky.  A man who works there happened to see us from another road and came to open the gate.  Another act of kindness we will pay forward.  So we made it out, but we’ll never ignore those mysterious tall beauties again.  We’ll be back for more, White Mountains!  

Moving on…. to Maine!     

It’s a good thing we’re into the horror genre because today threw us some terror balls. My bones shiver just thinking about it. I’m talking about the kind of horror that comes with hitching 7,000 pounds of trailer to a pick up truck…. and realizing that the pin that holds the whole attachment together…. is MISSING!!! (Yes, even fat solid inch-wide steel is sometimes called a pin. Weird.) We’re not savvy enough yet to know whether it fell out or someone knicked it. (We hear it happens. Hellbender will have to pay a visit to those unlucky souls.) I mean, can you imagine the carnage that could transpire from such a big whoops? Thankfully John noticed, and after finding a replacement we nervously hitched for the first time and safely eased away from Site #1 at Woodbury Meadows….. until our GPS sent us down a dirt road that narrowed and snaked until it sputtered into nowhere. Doing a 3-point turn with close to 28 feet of monster behind you = another white knuckler. But this isn’t the first navigation nightmare we’ll sweat through, and with a little luck and a bit of exponential skill (John!), we’ll edge on.

Had to kick off with a little drama. But can’t neglect highlighting our first camping base: a private nook on someone’s property in East Calais, Vermont. Rimmed by fluffy hills and steeped inside a blazing cauldron of leafy autumn fire, it was the perfect maiden haven for the Wonder Wheels. Our host, Jon, was a soft spoken kind man who quietly stood apart as we made our first back-in (a sharp-turned, gravelly uphill one at that) into the site. It’s a whole new dance, this trailer thing, and it takes some time to learn the steps. Jon was like a gentle parent watching from a one-eyed safe distance while their kid struggles to achieve something a bit scary on their own. He then greeted us warmly and happily handed down hitching advice we were grateful for. Vermont too had had their first frost, and a few surviving cherry tomatoes clung to each other at the site’s pretty perch across from a glassy pond. The trees and clouds look in that mirror daily and say, “Damn, I look good.”

Thanks, Vermont. We’ll be back. Next stop: the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Rolling, rolling, rolling!

Life is such a drag…. when you’re pulling it behind you.

This morning, at the crispy cusp of dawn, we hitched our new home to a big-boned, shock-solid pick up truck and hit the highway. It was the first Catskill frost of the season, but not our first time at the road-eo. (Can I coin that term?) Ten years ago John, Lulu, Zelda and I set out in our beloved Harvey the RV (RIP, Harv) with a pocketful of know-nothing but heaps of hunger. We knew nothing about life in a motorhome; we were hungry to make a film – and gobble up the American landscape while we were at it. Rumblestrips was born, and slapped silly by the wild joy of that ride, we walked away with an itchy love-rash the size of forever. It frets and burns and never goes away. So five features later, and finding ourselves wandering around the flimsy halls of Covid, it’s time to scratch that create/recreate urge again. This time though we have the itch to hitch! Introducing the Wonder Wheels: a 27-foot Minnie Winnebago travel trailer. Film we’re shooting? Hellbender! First stop? The Green Mountains of Vermont.

Since Lulu is rocking post-grad life in Portland, Oregon, we are now a trio. And we know a little more about making films, although each new endeavor is a whole new school of discovery. (And we have some fun toys: drones, steadycams, zip lines!) We will be promoting The Deeper You Dig from the road as it makes its Arrow Films debut this October. Z will be performing a twisty tango with those slippery cellular clouds for remote learning. And we’ll be gulping in the candy shop views Mother Nature offers so generously every fall. Please, ma’am, may we have some more?

So here’s to the drag. Wonder Wheels’ concrete conquest 2020.