(written on the 14th from notes)
Undisturbed. 😊🙏
Spent some time first thing chatting with Captain Universe. Called both the customers who asked me to call them one at 9:00 a.m. and one at 9:30, and neither one of them answered their phones.
Spent some time working on my journal post.
Started taking work calls as I started driving down out of the foothills toward the coast. Man, the river and the landscape around Elk River Road are just gorgeous. 😍
The road hits the coast just a little ways north of Port Orford, and then it’s maybe an hour or so from there up to Coos Bay where the Walmart is where I planned to buy food and toiletries and whatnot.
Much of my time while in Walmart chatting on the phone with my friend Cory, just joking around, and as per my norm when going into Walmart supercenters, I tend to look to see if there are any clothing racks that are on clearance. Nowadays, clearance prices are still far above what I want to pay, but this time, I was pleasantly surprised with some amazing prices!
Four of the shirts I bought were only 50 cents each!!!
Kind of makes me wonder what might be wrong with them. 😆 I was reminded of an old comedy routine from Bill engvall, where he talks about going to a factory outlet mall to buy clothes, the kind of place where you could “buy a pair of pants with a collar.” 😆
I guess we’ll see. I don’t really ever try on the clothes that I buy. I just buy the sizes that I’m used to buying and hope for the best. And since I don’t really care about fashion, I just buy whatever is a good price and looks relatively decent.
I think I ended up buying something like five or six shirts? And I think maybe I bought a pair of shorts? I don’t remember anymore. Between all the clothes that I bought, and the food, and the toilet paper and other things I needed, the grand total was $30.
😎
I’ll take it.
I stopped by a hardware store, hoping against hope, that I might just be able to find a fuse for my power station charge cable, even though I’ve got some fuses waiting for me at my sister’s place in Washington. It would still be nice to be able to use the internet whenever I want to and wherever I want to instead of having to use it sparingly because I don’t know when I’m going to be able to charge up my power station next.
But no dice. So I guess I’m just going to wait until I get to my sister’s place, where I think I’ve got a pack of 10 or 20 fuses waiting for me. 🙃
I kept answering questions here and there for JustAnswer.
It’s been another rough day, nerve-wise. Not doing so well at all. Man I really messed myself up doing those stretches the other day. It’s been pretty brutal.
It’s amazing how what once used to help now just railroads me, hammers me into the ground.
Started heading east from the coast toward Umpqua National Forest, heading toward some hot springs pools that I was hoping to sit in to maybe relieve my spine symptoms somewhat.
I’m chatted with my mom on the phone for a little bit. Texted with my brother Richard for a little bit. Texted with my sister Heather for a little bit. Saw a huge herd of elk grazing by the side of the road.
The drive from the coast East into the Foothills and forest was absolutely beautiful. Western Oregon is such a beautiful place.
Chatted with my mom for a little bit again on the phone, while overlooking an absolutely beautiful River Valley below.
What a beautiful world, and what a beautiful part of the world. 😊
Unfortunately, my power station drains a lot faster than what it should, given what it supposedly is capable of, so I watched as my percentages kept going down and down and down. Part of that might be because I’m moving, which may cause the satellite to pull more watts than it normally would because it’s constantly trying to maintain a signal, but even then, I should have something like 36 hours worth of time, and I think it’s probably getting more like 20? Maybe fewer? I’m not sure. But I’m pretty sure it’s nowhere near close to 36 hours.
Anyway, so with no functional charger of any kind, I’m rationing my power station use. I guess I shouldn’t say no functional charger of any kind I could pull the power station out of the van and hook up the solar panels directly to it, but it’s a 30 plus pound power station, and my spine that’s already freaking out my whole body would get even more angry with me if it had to lift that power station again.
So I’m rationing my internet usage, trying to make sure that I’m able to support the people I’m trying to support right now, and also able to work at least enough to cover my bills, etc.
Unfortunately, my attempt to go to the hot springs was cut short when I realized that even the hot springs that I had chosen this time, which I had chosen specifically because the other one was noted as being a place where clothing was optional, well, apparently so was this one, and perhaps even more so.
So I would like to say that it wouldn’t be an issue for me, I have been a porn addict for nearly 40 years, and so I’m not quite healthy enough in the brain in that particular area yet to be able to go to a place like that.
Maybe one day I’ll have a healthy brain in that regard and can just see bodies and have them just be bodies.
Still, I held out hope that I could get there and find an empty parking lot, given the time of year and the time of day (nighttime), but when I got to the parking lot, apparently they had made it a fee area, but no place to actually pay the fee on site. You had to buy the permit online, nor were you allowed to be there after dark, so I gave up on the idea and switched over to thinking that maybe sitting in the cold River might be able to relieve symptoms a bit, but not tonight.
Texted a little bit more with my brother and then drove up a different Road and found a nice little place to sleep on the side of the road next to the river.
Gratitude:
- I’m grateful to have had a fun conversation with Cory while at Walmart. I’m grateful to have good friends.
- I’m grateful to have been able to find the dirt-cheap clothes.
- I’m grateful to see such beautiful scenery and the wild life as well. I love this world.
- I’m grateful that Rover is doing so well, getting me where I need to go, not giving me any issues whatsoever. What an amazing blessing!
- I’m grateful to be learning more and more about van life and the ins and outs of living on the road and what’s possible and whatnot. I’ve been treating this last month as a trip, and it really doesn’t need to be a trip. It can just be the new way of life. I’ve been treating it as a trip and feeling like I need to give people schedules and timetables for when I’m going to be where, and I don’t need to. I can just live and go where I go and if it works out that I am able to visit people when I’m in their area, then great. And if not, then I’ll come back through another time. Of course, I do want to see everyone at the same time, so it’s a little internal battle. Every time I give myself a deadline, then I’m stressed a little bit because now I have to make sure that I’m at a certain place by a certain date, which I don’t like, but I’m figuring it out… Little by little.
Success:
- My attitude toward my health issues has actually been pretty good. I’ve been choosing to be grateful and to try to look at the positive. It’s hard when the issues are as bad as they are right now, but I’m trying, and I’m succeeding to some degree, and that’s a success.
- I think I did a fair bit better today with my cell phone multitasking while driving. So that’s another win. I wasn’t perfect, for sure, but I think I was a good bit better today.
Improvement:
- Still room for improvement on the multitasking while driving bit. Progress made. More progress to go.
❤️
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 