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meterokinesis · 4 years

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Skin and Bones

Read it on AO3

Prompt: Starvation

TW: Hunger/food insecurity, ED mention (very short), Implied/referenced drug use

Summary: Jason Todd knew what hungry felt like. Hunger and Jason had always been bosom buddies.

Jason Todd knew what being hungry felt like.

That’s always what they called it when he was a little kid and the teachers tried to pretend that most of their class had full bellies. They’d say “when you haven’t had lunch yet, you’re hungry. But when you don’t eat for days, that’s hunger.”

Hunger and Jason were bosom buddies, and had been for years.

It was bad enough when it was just him and Catherine. At least then he could pilfer through her pockets for enough loose change to buy them rice and bread and beans. It wasn’t much, but it kept them alive in between the free lunches Jason got at school.

It got worse when Catherine had to be admitted to the hospital. Jason wasn’t stupid--he’d gotten an A on that last English paper. He knew that she was doing drugs. He knew that their food money went into plastic baggies full of powder and who-knows-what-else. He knew that their already low budget would be gone as soon as the hospital started sending bills.

He started stealing parts off cars that he passed on the walk home, then selling them to the shady guys at the garage. He’d sneak what he could from pockets and couches and placed it in places no one would ever notice. Bills rolled up in the toes of his sneakers, pennies and nickels shoved into his sock drawer. Jason was good at sneaking around already, but he learned to be even better. His life depended on it.

Catherine died the Friday after Valentine’s Day. Her hospital room was full of discount flowers and cheap chocolates. She squeezed his hand before she died, and she smiled. Her smile was unmatched, totally unique. In the days that passed afterwards, Jason would wonder if his smile ever looked like hers.

As Catherine’s breathing slowed and then stopped, Jason snuck out of the fourth floor and onto the street below. He had one, maybe two days left in the apartment before CPS found him and tried to force him into a foster home.

He’d rather die than go there.

So Jason Todd, eleven years old and barely five feet tall, broke into his apartment to survey the life he was leaving behind. Some of it was easy. He could afford to take two bags: a backpack and a duffel. The duffel got a pair of boots, a pair of sneakers, five sets of clothes, jackets, and a copy of Huckleberry Finn. He’d already read Tom Sawyer, he didn’t need to bring that too.

The backpack got essentials, like his toothbrush and toothpaste, his school ID, the money he’d saved up, and another set of clothes. His birth certificate and Social Security card were wedged under the loose floorboard already, so he left them there. When his path led him to the kitchen, Jason swallowed hard before grabbing a knife and a pair of scissors, then wrapping them both carefully and placing them in the backpack too.

He crawled into his bed, with its blue striped bedsheets, and tried to fall asleep. The sounds of Gotham weren’t comforting anymore, but rather like every monster under his bed amplified. He was too old to be scared of things that weren’t there, but every Gothammite knew that the city was not to be trifled with. The city he’d soon be in the heart of.

The clinking of keys on the apartment’s old doorknob woke him up. He’d always been a light sleeper, but for a second he thought it was maybe just Catherine coming home. Then he remembered how she’d never come home again. Jason was out of bed in a matter of seconds, grabbing his bags, tugging on his shoes, and climbing down the fire escape. The old watch he’d taken from Catherine’s room--he thought it was his dad’s--read 7:12, which meant it was really 3:17. Jason crept through the streets, not letting his heart catch up with his head. He’d have to squat somewhere for the night, maybe an abandoned warehouse or something. He’d found a few while adventuring the summer before, and not all of them could have been blown up in the last eight months.

“Clinton and Hall has a good one,” he mumbled to himself, steering his feet that way. It was cold, even for February, but he had no choice. It was either walk seven blocks now or walk straight to CPS. He’d take the seven blocks.

It was a quiet night, at least for Crime Alley. There were the usual shady guys doing deals in the back alleys and the over-rouged women in heels and too-short skirts, but at least no one was running around trying to blow the city up again. A night without Batman and Robin coming around was a good night, as far as Jason was concerned.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like Batman, just that he tended to invite more trouble than he did away with. Even the most well-intentioned people couldn’t fix Crime Alley. Jason would know, he was Crime Alley through and through.

He finally reached the warehouse and dragged himself up seven flights of stairs, where there was an office that sat mostly untouched. There was a boarded-up window and the walls were probably full of asbestos, but the door locked, so as far as Jason was concerned it was great. The boy placed his duffel bag under his head and slipped his backpack around so it covered his stomach. As the first breaths of sleep came to him, he could hazily feel hunger stab at his stomach. He hadn’t eaten in three days.

_______________

In the eight months since Jason had taken to the street, he’d learned a few things: trust people sparingly, only share if you have enough, and never let anyone give you shit. His copy of Huck Finn was tattered now, but it was the only real piece of home he had left.

He wasn’t alone by any means. There had been some older kids who had taken him under their wing for a few weeks back in April, but they got busted for dealing and Jason hadn’t seen them since. He and his occasional allies worked pretty well, a shared meal here, a hand-me-down there. Life wasn’t so bad like this, if you were careful.

Stealing the tires off the Batmobile wasn’t careful.

Jason felt Batman before he saw him. The guy just had that kind of energy, like a horror villain. But Jason already had three wheels off, with one stashed nearby, so there was really no point in stopping now.

“Excuse me, what are you doing?” The gruff voice asked, and that’s when Jason knew he was well and thoroughly fucked.

He didn’t answer, because Jason was never the type to admit guilt. A large hand fell on his shoulder, and he couldn’t help but jump. Batman turned him around, more gently than Jason thought he treated most criminals.

“Kid, you’ve gotta be what, thirteen? Come on, put those tires back on and get in the car.”

Well, Jason might be reckless enough to steal from Batman, but he wasn’t dumb enough to make himself an enemy. So, he silently put the tires back on the Batmobile and turned to face Batman. He was just as intimidating as everyone said he was.

“I know that you have stuff stashed somewhere,” Batman prompted, like he’d already seen thousands of alley kids today.

“Behind the dumpsters,” Jason muttered, staring at his scuffed-up sneakers.

Batman ducked behind the dumpster, and emerged with the two bags and a tire. Jason sheepishly put the last tire back, then stood and opened his hands for his bags. His hands were stained with dirt and grease, like black blood.

“In the car,” Batman ordered, and Jason’s stomach dropped.

“No!” He cried, his throat as dry as bone. “Please, you can’t turn me in. They’ll send me into the system or juvie or something. I’ll die in there, I know kids who have.” As much as he wished that was a lie, it wasn’t. Foster kids didn’t last long in Gotham.

Batman hesitated a moment, then spoke again. “Fine. Get in the car. I won’t take you to CPS, but I can’t let you go back on the streets.” His voice was firm, but also gentle. It was… strange.

Jason nodded, and tucked himself into the passenger side. Batman sat down in the driver’s seat, and with a reminder to fasten his seatbelt, the pair was off.

The drive wasn’t particularly long, but Jason was antsy all the same. His heart thundered as they entered a long tunnel in the side of what looked like a mountain, but Jason was pretty sure that there were no mountains in Gotham. Finally, they parked in some sort of weird cave-garage-thing. Batman turned to Jason, and looked him in the eyes.

“I have a doctor here. She’s going to take a look at you and make sure you’re okay. You can spend the night here. Then, we’ll discuss other options. No matter what, you’re not going on the street again.” He said this all in a perfunctory manner, but it was polite nonetheless.

Jason scrambled out of the Batmobile, only to see a familiar face waiting for him.

“Hello, Jason.” Dr. Thompkins smiled, and he tried to hide his surprise that she remembered him. He hadn’t been to the clinic in at least a year.

“Hi, Dr. T,” he mumbled.

“Alright, let’s get started. Can you sit down over here for me?” Jason followed her gesture, only to see a full clinic set up. What kind of garage was this? He nodded absently and shuffled over, then sat on the crinkly paper.

Dr. Thompkins walked him through a normal check up, with some added questions about how the past year had been. The whole time, she kept glancing at his face, like she expected him to start crying at any moment.

“So, Jason, I’m so sorry to hear about your mom.” She said as she tested his reflexes. His heart lurched in his chest, but he tried to keep his face from betraying him.

“... Thanks.” He mumbled, then left it at that.

Dr. Thompkins finished the exam, then stepped away to speak to Batman. Jason laid down to stare at the wall, but he couldn’t help but overhear some snippets of conversation.

“... known him for years… neonatal abstinence syndrome… only eighty pounds… severely malnourished… needs individualized support…”

The conversation trailed off as footsteps padded back into the room.

“Alright, so we have to get you up to date on vaccinations, and then you’re all done with me. You’re brave, you’ll be okay.” Jason nodded, and she injected the first vaccine. After three more, his arm was sore and his head was heavy. Dr. Thompkins led him to a reclining position, then pulled the curtain shut.

“Goodnight, Jason. It’s going to be okay.”

_______________

Jason hadn’t expected to like the Imposter’s girlfriend so much, but he did. Stephanie got it in a way no one else did. The pair sat on a Crime Alley rooftop, sharing a combo meal from BatBurger.

“-And then, they accused me of being anorexic! Like no, I don’t have an eating disorder, I just can’t afford to eat more than saltines and water!” Stephanie rambled, gesturing wildly with a fry. “Seriously, I don’t think I ate an actual meal that wasn’t made by a lunch lady until I was fourteen.”

Jason chuckled, “My first big meal was when Bruce took me in. Until then, I thought having pizza or chicken nuggets for dinner was a splurge.”

Stephanie quieted, then looked from the carton of fries to Jason.

“Hey, does it ever get easier? Do you ever stop panicking when you grocery shop or when you treat yourself to lunch?” She questioned, her voice hoarse.

Jason took another bite of his burger.

“No. No, it doesn’t.”

#whumptober 2020 #my writing #jason todd #stephanie brown #hunger tw #food tw #drug tw #ed tw #crime alley was rough on jason ok

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travelingtheusa · 6 years

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INDIANA

3 Jun 2018 (Sun) – We did the laundry this morning. Being Sunday, few attractions are open today. We spent most of the day just hanging around the campground, tending to household chores. We drove to the Texas Corral for lunch (looked a lot like the Texas Roadhouse complete with peanut shells on the floor).

2 Jun 2018 (Sat) – We drove to Gary this morning to see the home of Michael Jackson. OMG. It was like going into the slums. The town was full of boarded up and falling down buildings. It seemed like there was a blight on the town. U.S. Steel Works used to be in the town but it is now a mere shadow of what it once was. I guess when the country started importing steel, our industry went belly up. The street where the Jackson family once lived was small and narrow with tiny houses lining both sides of the street. Their home was on the corner of Jackson Street and Jackson Family Blvd. I don’t think there were four rooms in the little house. It looks like there might have been a monument in the corner of the yard but it’s gone now. The house was not open to the public.

We then drove to Porter to see the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. They wanted to charge a $3 fee so we turned around. Then we drove into the Indiana Dunes State Park and paid $12 to park. Paul was quite annoyed about it. It looked just like the beach at our cabin on Long Island. There was really nothing spectacular about the area. It was probably very nice for the residents but for folks like us, it really wasn’t anything special.

I called the Goshen RV Center to see if the fender skirt had come in from Vanleigh for the RV. They said they didn’t have it. The tech support guy at Vanleigh told us it was supposed to have arrived by 8 p.m. yesterday. The clerk probably just didn’t want to look for it.

We drove into town and had lunch at the Shoreline Brewery. It looked like a former factory turned bar/restaurant. There were a lot of abandoned factory and warehouse buildings in the town so it was nice to see one repurposed.

1 Jun 2018 (Fri) – We putzed around this morning until after 11 a.m. then we went to lunch at the Ponderosa before stopping in at the Goshen RV Center. We are waiting for a fender skirt to be shipped up from Alabama by Vilano. They did not have the part so I called the service tech in Alabama. He told us it had been shipped and was scheduled to arrive sometime by the end of the day. Oh, well. We’ll have to come back for it.

Our new campground is only 70 miles north in Michigan City. The Michigan City Campground is a very nice facility. The campsites are roomy. The interior roads and campsites are hard packed gravel. There is a concrete patio with picnic table and fire ring. The campground also has a heated pool.

When we left Goshen, the temperature was 95 degrees. When we arrived in Michigan City, it was downright cold. The thermometer was reading 65 degrees. A cool front has moved down from Lake Michigan. The pond on the campground had steam rising off the surface. I hope it’s warmer tomorrow!

31 May 2018 (Thu) – We spent the morning calling around to campgrounds until we found a place to go tomorrow and then the next place near the Midway Airport in Chicago, where I’ll be flying home from. There are no campgrounds less than an hour away from the airport and most of those in Illinois get bad reviews. The Illinois county campgrounds run $60 a night. That’s much too high! We wound up making a reservation for a casino campground for a week while I’m in New York. I hope it’s going to be OK.

Once we finally got the campgrounds locked in, we drove to Elkhart to see Linton’s Enchanted Gardens. It is rated number one on Trip Advisor. It turned out to be a nursery laid out in a nice way with lots of pathways and decorations to dress it up – mini houses, statues, and decorations. There was also a small petting zoo and an enchanted train (which was nothing more than a tractor pulling wagons decorated to look like train cars). There was also a gift shop and a small café. It you’re into flowers and plants and the little extras, then it would be a nice stop. As for us, we really didn’t find the experience very interesting.

After we came out we looked over attractions in the area but didn’t find anything that appealed to us. Ultimately, we decided to go to a movie. We drove to the movie theater in Elkhart but they were showing “Solo” in 3D. We did not want to watch a 3D movie so we drove to the theater in Goshen where we caught the 1:30 p.m. showing of “Solo: A Star Wars Story.” It was OK but seemed to concentrate more on the characters than the story.

We stopped at the supermarket on the way back to the campground to pick up a few groceries. We also got fuel. Ready to move tomorrow. We’ve been here long enough.

30 May 2018 (Wed) – We drove to South Bend to the University of Notre Dame. They only give two tours a day at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. We arrived at 10 to 11 so we missed the tour. The Basilica closed at 11 a.m. for midday mass so we missed seeing the Basilica. It is a walking campus so we couldn’t drive to any of the buildings to see. We walked for about an hour, looking at different buildings. We saw the murals painted in the halls of the Golden Dome building. We rode the elevator up to the tenth floor of the library because the woman at the visitor’s center told us you could get a good view of the entire area. That wasn’t exactly true. You could walk to each corner of the building and look out of a window. It gave you a peek at a piece of the property. We then walked down the mall to the stadium. It was closed to the public so we just stood in front of it and took a selfie. The entire campus was very attractive and peaceful. All the buildings were built with the same light colored brick so everything looked alike. It was a very beautiful campus.

We left the campus and drove to the Hall of Super Hero Museum. It was a collection of mostly super hero action figures and comic books in a small two story garage. It looked more like someone had so many dolls and comics that they decided they should open a museum. There were also a couple of movie props and lots of pictures of actors with the director of the “museum.” He said they are trying to get donations to open a bigger building because the collections don’t fit anymore. The guy had to nerve to charge $6 per person. It was a rip off!

After the museum, we drove to the RV/MH Hall of Fame. It was a collection of old RVs and motor homes that showed the evolution of camping vehicles over the years. Things sure have changed. There was also a manufactured home on display in back of the museum. It was quite attractive.

We then drove into Elkhart to get a bite to eat. Consulting Trip Advisor, we drove to the Heinnies. It was a steak house but they weren’t serving steaks until 5 p.m. so we had burgers. They were OK.

29 May 2018 (Tue) – We drove to Shipshewana today. The flea market was open and in full swing. There were hundreds of booths to look at. After a while, it seemed like everything was the same. It was so hot – in the 90s. We walked up and down the aisles for about two hours then stopped for lunch. Then we walked another hour. We picked up some items both for us and gifts for others. We heard many people complaining about the heat yesterday. Apparently the flea market was open for the holiday despite signs that said it was only open Tuesday and Wednesday. (We would have gone had we known.) The thermometer topped one hundred yesterday. Today it was in the high 90s.

We stopped at the Menno-Hof Museum down the road. It was a fascinating museum that told the story of the religious groups in the area. Way, way back in history (around 300 BC) a group of people split off from the church because they believed people should be baptized as adults whereby the belief of the day was that baptism should take place within the first year of a child’s life. The group that broke off was called Anabaptists. They further split over the years and basically became three groups, with other splinter groups within them. They are the Amish, Mennonites, and Hutterites. A lot of the splits had to do with how the groups interact with the world around them. Some want extreme purity, some want restricted functions, and some work within the modern world, dressing and acting like the people around them. It was a very interesting stop.

After the museum, we stopped at the Das Dutchman Essenhaus for dinner. I was looking for the fried chicken like we had at a Pennsylvania Dutch Amish restaurant but they had broasted chicken. It looks like a fried chicken without breading. It was good but not exactly what I was looking for.

28 May 2018 (Mon) – We drove into town to watch the parade. It was small compared to what we did back home. I think it was over in ten minutes. The VFW coordinated the event and rode in a couple of cars in front. There were two fire engines. The biggest group was their church. It was still nice to see people turn out and remember the men and women who gave their lives in defense of this country.

We returned to the campground and just hung around inside the RV all day. It was pretty hot.

27 May 2018 (Sun) – With everything in the area closed, we decided to do the laundry. We packed up the clothes and drove into town to the laundromat. After we put the clothes in the washer, we drove to Goshen Brewery Company for lunch. The reviews on Trip Advisor raved about their brisket sandwich. Unfortunately, they had a brunch menu with no brisket on it. There weren’t many options and half of them had duck in them. I chose a meal with several items served in a bowl – biscuit, gravy, potatoes, cheese, duck eggs, and duck bacon. Paul got a bagel with fruit flavored cream cheese and duck breast.

After lunch, we returned to the laundromat and transferred the clothes to the dryers. Then we sat for half an hour. We went back to the campground and spent rest of the day hanging out. We tried going outside but it was too hot. Although the thermometer says the temperature is in the mid-80s, the blazing sun feels like it’s searing the skin.

26 May 2018 (Sat) – We drove to Shipshewana today. We were there in 2011 and didn’t get a chance to thoroughly explore it. Shipshewana is America’s third largest Amish and Mennonite communities. They have the largest flea market we’ve ever seen with hundreds of vendors in many rows. In fact, the Great Amish Country Auction is listed as a must-see in the “1,000 Places to See Before You Die.” Sadly, the flea market is only open on Tuesday and Thursday. There was a large tent with hundreds of people attending an auction. The majority of the attendees were Amish, dressed in plain but very colorful clothing, the women wearing cute little white hats and the men broad brimmed straw or black hats.

We wandered through Voder’s Meat & Cheese Company, which was a large shop right next to the auction/flea market area. There were lots of different kinds of cheeses and meats we could sample, and we bought some beef jerky and cheese curds. Most other places in the area were also closed.

The vet’s office called while we were at the flea market to say the culture came back on Bonnie’s foot. There are two kinds of bacteria in her foot. He told us to discontinue her current antibiotic and to pick up a different one at the office. So we drove back to Goshen and got the new medication. Her foot is doing so much better. It is no longer swollen and oozing and it does not hurt her to have it touched. Things are looking up.

We drove into Goshen for lunch and ate at Tony’s Famous Grill. The food was OK but nothing great. Afterward, we walked up and down the main street, looking at the old buildings and wandering through a couple of shops. We stopped in at the historical society and explored Goshen’s history. We learned that the town built a canal that was used by several manufacturing plants. There are many trains running through the town almost constantly. Goshen is on the route between Toledo and Chicago. They blow their horns every time, even at 2 and 3 in the morning.

When we were done wandering the main street, we drove over to the canal to take a look. We stopped at the dam and admired the serenity of the lake it created. It was a very pleasant area.

25 May 2018 (Wed) – We were up at 6 a.m. this morning. Tucked everything away, hooked up the RV, and drove to Lippert. They had us drop off the trailer and we drove off to find breakfast. One of the workers recommended Angel’s House of Pancakes. It turned out to have very good food.

After breakfast, we drove to a nearby lake and walked a little bit around the area. Bonnie’s doing so much better but we are still trying to take it easy with her. We put one of my socks on her foot and it seems to come off within the hour. She managed to pull out the wick this afternoon. Ugh.

We then decided to find a Pet Smart and buy some booties for Bonnie. The nearest Pet Smart was in Elkhart, so we drove 28 miles north. While we were in the store, Lippert called to say the RV was ready for pickup. We hopped in the truck and drove back to Goshen. They found grease from the seals on the brakes so they replaced the brakes, seals, and hubs on all four tires. I’m glad we got in. There is only three weeks left on our one-year warranty.

We hooked up the trailer and drove back to the Elkhart County 4-H Fairgrounds. Most of the rally folks have gone and we had a pick of many open sites. Once situated, Paul went over and paid for the week. It cost a little more because we now have full hook-ups. We are closer to the office and the Wifi is SO much better here.

At 4 p.m. we drove into town to get dinner. Hopper’s Pike Street Grill had good ratings so we ate there. They had frog legs on the menu and the waitress told us they are known for their fried fish. Seems weird that a state so far north would have good fish and frogs. Seems like that’s more of a southern dish. At any rate, I had ribs and Paul had pork chops. The food was excellent!

After dinner, we drove to the Old Bag Factory. It turned out to be a four-story factory built in the 1800s that has been turned into a shopping area. There were many shops in the building. Unfortunately, they closed at 4 p.m. We wandered about the building, admiring the old floors, brick walls, and hanging barn doors. They kept a lot of the flavor of the architecture. In its hey day, the factory produced soap and bags for produce. There were 28 factories around the U.S.; the biggest operations in Goshen, IN and Orlando, FL.

24 May 2018 (Tue) – Paul was up and out at 7:30 a.m. to bring the truck to Ford. Thankfully, they kept the appointment, checked out the truck, and found a faulty sensor. It was replaced and Paul was back at the campground by 11:30 a.m. It cost us almost $300.

We stopped by the campground office to tell them we would not be moving to the new site until tomorrow. They charged us $27.50 for tonight and left it for us to settle up tomorrow.

We drove to the RV Factory to take a tour of their manufacturing process. This company produces Luxe Gold and Luxe Elite. They only produce one or two fifth wheels a week, opposed to the other guys who churn out about 20-25 a week. They allow customers to buy direct from them, eliminating the middle man and allowing you to customize your RV the way you want it. They use top quality items to build their RVs. We were very impressed and will keep our eye on them when we are ready to buy another fifth wheel.

There is a big store in the area called Menards. It is, I believe, Amish owned and run. We stopped in to see what it was like. It turned out to be some combination of Home Depot, Ace Hardware, a department store, and a supermarket. The store was huge! There didn’t seem to be thing they DIDN’T carry. Wow. We picked up a couple of items and returned to the campground.

23 May 2018 (Mon) – We took Bonnie to the vet this morning. He did not find anything obvious. The doctor put a wick (a kind of cotton drain) in the foot to help pull the fluid out. He also took a culture and sent it to the lab to see if we could see what kind of bacteria is infecting her foot. There is a pretty bandage wrapped around it. Bonnie’s been out of it all day. Dr. Jeff said they were using a light sedation, not anesthesia but she sure is having a hard time recovering.

We had breakfast at Angel’s House of Pancakes. Paul ordered fried mush and I had corned beef hash. It turns out the fried mush is a cornmeal batter that is cooked like a pancake. There was a senior citizen special going on today – five mush cakes and free coffee for just $6.99. Paul ate two cakes and left the rest. He said he preferred biscuits and gravy. Another customer came in when we were done and sat across from us. She asked if the food on Paul’s plate was the fried mush. We said yes and she asked to take a taste. Delighted, she said she was going to order it. When she saw us leaving the food on the plate, she asked if she could have it. I gave her the plate. Weird.

After breakfast, we drove to an RV supply place to try and find a fender skirt for the RV. When we had the blowout last month, a piece of the fender was broken off. We did not find it. While driving around, we saw a sign for a Moose Family Center. We drove over to look at it. It turned out they had a large campground in back behind the lodge. We drove through it but it appeared to be permanent residents; no transient sites.

When we got back to the campground, I started making some phone calls. I made an appointment with Lippert to bring our RV in for inspection of the brake seals on Friday. I confirmed our appointment with Ford tomorrow morning. I called The RV Factory and made an appointment for a tour of the factory on Friday morning. I also called DRV Luxury Suites RV for a factory tour but they close down at the end of the month. They won’t start tours again until June 1. I called Vanleigh Vilano to get a slide seal replaced and see if they could send us the fender skirt, too. The items will be sent to the RV dealer here in Goshen.

22 May 2018 (Tue) – We wanted to pick up a couple of items at the information center so we waited until 9 a.m. when we thought they’d be open. When we got there, the office had opened at 8 a.m. We asked for 22 copies of a DVD about the Army Corps of Engineers’ campgrounds around the U.S. and 22 carabiners. We got a carabiner in the gift bag that was really nice. It has a knife, a nail file with flat tip as a screwdriver, and a pair of scissors.

We had to break down in a drizzly rain and left Iowa City, IA, at close to 10 a.m. It rained on and off during the drive. We arrived in Goshen, IN, at 12:30 p.m. There is a rally going on so they put us in an area with just electric and water hookup. When the rally ends on Thursday, we will be moved to a site with full hookups. The Elkhart County 4-H Fairgrounds is very large with 350 campsites. There are many buildings on the grounds where the 4-H club puts their animals for display and judging. There is also a track where they train horses to trot. We have been watching trainers run their horses around the track. One owner had his horse connected to a pickup truck and was leading it around the track at a trot. I guess that’s how they teach it what speed to run at.

When we arrived, I found a veterinarian and we took Bonnie to get her foot checked out. It has been getting worse. The area in between the one toe now has two cysts on either side on the inside of the toe. It is also oozing and bleeding a little, too. The vet said he wanted to take a look at the paw with Bonnie under sedation. It was very tender and Bonnie kept pulling her paw away. We made an appointment to bring her back tomorrow morning.

After dinner, we took a walk around the fairgrounds. There are hundreds of Entegra motor coaches parked around the campground. There is a rally going on. There are vendor displays and a class on how to drive a motor coach. Each coach had a sign outside with the name of the owner(s) on it. I guess when they register for the rally, Entegra makes up a sign for them. There are also a number of golf carts driving around, giving anyone rides from one point to the other as the fairgrounds are very large.

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scatterbrainedscholar · 6 years

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Spring into Never Summer

In early June, the school year ended and I bid farewell to the windswept prairie outside Vista Academy and the quiet paths along Sand Creek. My idea to aimlessly tour the western United States via bicycle was quashed for the time being by some lingering hip issues so I spent the first few weeks of the summer housesitting for a friend across town in Arvada. While carefully carrying out my duty of monitoring the automatic lawn watering system, I sold or donated most of my apartment furnishings and replaced my grandma’s Altima with a used minivan. I spent a few days converting the 12-year-old soccer-mom mobile into a micro-RV ready for an extended road trip. In other words, I took out the seats and threw a sleeping platform together using lumber from my buddy’s garage. For someone whose furniture building experience was so far limited to Ikea products, it felt like an engineering feat on par with building the Golden Gate bridge.

Arvada is a pretty interesting place. On the map it looks like just another municipality swallowed up by the Denver sprawl, but when you’re there it feels like you’re in a rural town with its own identity completely separate from the city (at least in the Olde Town section). I think this has to do with its location up on a ridge above Clear Creek, Highway 70, and the rest of Denver to the south and east. A particularly interesting aspect of Arvada is its water “ditches”. These are little canals running through the city’s properties that divert water from the rivers coming out of the mountains to the west. They are apparently irrigation ditches left over from Arvada’s agricultural past. These days, the residents still have rights to a certain amount of the water passing though their property so most of the yards around Olde Town Arvada have a large pump, sometimes disguised in cute and clever ways, to access this water which is free and in addition to the normal municipal water service. I don’t know how common that is these days, but it sure makes me wonder about the history of water infrastructure and water rights in general….

II.

One day, instead of fumbling around with screws and 2 x 6’s, I hopped on my e-bike and headed back east across town to make good on a promise I had made to a couple students. Several weeks earlier, I had ordered eclipse glasses and was planning to hand them out to some of my students but the school year ended before they arrived. Two of my disappointed students, who also happened to have worked quite hard on the water pressure rocket project, gave me their addresses and I promised to get them the glasses.

The trip to their houses ended up being quite the exploration of the Denver waterways. It was early summer which is kind of like a monsoon season around Denver, and the river was swollen and intense, almost frighteningly so in places. I started off heading northwest on a bike path alongside Clear Creek. The creek was definitely not clear and calling it a creek seemed comically inaccurate. On more than one occasion, I went under overpasses where it seemed the bike lane was minutes away from being flooded out. I went over a bridge at the confluence with Ralston Creek, which also flows through Arvada. Massive rapids formed and I wondered whether anybody ever kayaks or rafts down these streams when they are flood like this.

Besides bike paths, these waterways are also adjacent to interstate highways and other major thoroughfares but are mostly out of sight from the motorists roaring by on their own concrete rivers. This seems very unfortunate. You could drive all over Denver and never realize that these rivers — the whole reason Denver is where it is, — were even there. The bike lanes allow for much more intimate contact. I had seen numerous water birds like egrets, kingfishers, and herons and shortly after the Ralston-Clear Creek confluence I came across the biggest turtle I had ever seen outside the ocean- a behemoth snapping turtle lying on the bike bath perhaps getting some respite the turbulence of the river.

Eventually, I came upon the confluence of Clear Creek with the South Platte flowing north from downtown. I stopped to take in this wild scene of raging rapids with a fellow DIY e-biker (although he had motors on both front and rear wheels – better for riding in the snow, he said). I crossed and headed south and upstream, towards the spot where the much more placid Sand Creek joins the South Platte. This section of the ride took me through a broken industrial landscape including the recycling plant that had caught fire the previous week and the massive Suncor oil refinery. I passed by huge flare towers and under massive pipes leading to a maze of other pipes and tanks. Breathing the air there did not feel healthy. At one point, I was approaching what I thought must have been an old abandoned wooden train track, with its decaying and rotting timbers and rusting nails, until a small train of oil tanks shot across it right as I passed underneath. I felt like I was on some sort of Big Oil-sponsored Six Flags ride.

Things calmed down after turning east to ride along Sand Creek as the refinery gave way to warehouses. After about 15 miles, I finally rolled out of the riparian bike path and made my way to the students’ houses.

II.

While staying in Arvada I made my first forays onto the road in the newly outfitted micro-RV up highway 285 to the Rocky Mountain Land Library in South Park – the intermountain valley west of Denver and site of the headwaters of the South Platte, not the fictional Comedy Central town. The Land Library is on the site of an old cattle ranch (which was on former Ute and/or Arapaho land?), complete with abandoned 19th century buildings preserved in the dry mountain air. The library is a work in progress but the idea is to eventually serve as a residential library focused on connecting the literature of the western landscape with the landscape itself. I tried on two occasions to volunteer to help clean up some of the old buildings but showed up too late each time and ended up just walking around and talking about birds and books with Jeff and Ann, the founders of the Land Library. They were kind enough to let me park the van there for the night and camp out.

The ranch is separated just enough from route 9 by an old railway berm so that you don’t hear the already infrequent car traffic. Besides one large cottonwood near the cluster of old ranch buildings and the willows edging the river, the surrounding landscape was a flat, treeless basin. I wondered how different it looked like there before a century of over-grazing by cattle and sheep. On the second occasion, I had two days out there with all 1,400 acres of high and dry steppe (correct geographical term?) to myself.

After taking an icy bath in one of the curves of the winding middle fork of the South Platte, followed by a nap amongst the wild irises and willows, I hiked across the basin and up the eastern ridge to see what I could see. There is a unique sense of freedom felt when walking in such a massive open landscape without a path to follow. From atop the ridge, I could see to the east was more treeless basin and ridgelines to the horizon with some snowy peaks to the southeast. Looking north and west across the basin of South Park, the sun was setting behind the Presidential Range. It’s fun to think about water melting from those peaks and starting a journey that would shoot down and out of the mountains, through Denver, and eventually pass under the Daniel Boone bridge that takes highway 40 over the Missouri River back home in St. Louis. Interestingly, the Land Library leases it’s land from the city of Aurora (queue more wondering about water infrastructure history).

As the wind picked up after sunset and the temperature dropped, I made my way back to the van, trying not to twist an ankle on the old bleached cattle bones that were scattered in the grass. I made some dinner and waited for the stars to come out while listening to the end of Edward Abbey’s classic, Desert Solitaire. I was already a big fan of Abbey’s from reading the Monkey Wrench Gang, a fun story of some anarchist environmentalists disrupting mining operations and running from the Man in the Southwest.

Desert Solitaire is a series of Abbey’s musings from his time spent as a Park Ranger for the National Park Service at Arches National Monument (now National Park) back in the sixties. His romantic odes to wilderness and his tirades against car culture make the book worth a read. However, as much as I sympathize with his anti-authoritarian sentiments pervading the book, his particular brand of anarchism is a little too misanthropic and arrogant for me. It is not the destructive, racist misanthropy of right-wing libertarianism but it’s still frustrating. Also, his take on technology and population growth is thought-provoking but a bit simplistic. It’s often very clear that he is speaking from a place of white privilege. That said, I would’ve loved to hang out and hike through the desert or burn down some billboards with the guy.

After finishing the book, I tucked into my sleeping bag on my creaking plywood platform and fell asleep to the sound of coyotes yelping and howling from the ridge I had hiked to earlier that day. I spent the next morning lounging around the ranch, exploring a little and reading parts of the Land Library’s copy of The Natural Navigator by Tristan Gooley. I was inspired to try and draw a topographical map of my surroundings but the sun and heat became a little too uncomfortable so instead I got in the van and drove nine hours to Kansas City.

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III.

After celebrating the 4th of July with my brothers’ family and dumping some superfluous belongings in their basement, I blasted back west to Denver. I picked up Joey, my comrade in noticing and wondering, at the Denver airport and we immediately set about gathering provisions for a weekend camping trip in the mountains. We picked up our standard aged gouda, dry-cured meats, granola bars, and dehydrated soup and headed up to Boulder. For a physical and mental warm-up, we went for a short walk and scramble up El Dorado canyon, where we got to work fawning over the stratigraphy of the rocks, the lichens growing on them, and the plants growing at the base of them, including some delicious raspberries. That night with fellow St. Louis-transplant Peter and his family, we feasted – appropriately for Boulder – on grilled local veggies, artisanal hot dogs, and homemade non-dairy ice cream while planning our trip.

We decided we would head to the same trail that Peter would be hiking in September with my brothers. The trailhead into the Never Summer Wilderness was not too far from Boulder and we would be able to get to an alpine lake after hiking only 5 miles into the backcountry. Also, since it was Forest Service land, we would not need a permit (although the trailhead was technically within Rocky Mountain National Park, strange).

After a hearty breakfast the next morning, Joey and I headed out for the trailhead. We stopped a few times to look at some elk, go to the bathroom, and take pictures of the map and a wildflower field guide at a visitor center on our way up and over Rocky Mountain National Park. After descending into the valley to the west, we were in the midst of a vigorous debate over the exact allosteric mechanics of hemoglobin or something like that and I missed the turnoff for the trailhead.

After several miles of backtracking, we eventually made it to the trailhead, packed up our backpacks, stretched, and started plodding along on the trail. Somehow it was already 3:30 pm. We crossed a vast meadow then headed into the trees, an almost park-like stand of similarly aged pines with a couple wild roses here and there alongside the trail. After less than a mile, we began the streamside ascent.

Once we were deep in the backcountry, I felt an intense sense of relief and return. It had been too long since I had breathed heavily in fresh mountain air filled with the aroma of warm pine sap. As we went deeper and higher into the fir and spruce, we were soon surrounded by a cornucopia of wildflowers – groves of Columbine, paintbrush, larkspur, lupine, buttercups and all kinds of other colorful, ephemeral little flowers it was impossible to keep track of, much less identify (for our untrained eyes). We zigged and zagged our way up, never completely out of earshot of the gushing stream, passed little cascades and flower-laden glens, aspen-edged boulder fields, and whatever you call massive swaths of trees smashed down by a winter avalanche. From pine beetles to the snow fields tucked into the north facing crevices thousands of feet above use, the noticing and wondering was overwhelming.

The last mile to the lake seemed to go on forever, and we were losing daylight quickly by the time we were above the treeline. Joey and I have been known to get sidetracked botanizing and berry-picking and not making it to camp until after dark. We were just keeping up our reputation. When we finally made it to the lake, the exhaustion immediately gave way to joy and satisfaction. With not another soul around, we celebrated and took in the scenery surrounding the lake as the sky quickly dimmed from dusk to twilight. We turned and looked back east with an expansive view of where we had just come from, and just as we were taking in the view of the distant front range peaks across the valley, the big, bright full moon appeared over the horizon. Exactly nine moons previous, Joey and I had been camping out about 9,000 feet below and a couple hundred miles to the northeast in the Pawnee National Grasslands, which should be more aptly named Pawnee National Fracklands.

We were lucky to find a campsite complete with an established fire ring almost immediately so we were able to get camp set up and a fire going as the temperature dropped. We supped on our soup, chocolate, and even a couple ears of roasted corn before heading to bed for the night. In the morning, we lazily ate breakfast under the watchful eye of the area’s resident marmots. We took some time to explore the edge of the lake, observing and hypothesizing, then took a breathtakingly chilly dip in the lake to get the blood flowing. We started our descent around midday and walked through some light rain and even hail. Despite getting hung up picking and eating wild strawberries we had somehow missed the day before, we made it back to the van well before sunset. We obtained the necessary post-hike high-calorie junk food and started the search for the evenings campsite. We turned off route 40 near Winter Park into some National Forest land and took a gravel road to a clearing right behind one of those ski-town condo developments and posted up for the night. Joey got a fire going while I futzed around in the van, then we sat and listened to some music and discussed what exactly a flame is. Good times. 24 hours later, Joey was back in St. Louis and I was sleeping in the van in a Walmart parking lot outside of Laramie, Wyoming.

To be continued….

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A Year in Reading – Part III Spring into Never Summer I. In early June, the school year ended and I bid farewell to the windswept prairie outside Vista Academy and the quiet paths along Sand Creek.

#bikes #books #colorado #travel #waterways #wilderness

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joesbrownusa · 7 years

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Houses For Sale in Terra Alta, WV

75LOT Daylilly Ct #78

Price: $3000

Enjoy the 2,500 acres of Alpine Lake Resort in West Virginia. This gated community has a stocked 150 acre lake, 18 hole golf course, driving range, tennis & basket courts, hiking & biking trails, beach & swim area, mini-golf, restaurant & lounge. Complete sewage and water facilities making for NO wells or septics. Lot 75 in St Moritz Section is ready for your full-time home or summer retreat.

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S86 AL, Ranch, 9 room, 4-5 bedroom, 3 bath. 2 lots, no building lots in back, close to walking trail leading to lake. 16 x 24 family room features vaulted ceiling & oak floors. Living room with fireplace. Kitchen features oak floors. 20 x 32 master bedroom added in 2001 features master bath with his & her sink, large walk-in closet, 2nd closet, laundry closet with sink, built-in ironing board. Mostly furnished, paved driveway. 7.5 x 16 front deck, 16 x 16 back deck. ¾ basement with 1 car garage, family room/rec room, large storage room ready to finish & large storage close t $138,000 Visit http://www.clutterrealty.com for all our home sales, lot sales, land sales & vacation rentals. We are located 20 miles from Deep Creek Lake, MD, an hour away from Morgantown, WV, an hour and 15 minutes away from Uniontown, PA. Alpine Lake is a great place to get-a-way from it all. Amenities include a restaurant, bar, 18 hole golf course, pro shop, conference rooms, exercise room, fishing, cross country ski trails, hiking trails, 148 acre lake, beach, boathouse, playground area, tennis courts and miniature golf. If you like to walk or bike, there are over 30 miles of almost traffic free roads which are plowed and maintained by Alpine. No hunting allowed, 24 hour security. Come to Alpine Lake – Terra Alta, WV and experience true four season living- Spring is a great time to watch everything come back to life after winter, our leaves usually start appearing in March. Enjoy our low humidity & cool summer nights in the mountains! Watch the leaves change around the middle of October, at times the colors are amazing! Like snow? We have snow! We average well over 100 inches a year. We are ½ an hour away from the Wisp Ski Resort located at Deep Creek Lake, MD.

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from Houses For Sale – The OC Home Search http://www.theochomesearch.com/houses-for-sale-in-terra-alta-wv/ from OC Home Search https://theochomesearch.tumblr.com/post/158012016400

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