The Edge [of all] Journeys

I have to tell you about the last place we stayed at. I booked it for a couple nights because it was near Orlando and it had great rates (two things I thought might be mutually exclusive when I first started looking around). I booked it over the phone, site unseen, from a little picnic area where we had stopped for a break on Key Largo as we worked our way back to the mainland. When we pulled into this place the next day I was reminded that, well, you never really know what you’re going to get I guess.

It was the kind of place that makes you want to grab your video camera and start shooting a documentary because there are a million insane stories among the inhabitants along with dramatically mundane and rundown visuals, and it’s all ripe for the picking… while at the same time your brain is screaming “you shouldn’t be here, you shouldn’t be here at all, you especially shouldn’t be here with your five children and pregnant wife.”

It wasn’t really anything obvious or overt. And it wasn’t the poverty factor alone. We found ourselves landing behind a tiny 8-room motel in a little campground run by the same folks where most of the sites had turned in to the permanent residences of people getting by in 20-30 year old campers. And it wasn’t really the people either… sort of… they were extremely nice actually. But they were almost too nice. Something was off, but I was resisting that gut impulse, because I kept feeling compassion for their condition and couldn’t help but wonder how I and my family must appear to them. I was also too aware of my own subconscious prejudices and unintentional elitism. And after all, maybe we were there for a purpose. The last thing I wanted to think was that we were too good to stay there… but…

At the beginning I sincerely did not feel like it was even a safe place for our children to play, but Renee was totally comfortable with everything. By the end of our stay those impressions had reversed between the two of us somewhat, but there was never any fear or worry – just an internal struggle between prudence and empathy; wisdom and charity.

It didn’t help that our sewer connection was a horizontal length of 3″ pvc running along the surface of the ground, connecting all the sites in our row – each site with its own tap in – and most of those quasi-permanent. I knew exactly what was going to happen when I opened the cover on the tap at our site to tie my own hose in, but I had no choice – one of the reasons we were there was to dump our tanks and get in a shower or two and I wasn’t going to leave with 500 lbs of waste water in my tanks. I gritted my teeth, unscrewed the cap, and watched helplessly as a couple quarts of liquefied (and quite fresh) sewage backed up and spilled on the ground under our trailer. I won’t enhance your nightmares with additional details of the procedure, but I am convinced that I was experiencing something that was quite illegal.

There was an inventor living there who had made some crazy things from old junk that would never get him anywhere, but were naturally fascinating to children – like a wagon that had been rigged with 2 sizes of bicycle wheels dragster-style with a large office chair bolted on for a seat. There was a guy working on a van next to us with an air compressor and an armada of good tools. There was a lady growing cantaloupe beside her trailer, and – even though it just looked like a bunch of weeds – she was very touchy about kids getting near it. She said she was also growing pineapple. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen pineapple grow before, but it looked like she had just buried one in the ground so that the cluster of leaves were just sticking up out of the dirt. Across the way, there was a camper that looked like it would fall down if you shut the door a little too hard, but it had a direct tv dish bolted to the side. Our other neighbor had 5-6 cats that he fed by pouring a long line of dry cat food out along the cracked concrete pad of the site between us that had some sort of burned out, crumbling brick and re-bar chimney behind it. Oh, and he showed the kids his giant python that he brought out from his completely camo-painted trailer.

I could not make this stuff up. See what I mean? Instant documentary. Camp for a week and get more stories and footage than you could ever cram into a 3 hour feature.

Unfortunately, that is not why we were there. We were really on our way to Georgia and normally would have just Wal-Mart hopped until our final destination. But we had stopped near Orlando to accomplish three major things, the first of which required electricity, running water, and sewer (to buy some time).

1. Knock out a major milestone in one of my work projects
2. Get some laundry done
3. Make an important business connection

#1 turned out to be impossible, but #2 and #3 were smashing successes.

I can’t explain why we were so eager and relieved to leave in any tangible, physical, evidence-based manner. The people were extremely friendly. The inventor gave Reayah a bike (which we had to end up leaving because… well, we were extremely appreciative, but it needed  way more fixing than riding). The pineapple lady gave Reayah a bunch of bracelets and necklaces (we didn’t end up keeping those either because they felt extremely weird spiritually… hard to explain unless you already know what I mean). And they all gave free advice: use duct tape on the sewer tap, keep trying the different washers / dryers until you find ones that work, check out the wildlife refuge down the road.

Despite the weirdness that I was writing off as merely a challenge to my own environmental conditioning, I was seriously considering checking on what their monthly rate would have been like. My logic at the time was that it would be warmer there overall than trying to go further north (even Georgia is still colder than it’s supposed to be right now), basic utilities were covered, it would cost more to keep travelling and then stopping for a month, the campground we had in mind in Georgia was turning out to be a bit more expensive than we initially thought or planned, I had a new business buddy in the area (Orlando) and some stuff could happen there, etc. As I hacked away on some code into the wee hours of the morning I had hopes and prayers in my head that we’d get some clear direction.

At 2am Renee woke up and started talking about the vivid dream she was just having. In her dream she was having a conversation with YHWH – asking Him whether we should stay or go, and He was telling her that we had to get out of their right away because He was going to wipe that place out with a tornado. We got up early and never had a more efficient and orderly time of breaking camp and getting the trailer ready to travel again. We weren’t taking Renee’s dream literally, but we were taking it as our answer, and there was already enough motivation once we had a clear plan.

I never asked about the monthly rates. I didn’t even ever open the valve on our black (sewer) tank, because I knew what would happen. As badly as I wanted to get on the road without that extra weight, it wasn’t worth the consequences under the likelihood that there wasn’t anywhere for the tank’s contents to go. Sure enough, there was a lot of gray (dish and sink) water backed up and stuck in our hose as it was, and that ended up having to go somewhere.

As we were pulling out, the truck started making a bad sound. Here we were, checking out an hour early (which never happens – we’re usually out just in time) and then I had to start wondering if the truck is going to fail me and strand us there. Got the trailer out of the site and started slowly down the road, but the truck was still protesting. It wasn’t the extra weight – we’ve pulled extra before – something sounded wrong. Pulled over behind an industrial building and started hitting diesel forums and trying to figure out what and how bad it might be. I was looking at all the info and starting to make a plan in my head about how to go about checking some things, but I got the distinct impression in my heart that we should just leave and trust. Renee reminded me that we should pray about it and so we did. Putting my analytical side on the shelf, we drove away and it was completely fine – the sound was totally gone!

Several hours later we pulled into paradise. Not by appearance. Not by amenities. Not by a stretch of the imagination – but by the standards of weary travelers who have been on the road for a month and a half, through 8 states, over 3200 miles, a dozen Wal-Marts, a handful of campgrounds, not longer than a few nights in any one place (except for the 2 weeks with our friends), trying to move major work projects forward through all of that, and more than ready to have a fraction of stability.

We are parked. We have a lake view. Actually, we’re only 50 feet from the lake and can fish for free without a license since it’s private. I even set up the slide-out jacks and our out-door carpet. We have electric, water, AND sewer (with a proper pipe and everything). We have free WiFi (which is a big deal because with all the work we have we were otherwise going to bust the 5GB limit on our mobile provider this month). There is laundry 50 feet away. Bennah was catching lizards again today. There is a rec house with puzzles and games for bad weather. Jaiden and Zach made a volcano with some water and a giant climbable dirt pile. The “neighbors” are mostly older, but very sweet. Reayah has a new best friend – the campground owner’s daughter. Necessity shopping is 30 minutes away. It is beautiful (though still a little chilly) here. Joy is taking it all in stride. Business is really looking up. Spring is close. And we have dropped anchor for at least a month.

We have been having so many adventures in Florida – both with work and with play and with meeting some amazing new friends. One of these days here soon I am going to write about some of it (in theory). I should have gone to bed long ago as it is, and I’m going to try to wake up the kids in about an hour and a half to catch the space shuttle launch at 4:30am…

But, for now, here are some visuals. I know they say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I could write at least a few thousand words about the stories weaving in and out of each of these pictures.

[View with PicLens]

Some days it’s hard to believe we’ve been living so long in our trailer, as the days have passed so quickly. Other days, it seems like we’ve been living in it too long! We’ve been in Colorado since beginning of October and plan to stay through December. This is our longest stop so far. I think I might be getting a bit antsy, like I’m ready to pack up and get moving again. We’ve been having a great time here with family and met many wonderful new friends. We have had new business opportunities and have keeping busy with the work that has been coming in. We also have some good friends who happen to be family, coming to visit over the holidays as well. The kids are very excited about seeing them again. So am I.

We are so thankful at Father’s provision. He continues to give us what we need every day and every moment. And when I want to run away from hardships, His grace abounds and then I have the patience and understanding I need for the day. I hope I am growing while I’m here. I hope living with 2 other families and learning each other’s personalities is building my character. I hope I am being humble and sympathetic to those around me. I hope I am putting others before myself. I want to grow. It’s not easy, but I still want it. This is great training ground.

There are many blessings being here. One of the things I like most about being here is seeing the mountain range to the west. The majestic, snow covered peaks never get old and still take my breath away. I love that we get enough snow in one snow fall to go sledding and almost get snowed in. Then it warms up, the snow melts and we have more warm days and we can look forward to another new snow fall all over again. I am also enjoying the free babysitting and the many helping hands. The new family Shabbat traditions where together we welcome in the sabbath and set it apart is the weekly highlight. Thanksgiving last week was fun. We shared the meal together with many friends and family and are still eating the leftovers!

There are blessings and challenges wherever we roam. I hope I am embracing and being thankful for both.

Boom! Whoosh! Whomp! There are huge clumps of snow and icicles falling off the trailer onto the ground. It’s a bit hazardous coming and going, dodging big clumps of wet snow and icicle drippings. But it’s so warm today and the sun is hot and shining and making the white world sparkling and breathtaking. But today is a different day.

After the snow fall and cold weather all day Wednesday and Thursday, we received about 20 or more inches of snow. We enjoyed the snow but the kids got cold and wet very quickly. However, we soon remedied that with hot cocoa and a fire in the fireplace. That was the fun part. The hard part was bundling up the kids just to go the bathroom in the house. Our trailer is not hooked up to the sewer here. We have a small porta-jon, but it fills up very quickly. The other hard part is living in two places at once. Making lunch for the kids in the trailer while giving my daughter a bath and doing laundry in the house. Now today, while it’s warm, I don’t mind it a bit. Running back and forth, spending more time outside breathing in the fresh air, and getting a bit of exercise. It was the last two days that were very difficult (was it only two days? It seemed like a week). With no sun and it being so cold, it was a lot more character building. Keeping the kiddos occupied in a small space for a longer period of time and making sure they didn’t get too rambunctious in the house and cut short their house play time privilege. There are a lot of us and even when we do behave ourselves, we tend to change the sound and space dynamics of a place pretty obviously. Including us, there are 3 family units living in close proximity who all need their own space to function properly and recharge once and a while. I’m trying to be sensitive to others ‘ needs as well as our own.

That;s hardly an issue when it’s nice out, as they don’t need to spend that much time indoors. Today it was 45º F and getting warmer. After a little home schooling, my sister-in-law and I took our kids for a long walk through the snow to Whole Foods. To give them some exercise and sunshine, and to tucker them out so they would have blessed quite times this afternoon. The walk there was great and we had snacks and water in their cafe and picked up a few groceries for the weekend. The way back was a different story. The sun had melted more of the snow and it was a lot wetter than on the way there. My father-in-law had blessed us by bringing us some sleds that he had drilled holes in and attached ropes so we could use them for our tired kids on the way back. We ended up carrying them for half the way but definitely enjoyed them the rest of the way home. The kids were tired and complained of being wet and cold and having to go pee. On the way home, the sled I was pulling tipped over and Zach and all my groceries tumbled into a huge pool of melted snow. A few minutes later, my sister stepped in a big puddle and lost the whole sole of her shoe! We both burst out laughing. The tired kids, the puddles, and more mishaps along the way home could not discourage us. We were determined to enjoy the walk and knew we would be rewarded by a nice long quiet time when we got back.

And that is what I am enjoying right now. With the sun shining in through the windows and warming up our little home, all is peaceful and I am looking forward to taking the kids out again in about an hour or so. It’s been a beautiful day.

Introducing one of the media threads I hope to maintain periodically: Adventures with Andrew.

I was in REI a couple months ago in Missoula, MT and this little guy caught the corner of my eye – the HERO camera (http://www.goprocamera.com/). It caught my eye because my dad had told me about it just a few weeks prior and sent me the link. It was easy to justify the purchase because I wanted to see if I could also use it to produce acceptable stock video clips using it’s rudimentary time-lapse features. Yes – the business angle.

In fact, some of my initial experiments have already been accepted at Shutterstock, for example:

• http://footage.shutterstock.com/video.html?id=505738&rid=85224
• http://footage.shutterstock.com/video.html?id=505723&rid=85224
• http://footage.shutterstock.com/video.html?id=505726&rid=85224
• http://footage.shutterstock.com/video.html?id=505720&rid=85224
• http://footage.shutterstock.com/video.html?id=505732&rid=85224

Those were all shot using the HERO camera. I’m in the process of submitting them at a couple other stock footage sites, and I’m looking forward to squeezing more stock-worthy content out of the little camera. But enough about business… this particular introduction is about having some FUN with the new toy.

So, I had this idea to start up a little series of episodes connected by a particular theme along the lines of exploring some strange places and attempting some adventurous (i.e. crazy) escapades… and I’d capture chunks of the adventures and edit them together into fun little YouTube clips. Of course, they would have to be called something cheesy like “Adventures with Andrew.” Maybe I’ll even start taking requests for Adventures through comments here and on YouTube… for example, if you give me a crazy (but it better be good) idea of something to try or somewhere to go, I’ll shoot the adventure with the HERO cam and you can have your very own made to order vicarious adventure with me. You’ll almost feel like you were there!

And then again… maybe the world is not ready to go on Adventures with Andrew yet. But I guess we will find out. I have several more episodes that I’m still editing to post, but here is the first one in all its glory.

A few interesting facts about this particular adventure:

• Location: West Cost, USA near Lincoln City, OR
• Time: very very early
• Water temperature: not as cold as the ocean itself (at least 55F)
• Air temperature: about the same as the water
• Gear: Vibram Five Fingers Footwear, swimming suit, dry bag, t-shirt, fleece
• Original video length shot: over an hour, but most of it was really boring, just crawling through overgrown bush on a steep incline that you can’t tell was steep on the video

Adventures with Andrew Episode 1: Exploring the Foggy Forest Timber Playground

Andrew swims across a river to explore an otherwise inaccessible overgrown wasteland of fallen trees and wild bush. He climbs, hangs, jumps, crawls, walks, and slides over the seemingly impassable terrain. Join him on the very 1st Episode of Adventures with Andrew. Ok. It’s cheesy, but you love it.

5 more days. The many weeks we’ve been here now seem a blur but every moment spent with family and friends have been so precious and meaningful. Wonderful, wonderful adventures and conversations and moments where time just stops and you step out of the picture and look upon it as an everlasting gift.

One of those moments happened today as I stood on a cobblestone walkway beside the Assiniboine river and waved to  Andrew, Bennah, Reayah, Zach, Jaiden and Grandpa as they slowly paddled down to meet me. I had left them about 2 hours before, where the river ran through Assiniboine park by the zoo and had done some grocery shopping with Joyzers before meeting up with them again at the Forks. Someone had to meet them downstream so they didn’t have to paddle all the way back again against the current.

The kids were quiet and content and a little sun burnt. They locked up the canoe, then we had a quick picnic lunch under some shade and watched a guy parkour-ing or free running. Andrew still wanted to get some work done, so we left soon after. We dropped off Grandpa back at the zoo where his truck was, then he drove back to the Forks to pick up the canoe and we went home.

The Race Project… OE21G… Adventuring… it has many working titles at the moment. The short version goes like this:

For nearly a decade now, one of my close brothers (of which I have many among my spiritual family) has been teaching an Outdoor Adventuring course at a private, faith-based school in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Incorporating the necessary provincial requirements, the course qualifies as phys ed credit for the students and teaches them fundamental survival skills like navigation, fire building, shelter making, team dynamics, etc. They spend a lot of time during the year practicing what they learn. They go hiking and camping in a remote area during the Fall Camping Trip. They build quinzhees and spend a night in sub-freezing temperatures on the Winter Camping Trip. And the year is peppered with biking trips, obstacle runs, urban night hikes, and the like. At the end of the year they have a final written exam and a final practical exam.

The practical exam has evolved over the years, but it has always been modeled after the fine tradition of adventure racing (e.g. Eco-Challenge). The amazing part is that these are 9th, 10th, sometimes 11th grade students completing roughly 100 km / 62 miles entirely self-powered (on foot and bike) during a 36 hour period; including a campcraft phase during which they have to build and sleep in their own tarp shelters. Held at the beginning of June each year in Canada, temperatures can still hover close to freezing. Each student team races against each other and against a veteran team (Bravo) that ran the race as students themselves several years ago and has been coming back for the fun of it since then. They have to navigate their way through roughly 30 checkpoints armed with their compasses, cardinal-based riddle-like instructions, and an appreciation (usually begrudging) for their instructor’s sense of humor. The checkpoints take them through a surprising variety of terrain from urban environments and open road, to bush-whacking through provincial parks, across muddy landscapes, and wading (or swimming) through river-like flood-ways. These are just some of the challenges they face. In addition, the instructor placed several handicaps on team Bravo this year to even the playing field as much as possible (for example, they had two 90 minute penalties, an additional checkpoint, and found all their bikes disassembled at one of the transition points).

A while back another close brother of mine and I got it in our heads that this course (and all the real, bigger than life characters that surround it) would make an excellent documentary. So, for the last year and a half we’ve been exploring how to pull it all together into a coherent project. Part of the exploration has offered me the privilege of chasing the teams through the course in 2008 and 2009 grabbing as much footage and photography as I can on the run.

I’m really cutting my teeth on any semblance of video experience through the exercise and pushing my photography skills as well. One exciting thing for me personally, as I wade through all the material that I collected at this year’s race just over a week ago, is that I am noticing a huge improvement in both the footage and the photos. I think a big factor in this is that I was here ahead of time, which made it possible to help the instructor set up the course. I knew were every single checkpoint was and (more or less) how the teams would approach and leave. Also, having gone through the whole experience last year, I had a subconscious working model that helped me anticipate where great clips or shots might be likely to emerge.

In all this, though, I know that there is a bigger story to tell, and it almost seems murkier now with 2-years-worth of solid coverage. Each class and each year has its own independent theme tying everything together for that particular group of students. Start adding the years together, however, to define something as big as the overall course, and the story-telling challenge grows exponentially with each additional year considered. One area that is significantly lacking in our coverage are the background stories of the students themselves – their families – their other interests – and the events that shape them throughout the whole year in the class. Now that we’re mobile, I’m hoping that we can start to fill in a lot of the gaps.

One thing that bears mention, and I saw this emphasized for me personally this year in a profound way: the efforts and sacrifice of the support teams that make this race and the course itself possible are immeasurable. Renee and the kids supported me being away for several long evenings while we were setting up the course, and then they followed me / drove me around / rode around in the truck for two days straight while I chased the shots. The instructor’s family supports him in similar ways throughout the entire year. And the parents of the students entrust them to a very worthwhile course that has very real dangers. Bennah, my oldest son, also helped take some excellent photos at times and places that I simply couldn’t be all at once. Seeing all of that in a new way this year really impressed on me the desire to make this a significant stream in the documentary’s storyline.

Here are a few of the photos I took from that amazing weekend adventure (see link below for a gallery of many more photos from the 2009 race with details of this year’s story in all the captions):

Here’s a gallery of photos from the 2009 race. [NOTE: The 2008 and 2009 Exam Race galleries are password protected out of respect for the student's privacy. You can email me for the access codes, or get them from Mr. Dave directly.]

Other fun / related resources:
Here is a Google map of the whole course for 2009.
Here are some of the photos from the 2008 race.