Incredible India, Controlled Chaos

Mumbai, India (Part 1 of 3)

Hands. Hundreds of millions of Indian hands, providing virtually free labor, power this complex, contradictory country.

Dawn breaks over Mumbai harbor revealing a man rowing his boat, skirting the anchored ferries. The harbor opens to the Arabian Sea.

In the ninth century, Chola rulers commanded their people to carve granite into towering temples in Tamil Nadu, the southeastern Indian state. In the 21st century, Indian hands created the newest temple, a 27 story private home in South Mumbai for the country’s richest man. A skyscraper hanging over a slum. Inspecting the ancient ruins, the working and living conditions seemed better 1300 years ago.

State of Freight – Year to Date, It Sucks

Augusta, Ga.

Our year began with a 2,599 mile deadhead, driving from Quebec to Washington state, burning fuel on our own dime, because we couldn’t find a westbound load.

Normally, we’d wait. Or we’d follow the freight. But last January, we couldn’t. A plane was waiting. Not any plane, the Dreamliner. And not just any seats. Champagne-swilling, Business Class points rides to India, through Shanghai and Bangkok.

We try to fly through Shanghai to Asia because during the layover MacGyver likes to ride the 431 kph MagLev into the city for Dim Sum. This time we were foiled by a mysterious Shanghai rule. Unlike traveling through Beijing, where bags are checked to the final destination, in Shanghai, we were forced to not only clear customs but collect our bags and check in again, closing the MagLev time window.

That was the harbinger of freight. Or more accurately, fright.

Looking back six months, we can see that freight fell off the cliff on January 2, the day we delivered a diesel engine to Rifle, Colorado.

New & Improved

Port St. Lucie, Fla.

We’ve rested. We’re refreshed. Life with No Fixed Address is reborn.

Naw! The shitstorm that is 2015 has subsided a little. And well, I want, even need, to talk about it.

Trying to stuff 2015 down the infamous Fargo, N.D. woodchipper. We’ve been passing the Visitor Center, home of the woodchipper, made famous in the movie Fargo, for years. We stopped in July for some anxiety management.

You may recall, there has been one post so far in 2015. Our pre-India post. We went, we saw, we returned. To chaos. But we have stories to tell, tips to pass along and photos to share. And we’ll bring you up to date on our year so far.

Since the blog was on the shelf so long, and Belledog complained, MacGyver decided we should have a new look. We have switched from a Squarespace format to WordPress. And we need an easier-to-use format so we can post in a timely manner. The format will showcase the photos with the stories.

This WordPress template allows readers to receive an email message when a new post has been uploaded.  Click on “follow” and add your email address.

Of course, in keeping with the theme of 2015 — one step forward, one-and-a-half-back — the switch has been aggravating for MacGyver. First there’s a problem sorting out the pages. Then the text from the previous posts has been imported, but there’s an issue with some of the photos. Realistically that may or may not happen. We’ll keep our fingers crossed. If not, oh well.

We will try to add the older posts and photos to this new site, but until then the old posts can be found here.

In the meantime, Life with No Fixed Address has been resuscitated.

India Separates Weak from Worthy

North Bend, Wash.

The Indian visa application was a test. We passed, barely.

Known around the world for its British-designed, stultifying bureaucracy, the visa process was riddled with inconsistencies, incongruencies, mis- and dis-information. That it was a test of wits and that we survived, is the only way to think about the three-day battle with the on-line application form and the eight-day battle on the phone with the Cox and Kings call center in Mumbai when my passport disappeared in the paper shuffle.

Black Beauty is driven hard — as hard as we can at 58 mph — and put away wet. One last early morning wash in North Bend, WA to remove the winter road salt before she’s stabled. We’ll be riding tuk tuks, taxis and rickshaws for the next few weeks.

 

India has been promising Visa-On-Arrival for its tourism visitors for years. Visa -on-Arrival means a traveler, bearing a passport granted by her home country presents herself and her passport to an Immigration Officer. Because her home-country has given her a passport, and with a payment of no money or a small amount of money, $50 to $150, the country she wants to visit her grants entry for a tourism visit.

What Hazard Lurks In That Number?

Port St. Lucie, Florida

Famous for his fanatical attention to detail, Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan jolted us from our sleeper berth by an egregious error.

How do I know this? Because I have an almost-expired Hazardous Materials endorsement on my Commercial Drivers License.

The Albuquerque, New Mexico, cafe that appeared in Season 2 of Breaking Bad as drug overlord Tuco’s office.

We cannot pull a HazMat load without this endorsement. And we cannot get this endorsement without a background check, which includes fingerprints — yet again, for a fee, of course. Since we have been driving, this is the fourth fingerprint and background check that we’ve paid for, and they are not cheap.

Laughing, and Crying, All the Way to the Bank

Woods Hole, Mass.

Our freight-cation began in Washington state.

While we were without cashflow for four weeks after my mother died, it was the return to our routine that we needed. MacGyver quickly landed a coast-to-coast team run. A four-day, 3,300 mile passage across 13 states.

The second night of our freight-cation, and the night before we picked up Jason in Newport, Ore., we stopped at Boiler Bay and enjoyed Salena’s Roasted Pork Loin.

Because of the decision we made 20 years ago, a few months before my father died, we had no money stress during this emotional time. Back then we were a few months into our new lifestyle, based on the FUF principle — Fuck You Funds — and madly paying down more than $25,000 in debt before we could start saving. Half way to our goal, we had started accumulating some savings, enough to handle last minute expenses and help my mother, without going into our credit cards. Fast forward to this summer, the peace-of-mind that we “bought” with our savings is worth the effort of a savings-first, cash-only lifestyle. Still, we knew, getting back on the road was essential.

Memory Lane: Delightful, Tearful Surprises

My mother never said I love you. She was a doer.

Who stays up around-the-clock, four days, applying hot compresses laced with olive oil to conquer a sports injury? Who scours the heat registers for pennies to buy lentils and beans for dinner since she used the last of the paycheque to pay for a ballet tutu or piano, flute and guitar lessons or sports equipment for four children? Who makes you pay back a loan, used to cover my rent after a car crash, and sends the demand letter certified mail to teach me to save money? My mother who loved us.

The original 1929 tickets that brought my mother, Anna Betnaza, from Poland to Southhampton, England to Canada. My grandmother traveled with three children. The cost in today’s dollars is a little more than $4,000.

Mothers save everything. It was her last gift. The letters, cards and baubles that I sent her, from far flung locations, Cairo-to-Bangkok, assure me that I had been a good daughter. A daughter she shooed away at 17: “There’s nothing for you in a small town,” she told me.

Anna Has Left The Building

Tiny and tough, my mother was feisty and fiercely independent.

She used to say, “no one gets out of this world alive”. She didn’t either. She died in July. A fall in her beloved garden — her foot got caught in the tomato cages — unleashed a cascade of complications. She was 87.

My mother’s life was bookended by two incredible extremes. She walked barefoot to a one-room schoolhouse until she was 12. During her last 15 years, like every hipster, her life revolved around the Internet.

Born in a time when women were seen as a weaker, softer farm hand, my mother, Anna Betnaza, embraced challenge. She chose a life’s path of learning and enlightenment. And she encouraged me to be bold.

A Wheel Story About Wheel Men and Women

New Orleans, Louisiana

Twenty-six floors below me, the freighters winding along the Mississippi river through New Orleans, dodging the paddle wheelers teaming with tourists, seemed touchable.

Riders at the 22nd annual AmeriVespa rally in New Orleans line up to witness a scooter wedding. California scooteress Cynthia marries Philly scooter guy Christian.

Several hundred Vespa owners converged at the Hilton Riverside for the 22nd annual AmeriVespa rally in mid-June. Scooters, ranging from grandfather vintage to tricked-out with rocket launcher signal-lights, or in nautical attire and, of course, our modern classic, cruised the Big Easy.

This rally, which included a scooter ride around Lake Ponchartrain and a scooter wedding, has been on MacGyver’s To Do list for three years. We missed Lake Geneva, Wisconsin and San Diego, California.

Almost Ready

Sebring, Florida

I am obsessed. With a Facebook page. Two actually.

Road Talk and Trucker’s Weather Updates and Road Conditions.

So complete is my obsession that MacGyver is waking every morning to his coffee, served in his red Ferrari mug, and my crash report.

This was a routine winter drive on US87 enroute to Great Falls, Montana in January 2013. But winter conditions this year seem anything but routine. Two Facebook pages which report weather and road conditions for big truck drivers, including multi-vehicle pileups has become my staycation obsession.

“I need to unfriend them,” I tell him almost every day. “It’s freaking me out.”

It’s, like, an addiction that I feed it several times a day. There have been so many storms this winter and consequently many horrific crashes. Before Facebook I knew there were big truck crashes, I saw evidence of crashes, but there was no play-by-play.