Other states, other lives, other souls

I am a sci-fi fan and have been since I was a teenager reading Robert Heinlein in the bathtub.  In the past couple of years I discovered Octavia Butler, an early African-American science fiction writer and winner of many sci-fi awards.

In the mid 90’s she wrote a two-volume series called the Parable or Earthseed series.  The first book is the Parable of the Sower . According to Wikipedia:

it introduces the fifteen-year-old protagonist, Lauren Oya Olamina, and is set in a dystopian California in the 2020s. Lauren, who suffers from a syndrome causing her to literally feel any physical pain she witnesses, struggles with the religious beliefs and physical isolation of her hometown Robledo. She forms a new belief system, Earthseed, which posits a future for the human race on other planets. When Robledo is destroyed and Lauren’s family and neighbors killed, she and two other survivors flee north. Recruiting members of varying social backgrounds along the way, Lauren relocates her new group to Northern California, naming her new community Acorn. 

Last year I even attended a local concert featuring a new operatic version of this book. It was written and scored by the musician Toshi Reagon and her mother Bernice Reagon, the retired leader of the a capella group Sweet Honey and the Rock. Both the books and the opera are really great. The description of the Earthseed group’s long walk up the California coast, dodging marauding bandits and rapists, facing increasing loss of food and supply stores, and making careful decisions about who to trust as society breaks down is chilling.  I was put in mind of them this past weekend as my husband Phil and I headed south for a long-planned month-long road trip in search of better weather than Minneapolis in March and early April.  No, we were not driven from our home, nor were we walking, but bear with me.

Our trip would start in Texas and proceed over to New Mexico, up as far as Santa Fe, and then back down to Brownsville/Matamoros. In Brownsville we had offered to volunteer for a few days with Team Brownsville , who are supporting the 1000 plus asylum seekers across the Mexican border living in tents and under trees, waiting for a legal opportunity to seek asylum in the U.S.  We planned a mix of tent camping and budget or quirky lodging for the trip.  The Honda CRV (the greatest car ever made) was packed to the gills with camping and hiking equipment, camp and lunch-on-the-road food, and clothes for weather from the 40s to 80s.  On the back were our two mountain bikes.  On our first road trip through the southwest in 2015, we fell in love with mountain biking through beautiful country, especially near Moab in southern Utah at Dead Horse Point State Park.

A 30 day road trip in warmer climes in March requires a lot of planning.   South Padre Island, just south of Texas at the tip of the triangle, is spring break central, so we opted for no res tent-camping at the less traveled Padre Island National Seashore, accessed from Corpus Christi. Before leaving, Google, sensing our search terms, had fed us news videos from South Padre showing reenactments of Woodstock on the island, only without the mud.  The National Seashore, on the other hand, offered quiet beaches and bird watching. I packed my new swim suit and my new SPF hoodie, which promised not only to keep me cancer free but safe from the punishing March winds.  We had planned to return to Big Bend National Park again, but–pre-coronapocalypse–all campsites and lodging were booked.  I found an interesting little town nearby—Marfa—that seemed a bit artsy. Marfa sported a truly quirky lodging called Cosmico whom we called about availability. Yes, they had choices: vintage decked out RVs, yurts, teepees, or canvas tents a la Yosemite Valley.  We’ll take the tent, we said—the cheapest.  No cancellations, they said.  After that Guadalupe National Park offered no res tent camping and hiking.  Albuquerque and Santa Fe, not on the spring break trail, had plenty of cute hotels.

It would take us at least three days to get to the Texas south shore.  One stop was near Austin, but since Southwest by Southwest (SXSW) was scheduled for that time, we opted to skip that and head to private campsites in Dripping Springs for two nights. That would give us one day to explore the little nearby town of Wimberly where, allegedly, the real hippies had decamped, after Austin got too bougie.  Shortly after that plan was put in place, Austin cancelled SXSW because of the coronavirus.  I, in my wisdom, had chosen to head back to Austin after all the hullaballoo was over for Phil’s birthday on April 5^th, on our way back home. Drive-By Truckers were scheduled there on April 4^th, touring their newest album The Unraveling . But as life imitates art, that concert was postponed until August shortly after SXSW was cancelled.

Perhaps we can use the vouchers from our pre-booked flight to Miami in April to go to Austin in August.  We can cut the wardrobe down to shorts and t-shirts by then and enjoy the many spring-fed pools nearby.

Stubbornly, we set off on Friday afternoon, March 13^th (foreshadowing, for sure) on the trip.  Our first way stop was a Des Moines hotel across the street from the arena where the girls state basketball tournament was being held.  When we walked in the door, there was no one at the check-in. After looking around I noticed a little hand-made sign saying “be back soon.”  Not long after, a young man sauntered from the breakfast room, apologizing that he was doing a couple of jobs right now.  Because of the tournament (basketball being the reason for living to most Iowans), they had 90% occupancy until two days ago. Now that only 100 fans were being allowed in per game and per side, occupancy had dropped to 5%. We found a nearby Vietnamese restaurant popular on Yelp and ordered take out.  We sat in our room with a table-like desk and one chair, enjoying our choices. We took turns with the chair.

The next morning, having skipped the free breakfast, we headed to our next way stop in Tulsa. (Phil had read that hotel breakfasts were a good place to pick up coronavirus droplets).  On our way to Tulsa on Saturday, we stopped for lunch at a well-known BBQ joint in Kansas City, recommended by Anthony Bourdain.  It was a mob scene—hundreds of people waiting in line for an hour, eating together in close quarters.  We chose take out and ate our delicious food uneasily in our car in the parking lot.

Oklahoma also seemed unperturbed by the coronavirus. The Republican governor tweeted out a picture of his family eating at a crowded restaurant on Saturday night, encouraging others to do the same, “while following precautions.”  When the President of his Party suggested on Monday that he didn’t support such practices, under the social distancing guidelines, and the few cases began to rise in Oklahoma, the tweet was withdrawn.

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We stayed Saturday night safely in a single Airbnb above a pottery studio.  It was a bright spot in an otherwise underwhelming trip to date— rainy, cloud-covered, cold, and coronaed.  It was a veritable quirky art gallery with a kitchen and papa bear bed.  We fixed one of our camp meals, drank a couple of cocktails and went to bed.  Off we went in the rain Sunday morning on our way to Texas and the Dripping Springs campsites.  We were told that there would be no cell phone coverage or wifi at the site. Two hours away, we stopped at a rest stop and spoke to our son who had been warned by a “reliable source” that the possibility of a countrywide lockdown by the President was in the air. Outside volunteers were no longer being allowed to come into Team Brownsville. We looked at the white sky, felt the cold wind, ate a quick camp lunch at a picnic table, and turned around.  We drove back to Tulsa for one last night at the same Airbnb, and then home. On Tuesday, we woke up in our own bed, the sun was shining, the weather hovered under and over freezing, and we went out for a long walk.   I am planning to sew up some cloth face masks, as requested by Team Brownsville, to pass out to families in close quarters and longtime volunteers, and await our fate. Maybe I will invent a new religion too.