Twain Harte

Gates to the wilderness, somewhere between the foothills and Twain Harte

Home for sale or rent! The lovely mountain home of the Williams family. Pond included.

English Geese, owning the pond

Elzy's Eagle, looking out over the pond from the deck

Mallards mate for life Jon. 

Basement bikes in the woods

Can you name this plant? It was basically growing wild as a ground cover, smelled sweet and was sticky.

Big sky.

Money Be Tight Yo.

Whoo boy, it's been a while since I posted anything up.

Things have most definitely led me down some crazy paths the last few weeks. From laughing with a family in Carson City, feeding cows and wine tasting in Placerville, to night time hikes with old and awkward friends, piano and big fire in the old lodge out at camp, lake sunrises and jumps, hitching a last minute ride to the Bay Area and changing ALL my plans in less than a minute, getting a job 3 days after arriving back in the bay, riding a bike 30 miles to pick up some stuff, then hitching a ride with a surfer/stoner/burner kid from Ukiah who got lost looking for the San Pablo exit in Oakland off of 80, to spending a night in Twain Harte with the pretty cool and very loving family of a man who is a very dear friend of mine.

I have joked with friends recently that my life has become a "Choose your own adventure" story book. I managed to hit a pile of vipers and got sent back to the start to try again, so here I am, back in Oakland, and working no less. (There's a lot I could say and won't about this situation. My best friends know what's up.)

To top it all off, Back in July I had applied for unemployment, and got rejected. Up in Tahoe, I reapplied, figuring it couldn't hurt to try again. Well, tonight I found out I was approved, finally, after three months and hardly any money. I should get my check at the end of this week if all goes according to plan.

Speaking of funds, here is the break down of my recent costs and bank account:

Medical Supplies: 140.00 (This is about what I paid when I had health insurance too, and might even be less than I paid when I had insurance, since I was also paying for insurance at the time. By the way, this is a scary position to be in, since I cannot get health insurance due to my pre-existing condition until 2013 unless my employer provides it, but that's a conversation for another day.)
Cell Phone: 52.00
New Cell Phone due to lost Charger: 12.71 (I could not find a charger for my old phone, and besides, all the chargers I could find cost 25.00 or more.)
CA ID: 26.00 (Mine has not been valid for a year and I lost my passport in Utah. If I want to get a real job, I'll need a valid ID, and a Social Security card, both of which are cheaper at the moment then replacing the passport.)
1 Coffee: 1.50

Total in Bank Account today, after all was said and done:

91.52

Bills that aren't getting paid this month:

School: 152.00
ER Bill from Kidney Stones: $2500 (It's unlikely this bill will get paid for sometime yet. And in the mean time it's accruing interest)

Things I cut out of my budget last month: Netflix and Drop Box for a total of 32.00.

Other things going on: I found holes in the one pair of jeans I own. My sweatshirt smells bad because I've worn it every day for the last two months (I wash it frequently). I lost my glasses in a lake in the wilderness. Well, lost is not really the right word for it. My glasses are sitting at the bottom of a lake in the wilderness, waiting for me to retrieve them some day. If anyone has a wetsuit and the ability to freedive to find them, please let me know.

Just a short comment on job applications: I've been sending several out in chunks when I have internet access. It's hard to do when you don't have a computer you know?

Placerville

Mountain Places

Today we hiked up to Aloha and Jabu through the Desolation Wilderness, which is the back border of SSCC. Pictures are not mine, since I didn't have a camera, but just to give you an idea of where I spent my day:

(The trail marked on this map covers part of what we did today. If you follow the red line from the bottom of the map, you'll see that it passes by Jabu, around Aloha, and past Heathers. We actually took a loop that started out by lilly lake and went around, decending down Tamarack. The yellow line shows a trail up to Mt. Tallac at 10,000 feet. I've done that climb, many years ago, but I went up the Fallen Leaf side. I'll probably take the Glen Alpine Springs Trail next time, which I think will be next week before the snow comes. Map Credit: Stanford.)

(Lake Aloha, Photo Credit: Flickr Member Slang4201)

(Lake Jabu, Photo Credit: Flickr Member PaloJono)

Neither of these pictures can completely do the places justice, but you get the idea, yeah?

On the way back we the Echo Lakes trail, which is part of the PCT, and then took Tamarack trail, which is not marked on the maps, and follows a water flow down from Angora Ridge. It was tough and gorgeous.

I was tired at this point and was trailing with Jared, and we had about 20 minutes of improv play after climbing through a vortex tree, which turned us into wild mountain creatures discovering our world for the first time, and we found a stick and made it into several things before it's final incarnation as a laser gun.

Needless to say: I had fun. Jabu lake is cold and clear right down to the bottom. Aloha is gorgeous and quiet. I swam in Jabu, had some filtered Aloha water after wading in knee high, and did some trail running. My body hurts in the best way.

Carson City!

There's a lot more to this city that I'll have to share later, but I just got back from Carson City Nevada. A couple of my best girlfriends from Oakland checked in with me yesterday and picked some theme songs for my life, completely seperately.

First, Sarah's pick, when she heard I've not yet gotten the Tahoe job:



And then Amanda's Pick:

Tahoe Pt. 3

Spent:

6 on breakfast
5 on lunch (peanut butter sando and a hot cocoa.)
5 for a monthly bank fee
6 dollars on a bank fee I was not aware I was going to be charged.

Total in bank:
324.22

Total in pocket:
10

I appreciate the sounds of this place:

The look and color of the leaves of the Aspens
Lake waves at Kiva:

(Photo Credit: Jon Green)

Wind blowing between the moraines and peaks and brushing the needles of the pine trees

Update: I am in a friend's home looking to leave tomorrow for a few days. I miss Matty and Jared, but Becca is here, and I love her so much, and am so grateful for her and Tom for letting me stay a few nights with them. I've been to two open mic nights since I got to town, spent a day out at Kiva with the boys, spent a day watching movies with Becca. I heard yesterday that there was an opening at camp, so I gave Brian a call to let him know I was still very interested in working out there, then spent today waiting for a call back, looking for other jobs, applying to other jobs, though what I most want is camp.

I got a call from Cyndi and talked plans (on her side) and ideas (on my side). 

There are many more ideas, as change of location is bound to bring. Matty gave me his guide to short term job adventures to go through, and I'm finding a wealth of outdoor education jobs. It's making me so stoked to get out and apply for them. A lot of them require previous experience, so I'm trying to get on this path so I can go work these awesome jobs.

I have to say that I'm incredibly grateful for the wonderful men in my life that are based out here for the moment. Jon has been incredibly generous with food, and has stuck with me through movement, driving us around and offering really awesome conversation and encouragement, since we're both homeless right now. I feel protected and less lonely with him around, plus he's hustling sleeping spaces and has way more connections out this way then I do. Matty has been generous with the mobile space he owns, and I'm glad David and Jared are out here because they make me laugh a lot.

Then there's this, which was a Becca gift tonight:

Tahoe pt. 2

Fireworks! Wedding crashing! Free Dinner! Beastie Boys! Scene Scoping!

We'll start with it being a lovely Tahoe day. We hit up Fallen Leaf Lake, did some swimming, ate some food, drank some mango champagne. Then we headed home, then headed out to the casinos. Here is where I have to admit to missing some Texans, and being reminded of my trip to Las Vegas last year. We started in the parking lot of Horizon, where the fireworks were shooting over the trees, and someone had their stereo blasting the music that the fireworks were choreographed to. From there, Matty went off to play some poker, and Jon and I headed up to the top of the parking garage at Harrah's, where we saw a band playing in the distance. By the time we reached the right side of the garage, they were playing "Don't Stop Believing". You who know me, know I was stoked. So, we got in the elevator to head up to the top floor and were told by the security guard pressing the buttons, that it it was an "invitation only" event. So we took the stairs, snuck past security, grabbed a cupcake and a plate of food, and headed back down to the casino floor.

It made Jon nervous.

From there, I caused some minor Karaoke style Ruckus in Harvey's (I think. Maybe that was Harrah's. They are right across the street from each other, I can't remember which is which.) And then some dance ruckus at the pizza place in the Casino Matty was playing poker in, and then we waited too long for pizza and I got tired and we headed home. Now I'm going to bed because I plan on doing a little hiking in the morning out at Angora:




Photo Credit Lunkerhunter (What's a lunker?)

Tahoe!

I made it.

Money spent?

30- Rideshare (Amtrak takes 50$ one way from the East Bay. Greyhound doesn't stop in South Lake)
3.77- Belt, Pair of Shorts, Hat from the Attic, which is a local thrift store.

This money was spent out of some extra I had from selling my Bed and Dishes, so I'm not yet digging into my $355.

The ride up took 5 and a half hours. It was like driving up the mountains in a snow storm, only with less cars sliding around the road. My ride share girl was pretty rad, she'd worked in Vail for 6 years before moving to Tahoe and working here for a couple years. She lives in SF now, going to school and working full time. She seemed to know a ton of people up here which could be good for me. Mostly I'm exhausted though. Between having my plans change almost hourly, getting my stuff out of the house, whether it was being sold or given away or stored, choosing the stuff that I would keep vs the stuff to get rid of (Art, costumes, sticks and rocks got kept. Almost everything else? Gone.), interviews, job applications and budgeting, I've been pretty stressed out the last few weeks. My wit has gone up, my language skills have gone down, and my memory is reliably unreliable. I'm starting to catch up on sleep, but it's still going to be a while before I'm at 100%.

I cooked a skillet pizza last night for the boys.

I'm staying at a house in town populated by camp people, and sleeping in the RV with Matty and Jon.

(Abiyoyo. Photo: Jon Green)

The traffic is crazy in town right now. I'll be glad when the tourists go home and I can ride my bike around.

Jared is getting out to camp tomorrow sometime, and Ficke is heading out on Tuesday.

Right now my plan is to do a couple open mic nights in town and meet some musicians. I'm going to go to the EDD in town and talk to them about getting unemployment, (I applied and got turned down, I'm going to see about an appeal) and I'm going to go visit Heavenly. I am pretty sure this is not where I'm going to end up in the end, though I think I'm going to spend the winter up here. There's a migration to the central coast, but that isn't where I want to be, and one of my most favorite people is moving to Upstate New York, but I don't want east coast winters.

Before I left I got a package from my dear friend Cyndi, containing the clothes I left at her house in Utah, and three CD's. One was a Mason Jennings CD. This is the song I listened to on my way out of Oakland, and it's been stuck in my head:

I Am On a Journey

So I had a lot of ideas of what to make this last post in Oakland.

It started way back in July with this picture. This was up at July's art murmur. The photo credit goes to Jon Suzuki of The Missing Link, who takes excellent photos. The story behind it is this: This young man found this old book in his grandfather's attic. The book was published in 1925 and is called "Who Made Oakland", written by Florence B. Crocker, and published by Clyde Dalton, in Oakland, of course. When asked, the guy explained that he hadn't been able to find another copy of the book, so he was working on getting it reprinted, and in the mean time, had made prints of some of the images and pages, this being one of them. He said that he'd read through it and it was amazing how much of it was still relevant today. Me, I'm just glad he found it and is doing something with it.

As for me, it is up to me what my future will be, and that's exciting. Talking to a friend this evening, I mentioned that I applied for a job today at an outdoor school that I'd applied to several years ago, and got offered a job at, that I declined to take for several reasons. If I get offered it again, I will not turn it down, and that would be a little bit of a circle back to another life path.

Anyways, here's the deal. I've got 355 dollars to my name. I have a great resume, but no job. I have wonderful friends, but no home, as of tomorrow, I have a cell phone, but it's not smart. My ultimate goal is to get to the east coast any way that I can by Thanksgiving, to see my family, and then get back to the west as quickly as possible to have a job.

How does one do that on 355 dollars? The ultimate, of course, would be to have a job that will pay for this, but, in the mean time, with no job forthcoming, I'm going to turn this into an adventure, and in true Ashley style, a little bit of a community effort. Sitting around was never my style, after all. Though I have to admit it's been nice to take a breather.

So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to document to you every adventure I have, and every penny I spend of my 355 in cash via my blog. I'm going to utilize friend connections, ride shares, my bike, and couchsurfing.com to travel. I'm going to be trying some pretty unconventional things along the way. I'm pretty sure this is going to be worth it. Let's see how far I can get, yeah? I'm starting on Friday.

I've applied to a lot of jobs. I'll continue to apply to jobs on the road. There's not much more I can do to make them happen, other than to keep my cell phone connected for as long as I can. I have a handful of quarters for doing laundry along the way, and I've packed a nice shirt.

I'm starting in the bay area, and I'm heading towards Tahoe. Do you know bands on tour I can hitch a ride with? Do you know couches I could sleep on? Do you know cooks I could eat with? Let me know!

Here is what I have to offer in exchange for any of these things (You can tell your friend this when you tell them what I'm doing and why I need their help):

I will sing a song
I will cook a meal
I will do your least favorite chore for you
I will do the driving
I will make something
I will walk the dog
I will organize something
I will be a roadie
I will take your picture or the picture of a loved one, to be printed and sent to you after I have a job. (I will take your picture anyways, for the blog, but this offering will be a special picture just for you.)
I will watch your kids for a day, so you can go on a date with your spouse, or take a nap.

I'm sure I will think of more as I go along, but this is what I have for now.

Much love to you Bay Area, and especially you, Oakland. It's been rocky and beautiful and hard and lovely. I will surely miss all of your faces.