Lost in OK

Rev. Dr. Everett Lees, Requiescat in Pace

nathan@lostinok.com (Nathan Lorenz) — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I wasn’t sure if I was going to say anything on the sad passing of the Rev. Dr. Everett Lees. It feels presumptuous to say words about someone you haven’t been close with for a long time. However, his passing has been sitting in my mind and left me with a small thought on strong character.

Everett and I became friends my senior year in high school along with his other dear friend, Steven Anderson. We were all in debate club together and spent a good amount of time both in and out of school for that year. We were an unlikely set of friends, especially Everett and I.

I was attempting very hard to explore every inch of teenage moodiness and angst, wearing combat boots and trench coats and attempting to exude as much cynical toughness as a private school kid could. Everett was a complete contrast to this, friendly, jovial, kind, and open. My teenage self could have easily sneered at Everett as naive and soft. However, that wasn’t really possible because he also possessed this quiet confidence that impressed upon me that, even at that young age, he knew who he was and that he was comfortable in his skin, not a small feat for a young adult.

I went out of state for college and quickly fell out of touch with most of my high school friends. I cut my hair, chose more practical footwear, and slowly became more comfortable in my own skin.

Then came around the era of Facebook, and at some point, Everett and I became slightly reconnected via a tenuous digital link. That’s when I learned that he had become a priest, and my first thought on hearing that was, “Well, that makes sense.”

I don’t know many of my old friends whose character and temperament were so strong and fixed in their youth that where they ended up seemed like an inevitability, but it did for Everett.

Everett and I never really got back in touch outside of a few digital happy birthdays and a couple of likes and comments. However, I did keep notice of his progress as he took on more and more responsibility in the church and grew the flock at his parish. Over the last couple of years, I’ve read his posts as he had started to express his thoughts on how he would like to change the church at large.

Through all of that, that same thought rang true, “that makes sense.” And then, just as suddenly, it stopped making so much sense. Then all of a sudden he was in the hospital and then in just days he was no longer with us. I had missed his humorous announcements of pancreatic cancer, so those two weeks from diagnosis to death seemed even shorter than they were.

Then of course, we are left to mourn the passing of a man in his prime. I felt the natural regret of not keeping in touch while there was time. I also felt the sadness for his family to lose him so soon. And as we often do with the passing of someone in their prime, I regretted what the world had lost in what he could have done.

However, I have also had a second thought that the world was blessed that Everett had such a strong character in his youth to have allowed him to accomplish so much in so few years and that brings me comfort too.

Progress Journal: Setting Baselines

nathan@lostinok.com (Nathan Lorenz) — Tue, 03 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The nice thing about new journey is that you can set your own baselines. For the first day I got up early enough to take Heidi out for a walk. She is working on her manners and I’m working on loosening up my ankle. Neither makes for a rapid pace, but it does make for a pleasant walk through a pretty town. We took a nice stop at the Guthrie Scottish Rite Temple and another to see what silent film was playing at The Mini Melba Cinema at the crack of dawn. Did 1.83 miles at a 25'49"/MI pace.

Heidi in front of the Scottish Rite Temple.

The Melba Mini Cinema in Guthrie Oklahoma.

My daughter was out of school today so we got the fun of taking a lunch break to walk to her favorite diner in town for lunch along with two of her dolls and about three pounds of accessories. A wonderful way to get a break in the day.

Stats

Weight: 376.5

Rings Progress:

Progress Journal: Small Starts

nathan@lostinok.com (Nathan Lorenz) — Mon, 02 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Well, it’s September and now approaching my birthday. And of course, as a middle-aged man, I can predictably start getting those little pangs of anxiety at another year’s passing which lead many down the dark path of impulse sports car purchases or hair plugs. To be honest, I’m actually in a very good place in my life and have little to push me towards these darker parts of men’s hearts. I have a job that is rewarding, a loving family, a nice house and a relatively tolerable dog. All in all, things are looking bright. However, I suspect, that my experience is not uncommon with those suddenly finding themselves wrestling with how to make a payment on their new Corvette. I suspect, most midlife crises have more to do with the sense of time’s rapidity than with legitimate complaints with one’s station, and in that, I’m certainly feeling the results of accelerating decrepitude.

The hardest part is that it is getting harder for me to see progress in my life in some very key area where I desperately need some. Most critically, my health since the great ankle break has seriously declined. The slightly decreased mobility after the accident has allowed me to put on a dangerous amount of weight. In response, I have made resolution after resolution to get my weight back into a healthy range all with the same effectiveness as millions of New Year’s resolutions before me.

Bernard Moitessier repairing a sail.

This year, my darling wife, as if to tempt fate, found me a copy of English translation Bernard Moitessier’s memoir, The Long Way. This along with Jonathan Slocum’s Sailing Along Around the World has probably started a few thousand disastrous yacht midlife crises. For those who don’t know his story, Moitessier was an avid yachtsman who had already completed a previous circumnavigation when he participated win the Sunday Time’s Golden Globe Race in 1968 which was the first non-stop round-the-world single handed yacht race. Nine sailors participated in this grueling race and Moitessier was leading as the race came into the final stage, some 300 days after it was started. Fame and glory was just within his reach when he made a much different decision that his trip was not really ready to come to an end. Instead, he abandoned the race and continued sailing onward, completing another two thirds of a circumnavigation non-stop and single handed until putting in at Tahiti.

Admittedly I’ve just started the book, but I’ve known Moitessier’s story for a long time. It’s gotten me thinking a bit about not only the futility of grand resolutions but the danger in them too. Putting too much focus on the destination is a great recipe for declaring defeat at the first setback because the path seems too far out of reach and unobtainable.

So for this year, I’m giving up on resolutions. Instead, I’m going to be working on a little self-improvement writing project to measure results in terms of the journey and not in terms of the destination. The areas I’m most intrested in working on this year are:

My health, specifically weight.
My family, namely making sure that I make them my focus and not on easy distractions.
Relationships. I’ve become pretty close to a recluse over the last few years, maintaining very few relationships with old friends. Hoping to start rekindling some of these relationships.
The house and garden. I’ve let my slightly limited mobility let me really keep me from helping keep the house repairs up-to-date or help with the garden, both of which I actually do enjoy.
As a stretch goal, I would like to get some time to play music in earnest again.

These markers of progress may be little things or big things, I’m not really concerned with the scope of the change, namely that some progress can be recorded. My hope is though, that by measuring progress over time, I can allay those pangs of regret and worry that we all face from time to time.

So for the first short entry, today was a pretty good Labor Day. I spent the day getting the yard into some sort of shape after being ignored during the last week’s horrible heat wave. This was enough for me to get my rings closed for the day. Going to spend as much time as I can this week getting the garden in shape with a week of cooler weather coming up.

Picture of my daughter's fairy house.

My daughter has recently rediscovered her obsession with fairies. Yesterday, she redecorated her fairy house and put it out with notes to hopeful fairy residents. This has now turned into a serious correspondence between her and her new tenants, Deborah Dragonfly and Melody Mantis. Tonight’s creative writing assignment was to come up with plausibly exciting jobs for her fairies. I feel like this may get beyond my creative skills quickly, but it’s fun so far!

Stats

Weight: 376.8

Rings Progress:

Practice Journal: Bonus Elvis

nathan@lostinok.com (Nathan Lorenz) — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A great practice day, even got a chance to sneak in some Elvis, which is never a bad thing.

Satie Gymopedie No. 1

Pretty close to note perfect here, just a few notes that didn’t sound out. Also, I’m still having some issues with keeping those opening chords with even dynamics. If I can get that done, I think I will finally be happy with this one. Trying to pick out my next piece that everyone else learned in lessons, but somehow I didn’t. Thinking maybe Moonlight Sonata?

Chopin Waltz in B Minor

Went better today than yesterday. Back to struggling with the third section, which is where I belong. I am still pretty happy with the pacing, just need to get through those fast jumps.

Mozart Sonata in C Major, K545 - Second Movement

Did pretty good today, still having issue with the third bar of the begning of the 3rd section. My fingers are just not remembering that ending. Spent some time with the metronome, Chopin has spoiled me on timing, but Herr Mozart is a more demanding composer.

Can’t Help Falling in Love

I know almost no pop music and have no improvising skills. I got a Fake Book for Christmas and I’m trying to start developing some pop skills. Starting simple here, but you can never go wrong with Elvis.

Practice Journal: Getting Stuck

nathan@lostinok.com (Nathan Lorenz) — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I got stuck; no other way to put it. This has happened a few times, but for the last couple of months, I have just felt that my progress has kind of ground to a halt. I’m flubbing different notes in the same piece each time I sit down. A few of weeks ago, I kind of threw up my hands and walked a way for awhile. At the same time, my daughter started to learn the violin and her teacher provided me some accompianing sheet music, so I basically stopped practicing my pieces for a few weeks and played around with that.

I think that taking a break from pieces is probably a good thing, though today’s practice was super rough. However, at least I felt energized again to play which was a nice change. I’m also going to try to be more dedicated in my repertoirie practice method, giving myself only one play through on a day and then laser focusing on the most problematic section of the piece on that day. I’m also going to start keeping this journal in the hopes that review will let me see progress or lack there of.

Does anyone else have any other tips for getting pieces over the finish line?

Chopin Waltz in B Minor

This one is the most frustrating to me in that I felt like was so close a few weeks back and now am backsliding. Today, the big issue was the simple ending on the 1st section that I’ve played a million times before but today my fingers just weren’t getting it. However, there were a ton of other simple finger slips, etc. But I did my best to to laser focus on that turn around and felt like I was getting my muscle memory back by the end of the session.

Satie Gymopedie No. 1

This one is actualy going pretty good, I was pretty happy with the overall pacing and playing here. Had one mistake where I forgot the chord in that final runup to the end, but my guess sounded okay.

Mozart Sonata in C Major, K545 - Second Movement

Ah, this is a piece I have a bit of history with. This was the last piece I worked on when I was a sullen teenager of 17. It was to be my final recital piece for the year. For some reason, I just refused to practice it and somehow felt I would be able to fake my way through it. Let’s just say I was definitely wrong and the recital was a complete disaster. It was basically the end of my piano playing youth. I decided it might be a nice time to revisit it. I’m not a huge fan of the first movement, though I should work on it too, but I love the second and decided to tackle it first.

Overall I was pretty happy with today’s practice, most of my efforts are going to be on the first half of the third section, which I feel is pretty close.

From Nathan's Nirvana to a New Lost in OK

nathan@lostinok.com (Nathan Lorenz) — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A personal website has just been a thing I’ve never been able to let go of. I’ve been horrible about updating them, but I’ve always kept a site around. As such, I realized recently that I’ve had a website continuously for almost 30 years. I got my first website around 1995 or 1996 when I headed off to college. Let’s just say, none of us knew what we were doing. We coded our sites from hand and filled them with every animated gif we could find and no background image was too busy. The flaming logo still remains my personal favorite touch on my websites.

After college, the website transferred over to radicalwacko.com, a domain name that I certainly never could live up to and eventually it transitioned into lostinok.com. During that same time, the technology transitioned as well from my early home built blogs with ASP code and Access databases and eventually landing on WordPress like everyone else.

At the same time I started hopping from social network to social network, from Friendster to MySpace to Facebook to Twitter and on and on. And I’ve seen them all collapse and morph and merge taking my content with them with the implode, merge or morph.

About a year ago, when I broke my leg, I got the urge to start blogging again. I logged into the Wordpress backend and spent quite a bit of time patching and updating it and getting it ready to start. This is not a slight against Wordpress at all, but a blogging platform it really isn’t any more. It’s an amazingly in-depth and powerful CMS, but if you just want to keep a personal blog that you can easily edit and adapt it really isn’t any more. I got frustrated with it and with how slow my site was running under it and basically I threw up my hands and gave up.

I’ve recently started working through a bunch of old pictures and wanted a place to post them and realized that I’m pretty much out of photo sharing sites that I love or have confidence in their long term viability. So I started investigating other options when I came across the somewhat niche market of static website generators. Much like NoSql databases took a few niceties of the relational database and applied it to the previous flat file technology to make something new and exciting, static site generators take some basic CMS concepts and markdown formatting and apply it to make an easy way to generate plain HTML websites quickly and easily. I’ve settled on Hugo and while that could be a disastrous choices, the nice thing about the current state of the static site generator is that all of them make it pretty easy to transition between them if I have made the wrong choice. Or at least I hope so. There is a still a lot of old content with broken links to dead services that needs to be fixed or deleted, but I’m happy with where the site is now.

Also big thanks to Carl Schwan for showing me an easy way to do commenting with Mastodon.

I won’t make any promises that I’m going to be posting all the time, I’ve already broken those too many times. However, I can at least feel good that I have a place to post a thought or two should one arise.

Gallery of My Many Websites

Off My Feet, Back to Blogging?

nathan@lostinok.com (Nathan Lorenz) — Sun, 15 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

So Christmas this year was a bit more eventful that we had planned. It started as expected, with an excited five year old getting out of bed well before dawn and shrieking with joy when she discovered her milk, cookies, and carrots had all been consumed by Santa and his helpers. Coffee was made for the bleary eyed parents and the opening of presents was comensed and finished by 7:30 AM.

For once, I decided to be a considerate human and rounded up all the wrapping paper trash and took it out to our trash cans. As I was stepping down a small embankment to get to my trash cans, my right leg slipped out in front of me in the snow and my back leg folded up behind me in ways I instantly knew was wrong. I called my wife to come out and she pointed out my I was bleeding from my ankle, so yeah, compound fracture at that.

Thankfully, the Fire Department picked me up in no time flat and by 8 AM I was in the emergency room. X-rays showed that I had broken my tibia down at the ankle joint s well as my fibula up closer to my knee. By 11 AM I was being rolled into surgery, with a slight worry that my surgeon my be a bit annoyed at being brought in on Christmas Day. However, the surgery went well after a couple of days, I was sent home to start what would be a long recovery . . .

Thankfully, so far things have gone well and I’m out of my cast and into a much more comfortable walking boot. But I still have atleast another month of being non-weight bearing and even then it will take several more weeks before I will be really starting to get around. So my view has gotten a bit smaller than it used to be and I’ve got more downtime than I’m used to. So far I’m filling it with a bunch of long ignored home paperwork, guitar lessons and playing in my new group, the Broken Leg Band.

However, one thing I haven’t done in ages is any sort of writing. I was reviewing the blog and realized I kind of dropped the whole travelogue series years before we came off the road. So I’m going to try to start reviving some posts capturing some of the highlights of our five years on the road. I know the site needs some serious design updates as well. In any case, I’m hoping a little reminicing will help change this view . . .

into this . . .

A Good Lesson

nathan@lostinok.com (Nathan Lorenz) — Sun, 07 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

The Oatmeal has published a fantastic lesson for us all . . .

h/t Daring Fireball

Feces Physics

nathan@lostinok.com (Nathan Lorenz) — Sat, 06 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Scientific American has now asked and answered the questions you were either to afraid to ask or never wanted to know. How fast is the bowel movement of an elephant and how does that compare, to say, a dog? Which species produce “floaters” and which “sinkers”?

A true gem from the article, “The Physicics of Poop”:

Together, this meant that defecation duration is constant across many animal species – around 12 seconds (plus or minus 7 seconds) – even though the volume varies greatly. Assuming a bell curve distribution, 66 percent of animals take between 5 and 19 seconds to defecate. It’s a surprisingly small range, given that elephant feces have a volume of 20 liters, nearly a thousand times more than a dog’s, at 10 milliliters.

Now that’s good math.

Code Reviews

nathan@lostinok.com (Nathan Lorenz) — Fri, 05 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I know I’ve had this exact feeling other’s people code but surely no one has ever felt that way about mine. ;)

via: xkcd

I Think I'm Over Twitter

nathan@lostinok.com (Nathan Lorenz) — Fri, 05 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

For the last several years, I, like almost all of my nerd brethren, have set aside their blogs and moved their rants, raves, quips and puns over to Twitter. When I first moved over to Twitter, I fell in love with the novelty of the 140 character limit. It felt like a Hemingway master class in brevity. It forced me to refine my thoughts and to make them punchy.

However, unlike Hemingway, Twitter discourages nuance and subtlety. Because the entire thought must be limited mostly to one sentence, you are rewarded for brutal simplicity. I’m coming to the realization that nuance and subtlety are ignored of at our own peril. Personally, I want to take a bit more time to work out my thoughts even if no one sees them.

So I’m going to come back here to the blog more frequently. I don’t know exactly what I’m going to write about, but I’m going to enjoy the freedom of the occasional run on sentence.

Marfa, Texas

nathan@lostinok.com (Nathan Lorenz) — Sun, 30 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Marfa was nothing short than a complete surprise. When I was last out in this country, Marfa was still unknown as the art community it had already become. To us, it was a small county seat out in the high desert, just one of those places to pass through to get down to the glories of Big Bend National Park. In fact, in the half dozen times I went to Big Bend in my youth, we never even went through there.

Pure Joy Marfa.

We spent three weeks in Marfa, a town even today of only 1,800 people, and left not feeling like we even scratched the surface of this unusual place. And while I’m sure that there are those that will say that we’ve come too late to see the “true Marfa," I’m glad we came here and saw what we could.

While I loved our stay in Austin, heading out west was the perfect antidote for the traffic and noise of the city. We made good miles the first day stopping off in Del Rio for the night. We finally initiated ourselves into the Walmart boondocking experience. While maybe not the most glamorous of initiation rituals, it felt like an important milestone on our path to being true nomads of the American highway.

Walmart Boondocking in Del Rio, Texas.

The next day, the land really started opened up as we climbed into the high desert. Open horizons always bring a smile to my lips and a lightness to my heart. I’m not a complete anti-social curmudgeon (or I don’t think so at least), but sparsely populated landscapes are the places of my dreams. I think it’s because it makes contact with people a more special, precious encounter. As an example, you really know you are in West Texas when you start noticing that drivers start giving that casual, two fingers off the steering wheel salute as you pass by. A small acknowledgment of the rarity of the encounter.

After a long but beautiful day of driving down US-90, we passed through the big city that is Alpine, Texas (population 6,054). We crossed through the pass and dropped down to the wide plateau upon which Marfa sits.

Marfa Water Tower

A few geographic facts about Marfa to help you get your bearings. Marfa is the county seat of Presidio County, which covers the East side of the small southern protrusion of Texas that is the Big Bend. While smaller than it’s expansive neighbor to the East, Brewster County, Presido County covers an expansive 3,856 square miles while only having a total population of 6,800 people. That’s two people for square mile in a land area larger than the state of Delaware. If you wish to catch a commercial flight to Marfa, your best bet is to fly into either El Paso or Midland, both about 200 miles away. All of this is to say that you are a long, long way from just about everything.

Marfa sits in high desert at 4,600 feet on the North side of Presidio County. For most of its history, the town’s fortunes were made by its proximity to the railroad that passes through town to all points east and west and was a gathering spot for the massive cattle ranches that surround the area. During WWII, a large Army airfield was erected in town provided training facilities to thousands of young pilots. However, after the war and the closing of the base, the fortunes of the town seemed to be on the wain. Except for being the set for the movie Giant in 1956 and being the home of the illusive Marfa Lights, Marfa seemed like it was on the way back to obscurity.

Prada Marfa

In 1971, the minimalist artist Donald Judd moved to Marfa and began acquiring land including a great many of the old Army base hangers and barracks in which he began installing his unique sculptures. Along the way, he started inviting artists to join him to build their own installations at the site. Thus began the rapid conversion of Marfa from cattle railroad town to the artist Mecca that it is today. Today, Marfa hosts about 20 galleries and museums and a dozen or so restaurants in a town size that normally would struggle to support a single eatery.

Tumble In RV Park

We settled into town at the super minimalist but way cool Tumble-In RV Park on the east side of town. With it’s iconic neon sign and wide open skies, it was a fantastic home base in which to wind down after a busy day of exploring.

Good Advise

If you are coming to Marfa with a limited amount of time, one thing to note is that you need to make sure to come on or after Thursday. While Marfa has definitely grown into a tourism and art community, it retains the quirk that most businesses generally don’t open their doors to the public on Thursday and close up on Sunday for the rest of the week. For us, this quirk was perfect, allowing us to explore the streets of the town at our leisure after work. However, for the non-nomad, you might find this strange work week frustrating if you have somewhere else to go.

Once Thursday rolls around though, there is so much to do. You can spend several hours just roaming up the main and side streets wandering in and out of galleries. There are a few little boutiques with curios, art, clothing, jewelry and leather craft. We, by nature of our housing arrangements, have to skip most of the joys of shopping, though we couldn’t pass up a hand knitted cactus.

Knitted Cactus

While we might not be up to shopping, that doesn’t mean we skimp on the dining experiences and Marfa has plenty of them. We really loved the wonderful pie from Pizza Foundation. A true must eat. For breakfast, the homemade doughnuts from Buns and Roses (yes, a florist and bakery combo) was a real treat. For a quick bite, Bad Hombres hits the spot, but do expect to be seriously razzed by the staff and you will pay extra if you are from out of town. For a more formal dining experience, the food at The Capri in the Thunderbird Hotel is quite delicious. However, the service was severely lacking during our visit. Our waiter just wandered off the job just after taking our order and never returned leaving chaos in the kitchen and a delayed service.

However, our dining goto was the famous Food Shark, now known the world over due to a visit by Beyonce. Their fresh and unique takes on both Mediterranean and Texas cuisine was delightful and delicious. While you need to try the signature Marfalafel, make sure to sample their weekly specials for some truly unique flavor combinations.

Food Shark

One of the highlights of our trip was a day long art tour by the Chinati Foundation, one of the two museums in town dedicated to showcasing the works of Donald Judd and other minimalist and contemporary artists. I have always disliked the notion in contemporary art that knowledge of the process to create the piece is necessary to the appreciation of the work. To the contrary, the work, to me, must speak for itself without knowledge of the artists intent or process.

For this reason, I found the works of Donald Judd and many of his contemporaries on the tour particularly moving. These ephemeral exhibits set permanently in the massive landscape of the high desert stood on their own as intentional human activity in contrast to the massive impact of nature that surrounds them. In particular, Judd’s massive 100 Untitled Works in Mill Aluminum, Roni Horn’s Things That Happen Again: For a Here and a There and Ilya Kabakov’s School No. 6, 1993 were favorites. The latter was such a moving treatise on the vagaries of memories both remembered and forgotten that I haven’t gotten it out my head yet.

School No. 6, 1993

We happened to be in Marfa for Valentine’s Day which gave us a truly unique way to celebrate. The almost ghost town of Valentine is about 30 miles to the Northwest of Marfa. It hosts an annual romantic, post-apocalyptic dance party called Valentine’s Day in Valentine, sponsored by the area brewer, Big Bend Brewing Company. It was a freezing cold night, but the venue had placed out large fire pits to warm yourselves between dancing and beer drinking. The lead act was three time Grammy winners, Little Joe y La Familia. Because Valentine’s Day fell during the middle of the week and the temps were in the 40s, the crowd was rather small and heavily filled with locals which was a fantastic way to see this act.

We did meet Casey and Jill, who have started making the event an annual trip. They too are dreaming of getting an RV and hitting the road and it was fun to share stories and dreams. They became our first non-familial house guests when we offered them a place to break from the cold since they were camped up in the Davis Mountains, where it was to fall well below freezing.

Valentine's Day in Valentine

We also made a couple of wonderful day trips during our stay in Marfa. The first was down to Presidio, right on the border by way of the Pinto Canyon Road. This was a beautiful but bumpy ride down a dirt road surrounding by astounding desert mountain landscapes and complete solitude.

Pinto Canyon Road

We also made a trip up to Fort Davis and to the McDonald Observatory for one of their Star Parties. For public radio aficionados, you’ll recognize that name as the creators of the long running StarDate. This was a real highlight of the trip. Not only do you get a general introduction to the sky aided by the world’s most amazing laser pointer, you get access to about a dozen telescopes including a massive 24 inch model through which you get to see wonders such as the Eskimo and Orion nebulas. It’s another not to miss in our book.

McDonald Observatory

As you can see, it was a whirlwind trip for us in Marfa. I’m glad I finally made it and that also that we made it now. Admittedly this is my first time here, but Marfa feels like it is in a rapid transition from quirky and weird art community to something far more established, maybe a Mad Max version of Santa Fe. I think it’s safe to say we will be back through here someday and it will be fascinating to see what has happened to the rail stop town in the middle of nowhere that has created an art movement.

Food shark

Good advise

Knitted cactus

Marfa memories

Marfa water tower

MC donald observatory

Pinto canyon road

Prada marfa

Pure joy marfa

Schoo no6 1993

Survelience blimp

Tumble in rvpark

Valentinesin valentine

Walmart boondocking

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Austin, Texas

nathan@lostinok.com (Nathan Lorenz) — Fri, 28 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Off to the big city in the Airstream. I’m more of the wilderness type and Grace is definitely more the city girl so we try to mix it up with our travel locations. However, Austin is definitely a location we can both agree on.

McKinney Falls Campsite

The curse of the urban RV visit is that locations to stay in tend to be both over priced and over crowded. Thankfully, Austin provides a welcome alternative in McKinney Falls State Park. Just a few miles from downtown Austin, this amazingly expansive state park offers beautiful and enormous spots with lots of trails and incredible quantities of wildlife for essentially being in an urban setting. With the exception of the inevitible college kid party on the weekend (this is hook’em horn country after all) this place was a wonderful quiet home base for exploring the city. It also gave us a chance to have our first campfire since we’ve been on the road. Can’t believe it took us this long!

We aren’t the perfect demographic for a city like Austin. We tend to go to bed too early for things to heat up on 6th Street. However, that doesn’t stop us from enjoying many of the other charms of the city, including the food. While Austin is full of many excellent brick and mortar restaurants, it’s especially famous for it’s food trucks. We were big fans of The Lucky Belly at The Thicket and The Mighty Cone at The Picnic.

The Thicket Food Truck Park

The Mighty Cone

La Belle Shipwreck at the Bullock Texas State History Museum

We also had an informative morning at The Bullock Texas State History Museum exploring both the glorious and darker parts of the history of the Lone Star State. We even found a few exhibits that reference relatives of Grace! Does that make us honorary Texans?

Onion Creek Dog Park

Sometimes cities can be a bit tough for nomadic dog owners. Austin on the other hand is a dog owner’s paradise. The city is full of massive dog parks to let your pup run free. Our favorite was the Onion Creek District Park. This massive greenbelt features miles of creekside trails plus huge fields for your dog to run and play.

Rose Sink @ Glass River Design

Glass Sculpture @ Glass River Design

While we spent most of our two weeks in the city proper, we did make one day trip out to Saledo, just to the north of Austin where our Aunt Melissa and Uncle Joe run the amazing Glass River Design glass studio. They make some absolutely stunning glass work and they love to teach people about their craft as well!

Austin Opera

While we didn’t make it out to the bars on 6th Street, we did at least get a little music entertainment. On the night before we were leaving town, we made to the Austin Opera for a fun performance of Donizetti’s “The Daughter of the Regiment”. It was a great send off from the big city.

McKinney Falls State Park

nathan@lostinok.com (Nathan Lorenz) — Thu, 02 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Urban RV camping can be a disappointing experience. Crowded sites, parking lot aesthetics, bright lighting, and really, all of the things that can ruin a sense of home. Thankfully, when visiting Austin, you have another option with McKinney Falls State Park. Only ten miles from downtown Austin, this relatively spacious park makes for a perfect home base when visiting the city of weird.

The spots are absolutely enormous with wooded separation between each site and plenty of land to spread out and enjoy the evenings. The sites come with a picnic table, fire ring with grate and a lantern pole. The sites are relatively level and paved. All sites have water and electric connections, but no sewer connections. However, the dump station is large and convenient.

The bathroom facilities are little worn with frequent use. However, they are kept relatively clean considering the amount of traffic. Water pressure is adequate with good access to warm water.

The park provides a large number of extremely beautiful hiking trails with ample wildlife spotting opportunities. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered as many deer in one park as I have here, including several bucks. Plenty of birds are also to be found. One night along the river banks, I came across a huge colony of roosting egrets. Quite a sight. The falls themselves are also quite pretty, I personally liked the upper falls the best.

Now for the downside, although this isn’t really something the park can do much to correct. First, you are in Austin, a college town. You should expect to get some people looking to party in the campsites during the weekends. We did on both weekends we were there. However, during the week the park really empties out and you really get a sense of refuge from the bustling city near by. Secondly, during the days on the weekends, the park is quite popular with locals. This can lead to long lines at the park entrance. They often times will wave people with entrance passes around the line, but not always.

One last note, the gates to the park are locked every night at 10:00 PM. However, they will give you the code to the gate if you want to return after hours. It changes weekly, but a park ranger will bring you the new code on the day of the change.

4 out of 5 stars

On The Road Again, Dallas and Beaumont

nathan@lostinok.com (Nathan Lorenz) — Sun, 19 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

So, we are finally on the road again and it feels great. We needed some time in Oklahoma to get our affairs in order and to spend much wanted time with friends and family. However, we were certainly ready to get back out on this new adventure of ours.

Sunset at home on the road

We started off our journey with a quick jaunt down to Dallas for a business meeting with a client. It’s a new experience hauling one’s house around for business meetings and a quite pleasant one at that. There’s something nice about being with family at home after business meetings in a strange city. We didn’t really get to spend much time poking around, but we’ve spent more than enough time in the big D and we were ready to hit the road.

Our first stop was just outside of Beaumont at Village Creek State Park. Grace was here to do some genealogy research in Beaumont and the surrounding area. Unfortunately, we were only here for a week, so I didn’t get to see much of the area, but we did make sure to squeeze in a few adventures together.

In The Bayou

The park itself was a real treat. Quiet, secluded and with lots of trails to explore. This was the first time Magda and I have had a chance to do some real hiking together and while she was a little intimidated by the sounds and smells of the swamp (I don’t entirely blame her), she was a real trooper.

On the Trail

We also made sure to make it out to get some Cajun food, something not to be missed in these parts. However, I’m not sure if the zombie gator is the best advertising for a restaurant.

Zombie Gator

Foggy Beach

On our last day in the area, we did finally make it out the coast. Hoping for some nice views, we ended up being surrounded by fog. That said, the smell and sound of the sea was well worth the trip.

This was a very quick trip and we definitely felt that. The next day we headed out to Austin for a longer stay which will hopefully feel a bit more complete.

Village Creek State Park

nathan@lostinok.com (Nathan Lorenz) — Sun, 19 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Campsite at Villiage Creek State Park

We spent a week at this delightful small park on the outskirts of Beaumont, Texas in the suburb of Lumberton. While much of the park was severely damaged by recent flooding, great steps have been made in restoring the park and all of the electric/water spots are open. However, the walk-in tent spots are currently closed.

The spots that are available are a little closer together than you will find in most state parks, but some are separated by thick growth and trees that provide a good deal of privacy. The spots are packed gravel and relatively level. They all come with a picnic table, benches, fire pit and raised tent platform.

Facilties are in good shape and well cared for. There is Wi-Fi in the park, however, it’s extremely slow (around 128kbps) so don’t rely on it for anything substantial.

A Choice . . .

The park has some wonderful trails through some primoridal bayou country. While you won’t get any great vistas, it’s quite peacful and beautiful land. However, don’t forget this is lowland to be sure, if it rains, the trails can get quite messy quickly, especially with the tracks from the repair vehicles. Be prepared for some messy shoes.

Muddy Walk

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

On Being Stationary

nathan@lostinok.com (Nathan Lorenz) — Thu, 12 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

After the somewhat frantic out and back travel we did for the first three months in the Airstream, we were ready for a break. While we were enjoying the sights, having to head out to a location for only a week or two before heading back to Oklahoma was getting a little tiring. Since we had the holidays coming up plus the kids’ birthdays, we decided to stop traveling for the year in the middle of October.

We settled into a nice little place in Luther, Oklahoma just a few miles from my parents. It was really nice to be settled in one place for a bit to get our bearings and really get used to this tiny house living.

Having a tiny house has some really awesome advantages. For example, doing a complete deep clean of the entire house, including moping, dusting and scrubbing of all the cabinets takes about 45 minutes. We are still really enjoy having so much less stuff in our life. It really is liberating.

It’s safe to say we are both loving our little Airstream, but I would be kidding if there weren’t challenges to living in 200 square feet.

We really haven’t been stepping on each other’s toes too much. However, it’s easy to feel like the walls are closing in, especially in the colder season when being outside isn’t a particularly appetizing proposition. Additionally, that cold weather has forced us to change how we use the trailer’s systems, namely the water systems.

Getting Chilly

One of the rules that many say about living in an RV is that it can’t be camping. This is our home and it needs to feel as comfortable as possible. The discomfort I might put up with for a backpacking trip for a week or two will get old if it’s my daily experience. When it gets really cold, with our exposed underbelly and thin walls, we are forced to drain the water tanks and live a pretty spartan existence. Suddenly, we start feeling like we are living in an aluminum tent and it can be a little stressful.

At the In-Law’s Place

That said, having a house on wheels has had some amazing perks as well. The best of which has been our ability to spend some time with our niece and nephews at their house. My in-laws have about eight acres of land and offered us spot on their lawn. It was fantastic to be house guests without feeling like we were being long-term pests. (At least, we hope it felt that way for my in-laws). Having the kids come over for little backyard adventures was fun for both them and us!

Avery Loves Magda

With that said, we’ve both been feeling restless feet for the last month or so. We’ve been planning and dreaming about getting back out on the road. We are heading south into Texas for a little exploration of the Lone Star State. Grace is looking forward to doing some on-site genealogy of some Texas ancestors. I’m looking forward to some wide open vistas and desert sunsets. And both of us are looking forward to being out on the road for a few months and stretching our traveling legs.

On the Road

Travel Catchup Post

nathan@lostinok.com (Nathan Lorenz) — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Falling behind is always my terror in blogging. I’ll get busy, things come up and the next thing I know you I’m a couple of months behind on posts. I then feel overwhelmed with the amount of writing I have to do to get caught up mixed with guilt of not doing what I need to do. Then I just give up …

Well, I don’t want to give up so soon, so in this case I’m going to have to make a compromise to keep this thing going. So here are inadequate but necessary catch-up posts of our travels from the end of this year. I’ll try to be better going forward.

Grand Tetons & Yellowstone

This was our big trip of the year and our first attempt at extended boondocking. We started off with a week in far eastern Idaho, in the small town of Victor, just over the range from Jackson, Wyoming. It was a great place to stop and get our bearings. I was really amazed at eastern Idaho, with its mile after mile of rolling fields of wheat and scattered potato farms. It reminded me more of Kansas than the rugged far west.

Victor was a very cute little town where not much was happening, which made it perfect. They have a nice main street with a few stores and restaurants to support the limited tourism trade on this side of the Tetons. It feels mostly like a bedroom community for the people who work in Jackson but couldn’t possibly afford the real estate prices just west over the range.

Cycling Near Driggs, Idaho

The town supports a fantastic, and for a guy who hasn’t been riding much, wonderfully flat, 7 1/2 mile bicycle trail between itself and neighboring Driggs. It’s a nice ride that lets you marvel at the Tetons without the traffic in the park. Additionally, it takes you by the most Idaho named drive-in possible, The Spud!

The Spud Drive-In

We also started doing our explorations of the Teton and Yellowstone parks. This was both amazing and in it’s own way upsetting. You don’t realize how big these places are when you are traveling out here. Once here, we suddenly realized how much time it would take to really explore these places and how limited our time was for our visit.

This is one of the early frustrations we are having on our travels. Due to some obligations back in OKC right now, we have to take short out and back trips which makes our stays seem more rushed and more like a working vacation than a working adventure. We will both be glad to have some longer stints in areas to get a chance to dig a little deeper into the places we visit.

On our first day of exploration, we certainly hit the wildlife jackpot. In one stop at Blacktail Ponds at dusk, we spotted within about a three-minute window: mule deer, a massive elk herd, moose and a red fox. Plus we were presented with an astounding sunset over the mountains.

Sunset at Blacktail Ponds, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

The next week, we crossed over into the Wyoming side of the Teton, snagging an amazing boondocking spot at the aptly named Upper Teton View. You can read our in-depth review here. It was sometimes hard to work with this view presenting itself.

My mother joined us for a week and a half for this part of our trip which allowed Grace and her to do some exploration during the week while I worked. This was also our first test of our ability to do long-term boondocking. Overall we did well, though we did run out of drinking water on one day and were forced to run to the dump station a few days before we moved out. Once we have the composting toilet installed, I think long-term stays will become much easier.

My mother and I had a really nice long photo trek through Yellowstone on Labor Day weekend. Yellowstone really wasn’t as packed as I would have expected, but there certainly were a lot of people around. The best part of the exploration was getting to West Thumb right before dawn. The place was almost completely deserted except for a couple of intrepid photographers there to capture the golden dawn light.

Dawn at the West Thumb Geyser Basin, Yellowstone, Wyoming

As we were tramping around, we kept hearing nearby bellowing from a male elk. All of the sudden, two females came galloping at full tilt through the geysers followed in close pursuit by a male, in pursuit of a mate. These are the moments I think I most look forward to having on our trips. The sites are great, but this was a moment that was purely mine, a trapped memory to keep and revisit.

We capped off our trip with a dawn visit to Old Faithful and the surrounding geyser basin on Labor Day. While it was cloudy and gloomy, the lack of crowds made for a wonderful way to see this generally packed site. Actually, the surrounding basin was maybe even more amazing than the grand event. Mordor jokes seems appropriate in this land of steam and sulfur …

Old Faithful Geyser Basin, Yellowstone, Wyoming

It was too short of a visit, but a nice introduction to an amazing place. I hope to return here again before our adventures are over …

Hot Springs & Eureka Springs

The plan has been to spend the fall and holiday season back in Oklahoma, not only to be close to friends and family, but also to give us some time to finish some trailer projects and to better organize the trailer based upon what we’ve learned. However, we’ve already learned that the Airstream can struggle in really warm weather, so we planned a very short two-week trip up into the Ozarks of Arkansas with the hope that the slightly higher altitude and tree cover might make it slightly cooler than central Oklahoma. It was a theory anyway …

We started off in Hot Springs, which is an astoundingly odd National Park being that it’s a park that is really mostly a city with grand 19th century boulevards and amazing turn of the century architecture in the grand bath houses.

Quapaw Baths, Hot Springs, Arkansas

The whole place has an amazingly weird feel to it with old-fashioned tourist trap shops (magic stores, houses of wax, t-shirt shops specializing in vulgar clothing, etc.) along with the old architecture including crumbling 15 story former grand hotels and with amazing levels of extreme poverty as well. Not sure exactly what to make of the place. Maybe best described as an interesting combination of contradictions.

We did make sure to get a bath. Not sure it cured me of any particular ailments, but it was certainly a relaxing experience.

We then moved over to Eureka Springs for a week. A far more prosperous tourism community which felt almost artificial in some ways after the grittier Hot Springs.

Eureka Springs, Arkansas

However, it was a nice way to finish out our big travels for the year. We had some great photo walks through town and generally enjoying some last moments on the road.

You can see the full gallery of Yellowstone photos here. And a small gallery from Hot Springs / Eureka Springs here.

Upper Teton View

nathan@lostinok.com (Nathan Lorenz) — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This is the sort of spot you dream about when you start thinking about RV travel. Admittedly, it’s not a secret, but with plenty of room for everyone, this is a spot not to be missed. And even though you won’t be alone, compared to many of the other campgrounds in the Grand Teton/Yellowstone area, you will feel like you are truely in wilderness.

Access is fairly straightforward for most sized rigs, though there are a couple of blind turns and a few spots where two rigs passing would be difficult. If you have a tow vehicle, I would recommend sending the second vehicle up to the top to hold traffic. That said, we never had a problem on the four times we took the trailer along the road. Traffic is generally very light.

The main plateau is just off the top of the hill, take the first turn off on the left. There are a ton of spots, most with good views. However, the really premium views are the four spots right on the west rim of the plateau. However, I would take any of them and be happy. All of the main spots are fairly level and there is plenty of room to maneuver and turn around.

If you can’t find a spot on the plateau, there are tons of little places tucked off to the sides of the forest road further up the road. There are lots of opportunities, especially for smaller rigs.

There are plenty of exploring opportunities around the area, if you can tear yourself from the view. You should definitely be bear aware up here but we never saw any signs of bears in the area. If you are in a tent, there are bear boxes available on the plateau.

Cell phone coverage is strong, but bandwidth can be limited especially during the day. Probably a lot of Instagram photos being uploaded nearby.

The spot is extremely conveniently located. It’s a short 30 minute drive into Jackson and about 15 minutes to Moose. If you are looking for a place to explore the Teton Region from, this is it.

5 out of 5 stars.

Map and Details Here

I Hope I Am Wrong

nathan@lostinok.com (Nathan Lorenz) — Thu, 10 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been years since I last set down to write anything long form that’s remotely political, in fact 2008, if my search is correct. In some ways, I can hardly recognize that passionately pedantic punk that felt the urge to scream into the void in the hope of persuasion by shouting (though my friends might argue about that on the occasions when I have more than a couple of gins in me). I realized around that time that no one was really interested in what I was selling and that I could spend my life in a happier place by worrying about the things that I know I could change which is myself and to focus my time on those around me that I love. I know I’ve been better off for it.

However, I can’t pretend that last night wasn’t historic or momentous. I am feeling the urge to write something not in the hope of being persuasive or to change the world, but because last night was tragic in a personal and long-term way. It brought back memories and beliefs of my younger days that I don’t think I will be able to restore from this day forth and I want memorialize them somewhere.

At just before midnight last night when it was apparent what was going to happen, I had a sudden and vivid flashback to a time almost 15 years ago. One night my dear friend Iva and I got into a heated and hours long debate about the idea that the US was headed towards nationalism. As the child of citizens of the former Yugoslavia, she brought both logic and personal experience to her argument. And yet, I could not be persuaded.

I argued fervently that America was different, not because we were special as a people but that we were special in situation. A country founded purely on a set of enlightenment philosophical ideals, populated by immigrants of almost every country and religion and with a fundamental belief in pluralism couldn’t really be nationalist. Yes, I wasn’t naïve enough to ignore our history of racial hatred and apartheid. Nor was I naïve enough to say that we hadn’t had a certain segment of the population that subscribed to nativist and ethnic nationalist ideals; I was already quite familiar with Pat Buchanan. However, I was unable to believe that as a young country with a complete lack of common ethnic, religious and cultural history that we could really ever become nationalists. On that, I was wrong.

Last night I watched my country subscribe to a political philosophy that has destroyed the entirety of Europe twice in the 20th century. Last night I watched my country subscribe to a political philosophy that has left piles of corpses, broken bodies and weeping widows around the entire globe. Last night I watched my country subscribe to a political philosophy that throws away the enlightenment in pursuit of a philosophy that bestows rights and privileges upon its subjects on the basis of their religion, ethnicity and the coincidence of the geography of their birth. Last night I watched my country scream an incoherent cry of rage at people who are now to be labeled as the other, as the not-quite-human, as the enemy. Last night I saw the ideals that has made me love my country abandoned, maybe forever. Last night I saw no better angels of our nature. But I hope that I am wrong.

Now I am left to put my trust in our political machinery to temper and restrain the normal products of the adoption of nationalism. As a life long libertarian, that trust isn’t very sturdy in my mind. I don’t see how a party unified in its abhorrence of intellectualism can be trusted to uphold the abstract ideals of classical liberalism. I don’t see how a state equipped with an entire legion of well armed militarized police can be trusted to defend the people against authoritarianism. I don’t see how a country divided at a moment of incredible prosperity and peace can heal itself under the strain of the chaos in front of us. But I hope I am wrong.

Now, I must go back to my quiet life. I can’t go back to screaming into the void. I can’t see the point and I don’t have the strength or will to do it. I must go back to trying to see the best in everyone I meet. I must go believing that people are fundamentally good both as individuals and in society. I must start hoping I’m wrong.