Capn's Blog

[CapnAwesome]

Capn's blog, stardate 2010-2012

At age 26, I came to a revelation, you could do anything you wanted with your life. So I became me.

It seems like an obvious thing to say, in fact it's almost a steriotypical platitude at this point, to say that you can be whatever you want. It's strange when you ask a kid what they want to be when they grow up, the real question is "How do you want to sell your labor"

What I wanted to do with my life had nothing to do with working. I wanted to be an adventurer, an explorer, someone who saw and experienced as much as possible before they left this mortal coil.

That was not how I had been living previously. I had been living in Ellensburg, Wa, with post College blues and a useless liberal arts degree and a job I hated. So I came up with a plan, or maybe one just happened for me. I flew to Alaska.

There I worked in a fish processing plant and saved up money, I also was exposed to a new kind of person. The aimless traveler, people who weren't so concerned about work goals, but rather seeing the world. I met a dutch man who had biked there from southern Argentina, I teamed up with a communist named Bo and hitched around the state, my first hitching trip. I went to a random bluegrass festival put on by the hells angels.

This random traveling though, it wasn't going to be what I was going to do when I got back to the mainland. No, I had focus, and that focus was rock climbing.

When I flew home, I packed all my possessions into my ford bronco, gave away the rest to goodwill and drove down to Smith Rock in Oregon. I was going to live in the park, climb as much as possible and eventually find a job in Bend.

Life sometimes has other plans for you. Two things happened. One, the great recession. It became impossible to find a job in Bend. Instead I applied and started collecting unemployment, a surprisingly large amount of money when you are living out of a truck.

Two, my truck broke down.

It wasn't a hinderence. Emboldened by my Alaska experience, I packed all my climbing gear and a tent into a backpack, sold or gave away the rest, and hitchhiked to Bishop, CA. Another rock climbing mecca.

What I was doing, I discovered, was not an original idea. Rock Climbers had a long tradition of living on the road, spending no money and just climbing all the time. I met dozens of people like me that year. We call ourselves dirtbags.

I made that unemployment money last for the next two years. I adventured, climbing area to climbing area. I met friends and lovers along the way. Hitched to Mexico with a girlfriend, left her for another down there. Eventually my money ran low. I had dirtbagged my way through the recession. I was hardly the onlyone.

But that's where the secret to staying on the road comes in, seasonal work. There is more seasonal work than there are seasonal workers. A couple of months of work could keep me going for the next year, especially with the iron financial discipline I had developed. I did, on a west coast climbing circuit. Then one fateful day in 2012 a friend of mine, in a place called "hippy camp" in Squamish, British Columbia, asked me if I thought it would be possible to hitchhike to Argentina from the U.S.

"Sure" I said, "I bet it would be easy...."

*to be continued*

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Dirtbags in Squamish , 2010


Hitching in California, 2010


Climbing in Mexico, 2011

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Hippy Camp, 2010

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Dirtbags,
Living in the dirt, Mexico, 2011

[*Deidre*]

I think it's cool that you're not afraid of obstacles or taking risks. I'd like to be more like that. Look forward to hearing about what happened once you made it to Argentina!

Do you ever get bored when you're in a place too long, or are you settled now?

[CapnAwesome]

I think it's cool that you're not afraid of obstacles or taking risks. I'd like to be more like that. Look forward to hearing about what happened once you made it to Argentina!

Do you ever get bored when you're in a place too long, or are you settled now?

I am the opposite of settled right now. I'm trying to go north to get back to my RV. I just got back from three months in Spain, but flew to Oakland cause the flight was only 150$ Barcelona to Oakland. My RV is in eastern Washington.

I definitely get bored after being in a place for too long. Bored might be the wrong word, but more like itchy. Like I start feeling the need to move and it grows and grows and grows until I have to go. It's not being bored or dissatisfied with the place I'm at, but an existential desire to be on the move. My max seems to be around 3 or 4 months in one place. Weather has a lot to do with it too.

[*Deidre*]

So a gypsy, you are. ^_^

Sounds like a fun life but maybe with risks?

[Catholic_Lady]

So a gypsy, you are. ^_^

Sounds like a fun life but maybe with risks?

Especially if you're a woman. No way you'd be able to do that as a woman, at least not by youraelf. Rape central.

[Tiberius]

I'm upset you didn't call this "Capn's Log".

[CapnAwesome]

So a gypsy, you are. ^_^

Sounds like a fun life but maybe with risks?

Especially if you're a woman. No way you'd be able to do that as a woman, at least not by youraelf. Rape central.

I think the risks are far over exaggerated. I know lots of women on the road by themselves. Especially if you are in the rock climbing world. It's not like this is some sketchy road bum shit. It's all in the context of being surrounded by very trustworthy people. I'd even go so far as to say your risk of rape is no higher than anyone else, and for girls on the road in the climber world who live in a van, less.

I heard of a woman who traveled to south america via land by herself. I did it with a military vet who did two tours in Afghanistan and grew up in Venezuela. So there are some badass fearless chicas put there

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I'm upset you didn't call this "Capn's Log".

It's a play on that.

[Catholic_Lady]

Especially if you're a woman. No way you'd be able to do that as a woman, at least not by youraelf. Rape central.

I think the risks are far over exaggerated. I know lots of women on the road by themselves. Especially if you are in the rock climbing world. It's not like this is some sketchy road bum shit. It's all in the context of being surrounded by very trustworthy people. I'd even go so far as to say your risk of rape is no higher than anyone else, and for girls on the road in the climber world who live in a van, less.

I heard of a woman who traveled to south america via land by herself. I did it with a military vet who did two tours in Afghanistan and grew up in Venezuela. So there are some badass fearless chicas put there

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I'm upset you didn't call this "Capn's Log".

It's a play on that.

But how are you with trustworthy people if you're by yourself? Lol. I dunno... sleeping in a tent out somewhere and hitchhiking doesn't seem like a safe thing for a woman to do at all. I'm not criticising it, just saying. It's cool that you're living life in a way that is fulfilling to you.

[CapnAwesome]

I think the risks are far over exaggerated. I know lots of women on the road by themselves. Especially if you are in the rock climbing world. It's not like this is some sketchy road bum shit. It's all in the context of being surrounded by very trustworthy people. I'd even go so far as to say your risk of rape is no higher than anyone else, and for girls on the road in the climber world who live in a van, less.

I heard of a woman who traveled to south america via land by herself. I did it with a military vet who did two tours in Afghanistan and grew up in Venezuela. So there are some badass fearless chicas put there

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It's a play on that.

But how are you with trustworthy people if you're by yourself? Lol. I dunno... sleeping in a tent out somewhere and hitchhiking doesn't seem like a safe thing for a woman to do at all. I'm not criticising it, just saying. It's cool that you're living life in a way that is fulfilling to you.

You aren't in a tent by yourself in the middle of nowhere. I don't know that I've ever been 'in the middle of nowhere ' 95% of the time I'm in a climbers campground. Which means you are surronded by very safe and protective people. Not only have I never been around any violence towards women in a climber campground, I've never even heard of such a thing. If someone did that to one of the lady-dirtbags, (which there are many) they'd be buried in the desert. It's a very small tight knit community where everyone knows everyone, so there is no violence, nor is there any theft. I used to leave thousands of dollars of climbing gear in my tent without a second thought. People bring their kids to these places, they literally could not be safer.

Hitchhiking is a slightly different story, although once again, I've never heard of anything bad happening to anyone. I think the stigma against hitchhiking is largely fictional and based on nothing in reality. It's amazing that people who will never hitchhike will take a cab, or get a rideshare off of craiglist, both of which seem like an easier way for someone to be predatory towards someone.

That being said, a little caution would be advisible if you were a woman alone. Like having a phone, letting people know where you are, and not getting into a cat with multiple men. But that being said I'm 99% certain you'd be fine. Also a woman alone gets rides so easily that you could only take rides from other women or people you felt 100% certain about.

On a side note, when I was hitching, I got picked up by women alone with surprising frequency. Old ladies, even a high school student. I even went on a couple of dates with girls who picked me up before.

The stigma just doesn't match the reality. I think it's mostly spread from the concept that if you don't live a conforming life, something baaaad will happen to you, but that's just not true. Definitely my life is many times safer than living in an inner city, and is for the women who live the same way as well.

[CapnAwesome]

Capn's blog, stardate 2012-13

"I bet it would be easy" I said when asked if I thought it would be possible to hitchhike to South America.

Those words actually came out of my mouth. Easy. I had actually thought about this trip before. Each year I had pushed further and further south. Joshua Tree, in Southern California, then Mexico. It didn't seem out of the question to go all the way. As far as south went.

But easy??? I don't know what possessed me to say THAT. My friend who was asking was Dan. Although born in America he had actually grown up in South America, in Venezuela actually, a child to religious missionaries who taught English. When Caesar Chavez came to power, they left and Dan joined the US army and did two tours in Afghanistan. Now he was an Atheist and a climbing dirtbag, disillusioned with the system. He wanted to go an explore his home continent. He had never actually left Venezuela when he had lived there.

"Well" he said, "Do you want to do it?"

Thats when it started to all come into focus. I went down to northern California in the fall, worked three weeks on marijuana farm, made two grand and decided that was good enough and hitched to Las Vegas to meet Dan. We found a ride from some friends to the North coast of Mexico and we started.

Our first ride was from an ex-pat American who remarked that he never saw 'Anglo hitchhikers' in Mexico. Then a series of locals gave us some quick rides.

We were in a tiny hamlet, when the ride came that would define the first half of our trip. The craziest hitching ride of all time. A ride where someone would literally be set on fire at one point....but I'm getting ahead of myself, we'll get to that.

I saw a ramshackle 1978 toyota RV with a licence plate that read 'peace' and a big logo that said zigzag express.

"New Hampshire" I said, reading the licence plate.

And it pulled over. We ran up.

"Where you going?" Dan asked

"We are going all the way" said a middle aged woman "to Panama! "

We hopped in "we are going to Argentina "

That's how we met Cathy and Sterling....

*to be continued*