August 26

If I were a hunter-gatherer, I would make a good wife. I have gotten pretty good at gathering. Up north of Anchorage, I gathered some blueberries from the tundra and mixed them in with my oatmeal. They were a bit tart, but good. East of Bellingham, I found some blackberries growing wild and I plucked them from their protective briars, mixing them with my morning couscous. Later, when I stopped to change my oil, I jammed the remaining berries between two slices of bread with peanut butter, and they were the best blackberries I have ever eaten. This afternoon I yanked some mint from an Oregonian farmer’s field, and tonight I boiled the leaves into my hot chocolate. Excellent.

But I have to work on my hunting. I was considering buying a BB gun with which I could kill small game for the pot. Birds, squirrels, rabbits, etc. I passed a pheasant today that I think I could’ve killed, although I would’ve had to aim for its head. I need a quiet gun because I don’t want to have to buy small game licenses in every state, and anything too loud might summon Fish & Game. But it seems wasteful to buy an air rifle just for the next few months – maybe I can provision myself whenever I next return to Georgia. Until then, I’ll rely on Squatter, who knocks the occasional bird out of the sky.

At present it would be more useful to be a mechanic than a hunter. The camper is sloshing about in my truck bed pretty badly. I had to cover about a mile of steep gravel road and ford one small creek to reach blacktop from last night’s campsite, and tonight I bumped over a couple miles of muddy Forest Service road to reach my current locale. The big bolts that hold the camper to the truck bed are faring poorly off the pavement. One is bent at such an angle that adjusting the nut is impossible; on another the threads are stripped and the nut is jammed so tightly that WD-40 can’t help. When the time comes, I will have to remove those with a hacksaw. The threads on still another bolt don’t go high enough to cinch the camper down. All I have to replace these steel bolts, if they shear, are some aluminum fasteners I bought in Haines before I picked Ben up. Someday I will have to visit an RV shop and get the camper fastened down properly – these bedpost couplings aren’t sturdy enough for long-term use. Until then, I guess I can improvise. I’ve an idea involving some wood chips that might work on the left side bolts. And, hell, the right side isn’t looking that bad . . .

In truth I am neither a mechanic, a hunter nor a gatherer. But the beauty of being alone is that I’m my only option.