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Stories from Bernie's current trip - a mule voyage from Canada to Mexico

November 26, 2006

Gifts in Transit
Fording the creek on Fire Lane #2 -Walthour Moss Foundation
Southern Pines, NC

Well, it’s been a big week at RiverEarth.com headquarters. I found a mule to pull the Lost Sea wagon.

Yes!

Her name is Polly and I’ll get into her background later because first I need to address her girth.


Mule Polly – eating…

No, not the one that holds the saddle on. I’m talking about her circumference. You see, Polly is an “easy keeper” in mule lingo. Or like my buddy Marie on the yacht mehitabel told her young daughters, “A moment on the lips, forever on the hips.” – or belly, if you’re a mule

So to that effect, I’m kicking off the “Get Fit For the Trip” campaign. Remember, you’re talking to the guy who wants to drive a mule wagon across America.

“Get Fit” means Polly now works out four days a week to turn that mid-rift pudge into mule power. But I’m from solid Swiss stock (read Empty Wagon = Sin ) so idly hauling a yellow wagon around Southern Pines seemed unproductive, if not borderline sinful.

So I thought to myself, why not put Polly to work delivering copies of my children’s book “Woody and Maggie Walk Across America”?


The children’s geography based on a 3,500-mile cross country journey.

Okay, so right here I should tell you a bit about Southern Pines, NC, or more specifically, what we call the Foundation.

The Foundation, or the Walthour Moss Foundation as it’s properly called, is the Central Park of Southern Pines. It’s comprised of way over 1000 acres of long leaf pine savannah ringed by Young’s Road on the east and May Street on the west. It’s on this sandy patch of paradise that I got Woody and Maggie fit for their cross-country journey. And now it’s Polly’s turn.

Here, I even drew a map for you. This is what Polly’s training grounds look like.


Mule Polly will deliver a “Woody and Maggie” book anywhere on this map.

The Foundation occupies the empty middle part of my sketch. Polly and I will deliver a copy of “Woody and Maggie” anywhere between Manly and Hog Island. (Hog Island really was an island until the beaver dam broke. Now it’s reverted to a swamp that’s home to the area’s finest stand of eastern white cedar. In fact, the cedars are so nice, I cut one of them down to make the mast for the eighteen-foot sailboat I built and sailed down the East Coast. But that’s another story…)

Just remember this. A dose of patience is in order if you want me to bring you a book. To give you an idea at what speed a mule travels, this morning I left Foxtrack Training Center (the green star in the map above), headed up May Street and merged onto US 1. From there I got onto Young’s Road and returned to Foxtrack. All told, it was a ten-mile trip. I know this because I drove it in my Dodge pickup.

With the ’92 Cummins blasting me along at 45 mph, it took fifteen minutes. With Polly pulling the wagon, it took 4 1/2 hours,because I met three new friends – and sold a book.


Okay, I’m ready to bring you one of Woody and Maggie’s dern books. Sure hope you live close by…

Click here for the fancy map of mule Polly’s delivery area.

So, if your house or farm is on the map and you want a copy of “Woody and Maggie” delivered by mule, call me at 695 0989. If you live this close, you’ll know the area code is 910.
(Note to mule Polly: Don’t worry, you’ll be getting a grain increase to cover local deliveries. Close to 800 copies of “Woody and Maggie” have been sold in the past two months. That’s almost half a ton of books…)

But what if you don’t live on my mud map (that’s what sailor’s call sketch maps)? Well, don’t sweat it. You can still order your copy of “Woody and Maggie” online at the RiverEarth.com General Store and Polly and I will get it to you via Priority Mail for an extra $3.95. Yes, your copy will be signed by mule Woody and me and you’ll receive it in two to three days – which may be faster than Polly and I deliver it to you on the “Get Fit For the Trip” schedule.

This


May beat this


Happy Holidays!

See you on the road.

Bernie
RiverEarth.com

Posted Sunday November 26, 2006 by Bernie
November 21, 2006

The plan for my next trip was this.

Step 1: Build a mule wagon.
Step 2: Find a mule team.
Step 3: Have the mule team drag the wagon across America.

Okay. So Steps 1 and 2 of the plan failed. I built a wagon and a bought a mule team. Both were too big.

So I built another wagon. smaller this time, much smaller – 800 pounds instead of 2360. Now all I had to do was find the mule team.


Swapping the new Lost Sea Wagon to a smaller chassis

Last weekend, my buddy Billie Stevenson told me a story that made me rethink the whole notion of setting off with a team of small mules – the size I’d set my heart on.


Billie Stevenson
Outside High Falls, NC

Billie and I were driving a mule team that belonged to Ronald Hudson on an overnight jaunt. Billie’s hands were light on the reins, his wedding band worn thin. Here was a man to be listened to.


Hands that know

As we rolled through the piney Moore County landscape, Billie told me this story.

“Me and Johnny was driving his team of mules, them little ones, when something started them and they took off across this old graveyard and they was no stoppin’ em. Johnny hauled back on the reins but about that time they was runnin’ dead scared across all them grave stones and Johnny started hollering “Whoa!!!!” but that only made ‘em run faster.”

“They was them flat tombstones and every time we run over one it throwed the wagon up in the air and that skeered them mules and they run ever harder when the wagon came back down. All of a sudden Johnny yells, “Treeee!!!!”’ and the next thing I knowed we hit it and it brought the wagon to a dead halt. Throwed Johnny clean out of the front of the wagon and them mules busted out of their harness and took off. Johnny landed next to the only upright tomb stone in the cemetery and looked up at me like he wanted to say, ‘Gawd, where’d them mules go?” but the wind was knocked out of him so bad he couldn’t say a word and it near killed him.”

Billie finished the story by adding the chassis on the mule wagon was bent so badly it had to be sent back to Pennsylvania so an Amish craftsman could straighten it.

Oh. And this is what I wanted – a team of small mules?

Then it hit me.

Maybe what I really needed was just one good mule. You know, cut back to basics.

Okay, so I’d have to forego the Roman-style chariot racing fantasy I secretly harbored – the one where, while I’m out on the South Dakota Bad Lands, I urge my team into a gallop and crawl out on the wagon tongue so I can film the procession galloping down Highway 85 for Spearfish.

No, maybe the sensible thing to do would be to buy one good mule. It made sense. After all, Ken Lee Hussey, another friend who was driving with us that day, only had one mule, Charlie, pulling his wagon. And half the time they were ahead of us.


One-mule outfit
(L to R) Ken Lee Hussey, mule Charlie, Billie Stevenson and Ethan Hussey

Later that afternoon, our two-wagon procession pulled into a small clearing on the banks of the Deep River. The wagons were unhitched, the campfire built and the mules staked out.



Billie lit his cigar.


Cigar time

As Ken Lee cooked the steaks, I played the image back – Billie and Johnny, galloping through the graveyard, bouncing ever-higher off the flat tombstones. Oh man, how I loved that story. But I loved it because it came from someone else’s mouth. I had plenty of run-away stories of my own. Mule Woody had seen to that on our 3,500 mile cross-country ride.

Suddenly, for once in my life, I craved a decent mule.

Would Polly do…?


Polly

Bernie
RiverEarth.com

Posted Tuesday November 21, 2006 by Bernie