Dorado caught aboard Bernie's sailboat Sea Bird - note Bernie's hat for scale
(Middle of the South Atlantic Ocean between Brazil, South America and Angola, Africa)
Mule Polly and the Lost Sea wagon on virgin prairie
North of Dagmar, Montana
Getting Polly legged up is really more about getting out with friends than getting her fit. Typically, three our four of us head out with our wagons and carts to visit a little-known corner of North Carolina - from bluegrass music at Ford's Bluegrass Mill in Rockingham (a mill converted to pickin' venue) to shark's teeth in Aurora.
Interesting is what a wide range of equines and vehicles gather for these informal outings. Here's a typical procession.
Vic's miniature (L) keeps up with Kenny's draft team (R)
Outside Wagram, NC
From Vic's miniature horse that weighs 200 pounds to Ken's draft team that weighs 15 times as much, somehow, they all go the distance.
Which begs the question. How much can a horse (or mule) pull?
This question was not lost on the US Army which, in a 1917 manual wrote that, "an average draft mule can pull on a level 80 lbs. (traction) at 2.5 miles an hour for 10 hours every day, or, in other words, can pull 80 lbs. over 25 miles of average level roads every day." In real terms, this meant that a team of 4 draft mules, which weighed about 4,500 pounds, could pull a loaded Army wagon, which weighed around 4,500 pounds, 25 miles per day.
Ronald Hudson's Army wagon
High Falls, NC
Okay, so that's the government engineer's answer to how much a mule can pull on a daily basis.
Another way to think of it is like this. One a firm, flat surface, a draft mule can pull its own weight 20 to 25 miles per day.
I call it the RiverEarth 1:1 rule.
This rule of thumb bears out remarkably well in real life. Last summer, mule Polly, who's a small draft mule, easily pulled her wagon 80 miles in 4 days. Polly weighs 900 pounds - the wagon about the same.
Okay, so the 1:1 rule works great for draft mules. But what about the smaller equines?
This question crossed my mind this morning as I was feeding a friend's horses breakfast. She raises miniature ponies. While they were eating, I was piddling around on the Lost Sea wagon, and in a moment of idle thought wondered, "what would a 200 pound pony look like hitched to a half-ton wagon...?"
The Lost Sea wagon
So I grabbed Jester and put him in the shafts. It looked like this.
Clearly, imagination had over run common sense and the 1917 Army manual.
Jester pointed this out to me.
"bernie. this is a clear violation of the 1:1 rule"
Which raises the question. If a wagon dwarfs a miniature horse, then just what can the critter pull?
Easy. Just remember the RiverEarth 1:1 rule. This rule scales almost as well for half-ton draft animals as it does for miniature horses that weigh 200 pounds. Okay, so you won't be able to drive a mini 25 miles per day. But hitched to a light two-wheeled cart, you can expect a fit pony to pull its own weight (and then some) 10 to 15 miles per day - a very practical distance.
That's why, when friends and I hit the road to listen to bluegrass, my view from the Lost Sea wagon looks like this.
Vic's 15 mile-per-day rig as viewed from the Lost Sea wagon
Enjoy.
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 11:01:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
The Plan was this. In 2007, I was to:
Step 1) Hitch mule Polly to the Lost Sea Expedition
Wagon in Canada
Step 2) Drive from Canada to Mexico
The Plan
We completed Step 1. In fact, we got about 600 miles through Step 2. Precisely, we made Hill City, South Dakota. Then winter struck.
In the interest of mule Polly's welfare (okay, freezing your mule's ears off sure dings your image) I returned home to North Carolina for the release of the "Too Proud to Ride a Cow" book.
Now Polly's neck has gone soft.
Really, that's what happens to mules, rednecks and roughnecks when they're unemployed. The part of their body that bears the brunt of their lifestyle goes soft while they're loafing.
Seriously. Think of the callouses on your hands. Spend lots of time shoveling ditches and you get thick pads of skin on your palms where the shovel handle goes. Same with a working mule. Lots of time in the harness thickens the skin under the collar, preventing the hide from chafing under load.
Here it is in pictures.
Here's what Polly looks like in her harness. The black leather thing around her neck is the collar. She pulls into this and it spreads the load of the wagon across the front of her shoulder. The red circle marks where the load is applied.
Collar with red oval showing the load is applied
The next photo shows Polly's shoulder without the collar on.
Smooth, uncalloused skin
Plentywood, Montana
The red oval marks where the load of pulling. I took this photograph of Polly's neck in Plentywood, Montana, in the early days of our trip - before she had time to build up a callous. See how smooth the hair on her shoulder looks? Her skin is unrippled.
Now check this out. Look at the skin in Polly's shoulder in Hill City, South Dakota, after she pulled her wagon through 4 states.
Calloused skin
Outside Hill City, SD
See the vertical wrinkles inside the red oval? That's the protective callous that formed under the load of her collar.
Neat, huh?
Then we came home and hit the "Too Proud" book tour. Trouble is, when the routine shifted from pulling the wagon to attending book signings, Polly's hard won callouses went away.
Polly cadging a book signing cookie - and losing her shoulder callous
No biggie. Polly has a second chance.
Remember how I said I didn't quite finish Polly's Canada to Mexico journey? Well, in March 2008, we plan to return to Hill City, SD to resume our journey.
One small problem. Polly needs to get her harness callous back.
There are two schools of thought on how to do this.
1)Apply Old Timey potions
2)Do Nothing
Here's the Old Timey school of thought.
This is where Tash comes in.
Tash checking in with the Lost Sea wagon
Tash is Polly's old owner. A hard core mule skinner of the Old School (he'd drive his mule team a week just to GET to a wagon train...) he swears by his own Tough Mule Neck recipe.
Secret ingredient? Vinegar
"It don't matter what brand," he says, "as long as it's apple cider vinegar. The cheap stuff works fine."
Cheap "Our Family" vinegar.
About 2 bucks at the grocery store
"What you want to do is rub some on your mule's shoulder each morning before you harness him. Last time we drove to Benson Mule Days from my house (over 60 miles), we didn't have a lick of trouble and some of the mules we took sure were green."
Tash's team
The acetic acid in vinegar supposedly toughens the skin faster than just work alone.
Another home remedy involves, well, let's just say you can brew your own by drinking lots of water, waiting two hours then applying the resulting concoction instead of vinegar.
I've never tried this method. Nor will I.
For I am a man of the Do Nothing school of thought. Well, sort of. I'll admit to carrying a bottle of secret Shoulder Toughening Sauce in my ditty bag.
Instead of marinating Polly's shoulders in vinegar (or worse) to toughen the skin, I believe in just steadily increasing her work load. To prepare her for March 2008's Lost Sea Expedition Part 2, I'll just hitch her to the wagon and drive her a bit farther each day.
In three weeks' time, she'll be ready for the bluegrass jam scheduled for February 22 in Rockingham, NC. Given decent weather, Tash and a few of our friends are planning to attend - by wagon. A round trip of about 70 miles, we'll break it down into 4 days on the road - enough to continue toughening the hide under Polly's collar but not enough to rub her raw.
We'll be bluegrass bound
High Falls, NC
I doubt Tash will be stashing a bottle of cider vinegar aboard his wagon, though. Unlike my mules, his don't go soft and lazy during book signing season.
And that secret Shoulder Toughening Sauce I carry in my catch all bag? Don't tell Tash but it's just plain old silicone mane and tail detangler. Yep, that sissy stuff you spray into a horse's mane to make combing easier. Before harnessing Polly, I just squirt some on her shoulder, where the collar goes. The silicone lets the collar slide smoothly over the hair. This keeps the collar from rubbing the hair away.
No, it doesn't toughen the skin. Yes, it makes Tash think I listened to him. He thinks it's clear vinegar.
You see, for thicker skin, time and traveling with friends is the only way to go.
Sure hope you can join Tash and the rest of us at the bluegrass pickin'.
Pickin' bound hound
(Thanks Tash, Kenny, Ken Lee, Billie, Liz and Miss Teri for helping Polly and me get Lost Sea-worthy.)
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 9:19:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
Okay, so the footballs in your eyes have faded from the six Bowl Games you watched on New Years day. January 1 seems a week away (which, gasp, it is) and The Resolution to slow down is vanishing fast on the horizon.
What you need is a sailing break, sort of a Resolution-to-Slow-Down reminder. Precisely, you need to enjoy the "Instead of Football Regatta".
Yep. Mule Polly's getting the day off and we're hoisting some canvas.
This year the "Instead of Football Regatta" in Oriental, NC, welcomed one of the largest fleets since its inception 14 years ago - over 40 sailboats.
Here's your copy
Here's the deal.
"Too Proud" will be released November 3. Since so many of you enjoyed getting a copy of the "Woody and Maggie" children's book book straight from the mule wagon (thousands have been sold now), I figured we'd do the same with "Too Proud".
That's right. Pre-order your copy of "Too Proud" between now and November 3 and Polly and I will ship you a First Edition copy straight from the Lost Sea wagon. Of course I'll sign it, and just to certify it came off my wagon, stamp it with a special stamp.
Signed just for you aboard the Lost Sea wagon
Think of your purchase as a literary dose of magic that comes straight from the hands of adventure, something lacking in all those books that start their lives being plucked off a warehouse shelf by robotic fingers.
Because it'll come off Polly's wagon, the copy of "Too Proud" that ends up in your hands will be steeped in all the adventures you've followed on RiverEarth.com, from the ones I've told you about, like Polly running away in Wyoming, to the ones I've been too embarrassed to mention, like where Polly bolted and jumped a nine-strand wire fence - with the wagon still hooked behind her.
A genuine "Oh Crap!" moment I failed to mention
Location: Top Secret
Okay, ready for a look at "Too Proud"? Click here then hang on..
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 7:38:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
In 2003 I completed a solo circumnavigation of the globe in my 34 1/2-foot steel cutter Sea Bird. The voyage began and finished in Oriental, NC. I filmed the longest offshore passage extensively and from that footage, 3-time Emmy-award winning producer Bob Collins and I created "65 Days At Sea".
Originally released in jewel case packaging, "65 Days At Sea" has been upgraded to 6-panel DigiPak and is now available in the General Store.
"65 Days At Sea"
What's it like to spend over two months on the ocean?
Reviews of "65 Days At Sea"
Cruising World magazine: "Joyful... The ebullient (Harberts) is a real hoot and a seasoned mariner."
Latitudes and Attitudes magazine: "This is great stuff!"
Good Old Boat magazine: "If you're wondering what it's like out there, (then join) this self styled madman."
In 1998 I set off with my steel ketch Sea Bird from the Oriental Town Dock on what I expected would be a two-year circumnavigation of the world. Well, it took that long just to get down to New Zealand - where I spent another year and half rebuilding my boat.
Kiwi rebuild
Whagarei, New Zealand
The voyage continued.
By Cape Town, South Africa, I decided to document this simple life aboard - to show folks what it's like to sail for weeks and months... utterly alone.
And so the idea was born. On my final 6500 non-stop passage from Cape Town, South Africa to St. Johns, US Virgin Islands, I would film what eventually became "65 Days At Sea".
In the rigging
(Will and Deni McIntyre Photo)
Here was the problem, though. I didn't have a Hollywood-sized film budget at my disposal. Heck, my sailing budget was five hundred dollars per month. How as I going to get those heart-stopping "Pirates of the Caribbean" shots?
Simple. I filmed while I was clinging halfway up the mast - one handed. The other hand handled the camera.
There was a trick to it, though, and it went like this.
To get up the mast, I first had to put on my rubber shrimp boots. Sea Bird didn't have steps screwed to her mast so getting into the rig wasn't as easy as climbing a ladder. Those white shrimp boots gave me just enough traction that, with a handful of halyards, I could haul myself hand-over-hand up the into the rigging. When I reached the spreaders, I'd reached my filming platform.
Now I could do some filming.
This wasn't easy because all the while the boat was pitching back and forth, flinging me through great aerial arcs above the sea.
The final results proved breathtaking.
"65 Days At Sea"
The inside view
Click here for the two-minute preview in the General Store. The "65 Days" DVD is at the bottom of the page.
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 3:57:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
Barefoot in Montana
Bell Tower Community, Montana
"How do you keep mule Polly shod?"
It's one of the questions I get most.
On the road, with my faithful mule standing by my side, it's just a matter of pointing at her feet and saying:
A) "I don't." (if she's barefoot)
B) "Easyboots." (if she's wearing her black boots)
In reality, though, it's way more complicated, part of a hoof-care system I developed on my last 3,500 mile journey with mule Woody across America. So in the next few RiverEarth installment, we'll talk barefoot trims, boots for barefoot horses/mules, and of course, my new book "Too Proud to Ride a Cow" (a copy of which you can still pre-order, and have shipped direct from the Lost Sea mule wagon).
Okay, let's start with Polly's boots.
Here's the problem.
Mules have narrower hooves than horses. You could describe a horse's hoof as "C" shaped whereas a mule's hoof is "U" shaped.
Mule Polly's hoof
That means the rubber hoof boots, because they're designed for horses, tend to fall off a mule's feet. (Sure, some of them come with garters. But I found these stretchy neoprene sleeves that wrap around the horse/mule's pastern soon chafed when worn for 40 to 50 hours per week - no matter how much Gold Bond or vet wrap I applied.)
To adapt the Easyboot (my brand if choice), I made shims that screwed into the side of the boot.
Step 1) Round up a 2-degree rubber wedge pad (found at the local farrier's supply). Lay it next to the boot's flat side and trace out the boot shape. Make sure the fat part of the wedge pad is at the top. This makes the shim grip better, like the tapered collet on a drill chuck.
Step 2)Cut out the wedge. Drill holes to match the existing boot hardware.
Boot shim
Step 3)Using the screws and hardware found on your EasyBoot, screw the shims to the inside of the boot. You can use the existing hardware, though you'll have to use longer machine screws. You can purchase them at your local hardware store. Remember to use stainless steel.
Boot with shims in place
That's all there is to it.
Well, that's not really true. Now that you've added the shims, your boots will be crazy-hard to get on your horse/mule's feet. Which is exactly what you want, after all. You're going for that tight, ride-from-Canada-to-Mexico fit.
That's where the 3-pound hammer comes in.
We'll talk about that next...
(Right, I was supposed to talk about the "Too Proud" book, the account of our last journey across America. For the tons of folks who've pre-ordered a copy, a hearty "Thank You!" Your copy will ship the first week of November - complete with a stamp to certify your book came off the Lost Sea wagon. For those of you who'd still like to order a copy, have a look at "Too Proud".
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 11:53:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
In the "Uneasy Rider", Charlie Daniels sings,
"I was takin' a trip out to LA
Toolin' along in my Chevrolet
Tokin' on a number and diggin' on the radio...
Just as I crossed the Mississippi line
I heard that highway start to whine
And I knew that left rear tire was about to go"
Three lines later, Charlie's tire has blown and he's limping down the shoulder on his rim, headed for the Dew Drop Inn, where, eventually, he gets his tire repaired.
Charlie Daniels would've stopped here
Stoneville Saloon, self-proclaimed home of "Cheap Drinks - Lousy Food"
Alzada, MT
Okay, so Polly and I weren't tooling along in a smoke filled Chevy when the rear tire blew. We were rolling down Battle Ax Road outside Deerfield Lake, South Dakota, when a slushy hiss announced my tire had blown. Again. For the fourth time.
Blowout #4: Rim-busting flat and patient mule
Now in Charlie's case, he just holed up at a bar, drank a beer and hid his long hair from the mechanics while they fixed his flat. In my case, I've been trying to fix my flats with tire sealant from Canada to South Dakota.
With zero success.
The problem is that Fix-a-Flat, while it might re-assure you every time it rolls out from under your driver's seat and whacks you in the heels, doesn't work well in rubber mule wagon wheels.
At best, the milky, sticky stuff you squirt into a flat tire to rejuvenate it, lets you limp a few miles to a service station where they can properly fix your flat. At worst, you pump it into your mule wagon tire, limp 20 miles across the prairie, then have the stop-gap repair fail in a milky explosion in the middle of nowhere.
Which is exactly what happened, for the fourth time, on Battle Ax Road.
So why am I even mentioning this?
Because winter's coming on.
Ice on the harness
Hill City, SD
Say what?
That's right, with winter settling over the Great Plains, I've decided to take a break in the Lost Sea Expedition, head back to North Carolina for the "Too Proud to Ride a Cow" program tour, then return to Hill City, SD, where I left off the Expedition.
Preview "Too Proud to Ride a Cow"
What does that have to do with tires, you ask?
Well, despite the inconvenience of having a flat on average of every 150 miles, I've taken to the pace of my current journey. Polly and I have covered 600 miles of Lost Sea in 6 months. That averages out to 3 miles per day.
That's intentional. I'm traveling slowly because I'm filming a documentary on the Lost Sea.
Though I've shared my journey with you on RiverEarth.com through photos and articles, I've actually spent the bulk of my time filming the Lost Sea in hi-def film. My goal? To film as thoroughly as I travel. That takes time. That means taking a break when you hear the figurative rear wheel whine. In this case, it was the onset of winter. Though holing up in a South Dakota cabin for 6 months sounds romantic, it would put a hold on filming for half a year. I'd rather visit with RiverEarth visitors at my upcoming series of North Carolina programs, school visits and book signings.
Boot-strap camera mount
Hulett, WY
After the "Too Proud" book tour wraps up, Polly and will head back to Hill City, South Dakota to resume our Lost Sea journey to Mexico.
And in the meantime?
Between now and March 2008, when Polly and I head back out on the Lost Sea, we'll be catching you up on Lost Sea travel tips that we didn't have time to cover earlier. Like how to keep Polly's rubber shoes stuck on her hooves. And how to find your mule if it ever runs off in Hulett, Wyoming area (Yes, Polly pulled another runner, the trip's fourth...).
Filming break
Alzada, MT
Charlie Daniels will understand if I head from Canada to Mexico - via North Carolina.
Stay tuned for detour updates...
Bernie
Mule Polly
Southern Pines, NC
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 12:55:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
Traveling by mule wagon across the Great Plains, under what used to be a 1000-foot deep sea, it's hard to imagine what the vanished marine inhabitants looked like. Still, given what I have on hand, one mule and some photos of a mosasaur skull, I'll try. Today, we'll look at the mosasaur's head, in particuler, the structure of its mouth.
Polly on the Lost Sea seabed
Lake Alma, Saskatchewan, Canada
To review, the mosasaur was a marine lizard that swam in the Lost Sea 80 million years ago. Its closest living relatives are snakes and the monitor lizard.
Today, we'll talk about its jaws and mouth. Polly, who just happens to be standing idly by, will be pressed into service.
Polly - today's Mouth Model
Here's what Polly's front teeth, her incisors, look like.
Polly's incisors
A typical herbivore, she sports 12 incisors in the front of her mouth - 6 upper and 6 lower. These flat teeth are designed for tearing grass (and the occasional book-signing cookie).
Okay, now let's look deeper into Polly's mouth. For this, I'll cram my camera into those teeth for a photo. Here's what the inside of Polly's mouth looks like.
Behind Polly's incisors
What's striking is how the roof of Polly's mouth is corrugated. See those triangular, ridge-shaped rows of tissue in the roof of Polly's mouth? As Polly chews grass, she presses the bits of food against these ridges with her tongue. They're sort of like one-way speed bumps, allowing bits of food to pass toward her throat - but not back out.
Pretty cool, eh?
But what does this have to do with a mosasaur's mouth?
Quite a lot, actually. Like Polly, the mosasaur's mouth was designed to grab stuff, then work it down its throat. Here's a photo of a mosasaur fossil's maw.
Mosasaur
Most notable are the shape of the teeth. Slender and conical, they were designed for grabbing and holding, not shredding, prey.
Okay, so a mosasuar has clamped down on a 4-foot fish. What next?
That's where the pterygoids come in.
Ptergygoids (center)
Ptergygoids are special teeth found in the roof of the mosasaur's mouth, way in the back. Like the ridges in the roof of Polly's mouth, they helped hold food in place in it's inevitable journey toward the gullet.
Something the mosasuar had that Polly's doesn't is a double-jointed jaw. If you look closely at this next photo, you'll see a second joint in the jaw. It appears as a fine tan line in the lower jawbone, right behind the last teeth.
Second jaw joint (center)
This, along with a floating lower-jaw joint, allowed the jaw to swing open to almost 180 degrees. This allowed it to ratchet over-sized prey down its throat like a modern snake.
The complete mosasaur package
Pretty neat, eh?
So that's the last things fish and grass blades see here on the Lost Sea.
Coming next, how you can get your hands on a piece of Lost Sea mosasaur lore.
(Thanks to the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology for letting us photograph their mosasaur. Bernie)
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 6:20:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
The nation may be suffering from an early September heat wave, but just to throw a meteorological wrench into the equation, Ma Nature dusted the South Dakota Black Hills with snow. Then she threw in a tomato-killing frost.
Tomato-killer
Hard-pressed to believe that fall was so close at hand, I trudged into Hill City for a glimpse at the thermometer. Sure enough, the time-and-temperature display that had flashed 110 degrees only a month earlier now pulsed a way-lower number. At 7:01AM it displayed 26 degrees.
26 degrees.
Fall is on the way.
Ice on the hame balls (the hames are the metal bars that clamp around Polly's leather pulling collar)
Frost and Lost Sea wagon
If you're sick and tired of the summer heat, I hope you're cooler now. Enjoy what remains of your summer.
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 11:30:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
Out here on the Lost Sea, the long-extinct marine life resurfaces in unusual places.
On September 10, 1804, while Lewis and Clark where exploring the Louisiana Purchase, the party came across an enormous skeleton lying on the south side of the Missouri River in Gregory County, South Dakota. Clark noted in his journal, "below the island on the top of a ridge we found a back bone with the most of the entire (length) laying Connected for 45 feet. (T)hose bones are petrified, some teeth & ribs also connected."
Missouri River upstream from Lewis and Clark's skeletal find
West of Fort Buford, ND
Fast forward 200 years.
On September 1, 2007, while mule Polly was pulling the Lost Sea wagon from Battle Axe Road to the Mangy Moose Bar, our party came across a three-foot jawbone outside Hill City, South Dakota. I noted in my journal, "below the Lost Sea Expedition mountain-camp, we found a crazy-big jawbone, over three-feet long - lying in a baby bed. Some teeth connected."
Jaw bone in a baby bed
Feeling puffed-up as Clark about my find, Polly and I proceeded to the Mangy Moose for a drink. (Clark doesn't note how his party toasted their Missouri River find but I'd wager it was stronger than the orange juice I enjoyed at the Mangy).
Sorry Polly: the Mangy Moose doesn't serve mules
Over my dose of vitamin C (scurvy's an imagined threat on the Lost Sea yet has driven many a Lost Sea explorer into a bar, where, often as not, he forgots about the fantasized loss of his teeth and switches to beer) I pondered the fossils.
So what Lost Sea fossil did Lewis, Clark and Harberts come across?
In Lewis and Clark's case, it's an educated guess. Part of the bones they found in that Missouri riverbank were collected and sent to Washington, DC. There, like many political dinosaurs, they vanished.
Still, based on the detailed description, most paleontologist agree they'd come across a large mosasaur, the same beast that had wielded the jaws I'd found in that baby bed.
A few days later, Jared Hudson, a Black Hills fossil hunter who owns a cast of a mosasaur jaw, shed some light on this toothy critter.
Jared's mosasaur jaw
First, the mosasaur was a big, make that huge, reptile related to today's monitor lizard. No, it wasn't a dinosaur. Though complete mosasaur skeletons are rare, it's possible, based on jaw length, to extrapolate their length.
Jared leaned his mosasaur jaw against Polly's shoulder. Polly stands 57 inches at the shoulder and the toothy mandible projected 4 inches above her shoulder. From jaw tip to jaw joint, the jawbone measured over 5 feet long.
Polly wonders...
So how long would that have made the mosasaur?
"As a rule of thumb," Jared explained, "The jaw measured 10 to 15 percent of a mosasaur's length. So this one would have been around 50 feet long."
50 feet.
That's 4 times as long as the Lost Sea wagon. Or, to look at it another way, almost exactly as long as the specimen that Clark described 200 years ago.
Okay, so Lewis & Clark found their found their fossil in a riverbank and I found mine in a baby bed. The difference between then and now? Baby beds have shown up in South Dakota - and we now know a heck of a lot more about the mosasaur then Lewis & Clark did. It's not, as a member of Clark's expedition described it in Moby Dick terms, just "a monstrous large Fish".
Coming next. The life and times of the mosasaur - and how you can own a piece of mosasaur lore.
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 2:44:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
You're traveling alone, maybe with a mule.
Traveling alone
Outside Sundance, WY
It's early morning. You're sitting in your favorite blue folding chair in the lee of an abandoned homesteader's shack, coffee cup in hand, and that irksome thought crawls into to your re-caffeinated mind. "Wouldn't it be cool to have a picture of me sitting her enjoying this coffee?"
Sure it would - if you were Charles Kuralt. If you were Chuck, it'd be easy. You'd snap your fingers, your personal photographer would hustle over, capture the moment and hopefully offer you a refill of java bliss.
But face it, for most of us, that's not going to happen. When you travel alone, without a film crew, you're going to settle for photos of others, not you, right?
Wrong.
Just this morning, I spied my favorite blue chair in front of miner's shack and decided to capture the moment. Here's how it went - and why traveling alone doesn't mean you shouldn't have a few pictures of you.
Blue chair and miner's shack
Hill City, SD
Okay, first things first. I poured myself that second cup of coffee. I suggest you do the same. This self-portrait business involves lots of running back and forth so get yourself good and caffeinated.
Coffee cup in hand, I set up my primary camera.
The primary rig
I'll be using the Sony HDR-HC7 on a Libec tripod to take my picture. Though I'm lazy and in love with the "Easy" button on my Sony, for this shot, I'm shooting in Manual Mode. Fear not. All that means is I enable the self-timer so when I hit the shutter, I have 8 seconds to run over to my chair, plop down and capture my coffee-slurping interpretation of Nirvana.
Oh, did I tell you I wanted to get Polly into the picture...? Here goes. Let's get that self-timer set.
Okay Polly, get ready to dive for the blue chair.
Take One: Oops. Self-timer malfunction
Take Two: Off-scene battle with Polly, trying, unsuccessfully, to get her in gear.
Take Three: Okay Polly, let's hustle
Take Four: Polly!
Take Five: Polly makes reluctant appearance
Take Six: More mule tug of war
Take seven: Crap, I spilled my second cup of coffee. Time for the third.
Take Eight: Reach chair. Now if I could just get Polly's head down.
Take Nine: Polly takes her snort of coffee
And Finally Take Ten: Self Portrait in Blue Chair by Miner's Shack
Hill City, SD
Whew, that self-potrait thing's work, isn't it?
Okay, so now that you've seen what's involved, you're wondering, "Who took the photos of Bernie taking photos of Bernie?"
Bernie did. That's right, I set up my other camera, a Canon PowerShot A620 on a second tripod, behind the Sony. Then, racing back and forth, I dove from self-timer to recalcitrant mule to chair, with generally disasterous results. Call the series of photos Self Portrait of a Self Portraitist, a surreal exercise in logic, an M. C. Escher "Drawing Hands" moment. Takes One through Nine were taken with the Canon camera.
Only Take Ten, shot of me in gentlemanly repose with Polly, was shot with the Sony.
So get out there in front of your camera and see how you do. As for me, I'm beat. Those 22 set-ups and takes (I only showed you 10) took it out of me. I'm heading for a nap in the mule wagon. Wake me when you've got some cool shots of yourself.
Happy self-photographing.
Bernie
Mule Polly
Black Hills, SD
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 2:38:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
In keeping with the Lost Sea theme, I gather marine fossils as I journey along the floor of the vanished sea. I slip them into Polly's wagon while she's not looking, keenly aware the weight of one added to the next adds up to heavier pulling. Then, feeling guilty, I slide them into my pockets, as though lugging them around in corduroy significantly eases Polly's burden.
It started with the carrot-shaped fossil Doug Smith gave me back in Dagmar, Montana. Doug, paleontologist, mensch extraordinaire and Montana Dinosaur Trail organizer, did his best to explain what it was. Bernie, still reeling from figuring out life on the road in a mule wagon, didn't get it.
Until now, (sorry Doug), I've been letting Polly chew on it.
Sorry Doug...
In her quest for the Ever-Expanding-Belly, the Rubinesque Polly (she's gained weight every step of this Expedition) has developed the self-serving habit of rummaging my hands for food - apple cores, bread, broccoli - anything to add to her girth.
Mule "Bernie, are you going to eat that?" Polly
On its own, out her on the Lost Sea, it's not a big deal. Still, I try to discourage the habit. I don't want her to confuse children's fingers with baby carrots. Kids sure love a mule, can't resist petting the nose of one tied up outside the grocery store, and, well, you get the picture.
So, to suppress Polly's nibbling instincts, I took to offering her Doug's carrot-shaped fossil, the one I carry around in my pocket. Nice try. Rather than shun its mineral taste and petrified texture, she took to it like a permanent lollipop - one she could suck and chew on but never damage. I think she was going for the salt that had transferred to it from my sweaty, guilt-ridden paws. So much for breaking her of being mouthy.
In Hill City I sobered up. I decided that, instead of using my pocket fossil as a mule pacifier, I should really should have it identified. So I took it down to Neal Larson at the Black Hills Institute.
I'd met Neal earlier at the Waugh dinosaur dig in Hulett, Wyoming.
Neal Larson
Along with brother Pete and partner Bob Farrar, he co-owns and runs the the world's largest privately-held fossil museum. In addition, he's the world's leading expert on North American ammonites, baculites and belemnites, extinct marine creatures related to today's chambered nautilus, octopus and squid.
What better man to identify my mule-gnawed fossil?
"Ah! That's probably a Baculites eliasi!" he exclaimed when I showed it to him. Neal speaks in exclamations, not statements. "Last endemic Baculite of the Western Interior Seaway".
Great. Mule Polly was using the equivalent of a stuffed passenger pigeon for a chew toy.
The Baculite, Neal explained, was a long, tubular, chambered creature related to the modern nautilus. In layman's terms, it looked like a carrot with a squid's head and tentacles fused to its wide end. It used fluid-filled chambers connected by a tube called a siphuncle to regulate its position in the water column.
Neal showed me models of Baculites he'd constructed at the Black Hills Institute.
Model Baculites (Left and Right) surround Ammonite (Center)
The tricky thing about making a Bacuilte model is this. No fossilized Bacuilte soft tissue has been found. The only fossilized remains that were unearthed, apart from the shell, was the occasional beak that resembled a parrot's. Aside from that, reconstruction relied on guess-work.
Ammonite beak. Baculite beak would be similiar
"Baculites are cephalopods," Neal explained, "so, aside from the fossilized beak and shells we've found, all we had to go on is how their modern relatives, the squid and octopus, are built." Posed under a five-foot long Baculite model whose rubbery arms reached toward me in slithery grasps, he added, "so we gave them 8 arms. But really, it's just an educated guess because we really don't know."
For emphasis, he pointed to a dime-sized hitchhiker attached to one of the circular ammonites. "We figured they would have had barnacles on them, too."
Hitchhiker
Neal sent me home to the Lost Sea wagon with a selection of annotated Baculite fossils.
"Baculites Corrugates - 73 Million Years Ago - Found SE Rapid City, 25 miles away".
"Baculites Sp (undescribed) - 82 Million Years Ago - Crow Indians collected these for buffalo stones".
Baculites Sp (undescribed)
The last chunk of Baculite Neal gave me was thicker than my forearm. "Baculites grandes - 69 Million Years Ago - From Weston County, Wyoming".
Bernie's arm - versus - Baculites grandes
Don't worry, Neal.
It'll never fit in Polly's mouth.
(Thanks, Neal, for the Baculite education. For anyone interested in Neal's work with ammonites, baculites and all things Western Interior Seaway (Lost Sea), be sure to check out the Black Hills Institute, especially the section on marine creatures.
No, Doug, Polly's not going to chew on your fossil anymore.
Bernie)
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TITLE: Hiding My Purple Bouquet
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 11:32:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
This week I'm in Hill City, SD and I'm nervous. Call me a chicken for being afraid to walk among the projected 500,000-plus bikers that are expected to converge on the Black Hills during Sturgis Bike Week.
Hill City, SD
Why?
Because I'm the only dude out here dressed in a button-down blue oxford shirt, tan slacks and an off-brand backpack. Don't think you'd be any braver. You'd be uptight too if you looked like a narc with a rucksack at a Hell's Angels gathering. Those dudes have big arms, bigger tattoos, and don't give a damn that you think you're invincible because you slept in a mule wagon last night. And if they ever got wind that you spent considerable time gathering purple bouquets, why, they'd stomp you before you had a chance to explain it was alfalfa for your mule Polly.
What you don't want them to see.
Or would they?
"To hell with it." I decided, shoving my introvert tendencies aside, "I'm going to meet some of these folks." - before my back pack gets me in trouble.
To fathom this latent fear, you have to understand biker etiquette. When you roll into town, in this case, Hill City, you're expected to park your super-custom Harley (you are riding a Harley, right...?) at a 45-degree angle to the curb. Then, when curb-side parking runs out, because the streets are blocked to four-wheeled traffic, you park in the row of motor bikes that runs down the middle of the road.
As the day goes on, bikes park closer and closer, especially in that middle row, until the mirrors, many sculpted to look like chromed Inquisition devices, practically touch.
This poses a delicate problem to the blue-shirted, accountant-looking, back-pack wearing type like me. How do I cross the street without my back-pack snagging a battle-axe shaped mirror that precipates a domino-like tumble of $20,000-dollar bikes that runs all the way to a Stop sign? I can just see it, the huge biker-looking dude with the ZZ Top beard at the far end of the row of Harleys I've upset barking, "Hey! You in the blue shirt!"
So, because I didn't want to cower at the sight of every biker taller and hairier than I (which is all of them), I decided to meet the baddest looking biker in sight.
That's how I met Cowboy.
The baddest biker I could find
Cowboy, it turns out, was a soft-spoken biker from Newton, Kansas. His real name was Ron Ulmer and he was in Hill City for the day. In a voice I'd associate more with a jeweler than a Hell's Angel, he informed me he was just "looking around" like I was.
Oh.
Then, before I could ask Cowboy what he did in life, an Alice in Wonderland-looking apparition caught my eye - a black top hat perched above red shades and beard trolling down Main Street aboard a motorbike that rattled my ribcage.
The apparition
The bike slowed, pulled into a parking spot and guys with full-arm tattoos stared. I'd found my man. Excusing myself from Cowboy, I approached the newcomer and before he could walk away from his bike, beat him over the head with the standard, "Hi I'm Bernie Harberts and I'm traveling by mule from Canada to Mexico and I'd like to take your photo."
A grin parted the grey beard. This was going to work out...
That's how I met Tophat.
In real life, Tophat, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, built homes. Fancy homes. Homes for folks like Sylvester Stallone's brother, and the list went on and I swear I heard the words "Wayne Newton"... "We're different from other builders because we build the whole home from the ground up." he said. "That means right down to digging the foundation and laying the block. Most home builders subcontract all their work but we do it all in-house."
Oh.
Then talk turned to the bike.
I'd found it curious that for all the free-spirited, independent-living, devil-may-care image that bikers reveled in, they all caved in when it came to bike brands. There was something oddly homogenous, almost lemming-like, in the choices most every biker made about his ride.
Face it, if you wanted to live the rebellious Easy Rider lifestyle, you had to ride a Harley. I found the mass brand-consensus amusing. The Wisconsin bike-maker's marketers had scored the proverbial ace.
So, I wondered, what kind of Harley was Tophat riding....?
"This is a 1999 Yamaha," he grinned with a smirk. He tapped the words "Roadstar" airbrushed on the bike's tank. "It's a single carb, V-twin, belt drive with ceramic jug linings. That means no vapor lock like you get on the Harleys."
The bike, he added, had been awarded 1st Prize at a recent bike show that emphasized "style and art, not name brand." The judges, a home decorator, house painter and chef, chose it best in class - the only non-Harley in the selection.
Cool as a Harley - without the vapor lock.
Interesting.
So, now that I've talked with some of the bikers in Hill City for the week, I'm not afraid to walk around in my blue, button-down shirt any more. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that lots of these leather-clad rollers will be wearing blue button-down shirts next week. Long sleeves will cover up tattoos and voices be saying, "Line One" instead of, "Yep, that's a pan head."
That puts me at ease.
The specter of snagging my backpack on a Harley mirror, however, still horrifies me.
(Thanks, Cowboy and Tophat, for peeling back the biker mystique and putting the guy in the blue shirt at ease. Thanks, too, Grant and Kristin of Black Hills Bronze for putting mule Polly and me up while I mingled. Finally, to Pat, Lisa and Marci at Dry Creek Coffeee, three hearty cheers for keeping me in coffee and breakfast burritos. Bernie.)
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TITLE: In The Shadow Of Devils Tower
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 12:01:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
Mornings, when the rain drops fall heavy on the mule wagon roof, I know Polly's harness won't come out from under the wagon. On wet days we stay in camp. Driving a wagon in the rain just isn't worth it. Polly's bare feet, softened by the rain, wear too quickly. Drivers that whoosh past the Lost Sea wagon have more than just cell phones, arguing kids and fast food to distract them. Now they're navigating a gray world slashed by windshield wipers.
So this soaking Friday morning, with the Wyoming rain coming down on Devils Tower, I fed Polly and headed to the Devils Tower KOA Campground for breakfast.
After eggs and toast, I stopped to chat with a motorcycle rider sitting on the restaurant's porch drinking coffee from a foam cup and smoking a cigarette down to the butt. His name was Dean Cornett and we talked about the things travelers discuss in dry places when they don't want to go back into the rain - how he broke his ankle in Oregon, how he'd wrecked the Harley in New Mexico with his wife and two dogs aboard. "Busted up the dog good." he said, waving to the Pomeranian waiting on the Harley in the rain. "He landed spread eagle, slid across the pavement and I was sure he was dead." But everyone survived and the little dog had 25,000 Harley miles under him now.
Dean
Then talk shifted to mules. Of how, once, a few years back, Dean saw a man with a mule and pony come through his home town of Estelline, Texas.
What? Estelline? No, it couldn't be. I'd traveled through the town of 168 a few years before and had spent a pleasant night camped at the town's rodeo arena. I remembered it well for the fog and the stock tank where I'd watered Woody and Maggie.
Watering Maggie and Woody
Estelline, TX - Fall 2004
Dean smoked some more and I closed my eyes and I described my route through the area and sure enough, it turns out I'd camped across the street from his house. He knew Sherry, the lady who'd supplied me with grain for Woody and Maggie, well.
Dean, dog and Devils Tower in the rain
And so we passed the morning hiding from the rain, talking Texas, Harleys, bike crashes, the tornado that struck Estelline and a mule journey from way back when....
So that's what we're doing out here in the Wyoming rain. Sure hope you're killing some rain time today with a friend from way back when - even if your skies are dry.
--------
TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 7:35:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
Traveling thoroughly as I do with a mule (it's "thorough" as opposed to "slow") I have the luxury of watching the landscape change as I roll across the Lost Sea seabed. Last week, when I saw Devils Tower rise between Polly's ears, it looked like a shark fin cruising the Lost Sea off to the west.
Devils Tower from 11 miles away
As I got closer, my route drifted south. It looked more stump-like.
Devils Tower from 4 miles away
Finally, twelve days after I fist spotted it, I arrived at its base and it looked like the Devils Tower of "Close Encounters" fame.
Devils Tower from 2 miles away
This matter of approach and perspective wasn't lost on the Native Americans that lived in the area long before the white man called the tower among their midst Devils Tower. (That's right. Our first National Monument is spelled without an apostrophe - whether it's due to clerical error or multliple imps of Satan remains unclear .) This week, Milo Yellow Hair explained how the Native Americans named the mountain - solely on from what direction it was viewed.
Milo Yellow Hair
Devils Tower, WY
I met Milo at the Tower's base as he was showing guests the area. According to Milo, an Ogallala Lakota from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, the native tribes gave the tower a different name depending on the direction from which they viewed it. Looking from the east, where I saw a shark fin, the Lakota saw "Grey Buffalo Horn". From the south, the Arapahoe, instead of a stump, saw "Broken Buffalo Horn".
Other native American folklore holds that the mountain rose up to save six Sioux maidens from a giant bear. The bear, clawing the mountains sides to reach the girls perched on top, left the distinct grooves in the structure's sides.
Still, I like the visual approach best, the one that changes with perspective. It's in keeping with the way I wander the land. Last night it rained and ever the sailor, I snapped the tower's reflection in a puddle. I'll name it come nightfall.
(Thanks Matt and Kathi of the KOA Campground in Devils Tower, WY. Polly's sure enjoying her corral and I got a kick out of watching "Close Encounters" last night at the foot of the fabled tower.)
--------
TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 9:46:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
Remember how I rolled into Hulett, Wyoming last week all hot and bothered to see Devils Tower? It didn't happen. Instead, Polly and I spent the week digging dinosaur bones with world-famous paleontologist Peter Larson of the Black Hills Institute in Hill City, South Dakota.
Peter Larson
Peter and his crew were in the Hulett area excavating dinosaurs that, eons ago, were washed into a a ravine or stream and then buried by soil. 150 million years later, he was digging them up with a mixed team of paid staff and volunteers - and this week, a mule traveler and his steed. All I had to do was ask. Pete said I'd be welcome to join them so I hitched Polly to the Lost Sea wagon and drove to the excavation site.
On site, Peter explained that unearthing bones as part of a responsible dig team just boiled down to slowly, carefully moving soil. Slow in this context meant "moving a mountain with an X-ACTO knife" as the paleontologist's saying goes. "The brush is your most important tool" he stressed. It's the brush, not heavy equipment, that uncovered dinosaur bones.
Tools of the trade
Or, as Peter cautioned, "I don't want folks to think they can just back their truck up to a T. Rex sticking out of a dirt bank, hook a logging chain to its tail and jerk it out." Just to ratchet my expectations down a few notches, a kid mentioned in passing, "and don't get fooled by the faux bones."
Faux bones? "Yeah, they look like bones but they're not. We call them fool's bones." Or just plain old rocks.
Great.
Still, Peter encourage me to try my hand at finding some bones. Brush, X-ACTO knife and a larger digging knife in hand, I settled among the gathered dinosaur bone hunters and began slowly, blade-full by blade-full, peeling back 150 million year-old dirt.
All day I picked at the dirt waiting for that giant Smithsonian-grade bone to appear under my slender blade. Nothing. The sun shone. The sun set. It was pretty. I found faux bones. I felt like a fool. I found more faux bones. That is to say, I found nothing but rocks.
Bernie: faux bone pro (note grim set of lips)
Did I mention the sunset was pretty?
Sunset over the Lost Sea Wagon
Outside Hulett, WY
I found no dinosaur bones.
The next morning, Polly, who was tethered just outside the mess shelter, sent me off with a morale-building nicker. I tromped up the hill to the dig site, spent the first half of the day unearthing rocks then climbed back down the hill for lunch. Polly, mirroring my plummeting expectations, greeted me lying down.
She even let me sit beside her in the dust, a Lost Sea Expedition first, as though saying, "it's okay. you can sit next to me - even though you're just a fool's bone digger..."
Keeping up appearances
Self-portrait of a fool's bone digger
Then, one afternoon, a clink under my blade and a whisk of the brush and yes, a real bone! I flicked and brushed away at the four-inch chunk then heard a voice hunching closer, saying, "Nice. That looks like a stegosaur chevron."
It was Peter.
To me, the bone just looked like the broken-off end off the Thanksgiving turkey's drumstick. Now Peter was saying it might actually be important and this buoyed my flagging spirits until I realized I hadn't a clue what a stegosaur looked like.
Enter Sam Farrar.
Sam worked with Peter at the Black Hills Institute and after I cleared the chevron of dirt, he came over to stabilize my find. To protect the bone, he glued the fragments together (seems I'd found a fractured chevron) with Paleo Bond - the equivalent of paleontologist's super-glue.
Sam the chevron repair man
When the glue set, Sam wrapped the bone in aluminum foil and strolled off to find tape for labeling the silvery parcel. While his back was turned, I saw it.
A stegosaur.
It was on Sam's back. Rather, it was on the back of his t-shirt. Quick as Polly nipping a fly off her flank, I snapped a photo.
T-shirt Stegosaurus
Sure, now it was coming back to me. The stegosaur - that was the one with the tail spikes and kite-shaped plates on its back.
The chevron was one of the small bones under the cervical vertibra, the roundish bones that ran from the dinosaurs hind legs to the tail. Unlike larger bones found in the stegosaurus, which stood up better to the crushing weight of sediment and time, the chevrons were fragile. That's what made them desirable. They would be used to build a stegosaur skeleton.
When Sam returned, he labeled the now aluminum-wrapped bone and returned it to the exact spot I'd found it. Later, he explained, he would overlay the site with a one-meter gird, measure the bone's location and note its location on a map. That would make it easier to reassemble, if possible, all the chunks of stegosaur that might appear during the course of the dig.
Wrapped for mapping
So I finally found a dinosaur bone and that's how I got the dinosaur digging fever and well, that's why I spent five days digging with Peter Larson instead of heading for Devils Tower.
So, are you ready to stray from your routine a bit? Are ready to learn more about paleontology - or how Peter got the "Paleo Pete" nickname? Then visit the Black Hills Institue where you can learn more about what it's like to unearth a T. Rex. Heck for that matter, you can even buy one. Hint: you'll have to read "Bones Rock" by Peter and co-author Kristen Donnanto find out how he earned the monicker.
And what about Devils Tower? Well, Polly and I are still headed that way - ten days after we rolled into Hulett.
Until then, keep your harness oiled, your wheel bearings greased - and don't glue your fingers together with Paleo Bond.
(Thanks Peter and Neal Larson (and all the folks at the Black Hills Institute) for including mule Polly and me in your dig. Bernie)
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 11:33:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
I was enjoying that last cup of coffee with my hosts Carl and Erma Sensenig of Belltower Community, MT, when I cast a glance out the window. "Time to harness Polly." I wanted to say but it came out, "Guys! I don't see my mule!"
Polly, who'd been turned in Carl and Emma's pasture overnight, had escaped. Darn! This was way big land and if she got a head start there's no telling how far she could get before she hit a fence - or a rattlesnake.
In a flash the RiverEarth Mule Recovery Team was mobilized. Carl's son Zack and his friend Jordan piled into their Dodge Durango and the hunt was on.
RiverEarth Mule Recovery vehicle
Now understand, this is wide open country. Country so wide, flat and mule-colored (the seed heads are just turning Polly-colored) that it would be easy to overlook a 1000-pound animal.
Where's the mule?
We roared up the Sensenig driveway, rattled across the cattle guard and rolled to a stop. Zack pulled a .243 rifle from the Dodge, threw it to his shoulder and aimed the barrel across the prairie.
Zack
"Sure hope he doesn't shoot her," I thought then saw his finger wasn't on the trigger. He said he was just using the scope as a sort of high-powered monocular - "scoping" is what he called it.
That's how big this land is. When your mule runs off, the land runs so far to the horizon you need more than just plain eyesight to catch a glimpse. So the rifle wasn't just a macho symbol you carried around in your pickup, barrel pointed at the transmission. In these parts, it doubled as a useful spotting device.
Zack handed me a rifle. I scoped.
Bernie scopes
I remembered to keep my finger off the trigger in case I saw what I was looking for...
He didn't need to hand Jordan a rifle. Jordan was already scoping for mule.
Jordan
We saw six antelopes, four mule deer and a rabbit. Lots of birds too - meadow larks, black birds. A black angus cow.
The view
But no Polly.
Damn.
This used to happen out here. Before the days of barbed wire and Dodges, if a pioneer traversing the sea of grass lost his mount, it could be a long search. That mount could run all the way back to St. Louis. Or elude capture altogether. They called the later mustangs.
It also drove home the "Range Stock at Large" signs. These large yellow sign dotted the highway to remind drivers that they were rolling through range-land, open prairie that was home to thousands of free-roaming cattle. And now, one mule...
From experience, I'd learned mules run away in certain patterns. Polly runs in the direction I came from. Evenings, when I turn Polly loose for the night, the first thing she does is head north. It didn't look good. North ran from here to Canada, three hundred miles up the road.
The three high-powered scopes piercing the prairie yielded nothing. Faced with thousands of empty acres of rolling grasslands, where a dip in the terrain can swallow herds of sheep, cattle and deer from sight, it became clear our morning would be spent searching for Ms. Longears.
We drove a few hundred yards east, stopped, pulled out our rifles and searched. All we saw was prickly pear and sage brush. We drove north a few miles, stopped, scoped. Now it was foxtail grass and gumbo dirt. Finally we widened the search and tackled yesterday's route.
This was embarasing.
I'd promised folks I'd mail them a copy of the "Woody and Maggie" book - straight off the mule wagon. Now I wondered what excuse I'd come up to explain that, well, no, I wasn't able to take their books to the post office in Alzada because I'd lost my mule....
Then, at a cattle guard, a brown, fly-swatting, four legged shape. Driving closer, we made out the foot-long ears. That's right, it was Polly, resting in the shade of a "Range Stock at Large" sign.
Range Stock at Large
Polly, it seems, had just gotten lonely. Zack and Jordan just walked up to her, guns and all. Then she followed them back to the Dodge and insisted on riding home with them.
can i catch a ride with you guys...?
The cheek - first to run off, now to want a ride home. I explained to Polly that, no, since she'd run off and enjoyed the outward bound section prairie alone, she'd enjoy it with human company on the way back.
Capture
It took us the rest of the morning to get back to the Lost Sea Wagon. By the time I got back to the wagon and fixed the fence (Polly had stepped over a downed section of wire), the day was half gone so I figured I might as well take the other half off. That's why it'll take us five days to travel the seventy-two miles from Ekalaka to Alzada, MT - provided I don't loose Polly again.
Home - tonight.
Belltower Community, MT
In the morning we set off anew for the Alzada post office.
Those of you who ordered a copy of the "Woody and Maggie" book, fear not. It's headed your way - with another adventure under its belt. And for those of you who'd like to order a copy of the "Woody and Maggie" book straight off the mule wagon? Yes, I'll send you one direct from the Lost Sea wagon. Just drop by the General Store.
So that's what's up on the Lost Sea.
Sure hope the week's going well for you. Remember to keep your reins tight, your wagon wheels greased - and your mule picketed tight...
Bernie
Polly
Heading for Alzada, MT
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 1:39:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
Mornings in the mule wagon, I open my eyes and see this.
The view from my front wagon window
Ekalaka, MT
Then then there's a bump on the door, and if it's not fastened, I see this.
The Lost Sea Wagon's so short and the days so hot, I don't sleep with a blanket so when Polly nudges the door open, she has a clear shot at my exposed toes. There's just no getting away from her so I get up, give her some oats for breakfast and go about my day in Ekalaka.
Ekalaka, MT was settled in the 1860s by a fellow who figured solving thirst, not eradicating the last buffalo, was more his style. The sign on the outskirts of town reads as such:
Hell....
Montana Department of Transportation Sign
So that's how the town got started.
We won't talk about Ekalaka proper today. That'll come later. Rather I wanted to show you some scenes from the roping arena where Polly and I are camped.
First a bit about the area.
The first big open-range cattle outfits came to south-eastern Montana, the Ekalaka area, in the early 1880s. Before that, it was considered "hostile territory". This, after all, was Sitting Bull's country - rather, it was the land he'd been forced to occupy. This was was Custer country. This was Little Big Horn country.
This was the country where 1400 mounted troops were sent in with the little-discussed Cole Expedition to mop up the remaining native Americans after Custer failed. They soon learned the land couldn't support feed and water for so many horses and men so by September, when the first snows fell, they admited defeat - after dispatching just over 20 native Americans. They lost an equal number of men.
Still, ranching took hold and these days Carter County raises mainly cattle and fodder for cattle - alfalfa and warm season hay. Unlike Fallon County to the north, there's no oil exploration in this area so Carter County and Ekalaka rely largely on ranching for their livelihood.
Like most all the small eastern Montana and western North Dakota ranching towns I've visited, Ekalaka has a community roping arena. It's here that I've rested Polly for a week. It's here, in the evenings, that local families, fathers, sons, daughters and wives, come to rope steers.
Here are some of the faces.
The bulldogging Fruits: Orry (l) and Troy (r)
Orry Fruit just qualified for the national high school rodeo finals in team roping and bulldogging. In bulldogging, a steer is turned loose and then the dust starts.
A mounted rider (Orry, in the photo above) chases down the running steer on horseback, leans over, grabs the galloping steer's head, then slides from his now-flat-out-galloping horse and wrestles the steer to the ground.
The hazer (Troy, in the photo above) rides on the side opposite the galloping steer to keep the steer running in a straight line.
So who turns the steer loose for the bulldogger to tackle?
Mikel Fruit - or in Orry's case, Mom.
Mikel Fruit: Mom at the cattle shoot
Some evenings, six or eight folks show up. Faith and Ramon Rankin, whose kids are attending camp at nearby Camp Needmore, have visited regularly during the week.
Faith Rankin
Okay, so the dust's flying, bawling steers are trotting around the arena and voices shout, "I just ran out of arena..." So what are Polly and I doing while all this is going on?
Polly, predicatably, is eating. In fact, she's gained so much weight on this trip I had to spread the wagon shafts so she can fit between them.
Polly fills her tank
And I? Well, this weekend I gave a presentation in Ekalaka. In the evenings leading up to the event, I signed books in the roping arena grandstands
Summer's coming, though. The crested wheat and cheat grass that Polly's feasted on is heading out (maturing) so it's time to move on. This week, Polly and I are heading into the badlands for Alzada, MT. This means I want Polly's wagon as light as possible.
I normally carry fifty of my "Woody and Maggie" children's geography books aboard the Lost Sea wagon. I sold most of them at this week's Ekalaka appearance. Now, since I'm heading into such rough country, I want to sell the last dozen so Polly doesn't have to lug the extra weight across 100 miles of buttes and sage. (When I get to Alzada, I'll have more books shipped out to the wagon.) This is where you get lucky...
That's right, for the next two days (July 2 and 3) you can get a copy of "Woody and Maggie" that actually came off the Lost Sea wagon. Your copy will even have the special "Wagon Edition" inscription (in addition to anything else you want in your book). Yep, these are the same books that have witnessed all the photos above - from the safety of their secure, ventilated lodgings.
"Wagon Edition" inscription
Straight off Polly's wagon from Ekalaka, MT to you.
Ready for that straight-off-the-wagon copy of "Woody and Maggie"? Just drop by the General Store...
Have a ranchy week.
Bernie
Polly
Ekalaka, MT
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 9:23:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
Clifford Hanley won't put up with bad water, hot hats or squeaky hand pumps.
Clifford Hanley
Medicine Rocks, MT
A Baker, MT resident, I met him recently at the hand-pumped well at the entrance to Medicine Rocks State Park. Clifford was a direct man -he'd ventilated his cowboy hat by slicing holes in it with a knife.
Medicine Rocks State Park
Medicine Rocks, MT
Clifford at the pump
So isn't it odd that in 2007, a man in suspenders and a slashed hat would show up at a hand pumped well with a bunch of empty jugs? Not really, the water was worth the drive.
"This water's the best you'll find anywhere," he told me. He'd driven twenty miles from Baker to fill his four gallon jugs. I had to agree. I'd filled my water jugs at the well the day before but found the well a burdensome beast to operate. It creaked, leaked, and resented the vigourous pumping I gave its cast iron handle. The water was sweet, though, a welcome change from the sulphery, often sour-smelling water that plagues farmers in Fallon County, MT.
Clifford put the first of his white jugs under the spout, gave the handle a downward stroke and stopped pushing the moment the well gave the geriatric - knee - joint - without - the - synovial - fluid creak it had subjected me to.
"Needs oil,"he noted.
Oh.
He walked to his Ford and returned to the pump cradling something under his arm. "Vaseline works best" he said, "but motor oil works okay too if that's all you've got." Oil brand was unimportant as long as, "you've got plenty of towels on hand to clean up the mess."
Havoline: pump greaser's second choice
First oil, then towels
The pump's shaft oiled, Clifford wiped his hands clean and pumped the handle anew.
Silence. Then the sound of water gushing into plastic jugs followed by the waft of oil on the morning air.
He filled his jugs and I filled mine and we parted company, content with the hushed sloshing coming from our vehicles.
Enjoy your water.
Bernie
Polly
Ekalaka, MT
(click here for more on our upcoming program in Ekalaka).
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 9:09:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
The big news on the Northern Plains this year is rain. After a twenty-year dry spell, the heavens have opened, releasing record amounts of rain, and mosquitoes, to the Land of Twelve Inches of Rain.
The ranch land's greener than most old-timers remember. When I overhear them talking in the Post Offices and corner stores, the first thing I hear is, "Have you ever seen the top of (enter butte name here - Bullion, Sentinel, Square, South...) covered in grass?" Followed by, "Have you seen that guy in the yellow mule wagon...?"
Welcome to Grass and Montana
This means lots of choices for Polly. Back in Carolina, she just ate Bermuda grass. But out here, a mule can choose from crested wheat, alfalfa, needle-and-thread, and, my favorite-sounding, cheat grass (because it grows so thick if it ever invades a farmer's crops, it cheats him out of his fertilizer).
Still, for all there is to eat around Beach, ND, Polly and I want to visit the Badlands before the green turns brown. This week, we're heading for Ekalaka, MT (named for Sitting Bull's niece) to look for marine fossils.
We're sticking with back roads as much as possible. Mostly they're scoria-covered. Scoria's just dirt that's been fired underground, usually by a burning coal vein. It's sharp, red and when Polly drags her wagon across it, it sounds like we're driving over a thousand broken clay pots.
Scoria
Scoria Travelers
Outside Golva, ND
Beaver Creek trestle bridge
Outside Carlyle, MT
Day's end
Golva, ND
Grass, grass, grass. It's everywhere this year. In my photos, in my wagon, in my boots But this is fickle country. Remember how everyone's talking about how green it looks this year? Well, that's because they know it'll go back to dry.
I've only seen hints of what this country looks like when the rains stop. But this last photo says it all. It was taken in Carlyle, MT.
Until the early 1970s, Carlyle was a booming town of a hundred. It boasted two elevators, a bank, a school, a bar and a church. But as agriculture changed, as farming went from small, family-run outfits to large outfits that needed fewer workers, Carlyle dried up. Today, the abandoned town is covered in grass and about all that remains are the elevators, called "prairie cathedrals" by some.
But Carlyle's only green today, while the rain's still doing its magic. Soon, the grass will die back and only the elevators will remain.
Carlyle, MT
(abandoned early 1970's)
For now, Polly and I will take the wet.
Bernie
Baker, MT
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 4:23:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
So last week mule Polly and I rolled into Beach, ND with a wagon full of relics. Man there was everything clanking around in the old wagon from arrow-pierced bottles to a short film of two dung beatles rolling their namesake across a road.
Welcome to Beach, ND (Mike Archdale photo)
Beach, ND
Only one thing was missing from my collection of Great Plains stuff - relics from the Lost Sea - like fish fossils, sharks' teeth, or even a lowly fossilized sea shell. Then, before I got to head into the hills with my hammer, the weather caved in and Polly and I took refuge in Ardis Stedman's Quonset hut.
Bernie's lodgings
Polly's lodgings
Pinned down by the type of weather that shreds a sailor's sails one moment and leaves them flapping becalmed the next, I set about exploring Beach. That's where I found the bottom of the Lost Sea.
Literally.
Tama Smith, owner of Prairie Fire Pottery, had heard I was looking for relics of the Western Interior Seaway, the ancient ocean that submerged the Dakotas millions of years ago. She told me to visit her studio. She had something that might interest me.
The day I dropped by Tama's pottery, she was glazing pots, dipping them into a vat of pigment, before placing them into a kiln for final firing. A chunk of what appeared to be rippled mud was perched among the pitchers and jugs she was covering in grey, green and red glaze.
"That's it" she said as I eyed it.
"It" just looked like a slab of mud that had had a piece of corrugated tin pressed into it, something you might find dried up at the bottom of a river bed. Which is pretty much what had happened. Only, instead of a piece of river bottom, it was a chunk of the Lost Sea seabed. That's right, a real piece of petrified sea bottom. Well, petrified sediment.
And what was it doing in the Prairie Fire Pottery? "I use it for a mold," Tama explained, "to make garden pavers."
To make the mold, she'd pressed wet clay into the piece's corrugations. When the clay dried, she popped it loose and fired it. This gave her a mold or die, for making her pavers.
Tama and her chunk of the Lost Sea
To make a paver, she pressed wet clay into the mold, then glazed and fired the pieces to 2,400 degrees. Or, in her words, "I make rocks." Lost Sea rocks to be precise.
Chunk of the Lost Sea (forward) and a Prairie Fire paver (behind)
Thanks Ardis and Tama for introducing me to the bottom of the Lost Sea. The weather's clearing now so in the morning we're heading for Golva, ND. Then we roll on for Ekalaka, MT.
So do I have a chunk of the Lost Sea aboard the wagon? Though Tama offered me a sample, I had to decline. Polly won't let me pile anymore relics into her cart. You, on the other hand, are welcome to pick up as many of those Lost Sea-inspired pavers (or jugs, mugs and platters) that Tama's making. Just give her a shout over at Prairie Fire Pottery.
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 12:27:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
After forty-something days on the trail, mule Polly and I have yet to break the 250-mile mark - which is just the way we like it. Here's why it's taking so long.
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 12:14:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
"So where are you now?"
Folks have been asking me that a lot lately, as though, if I could point to a map and say, "Right here.", they'd be satisfied. The answer promises to underwhelm. Remember, the Lost Sea disappeared over millions of years. In keeping with the theme of receding waters, Polly and I are living at the speed of ebb tide - or about five miles per day. This journey's about rolling under the big sky and knocking off early to check out the big belt buckles, skinny bellies, calf fries and branding.
Getting nowhere slowly
Polly fills her tank
Little Missouri Grasslands
North of Beach, ND
Beach, ND
This week we're in Beach, ND, exploring the area for evidence of the Lost Sea. After ten days of climbing buttes and day trips in the Lost Sea wagon, we've come up with some pretty neat artifacts, including a chunk of fossilized sea bed (more on that in a later update). Still, you want to know how far we've come.... You want me to show you a long line.
Progress
So here you are. See the three lines?
The thick blue line that runs from East to West coast marks my last journey across America, a 3,500-mile journey with mule Woody and pony Maggie (you can read about it in the book "Woody and Maggie Walk Across America"). The yellow-ish line that runs from North Carolina to Canada shows you the route I took when hauling Polly and the Lost Sea wagon to Neptune Saskatchewan, the starting point for the Lost Sea Expediton.
And that stubby blue line that runs from eleven o'clock due south? Well, that's how far we've rolled in the forty-something days we've been on the road - under 250 miles. Ah yes, progress. Lovely, beautiful, slow, progress...
It's been 1000 hours of dung beetles, hail storms, rainbows, rope burn, chapped lips, hot tea, dead fish, oil wells, glowing brands, cold beer, dry lightening and a mummified cat found under a grain bin. I haven't seen a BMW in a month.
So that's how far we've come. Impatient that we haven't traveled farther? Then go back to the front page and watch the film of Polly hauling the Lost Sea wagon across the Dakota Prairie.
Enjoy.
Bernie
Beach, ND
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 12:17:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
So you think driving your '92 Ford F-150 to the drive-in theater is old school? Well get with the times, grab six bucks and let's head down to the Sunset Drive-in in Plentywood, Montana. Yep, we're taking mule Polly and the Lost Sea Wagon.
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 12:32:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
This week mule Polly and I took a break from fossil hunting to get into the grain hauling business. Slide in here beside me on the Lost Sea wagon and let's head for Lake Alma.
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:04:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
I'm into answers. On this mule journey, I'm learning more about the Lost Sea, the sea that, millions of years ago, stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Sea. I want to know why the baculite fossil has that funny tube at the top (It helped the critter regulate its buoyancy as it navigated the Lost Sea). I want to know why the Lost Sea Wagon squeaks so badly that, when it drops into a gopher hole, it deafens Prairie Dog Town (I haven't greased the springs).
"what's that noise, bernie...?"
Still, there are mysteries I don't want answered because, as much as I pride myself in being Answer Driven, I just like that little void feeling of being stumped out here on the Great Wide Open. It gives the mind something to chew on as the needle-and-thread grass rolls by and the tumbleweeds bounce toward the horizon.
Take Ted's bottle.
The Great Plains are known for terrific winds and rain. The other stormy day, Ted and Gertie Fladeland of Glamar offered to put mule Polly up in their barn. After Polly was bedded down hock-deep in Canadian straw, Ted brought me inside to thaw out.
Ted's barn
Ted and Polly
Now you have to understand that the folks I'm visiting are a self-entertaining bunch. Of good Norwegian stock, the Fladeland clan, especially Ted, spend their cold rainy days, not hovering over a computer or TV, but working in the shop. Ted's forte is woodwork.
With me parked at the kitchen table, coffee cup in hand, he showed me his handiwork.
Ted Fladeland
Gladmar, SK
First came, "tables and chairs for little folks that move a lot." Ted showed me a block of wood he'd sawed into three tables and six matching chairs. Apart, they could have furnished a Lilliputian apartment for eight.
Together, they made a block of wood that fit into Ted's palm. There was no blue-print for this treasure. Rather, Ted worked it all out in his head.
Stacked furniture
Impressive.
Then I saw the bottle.
"How did I do it?" Ted asked, handing me a glass bottle with an arrow shot through it.
Hmmm....
I inspected the bottle and missile. No tricks here. It was just a bottle with a hole in it and an arrow thrust through the opening. The arrow's fletches and head were larger than the hole.
Hmmm...
"I didn't glue it," Ted offered as I inspected the arrow, searching for a tell-tale glue line where the arrow had been split, pushed through the bottle and reassembled. "In fact I guarantee you that you can send it to whatever lab you want and have it analyzed."
Hmmm....
Ted went on to show me a whole array of objects he'd shot arrows through. Washers, bottles, even a pair of shot glasses.
The real mind blower was an arrow shot through an arrow that had already pierced a bottle.
This arrow and bottle thing was turning out to be a real stumper. Finally, I broke down and asked Ted how he'd pulled off the stunt.
"Well," he said with a wink and a hint of a Norwegian accent, "I put a bottle on Gertie's head. Then I put an arrow in my bow and, while Gertie stands real still, I shoot that arrow right through the bottle."
"No really," I tried again, "How do you do it?"
"Like I said, I put a bottle on Gertie's head..." This time I got the hint. Ted was handing me a gift. A secret to be pondered as I traveled across the Plains.
The next day the weather cleared and Ted sent me up the road - yes with a bottled arrow. I tucked it onto a shelf of the Lost Sea wagon, just by the front door, where I could pull it out on the straight stretches of road. As the prairie rolled slowly by, I inspected, and reinspected, the Great Plains oddity. I still haven't figured out how Ted got that arrow through the bottle.
And I don't want to. Here's why.
I don't know about you, but I'm not going to do the obvious, hamfisted thing to solve the arrow-through-the-bottle mystery. Nope, I'm not going to Google articles on how to stick an arrow through a bottle. Because that would ruin the mystery that adds to the magic of a guy being able to roll over these prairies, passing the time, no, not with an iPod crammed in his ears, but twirling a bottle around an arrow. A bottle that had an arrow shot through it by a Norwegian with a wife that didn't finch. Now that's something to be savoured.
So please, don't email me saying "I know how Ted did it!" That would ruin the magic of traveling through a land where folks still know how to keep themselves, and wagons passing through, occupied.
Bernie and Polly take a Prairie Mystery Break
Neptune, SK
Any ideas how Ted did it? Please don't tell me.
Have a great day and enjoy the mysteries that carry you across your personal Great Plains.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
In Plentywood, Montana getting Polly harnessed to go to the drive-in theater
PS: Thanks Ted and Gertie Fladeland for sheltering and entertaining mule Polly and me this week. Bernie
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 1:00:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
Radville, Saskatchewan is a town of about 800 nestled fifty miles north of Plenytwood Montana. I've spent the past week here, guest of the town, preparing mule Polly for the Lost Sea Expedition.
First, thanks loads to Mayor Dave and everyone else who came out to visit with mule Polly and me last night. According to Jeannette Verhelst, "We were cooking up hamburgers so fast in the Zamboni room we had to keep sending back to the Co-op for more." The Zamboni is an ice-grooming machine that keeps Radville's curling and skating rinks in top condition. The Co-op is the grocery store.
Thanks, also, to the kid in the hamburger line that informed me she'd taken a donkey into the rec center for the Christmas Nativity scene. Yep, that got me thinking...
Food for thought. Heck, the wagon was alread in there...
So that's right, we brought mule Polly inside.
Mule Polly shamelessly working the young crowd
Okay, now back to Radville.
Here's mule Polly and my favorite things about the prairie town.
Coolest sign we haven't figured out:
Cattle-Lack Ranch Supplies
Favorite place for a Fish Sandwich (I think it was whiting, not Lost Sea shark):
She Ray's Snack Shack
Favorite abandoned grain elevator:
We had to travel to Brooking for that. Radville's elevators have been removed.
Brooking elevator
Outside Radville, SK
Minimum weight
Promise
Mill scale and abandoned homestead
Place mule Polly and I will go bowling next time we're in town. (Yes, I'll make Polly wear her rubber shoes...):
The Alley Oop Bowling Center
Favorite sculpture:
Bucephalus by reknown Radville stone sculpturer Scott McCleod.
Scott carved this sculpture from a piece of petrified coral, a remnant of the Lost Sea. It came from six miles outside Neptune, a fitting send off I figured - a stone horse from the Lost Sea. Bucephalus was Alexander the Great's mount. Scott made no mention of carving a mule in honor of Captain Bernie.
Coolest fire truck:
Unit #1
This one's for fighting stationary fires only. It reportedly doesn't "pump and run", a fire truck skill needed in this prairie fire prone land. Around Radville, the volunteer fire fighters have to chase down their blazes.
Best place to have your remains scattered:
Radville Laurier Scattering Garden
(Note: You must be cremated before you can be scattered.)
Largest camera: Lindsay Hoemsen - Okay, so she came from CTV television in Regina...
Now, for the Expedition.
Today, mule Polly and I strike off for Neptune, Saskatchewan. It's blowing a Lost Sea gale, with gusts over 35-mph reported. Hazards to navigation include tumbleweeds, dust clouds and we just narrowly missed a bow-on collision with a wind-blown fertilizer bag. Fortunately it was empty.
"we're going where..."
Mule Polly questions Bernie and Albert's motives
From Neptune, we slip into the Sea of Grain, climb a 10,000 year-old glacier moraine and roll toward Lake Alma, Gladmar and Regway. A sailor gets lonely here at sea so if you're in the area and feel like dropping in for a chat, or picking up a copy of the "Woody and Maggie" book, remember to bring Polly a carrot. Okay, if you want a copy of the book and don't feel like trekkng across the plains, just click on the link above and I'll send you a copy from the General Store.
Have a great week in whatever sea your in. I'll check in with you next time I drop the hook.
(Traveling by mule isn't a solitary ordeal. In fact, it takes a whole army of folks to see me across the Great Plains. I'd like to thank all the folks who've made my stay in Radville such a treat. Thanks Vic and Jeannette Verhelst for hosting me, Ray and Jeannette Galarneau for hosting mule Polly, and to everyone else, I say "Fair winds and thanks for helping me with my dock lines!"
Captain Bernie
Radville, Saskatchewan
May 2, 2007
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 2:15:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
Pilot Mountain
Winston Salem, NC
The first night's encampment
Outside Portsmouth, Ohio
Lost Sea Sunset One
Bill Smith's farm
Outside Portsmouth, Ohio
Presently 50 miles north of Indianapolis, we're Chicago-bound. Yes, we're out of "Frank's Deer Urine" country now - a reference to the homemade signs advertising the deer scent of choice in these parts. Enjoy your weekend.
(Thanks Bill Smith for putting up mule Polly and I. Good luck with your land preservation work.)
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 11:14:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
Think of it as a game. You're traveling from Canada to Mexico in a mule wagon and you have to earn enough money to keep your mule in oats and your belly in, well, more oats. You'd sell books, right? If this sounds familiar, well, I thought it was a good idea too so that's how I'm going to pay for my cross country mule wagon journey.
The book I'm selling from my wagon is "Woody and Maggie Walk Across America", the best-selling children's geography book based on my last 3,500-mile cross country mule journey.
"Woody and Maggie Walk Across America"
But selling books out of a mule wagon takes a bit of thought. It's not as simple as vending them from a Barnes and Noble. First, there's the matter of space. Remember, the Lost Sea wagon only has 21 square feet of heated area. Here's what the inside looks like.
Inside the Lost Sea Wagon
Then there's the weather thing. I'll be traveling through all conditions, from mountain to desert, through rain, wind and snow. It got me to thinking. How did I ever keep things clean, dry and aired on my boat Sea Bird, the steel cutter I sailed alone around the world?
Sea Bird (Will and Deni McIntyre Photo)
Oriental, NC
Simple.
Holes.
That's right, I cut holes into the bulkheads, the walls that divided the cabins. That allowed air to circulate freely through the boat. It got me to thinking. The Lost Sea Wagon really wasn't more than a small, hopelessly run aground vessel. So I cut holes into the compartments to allow air to circulate through the wagon.
Then, since my mule-powered land yacht can't sink, I cut holes into the floor of the wagon's two cargo holds. Only after my wagon was peppered with drafty openings did it occur to me that while proper ventilation is good for books, dust isn't. So I cut out a small wood square that could cover each hole as needed.
Now you see the hole
Now you don't
This allows me to open and close the holes as desired.
To finish the ventilation system, I stapled a square of mesh screen under each hole to keep the critters out. Then I loaded the cases of "Woody and Maggie" books into the Lost Sea wagon.
The cargo
The cargo in the ventilated cargo hold
So that's how I'm stowing the books that'll pay for my journey across America - and why I'm a bit late lighting my candle tonight.
Interested in supporting the Lost Sea Expedition by purchasing a copy of the 40-page, hardcover "Woody and Maggie" book? Great! You can meet mule Polly and me in the South Dakota Badlands or you can just order a copy from the RiverEarth.com General Store. Your book will ship via Priority Mail and you'll have it in two to three business days - and you'll be putting oats in mule Polly and my belly.
Enjoy!
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:13:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
Nothing gets the point of wealth across like being a billionaire. But who says it has to be measured in dollars? I mean really, it's just a measure, right? Well, this week I met a billionaire - in a generally overlooked currency.
Meet Reverend Hans.
I spotted him pedaling North on US 1, outside Southern Pines, NC, and just had to pull over for a chat.
The Reverend's rig
Southern Pines, NC
The first thing that struck me about him were the tan lines on his face.
Unlike the ski set that jets to Taos and returns sporting tan lines that make them look like raccoons, Hans' tan line strangely resembled a chin strap.
Which is precisely what created the white-on-tan effect.
Then there was the dark spot on the back of each of his hands.
"Oh, yeah," he replied when I commented on the odd tan mark, "kids tell there parents 'Look! That man has spots on his hands".
This set of tan lines came from an opening in his gloves.
Immediately, I felt wimpy, pasty, the way blades of grass get when they're covered with a board. I was, after all, the guy who rode a mule across America wearing two bandanas, long-sleeved cotton shirts, gloves, sunglasses, and, where, horrors, the sun might touch my skin, SPF 30 sunblock.
Parked on the side of US 1, the good Reverend explained how he'd earned his unusual pigmentation.
It was largely a story of stick-to-it-ness. A meticulous record keeper, as of 2007, he'd pedaled 168,000 miles, replaced 315 inner tubes, and crossed the United States 14 times - once with a hamster named Schroeder.
But the Reverend was chasing more than just big numbers.
He traveled by bicycle to spread word of his cycling ministry "Pedal Prayers". "Pedal Prayers is a hands on mission," he explained. "I want to show people that the best sermon is an example. That the best way to preach is to do." To back up his philosophy, he has pedaled to natural disasters, including the Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts, to offer physical and spiritual assistance.
Other sermons in action include helping build, "over sixty homes for Habitat for Humanity."
It was sinking in that I was speaking to an adventurer who was the perfect complement, yet perfect opposite, to me. I explained that I too, had once traveled across America by mule, slipping in that the feat had consumed almost 13 months - a good pace, I reckoned, because I stopped along the way to help folks from time to time.
So how long did it take him to ride coast-to-coast on his metal steed?
"61 pedaling days." he replied.
Oh.
I never bothered mentioning that I planned to travel by mule wagon from Canada to Mexico. Or the fact that I planned to measure the mileage in mule steps instead of miles. There was no way I could compete.
How I travel these days
Smith Creek Bridge
Oriental, NC
Then he hit me with the Big Number. As of April 2007, the Reverend has completed 1,055,928,402 wheel revolutions, which, yes, in my traveling book, earns him the honor of a bicycling billionaire.
With that, he remounted his bike and disappeared up US 1.
Reverend Hans, I wish you well on your second billion - give or take another sixty Habitat Houses.
Bernie Harberts
Millionaire (in mule steps)
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 12:37:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
Folks ask me, "So are you going to make mule Polly pull the Lost Sea Wagon all the way to Canada to start the Lost Sea Expedition?" "Nope." I tell them, then explain I've built Polly a special trailer. I can haul her in the front and the Lost Sea Wagon in the back. That way we can drive to our starting point.
The rig that's taking us to Canada
For route planning, I was a bit more spontaneous. They say behind every great explorer there's a great mule.
Mule Polly takes a hard look ....
With that in mind, I handed Polly my trusty road atlas, an old riding crop and told her to figure out how we're getting from Southern Pines, North Carolina to Radville, Saskatchewan. After a pause, she placed the crop on the map at a north-west angle.
and now we have a route...!
Impressed by her navigational savvy, I double-checked her route online and she was right. It's just under 2000 miles from Southern Pines to our jumping off point and Polly had nailed it perfectly. Here's the "grown up" version of my route.
Okay, so we've established the route. That just leaves the matter of stabling. So just where are we going to spend each night on the road?
Answer?
I haven't a clue. I've always travelled off the cuff, prefering to find lodgings as serendipity and circumstance dictate. Still, if you looked at the route above and said, "Hey, ya'll are coming right through my town and we have a place." then just drop us a line.
Mule Polly and I don't need much. A fenced pasture would be nice but lacking that, a barn would do. Yes, mule Polly has her health papers in order - and I'm carrying my passport. Mostly we just need a flexible schedule. No hard departure date has been set but we're shooting for the middle of April. We plan on traveling about 400 miles per day so that means we'll be in-late, out-early house guests.
See you up the road - maybe in person...
Bernie
RiverEarth.co
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:28:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
For those of you who've watched me get ready for the Lost Sea Expedition, you'll know sign painting isn't my forte. Wagon building? Sure. No problem. But good signage? Well, I tried on my last wagon and it came out looking like this.
Sign Number 1
Bayboro, NC
March 2006
Sort of stiff, right? And that was the good side. Suffice to say I was overjoyed when Laura Turgeon of Oriental, NC, agreed to help me paint a proper sign while I wrapped up other details of my pending journey.
Here's where I need to back up.
Last year at this time, I finished one of the signs on the original Lost Sea wagon (my current one is Release II). That's the picture above, Sign 1. Then I got in a hurry. Instead of writing out "Captain Bernie's Dry Dock Expedition" (I would later rename it the "Lost Sea" expedition.") I just penciled in the letters and painted as many as I had time for. Then I hit the road. That side of the wagon looked like this.
Sign Number 2
March 2006
Yeah, right, it sent a confusing message. "You do what...with docks?" folks asked as I rolled by in my mule wagon. I spent more time explained what I did wrong than it would have taken for me to the job right in the first place.
This time, with Laura handling the brushes, things unfolded rather more elegantly.
The "art" in RiverEarth.com
Oriental, NC
Here's how the new Lost Sea Wagon sign looks - on both sides of my rig.
Sign Number 3
Laura and dog Jack
Oriental, NC
Thanks Laura, and husband Gil, for sending me up the road with a sign that's elegant and complete. And yes, I noticed the stow-away.
Stow-away? Yep, that's right. Laura painted a tiny hitch hiker into her artwork so mule Polly and I would have company as we rolled across America. Next time you drop by for a visit, see if you can spot it.
Until then, if you're interested in more of Laura's artwork drop by towndock.net to see if you can spot Jack the dog...
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 9:14:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
It's almost time to hit the road with mule Polly and the Lost Sea Wagon. In two weeks, on April 1, I plan to move full time into my mule wagon. So why am I planting a garden at this late hour?
I'm doing it for Norman Laman. Rather, in honor of Norman and all the other folks I met on my last journey across America.
Norman and his mules
Artesia, NM
I met Norman in Artesia, New Mexico during my 12 1/2 month journey across America with Woody and Maggie. It was late November and I was about to tackle the southern end of the Rocky Mountains - a rough route at the beast of times, a blizzard-prone one during winter.
Norman owned a covered mule wagon pulled by his two mules, Smokey and Ghost. He accompanied my equine troop from Artesia almost to the foothills of the Rockies.
In transit
The evening we parted company, he put a small plastic baggie in my hands. It contained chili petins, the small peppers, way hotter than jalapenos, that grow wild in southern Texas and Mexico.
A palmful of fire
Hope, NM
I won't get into how those chilis kept us warm (that's in the "Too Proud to Ride a Cow" book, my grown-up account of the 3, 500-mile journey that's due out in June 2007). Let's just say those chilis burned me in a place where I couldn't make tears to wash away the pain. Good thing, too, because at the time, we were just recovering from a major snow dump and freezing, not incineration, was on my mind.
Woody in the New Mexico Rockies
Winter 2005
Anyway, we survived the scalding and the Rockies and completed our journey a few months later at the Pacific Ocean.
On the return trip to Southern Pines, NC, I visited Norma and his wife Idella. They gave me a chili pepper plant, a direct descendant of the plant whose peppers had melted more than snow on that frigid Rocky Mountain passage.
I planted that chili in Southern Pines last year and it kept me company as I wrote "Woody and Maggie Walk Across America". A prolific bearer, it supplied me with dozens of small, red, four-times-as-hot-as-a-jalapeno-pepper fruit.
Then it died.
I went into a funk, feeling like the thread between Norman and I, and all the other folks that had helped me travel across America, had been severed. Then I remembered the bowl of dried chilis I kept over the kitchen sink. Most every day, I reached into it, plucked out a dried red pod and shredded it into my rice or pasta. I put a few choice pods aside, and the following spring, dropped a few seeds into peat pots- wishing, hoping...
Sure enough, they sprouted and I've been planting their descendants ever since. Last week I dropped the latest round of Norman's seeds (are they great-great chilis now?) into eight peat pots. Today, I found the first leaf.
Leaf one
In the coming days, I'll be finding new homes for my chilis. Most will go to friends, my way of passing on the favor that Norman gave me. The rest will go into the farm garden where Woody and Maggie live in Southern Pines. By the time I've moved into my mule wagon, I'll have none left.
I haven't a clue when I'll be back from this next trip. One thing's for sure, though. I'll come home to Norman's chilis and the thread of our friendship will be preserved.
Good luck with your spring planting.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 11:15:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
Welcome to my wagon world. It changes daily and here's what it looked like this week.
In the photo below, we're cruising down a Hoke Country dirt road. My front door's open and I trust Polly to hold the course while I rummage around inside the wagon looking for an apple or a notebook or that ever-disappearing pair of worn-out gloves. My desk's in the folded-down position and you can see my journal under the electrical panel. That dark blotch at the six-o'clock position is my hand on the lines. I'm sitting on my bed.
Cruise control RiverEarth-style
A man can get lost in the moment living like this: mules, friends, dogs and fresh air. And yes, that's exactly what happened this week on the road.
This morning it hit me. Dang! I promised folks who ordered a copy of "Woody and Maggie" or the "65 Days" DVD during my shakedown cruise that I'd mail it to them from Wagram. Temperatures dipped into the low twenties last night but this morning, as soon as my fingers were warm enough to harness Polly, I tacked her up and hit the road for the seven-mile run to the Post Office.
Thawed, harnessed and ready to roll
Things went smoothly until I looked behind the wagon. There, bouncing and leaping as only a three-month old Blue Heeler can, was my buddy Ken's dog. Luring him close, I hauled him into the wagon so he wouldn't be hit by a passing car. Soon he was curled up in my wagon / office right behind the boxes of Priority Mail books headed for the Post Office. Yes! Now I had a stowaway. And freight guard.
i'm supposed to do what with this box...?
The trick now was to get into town by noon. I knew Post Offices generally stayed open 'til twelve on Saturdays so if I hurried I could get my books and DVDs mailed on time. Alternating trotting and walking, Mule Polly and I covered the seven miles into Wagram in just over two hours. We slid into the Wagram Post Office with twenty minutes to spare. Perfect!
Here come the books and DVDs you ordered.
US Post Office
Wagram, NC
I lashed Polly to the flagpole and gallantly strode for the Post Office's front doors. Leaning into them with my winter coveralls, taking care not to spill my armload of Priority Mail boxes, I shouldered them wide. They opened with an echo into an empty Post Office.
It was closed...
So.... Norman, Bill, Jenny, Bob, Ken, Mary and Kaye. You're packages are on the way. Come Monday.
In the meantime, mule Polly's taking me to another place she saw in town. She swears it's open.
The Feed Barn
Wagram, NC
Are they open Saturdays?
Yeah, she deserves it.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
PS Thanks to the following folks for welding, strapping and roping together the Lost Sea Wagon on this week's shake down cruise:
Ken, Jan and Michael Tyndall
Ronald Hudson (Ronald, I'll replace that strap I broke.)
Vic, Billie and Ken Lee
The guy that bought me a cup of coffee in Wagram.
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 11:09:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
For months I've been welding and painting the Lost Sea wagon into existence. It's my vehicle of choice for the upcoming voyage from Canada to Mexico. Then today it hit me.
The Lost Sea Wagon reflects the ever-changing spirit of travel at RiverEarth.com.
The Lost Sea Wagon and mule Polly
How one travels is all about change, about mood - about where you are in life. If you wanted to get to the West Coast you might opt for a plane today, a car tomorrow. You might stay in B & Bs along the way if you were feeling flush - or Motel 6s if your were feeling less so.
On my 2004/2005 coast-to-coast road trip, I opted for a tipi, a mule called Woody and a black and white pony named Maggie. I traveled slowly, on average eight miles per day, focusing on moving across the land as simply as possible, making the time to see America at the speed of my forefathers.
Woody and Bernie debate tipi lodging
Foxtrack Training Center
Southern Pines, NC 2004
Okay, so there were some historical differences. Grandfather Harberts never poured a bottle of Adams flea and tick killer into a mule's ear - or rode said beast through a Taco Bell drive-through. (Memorably, however, he fled Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl in a De Soto painted "Chinese Gold". My dad paid the $12.35 gas bill to get to California)
A look inside my traveling home of 12 1/2 months on the road.
To the point, four and a half years ago, when I struck out on that cross-country adventure, my heart just wanted to walk across the open land. And walk it did. Miles and miles and miles at a time.
Now, a few years later, my heart wants to roll across the Great Plains and look for fossils. That's why I built a wagon. That's why I'm heading out for the Lost Sea, that expanse of sea that covered the United States' midriff 80 Million years ago.
So what's the wagon like inside? Well come on in. Just duck so you don't whack your head on the door sill. It's only four feet high.
This is my home now. Yes! A real, honest to goodness home with all the comforts (a cozy place to sleep) with none of the discomforts (no mortgage - it's all paid for). In the photo above you're looking at my bed.
Now you're looking at my work counter. The ventilated area below it is my cargo hold, where I'll carry copies of my children's geography book "Woody and Maggie Walk Across America". The holes cut into the partitions allow air to circulate through-out the length of the wagon. That way, I can sell fresh books from my wagon and let folks share in the real spirit of mule wagon travel. Oh, right, it'll help me pay for my trip as well...
Yes, there's even an easy chair! At the end of the day, I can curl up here and watch mule Polly fill her tank in a pasture. Now that's traveling luxury.
And best of all, there's even a place to sneak a nap.
Okay, so you're probably catching on how I've made the wagon seem larger by moving the furniture between photos, sort of like realtors do to make houses seem larger. Is it the sign of a frustrated small home owner?
Nope. I don't need a larger abode. My wagon's magically ample for me and my current traveling spirit.
So how are you moving these days?
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:43:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
Yep, Christmas is over and I can smile knowing the Record is mine.
A reason to smile. The Record is ours.
The Record, of course, is owning the World's Largest Mule Drawn Christmas Wreath. Yes, I'm sure it's the Record because it scored a 5.5 on the MDWS (Mule Drawn Wreath Scale). 5.5 being the wreath diameter, in feet, at its narrowest part.
Wreath detail. Yes, that's a bailing twine bow. Each loop is half the length of a Bermuda hay bale.
Not convinced? Well don't argue. Who else in your neighborhood lugged a 5 1/2-foot red cedar and haystring wreath 20 miles by mule wagon?
who cares...? just get this stupid thing off my wagon and get me some grain...
This afternoon the record-setting arrangement was dropped off with friends who plan to use it for the traditional New Years celebration - a bonfire. In lieu of a tire and a gallon of kerosene to get things going, they figure this wreath will serve nicely.
I, unfortunately, will be unable to attend as I'm heading for a fiery occasion of another sort. That's right, I'm going to Oriental, NC to run the dragon and drop the croaker at midnight.
The Oriental dragon (TownDock.net photo)
If you've never climbed into the beast for the charge down Hodges Street, bring your pots and pans and come on out. The dragon runs twice on New Year's eve, at 8 pm for the young 'uns and 11:00 pm for the older 'uns.
Then the croaker drops at midnight, or as soon as the paint dries. Rumor has it there's a new fish in the works. Meet me at the usual spot on Hodges Street across from the town dock.
Happy New Year!
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 11:45:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
Written aboard sailing vessel Sea Bird
Nelson Harbor, Antigua
Christmas 1999
Come late December, the Caribbean's tropical version of Christmas hits fever pitch. Reggae groups sing of snow and sleds and roasting chestnuts on open fires. Steel pan bands hammer out renditions of "White Christmas" and "Jingle Bells" while taxi drivers in tropical prints argue the turkey versus ham debate. Between the heat, the steel pans and the arguing cabbies, I find it hard to cultivate that cozy Christmas feeling.
To jump start my Christmas spirit aboard my steel cutter Sea Bird, I water my basil plant, the one that survived on the circular pool of light that shone through the nav station porthole. The salt air was so harsh it had to live inside. This year, it would serve as my Christmas tree.
Sea Bird's Caribbean Christmas tree
Then I set up my nativity scene. It had been a going-away present from my aunt. My worn but cherished menagerie includes three tiny but wise wooden men, a tin foil Star of Bethlehem, two miniature candles, three origami stars and a heavenly host of trumpeting angels. Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus live in a two-inch tall pole barn. The whole collection fits into a battered four by six-inch box.
As I unpack the box I notice that a year's worth of hard sailing has changed the look of Christmas. A few of the angels have lost their wings. Rummaging around the box I'm rewarded with one mismatched pair. I manage to patch up the white angel. The other two wingless ones will have to keep the wise men company on the ground.
Casualty number two is the blue wise man who's chipped his golden crown. Because I don't have any gold paint I retouch his dented crown with a red pen. I'll just have to imagine his crown is studded with rubies.
I set up the creche on Sea Bird's bulkhead cabin heater. This makes a fine platform for the nativity scene because it reminds me of cooler Christmas weather back home. I tape the tin foil Star of Bethlehem to the stovepipe. The angels and lesser stars I suspend from lengths of light fishing line. To keep the wise men, the manger and the fallen angels in place while I sail, I secure them to the stovetop with pieces of white Velcro. Because I cut the Velcro too large, it looks like each figure is standing on a tiny drift of snow. This oversight only adds perceived Christmas chill to the tropical air. It's nothing a cup of hot tea can't cure.
Tea time aboard Sea Bird (Melinda Penkava photo)
As Sea Bird travels between islands, my nautical creche takes on a life of its own. One day an unusually jarring wave tips over the red wise man, cleanly knocking off his wooden head. Feeling guilty I grub out the instant epoxy and glue the head back on my decapitated friend. Of course the angels are shedding their cardboard wings like day old flying ants. I try to fix them as quickly as I can because they are too eerie swinging around without wings. In their graceless state, they look like they're being hanged for bad behavior.
As if wings weren't enough, the cherubs also start dropping their instruments. First the little drummer angel drops his miniscule drum. I can't find it on the cabin sole so now he swings over the wise men wielding what appear to be two tiny chopsticks. As if in cohorts, the blue trumpet angel loses his instrument (which suspiciously resembles a golf tee) and is resigned to spending the rest of the Yule season empty-handed. Yesterday the white angel redeemed the others by catching the Star of Bethlehem after it came untaped from the stovepipe. Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus weather it beautifully in their pole barn stable.
Sea Bird under sail (Will and Deni McIntrye photo)
Despite the humor of my rapidly disintegrating nativity scene, it gets me in the Christmas spirit. By now, the creche has become a living village. I have become its self appointed caretaker charged with keeping order and nurturing the occasional minor injury. Days, the angels and stars spin lazily to the motion of the Sea Bird. Nights they circle by candle light over the sleeping baby Jesus, casting elegant shadows on the mahogany coachroof. Their presence and antics cheer me immensely.
Sea Bird's scaled back decorations bring me back to simpler Christmas times. On top of the ship's stove, I rediscover the simple thrill of Yule time uncluttered by guilt-driven gift giving and high pressure Christmas shopping. I catch myself staring peacefully at the nativity scene to see who could use a helping hand. Every time I discover something new.
From aboard the Sea Bird, I wish you all a simple and peaceful Christmas. I hope you all discover your own quiet places to ponder the mysteries of the season. I wish I could show you mine. Only I must go now.
I hear angel wings falling.
copyright 2006 by Bernie Harberts
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 8:07:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
There I was, lined up for the Southern Pines Christmas parade. The Shriner Mini Car Unit was creating a miniature traffic jam behind my mule wagon and I was reflecting on how, earlier that morning, Polly had amused herself by eating on my home made Christmas wreath- the one I'd cobbled together at the last minute out of with cedar boughs and baling twine.
That's when I met the Aberdeen Sardine Queen.
I'd read of her in the local newspaper - how earlier this year, she'd won her crown at the Aberdeen Sardine Festival. And now here she was! Walking slowly alongside the Lost Sea Wagon, doing her tactful best to steer clear of the milling Shriners in their mini cars. She wore a blue skirt. Sequined fish swam across her hem and shoes.
How I knew it was the Sardine Queen
I climbed down from the Lost Sea wagon, praying Polly wouldn't run off - figuring out a way to introduce myself.
Now you have to understand I'm reserved by nature. That's why, in the past, I've run away to sea for months at a time. And celebrities? Forget about it. I've never met one because I don't have elbows sharp enough to barge up to one and say "Hi! My name's Bernie and I just loved you in...".
But this time it was easy. "Hi there!" she greeted me, and when I asked if she really was the Sardine Queen, she threw her arms wide to display the sash.
The 2006 Aberdeen Sardine Queen greeting
We talked a while, until it was clear Polly wasn't going to run away (this was her first parade with me). In real life, the Sardine Queen's name was Carol Gelfo. Somewhere in the discussion, she mentioned the sardine song.
Song?
"Oh yes, I have my own song," she told me. "I made it up myself in the shower." Then she began singing.
"Sardine, sardine, wonderful fish,
Looking so pretty sitting on my dish..."
My head swam like it does when I used to free dive among the coral reefs, following a red and blue parrot fish among the fan corals. She was divine! Wow, what a voice, so angelic, yet so oceanic as it floated from one clear note to the next.
I was so swept away by her delivery, her words faded from letters to the color blue. Maybe I stopped breathing because when my head stopped swimming, I heard the song's final words and they were "...could taste so foul".
Wow, such a heavenly song about, well, a dead fish that wound up with a can for a coffin and a Saltine for a tombstone.
Her song done,the Sardine Queen regaled me with stories of her reign - how she'd won the crown in October and, soon after, landed a ribbon cutting role at a new restaurant.
Still, fame hadn't gone to her head. A landscaper by trade, she'd kept her job at Gulley's Garden Center just down the street in downtown Southern Pines.
Just then, the Shriners fired up their mini cars, the Aberdeen Sardine Queen's chauffeur revved up her convertible Mustang and I posed for a quick photo with the Queen. The parade was about to begin.
The Sardine Queen jumped into her chauffeured Mustang, her driver hit the gas and with a wave of her wand across Polly's nose, she was off.
The last we saw of the Aberdeen Sardine Queen.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
Post Script: Talks are underway between the Aberdeen Sardine Queen and the RiverEarth.com Provisioning Division for, yes, a case of sardines for the Lost Sea Expedition. The brand is still uncertain because, "folks donate all different kinds so it's hard to know what it'll be." This comes as step up from making my own fish jerky aboard my old sailboat the Sea Bird.
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 6:18:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
It started with a shadow in Arizona.
While traveling through the Saguaro State on my coast-to-coast mule ride, I snapped a photo of Woody's shadow.
It looked like this.
I always liked that photo for its cave painting simplicity. Still, at the back of my mind I wondered what it would look like if that shadow started walking. Hmm....
This was nothing new. Equine motion has always fascinated folks - and fueled debates.
Back in the late 1800's, railroad tycoon Leland Stanford (of Stanford University fame) hired photographer Eadweard Muybridge to settle one of the longest-standing contentions among horseman. Do all four hooves of a galloping horse ever leave the ground at the same time? Or is one foot always in contact with terra firma?
To settle the debate, Muybridge lined up over a dozen cameras and sent a race horse galloping past. As the horse sped by, its hooves tripped a trip wire attached to the shutter of each camera. Presto, a series of photos, each one taken a split second apart. When viewed in quick succession, an image of a galloping horse appeared.
Here's what that looked like.
Galloping Horse
First published in 1887.
Stanford, it turned out, was right. A galloping horse indeed spent a split second of each stride suspened in air.
But what about a mule shadow - walking?
Hmm. I thought on that for a while. Then I grabbed my camera, hooked mule Polly to the Lost Sea Wagon and drove to nearby Buckin Field to try out my idea. I set up the camera on a tripod, hit the Record button and jumped into the waiting wagon, planning to drive the rig into the viewing field, therefore filming myself.
Click here to view the ground-breaking footage I captured.
Okay. It was a complete flop save for the two bird chirps I captured. The camera turned itself off after a mintue of idly filming Buckin Field, long before I got Polly and the wagon underway.
Still, I didn't feel badly. Surely Muybridge sufffered failures in his early attempts at motion picture photography. There had to have been times when his race horse didn't come thundering down the track and a dozen loaded cameras sat there and captured...
Nothing.
So I tried again. This time I climbed into the wagon, with the camera already turned on, and filmed progress down Valleyview Road in Southern Pines.
Click here to see how that came out.
Will my film footage make me rich as Stanford or famous as Muybridge (in motion picture circles, at least)? No, probably not.
But that's not the point. My original idea was to animate a shadow so I could offer RiverEarth.com readers that extra glimpse into the motion and sounds behind mule travel.
On that accout I reckon I've succeded. In fact, I'm so pleased with the results, I've taken to calling these short vignettes 7 Second Mule Journeys, even if, chief among them, is a long shot of a a dormant hay field.
Stay tuned...
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 9:24:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
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 rememer 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
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TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 9:28:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
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
--------
TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 8:54:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
Symmetry has eluded me since age three when I strapped two pieces of wood together, one two-feet long, the other three, pushed them into a puddle and called the creation a boat.
Okay, there are boats like that, with one hull longer than the other. They're called "proas" and, yes, they're extremely rare - confined to sheltered Pacific Ocean islands.
Marshallese Pacific Proa (Courtesy Messing About in Boats Magazine)
Unfortunately, these craft are prone to flipping in heavy seas. Seems Neptune, naval architects, the US Navy and everyday sailors prefer boats with same-length hulls.
The same applies to mule teams.
Given the choice, the wise teamster invariably selects two animals of similar weight, size, temperament and age. It's just human nature. You wouldn't build a sandwich with a top slice of white bread and a bottom of whole wheat would you?
Take Jack and Bill for example, my last pair of mules. Both were big, brawny, plenty strong to pull my wagon, and a refreshing change from Woody, easy to catch.
Jack and Bill (Southern Pines, NC - Christian Harberts photo)
But ultimately, their size was against them. At 15.2 hands (62 inches) and 1300 pounds, they were just too big, heavy and above all, hungry for Great Plains travel.
The wind-scoured country I plan to visit calls for smaller mules.
Trouble is, it's just hard to find a small (by that I mean 800 pounds per animal) suitable team. Small teams, I'm learning, have a reputation for running away - often and vigorously. And the sane ones, well, no one in their right would part with them because they're so thrifty and handy.
My buddy Tommy, with glasses as thick as a Brinks truck windshield, has a name for them. "Jack Rabbit" mules he calls them for their propensity to escape with most any conveyance still attached to them - wagon, plow, sled, it just doesn't seem to matter with these little critters.
But small mules are hardy. Woody, at 800 pounds, gained weight in his 3,500 trek across America. Then again, he's thrown me three times this year, as recently as last week... See what I said about them being prickly?
So big teams are out and small sane teams are out because I can't find them. That leaves mismatched teams - where one animal might be shorter or lighter than another - but where each animal is solid in its own right. There is precedent for this. Do you think that early pioneers waited around twirling their pitchforks until they had a matched team before they hooked up the plow and broke sod. No. They used whatever they could shoehorn into a collar and hames.
So now I'm trying out smaller mules individually, hoping to build my own team.
So far, this has produced amusing sight gags but no team.
Take this team I drove recently.
Little Bat Nuts and the Cannon Mule
The one on the left wearing the "Woe is me" look under his blinders is actually a World Champion chariot racing mule (for teams with a combined weight under 1500 lb). He's fast, real fast, having escaped us for half an hour before we got the harness strapped on. Then he dragged the sled he was attached to around the pasture at full steam for half an hour.... The one on the right with the "Aw no, you didn't hook me up to little bat nuts." look on her face is a twenty-year old mule so quiet her owner has dragged a Civil War style cannon behind her - and fired it off.
The view from behind
Now let's look at that team from behind. Makes you want to drop your right shoulder to compensate with a sympathy slouch doesn't it? But technically, this hitch works. At the bottom of the picture, you see three metal bars, one attached to the sled and the other two to the mules. The two smaller ones attached to the mules (the little mule's is hidden) are called trees. The mules are attached to them by chains called traces. That's how they pull the sled.
The middle bar is also a tree. By offseting the middle tree, sometimes called an evener, closer to the smaller mule, it gives him more leverage so the pulls of both animals can be equalized.
Okay, so this isn't a matched team. But just like that mismatched plank boat launched my sailing career, I'm hoping that by just getting two mules in the harness, pulling my wagon, I'll be able to jiggle things enough to come up with a matched, sort of, team.
If that doesn't work, I'm considering hitching a mule and a steer.
Just kidding.
It has been done, though. Maybe next time we'll talk about mixed species teams...
--------
TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 9:30:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
Flash back to January 2006.
I'd built the Lost Sea Wagon body, my inteneded vehicle for the 2000 mile journey up the Great Plains, and was mounting it on the wagon chassis.
I should have worried when my buddy Alex and I couldn't hoist the 6 by 12 foot body onto the wagon chassis, relying instead on Mel Wyatt's Kubota tractor for hoisting power. I blamed the cold. Surely, this thing would weigh less when summer came.
Take 1: Alex (0n tractor) trys not to crush Bernie
(fool with the hat, and fingers, under wagon).
January 2006
Southern Pines, NC
Winter voyage with the first wagon
Southern Pines, NC
Then summer came and I worked up the courage to weigh my creation.
The truck scales bottomed out at 2360 pounds. That was with the wagon empty.
So much for the theory that hot air would make my behomoth lighter.
So I built a new wagon.
This time I built it one third as large and heavy - in two months. This weekend, I mounted the wagon body onto the chassis.
Take 2: Alex wonders how he can get Bernie to do the heavy lifting
Now I'm not a macho guy in the Sit-on-my-Back-While-I-do-Push-ups sense, prefering, rather, to let levers, car jacks and friends do my heavy lifting. Still, I had to wonder.
Just how much did this new body weigh?
Driving it to the land fill scale was out. So was weighing it on bathrooms scales. Ever since my jockey days, when the red dial on the bathroom floor dictated every bite I took, I've refused to own a pair. You just know when you weigh too much, don't you? Same with a wagon I figured.
So in classic Cave Man style, I grabbed the front of the wagon (the front porch?), hoisted it into the air and shouted for Alex to hurry up and take a photo. It still wasn't THAT light, but it had shed hundreds of pounds.
Then Alex rolled the chassis under the new body and it was time for some gloating.
Thanks for the help, Alex. And no, Mel, I won't need the Kubota this time.
Now I just have to find a mule team. Did I mention the chariot racing mule I'm eyeing?
--------
TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 9:47:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
"Woody and Maggie Walk Across America" is a children's geography book that features something unusual about each state visited by Woody, Maggie and I during our cross-country trek.
"Woody and Maggie" Front Cover
The format is simple. The book features a map of each state we visited and I tell young readers what I found unusual about that state. Then Woody and Maggie share their views.
Let's take Arizona. Here's the map.
I recall Arizona for the famed saguaro cactus.
Woody and Maggie remember it for naked green giants that can't get their boots back on. Okay, you'll have to come to the party to learn about cactus footwear. Hint: the saguaro cactus really makes a "boot".
And so it goes, state by state, from North Carolina to California. Yes, the book even answers questions such as how I went shopping, found water, and where I slept at night.
So come out this Saturday and visit Woody, Maggie and me.
Refreshments will be served. Woody and Maggie will be on hand. The tipi will be pitched. Folks interested in viewing the Lost Sea Wagon can take a tour. Yes, personalized copies of "Woody and Maggie" will be available.
I sure look forward to seeing you. Here's how we can catch up.
When: Saturday, September 30, 2006 / 2:00 - 4:00 PM
Where: Foxtrack Training Center /625 Valley View Drive / Southern Pines, NC 28388
Contact: Bernie Harberts / 910 695 0989 / bernie@riverearth.com
Directions: From Southern Pines:
Follow May Street 1 mile north out of town. Turn left on Valley View Road. Foxtrack Training Center is the first farm on the right.
Click here for the map
If you can't join us this weekend, remember you can order your copy of "Woody and Maggie" from the RiverEarth.com General Store. Woody and I will even sign your copy.
Have a great week.
Bernie
--------
TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 9:20:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
I recently wrote an article called "How Big is Your Escape Pod?". The jist of it was that our dream vehicles, from houses to boats, have become so large they're too big to offer the escape we'd initially sought.
Of course, that didn't apply to my mule wagon. Right? I'd built it the perfect size for long-distance travel.
The Lost Sea mule wagon (before Bernie finished the signage)
Whale Bone Junction - Stonewall, NC
I'd engineered it to weigh as little as possible by using foam core construction, the same technique I'd seen used on light-weight offshore racing yachts.
The foam-sandwich ceiling going into place.
Southern Pines, NC
Still, I wondered... How much did that wagon weigh? 500 pounds? 1000? Gasp! 1200? So, coming from a good Teutonic background, I towed it to the Aberdeen Landfill, where they have drive-on scales, and the guy in the scale shack informed me my wagon weighed 2360 pounds.
2360 pounds!
Yep. Over a ton - empty.
There on the spot I decided to build a new wagon.
This time I paid closer attention to what the original pioneers' wagons measured. I took a tape measure to my mule skinner buddy Tash Hudson's wagons. The beds on his traditional wagons measured 36" to 48" wide, fully 2 feet narrower than my original wagon. Another friend, Sue Maska, who spent 5 years traveling the country with her husband in their horse-drawn wagon, gave me tips on a practical interior layout. Their wagon was only 3 feet wide.
Then I fired up my welder and got to work. Using 1 1/2" X 1/8" angle iron, I welded up a steel frame that weighed 100 pounds.
Take II: The new 100-lb frame.
Southern Pines, NC
To that, I attached lightweight walls fashioned from 3/4" foam insulation sandwiched between two sheets of 1/8" plywood.
Walls, or bulkheads as I like to call them.
Southern Pines, NC
The new wagon measures just over 2' 6" wide by 8' long. A 3' covered area where I sit while driving, what I call the front porch, brings the overall length to 11'. Headroom inside, instead of 6', was reduced to 4' 10"
Roof beams in place
Southern Pines, NC
In a bit over one month, the major construction was finished.
Whew. Taking a construction break.
Southern Pines, NC
Then the ribbing began. Seems my friends confused my work of equine locomotive art for something quite else.
Wagon?
Or tombstone...?
To be continued...
--------
TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:48:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
Harley Harlson of Lynnwood, Washington, spent years designing, then building, the eight-foot sailboat Sea Biscuit in which he planned to sail around the world - non-stop.
Sea Biscuit
(Harley Harlson photo)
The last time I spoke with him via phone, August 18, I heard distinct working sounds in the background. "Ah ha!" I thought. "He's getting ready to leave!"
To track progress, Harley had outfitted a satellite locator device on board his craft. Its job was to send position reports while he was underway. On August 19, I received the following email message that began:
"A position report has just been received from the vessel called Sea Biscuit. Here is a map showing the history of position reports from 2006-08-12 23:47:51 until 2006-08-19 23:47:51."
The map looked like this.
Sea Biscuit's first position report
"Great, Harley's underway," I thought and scanned the update for his position and speed:
Latitude - 49 12 deg 53.00 min N
Longitude - 125 deg 22' 02.00 min W
Speed - 0 knots
Journey State - Unknown
From the look of the map and co-ordinates, Harley was dead in the water in the Pacific Ocean just off the south Canadian coast. The last two items were of mild concern, though - 0 knots in State Uknown. That wasn't a great way to begin a journey.
But then again, one could never tell. Maybe Harley just caught a three-foot fish in his eight-foot boat. Whenever I hooked a fish while sailing my boat Sea Bird around the world, I usually hove to, that's sailor-speak for "parked the boat". Then, with the boat dead in the water, I went about inviting the critter aboard for supper.
That might explain Sea Biscuit's 0 knot boatspeed.
Dorado caught aboard Bernie's sailboat Sea Bird - note Bernie's hat for scale
(Middle of the South Atlantic Ocean between Brazil, South America and Angola, Africa)
With the matter of Harley's progress settled, at least in my imagination, I went about my chores.
A few days passed and I didn't get any more updates. The Journey State remained Unknown.
Then I heard.
Harley, it appeared, had launched Sea Biscuit in the small village of Tofino, British Columbia, about 300 miles north-west of his home in Lynnwood, Washington.
Almost immediately the trouble began. The door hinges that attached the rudder to the keel began letting water into the hull. Sea Biscuit also appeared to need more ballast to make her more stable.
Harley decided that since it was getting late in the season, he would postpone his departure. This would allow him to return to Lynnwood where it's expected he will modify Sea Biscuit before re-attempting his journey around the world.
We wish Harley the best of luck in his continued preparations. As one who's had to postpone trip departures, I understand the need to regroup before setting out anew.
Good luck, Harley, and keep us posted!
Bernie Harberts
RiverEarth.com
--------
TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:33:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
When it comes to writing, Woody prefers the carrot to the hoof.
Woody dashing off another epistle on his 3,500 mile cross-country ride
Emerald Isle, NC
But now he doesn't have a choice.
You see, to reward folks for pre-ordering a copy of Woody and Maggie's book, "Woody and Maggie Walk Across America", I promised them Woody would sign their copy. That's right, he would place a big inky hoof print in their book.
The new book "Woody and Maggie Walk Across America"
I made the offer knowing full well that Woody could handle it. As a seasoned contributor to the "Mule Headed" newspaper column, and now a kid's book, he never had trouble putting carrot to paper.
But I forgot.
This time, instead of dragging a root across the paper, he'd be stamping out his signature by foot.
Then I remembered. Woody hates having his feet messed with.
So, spurred by the fear that everyone who'd pre-ordered a book would descend on me when I informed them Woody would be using a supermarket carrot, not his famous hoof, to sign their books, I hustled up a plan.
Ink, paper and mule were gathered. The books are due from the printer's September 7. They ship September 16.
Then I tried getting Woody into the barn.
Wrong.
"bernie, we're doing what? how about you take maggie? she's not doing anything..."
It seems I'd dared lead him ahead of Maggie into the barn. So Maggie was hauled into the barn and the printing could begin.
Look, Woody! Our book. How about we sign it for these folks? (Note the wise look on Woody's face now that he's a published author- actually, he's trying to snag the mule-treat from between my second and third fingers...)
Whoa, Woody, while I ink your foot...
Okay, boy. Foot down nice and slowly...
Yes! Hoof Print Number One
So now we know the mule that made over seven million steps in his journey across America is willing, and able, to make a last one right into your book.
Interested? Drop by the General Store to find out more...
-------- TITLE: Around the World in an Eight-footer? AUTHOR: Bernie DATE: 10:57:00 PM STATUS: Publish ----- BODY:
The Lost Sea Expedition Wagon
(Southern Pines, NC)
In early 2007, I plan to drive the mule-drawn "Captain Bernie's Lost Sea Expedition" wagon from Mexico to Canada.
Why? Because I want to explore the sea bed of a vanished ocean, the Great Interior Seaway, that covered the Great Plains 75 million years ago
Ok, I admit I've taken a bit of ribbing from my friends. They're just not going for my "Well, that's what I do for fun. What do you do for excitement?" argument.
That's why, when I heard Harley Harlson was planning to sail around the world, non-stop, aboard the eight-footer he built in his back yard, I thought, "now THERE'S a man who understands adventure."
Woody and Bernie
Oriental, NC
"Woody and Maggie" is a children's book that features something unusual about each state I visited in my 12-month cross-country ride. I wrote half of it - and Woody and Maggie handled the rest. If young readers don't remember Arizona for the saguaro cactus, they'll remember it for the naked green giants that can't get their shoes back on.
Arizona: What Bernie saw (L) and what Woody and Maggie saw (R)
So it's an entertaining read. But it's a geography book at heart and meant to teach children about the United States. Exercises at the end of the book help young readers identify each state by shape, location and characteristic.
Pages of exercises help young readers navigate the United States
"Woody and Maggie" is big (8 1/2" X 11"), bold (lots of primary colors) and all the pictures and maps are hand-drawn. It's engineered extra-tough for the young crowd. I had the book printed on heavy paper (100-lb stock), saddle-stitch-bound with an extra-thick cover (120 point board) and wrapped with a dust jacket. This is one expedition-grade piece of literature.
The 40-page, full color, hard-back would be perfect for any 5 to 10-year-old reader on your gift list. Remember, Christmas is only a few months away. Or you could buy it for yourself. Lots of evenings I just leaf through it and loose myself in the America of windmills and sand dunes.
"Woody and Maggie" Back Cover
But "Woody and Maggie" isn't just another mass-produced book sold through a mega-sized book store where you'll never meet the author.
Nope. "Woody and Maggie" is an extension of the 12-month journey that unfolded with you at RiverEarth.com. You've been across the Rockies in winter with us. You've felt the Pacific Ocean rise up your legs after 3,500 miles on the trail. So you're already part of the journey.
Which is why mule Woody wants to sign your copy.
That's right. Woody wants to "hoof" (autograph) every copy of the book that's ordered before September 16, when the books are mailed out. You got it. You'll get your book signed by the first-ever mule to stand at the Official Center of the World.
The hoof that'll sign your book
The Official Center of the World - Felicity, CA
So that's what "Woody and Maggie" is all about.
I sure hope you've enjoyed your tour and decide to order a copy of "Woody and Maggie". Remember, book sales help support the next journey coming to RiverEarth.com - the "Lost Sea" expedition.
"Okay, we're ready to sign your book now..."
Southern Pines, NC - August 14, 2007
Woody and Maggie are standing by. Come on over to the General Store and order a historic piece of the RiverEarth adventure...
--------
TITLE: Escape pod
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 8:22:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
Folks are curious about how big an "escape pod" they need - an escape pod being anything that'll take them on their dream journey. They often ask me "How long a boat do you recommend for ocean sailing?" or "How big (or many) a horse(s) do I need to go on a long distance ride?"
The answer, these days, seems to be "REALY BIG". The average length of a new cruising sailboat has stretched to 40-something feet, up 10 feet from 25 years ago. I have to leap a little harder to hurdle onto the average horse these days and it's not because the springs in my legs are rusting.
Here's the danger in over-sizing, though. The bigger your escape pod, the less likely it'll take you anywhere.
Then there's Craig Philipson.
Craig's boat Sea Cow - Darwin, Australia - 2002
I met Craig of Townsville, Australia, in Darwin, Australia as I was preparing Sea Bird to sail across the Indian Ocean. He was traveling aboard Sea Cow, a Hood 23. The Hood's a small cruiser, that, technically, is a week-ender sailer. It was never designed for sailing thousands of miles across oceans.
But it's what Craig had. He bought her because he figured it was better to see the world in his twenties, in a small boat, then wait another 40 years to see it in one that was 20 feet longer.
Because she was so small, she was easily repaired. When he had to replace the centerboard in Darwin, he just cut a new one out of plate steel and bolted it into place.
Then he put back to sea.
Craig and Sea Cow Cape Town bound
Craig and I left Australia in our respective boats and headed across the Indian Ocean for Africa. We caught up on the island of Rodrigues.
I was impressed by his mettle - how, when his GPS failed, he taught himself celestial navigation - on passage - with no manual. It was as though Sea Cow's frailty and small size endowed him with an energy never found in Big-Boat sailors.
In Cape Town, we caught up again. He'd sailed non-stop around the Cape of Good Hope - the only person I'd met to do so. Most folks port-hopped around that tip of ill repute.
Then I crossed the Atlantic Ocean from Cape Town, South Africa to St. Thomas, USVI - 65 days. "Good" I gloated, "Craig won't match that. I'm sure he'll have to stop in St. Helena for supplies."
Later I got a message from him to the effect of "Ha ha, Bernie. Beat you by two days...!" Craig had taken 67 days to sail across the South Atlantic Ocean in his 23-footer. From the reports, he'd had a whopping good time.
Up the mast
Craig's back in Australia now. We still communicate regularly. Recently, I sent him a copy of my "65 Days Alone at Sea" DVD and he had this to say:
... when people ask me what it is like to be out at sea for such a long time I play them the DVD. From becalmings to the majesty of the watery universe this DVD will show you just why we do it.
His reply reminded me of how we need to consider the size of our escape pod. I can't tell you what size boat or horse to buy. Just remember that going smaller plunges you into living, much, much sooner.
Thanks Craig, for the reminder!
To see a video clip of why Craig and I put to sea, and to remember what kind of escape pod you're working toward, click here to watch some pretty amazing footage...
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
--------
TITLE:
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 4:28:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
Bob Sundown with mule Woody - Deming, New Mexico
I met Bob Sundown in Deming, New Mexico when I rode Woody and Maggie across America. It was December 2004. The weather was icy, the days nearing their shortest.
Bob lived in a tarp-coverd sheepherders wagon, more yurt than prairie schooner. Summers, his donkeys pulled his wagon north. Winters, he returned to southern New Mexico where it was warmer.
Bob didn't have much. But he had a lamp.
A real, honest to god screw-in light bulb light that scared away the light as only direct current can.
At the time, I was living out of a tipi my pack pony Maggie carried on her back. I used a small flashlight for illumination, and when the batteries died, I would build a fire in my tiny wood stove and prop the door open.
Just enough light escaped from the door that I could write in my journal.
Bob sitting under his light
But Bob was way ahead of me in the light department. Ok, his light was a clobbered-together afffair that hung from the ridge pole - a piece of wood that ran the length of his wagon. It was more alligator clips and frayed wire than lumens.
But it worked.
He ran the tiny bulb off an automotive battery tossed into the corner of his wagon. When the glow failed, he carried the battery to Steve's house. Steve owned the small plot of land Bob occupied outside Deming.
Close-up of the light in Bob's sheepherder wagon
When it came time to rig the Lost Sea wagon with a reading light, I figured I'd outdo Bob. I dashed out, bought a small lamp and a car battery. I wired it all into place in the Lost Sea wagon - no alligator clips.
Then it dawned on me. Bob's neighbor Steve put the amps back into Bob's battery when they trickled out.
But for me, that was out. The Lost Sea wagon would travel for days on end, from one town to the next.
So just how was I going to keep that battery charged?
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
You can read more about Bob in my upcoming book "Too Proud to Ride a Cow" (Due November, 2007)). Or just check out these RiverEarth stories (you'll have to scroll down the archives to see the articles).
The wagon design
The stove
--------
TITLE: Mule(-less) Wagon Prepped for Croaker Parade - Oriental, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 7:35:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
There may be no mules to pull it, but the Lost Sea Expedition wagon is set to appear in Saturday's Croaker Festival Parade in Oriental, NC.
Keith Smith agreed to provide his Wizard lawn mower for locomotion.
Gee! (that means right in mulespeak)
For more pictures visit towndock.net.
--------
TITLE: Announcing "Captain Bernie's Mule Speed Library Tour"
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 8:28:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
As I rode Woody and Maggie across America, I wrote a series of articles for RiverEarth and various newspapers.
There was only one problem.
I couldn't carry a computer in my saddlebag because it weighed too much.
Enter libraries. They had public computers and Internet access. But what would I do with my mounts as I filed my stories?
Bringing them inside was out. I'd tried that at Gaskill's Hardware Store in Beaufort and when Woody wasn't eying the peanuts, he was sizing up the Duron paint samples for a nibble.
"Bernie? This is going to work in a library?"
Gaskill's Hardware - Beaufort, NC, March 2004
So the gig went like this.
Bernie rode his mounts to a library, tied them by the front door, dove inside, dashed out an article and escaped before his two chargers got into a kicking match.
If it hadn't been for libraries, RiverEarth couldn't have brought you stories and pictures from the road.
So, this summer and fall, as a thank you gesture, I'll be visiting North Carolina libraries on my "Captain Bernie's Mule Speed Library Tour". I'll be talking about my trip across America - letting folks across the state find out what ever happened to that guy that tied his mule in front of libraries in Garland and Wallace, North Carolina - and Gila Bend, Arizona.
If not for the Gila Bend Public Library, you wouldn't be seeing this photo
Gila Bend, AZ March 2005
Talks will consist of a half-hour narrated slide show followed by a question and answer session.
Yes, Woody and Maggie are joining me for a few of these visits - via trailer this time.
If your library our group would like to have us over for a presentation, just drop us a line...
--------
TITLE: Where are the Mules on MuleCam?
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:54:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
I hear it all the time. "If you call it MuleCam, where are the mules?"
Mules?
The answer's simple. I don't have any right now - well, not any I'd trust to pull my wagon.
What about Woody?
It occurred to me that since he'd had already walked across America, he'd probably make a fine wagon-pulling mule. And he jumped too. That showed flexibility.
Woody the showjumping mule
In a moment of enthusiasm, I draped an old harness on him, hitched him to a log and as I stepped aboard, called to my buddy Alex, "Watch this!"
Woody bolted, flipped me off the log and galloped loose across Mel's lawn, the log bouncing ever-higher and coming down ever-harder on his heels. That only fueled his flight, he wrapped the log around a fence post and ripped of most of his harness before he came to stop in his pasture. It took me the rest of the afternoon to find the hame-ball, that silver ball that goes on top of the harness. He'd thrown clear into another horse's pasture.
Ok, he just needed a heavier load.
Figuring more weight might help, I hitched him to a quiet draft mule and hooked the team to a 600 pound wood sled. With a superior grin, I hopped onto the heavy conveyance and snickered "Ok, Woody boy. Let's see you run off now."
He squatted, lurched into his harness and the sled jumped forward. Then we settled into a steady walking pace.
Yes! I'd just found a mule to pull my wagon!
I steered the team down to Mel's house for a good gloat. Mel was on the back porch. "Mel check this out!" I shouted and slid the sled to a stop next to her red sports car. "I think I've found Woody a new career as a pulling mule!"
I stepped off the wagon to pet Woody. "Way to go old..." and before "boy" escaped my lips Woody bolted toward Mel's car. With a rear Pegasus couldn't match he cleared the roof with his chest and galloped down the driveway, the other mule and the 600 pound sled in tow.
"Woody! No!" was all I could get out and then I saw the vet at the clinic next door lead a sleek show-horse from his barn. "Loose mule!" I shouted just as Woody leveled out a dead run.
Just then Mel's holly tree hove into view. Woody ran on one side of it, his teammate on the other, and the sled crashed square into the trunk. That brought the runaway to a dead stop and I could only wonder.
Tree-wrecked
What would've happened if Woody had spooked with my wagon - the one with the MuleCam in it? Sure, it would've made a few fantastic shots. But the last one would be of the wagon on its side.
So I untangled Woody, the sled and the other mule and drove them back to the barn. Then I unharnessed both animals and swore never again to hitch the one I'd ridden across America.
That's why you see barbecues and blue bottles on MuleCam. For now...
(Photos courtesy of Susan Edwards)
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
--------
TITLE: Where's MuleCam?
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 1:15:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
MuleCam is visiting the Blue Bottle Garden in Oriental, NC this week.
Also, RiverEarth has released a two-minute clip of the "65 Days Alone at Sea" DVD (available in the RiverEarth General Store).
Here is a two minute sample.
Bernie
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TITLE: MuleCam, Pork and a DVD signing - Oriental, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 3:51:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
This week I'm visiting Oriental, NC ,where I began my circumnavigation aboard Sea Bird - and my mule trip across America.
Coast-to-coast mule trip departure - Oriental, NC, March 2004, Melinda Penkava photo
But no, this time I'm not here to go sailing, muleing or dragon hunting.
Nope, this time I'm here to attend Tennessee Ronnie's annual block party barbecue.
I caught up with Ronnie this morning as he was inspecting the grill on his pig cooker.
Ronnie checking for burned-on grease
He quickly got me up to speed on preparations.
"You gotta start with a clean grill." he said as he ran a finger across the grill bars. "That's real important. I learned that at a place called Chuck's Smokehouse where I worked in high school. Once a week, we cooked a hundred shoulders. But Chuck was real particular about cleaning the grill every time before we used it. He'd say "You don't want to taste every pig you cooked before the one you're about to eat, do you?"".
As always, he's going to cook up a few chickens because, as Ronnie notes, "Not everyone's a pork eater."
As with all his past cookouts, there's no charge to eat. Maybe that's why up to 300 people have descended on his cooking in the past. The catch? Just remember to be neighorly and bring a side dish.
Town dogs Ceilidh (pronounced "Kaylee") and Jack waiting for a waft of barbecue
You're all invited to come on down. For those of you with a dead-ringer-beats-em-everytime corn bread recipe - cook up a pan and enter it in Ronnie's corn bread contest. Three judges will sample the premliminary rounds and Ronnie will pick the winner who will be crowned the 2006 Corn Bread Idol. Tips for winning? "Impress me. Be creative." Ronnie counsels - then adds - "I'm open to bribes, too."
It got me to thinking. Not everyone can come to Oriental and spend a day watching Ronnie cook. Why not rig it up so anyone out there could just drop in from time to time for a look. Why not - broadcast the event on the MuleCam!
So yes, all day Friday and Saturday, you can drop by the MuleCam to see how Ronnie's doing.
Ronnie tweaking the MuleCam housing
On Saturday, May 27, from noon to 4 pm, I'll be down at the Bean coffee shop signing copies of my "65 Days Alone at Sea" DVD. If you can't be there, you can still drop by the MuleCam. Chances are by the time Ronnie pulls that pig out of his cooker, you'll be in your car headed Oriental-way.
Remember, dinner starts at 5:30 pm and the Corn Bread Idol get to be first in line.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
For more on Oriental, visit towndock.net.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE: Your Basic Busted Wheel Moment - Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:19:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
Now before you say "Awww man!" like I do when Woody sticks his leg through Maggie's cart and busts the wheels, remember this - mule and boat travel is fraught with delay.
Your basic "Awwwwww man!" moment - Fairbank, AZ
When you count on wind and hooves for locomotion, as I often do, travel times get skewed. A few years ago, old man Neptune took a bashing to my boat and I spent a year and half in New Zealand catching wild cows and building a new mast. A few years later, mule Woody kicked me in the guts and I spent a few days sipping ice tea through a straw and slathering myself in emu oil to draw out the pain.
So, having softened you up with those plans-gone-bung, I can deliver the news.
The "Lost Sea" expedition has been delayed by a few months.
Like the gale that has you hove to for a few days staring at your vessel's tongue and groove ceiling, or the mule kick that has you studying the patttern on your rescuer's couch, an unexpected delay has me looking closer at the details of my daily life.
So what happened?
Well, when I hit sixty miles per week on the road with Jack and Bill, it dawned on me that what I needed was a faster, younger team. A team that, while not crazy-headed, had more step-out-and-go in them.
Why?
Jack and Bill were simply too quiet. Experience has taught me that when you show up in the wind-swept plains of our great nation, you better have a mule team that you have to hold back, not urge on. The distances are great, the fodder's thin and you better get from one feed source to the next in short order.
A place to keep moving - High Lonesome, Nutt, NM
So I made the gut-busting decision to delay my trip until I found a new team.
Jack and Bill have found a new home. And by the look of things (check out the latest MuleCam shots - even though I sold them, I drove them just last week), they're doing great.
But finding a new team is harder than finding, for example, a new car. Shoulders have to be toughened up. Muscles have to be conditioned. Voices have to be learned.
So, to allow enough to train up a proper team, I've decided to postpone the departure of the "Lost Sea" expedition until January or February of the coming year.
The good news is this.
Now there'll be time to focus on finishing my books "Too Proud to Ride a Cow" and "Woody and Maggie Walk Across America". There are talks to give, Woody and Maggie to ride.
And most important, friends to visit.
So, if you're in the Southern Pines area, drop by. It's the house with the big yellow wagon in front of it. And hopefully, petty soon, a team of eager mules.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE: Three Questions - Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 6:38:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
As you know, I like to have themes when I travel. Lost Sea. 65 Days Alone. Litter by State. Budweiser vs. Keystone. Moonshine and Voodoo dolls...
Voodoo doll in anonymous hand - Slab City, CA
Ok, so I haven't told you about the voodoo dolls. Let's just say people show you the neatest things when you travel by mule.
But let's get back to the theme for the next trip.
First and foremost, I'll be investigating the Lost Sea, the Great Interior Seaway that, seventy-five million years ago, stretched from the Gulf of Mexico North into Canada. But I want a pet project on the side, something light and fun to pass the time when I'm not imagining how a fifteen-foot long sea turtle looks like squashed on the highway.
I'm calling it the Three Questions.
Here's the deal. As I travel from North to South on my next journey, I want to ask folks the same three question along the entire way. But just what questions should I ask?
That's where you come in.
What would you, RiverEarth viewers, be interested in learning about the folks living out there under the Lost Sea, er, I mean, on the Great Plains? What they eat, what they think, what they worship, if they think ethanol is good or just a ploy to give a few mega-farmers a fat subsidy check...
Tip 1: Remember I'll be driving a mule team so the questions have to be short and shoutable.
Example (hollered to a Nebraska farmer as I roll past his mailbox): "Sir, do you think the land you're standing on used to be fifteen hundred feet under water and filled with giant turtles...?"
Probable response: "Say what?"
Ok, you get the drift on what type of question I'm looking for - short, interesting, yes/no answers, thought but not fist or gun-provoking.
So there you have it. Give it some thought and then shoot me a line.
Your question may be in for the journey of a lifetime.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE: Not Knots and Miles Anymore - Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 9:47:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
I recently returned to Oriental after a five-day shake down cruise in my new vessel.
Bill wonders... (Susan Edwards photo)
Now in the old days when I returned from a sailing trip I liked to brag a bit about how many miles I'd gone. "Oh yeah." I liked to let slip once Sea Bird was snuggly moored and I invariably stretched the number of sea miles it was to Bath or Beaufort.
"30 nautical miles" I'd hear in my head but it came out "33..."
It's true distance plus 10 percent for tacking and yaw right?
But you know, it just never sounded so impressive. Especially when I returned to the town dock in Oriental and some guy had just sailed up from St. Thomas and was recounting his thousand-plus mile journey.
So I switched vessels and measurements. Now I drive a mule team and measure my daily runs in mule steps.
Mule steps?
Yeah, and why not? After all, we measure distances in feet (men steps, literally) and, until recently, spans (breadth of a Dark Age arm I believe...)
Then those pesky miles showed up and they were so long. One mile. 5280 feet. Worse yet were nautical miles. 6076 feet. Suddenly, we had to start going really fast to rack up impressive runs. And even then it was a so-so accomplishment.
A car can do 60 miles and hour.
So what. 60. That's not much of a number for an hour's work is it?
Ok, so back to mule steps.
Like I said, I recently drove Jack and Bill from Oriental to Aurora to look for fossilized sharks' teeth. "Big deal" I can year you sniff, "Aurora's only 51 minutes and 23 miles away according to Map Quest."
51 minutes. 23 miles. So what? The round trip's not much better; 102, 46.
Remember, I wanted to come back to the town dock with a big number. One that would make the South African just up from Cape Town lower his eyes in deference and mutter "Ah, now THAT'S a long way to come..."
So I tucked a pedometer onto mule Bill's collar - just to measure how many steps it was from Oriental to Aurora.
Now THAT'S a measure of distance!
I'm back from my shake down mule cruise and here are my findings:
Day 1: Oriental Town Dock to Bay River Pottery, Bayboro: 22,696 steps
Day 2: Bayboro to Aurora Fossil Musuem: 27,092 steps
Day 3: Aurora Fossil Musuem to Bayboro (see photo above): 32,413 steps (Bill was jiggy, hence the shorter steps)
Day 4: Bayboro to Oriental Town Dock: 24,069 (See above…)
5 DAY TOTAL: 106,270 steps by a mule called Bill.
106,269!
106,269 of anything sure sounds better than 46 miles doesn't it?
Too bad I couldn't brag about it when I got back to the Oriental town dock.
It was bloody empty.
Bernie Harberts
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE: "65 Days Alone" DVD Released!
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 7:25:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
Day 37 - Stuck in the Atlantic Doldrums
After months of work, three-time Emmy Award winner Bob Collins and I have released my "65 Days Alone at Sea" DVD.
65 Days Alone at Sea
This film answers the question I get most about sailig solo around the world - "So Bernie, what's it like to be alone on the ocean for months at a time."
Well, here's your chance to find out.
"65 Days Alone at Sea" is about a two-month non-stop sail I made from South Africa to the Virgin Islands. In particular, it's about how your body changes at sea (ever hear of Skin Navigation?), how your mind adjusts (there's that thing about the jester sliding off the church roof...) and the unexpected things you run across at sea (the abandoned boat in the Bermuda Triangle - the one with the tied up manequin aboard...).
Fanged mystery skipper - Bermuda Triangle, North Atlantic Ocean
As we sail from Cape Town to the Virgin Islands aboard Sea Bird, we'll live for two months off rain water and tuna caught on hand-lines.
A bucket of rain - South Atlantic squall
Tuna before
Tuna after
We'll go from bowsprit to mast in all weather conditions, and when the wind dies, I'll take you for a dinghy ride in the middle of the Doldrums.
So... if you're the kind of person that looks at the blue on the world map and thinks, "Hmmmmm, wonder what it's like out there?", this would be the perfect DVD for you.
Or than again, if you pass your idle time in rush hour playing the steering wheel like the main sheet thinking "Man, I'm running away to sea...". Or you always thought "I could never do something like that alone..." .
Ok, you get the drift. This would be just the DVD for you, too.
If you'd like a copy, I'd love to send you one. Just send me your name and shipping address and $15.00 per DVD and you'll be off on your own 6500 mile ocean journey.
Once I get the store up and running, I'll take credit cards. But for now, just print out and complete the order form below, get it back to me and we'll get underway.
*********************************************************
YES! I'd like a copy of "65 Days Alone at Sea"
Please ship to:
Name:
Address:
City, State, Zip:
Phone 1:
Phone 2:
Email:
Comments:
Number of DVDs:
Cost Per DVD ($15.00):
Shipping and handling: $2.50
Total:
Please return cash, check or money order (made payable to RiverEarth) to:
Bernie Harberts
PO Box 245
Southern Pines, NC
28388
*********************************************************
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE: Shark Tooth on Main Street (or Why it's now the Lost Sea Expedition...)
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 8:55:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
So I drove my mule team from Oriental to Aurora and smack on the corner of Fourth and Main I found a shark tooth.
For real.
Ok, let me back up the plot a little. First let me explain how downtown Aurora is laid out.
Main Street runs down the middle of it. On one side of Main Street is the Aurora Fossil Musuem. On the other is what they call the fossil heap.
Debbie Richardson and Richard Olsen of the Aurora Fossil Museum - (Aurora, NC)
The fossil heap is just a pile of tailings the PCS phosphate mining company drops off from time to time across the street from the museum. After visitors tour the museum, they can dig through the heap for fossils of their own.
Which is exactly what I did after I toured the museum's extensive collection of fossilized sharks' teeth.
But before I ever reached the sandy looking pile, right by the sign post on the corner of Fourth and Main, a triangular jag on the sidewalk snagged my eye.
No, it couldn't be!
Still, I stooped for it and came up with a perfectly preserved shark's tooth. I collected a few more teeth from the fossil heap and then went back to the museum. They identified my first find as a Snaggletooth shark and it was millions of years old.
Snaggletooth Shark tooth
As I was leaving the museum, something else caught my eye, something even weirder than the shark tooth on Main Street. It was a map of the United States with a blue sea running up between the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains.
What was that all about? There's no ocean out there. I've personally walked across it and water, if anything, was scarce.
But it seems I was wrong. During the Cretaceous Period, about a hundred million years ago, a warm sea covered most of what is now the Great Plains.
And then it hit me. The route I was following on my upcoming North to South journey ran right down the middle of the extinct ocean called the Western Interior Seaway.
North Dakata, South Dakota, Nebraska...flooded (and I thought it was going to be a dry run...)
Suddenly the name to my next trip fell perfectly into place.
It wasn't "Captain Bernie's DRY DOCK Expedition" at all. What I was about to set out on was really "Captain Bernie's LOST SEA Expedition".
Ok, so I showed up a few million years after the last tide went out. But so what! Here I was, in the perfect position to be the first sea captain to explore the long forgotten sea bed on a nigh extinct form of transportation, the mule powered "Ship of Mules".
And then I learned about the fifteen foot turtle that swam in the tropical waters that once covered South Dakota. It was called the Archelon, boasted flippers six feet long and sported a tremendous overbite.
Mr. Archelon
But we'll get into him later.
For now my head just spins at the thought of entering the Lost Sea by mule wagon.
And it's all thanks to that shark tooth I found on Main Street.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
(Thanks Debbie and Richard of the Aurora Fossil Museum for steering me in the right direction. For those of you who'd like to learn more about Aurora and the fantastic Fossil Museum, it's http://www.aurorafossilmuseum.com/ Bernie)
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TITLE: Mule Hair Raku - Bayboro, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 9:11:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
"Where do we sleep tonight?"
That's Question Number One every time I strike out on a mule or a boat.
From Oriental Jack and Bill and I struck off toward Bayboro. 22,696 steps later we pulled up in front of a massive anchor on the Bayboro waterfront.
Bill: "I don't have another step in me."
Jack: "I know. Feels like we've done our twenty-thousand for the day. Let's anchor here tonight..." - Bayboro, NC
Norm Czuchra and Candace Young of Bay River Pottery lived just down the street and put us up for the night. And so the question of lodging was answered...
For almost thirty years now, Norm and Candace have produced their pottery along the banks of the Bay River. Norm showed me the new kiln he was building and the next morning Candace asked if I wanted to make a contribution to her pottery.
"Do you want to leave me with some mule hair?" she asked.
"Mule hair?" I wondered. "What in God's little green earth would mule locks be good for?"
'turns out Candace used it for her raku pottery. In raku, horse hair, or any other hair for that matter, was used during the firing process to create intricate patterns on the pottery.
Candace posing with Bill, her next mule hair donor
Mule tail and raku: before and after.
Candace brought me a roll of duct tape, wrapped a strand of it around Bill's tail as a label, and cut the strands.
Snip...
I had to leave before Norm and Candace had a chance to fire their next batch of mule hair raku. But I sure look forward to the result.
Candace applying horse hair to her latest batch of raku pottery.
The end result
Thanks Candace and Norm!
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
(For anyone interested in great pottery (and learning more about Norm's Bayboro Folly, visit)
bayriverpottery.com)
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TITLE: I BE DR. DOCK EDIT - Oriental, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 12:09:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
Remember how I said there comes a time when you just hit the road with what you've got?
Well, I did. I showed up in Oriental with a wagon whose sign some folks might have wished I'd spent a bit more time on...
Now when I originally set out to name my trip, I came up with "CAPTAIN BERNIE'S DRY DOCK EXPEDITION".
The CAPTAIN BERNIE bit? Well, I really am a licensed captain. 'seems I documented enough days afloat (360) to qualify for my US Coast Guard 50 Ton Master's ticket.
And the DRY DOCK bit? Remember, I want to run my mule wagon down the Great Plains, which used to be ocean. About 250,000,000 years ago.
So right before I left for Oriental, I painted CAPTAIN BERNIE'S DRY DOCK EXPEDITION on the passenger side of my wagon. I figured I'd practise on the side away from traffic.
Jack closing a blind eye to what's written on the other side... (Bayboro Pottery, Bayboro, NC)
Then it started raining. And then it got cold. The night before I left for Oriental, I tried to write the "D" in EXPEDITION on the other side.
But I messed it up. So I just wrote a few more words to fill up the blank side before it got dark.
I came up with this...
Here comes DR. DOCK EDIT (Bayboro, NC)
I don't know why I chose those words. I just reckon I was overcome by the same sign painter's urge that hit Gus McCrae of Lonesome Dove fame when he wrote my favorite sign of all time...
"... We Don't Rent Pigs ....Uva Uvam Vivendo Varia Fit"
"I God Woodrow!" I could hear folks saying from behind their windows. "What n'the devil's that mean?"
But it didn't matter.
I had my wagon and two mules on the road.
Oh, and I brought my pedometer with me.
Anyone know how many mules steps it is from Oriental, NC to Aurora and back?
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
(Thanks Norm, Candace and Claudia for your photos! Bernie)
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TITLE: Off Down the Road - Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 9:30:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
Watch those fingers...
With enough good advice and horsepower, I soon had the wagon body mounted on the chassis.
Now all that remained was the shake down. Once the brakes were adjusted and bled (this took three days, mind you) I hooked Jack and Bill up to my new creation.
Ok boys, "Up! Up!"
Then we hit the road for shakedown number one.
Off down the road
All went well so I hauled my outfit to Oriental, NC to start on shake down number two.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
(Thanks Susan Edwards for the great photos...! Bernie)
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TITLE: Let's Get This Thing on the Road! - Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 11:05:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
There comes a time in any journey's preparation when you look at the parts and say "Ok, no more building... Let's get this thing on the road!"
So last week I decided to tow the wagon body out of Mel's garage and mount it on the chassis I'd been using under my hay wagon.
Hay wagon chassis
I pulled the flat bed body off the chassis but then I got to looking at that red running gear. "You know" I thought "wouldn't it just look better if I painted it John Deere green?"
So I did...
You know you have to take the wheels off these things to paint them, right?
Then of course, I just HAD to paint the wheels. 'wouldn't do to have white wheels on a yellow and green wagon would it? So they got a coat of danger yellow.
Now can we put this thing together?
I won't bore you with how I had to replace the brakes....
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE: The Stove - Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:18:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
I've heard that a large number of gypsy wagons that are being restored show scorch marks. They come from where the wood stove set the wagon on fire.
Not good.
So to guard against this sort of Viking sendoff, I lined the stove nook with plywood and aluminum sheeting. Just to make sure the air circulated up behind the panels, I routed some air holes into the frame work.
Frame work for stove nook with vent holes that (should) dissipate heat (I hope).
Then I went down to the folks at Creative Sparks and they sheared out some plate steel for me.
That was for the stove.
I know, I know. I wanted a genuine oil can stove like Bob Sundown had but when I checked into buying a metal gas can, it turned out it would be cheaper just to weld up a bit of steel into a box and call that a stove.
For a front door, I used an inspection door like you put into the cinder block foundation under your house.
So here it is.
Bernie's stove. Note aluminum heat shield in place. Yes, the section of counter covering the stove is removable...
I know. There's no damper or ashpan but really, who cares? The little sheet metal stove I used in my tipi never torched my lodgings.
So there.
But just in case in my heat calculations are off, I'll carry along something most genuine gypsies didn't.
A fire extinguisher.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
(Thanks Susan Edwards and Ferill Britt for helping me with photographs and welding up my wood stove. Bernie)
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TITLE: Building the Interior - Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 9:52:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
Between catching my mules, hauling hay, working on the book and sewing up the odd cat, there's been scarce little time for working on the wagon.
The wagon shell waits...
Which isn't all bad.
It gave me time to think...
In the end, I realized that most projects consume exactly as much time and money as you have on hand. So you might as well start off small, on a scale you can finish.
And afford.
With that in mind, I set about building a pretty Spartan interior.
First I built a light frame for the counters and drawers I wanted on either side of my living space.
Framework for drawers and counter
Then I remembered I wanted to start my trip in Canada.
In late winter.
Hey, didn't that ring a bell? Hadn't I just started a trip the year before at the same time of year? Yeah! Of course. And it had snowed on my tipi...
A cold start (Southern Pines, NC - February 2003)
Just after I cleared my head of tipi walls sagging under snow loads, I remembered Bob Sundown. Remember Bob? He was the fellow in the shepherder's wagon I met in Deming, New Mexico. He was the one that inspired me to build my own.
Bob Sundown (outside Deming, New Mexico)
I holed up with Bob for a few stormy winter days during which my tipi blew down. He thawed me out at his home-made wood stove.
Bob's oilcan stove (Deming, New Mexico)
So I went back and cut out a nook in my framework just large enough to hold a wood stove.
(Space for the stove Bernie has yet to build...)
Now I just have to weld one up...
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE: Two Questions -Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 11:26:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
Two questions came up recently and I only had one answer.
Question One: How much can a horse pull?
Question Two: Bernie, do you want some free hay?
Hey Bill, can you pull this thing...?>
Of course the answer to Question Two was an unqualified "Yes".
Then Mel told me I had to pick it up in Jack and Bill's wagon.
Oh.
The hay was in a hay barn across town. All I had to do was go get it.
So it got me to thinking again about how much a horse, or a mule for that matter, could pull.
I did a bit of research and learned the Army (back in the days when it
relied on horses and mules instead of Hummers and MREs) said a draft horse could pull its own weight twenty miles per day on a smooth road.
Twenty miles! I was only looking at maybe eight miles. Max. And Jack and Bill weighed 2200 pounds combined, quite a bit more than the weight of my work wagon and the twenty bales I planned to haul.
Piece of cake. That answered Question Number One.
So I hooked Jack and Bill up to my wagon and drove them across town to pick up the load of hay. Two of Mel's students rode with me to help out.
Waiting
Jack and Bill stood quietly while Erin and Kaily helped me load the hay. Then we drove home.
Student Drivers - Hobby Field, Southern Pines, NC
A short chat
Now for Question Number Three.
Will Jack and Bill be able to pull the wagon I'm building in Mel's garage?
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE: Winter Quarters (and a bit of wrotten luck at the end...) - Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 12:58:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
Back in the early nineties I had this madcap dream.
I was going to become a steeplechase jockey!
Well, I moved back to Southern Pines, dieted from 165 to 125 pounds and lived out that crazy notion.
Win Number One circa 1992 (Hobby Field, Southern Pines, NC)
But the weight loss came hard so to keep my mind off food, I built a sailboat.
At the time I was galloping horses for my friend Mel Wyatt. "Hey Mel." I asked her one day as we were walking a set of race horses we'd just galloped, "Can I use your garage for a bit of a project."
"Sure!" she said, not knowing.
And that winter, I built a sailboat in her garage.
How it all started...
The Garage Sail. The boat that came out of that pile of plywood
(Georgian Bay, Canada)
I kept at my steeplechasing a few seasons until I bunged up my leg and decided that now I had a sailboat, I could run away to sea. So I sailed down the Hudson River, continued down the East Coast and ended up in the Bahamas. (But that's another story... See "The East Coast in an Eighteen Footer" at RiverEarth.com).
Ok. Now flash forward to the present.
It's Sunday morning. The sides and roof are bolted onto my wagon and it's raining outside. Mel Wyatt and I are doing the crossword at her kitchen counter. "Hey Mel." I ask "Can I use you garage to finish" and she knew what was coming and replied "Sure!" almost before I could add "my wagon.".
This time I measured though.
When I built the aptly named Garage Sail in Mel's garage, I'd forgotten to measure the distance from the floor to the bottom of the garage door. So when the time came to pull the hull out, well, it wouldn't fit...
So I threw a Bojangles biscut party and after everyone had eaten announced that.. well... there was this boat I was building in Mel's garage that needed moving... And since were were all here already we might as well work off those biscuits by.... you know... getting that boat out...
We finally extracated the Garage Sail. On its side.
So this time, with the wagon, I wasn't about to repeat the mistake.
I measured, and sure enough, there was an inch to spare under the garage door.
So with the help of Mel and another friend, we put a bunch of steel pipes under the wagon body and rolled it into her garage.
The wagon in the same spot occupied by Garage Sail all those years ago
And this time I didn't have to spring for a party.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
PS Thanks, again, Mel, for letting me use your garage and tools. I owe you a few rides...!
PPS Mel broke her hip this week so I'll be taking a break from wagon building for a few days to help out on her farm... Mel, I sure hope you get well soon. Bernie
PPPS Today a dog Mel's had for ten years attacked Boots, the barn cat she's had for fifteen years. It appeared one of the lungs had been punctured so we took it to the vet.
PPPPS. The vet said the damage was terminal and had to put Boots to sleep. Not a good day to work on the wagon. Bernie
PPPPPS While I was burying Boots behind the barn, Zoro, Mel's other barn cat, wandered up with a gash on his shoulder. I put the shovel down to look closer at the wound and saw the muscles in his shoulders through the hole in his skin. He definitely needed stitches.
My last visit to the vet hadn't gone well so I stitched him up in the tackroom with Susan and Melissa. I don't know if I got the dose of horse painkiller right but I reckon I'll soon find out...
I'm definitely taking the rest of the day off.
Bernie
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TITLE: Bolting it all Together - Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 7:57:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
I know, I know! You're sick of Technical Drawing Number One. Just remember, it's all I have in the way of blueprints, the only thing I have to go by as I build the wagon that, so far, has only resided in my brain.
Technical Drawing Number One
For months now I have been building the body parts to what look like an enormous slab sided monster. The yellow side walls, flank-like and stiff. The wooden ribs, bowed like they might fit around a giant heart. The steel frame, the green carcass to a mysteriously square beast.
But mostly I wondered this.
Was all this stuff going to fit like it should? Should I have spent more than five minutes drawing up my Technical Drawing Number One.
Well, here's the big news.
I finally got it all bolted together!
Like birth when it comes, it went really quickly.
The bare frame waiting for the walls
The walls go up (Susan Edwards photo)
The roof beams are bolted in place
This is the last time you'll see blue sky between those beams
And finally we have a roof!
So yes, we're making progress. Just remember, this is where where we started out...
Wagon wreckage
But now it's getting wintry outside.
'time to bring this project inside.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE: Recapturing the Mule Nation - Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 11:24:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
"Oh man, I'm so sunk!" I thought as I turned away from the open gate and thought of Craig.
Craig aboard his boat before she was lost at sea
(Rodrigues Island, Indian Ocean)
Craig was a mad keen Australian I'd sailed with aboard Sea Bird. He'd bought a small twenty-three foot sailboat in Australia, sailed her from there around Africa's stormy Cape of Good Hope, then up to Cuba and on to Newfoundland.
From there, he planned to cross the Atlantic to Ireland and then back down to Cape Horn and return home to the Big Down Under.
Only the tail end of a hurricane caught him at sea hundreds of miles offshore, rolled his boat over and he was plucked from his swamped vessel by a passing freighter. He showed up in London with little more than his name.
As I turned from the empty gate I got that same sinking feeling. Dang! One moment I had mules under me. The next I was the owner of an empty field.
I gathered up my empty halters, climbed back into my pickup and started driving down May Street.
Now unlike a good shipwreck, where you have floating clues like life preservers and oil slicks to pursue, mule hunting is trickier. As I drove down May Street toward Southern Pines, my eyes combed the long leaf pines and horse pasture for clues.
Nothing. No tracks, no skid marks. Zero.
The first person I came across was Mike Plumb.
Now you have to know, Mike's been a member of the Olympic Three-day event team God only knows how many times. Three-day event. That's where horses first have to perform a series of patterns in what's called Dressage and then they jump their guts out for the rest of the competition.
Mule driving is the polar opposite of Three-day eventing.
Anyway, I figured it was worth a shot.
Mike was schooling one of his horses. I ambled up. "'lost my mules. Have you seen any around here?" I asked.
"Lost, as in died?" he wanted to know. "Does this happen a lot with you?"
I explained that no, it was acually rare for me to loose my mounts in such spectacular fashion and yes, I still held out hope they were alive.
Still, I cursed myself. Between Woody and Maggie, I'd just put in a combined 7000 miles of cross country riding from North Carolina to California. Never had a spot of trouble. Now, in my own back yard, I'd left their gate open and they'd just wandered off.
I excused myself, drove another stretch down May Street and there they were.
I spotted Maggie first, her black and white hide standing out against the dead grass like an ink stain on my favorite white shirt. Aha!
Then Woody, Jack and Bill came into view, all standing very contently in a very borrowed pasture. Someone had caught them in the night (I later learned it was 3:00 AM), put them up into their field and assumed what ever idiot had lost them would eventually claim them.
They were right. Now that idiot just had to figure out how to get them home.
I'd long ago discovered that Maggie was the ringleader of the group. The mules were smitten with her so I just put on her halter, rigged the lead rope into reins and jumped on her back. The rest of the Mule Nation just followed her home as happily as they'd undoubtedly followed her off the farm.
Return of the Mule Nation
Now I'm not much of an emotional person. But as soon as I had my mounts turned loose in their pasture I walked over and gave each on a hug.
Suddenly it didn't matter that I drove an old truck and my mules wore second hand harness that belonged in the charity league. The glorius fact remained I had close friends, a trusty Dodge, a team of mules and a pony that stirred the pot just to make things exciting.
Then, having given thanks, I went back and shut the gate.
And tied it...
Tomorrow I must call Craig.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
(Thanks Mel, Beth, Peter and Suzie and everyone else who helped me re-capture my mules. Thanks also to Susan Edwards for the superb photos - Bernie)
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TITLE: Gone! - Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:37:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
Friday the 13th...
The phone rang this morning and before I could answer it, Mel left the frantic message on my machine.
"Bernie, your mules are gone!"
Gone? Gone! No! Oh god, that was bad way to start the 13th. Or a mule expedition for that matter...
I called her right back, still in my pajamas, and she repeated the news. "Bernie! You're mules are gone. We're over here at Buckin Field and can't find them. "
She didn't have to say "Get over here quick." before I was into my jeans and truck.
I raced out to the farm but Mel was right.
The gate to their pasture was wide open.
Gone...
Maggie, Woody, Jack and Bill were gone.
The engines to "Captain Bernie's Dry Dock Expedition" had just vanished.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE: Danger Yellow Versus the Grim Reaper - Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 11:49:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
My biggest fear about hitting the open road in my new wagon is getting rear-ended by a car and waking up with the Grim Reaper saying "Hey, that joker that hit you told the cops he couldn't see you. Said you just looked like some desert scrub out there in that tan wagon."
The Grim Reaper (well, actually, it's Bernie deciding that those tan walls need some yellow paint rolled onto them.)
So I marched down to the hardward store and got a gallon of Danger Yellow, the bright stuff, like they put on schoolbuses.
Walls laid out for painting.
I decided that instead of bolting the walls onto the wagon and then painting them like that, I'd lay them all out on the lawn and roll the paint to them while it was still easy. Ok, so then the wind started blowing and the last maple leaf on the farm got stuck in the paint job. But who cares? This is a gypsy wagon, not a Pimp my Ride graduate. Actually, the odd skid mark lends the paint job an authentic flavor.
Can you see me now? The side walls bolted in place.
Then of course I had to bolt two sides into place just to see how they looked.
Perfect!
I sure hope my Peril Yellow paint job keeps Mr. Grim at bay.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE: Busted Wagon Hoops and Then Success- Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 6:05:00 PM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
Ok, so the Christmas rush is over and now it's time to make hoops for the roof of my wagon. As usual, I consulted my Technical Drawing Number One.
Technical Drawing Number One: the roof beams are at 12 o'clock.
Ok, ok, so you just saw Technical Drawing One two updates ago. But a quick sketch is really all you need if you want to build a wagon badly enough.
Wagon hoops are the pieces in a wagon's roof that give the roof that barrel-backed look. Back when they took wagon building more seriously than I, oh, and they had apprentices, they used clear lengths of white oak sawed into staves. These thin strips of wood were bent into place while green, or, if dry stock was used, they were steamed first. Then canvas, or if you were poor, an old blanket, was stretched across the arched frame work.
But times have changed and I don't have a thousand board feet of prime oak behind my garage. No, I'm more in the plywood league so I decided tradition would have to sit this one out. Wagon masters of the old Butterfield Stage, forgive me.
First I cut two-inch wide by eight-foot long strips out of a sheet of quarter-inch plywood.
Plywood strips ready for laminating into wagon hoops.
Then I drew the arc of the wagon roof I wanted onto a sheet of three-quarter inch plywood.
Next, I screwed a dozen blocks of wood, called "cleats" in boat-speak, along the line on the plywood. After I spread glue on my wood strips, I'd clamp them to these wood blocks to give my wagon hoops their shape.
This was fine progress and I congratulated myself I didn't need white oak or a steam box as I slathered the wood glue on each side of five plywood strips. Now I just had to clamp strips onto my home-made jig.
Ok, strips glued up. Just have to clamp them in place now...
Glue ran off my hands as I sprang the strips against the cleats, ready to clamp them into wagon lore when BANG!!!!!
They broke in two. All five of them just shattered and sent Titebond glue and splinters all over the shop, my coat, but most seriously, all over my beloved stockman's hat.
"Man, what's going on here?" I wondered as I maneuvered the splintered lot into the firewood heap.
After I wiped the creamy mess of my hat, I checked the radius of my arc. No, it wasn't too tight.
Then I looked a bit closer at my pile of plywood strips and discovered a secret I'll pass on to you in case you're building wagon hoops in your garage.
Plywood bends better in one direction than another.
Try it. Take a long, thin strip of plywood, like I was trying to glue up. Hold it in your hand and let the ends bend down. Then flip it over. The ends will either hang down more. Or less.
So I did what I call the "droop test" with each piece of plywood, just to find out which way the wood wanted to bend. Then, when I knew which way my strips wanted to flex, I slathered them with more Titebond and clamped then onto my jig.
Perfect. I never broke another piece after that.
Success! The purple plastic wrap keeps the glue from sticking the hoops to the plywood jig.
Now I have six wagon hoops. And a glue stain on my hat.
Next we'll bolt the wagon walls and roof beams to the frame.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE: Merry Christmas from RiverEarth - Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:11:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
The Red Hat and Flashing Antler Club: Jack, Joanie and Bill
I never realized how enormous Jack and Bill's ears were until I snapped a pair of flashing red velvet reindeer antlers behind them. It was a pretty good fake rake, a six-pointer with a thirteen inch spread if I'd been scoring them through a rifle scope. But that's not what impressed me.
No, what struck me was that even with those enormous Yule appendages, Jack and Bill plodded on like good sports in their new life. "Gosh! What a great pair of mules!" I thought.
Then it hit me. What about poor Woody and Maggie?
For weeks now, as I've worked Jack and Bill to the training wagon, my old travel mates have stayed behind in their paddock. This agreed with Maggie as it means more food for her. But it was beginning to weigh on Woodrow. Every time I pulled the big mule team out, Woody gave me the old "That used to be me." look.
Then Mel invited me to the barn Christmas party.
"Hey, we're going to build a fire and grill weenies." she said. "And after we cook marshmallows, I want you to pull the kids around in your wagon."
"Perfect!" I thought. "I've got just the idea."
We made our fire and charred our marshmallows and after I pulled my first load of passengers, I tied Woody and Maggie to the back of the wagon.
Maggie and Woody back among friends.
Kaily immediately jumped on Maggie. That long dormant "Regal Bearer of the Expedition Supplies" look came back over Maggie and momentarily she forgot about the hay she was missing out on.
And Woody? Well, nobody wanted to get on him because most of them had seen him dump me in Mel's barnyard earlier. So he just walked behind the wagon snapping at the hay bales folks were sitting on.
Lap after lap we turned around Foxtrack, the kids doing most of the driving.
Kaily and Caroline drive us home.
Then, after everyone went home and I was left alone with my animals, I discovered the perfect Christmas gift I could give them. Or any other animal for that matter.
Attention.
So from now on, Jack and Bill have company on their training rides. As they walk through the Sand Hills preparing for the Dakotas, there'll be a pinto pony and a red mule tagging behind their wagon.
"Hey, we finally have a job!"
And with that, I wish each and every one of you a lovely Christmas.
And for those of you with pets, when they give you the old red mule "Man, I remember when..." look, give them a scratch behind the ears. Or better yet, spend some time with them outdoors.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE: The World's Largest Blue Bologna Sandwich - Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:12:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
After living in my tipi for almost thirteen months on the road, I decided my next home would have more substantial walls.
Bernie's last home on the road. Winter 2003
Ok, so there were some privacy issues with my last living arrangements. Like cows.
Cows at the tent flaps - Whetstone, Arizona
I decided that if I was going for stock-proof walls this time, I might as well go for warmth too. That meant adding insulation to my dream.
Here's how I did it.
The side walls on the wagon I designed are four feet tall and eight feet long.
Technical Drawing One. Side view of the wagon walls.
To build the walls, I made the equivalent of a thirty-two square foot, bologna sandwich. To extend the analogy, for the top and bottom pieces of bread I used quarter-inch sheets of plywood. The Oscar Meyer was a sheet of three-quarter inch foam insulation.
The world's largest open-faced, blue foam sandwich.
The completed sandwich.
Now that the sides are complete, I'm sitting down with a cup of tea. And then I'll paint and bolt those sides to the wagon frame.
Finally, no more peeping cows.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE: "Up! Up!" - Happy Valley, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:14:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
"So in all you've seen" Hoy asked with a grin that was amplified by the hand hooked into his blue overalls, "have you ever seen a steer climb a set of stairs?"
"Nope." I had to admit.
But if ever a man could castrate a bull and then convince him to scale a flight of steps, Hoy was the man. That was why I was here to see him. Hoy, I hoped, would shed some light on just how I was to get Jack and Bill to pull my wagon.
"Well watch this then." Hoy said and ambled over to a red steer tied to a post. He unsnubbed the animal, said "Come on Carter." and slowly, one step at a time, man and steer climbed the front steps of Hoy's porch.
The first stair-climbing steer I've seen
After Hoy got the steer turned around and back down into the yard, he lead him to a lean-to barn and hooked him to a wagon.
Hoy hitches Carter
"Come on then." Hoy said. "Lets go for a ride." I piled in, sensing a chance to spring my question.
Steer speed
Hoy is one of the last men in North Carolina to work with steers. "I just like messing with them because nobody else does anymore." he says as Carter pulls the wagon up the valley behind Hoy's house.
I told Hoy of Jack and Bill and how I had them hooked up and didn't really know how to get them under way. "So how do you get a team going?" I asked.
"It's different in different parts of the state." Hoy said. "Some people say "Walk On!". Others kiss to them. But around here, the old folks used to say "Up!"
"Up?" I'd never heard that one before. "Why up?"
"Well in the old days" Hoy said, "people used to works steers a lot in these mountains. They were slow and pulled heavy loads. Lots of times, you just wanted that steer to take one step forward. Like when he was skidding a log. So you said "Up!". If you wanted the steer to walk faster, you said "Up! Up!".
We finished our wagon ride and the next day I tried my new commands out on Jack and Bill.
I ran the lot by them and they responded best to "Up! Up!"
Then I tried something new.
I'd heard Hoy turning his steer with "gee" and "haw", right and left respectively. When I called the commands to Jack and Bill, they ignored me.
Seems like they don't how to turn right or left on command.
This is a dangerous trait in sailing vessels and possibly words in mules. So really soon, I'll have to teach them to turn by my voice. Since they don't know "gee" and "haw" I can train them to any words I like.
I'm thinking "port" and "starboard".
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
(Thanks Hoy and Bertha for the wagon ride, mustard greens and turnips. I think of you all every time I get my mules moving now. Up! Up!)
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TITLE: A Training Rig for Jack and Bill - Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:16:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
Somehow, in my new-found enthusiasm for welding, sand blasting and paint, I overlooked one small detail of my pending expedition; my mules Jack and Bill.
After all, hadn't I bought them early in the planning stages of the trip so I could get them in shape? But now they mostly just kept their round bale company.
Woody and Maggie escaped my inattention. I still managed to ride them weekly. But the thought of riding plow mules raised the hollow enthusiasm reserved for pushing a wheel barrowful of cement. In the end the guilt got me.
I threw my saddle on Bill, whom I judged the milder of the two, and ponied Jack. They immediately blundered into a yellow jacket's nest which gave the failed attempt more of a Mad Max taste than a Ben Hur experience.
So I built a training wagon, little more than a flat bed on wheels, while I continued on the "real" one.
Scavenging the remains of the original wagon for timbers
With friends Eric and Ginny, I picked clean what remained of the original wagon.
The new frame members are laid out
2 by 6 boards were reconstituted into a box frame.
The box frame
In two days, my friends helped me build a stripped down wagon bed that fit onto my Pioneer wagon chassis. The project came to ten dollars; five for lumber and five for a gallon of mismatched paint from Lowe's. Everything else was recycled.
Jack and Bill are put into harness
Hitched up at last!
Jack the mule with Bernie and Sparky, un-official "Expedition Dog"
Finally, I was poised to hit the road, albeit in a make shift way.
Then I discovered something else I'd ignored.
I didn't know how to drive a mule team.
That's where Hoy stepped in and got me moving.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE: Blasting and Macho Green - Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:17:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
Despite what it says on a pack of 60 grit sandpaper, steel needs sand blasting. That's really the only way to remove the mill scale, the protective coating the steel mills apply to raw steel to keep it from rusting while the metal is handled. Leave the mill scale on and just paint over it and your new paint job won't adhere for very long.
I rolled my frame to Ken's White and in two hours his assistant Sammy Parrish had the job done.
Sammy moves in for the job
Freshly blasted steel needs painting within twenty-hours to prevent moisture induced corrosion. To protect the newly exposed steel, I grubbed out a left over gallon of International under-water primer I had sitting in the garage.
On the fist sailboat I built, Garage Sail, I insisted that all paint was sprayed on. Back then, I was going for the mirror smooth, Detroit finish. I was ashamed that I didn't have the money to buy a factory built sailboat. So I tried to disguise my plywood charge in a fancy paint job.
But over the years, near insolvency has changed my views. I worried more how well the job was done and less about whether I could shave in the results. On Sea Bird, my last boat, I went from sprayed finishes to paint jobs rolled on with a nine inch roller. Then I abandoned the roller in favor of the widest paint brush I could find, usually a four incher, often the two-dollar, chip brush variety.
Weeks spent on a faux factory paint job were weeks I could spend on the open ocean. Besides, the brush marks soon faded in the sun.
With this in mind, I tacked the wagon frame.
I dashed on a gallon of primer with the widest brush I could find and stepped back to admire the results.
The coverage was splendid, no annoying runs of drips. But my soaring spirits were brought in check by the color.
Instead of a macho sea-going red or black, it came out pink.
Two days later I covered it with a more manly shade of John Deere Greene
A manly shade of green
But I was growing impatient.
It was time to get Jack and Bill out on the road.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
(Thanks Ken White and Sammy Parrish for fitting my wagon into your busy blasting schedule. Bernie)
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TITLE: Framed up and Street Legal - Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:19:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
Woody taught me everything I needed to know about wagon design.
Strength comes first followed closely by light weight.
Woody strength testing the Forest Service bulldozer he's tied to. (Forest Service Station, Catherine Lake, NC, May 2004)
Occasionally, when he was tied up and couldn't get to Maggie, he leaned into his halter with enough force to break the lead rope.
With Jack and Bill I thought it was different. After all, they were older than Woody and came from lethargic plowing stock.
Then one day while I had Jack and Bill tied up to my horse trailer, Bill escaped and Jack lost his mind. Remember, these guys have lived together 13 years. They're mighty attached to one another.
As Bill strolled off, Jack plunged into his halter just braying his head off after his team mate. I swear he scooted my horse trailer over a few inches. I mean just drug it sideways.
Then, when I caught Bill and tied him back up next to Jack, Bill decided it was time for a roll. Before I could untie him, he buckled and started writhing on the ground, pitching his weight into the trailer, rocking it until it looked like it was going to topple onto him. Then, seeing his buddy on the ground, Jack got into the rolling act and now the trailer was getting jerked side to side by two twelve-hundred pound sand bathing mules.
It's a steel trailer, though, so it survived with little more than another dent in the fender.
Had my mules been tied to a wood structure, they'd have torn it to bits (which is what they later did to a small barn but that's another story.
The reason I mention wood is because many of the early wagons were lumber with only a bit of forged iron for support. Oak, preferably white oak, was used for the flooring and frame because it was strong. Lighter woods, like pine and poplar, were used for the sides and interior.
Had I been a traditionalist, I would have gone all wood.
Then I saw Jack and Bill's little display of destruction and thought, "What if Jack pitches a fit in the middle of the Badlands, out back of beyond, and he's tied to a nice wooden wagon? Man, he'd tear the corner posts right out of it."
I love an adventure but not the kind where I spend nine months wandering through the desolate West looking for hammer, nails and another two by four.
So I went with a steel frame, even if it weighs a few more pounds than tradition.
I used 1/8th inch steel tubing (called, I think, 11 gauge in metal parlance) because that's the lightest steel I could weld with my welder. Anything thinner, my metal welding buddies informed me, and I've have to go with exotic gases to keep from burning through the metal. The weight isn't too bad; about three pounds per foot.
The wagon frame has about eighty feet of tubing in it so it'll weigh about 250 pounds before painting. I haven't done the calculations for a wooden frame but it wouldn't have been less than 150 pounds.
After that, I get ruthless on cutting weight. The sides will be three-quarter inch closed cell foam (R - 4 for you engineers) sandwiched between two skins of 3/16th inch plywood. The floor will be 1/2 inch plywood over a grid of light steel supports. The ceiling and roof will be more closed cell foam encased between 1/8th and 3/16th inch plywood.
It took a week to weld up the frame and side posts.
The completed frame
It's six feet wide and twelve feet long.
Finally, a place to put Bernie's chair
After the frame was welded up, it was time to haul the frame to the sand blaster's for blasting. I tracked down the orange triangle that used to hang on Maggie's cart and screwed it to the back of my new rig. That would let me legally tow it behind my pickup.
Street legal even in the Arizona desert. (McGee Ranch, Continental, Arizona, January 2005)
My new license plate
Then I hit the road for Ken White's.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE: The First Sparks - Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:23:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
I decided my wagon should have a light steel frame covered in thin plywood. After all, what other material could survive a captain who'd steered past charges onto shipwrecks?
Beaching...a common theme in my travels (Sea Bird cast up on the beach outside Darwin, Australia. Yet again...)
A ship wreck that Sea Bird actually missed. It was too far up the beach. (Yes, that's Sea Bird resting on the beach.)
While it's often true that past performance does not guarantee future results, my mistakes historically repeat themselves. So I decided to stick with the ferrous stuff.
All that remained was to find some steel.
I drove to Lee Iron and Metal in Sanford where I could buy all the steel I wanted for fifteen cents a pound. Yes! This was scrounging at its best.
For a half an hour, I crawled over tangled plates of steel with chunks torched out of them in the shape of ragged hearts. But they were an inch thick, way too heavy. I needed something more in the one-eighth inch range.
Finally I spotted a pair of galvanized DOT road sign posts. I made my way to the crane with the magnetic head and asked the operator if could pull them out for me.
He did. They bent.
Oh well.
If I've learned one thing in my travels it was this. Start right. In this case that meant a straight frame.
So I sprang for new steel tubing. Quite by coincidence, it cost me a dollar a pound at Steel and Tube.
Wagon? This is going to turn into a wagon?
By chance, I still had the welder I used on Sea Bird. It was the weekend warrior Lincoln version from Lowe's that you plug into any old 110 wall outlet.
Bernie eager to strike a spark (Photo by Beth Clarke)
So I got going.
The first welds!
By day's end, I'd welded up the backbone.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE: Title Suggestions - Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:24:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
Thanks everybody for your help. The title suggestions are rolling in! Here they come...in no particular order. Keep sendin' em and I'll keep posting em.
10 Legged Journey: Woody, Maggie and Me.
Many Hearts for Ten Legs
The Mule That Walked to the Center of the World
10 Legs, Will Travel
Are we There Yet?
Woody
From Atlantic to Pacific with Oats for Fuel
Half-assed Journey Across America
Long Miles with Long Ears
Bullet Holes & Bumblebees: A Story of a Mule and a Man
Giddy Up America
The Moses Effect: by Mule to Manna
Come Walk With us: From Sea to Shining Sea
You Can Learn a Lot from an Ol Mule
Mule Speed America
Footprints Across America
Hooves and Boots and Wheels
8 Hooves, 2 Boots, 4 Wheels
Hooves and Footprints Across America
Mule Dragger: Sailing Across America
See the USA: How to Drag a Mule Across America
Tipi for Three
Cap'n Bernie Rides Again
80 Million Hoof Beats Give or Take
One if by Ocean, Three if by Mule
Between the Oceans
Woody, Maggie, and Me : A Journey Across America
The Pony Express (NOT!)
Hoofprints Across America:Finding America and Americans From a Saddle
disqualifications (written by me mule woody)
bernie and i are sorting through all the titles that are pouring in and i have told him he needs to eliminate a few because they remind me of my dad who was a donkey. you see my mom was a horse and my dad was a donkey, or jack ass. i'm a mule which what that one guy got right when he talked about the half-assed bit. anyway, here are the two i disqualified.
dragging my ass Across america: a new way to see the usa
adventures of a jack ass
signed
woody the mule
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TITLE: Blueprints? We Don't Need No Stinking Blueprints! Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:26:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
It occurred to me after I razed my wagon that I hadn't have a clue about how to build a new one.
Then I remembered Norman Laman.
Norman and Smoky in their home made wagon (Artesia, New Mexico)
I met Norman in Artesia, New Mexico. He was in his eighties, had driven trucks for a living, and after he retired, he built a wagon out of a twenty dollar VW carcass. He joined us for a day on the road, and when we pulled up that evening I asked him what plans he'd used for his rig.
Blue prints? No way. "I built it around the buggy seat that used to belong to my grandfather." he told me. Then he gave me some chili peppers that later made me consider castration but that's another story.
The buggy seat that drove Norman's design
It got me to thinking. After sleeping, the place I'd spend most of my time would be in the driver's seat. So I snapped up a folding chair, made a few measurements and whipped out my notebook for a quick sketch.
From sitting in that chair, I discovered I needed 3 1/2 feet at the front of the wagon, sort of like a covered porch where I'd sit and drive. That would be enough room for a chair and a good occasional leg stretch. For the cab behind, where I'd cook, write, and sleep, I figured 8 feet would do. Then I remembered that plywood sheets came in four foot sheets so I thought "Hey, make it twelve feet long overall and give yourself 8 1/2 feet of living quarters."
Technical Drawing Number One: The Exterior Layout of "Captain Bernie's Hybrid Expedition" Vehicle (Note Bernie's chair)
Then came a quick interior sketch.
I cheated on that too. Remember Bob Sundown, the guy that lived in the sheepherder's wagon in New Mexico? Well, he had what could be broadly called a sheepherder's wagon.
The sheepherder's wagon hosted just what its name implies; a shepherd. Before ATVs and ordered fencing, shepherds, especially in the Idaho area, lived in small wagons while they tended their stock. They followed the sheep to fresh grass in these horse drawn accommodations.
Though all were individual, they stuck to generally the same layout; namely, the bed was always in the back and most boasted a wood stove.
I got a fresh sheet of paper and penciled in the bed and stove where I liked it. The bed converts to two seats and a drop-in table. Like on my old boat. The rest of the area I just filled in with counters.
Technical Drawing Number Two: Bernie's Sheepherder Wagon Inspired Interior Layout (with apologies to real shepherders)
And so now I have two sheets of plans for my new wagon.
Now comes the sticky bit.
Getting off my chair and building the bugger.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE: Help! Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:33:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
I'm just wrapping up my book about Woody and Maggie's ride across American and I've run up against a very embarrassing problem.
I can't think of a dern title.
This is where I need your help!
Got any good notions for a snappy title?
The book covers my journey across America by mule and pony. It's about all the good people we met along the way like the meth queen that put us up and in the morning I discovered the bullet holes above my mattress. The personal theme is how I went from being self sufficient to a fault (thanks to years alone on my sailboat) to realizing it's ok to ask others for help.
Ok, here are the title guidelines.
1)It's got to be short. I'm looking for something like "Buck a Pound" or “Zero" that can easily fit on the cover. That could be followed by a few descriptive words like "A Mule Journey Across America".
2)It's got to be catchy and funny. This is, after all, a book about meat thieves, a cheap mule and a broke sailor. I want a title that makes people laugh and think "Wonder what that's about?"
So that's what I'm looking for.
"Ok" I can hear you thinking, "so what's in it for me?"
Well, for sure a couple of copies of my book; autographed by me and of course Woody and Maggie (they don't know this yet). Oh, you also get a ride in my wagon if you're close enough to drop by for a spin.
Alright even if you don't win you can have a ride in the "Captain Bernie's Hybrid Expedition" flagship. Just give me a few more weeks to finish building it.
So, that's the challenge. Get to work. Spread the word. Come up with a whopper and drop by for a yarn when you can. I'm in Southern Pines, NC now and can be reached at 910 695 0989.
Hey, after all, even Woody has gotten into the act.
Sort of.
"hmmm. looks like bernie got tired of thinking of a title and took off."
"hey, i have a great idea for a title. oh, it's a carrot." crunch
Too bad he deprived literature of a stunning title by eating his writing utensil...
See why I need your help?
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE: Help! Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:33:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
I'm just wrapping up my book about Woody and Maggie's ride across American and I've run up against a very embarrassing problem.
I can't think of a dern title.
This is where I need your help!
Got any good notions for a snappy title?
The book covers my journey across America by mule and pony. It's about all the good people we met along the way like the meth queen that put us up and in the morning I discovered the bullet holes above my mattress. The personal theme is how I went from being self sufficient to a fault (thanks to years alone on my sailboat) to realizing it's ok to ask others for help.
Ok, here are the title guidelines.
1)It's got to be short. I'm looking for something like "Buck a Pound" or “Zero" that can easily fit on the cover. That could be followed by a few descriptive words like "A Mule Journey Across America".
2)It's got to be catchy and funny. This is, after all, a book about meat thieves, a cheap mule and a broke sailor. I want a title that makes people laugh and think "Wonder what that's about?"
So that's what I'm looking for.
"Ok" I can hear you thinking, "so what's in it for me?"
Well, for sure a couple of copies of my book; autographed by me and of course Woody and Maggie (they don't know this yet). Oh, you also get a ride in my wagon if you're close enough to drop by for a spin.
Alright even if you don't win you can have a ride in the "Captain Bernie's Hybrid Expedition" flagship. Just give me a few more weeks to finish building it.
So, that's the challenge. Get to work. Spread the word. Come up with a whopper and drop by for a yarn when you can. I'm in Southern Pines, NC now and can be reached at 910 695 0989.
Hey, after all, even Woody has gotten into the act.
Sort of.
"hmmm. looks like bernie got tired of thinking of a title and took off."
"hey, i have a great idea for a title. oh, it's a carrot." crunch
Too bad he deprived literature of a stunning title by eating his writing utensil...
See why I need your help?
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE: Signs of Rot - Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:37:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
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BODY:
It started innocently enough as it usually does. It was a fine day, a bit rainy, and I decided that I should introduce Woody, Maggie, Jack and Bill to my new wagon.
The (soon to be) last supper (Southern Pines, NC)
I scattered some buckets out, doled feed into each and my mounts dug in. In the idle moments I looked closer at my wagon.
"Funny" I thought to myself, "that corner looks wet." When I stepped closer it was indeed damp. Rotten damp.
"Geez, that left corner looks dodgy."
Spurred by idle time, I grabbed up a hammer and pried loose a few boards for a closer look. Then a few more...
"No, still don't see the leak. Let's take a little more."
Signs of trouble (Note the yellow Sawsall on the floor. That's never a good sign...)
Going...
Gooiinng...
GOOIINNG!
GONE!!!
And yes, before I knew it, my home on wheels was gone.
"Now what?" I thought as I gathered up my feed buckets and put the mules away.
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
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TITLE: Finally a Mule Team - East Bend, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:39:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
Growing up, one of my favorite pictures in my parent's house was a photo of a man cultivating tobacco behind his mule.
(One of) the photos that got me thinking run-away thoughts as a kid (Photo by Jack Jeffers 12/4/74)
That old man was slim as a tobacco stake and the great old mule he walked behind had a notch missing from his ear. The man's cultivator was one of those old wooden ones that relied on river rocks to help it get a better bite. I imagined the photo was taken in Oklahoma. From then on, I had the dream of running away to that land of black and white men and ponderous mules.
Why am I mentioning this?
Well, because I ended up with the same sort of tobacco working mule. Two of them actually. Now I have something to pull my wagon (when it's finished) with.
Jack and Bill working tobacco (East Bend, NC circa 1997, photo courtesy of Bud Patterson)
Jack and Bill belonged to a fellow named Frank Hennings who lived outside East Bend, NC. According to Ted Nance, who found the mules for me, "Frank was the area's best country vet before they got modern medicine like they do now. He castrated more horses than anyone I know. Did hundreds of them and charged ten bucks."
Frank owned Jack, now seventeen, and Bill, now eighteen, for about thirteen years.
"Oh, Frank used to plow all sort of things with them. After the tobacco was picked, he'd plow the stalks back under with them."
Frank Hennings driving Jack and Bill to a plowing job (East Bend, NC circa 1997, photo courtesy of Bud Patterson)
Then a few years ago, Frank died.
His beloved mules were turned out. Occasionally they were harnessed when a hay wagon needed pulling or a parade needed attending.
Then I stumbled into their retirement. Now it looks like they're ready to get back into the harness again.
Oh, if I can find some...
Frank heading out on a wagon train with Jack (l) and Bill (r) (photo courtesy of Bud Patterson)
Bernie
RiverEarth.com
(Thanks Ted Nance and Bud Patterson for helping me find my buck-a-pound engines.
Also, thanks to Jack Jeffers (jeffersfineart.com) who sent me the story behind the mule I adored as a kid. The following is a reprint of the story of what I thought was the Okie mule.
Simon Ward and His Tennessee Mules
Jack Jeffers c2004
1974
This is one of those rare circumstances when a concept can suddenly appear out of nowhere.
I was returning from an art show in Nashville, Tennessee when I decided to take a back road from Knoxville to Kingsport. It was old US Rt 11W. It sort of reminds you of Historic Rt 66 out west with all the old and dilapidated motels and filling stations that dot the landscape. Relics of the past I call them. Most of my finest images have been discovered along these old trails.
I had just passed through the town of Surgoinsville in my 72-cargo van when I happened to glance over my left shoulder and spotted an old fellow and a mule going through a fresh field of tobacco. He was using an old wooden harrow weighted down with several good size river jacks to make the blade penetrate the soil. This was a sight to behold, as one large mule appeared to be dragging both man and machine through the clod-filled field.
I was caught totally by surprise, but I had my camera pack in the back of the truck and decided to take a chance and capture this image before it passed into oblivion.
I pulled off the road, donned my forty-pound camera pack and quickly climbed over the remains of a fence as the farmer and mule disappeared over the distant crest of the hill. I figured that when he made the next pass, I would be set up and ready to capture this image for posterity. It happened just as I had planned, and I made a couple of precisely timed exposures before the operation came to a halt. Now, I would have to explain to this man why I was standing in the middle of his field with a heavy tripod and camera aimed in his direction.
I did not have my dog Rufus with me on this trip, but I quickly introduced myself and told him exactly what I was doing. Simon Ward was his name, and he just shook his head and chuckled over the whole sequence of events. Bottom line, he was flattered that I would want to photograph his mule Kate.
Simon was quite a character. He probably didn’t weight more than a hundred and twenty pounds with all his clothes on. But he sure could handle that great Tennessee Mule.
We chatted and he told me all about Kate and how he had traded a watch for her some year’s back. She was 22 years old and huge. The interesting thing was that the watch he traded for Kate had been lost for some time before he happened to spot it one day lying out in a field. It still worked, so he traded it for Kate. “Been together ever since” he said.")
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TITLE: Finally a wagon (well, sort of...) - Virgilina, VA
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:09:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
The big news is I have a wagon. Sort of.
I can thank Mike Walker for that.
"Good luck, Bo!" were Mike's parting words (Mike and Pam Walker, outside Virgilina, VA)
Mike's the guy that sold me mule Woody for my trip across America. I ran into him recently at Benson Mule days, and when I told him I was in the market for a wagon he said "Bo, I've got just the wagon for you. It's gonna run you about two grand but it's just perfect."
Then I dropped the budget bomb on him. "Well, Mike" I replied, "I'm still on the same old budget; dollar a pound."
Mike chuckled like old ship's captains do when they think about the hulk they have leaning against the apple tree in their back yard. "Bo" he said, "I really want to see you do this trip. I've got an old wagon that might just work for you. It's sitting up at my place behind the tipi. Run up there and take a look."
"Bo, I've got a wagon for you..."
Mike was right. Next to the shingled tipi behind his house stood a sheep herder's wagon who's advanced state of disrepair put it squarely within my means.
A few days later, I took my truck back to pick it up.
Mike lives on a hill and the wagon's, shall we say, flexible condition, became apparent when my truck and new wagon picked up speed on the grade. Back and forth it wallowed like a top heavy schooner until we ran out of hill and rolled to a stop with a final gelatinous lurch.
I stepped from the truck. My new wagon hunkered off to the right like a souffle on the verge of collapse. Four of the plywood beams that held the roof up had shattered.
Mike produced an old lasso, and with fence posts and boards I broke off the wagon's sides, I built a new skeleton inside the shell of rotten wood.
More props than a mineshaft
Pam tossed the lariat over the now-shored-up wagon and I lashed the lot down with a knot I prayed would keep my wagon's new guts in place.
A sight to make a cowboy cry.
Then, in a stupor of a good citizen taking steps toward the bad, I towed my fractured treasure onto the highway.
A few miles down the road when my thoughts were interrupted by a rectangular flash in the rear view mirror. One of the wagon’s windows had fallen out.
Just then, a police car hove into view.
Busted!
I hit the emergency blinkers, eased onto the shoulder and watched the sliding window thread its way through the oncoming traffic.
The police slowed and I waited for the stab of blue in my rear view mirror. But in a fit of better judgement, the cruiser accelerated and disappeared. He must’ve figured such a rotten catch wasn’t worth pursuing. His luck, I’d show up in court.
I retrieved the wagon window, chucked it back into my rolling hovel and tackled the remaining 120 miles, blinking and grinning.
Remember that Charlie Daniels song "The Uneasy Rider" where the tag line is something like "got to LA via Omaha."? Well, that was us.
I snuck down those Carolina back roads at 35 miles per hour doing anything to dodge Durham. Now I've been to Bushy Fork, Saxapahaw, Silk Hope, Bear Creek... Just on dark, slid into Southern Pines.
All that way without a ticket
The next day I found a team of mules.
(My thanks go out to Mike and Pam Walker, who have, once again, helped me launch another voyage with modest means. If you're looking for a mule, you might want to give Mike and Pam a ring. Bernie RiverEarth.com)
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TITLE: The Next Buck-a-Pound Trip - Southern Pines, NC
AUTHOR: Bernie
DATE: 10:05:00 AM
STATUS: Publish
-----
BODY:
Welcome back everyone!
Ok, so I've been off-line for the past few months catching my breath from Woody and Maggie's cross-country ride. I might as well fess up right now.
I'm running away again.
This time I'm thinking mule team and wagon; start in North Dakota and just head South. No time frame, no route, just start after the snow melts and head toward the Gulf Coast.
Bob Sundown put it into my head.
Bob Sundown and dog Skeeter: The man and mutt who struck the spark. (Deming, NM)
I met Bob on my last trip camped on the side of the road outside Deming, New Mexico. He was in his eighties, owned a sheepherder's wagon and two donkeys. I camped with him for a few days, and after a particularly nasty storm blew my tipi down, he asked "Why don't you get you some donks and take off in a wagon?"
Suddenly it made sense. Why not just rig up a cart big enough to sleep in and hit the road in that?
Well, I soon forgot Bob's advice and finished my ride to the Pacific Ocean.
Now I'm ready to hit the road again and suddenly Bob's idea makes sense.
But this is where it gets sticky. I don't have a mule team. Oh, or a wagon for that matter.
This is the wagon Bernie wants: The "Celerity" model used by the Butterfield stage line.
At first a classic leapte coach lept to mind. But then I read the iron hoops tend to fly off and since I'm a boor when it comes to authenticity I decided maybe I should stick with a wagon made with car wheels.
Oh, and there's the matter of money. A "real" wagon can cost thousands of dollars and that's strictly out of line with my dollar-a-pound voyaging budget.
So I decided I'd use rubber tired wagon like Bob's, one that used car wheels.
So I looked at one.
Plan B: Bernie looks at a rubber tired wagon. (East Bend, NC)
Too bad it wasn't for sale.
Alright, so things got off to a slow start. And then remained the matter of locomotion, as in mules.
Ok. I hear you saying. "So why don't you take Woody and Maggie?" Well, Woody's just too "froggy" as they say in Tombstone, Arizona. The day I got home to the family farm, he dumped me in a creek. A few weeks later, he unseated me in the forest. Too bad they'd just done a controlled burn. I limped back to the barn nursing a sore elbow and ego, hoping nobody would notice the char marks on my shirt.
Then, too, there's the matter of the book.
For the past few months, I've been writing up our journey across America. Re-reading the draft now, I just found eight times when Woody ran away during my trip. Usually he took Maggie in tow. Occasionally I lost them both.
So no, I decided, it just wouldn't do to set off across America with a beast that ran off on the average of once per state.
So I looked at some mule teams. I found a dandy pair outside Lumberton, North Carolina. They were called Brownie and Penny and belonged to Innis Hester.
Now here's a dandy team of mules. (outside Lumberton, NC)
Too bad they cost two dollars a pound.
The good news is that Innis told me he'd help me. So I'm starting from scratch.
In the coming weeks, I'll be looking for a team of mules and then a wagon. Not a flashy team, not a fancy wagon. Just one that fits my budget and Innis' eye.
I'll keep you posted how the search goes.
Bernie
RiverEarth
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