Camping with the Chaos Monkey

Ghost Dancer, Big Red and Rocinante meet The Amazing Spider-Van

The Farm Stand catches my eye as we drive by, bins of fruits and veggies fronted by a sign for oysters from nearby Bodega Bay. How many times have I zoomed by a roadside stand, too busy to stop? Not today Satan. I yeet the whip around, skrrting the beast across three parking spaces out front.

The lady working the place looks decidedly out of place—like she could be a personal shopper from Nordstroms. Maybe this is her side hustle; after all the city is but an hour away. While she’s yucking it up outside with a local, we check the inside. Aside from a few shelves of condiments and local wares, it’s full of coolers packed with fish and oysters and meats.

While the boy finds a bathroom, I wander out front. Done with her friend, my new personal shopper turns her full attention to me. I’m not allowed to approach the merchandise, rather I’m directed to the stage so I can view the bounty while she starts selling using words I’ve never heard to explain the glory of onions, spinach, beets, leeks, rutabagas and the like, all from local farms. She’s good.

I vainly gesture at the van behind me, indicating we’re just here for a couple nights. Nevertheless I want to eat everything she is talking up, and you can never have too much food when traveling with the Chaos Monkey.

I end up with a bunch of carrots just pulled from the ground (long leafy tops not even slightly wilted), two pink lady apples, three mandarin oranges and a package of local sausage with sage and rosemary and a bunch of other stuff that I can’t remember except that it sounded amazing.

Off we go, with snacks and a central character for the signature dish of camping - the big brekkie.

William Least Heat-Moon wrote Blue Highways—the roads less traveled, indicated in blue on the old Rand McNally road atlas. Winding rural roads connecting small towns and overlooked corners. Sir Francis Drake Blvd is orange not blue, stretching from 101 all the way past Highway 1 to Drakes Beach at Point Reyes. So, no, I’m not there yet, but it’s a start. The subtitle of Blue Highways is A Journey into America so Heat-Moon ran into more than his share of personal shoppers roaming 13,000 miles across 38 states in a Ford Econoline he named Ghost Dancing.

Along with Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Blue Highways was required reading when I was 20. I spent all my money upgrading my 150cc ride to a black Yamaha Seca 400 that was highway-worthy. I loved that bike. I felt pretty frikkin’ Zen on that thing. There’s something about a motorcycle where you’re just on it, and it feels like an extension of your body. Peak Zen was riding from LA to Berkeley with a friend and his red Kawasaki 305 up Highway 1 AKA the Pacific Coast Highway,

We wound along the ocean the whole way up. I got a saddlebag that strapped onto the top of the gas tank - it was big enough for a clean pair of socks and underwear, a map, and toothbrush.

Walking out the door at Microsoft, I was gifted Travels with Charley. Now it’s John Steinbeck driving west from Long Island, winding all the way to California and back. He makes it to his hometown of Salinas, near Monterey, the source material for Cannery Row and Tortilla Flat. Steinbeck travels with his psycho poodle, Charley, in a converted truck camper he names Rocinante, after Don Quixote’s loyal but underwhelming horse.

Steinbeck’s book is subtitled In Search of America, and like Least Heat-Moon, the stories aren’t so much about where you’re going, but the journey and the people you meet.

For the Amazing Spider-Van’s inaugural voyage, we went back to Highway 1, heading north to Russian Gulch State Park. They weren’t open for the season yet so we found a place on HipCamp (think Airbnb for campsites). A mile down a dirt road, we pulled into a sweet site, and while we were admiring the flushing toilets and hot showers, a big dually pickup pulled in.

A little sad that we had neighbors, it turned out to be our hosts. They proudly showed us around and talked up their expansion plans for a new site with a hot tub in the trees ringed with ferns and honeysuckle. They figured that’d play well on Instagram. This was their side gig, but they were working hard to make it their main gig. They had stretched to buy the land and were still paying it off— he was a construction foreman, and she was a seasonal waitress in town.

They pointed us towards the waterfall a few miles into the park, and away we went, making it back just as the sun went down. We nuked up leftover lasagna (what, the ASV has a MICROWAVE?), it tasted amazing, failed at making a fire (everything was wet) and tucked it in for the night.

Lola and the Chaos Monkey slept in an old VW Vanagon they had. As amazing as it is, Spider-Van only sleeps two.

In town the next day, Chaos Monkey found a guy selling pocket knives off the hood of his pick-your-part patched-up Mercedes. Each knife was bigger than the last and came with a story of illegal acquisition and questionable glory tales of keeping gangsters and fentanyl out of town. But the knives were a bargain, and fortunately, an ATM was found—because for gang fighting knife dealers, cash is still king.

The second trip was just me and JFran. We went up to Calistoga and stayed at Bothe-Napa Valley State Park because we’d never bathed in hot mud—who doesn't want to do that? You don’t want to see those pictures, but imagine an older place worn from steam and minerals where the mud had made its mark. It was the muddiest, and the lady who made sure we didn’t burn our toes was the sweetest.

The bunch of carrots, three mandarins, two apples, and a pack of sausage were procured in Lagunitas, just outside Samuel P Taylor State Park. Our personal shopper asked if we needed a bag for our haul, and I said no—we’d put it right in the van (yes, the ASV also has a FRIDGE!!). She wistfully looked out at it, taking up her parking spots, and said that was her dream.

I’m lucky to own this beast, but for me, the dream was imprinted when I was just a kid. I was 11 when—for reasons I will never know—my dad got a wild hair up his butt and decided our annual trip up the coast would not be in our wood-paneled station wagon, but in a brown-and-beige striped, 30-foot-long RV. I’ve no idea how he hatched this plan, but at 11, I was all in for the adventure. Back up Highway 1 we went, hunting for beaches.

My dad rented a classic Class-C—one of those RVs built onto a van with a bed on top of the cab (a cab-over). It was a Fleetwood Tioga, and in addition to the primo bed up top, it had places to sleep just about everywhere. I drank sludgy Nestlé Quick perched on top of the cab, looking out the window. My sister wrote Aerosmith lyrics (pre-Walkman era) staring soulfully out the window. My mom stewed over the fact that her vacation included dirty dishes. Me? I fell in love on that trip.

While I can’t be sure, I think my dad loved it too—it was a grand adventure. We camped on the beach, going back and forth trying to level the RV so the fridge would work. Then, in the morning, we couldn’t get out; stuck in the sand, rear tires spinning. Boards and the kindness of strangers got us free.

We never did that again, but I got my annual fix talking my dad into taking me to the RV show at Dodger Stadium. Ten years later, I got my first taste of van life when I discovered Big Red at the back of my best friend’s driveway. We drove it up 101 past Santa Barbara to Lake Cachuma.

Big Red required a wooden clothespin wedged in the carburetor to coax enough air in to get her started in the mornings, but who cared? She was a grand old lady. There was a bed you vaulted into at the very top and another one on the bottom.

While I took a stab at being Zen, I was hopeless at the motorcycle maintenance bit and gave the Seca to our babysitter’s boyfriend. I tried taking it apart, but couldn’t fix it no matter how many parts I bought. He got it working overnight and promptly sold it. We moved on to cars with lots of doors, trunks and room for car seats.

Yet my van dreams lingered and as I plotted my escape, they popped back up. Rachel knew:

ASV is small on the inside, but it’s a clean design packed with EVERYTHING. Chaos Monkey sleeps late in the morning, but lo, the passenger seat swivels around so I drank my coffee while reading angry old man Charles Bukowski.

That night, while munching the most delicious carrots in the glow of a glorious fire (I was ready this time with fat wood), I went full Tyler Durden, declaring the first rule of Van Life: you do not poop in the van.

Yes, ASV has a full bathroom. You could poop, brush your teeth, and shower all at the same time, but we agreed to never do the first thing unless you absolutely must.

Harder to park than the Seca, with a smoosh of Ghost Dancer’s mysticism from the Viking token I found in my dad’s safe deposit box dangling from the rearview mirror—trouncing the kitchen setup of the Rocinante, and quick to start, unlike Big Red—the ASV suits us.

When my dad rented that Tioga, he shadowed the guy showing us how everything worked with a tape recorder, so he’d have a shot at remembering. I think I’ve tried out most everything now and only broke one thing, which a bike ride over to the hardware store for a roll of duct tape fixed.

The Amazing Spider Van needed a roll of duct tape.

Chaos Monkey drove us home, and after a final coffee with requisite sweets, we found a KOA and a dump station (the grey tank finally filled up), so now I know that’s no biggie either.

Next week, we head to Portland via Ashland to hang out with Peggy and her new knee. In April, we’re thinking Chaos Monkey and friends heading to White Sands in New Mexico. May is up to the Redwoods and secret State Parks from an insider.

Oh and more stickers. We need more stickers.