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Mac - what did you do for your mail when you were living in the wilderness? Did you have any registered vehicles at the time?
I rented a post office box at a post office and checked it once a month. I earned money making items from the woods, and every bit of what I made was from the woods. Alot of that was decorated birch bark boxes with lids, all sewn with bark coradge, and split white pine bottoms.
I made a couple of canteen the same way, but did use farm bought, traded for really bee's wax.
I had my truck the same one I have now, and it was registered at the last place I lived, until I had a real physical address again 3 years later.
The 2 years in Md I just drove on NH tags and scraped the out of date inspection sticker off the wind shield. The truck looked good, had good tires and brakes and would have passed any inspection.
Once in Md I was plowing snow in that Storm of the Century, and was commandiered by the Middleton Fire Dept. The place advertized in Yankee Magazine caught on fire. Devia I think it's called the place selling so called Pirate shirts, and Frontrier shirts.
Md wasn't exactly the wilderness, as the first year was working at a camp ground and living in the tee pee, the next year over South Mountain in Burkittsville far out in the woods next to a pasture. The last year was in the White Mts National Forest, that was wilderness, and no trucks could gett to where I was there. I left the truck miles away at a logging landing and hiked in to camp.
At the time my x was making my life total misery, and the courts demand my address. I told them plain up and invited them to send any officers, but they never did. Mainly because it was around -40 below and the court refused to belive the truth. My x had me into court twice a year untill the court threw her and her 3rd lieing thru his teeth lawyers out when my son was 22.
We got mail on the USA tour too. We took out a general delivery box in NH, and then when we knew we would be somewhere long enough made contact and would get mail forwarded. My Bride can't live with her mail and papers. Me, I would leave that in a heartbeat. To this day I still fear opening any mail box, and have mini heart attacks seeing any junk mail that looks Govt like. I am not real pleased with the System of Injustice much.
I still have never opened summons that were mailed out after the hearing took place. I know what these say inside. Several others were indeed opened by the Judge, all post mark dated after the date of the hearing.
When this sort of thing happens there isn't anything a commoner can do about it, while it is as illegal as it gets.
I was hurt on the job bad in 87. Ever since i can't get a real world job or health insurance since I have a pre-exisiting condition. I am partly disabled, but that and dollar will buy me the same cup of coffee you can buy. I gave up filling out job apps around 1990. It was just a wasted of time. Since then I just did what ever work I could as a contractor, so I can pay taxes
I should be on disablity, and welfare, but this thing I have in pride won't allow for that, and NH won't pay disabilty anyway. AIG has had a alot to do with that and I can't tell you how angery I am that they were bailed out. I am a outcast from society, but after a while I got used to it, and I prefer that life now.
This has created a monster in someways, as it's hard to find a swamp I can't drain. Since 87 I have rebuilt almost all my broken parts, and I can out do a lot of 20 somethings for a while.
I still help others any time I find them in need, even lawyers. At this point I can take a hellish event and turn it into funny, and looking back I just got a lot stronger than I was. I have no regretts.
I've considered doing something similar, but basically an ongoing bicycle tour, living out of a tent when I need to stop and rest/sleep. I'm in the process of selling my house to move from TN to WA for numerous reasons, but part of me has this desire to make WA just the starting point. I'm 32 and single, no kids, and nothing really to tie me down. I'll have a decent amount of money after I sell my house, and I've realized that I could survive on very little money with nothing but my bicycle and some camping supplies. But...
I have a bad knee. In fact I take a mild pain killer once or twice a day to deal with it. Bicycling is a little easier on it than walking the same distance, but it still hurts a little after just a short, ten mile bike ride WITH the pain killer in full effect. My knee is not in terrible shape or anything; in a normal day I walk perfectly fine and experience little pain. But I can imagine what would happen if I set off on a bicycle for a few hundred or thousand miles on the West Coast. So I'll be moving to an area I love which is huge improvement for me, but I wonder if I'll eventually be just as unsatisfied there after a few years of basically living the same life I live here, but in an area of the country I like better.
Work on that knee... You do that or you loose that... That's how it is for me and my back. If i stop moving I will lock up. Yeah it hurts all the time. Has every day since Spring 87.
Work on that knee... You do that or you loose that... That's how it is for me and my back. If i stop moving I will lock up. Yeah it hurts all the time. Has every day since Spring 87.
I have noticed that if I sit really still for a long time it aches at least as much as if I walk or bike on it. I think it got this way because I was a good 50 pounds overweight and worked (and still work) in a warehouse where I stand or walk on concrete for 8-9 per day. Now I've lost about 30-35 pounds and that seems to help some, so hopefully it will get better as I keep losing weight. Careful, moderate bicycling seems to actually be somewhat good for it, as long as remember to "spin" the pedals instead of "mashing"!
LOL I'm not near Chadron (too "big city" for me) I'm near Valentine. The Niobrara River tumbles us all about there, and Merritt Dam is stunning in its icy beauty, summer or winter! We also have some cute creeks like the Minnechaduza; it is filled to the tops of the banks this time of year but most of the property around it is privately owned and it is used for mainly crop and cattle water. We have a few lakes like Cottonwood near Merriman, but some of my young friends like to camp and fish on the Niobrara which runs (W to E) south of Merriman as well.
Lots of wild waters out here - the trick is knowing where they are and how to get to them without bugging others. Mac, if you and the new wife ever decide to go tooling about this way again, you're more than welcome to come see the hidden beauty... I have some friends who live South of me on the Niobrara, and their "road" - a term one uses VERY loosely out here - is called "Boiling Springs Road" - it describes the small rapids, not too exciting in the late summer, but rip-roaring in the early spring with the snowmelt.
Wouldn't go to Pine Ridge; too far and too much hassle.
Lamplight - have you tried Glucosamine with MSM? It takes a while, but might help a lot after it builds up in your system. Bad knees are real common amongst people who stand on concrete all day.
If you have the money and no good reason not to do it, I'd go for it. Maybe you can pick up a cheap vehicle along the way, if it gets to be too much. Though I'm not sure how you'd register it between addresses.
Hey, Mac - I've been meaning to tell you... I met a guy at Christmas time who claimed he'd been living in the NF for 16 years. He actually looked like it too. His hands were chapped beyond belief and he had that gaunt, but muscular look. I didn't get many details out of him because he was drunk, but I kind of wondered if he was a fugitive or something. Reminded me of a guy whose face I saw on a wanted poster in the NF when we first moved here.
I have noticed that if I sit really still for a long time it aches at least as much as if I walk or bike on it. I think it got this way because I was a good 50 pounds overweight and worked (and still work) in a warehouse where I stand or walk on concrete for 8-9 per day. Now I've lost about 30-35 pounds and that seems to help some, so hopefully it will get better as I keep losing weight. Careful, moderate bicycling seems to actually be somewhat good for it, as long as remember to "spin" the pedals instead of "mashing"!
I can't comment on weight as I have been under weight all my life. But you know how that is.
Sitting for more than 15 minutes isn't your friend. Get up amd move around on the softest floor you can move around on.
Get decent work boots for concrete, and add gel pads and change them once each 90 days. I don't mean 50 dollar gell pads unless your loaded. I doubt you are loaded (wealthy) I am sure not.
I was a car tech and was on the same floors. I was and still am a long distance hiker in the mt od NH. I have been at that most of my life whether or not I was living in NH. I once carried pack boards with stuff for the AMC and loaded up to 180 punds on them. They weighed rather a lot more than I did. But coming down empty was worse.
If I had my way you get off pain killers, but hey it's your head and your body. Who am I to judge what pain you can take and what pain you can not?
I am 59 years old, and I have been used up hard. I have had a broken neck, broke more ribs than any man has, broke my left wrist and chipped my elbow, broke my left leg skiing when I was 10, lost my spleen in a mC crash, and torn ligiments off my knees, and the same for rotator cuffs in my shoulders so I know pain. Some of these things I saw docs for many I didn't, so I knpow pain, and I know how far I can go in pain.
I happened to learn how to set bones since I broke so many. Get up, get moving get to be in your proper weight, and fight to live. No one else can do that for you. Most days I am just exhausted by the time I sit to type a while. I am today too. I harvest more moss for a lenia area I built stone walls in. It is almost done, and is all mossed in now.
Harvesting moss in the woods is a lot harder than I thought, but then I don't know till now and these past days anything about harvesting moss.
It like kneeling and doing belly crunches for hours.
And yeah a pedal bike is excellent for a bad knee. You want a full leg extention, or you will loose some. I know about that to as some of my joints no longer can do what they once could.
I get pretty hard core about this, I won't sissify you or pander. Coddling isnt in my book. Tough Love is though.
So when you see this and have read it, read a couple more posts, and get the Hell out of that chair and go move.
LOL I'm not near Chadron (too "big city" for me) I'm near Valentine. The Niobrara River tumbles us all about there, and Merritt Dam is stunning in its icy beauty, summer or winter! We also have some cute creeks like the Minnechaduza; it is filled to the tops of the banks this time of year but most of the property around it is privately owned and it is used for mainly crop and cattle water. We have a few lakes like Cottonwood near Merriman, but some of my young friends like to camp and fish on the Niobrara which runs (W to E) south of Merriman as well.
Lots of wild waters out here - the trick is knowing where they are and how to get to them without bugging others. Mac, if you and the new wife ever decide to go tooling about this way again, you're more than welcome to come see the hidden beauty... I have some friends who live South of me on the Niobrara, and their "road" - a term one uses VERY loosely out here - is called "Boiling Springs Road" - it describes the small rapids, not too exciting in the late summer, but rip-roaring in the early spring with the snowmelt.
Wouldn't go to Pine Ridge; too far and too much hassle.
Before I go look on map a paper map we are tawkin Nebraska right? I think I passed thru Valentine maybe leaving Kanasas. But I need to check my maps. I use a bright yellow marker so I can't firget ;D
On Pine Ridge I might stongly suggest you don't go there, don't pass thru there. It's not real nice. I spent 30 days there. Some women there are very cool, some men there are very un-cool, but I really liked their Chief of Police.
In 05 when I left NH to see the USA I made 9,000 miles to just get to Cal.
I did a little zig zaggin around one might say..
If I ever do get out that way again I would appreciate a spot to camp over for 3 nights. I have this rule about 3 nights.
I get there and that is night 1. The next day I poke around to see where it is I am. That's night 2 Day 3 is for getting anything I need fixed fixed and a day of rest. That's night 3 and I am gone.....
All camp is to me is a place to set out a bed roll, and maybe have a cook fire if it can be done legal.
Of course if there will be social activity I am in. My wife and I have loads of stories as you can tell. I do have days where i wonder about if I have camp fire tales disease I have been to a few thousand camp fires so far.
Ok so that was a lie, I have been to far more than any few thousand camp fires.
Well I did pass thru there but I had Valentine wrong in my head thinking it was just over from Kansas. I was at the Elk Horn River in West Point and went to Ash Fall. In West Point i collected a rock I was told it was 'Lightning' in West point, but was told it was a 11 million year old fossil specimen of live oak in Ash Fall, and they had a stump of it there. I found the head honco at Ash Fall and made a in general pain in the butt of myself asking him all manor of questions about sand and rocks, He was thrilled because everyone else was asking about bones. LOL
You are directly in my path to go see the Cody museum in Wyoming. I knew it was there and rode right by it not having a lot of time. I missed the Fur Trade Museum in Chadron too. Not sure how I will get there but it won't be passing thru Pine Ridge, unless I got 4 wheels on the ground and then to see the Chief of Police there, and a few gals that helped me with a stay over of 30 days because i had broken ribs and crashed there. And now I need to get up a picture of my rock.
In some dinkweed town at the time I was taken for a Englishman ha ha ha, and thought I was gonna be desert. That town had Home Coming Days going on. I took to a mom and pop place there for a greasy cheeseburger. The guys in that town were a easy 6 times my size and they didn't like long hairs. I cracked a joke out loud, and one guy got it, all the rest laughed anyway. That broke the ice. Next thing the sherrif walks in tales a long look at me, looks back out the door at my bike with the trailer on it, Looks back at me take a look at my wife and closes the door to leave. All these big guys were still laughin.
At that point it was like i was a lost cousin, and they tawked all about NH, none knowing where NH even was... I told them near Maine, since i figured Boston was going to get me a beating.
A Black Lab held his own red leash leading us out of town, as I ended up by chance to lead the town's parade. I saw that sherrif one last time too, He said "Ride Safe", I said "Thanks I intend to."
I may need to dm you fir grins.... Will that be alright?
Yeah, Pine Ridge... a little scary at the best of times. I've stopped for gas and food there - but not for long. Since DH is 1/2 Cherokee/Blackfoot, we've been to Wounded Knee 'just across the line' from us in SD - the sign is there, explaining the history, and the church and the graveyard are still there. Best to carry a little cash with you - when they see a strange car at the site they stop to sell you "Indian jewelry". If you drive thru the rez, though, you might be followed. No harm meant or done - just followed til they see where you are going.
The Fur Trade Museum is really awesome. Lots of old guns, and they even show how fur was brought up the rivers to the "big cities" of St Louis and points east. We spent two hours there - and it's a small building!
Sounds like you coulda been in our town for "Home Coming Days"! We have a small parade, and a kids' rodeo... and a mom and pop hamburger joint/bar. Don't let them slow-talkin' big lanky cowboys fool you - most of them have college degrees, even if they are in AG or business or even (yup) computer technology, and still wear chaps over their jeans and their guns on their hips because they really do still rope and ride for a living. Nice folks. We get kidded a lot about our "tiny" acreage and short cows, and the fact that we are not Husker fans... but it's all in good fun. Our 'backdoor neighbor' still jokes about the time our bull saw all his cows across the fence, got all moony and pushed through 4 strands of barbwire, and we all went chasing him, DH in his 4-wheeler and them on their horses. They got a rope around him - and he laid down and pouted, refused to even get up to get in the trailer, he was so mad. Not exactly a big fighting bull Angus like they were used to!
The town charges $5 a night to camp in the park; it's purely voluntary and mainly a way to keep out squatters, traveling salespeople, and missionaries (We don't like to be bothered here.). But you can camp on our porch, in our yard - or if you need a bed and don't mind a dog or two, we have a spare room. PM me if you like!
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I've stopped for gas and food there - but not for long. Since DH is 1/2 Cherokee/Blackfoot, we've been to Wounded Knee 'just across the line' from us in SD - the sign is there, explaining the history, and the church and the graveyard are still there. Best to carry a little cash with you - when they see a strange car at the site they stop to sell you "Indian jewelry". If you drive thru the rez, though, you might be followed. No harm meant or done - just followed til they see where you are going. 
Lots of old guns, and they even show how fur was brought up the rivers to the "big cities" of St Louis and points east. We spent two hours there - and it's a small building! 
Nice folks. We get kidded a lot about our "tiny" acreage and short cows, and the fact that we are not Husker fans... but it's all in good fun. Our 'backdoor neighbor' still jokes about the time our bull saw all his cows across the fence, got all moony and pushed through 4 strands of barbwire, and we all went chasing him, DH in his 4-wheeler and them on their horses. They got a rope around him - and he laid down and pouted, refused to even get up to get in the trailer, he was so mad. Not exactly a big fighting bull Angus like they were used to!
