Daddy Loves His Litany

Days Walking - 40

I got my package!



Wheeeeeee! I love packages! Daddy is so sweet!

I finally got my package, and among the contents are the beautiful goodies you see here. Church was a dear and helped me dye my hair. I was gonna let the color grow out, but I had to make use of the thoughtfully sent bottles of red stain. Hee hee hee!!

The cupcakes were ever so yummy, I gave the Ding Dongs to Church as barter for the hair care.

Why oh why would a person name their town “Deadhorse?”
You have to keep in mind that this is a pretty brutal region, and the folks here are proud of their ability to deal with that, and they have a good sense of humor.

The "Where does the name Deadhorse come from?" question gets you different answers, depending on who you ask.

After I asked three people about the name, I gave up, and decided no one really knows.

One story is that in the early 1900's, some speculators from the East Coast were trying to make some money in Alaska, and were being misled by a con man. Despite the fact that they continually lost money, the con man kept finding investors. After a while, the investing community was getting pretty riled up, and it became well known that sending this guy money was like feeding a dead horse.

Another story was that the name comes from the motto:
“We’ll haul anything, even a dead horse.’

Not a very satisfying answer, is it?

Another, more realistic reasoning is that early travelers to the region saw the caribou skulls and mistook them for dead horses. But that answer isn't fun either.

Here’s a snippet from today:

“Hi. Lunch was great, can you tell me -
Where's the bar?”
“........................?”

I'm so pissed off right now, I walked a couple hundred miles, and one thing that helped me put one foot in front of the other when I was oh so tired, one thing to really look forward to, a treat, a pleasant pick-me-up, a soothing salve-for-my-sundered-soul was the idea of having a beer when we arrived.

This will not happen. Someone will pay dearly. Who was in charge of researching this? Who was assigned to the "Alcohol Availability Study" Was it me? I don't think it was me. I don't think any of us considered the idea that in The Land of Manly Men, libation would be unavailable.

You see, there are no bars in Deadhorse.
Alcohol can not be purchased. Legally, anyway. A regular joe might have some for sale / barter, but you can't walk up and put money on the counter and get a bottle of suds. Grrr. Well, odds are, as rules-conscious as these folks are, they would not sell to underage me anyway. But damn, what about the oil-workers? You can't tell me that they don't feel the need after work now and then.

...It probably makes this place a lot more orderly and peaceful...

No bars, no churches, no movie theaters, no schools. This is a place of sharp contrasts - there’s the corporate industrial elements, and the dreary, bleak rundown unkempt elements. No one really lives here, it’s more of a work camp than anything. The workers have oilfield duty for like two weeks at a time, and then they’re off for two weeks. When they’re off duty, they usually fly back to wherever home is. So there aint much here.

Yes, I have pictures, I will post them soon.

Heather - You asked some good questions:
How much juice does your laptop require? How much back-up do you have? Are you now rationing battery time?

The laptop is a juice whore. I think I royally ruined the battery, by giving it repeated daily minimal churches using the crank generator every day for over a month. After charging all night, I was running off the battery today and it died after about 40 minutes. It used to last about four hours.

We use a 'Human Powered Generator', which was like $400 and belongs to Kwame. We all barter with him for use-time. It generates 50-125 watts (1/6 HP at 12 volts) it’s a heavy duty magnet DC generator, and we use a power inverter to convert the DC to AC. The laptop desires 19 volts, and the inverter puts out 12v, so charging efficiency is impaired a bit by that. For about 45 minutes of cranking, I get about 10 minutes of battery charge. Or we can take turns cranking constantly while the other person uses it, and then trade off.

Kevin - I have to admit, the 'stopping in a random town and working' time has not been factored in to the total expedition time. There’s really no way to estimate that. So we just calculated walking time. Only time will tell what the total is.

Am I having fun? I try. Some days are good, and others are just so much slogging. This whole trip is a big jump from a typical 9-5 routine, but it’s a different kind of routine. I’m glad to be here, (on the expedition, in Alaska, in Deadhorse, take your pick) I’ll be glad to move on… It’s fun to have electricity.

~ ~ ~

Ode to the Blessed Electric Wall Socket
I move close to your smooth surface
Gazing into the winking eyes of your slots
Dreamy deep pools of possibility,
Of hidden potential,
The cool hum of electrons
Marching with a subsonic orderly hum
And flowing out into my appliances
Juicing me up and turning me on

~ ~ ~



By the way, Jake is a fan of a movie called Star Wars. You may have heard of it. This is him, in his wind-chill blocking flesh-saving mask that he modded from some ski goggles, fast drying acrylic, and a Halloween costume. He's really proud of the cold weather mask, and posed special. Jake really wants to be a storm trooper when he grows up. Anneli is surprisingly laid-back about this goal. Wait wait apparently it's clone trooper, not storm trooper. Is there really a difference?

Litany Webb, signing off

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