Moving an animal sanctuary across country, Part 2
Welcome to Nevada.
Yeah, here’s where it gets a little icky. The pestilence I promised.
I’ve traveled across country, or at least across state lines, many times. My personal bragging right is going to all 50 states, many of them in the back seat of a ’64½ Mustang convertible with my two sisters in our single digit years. As an adult, I always find the best restrooms are at the state lines. It’s like the states want to show they aren’t that other state. They want to make a good first impression. They have the traveler in mind. I have maps! Vending machines! And the crown jewel — clean restrooms.
Naturally, I want to see what Nevada has to offer since it’s our first crossing. As I walk over, a woman comes — I’ll call it like I see it — fleeing down the sidewalk from the women’s restroom. If you want to call it walked briskly, I’ll accept. When I say what comes out of her mouth sounds like dialogue from a post-apocalyptic Apple TV+ series, well, I think you’ll agree. “Crickets….,” she said, hurriedly. In warning. “Crickets. They’re everywhere.”
So yes. Indeed there were crickets everywhere. Oh Lord, like crawling dates with wiggling antenna. Oh my god. So many. But you know what? It got worse before it got better.
So northern Nevada in early June is quite warm and we learned something in that second day that was crucial. The birds needed attention more than a couple of times a day. They needed attention nearly every time we stopped. And we weren’t prepared to that degree. So after the initial rest stop, we looked for a diesel station to accommodate our bus but we needed water, a lot more water. And we needed bags of ice to fill the “pond” sloshing around in the back for the geese and Gloria, the swan.
I want to tell you that I quickly learned how to accommodate the birds’ needs. But first I have to tell you getting that water… getting that ice… getting that fuel… it meant stepping on scores… hundreds if not thousands of living, dying, smashed, and semi-living Zombie crickets splayed in all configurations on the asphalt. I cannot describe this horror, it was a horror. It was… not good.
Those crickets, come to find out, are Mormon crickets and they were invading northern Nevada. And we were in it. In it good. Not good.
Once inside the bus, I got knocked to my senses how thirsty these birds were and how greedily they drank, especially the ducks, and I just made it my mission that every time we stopped, I was taking care of their needs. Mind you, I learned this lesson less than 24 hours on the road. So while it took a minute, I figured it out quickly. You don’t need to tell me, that will be my job.
Back on the road, the enormous windshield taking a beating from the bugs, we go through the scrubbier Nevada. Flatter and drier.
But understand how I am starting to see this country, when I’m driving and when I’m not driving. A different experience. We aren’t stopping for sights. We are stopping for necessities only. So I’m seeing things in a blur, a slow period of time, yet 65 mph, maybe nearly 75 if the old International can pull it off without overheating now that we are on flat land.
I stare out the window and even over the noise level of the bus, I’m lulled into a meditative state. It’s all about change for me. Am I brave enough to meet the change? I was asking for it. This is part of it. I see it unfolding in the not too distant future. What is it? I don’t know. I feel my patience for everything is at an all-time low. But the evidence says it’s taking shape.
The latest pin on my personal map began in September when I attended Shutterhound, a pet photography conference. OK, I’ll allow 10 seconds for you to say, is that even a thing? And it was a wonderful thing. But the speakers at that conference are so accomplished in animal photography and advocacy, it’s really astonishing. And something resonated in particular with me. One speaker, Sophie Gamand, ignited in me the desire to find my own life’s purpose. Right. Now with the woo woo. That’s exactly it. The woo woo has entered the chat. My chat, that journal I alluded to in Part 1.
The actual wording of that September 2023 entry, post-conference: “I want to photograph or collaborate on a book or project that allows me to use my journalistic abilities that is documentary, meaningful, helps animals, particularly as it has to do with climate change. I want to do short periods of travel on these projects, I want them to be fully funded, I want them to be fun and collaborative and important work that benefits the recipient/observed of the cause. That it helps create an even bigger effort, more attention, more help. And is part of the process that is moving the world forward in mitigating the effects of climate change.”
And then, you know, I start dipping my hands into everything seeing where my life’s purpose was, where is it? Is it here? There? And you know, it wasn’t anywhere I was looking, I was just splashing my hands in water stirring up mud. It was really one of the last places I would look. Facebook. Not because it was Facebook but because it was from Leona Morrison, who wasn’t even Leona when she was my business coach. So I had to pivot to even remember to connect her former name, Patricia, to her current name (which is a great story, why she changed it and her mother’s reaction to it, but it’s not mine to tell). I always admired Leona as Patricia but I really hadn’t heard from her in a while, very sporadically at that.
But her need I saw as my mythic Call to Adventure, which as the Hero’s Journey goes, is refused. And I did that, I rejected it. I saw it as a cool thing, and I had many reasons why it couldn’t happen. But something in me recognized, hey, isn’t this what you said you wanted? Like everything? And what needed to be untangled for this to happen, magically untangled. Within five days of reading Leona’s need for drivers, I was in. It was roughly three weeks away, the June 4th deadline to be on the road.
It all fell into place. Yes, I know, that’s not lost on me. Got scared, right before I left, who wouldn’t? All the head chatter about how crazy it was. But here in deep woo woo, I’ve come to embrace crazy as something that just hasn’t happened yet. It might, it might not, it might be good, it might not be good. But it’s something that hasn’t happened yet. So let’s see what happens. I mean, I would tell people I was doing this and I did sound a bit crazy. And they would confirm: That sounds crazy.
So driving a school bus across country doesn’t sound like a life’s purpose. But service is. I’m a Virgo. That’s what we’re here for. Helping. Doing a bit for the cause. Maybe it’s only a little. But it was a piece that fit me quite well. I’ve loved driving forever, it never mattered what kind of car it was. I don’t care about cars. I care about driving. The freedom. I’ve found happiness in every car I’ve had because I love driving. Maybe a little less happiness with the Pinto but more my sister’s car.
What I am doing, on the surface, is simply driving a bus with animals. Inside, the internal journey is a little different. And staring out the window, I am contemplative. Everything needs to change. I’m carrying the wrong load now, I need to find the right one, the one that isn’t weighing me down. And I feel like this trip is going to take me there, or at least send me down the road. And that scares me more than driving this behemoth of a bus.
I’m in the bus with the smarty pants. I mean, literally. Scott has a PhD in applied chemistry and molecular biology and is a patent holder on a green energy technology and Greg has a doctorate in horticulture, bachelors in economics and geology, and a masters in plutonium geochemistry. I myself graduated from a top 10 university. Oh, it was top 10 in Playboy’s party colleges annual ranking but top 10 nonetheless. Bachelor of Journalism, photojournalism emphasis.
Greg was sitting on the edge of a bus seat, eating an apple. He asked me how many varieties of apples could I name. So off I went, naming apples. Stating a preference. Dazzling him with the fact that I knew the Minnesota State Fair introduced a new apple variety every year. And then peach varieties. How many did I know? Freestyle and cling. Yellow or white. After that, nothing. Turns out, Greg managed a fruit and vegetable research station in Colorado and did a lot of big deal stuff. Tricked! I brought marbles to his bowling tournament. He’d been vegan and into animal advocacy for years, which is how he crossed paths with Scott long ago, and he had been involved in factory farm animal rescues in the past.
Scott asked Greg to make this journey and he was reluctant as well. He didn’t think what plan there was was sound. “I could have said no, and I really thought about saying no, because I didn’t think it was a good idea to move the animals this way,” he said. “And I put a lot of thought into it and decided I would help him. That’s all and that’s it.”
Once we hit Winnemucca, it’s a straight shot east on Interstate 80. On our second night, we found a hotel in a business park near the Salt Lake City airport and called it a day. After countless trips to the hotel room to fill up gallon water jugs for the birds, we needed a much better solution and in the morning, our traveling sanctuary was off to find bigger storage tanks.
Meanwhile, I took the opportunity to grocery shop at the Walmart and I’ll be darned if I could find a salad without chicken or bacon. But I did find some hummus, more cherry tomatoes, an avocado and some salty snacks so I was good for a while. Now I’m going to lay down some truth here. California has the best produce, hands down. And snacks. Fight me but I said what I said.
We could not get the water tanks we were looking for so we headed out of Salt Lake City on I-80 and up an incline. And I’m like, what is this land? What am I looking at? I cannot believe how beautiful this is. This landscape is stunning. The mountains. The forest. The grasses and flowers. I am enchanted. Utah, you do have it going on, you’re so pretty. And actually, Utah, you’re pretty steep. The alarm goes off, we’re overheating again and have to stop. We let the bus cool down but our eyes are back on the temperature gauge.
What’s ironic is marked on the driver’s side window as an enticement from the guy Scott bought the buses from on eBay, if I’m not mistaken. “Runs good. Shifts good. Steering wheel slightly off center but alignment is good. Has a slight shimmy.” I’ll add, prone to overheating. Sounds exactly like me, although my shimmy is very slight, almost non-existent.
The water storage problem gets solved in Green River, Wyoming, where we get three 5-gallon tanks. This procurement of a bigger storage capacity is actually huge. We’ve been handicapped by buying or refilling one-gallon jugs and these birds are parched.
On top of that, now we know what traveling in a bus with that many birds will produce. A shitload of shit is what, in case I’ve left anyone in suspense. I’ll say the stench sets itself in clothing pretty quickly. It’s little wonder why. Because the windows have to be kept just open enough so that a bird can’t slip through, they still have to be kept open to keep the interior cool. The bus is windy inside, bits of down and bedding are flying through the air. And that’s what you can see. It’s what you can’t see…. Oh, you know what’s there, you do. And still you eat a snack, drink a Slurpee, you do what you have to do in the bus. It’s bird bus life.
What I noticed after a while about the birds is they were almost always loud. Like all the sounds, all at once. Every once in a while, they’d get even louder, more talkative, and it would be all of them all at once for about a minute. Then they’d resume the regular chatter volume. But what you really noticed? The silence of the birds. Wait… what’s that? It’s nothing. No one says a word. Or whatever they say. No one. You always have to look when that happens. What’s wrong? It’s nothing. The moment of zen. Never lasts, but always noticed.
You know, I am not spending a lot of time on the mammal bus, I’ve booked myself a space on the Bluebird toward the end of the trip for a few hours to talk with Leona, but I pop in there every once in a while. I do know one thing. There may not be silence of the lambs on their bus, no lambs, but there is silence of the sheep. Like almost always it’s quiet in there, much more suitable for the twins, and its barnyard aroma is totally different than the bird bus. Together, you can imagine the full sanctuary but they have very distinct smells between the buses. It’s sweaty and musky and heavy and perceptibly damper with the breath of the mammals and the brittle, grassy smell of the hay. Not delightful. But not birdy either. Very different.
We make it to Kimball, Nebraska, which is a good 500 miles from where we started and the night passes uneventfully.
Here’s where I say, you’ll never believe what happens next. But of course you can because a problem that isn’t fixed will come back, won’t it? Universe 101. Immutable law of woo woo.
We pull out of Kimball and back on I-80 east. Down the road, we have to pull over. The REGEN. Whatever it is, it seems to be a problem again. So off we go to a shop in Ogallala that can handle this big beast to see if they can get a read on the codes with the computer. But no can do. A call to an International shop says to basically ignore the lights for now. So back on the road until we can get to a mechanic that handles Internationals.
And now a warning. An alarm goes off. In. The. Mammal. Bus. That’s right, the mammal bus. And it’s been going off quite a while, but these brave mammal bus drivers are just going to “la-la-la” their way through it. It’s just an alarm. It’ll take more than that to stop us, right?
And so we got the more.
It’s us, the bird bus, that now hits the jackpot with all of the lights and warning sounds going off. Everything, everywhere. The dashboard is all lit. No, this isn’t that sweet overheating issue. This has skull-and-crossbones written all over it. I’m driving this time and I don’t mind telling you, that much wrong is nerve-wracking.
So it’s a bit of a storm. Really. The clouds have been gathering all afternoon, drops are falling. And we’re off an exit near a farm road near nothing much else I can see. Except this storm coming. And it’s Friday! At 4 o’clock in the afternoon!
You know what? America can handle this problem. Nebraska can handle this problem. Mogul’s Towing can handle this problem. Jeff can. I scampered, as much as I scamper, up Jeff Mogul’s truck. This is just one of his that handles a tow this size; he’s got eight of these bad boys in his fleet that can tow bigger vehicles.
I’ll admit, I’m enjoying the air conditioning and the view from this high up but I am really enjoying my chat with Jeff. I’m a little embarrassed by the way I smell but Jeff isn’t making a big deal out of it. It’s hard to imagine he’s smelled worse but he says he has. We’re on our way to Lincoln and I’ve learned about how he met his wife; how his dad started the business but Jeff added the towing service. He told me about his children, a complicated tale, that one. His children don’t want the tow business. They know how it took their dad away from them, especially on nights and holidays, and they don’t want that for themselves, their families.
At a garage in Lincoln, they keep the doors open for us only for them to tell us they can’t read the code either. We have to go to Omaha. Jeff says that always happens with this garage, everyone gets sent to Omaha. Well, this is a fine how do you don’t. It’s Friday and it’s raining and now what? Off to Omaha but this just happens to be great.
First of all, it’s quite stunning what it costs to tow a bus but what do I know to have perspective on that. Costs a lot to buy one of these trucks. The Omaha garage is open until 10. These diesel mechanic heroes work on the bus until midnight and both buses got to stay in bays inside the garage. Otherwise, the animals inside of the buses would be at the mercy of the early morning sun so that was really a win for us that they were sheltered. Did I mention they fixed the alarm situation on the mammal bus, too? Both buses were repaired without really missing a beat.
There was a beautiful sunset when we went to our hotel and I was able to order Mediterranean food delivered so this was really a big day all around. We picked up the buses the next morning and it’s quite fortuitous that we weren’t stuck on the road waiting for parts over the weekend or however long it would take to repair it. At a Casey’s gas station to get our diesel, clerk Kate Matthews asked what is going on in that bus? And I proudly gave her a tour even though it was getting pretty disgusting back there. “That’s crazy, it’s insane,” she said. “I saw you guys pulling up and I’m like, I think there’s ducks in there!” She whipped out her phone to make a video to send to her daughter.
Along the way, I’m posting a few stories on my Instagram, leaving out much about the mammal bus for one reason which I will explain at some point, and I’m hearing from so many of my friends across the country that we are passing so close to them but alas, we cannot stop. My cousin in Indianapolis offers me fresh clothing if only I could stop but not in the cards. One of my friends said I must stop for the fried pork sandwich in Iowa, we’re only 20 minutes away from her. Even if we did stop, I don’t need to tell you that wouldn’t be on the menu. The decision is made to bypass Chicago because of severe weather and the idea of potential traffic and we drop down to catch up with Interstate 74.
That morning, I posted a photo of the only pair of shoes I brought with me. Because I wanted to bring more camera equipment and needed room for that, not a second pair of shoes. And guess what. I never brought out my camera. I was too busy during the day and I didn’t want to get the camera in all of that bird excrement, if I’m honest. But I had a camera, three lenses, a soft box and a flash. And one pair of shoes.
Those shoes were so bad. I looked at them and said, “Not today, Satan.” And Satan cackled, by now I’m quite familiar with cackling. “Yes. Today.” And I put those nasty shoes back on but our stop that night was in Danville, Illinois, right on the Indiana border and a different time zone that wreaked havoc on the electronic equipment, John, the hotel clerk told me. Indiana is 500 feet away. But this little motel was very valuable to me. It had a washer and dryer and I bought $20 worth of quarters and soap to wash the shit out of my shit. And reader, it didn’t matter that I mixed the whites with the colors and put in those nasty shoes. I got the shit out of my shit.
The next morning was a surprise. The bird bus was down again. At this point, I don’t even know why, I was still on my Tide pod high because these shoes had new life. But it was a Sunday. And a mechanic came out and fixed it. And he had his little girl in his truck and I thought of Jeff and how he wasn’t home for his children growing up. And this girl maybe had other things she wanted to do than be on call with her father. Or did she? I don’t know, I had some feelings. I had both of those things when I grew up with my father. Missing because his work involved spycraft and international travel; or dragged along to his electronics or automotive stores when all I’d rather be doing is adding to my 45-record collection.
There was also a surprise on the mammal bus. Someone, April the llama was the immediate suspect because of her height, ate the permit that was taped to the window. So this is why the mammal bus was on the down low during the trip. Everything was properly permitted. According to the law in Oregon. But there weren’t individual tags for the mammals and it’s a little complicated. “We’re operating under an exception,” Leona said. How they understand the law to read when you are moving a flock to a different grazing pasture under the same owners. Don’t need the tags. But moving an animal sanctuary across states? What’s the rule? And don’t they have sheep and geese and ducks in Maine?
“When you meet people they say, sell yours and buy more, like that’s what people would do, right? But we’re not a farm. We’re something different. We have a lifelong duty to care and that’s why, because we committed to these guys,” Leona said.
Understandably, they wanted to keep the mammal bus a little hush-hush. Why draw attention to yourself? When the police will find you anyway?
