The Unexpected Detour.

Then the detour happened.

My plan was to stay at my friends place until early May and then head to Chicago taking Route 66 to Oceanside, California, where Klink requested his ashes be scattered. Things took an unexpected turn when their trip was cut short due to a family emergency. This meant I had to find a place to park my trailer, and me, until I could get “moved in” and situated before I took off. In Minnesota, campgrounds don’t typically open till late April, early May, but I was lucky enough to land at the Disabled Veterans Rest Camp up on Big Marine lake for the next four weeks.

I could’ve never anticipated what was in store for me there.

I had phoned ahead to the camp to say I would need help parking my trailer. My first and only attempt doing this was upon coming home from Alabama and trying to back into a perfectly straight and perfectly long driveway. Which I totally couldn’t do. Half in a panic and half laughing at myself, I phoned the new owners of my house (two blocks away) and they were kind enough to come and rescue me. When I finally reached the Vet’s Camp a few weeks later I knew I wasn’t capable of backing into a campground space solo and I was assured there would be help waiting for me.

I was a hot mess when I arrived at the camp—my truck and trailer plum full of my belongings from scrambling out of the house. Realizing how difficult of a campsite I was pulling into, the two guys that came to help me took care of backing in, leveling and unhitching my trailer. I’m a pretty capable person but there was absolutely no way in hell I could’ve done this. So I watched and learned from them and absorbed everything they said like I was a sponge in a puddle. We chatted for awhile afterwards and I was honored they shared their stories with me. An Iraqi/Afghanistan vet – a Katrina First Responder. They, along with many others at this camp, would soon become my friends. By 9PM I was exhausted, starving, and still had no room to move around inside my trailer. I cleared a spot big enough to sit down on the bed, found a bottle of wine, a jar of peanut butter, and a fork.

Dinner.

In the days and weeks that followed, I would learn my campsite was nestled in-between two Marines (I’m quite certain Klink set that up), an Army guy who lived in a revamped green bus and who would leave firewood in my fire pit everyday, and a couple from the neighborhood where I grew up—Rice Street. I was introduced to the canteen one night and felt like I had stepped back in time 23 years to when Klink and I first met at Kraus Hartig VFW; hanging with the gang on a Friday night, sing-alongs with the jukebox, dancing with the girls, shooting pool, and lots of laughter and good times. I was also, quite literally, surrounded by Rice Streeters everywhere I turned which blew my mind. I grew up in the Rice Street/Como neighborhoods of St. Paul and there’s a special camaraderie about being from this place that, unless you lived there, you’d never understand. At 10 years old I was hanging out with boys who stole cars to take us girls out for a drive, smoking cigarettes in the alleyways and getting high in the bathrooms at St. Bernard’s Bowling Lanes. We’d match joints behind the Bradshaw Haugh funeral sign and then go drink under the railroad trestle till curfew. We watched the boys get in gang fights at North End playground, and then afterwards, watch the boys get arrested and sent to Totem Town for 3 months.

Nothing quite like the bond of Rice Street.

Besides my two camp neighbors, there was the campground manager and an old Marine who played baseball with my dad, worked with my gramps Lucky Havlish at the railroad, and bowled/gambled with him at the Stahl House. Both from Rice Street. Everyone knew Orlando’s Grocery Store—my other grampa’s store—my aunt Jean Havlish the bowler and of course they all knew Bones, the homeless vet who lived on the street for 50+ years. As I spent more time at this camp, I started to see a camaraderie that was similar in nature to what I grew up with, yet when I really thought deeply about it, it was inarguably quite different.

I knew my time was temporary and so I started downloading vignettes—or snapshots—as they were happening. Taking moments and embedding them in my mind so I could go back and touch them when I wanted. Friends at a bonfire, building a deck bar, loons singing on a freezing cold night, a campground tour in a golf cart, Friday nights with my new girlfriends, ribeye’s on the deck with the guys, hugs from a sweet little boy who just got his training wheels off his bike. I started to feel at home and welcome here and I truly contemplated staying for the summer. This place and these people were special and I was getting attached to them. But this wasn’t part of my plan. It was a perfect transition and a perfect spot to land before I took off on my journey.

But I wasn’t meant to stay here.

I’ve been told so many times in the last few months that I’m incredibly brave to be doing what I’m doing. Being a solo female, leaving behind everything I know, traveling the country full time. I don’t really see it that way yet I get why folks say it. It can be unsettling for people to think of leaving behind what’s comfortable and familiar and going off into the unknown. But I really don’t know or understand anything else. My life has been unconventional since childhood and I guess I’ve always been a risk taker. People ask me if I’m afraid and I tell them, yes, absolutely, I am afraid. But not in the way you may think.

My time at the Vet’s Camp was only four weeks yet the impact will stay with me forever because these people have penetrated my heart. These Vet’s have seen and done things most of us could never imagine and would never, ever, want to. They’e left everything comfortable and familiar behind them and went off into more unknown territory than we could fathom. They’ve fought battles and experienced things we could never understand. Some are still battling. They (and their families) still experience trauma everyday and they’ve lost more than we ever could imagine. They look after each other, take care of one another, respect each other. They are incredibly capable and strong and resilient and I honor and admire each and every one of them. This camaraderie that they have is established from a bond I will never comprehend, yet I could see it and absorb it and almost feel like I could touch it while I was there.

But, ultimately, it’s not for me to understand.