It took us a day and a half just to pack the van. Barry had bolted additional 2-by-4’s onto the roof rack, and while I sorted and packed clothes and food and toys and cmping gear, he was strapping a room-sized piece of carpet, our mizzen sail, and a collection of conduit and PVC on the top.

Then we carefully went through the boat, stowing our fiberglass tools and boatyard-skanky clothes and our dorm-sized refrigerator inside. We removed all loose items from the deck and the area around our jackstands, set off a bug bomb inside to eradicate the palmetto bugs, and locked the companionway. The last thing we did was take down the ladder.

And then I turned the key, and the Squid Wagon did not start.

How is it that an inanimate object, a simple dumb non-sentient vehicle, can know that we are about to ask it to drive 6000 miles? Whoever heard of a lazy van?

But Squidley knew that we were about to head on a cross-country road trip, and instead of a giant diesel-sized roar, there was just a tiny whimper.

Luckily, Kenny Bock keeps a portable charger for such emergencies, which probably occur every few days around boats. We got the van started, I got hugs from all my favorite guys in the yard (that’s Randy, Larry, and Dale) and we headed west.

In truth, we’d simply run the batteries down with the dome lights while doing all that packing. Once Squidley realized that we really were heading all the way to Nevada with a deconstructed port-a-potty strapped on top, he decided to cooperate.

As I write this, we’re driving across Utah on I-80. The sunshine on the Great Salt Lake is achingly beautiful, and there are many sailboats out there.

The sails don’t tempt us at all. We continue on, away from the water and toward the Nevada desert.

Our first encounter with other pilgrims was in the middle of Nebraska, in a Cabela’s parking lot. When we came out, we found a note on our windshield: “We shall see you at the gates of heaven.” It was in response to one we’d left on a New York van on our way into the store: “See you at home!” We never actually saw them, only their vehicle, which featured mountain bikes and (the dead giveaway) a large Burning Man logo.

Our next encounter was on I-80, somewhere in Wyoming. At the Squid Wagon’s usual 60 mph, we rarely pass anyone, but some Burners travel even slower, laden with art and gas cans and misshapen trailers of curious gear. Last night, we honked and waved as we slowly passed a converted shool bus with dozens of hula-hoops strapped to the back.

We’re all excited and happy to be going to Black Rock City, that amazing temporary city of 50,000 people, where Burning Man is held. We come from all over the world, from Australia and Scotland and New York and San Francisco and Seattle and, of course, North Carolina. We bring art and costumes and food and drink to share, and we bring a spirit of freedom and generosity not found anywhere else in the world.

As usual, our voyage across the country to this amazing event included a lot of stops along the way. We started with my brother in North Carolina, then detoured to Ohio to see a whole passel of friends, siblings, in-laws, and nephews. This was followed by a stop with my aunts, where we stayed in a convent crammed into a twin bed (there’s no reason for a double bed in a convent, evidently).

Best of all was the shopping, which started during a rendezvous with Margaret’s Dad in South Carolina and ended during a rendezvous with Barry’s Mom and Dad in Nevada. The list included Lucite platform shoes, pink knee-high boots, inflatable aliens, and 8 packages of tofu. We’ll have to write more about that — and the port-a-potty on our roof, and the original Tin Roof Sundae, and the tag-team oil change — later, when we emerge from our week-long communications blackout.

Through it all, Squidley has started each day with a giant roar and that diesel rumble that sounds like a UPS truck. I think that van has a sense of humor, and has been laughing at us all the way across the country.

You know how it goes….it is supposed to be a simple, easy project.

I stopped to ask Kenny about marine “goop” compounds, so I can pick the right one when we install our new forward hatch.  After he answered, he asked if we were ready to be moved and have the boat lowered.

Ack!

I said something like “Uhm, it will take a couple days, since we haven’t done anything to put new bottom paint on the centerboard and trunk yet…”

By this time, we had already finished a bunch of boat projects, and weren’t starting many new ones — we were trying to figure out our plans for Burning Man instead.  All we had left was removing some leaking hardware and plugging the holes with goop, installing the new hatch, putting a cover over the hole where the main mast will go….and probably a couple other jobs I’ve since forgotten.

So this sounded pretty easy — just pick out some bottom paint, scrape the centerboard and trunk clean of mollusks, do a quick scuff sand, and slap on the bottom paint.  Of course, picking the bottom paint was an agonizing decision that took forever, but that was OK, ’cause we were doing other stuff in the meantime.

First off, we didn’t have the right sander for the job. The best and fastest tool would probably be a big 7″ or 8″ right angle grinder, but it just seems too big to keep on our boat. Instead, I drove Margaret nuts shopping for the perfect 5″ random orbit sander…after checking every store in town and combing the internet, we decided to order one online and pay for expedited shipping.

Then we had to haul the centerboard up so we could get better access to the trunk (from below).  Normally that wouldn’t be a big job, but we have a ballasted centerboard that weighs between 1000 and 2000 pounds. With the built-in purchase and one of the winches it goes up with a bit of a grunt.  But the deck was sagging under the weight, so we wanted to rest it on cribbing.

Cribbing is two-foot sections of lumber appropriate for railroad ties, very heavy stuff. You stack it up under the boat like Lincoln logs. Unfortunately, while fetching enough to hold up the centerboard, Margaret threw her back out.

The next day, the sander arrived and I started on the centerboard.  The sanding went well, except that there were these places where round bits of fiberglass showing through the paint.  What are these?  Blisters.  Yep, no doubt about it.  Blisters.  Some of them even ooze ugly liquids when I poke them.

Now the “simple” project had a major complication.  However much we wanted to just zip through this, we couldn’t slap bottom paint over the blisters.  So I told Kenny that we wouldn’t be ready to have the boat moved on the original schedule, and now the job was redefined like this:

Sand all the paint off, down to bare fiberglass.  Grind out the blisters.  (Hello to my old friends, the 4 1/2″ angle grinder and Mr. Dremel!)  Water wash and solvent wash everything.  This was the only part of the job I would let Margaret do, since the grinding and sanding is at an awkward angle for a bad back.  Oops! Missed a couple blisters, especially some deeper ones.  Grind out more blisters.  (Apologize to my poor wife for doing this after she already washed it.)  Water wash and solvent wash again.  Fill the holes with epoxy and expensive West System colloidal silica filler.  Run out of filler after doing one side and a third of the other.  Buy some cheap cab-o-sil the next morning when the yard opens.  Fill the rest of the holes.  Sand them all smooth again.  Water wash and solvent wash.  Fill again with Awlfair fairing filler.  Sand it smooth.  Water wash and solvent wash it again.  Put three coats of barrier coat on the centerboard.  (Somewhere in the second coat figuring out which rollers would work and that brushing doesn’t)  Put two coats of bottom paint on the board and the trunk plus the bottom of the keel.  Since the centerboard was a little awkward to work on, I didn’t let Margaret do anything except the washing to prevent further injuries.

Whew!  After all this, collapse for an hour or two.

While I was sanding, grinding, filling, and painting, Margaret had been doing other jobs or resting her back (recovered by now). And finally, Flutterby is in her new home, about 100 feet away from her old home, out of Kenny’s way, and about four feet lower. We are very happy with her new altitude!

I felt really stupid last week. Most of you will be aware that this is not a rare occurrence.

A fellow boater, not a liveaboard, came by to purchase our old stove. He was curious about life on the hard, and he asked me, “Do you have AC?”

I thought to myself, “Gee, he’s kind of oblivious.” He was standing right next to the big yellow 30-amp cord that runs from the power pole up to the boat.

“Oh, yes,” I said, nodding vigorously and gesturing at the power cord. “We have both AC and DC!”

There was an awkward pause, and then everyone laughed politely. “Oh, you didn’t mean alternating current, you meant air conditioning … er, no, we don’t have air conditioning.”

But I felt embarrassed at the misunderstanding, and I wonder if living in 95-degree heat and 100-percent humidity without air conditioning has permanently addled my brain.

A certain member of my family, upon hearing that Barry and I are going to Burning Man in August to escape the humidity, said vehemently, “You guys are wimps!” This particular individual, who shall remain nameless (but his initials are HHS Jr), lives in an air-conditioned condominium and has a side-by-side refrigerator with an icemaker.

I protest. We are not wimps! It’s just that we need some attitude adjustment, despite a number of well-thought-out changes to improve our quality of life:

Refrigeration: After a month of driving to town every other day ($5 in gas) and spending $5 for block ice, we ran the numbers. At $60, a dorm-sized refrigerator in the cockpit would pay for itself in less than a month.

Our luxurious 1.3 cubic foot fridge has an ice cube tray that makes about 12 cubes the size of your thumbnail. With 12 ice cubes, who needs air conditioning? We even tried buying ice cream sandwiches, but that meant taking out the ice cube tray. Then the ice cream sandwiches melted into a gooey blob and refroze into a flat solid mass that had to be chipped out with a chisel.

Music: We got tired of the tinny speakers on the computer and bought a stereo that plays our iPods. Music is the best mood-enhancer, but the folks on nearby boats sometimes wonder about the belly dance music.

Communication: We picked up a used cell phone and signed up for prepaid service with Alltel, the only company with good signal in the boatyard. Now our phone actually rings on the boat, making it feel like home, thanks to the telemarketers.

And then came the best quality-of-life improvement of all, not even one we initiated. Last week, Bock Marine installed a satellite internet system, giving us access to the Web right here on the boat. No more driving to the Beaufort library, just to check Barry’s online comic strip. No more evenings sitting in the van, watching the tourists as we try to order power tools.

Just as we get all these quality of life improvements, we’re going to Burning Man. We’re exchanging humidity, hurricanes, and fiberglass dust for a week in the desert, with 110-degree days and overflowing porta-potties. But at Burning Man, there are no 2-inch flying cockroaches. And there’s the real reason I’m fleeing the boat. Go ahead, call me a wimp.