Dispatches, thoughts, and miscellanea from writer Jon Konrath

Thirst and travel

God damn it, I am thirsty. It’s about 12% humidity in here and way too hot, and no matter how many glasses of water I drink, I’m parched. I just chugged a quart and a half of ice-cold, Britta-fresh water, and a second later, my throat was sandpaper.

I’m still reading this book about the girl who sailed around the world, and I’m almost done with it. It makes me wish I could get a small boat on eBay and pack it full of surplus MREs and powerbars and try to do the same thing. It’s enticing when you think that you aren’t paying for a hotel room to sleep in each night, and the wind is your fuel. But pretty much every thing that could go wrong with a boat is serious money, and I’m pretty sure I would fuck up majorly and hit a reef or flip the thing over or something, and I can barely swim. The idea of being alone for that long of time is appealing to me, though.

I’m always getting caught on these books about long, solitary travel, like motorcycling across Alaska or pedaling through Cuba, or whatever. I think I would enjoy driving across some insanely long journey, like I did back in 1999 when I moved to New York, except some longer, more open-ended journey. One approach would be to get a truck and some kind of camper that fit on the bed, and then equip the whole thing up with supplies and a laptop or two and head out to Alaska or Baja Mexico or whatever. Each night’s stay would be free (aside from camp permits), but I’d have to pay for the gas. Another journey that would be fun is if I get a Light Sport pilot’s license, which would allow me to fly small planes with a bit of gear in them. You have to fly during the day and only in the best of weather, plus you can’t go in the more trafficked airspace, but if you swung around major cities, you could probably go cross-country from small airport to tiny airstrip, and then put up a tent or hitch a ride to town for a Motel 6 at night. That would make a pretty damn fun trip, and an interesting book, too. Maybe someday, when I get the money together.

Not much is going on here otherwise, except I am insanely tired again. Feels like a good time to sit in front of the tube and see what happens on Law and Order.