In the Summer of 2004, several significant events occurred in my life which are now playing out in the field presented you in this record. Having for many years worked as a part-time, adjunct instructor, mostly in philosophy and religion, I was suddenly taken up into a full-time position at the Pennsylvania College of Art and Design in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Not only that, but I was named as the Chair of the Department of Liberal Arts and Art History at that College. Furthermore, I was awarded a substantial grant for the purposes of educational travel by the Trustees of that College. All of this occurred within the space of a month.
I learned also that as the new Chair I was to direct a Department-wide self-study, to be conducted in the 2005-06 academic year, and to conclude with a report on any changes to occur in the Department based upon the self-study. I knew from experience, having taught at the College since 2001, that the self-study would be time-consuming, that much of the study would have to be by directoral fiat rather than by consensual or even democratic examination, and that sweeping changes would be required in the Department. I therefore requested that my travel be deferred until the Spring or Summer of 2006.
The travel was to be to some place I'd always wanted to go, but would not ordinarily have been able to go. It was also to be outside of the United States. Being perpetually broke and too lazy to do much about that condition, any travel, even local travel, was something I thought about little. But I did have some thoughts of going to India or China or the Himalayan region.
Initially, I thought I might go to Nepal. But as I looked into trekking in Nepal, I kept coming back to the common denominator of Maoist rebels. They're not particularly dangerous, most writers were quick to note, but they are extortionate, more so to USAmericans than to others. I decided that my Baggins-side was not quite ready for the adventure of Maoist rebels, even if my Took-side wished that I dared.
The other problem -- for me -- was flying. I don't really have a phobia of planes, but I do have a phobia of pilots. So, after a quick glance at another mountainous region in which I had interest -- the Andes -- and the discovery that Maoist rebels are also active there, I turned my attention instead to another scheme.
I enjoy driving places and stopping when I like to get out and take photographs. Like many USAmericans, I like having a vehicle to call my little home away from home. Remembering that when I was in graduate school and before that in college I had travelled in, and at times lived out of, a 1978 Volkswagen Campmobile, I cultivated the notion (I now would qualify it as "daft", but at the time it seemed good) that I would borrow the old Campmobile and drive it from Pennsylvania to the St Lawrence, then across to the Georgian Bay in Ontario, then north to the Artic Ocean, and then across to the Pacific at Vancouver, where I would meet up with my cousin Stuart Cole. I would then, as a sort of victory lap, drive back across the Rockies and through the prairie provinces.
I had, of course, a very poor idea of the size of Canada.
I also had a very poor idea of the state of my parents' VW Campmobile, which had been in a body shop for a year or so. One day, my father called me to ask me to help him recover the camper from the shop. As I drove the shuddering, rattling thing the two miles from the shop to my parents' house, I came to the conclusion that it was not up to a trip across Canada.
I had, at that point, made some basic measurements of the route I planned to take, and tried to calcualte the time involved. I was thinking at that point that I might take two months, maybe even a bit longer. My plan was to photograph and videotape my travels, perhaps keep a blog of the trip as well, camp in National and Provincial Parks, and write reports on the natural and human history of the areas through which I travelled. I was particularly concerned to compare the ecologies of the Atlantic realm with those of the Arctic and the Pacific.
When I saw that the camper would not work out, I looked into rental vehicles, but quickly decided against that, as the expense of the rental would take up the entire grant.
I then hit on the scheme of taking ViaRail or RailCanada, but this presented several basic practical problems: the rail system itself does not go all the places I wanted to go, and I would be compelled to combine rail travel with either very serious hiking, car rental, or some other form of public transportation.
I still had a very poor consciousness of the vastness of Canada.
My parents recommended various package tours, but I was not interested in that. My wife was upset that I was not very interested in finding ways to turn the grant into a family vacation. By the end of the 2004-05 academic year, I had fairly well put any consideration of the matter far back on the stove.
I learned also that as the new Chair I was to direct a Department-wide self-study, to be conducted in the 2005-06 academic year, and to conclude with a report on any changes to occur in the Department based upon the self-study. I knew from experience, having taught at the College since 2001, that the self-study would be time-consuming, that much of the study would have to be by directoral fiat rather than by consensual or even democratic examination, and that sweeping changes would be required in the Department. I therefore requested that my travel be deferred until the Spring or Summer of 2006.
The travel was to be to some place I'd always wanted to go, but would not ordinarily have been able to go. It was also to be outside of the United States. Being perpetually broke and too lazy to do much about that condition, any travel, even local travel, was something I thought about little. But I did have some thoughts of going to India or China or the Himalayan region.
Initially, I thought I might go to Nepal. But as I looked into trekking in Nepal, I kept coming back to the common denominator of Maoist rebels. They're not particularly dangerous, most writers were quick to note, but they are extortionate, more so to USAmericans than to others. I decided that my Baggins-side was not quite ready for the adventure of Maoist rebels, even if my Took-side wished that I dared.
The other problem -- for me -- was flying. I don't really have a phobia of planes, but I do have a phobia of pilots. So, after a quick glance at another mountainous region in which I had interest -- the Andes -- and the discovery that Maoist rebels are also active there, I turned my attention instead to another scheme.
I enjoy driving places and stopping when I like to get out and take photographs. Like many USAmericans, I like having a vehicle to call my little home away from home. Remembering that when I was in graduate school and before that in college I had travelled in, and at times lived out of, a 1978 Volkswagen Campmobile, I cultivated the notion (I now would qualify it as "daft", but at the time it seemed good) that I would borrow the old Campmobile and drive it from Pennsylvania to the St Lawrence, then across to the Georgian Bay in Ontario, then north to the Artic Ocean, and then across to the Pacific at Vancouver, where I would meet up with my cousin Stuart Cole. I would then, as a sort of victory lap, drive back across the Rockies and through the prairie provinces.
I had, of course, a very poor idea of the size of Canada.
I also had a very poor idea of the state of my parents' VW Campmobile, which had been in a body shop for a year or so. One day, my father called me to ask me to help him recover the camper from the shop. As I drove the shuddering, rattling thing the two miles from the shop to my parents' house, I came to the conclusion that it was not up to a trip across Canada.
I had, at that point, made some basic measurements of the route I planned to take, and tried to calcualte the time involved. I was thinking at that point that I might take two months, maybe even a bit longer. My plan was to photograph and videotape my travels, perhaps keep a blog of the trip as well, camp in National and Provincial Parks, and write reports on the natural and human history of the areas through which I travelled. I was particularly concerned to compare the ecologies of the Atlantic realm with those of the Arctic and the Pacific.
When I saw that the camper would not work out, I looked into rental vehicles, but quickly decided against that, as the expense of the rental would take up the entire grant.
I then hit on the scheme of taking ViaRail or RailCanada, but this presented several basic practical problems: the rail system itself does not go all the places I wanted to go, and I would be compelled to combine rail travel with either very serious hiking, car rental, or some other form of public transportation.
I still had a very poor consciousness of the vastness of Canada.
My parents recommended various package tours, but I was not interested in that. My wife was upset that I was not very interested in finding ways to turn the grant into a family vacation. By the end of the 2004-05 academic year, I had fairly well put any consideration of the matter far back on the stove.
posted by M E Achtermann at 2:45 am
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