Off the Grid: Tenting as a cure to the terror of civilization
Most of the time, when I call 911, it’s because I just took out a deer or some other wildlife soon to be harvested. You might live in North Idaho if your road kill is skinned and tanned before your bumper is repaired.
In fact, I’ve called them so often and began with, “This is not an emergency.” I saved the phone number for dispatch in my speed dial. If it isn’t me who munched a moose, it’s someone else or an injured ungulate that itself needs dispatching or something that looks like Turkey Bowling on Highway 95.
But this time, I was cruising down the road and gasping every 30 seconds as the vehicle in front of me veered into and out of oncoming traffic over and over again. Sometimes he’d hang out on the shoulder. Sometimes he’d drive 10 mph below the speed limit, sometimes more. After a few moments and a few near head-on collisions during which I held my breath, I called the police.
I was no help at all. In fact, I was so unhelpful, I believe they suspected I was the drunk driver.
“What is your location?”
“I’m on a road. It’s mostly paved. Driving sort of northwest. I think I’m in Idaho now.”
“What is the name of the road?”
“I just passed Scrooge or Scarab Road or something. Maybe.”
Thankfully, technology means they could find me with drones or satellites or cell towers and they informed me I was northbound on Diagonal Road and heading toward the highway. If my GPS ever fails, I can call 911 for directions, apparently.
Then they asked me to describe the vehicle. I could give them almost no details. I couldn’t see the license plate because it was obscured by a folded hitch of sorts. I couldn’t tell what color it was because the metal flatbed covered the cab. All I could do was hold my breath and sigh, “Oh, good god!” every time I saw another sedan of teenagers make it past him without getting obliterated.
Much to my dismay, the truck pulled onto the highway, traversing lazily from lane to lane as my adrenals sputtered and coughed their way to meltdown behind him. The blessed woman on the phone told me a county cruiser was approaching. I saw the dark vehicle appear from behind like a wheeled knight on a gray ribbon of road.
The cop passed me, followed the wandering truck just long enough to witness the wobbling, and safely pulled him off the road. It was late afternoon. Literally dozens of cars came within inches of impact – the kind of impact that human bodies don’t tolerate. How many were aware of how close they were to the afterlife?
It struck me that many of us are oblivious to these junctures in which we are, by mere moments or millimeters, at the precipice of an entirely different outcome. It is both terrifying and overwhelming to ponder, and miraculous that we survive things like highways at all.
I sought solace on a trail soon after, as if my nervous system needed the safety and slowness of nature to recover from the velocity of modern life. Barring the unlikely event of a bear attack, the statistical probability of injury leans heavily on a twisted ankle. Which is why most of us do not text and hike or drink and hike. For the love of all those precious lives, why do we drink and drive?
This is only one of the potential catastrophes we face in society each day. If it’s not burnout and depression, or COVID or cancer, or gun violence or heat stroke, or fentanyl or poverty, it’s some other mayhap of humanity we are trying to dodge.
A few weeks ago, a family of three was found in the forests of Colorado, their bodies emaciated and long left to the earth. In the investigation, it was reported they were trying to move “off-grid” to be safe from the horrors and violence of civilization. While camping and cans of tuna do not quite embody the off-the-grid movement (rather, a hazardous and ill-prepared fate), I sympathize with the sentiment of the family and mourn their failure.
When did civilization become so dangerous that we are willing to take on a winter in the Rockies in a three-season tent as a less-risky bet? I suppose it depends on your demographic or how often you encounter drunk drivers.
The romantic appeal of a self-sustaining backwoods life, one would hope, is about independence, conservation, sovereignty and affinity to nature. When it becomes a desperate act of survival, we must take pause to consider the valid fears that motivate such reckless escapes. I suppose we can hardly judge anyone more willing to face the forces of the wild than get smooshed by a Chevy on a Saturday commute.
It makes one grateful for all the counter forces that surround us. First responders and good Samaritans, nonprofits and community organizations that work each day to be an antidote, to be a solution to the problems.
Still, after this week, I want to go live in a tent, too. Sometimes, we just need a little reprieve. It restores our courage to face the world again, traffic and all.
Ammi Midstokke can be contacted at ammimarie@gmail.com