Posting from Safe Haven in Albuquerque (backtracking)
What is Autistic Archipelago?
Mar 19 - 20 DELAWARE-MARYLAND
Tuesday, Mar 19 - Still in NJ - Drove from Cape May to a ferry crossing to Lewis, DE
Now crossing to Lewis, Delaware - it's a ferry with a sway that is just right - to remind that sea sickness is just a step or few away? Perhaps - it's been a while since last time - I'm not within it, but I feel it; it enters your conscious here and there; an interesting feeling that is both pleasant and sickening - a strange feeling... a bit of something in your diaphragm, or is it in your head, or both, or every cell of you body feels it, and talks...
So crossing, I took pictures and shot some nice video (that needs tons of editing and is not ready), but I don't think at this point I (and this post is from NM, from my scribbled notes, while with limited internet access, and others hands on my time; it will not happen any time soon if ever, as usual :)) because the recollections echoing and reverberating, merging and refracting - ARE washing like waves onto my shore...So from my scribbled notes, I haven't yet decided whether to go inland or continue by the coastline...
But getting to the ferry - I had to drive to it; and there was Uncle's Bill's and a good meal, a breakfast you've seen in the previous post, (which is not any more the best by far, as you'll see later), and after, without any rush that comes from pre-planning, (the subject of extreme difficulty and little benefit so often), arriving by about 11 am to the ferry just as it is about to go out. Good Timing ! Always makes you feel good...
The crows (my kin, I've mentioned before) are flying around and the timing - it's all good signs - I feel it, and they quiet me - the anxiety is hiding in hideous corners - is it the confidence that is descending?
When I drove out - as I drove out (from the ferry), I knew then that I want to go inland, to some small town, and stop at the library and load the pictures and maybe stay there...
From the road: (this reminds me of Levitan paintings!)
I'm trying to figure out my navigation system: using 'waze' on my phone shows me no perspective, the IPad has it, and is much better in that respect, but I have no navigation there - it's static and is using different maps - they don't jive together too well. I struggle to reconcile and need to stop in order to do it - much too often; just as I did somewhere there, and sat looking at the maps until finally (by some curious misunderstanding of the mind, that is puzzling to me now) I picked Georgetown, some space-time inland. There was a park there - Redden State Park, that I thought may work, to spend a night.
Georgetown, DE population 6524 by the US Census Bureau Jul, 2011.
From my scribbled notes - I'm realizing that it is "insane how many things I need to charge: 1. Voice Recorder, 2. Cannon Camera, 3. Go Pro camera, 4. Ipad, 5. Laptop. I think I've overburdened myself with that; I think it's not gonna work". (Yeap, it didn't - stated on April 1 in NM - Fools Day).
Another scribbled note: "my sleeping bag could be better" - Ha, I'm quite worried about the next night...
Got to Georgetown. Drove through town, snapped a few pictures, telling myself that I got to get into a habit of doing it when I see something that I like.
{ Update from Safe Haven in Albuquerque two weeks later - regarding the above: just as I managed to be almost automatic with it finally, after training my hand to be an extension of my eye, as I did similarly with a voice recorder to be an extension of my speech - I have lost both the recorder and my camera to the weathering elements - open air exposure, sand, as well as my own neglect. Both of these tools have succumbed to the outdoor exposure they were not accustomed to while maintaining existence inside, under the protection of the walls and mostly out of my hands, and now to my dismay are virtually dead, or are playing possum with me. I have not yet said Kadesh for them, but I think the resuscitation is not possible at this point. What I'm to do without them, is to be determined...
Anyway, on the subject of acquiring these physical skills -
1. Of working the recorder automatically without conscious thought by extending the control of all the muscles involved in the production of speech due to a spontaneous thought that I like to comment on to myself, (which I do already when not inhibited by a human presence, unlike NT for whom I believe the presence of other human is usually a catalyst to the act of the invocation of the speech). This physical extension was resolved to a single push of the button of the recorder in my pocket when I start speaking, and pushing it again when I stop. The task was to achieve the control of it that was as automatic and simultaneous as the production of air by lungs, the movement of the vocal cords, tong, lips, and all other muscles involved in the speech.
2. Of working the camera automatically by turning my hand holding at what I was looking at, as I walked while shooting video, and additionally pressing the camera button for single photos.
Acquiring these controls, I think may be the closest approximation that adult may undertake to gain personal (direct) understanding of how controls required for speech production are acquired by children learning to speak, and similarly the control of other movements as they are learned by children and become automatic (not involving conscious thought of control). The methods I used did make use of DTT and ABA in the initial stage and here and there, by slapping myself every time I would forget or by being late, or even interrupting my thought by conscious effort; I have practiced the pushing of the button for quite a time verifying if and when it works until it was crystal clear as if I saw it happening, i.e. the recordings of the mechanical extensions of my body. But then I had to practice LET GO, which simply is trusting yourself that it will happen while not thinking about it (as you mostly do when you walk, unless of course you are walking on a narrow beam high above the ground, and you are not a rope walker)
I think this whole experiment deserves a separate post, regarding the applicability of DTT as well as ABA to teaching language and similar physical controls - how and when these methods may be of use; and arising, based on my own experience, to a critique of the apparent overuse of these two methods at the expense of all else, effectively leading nowhere or becoming a hindrance and an obstacle to the objective of learning. }
But to continue with the story - Drove through the town, and then reset my navigation and went to check Redden State forest and see if can stay there overnight...
I didn't stay in Redden State Park; It's overdone with all kind of the official and maintenance structures and vehicles, etc. that so often invade the parks, and of course was inhibiting; the side roads were roped, the main area watchful for trespassers -"Be aware of tow away". Drove around looking for a quiet place out of sight to park a car - a couple of marginal spots, but not really! It's always good to find those spots up front, just in case... Drove to town, went to the library.
Here is the note I made then:
drove from Cape May to a ferry crossing to Lewis, DE (made a few video of the crossing - links to youtube to be loaded. I'm running out of time in this library (Georgetown, DE). Now going to check if they have "Loud Hands"?... 
Now they do: presented to Bonnie Bly Elliot, Asst. Dir. - courtesy of ANI.GOOD PEOPLE!
Coming out - decided to go back to the shore - a little state park close to DE border with Maryland, called Fenwick Island State Park off R-1, and take my chances there.
Fenwick - a long story short, it's a tiny park on the ocean front between all the commercial upkeep - I tucked my car in a far corner next to a small shack facing the beach, hoping for the best, but I had premonitions... Surely got woken up by a cop around 1am; got politely denied; went driving south; decided to go inland to a small park that popped up on my Ipad maps - Pocomoke River State Forest- On a way there, while in the Ocean City, got pulled over by an unmarked cop; he followed me for about a mile before stopping; asked a lot of questions; the more he asked the more suspicious he got, as I got less cohesive; eventually he let me go, wrote me a warning; apparently I didn't have my lights all the way.
I got to Pocomoke at about 2:30am, they had a campsite there self serve, but I SAW IT WAS ALL ILLUMINATED, SO I just tucked my car off the park road into a nice dark quiet spot, and went to sleep in a car; looking through the open window at the stars and the reclining half moon on her back. That night was SPECTACULAR!
Got up at 6:30 am with the first light. This is Pocomoke River State Forest in Maryland
Drove to the ranger station (see pic) Took a hot shower, shaved, brushed, etc. Feels Good! Set up my Fish Eye camera on the dash board and pulled out. Had a so so breakfast at a little diner off the road. I should remember not to eat at places like that - better to drive into some little town in the early morning and look for a place where locals congregate...
Here is my parting shot leaving the park:
So in retrospect, this NIGHT Mar 19-20, my second night on a road was quite interesting - on that same night I've managed to sleep in two states, and had two cops chasing me out!
Not bad ...
Next driving on Ocean Hwy R-13 to Chincoteaque National wildlife Refuge, VA.
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