By ten in the morning the day had already been sorted through once. rswfire had been up since eight, having woken at two and lain there in the dark with a mattress that refused to resolve itself — firm, which he wanted, and soft underneath the firmness, which he could not name precisely and did not like. He said he would give it more time. That was the ruling: not a complaint, a deferral. He had shaved. The hair on his head was the remaining question, a length he actually liked, with the side kept shaved as he preferred, and the only obstacle was the bathroom — small enough that loose hair would be everywhere. He noted the gray coming in and asked when that had happened, and did not answer himself.
Then the inventory began, unhurried, item by item, the way a man runs through the subsystems of a machine he is still learning. There was a trail in the park, 1.4 miles, hiking only — no horses, no bicycles, which he named as a preference and gave a reason for: he did not want to navigate horse manure. If the trail was good he could take it more than once and build stamina against it. His shins were sore. He read that as the body coming back after a stretch of not walking, the ordinary adjustment that resolves itself in weeks, and he called it a good kind of pain, the kind he had always liked. It would not hold him back. The trail was not near the rig — the park was large enough that he would have to drive to the trailhead — which meant groceries first, then a return trip to drop them, then the trail.
The groceries were their own subsystem: potatoes and TV dinners. He stated plainly that he does not know how to cook well. He knows a baked potato, and ChatGPT had told him how to do one in the convection oven, and today was the day to learn the oven. Simple food for now, because starving was the alternative and he named it. He had never liked microwaves. Oven cooking was what he did at home when he cooked at all, and otherwise he ordered out. So the convection oven entered the list not as an appliance but as a competence to be acquired, scheduled for today.
Further out on the week's map: propane, from the Tractor Supply nearby — not today, maybe Monday. The holding tanks emptied somewhere in the beginning or middle of the week. The marina, which might rent boats, worth checking sometime during the stay if not today, and if he could get out on the water he would, with a packed lunch and sunscreen, because that is what it would require. The beach and the golf course were also on the park map and neither appealed to him. So the park narrowed to trails and possibly the marina, and that was enough.
The booknook came up almost as an aside and then held. He had enjoyed it more than he expected to, and he wanted to see it assembled, and he had already found a place for it. Someone had commented that this was how dollhouses are made, which he had not known — and no, he did not want to build a dollhouse, but the underlying fact interested him: that you could source small pieces and construct whatever interior you wanted. He said he was very curious about that. The miniature had opened a door onto a whole category of making.
The one thing that would not resolve was where to go next. He had started looking that morning and found what he had found before — two-week stays are hard to book. He said it plainly: you really need to plan this stuff out, if you do not want to end up with nowhere to go. He could not see himself pulling into a Walmart overnight; he said it twice, that he simply could not see it. Boondocking he would like, but he drew the line himself — overnight parking is not boondocking, they are not the same thing — and placed the real version out west, as a skill he would learn when he got there. For now, Kentucky, with a lot still to see, and perhaps some bouncing around between sites.
And then the Daniel Boone National Forest, which he had wanted to hike in his late twenties — a long-distance trail whose length he would not quote for fear of getting it wrong. He wished he had done it. He said that is what his regrets are: state and national parks not explored when he wanted to, trails not hiked. That is the whole inventory. No other kinds of regret. Measured against that standard — the only one he applied — he stated that he had made a very good choice for himself in living this way. Then he wished everyone a good day, and the morning's list stood: store, drop the groceries, drive to the trailhead, walk.