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Continue reading →: Poor decisions in aisle 3
On the plus side, when you’re camping in January there are almost no bugs, including mosquitos, the bane of humanity. On the minus side, even though it’s generally warm here in Big Bend National Park (75 yesterday, 70 today), it’s still winter, and that means many of the trees have…
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Continue reading →: Anything looking to tap Big Bend National Park cacti for water is likely to first pay for it in blood
The Chihuahuan Desert is full of pointy things that want to stab you. There are more kinds of cacti than I can keep track of, but I snapped a ton of photos of the bizarre little creatures, which must develop their points because they retain moisture and moisture here is…
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Continue reading →: Is a fish a fish?
I’m about 300 feet from Mexico in Big Bend National Park, right on the Rio Grande. Tomorrow I might fish, but if I catch something, I’m not sure how to tell if it’s a Mexican fish or an American fish, and if it is a Mexican fish, do I have…
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Continue reading →: Pale white dot
The camper is rocking today for all the wrong reasons. Fifty mph wind gusts have been sending the sands of Monahans Sandhills State Park skyward since early afternoon, and by 4 p.m the sun’s glow had been so obscured that it looked like nothing more than a pale white dot.…
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Continue reading →: An excruciatingly beautiful day
I didn’t make it dune sledding today but I did see the sun rise. I can’t tell you the last time that happened. I’m not a morning person, and despite my best efforts I don’t think I’ll ever be one. My body and brain argue about which likes it least,…
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Continue reading →: Jan. 5-7 – I high-fived a guy
“Customer number 7, your shower is ready,” says the overhead intercom at a Love’s gas station truck stop along highway US-69 south in Oklahoma, though I might still be in Kansas. I’m not sure where I am. I pulled in at midnight after 11 hours of driving—700 miles from Minneapolis…
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Continue reading →: In search of sand and cacti
This blog will soon become more travelog than the thought-o-log it has shifted toward since I returned last April from my first attempt at working remotely from a camper in warmer climes. In late January 2023, I began traveling and staying at campgrounds in the great American South—Georgia, North and…
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Continue reading →: Nothing burns as bright with the spirit of Christmas as a desiccated Douglas fir on fire
I can’t decide if it is more sad as a single 46-year-old man to put up a Christmas tree for the holidays or more sad not to. It helps me to think of it like an Onion headline: “Sad man erects Christmas tree and places present for self underneath” or…
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Continue reading →: The reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated
It’s been a while since I posted, but it’s not because I haven’t been writing. Just the opposite, actually. When I started this blog last February it was more of a travelog, documenting my experiences living and working out of a camper in warmer climates to avoid some of Minnesota’s…
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Continue reading →: Ask a financial advisor who is sick of your shit
Dear Advisor,I’m 49 and have $2.5 million in my 401(k) as well as $200,000 in a high-yield savings account. I earn $350,000 per year and put $35,000 of that in my 401(k)/403(b) plus a company match of 10%. I would like to retire at 57. Beginning at age 62, my…
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Continue reading →: I live on a busy street
I live on a busy street A thousand cars a day or more must drive past my house. I hear them from my perch in the living room. If the cars are mechanically sound, they go by with little more than a whoosh, almost like a gust of wind. Sometimes…
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Continue reading →: October (short fiction)
Mother’s replacement arrived on a crisp morning in early fall. We were nearly first on the postman’s route, father and I, and as the postman struggled with the package he complained that he might have pulled a muscle in his back. But we got the box inside and father made…
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Continue reading →: We’ve all seen how this ends
Disclaimer: I mostly write about my life but sometimes I write about things that piss me off. This falls within the latter category. I’ve been thinking a lot about electric vehicles lately, and with that comes a whole host of related topics, from climate change, to the workers now striking…
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Continue reading →: Being human suuuuuuuuuuuuucks
I could feel my anxiety ratcheting up today, a warning light that flickered at first, then held steady, until finally, having not done anything about it, all systems began flashing “eject, eject, eject.” After a lifetime of this, you’d think I’d be familiar enough with it to take evasive action…
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Continue reading →: My First Experience with Grocery Delivery During Covid
After avoiding it for more than three years I finally came down with Covid, and so this week used a grocery delivery service for the first time. I’ve typically been a slow adopter of consumer services that make it easier for you to never leave the house, because I’m the…
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Continue reading →: A large buffet of decay
Two days before I was supposed to get on a plane for a trip with some friends to Colorado that we’d been trying to put together for nearly a year, I got Covid. After avoiding it for more than 3 years, it has struck at the most inopportune time. As…
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Continue reading →: Squirrels are devious agents of chaos
When I was about 15 or 16, I wrote a letter to the editor and submitted it to the Argus Leader, a South Dakota newspaper with its headquarters in my hometown of Sioux Falls. The letter was in response to some news that a squirrel had found his way into…
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Continue reading →: There is no better bathroom than an outhouse
I remember taking a shit over a log when I was little and wiping my ass with fallen leaves, as I had been instructed to do, mind you, by one or the other parental unit. It must have been early fall, a beautiful time of year when the leaves turn…
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Continue reading →: I caught my wife in bed with the Dish Network guy and she tried to pawn it off as necessary to achieve a monthly discount
I’ve been struggling with what to write about the past several days because not much is happening in my life. I’m a single, 45-year-old man who lives a fairly leisurely existence. I work, I take walks, I fish, I workout, I cook, and I generally enjoy my life, but it…
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Continue reading →: I’ve lived in my home for 4 years and today I noticed a kitchen cabinet I’ve never seen
I was in the kitchen today and I noticed a thin cupboard door I’d never opened before. This isn’t the start of a fantastical piece of fiction where I opened the door and found a portal to a world I’d actually like to live in. It was literally a cupboard…
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Continue reading →: Planks and post-pre-diabetic positive body image
I’ve never been a fan of diets. In fact, the fundamental role of exercise in my life is primarily to allow me to continue to eat excessive amounts of food that I find delicious. Were I ever to break a leg, it’s possible I’d inflate like an emergency life raft.…
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Continue reading →: Ricky is a friend’s dog, but he wants to be my dog, I can tell
This weekend was a weekend of animals. A friend and her husband left town and needed a sitter for their dog, Ricky. Ricky is mostly a black lab, but he’s long and gangly and kind of goofy looking in the face, so he’s part something else—part nerd, I think. If…
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Take a break from the chaos and read about my life to feel better about your own.
Hi. I’m Adam Overland, a writer based in Minneapolis. These are the meanderings of my muddled mind. I’ve written humor columns for various print publications, so naturally that’s dead and here I am, waiting for the last gasp.
