18 wheels, a dozen roses & a box of tampons

We are freaking out the world in the truck. Nearly every time we swing down out of the cab, a (male) passerby will cat call something along the lines of "you little ladies are driving that big thing?"
When only one of us gets out of the truck, gas station attendants and hotel clerks assume the one still in the truck is male."There is no man in that truck," we correct them.
This is a pattern that is repeating itself with no-longer-alarming predictability. Like, daily. Like, several times a day. Even though we've come to expect it, it's still a strange feeling to have the world react with surprise to something that is not really a big deal. It is not challenging to drive our truck. Sure it is designed to fit a man's proportions, but so much of our world is that I can easily adapt. My feet reach the pedals and my hands reach the steering wheel. The truck has power steering and cruise control. No big deal.
The big deal, we've decided, is that women aren't supposed to take up so much space. Racing down the highway in a big fat truck is not so ladylike. And when we pop out of the cab wearing dresses and looking so feminine it freaks people out. It's a novelty. Culture (women shouldn't take up so much space) is misinterpreted as nature (women can't physically do things that take up a lot of space like drive trucks) and confusion results.
I'm used to causing this kind of confusion. I've driven tractors, played guitar in punk rock bands, and basically bucked gender expectations ever since I hit puberty. I know it draws attention and comment. I guess I'm still, after all this time, still surprised that it's 2009 and I'm a woman doing something that men do.
I can't just be a person doing a thing that people do?

The Shrine of the Black Madonna, Eureka, MO

Yesterday the bumtour drove from St Louis to Kansas City, along the way visiting Missouri's only roadside attraction dedicated to the feminine divine: The Shrine of the Black Madonna in Eureka, MO.
Built over a period of 25 years by a Franciscan monk from Poland named Brother Bronislaus Luszcz, the shrine features a series of man-made grottoes built from local tiff rock, seashells, concrete, trinkets and geegaws sent from around the world.
Brother Bronislaus built these beautiful shrines all on his own, pushing wheelbarrows of rock up the steep hill and hauling water from a nearby stream to mix his cement.
The shrines celebrate not only Mary, Jesus and St. Francis, but also thrift and invention. Brother Bronislaus used local materials and tools. The pillars framing Our Lady of Perpetual Help (see video) were cast in coffee cans. A spray of cement flowers adorning the grotto were cast in cupcake tins, and the lambs and bunnies at St. Francis' feet were molded in Easter cake molds.
In addition, there is an outdoor chapel on the site dedicated to the Black Madonna of Czestochowa, (you can, and should, read more about this miraculous painting HERE, but for now you may prefer to just gaze upon her lovely face).

gateway to the west

bumtour crosses the mississippi!

never go home

a story of a tattoo

accompanied by footage from the global discovery village at habitat for humanity's international headquarters in americus, ga. ( the global discovery village includes a tour through an elaborate reproduction slum town followed by models of homes that for humanity has built around the world.)

a phone message from a sister of the road, re-enacted for us here by a delicious rum-soaked hoboe cake

Marilyn

Yesterday as we were leaving our work site I spotted a ziploc bag - empty save for a few cookie crumbs - in an ashcan. My heart leapt at the luck. Our old ziploc bag wallet has fallen into disrepair, scattering our few hard earned coins from its gaping holes. Never one to pass up a chance to put another man's trash to use, I asked Tess to stop the truck so I could snatch up this treasure. As I jumped down from the truck, a white haired woman in the blue jumper uniform of the school's cafeteria asked me where we were going.
We got to talking. Her name was Marilyn. She told us about her years on the road with her truckdriver husband. How after the kids moved out they spent 5 years lving in the semi. How she enjoyed learning new ways to eat, and how she learned to talk to everybody. A mutual appreciation of the road shone in our conversation.
Marilyn's husband died on June 3, 1986. Since then she's been a manager of two school cafeterias, and although she is 77 years old and retired, she works full time at a college cafeteria, because she was bored without work.
The open road, the hard work, the rumble of the diesel engine. Marilyn found us in our Ryder truck, rejoicing over garbage, told us her life story, and walked away with a youthful spring in her step.

we're here. what's up with that?

Tess asks the bums, "what's up?"
Accompanied by footage of a fellow salesbum/artiste in Nashville.