After a fitful start where there were mechanical delays, substantial delays, irreverent delays, delays of a moral nature, delays of an immoral nature, mean delays, happy delays and finally no delays we loaded the crew into and onto the Bokeh Maru and began our journey northward towards the land of photo opportunities.

The Bokeh Maru is the newest member of our fleet of amazing vehicles that are fully licensed and legal to operate on the roadways of America. As you know The Institute has an entire fleet of specially customized vehicles that allow us to do our work, from the lowly pair of custom made hiking boots with the high insteps, to our ground shaking, fear inspiring recon and security vehicle, the Enola Gay, a weaponized iron-clad veteran of the gas wars of the early 70’s. Sadly our 1976 Dodge Power Wagon is no longer with us due to it’s being crushed and shredded for repeated parking violations. It is missed.

But now that gas prices have leveled out at a steady 23.00 a gallon for unleaded we no longer needed the Enola Gay, what we needed was an even stealthier vehicle than our previous stealthy vehicle, the Slipknot. Why? Because when you’re in the business of gathering intelligence in the form of phototized digital images of say, grizzlies breaking into dumpsters, and you’re trying to document whether they’re actually eating that stuff or going through other people’s mail, or what landscape actually does when you’re not looking at it, you have to have a vehicle that blends.

And the Bokeh Maru blends. On the outside she appears to be a 20′ long, mild-mannered Chevy van with some slight modification, inside she is a technological marvel of the highest order. Bristling with knobs and buttons and switches that are able to do things like adjust the volume on the am/fm/cassette player, and make the windows go up and down without actually cranking them is pretty darn amazing. But the sneakiness part is that when you move back from all the automotive magic and you look in the back you see a complete house on wheels. I’m not kidding. Kitchen, full bath with shower, TV, it makes it own electricity from some dark dirty noisy thing under the floor in the back, a Queen-sized bed, places to store all the junk you won’t use on the trip but think you need, the list is too long to list, as it were. Just know it is pretty darn spiffy.

Day 1 of the maiden voyage of the Bokeh Maru went pretty much as expected. After the EMT’s packed up their paddles from jump starting my heart when I saw what the first fill-up cost me, we were on our way. Just so you know the bill for the EMT’s was less than the gas bill and that was for four EMT’s, the fire truck and the flight for life ride to the clinic. I’m hoping things get cheaper as I go along.

I mentioned our crew earlier. Because this is a fact finding, photo acquiring, no holes barred road trip we need a full company of highly trained, motivated, good-looking people who are fearless and work cheap. First on the list is Big Lemon Kowalski, a Chinese-Polock that I borrowed from my friend Batchu Sen, owner and CEO of South Seas Acquisitions, one of our affiliates out of Macau. He is called Big Lemon for the single large tooth that nearly fills his upper gum and is a glorious yellowish-orange hue. When he smiles it is Iike the sun coming out, but don’t be fooled by his jovial appearance however, he can do things with a butterfly knife that scares Seal Team 6.

Next is our resident Ethno-Botno-Archeologist, a woman who refused to give her name (we simply call her “ExcuseMeMs”) but stated she has lots and lots of degrees ( I personally don’t think she has even 92.4 degrees. She is not a warm woman) She says she knows just about everything. We’ll see, it’s going to be along trip. I’m sure things are going to come up that will stump even ExcuseMeMs’s fund of knowledge.

There are others of varying talents that will be introduced as they are needed, but with all the bearers and packers and Sherpas, navigators, health care personnel, and groupies our crew totals nearly 31 people. I have a feeling that we may lose some as we travel. I’m already hearing grumblings about conditions back in steerage where they are mostly huddling now. I’ll be the first to admit that conditions are a little cramped at the moment. That’s one of the reasons we’ll be installing grab bars on the roof at the next stop.

I hope to be able to keep you abreast of our adventures as we travel around looking at stuff and doing what we do. No guarantees however, it’s totally dependent on where we can find wi-fi. Maybe I’ll store up a few posts at a time and unload them as I’m able. It’s time to get everyone loaded. I need to get those who slept under the van up so they don’t get run over when we leave, or maybe I won’t. Time for an I. Q. Test.

Got to run the adventure awaits.