Field Notes from the Road: Early Summer 2025

Introduction: The Stillness Before the Burn

It’s the fourth week of June 2025. Oregon has traded spring’s flirtations for a deep, verdant summer. The weather sits firmly in the low 50s (°F) and it’s been raining for over 36 hours straight. Not hard enough to be dangerous—but steady enough to keep your socks damp and your schedule flexible.

Everything is lush. The rain doesn’t just soak—it paints. The trees glow, the grass thickens, and even the mud feels alive in some way. There’s no denying that all this wetness is doing its job: Oregon stays beautiful, so long as you’re willing to be a little soggy to witness it.

I’ve napped more today than I have in months—not out of luxury but because the atmosphere just pulls you under. It’s hard to be productive when the clouds feel like they’ve parked directly on your skull. Still, this is the work. This is the field. And the field is muddy.

Section 1: Location Report—Molalla, Oregon in Early Summer

We are in a cattle pasture just a short distance outside Molalla, Oregon. There’s no gravel, no paved parking pads—just dirt, grass, and hay beneath my boots and under the tent floor. The Molalla River flows just hundreds of yards away, a quiet companion to this chapter of my life.

This patch of land belongs to one of the nicest men I’ve ever met—a rancher who runs this place with warmth and trust. He gave me a space to land, to rest, and to set up shop for a while. There’s something deeply human about being welcomed like that. You can feel it in your bones—especially when you're cold and wet and new in town.

The sky stays gray, but the land feels open. Out here, I’m surrounded by fence posts and pine, by cattle calls in the distance and the low murmur of rain on canvas.

Section 2: Campground Culture

My setup is simple, practical, and slowly becoming a system that works:

• A Kelty 6-person tent: roomy enough for me and my dog, Lucas, to stretch out and stay dry

• My truck as a command center: laptop, cords, food bins, clothes, notebooks, backup gear

• A shared community firepit: sometimes lit, sometimes soaked, but always a place to gather if people wander close

There are no kids here. At least not at the moment. It’s a quiet crowd—older folks in vans, solo campers in rigs with solar panels, and travelers like me who might not have a set destination. We give each other space. It’s soft, easy silence.

I don’t know much about the townsfolk yet—I haven’t ventured far into town beyond a Starbucks visit and a gear run. Out here, it’s more about reading the land and the people who stay on it. Who lingers in the rain. Who leaves their firewood uncovered. Who says good morning when you pass the water spigot.

Section 3: The Texture of Rain

Rain isn’t just water. It’s pressure. It’s humidity in your lungs. It’s the smell of the forest waking—or drowning. When rain picks up its pace, it plays a loop on the vinyl tent roof. It’s hypnotic. It’s relentless. It’s still.

It also teaches you to slow down. Out here, it’s not just comfort—it’s caution. I saw someone slide off into a ditch after taking a curve too fast in the rain. No injuries, thankfully—but the image sticks. A reminder that the laws of nature don’t care about your ETA.

When you live this close to the elements, you start letting the weather make your decisions for you. You don't rush errands. You don't plan tight windows for long drives. You breathe differently when you know the road can vanish under you without warning.

The rain becomes rhythm. Your routines shift to match. Coffee brews slower. Writing stretches longer. Even the dog's energy softens under cloud cover. Wetness tucks everything in a little closer.

Section 4: The Economy of Movement

Living mobile looks romantic. You see the truck, the freedom, the camera-perfect campsite. But there’s a financial reality behind it all.

My truck gets about 19 miles per gallon. Not bad, all things considered—but travel days are expensive, especially when fuel creeps past $4 a gallon. You learn to stay put for a bit, not just for peace of mind but for the sake of your budget. Each stationary day is a chance to stretch your resources further.

Campground fees usually run between $20 and $40 per night. Cheaper if you find a remote BLM spot, but those come with trade-offs—no services, no neighbors, and not always great cell signal. As much as I love the quiet, I’ve learned I like having people around, even if we don’t talk much. Just the presence of others makes things feel safer, more grounded.

Gear is a never-ending game. Even when you don’t think you need anything, you’re buying something—a new carabiner, a longer charging cable, an extra towel, a better tarp. It’s always something, and it's usually something small that makes a big difference in daily comfort or efficiency.

Then there’s the psychological tax—the subtle strain that stacks up when you’re always monitoring where you’ll sleep, how much battery you have left, or whether a new storm is blowing in. No matter how long you stay in one spot, the mental tab never fully closes.

And yet… there’s a certain balance to it. You plan. You pre-book where you can. But you also stay loose, ready to pivot. Sometimes that flexibility leads to great surprises—like stumbling across an Overland Expo you didn’t even know existed and realizing, oh, this is exactly where I’m supposed to be right now.

Section 5: Scenes from the Field

This lifestyle is full of odd little moments—blips of time that you don’t realize matter until later. Small, strange, real.

A) The Calf Curiosity I haven’t had cattle sniffing my tent yet, but my neighbor sure did—he woke up to a calf licking his travel trailer early one morning. Said he thought it was rain hitting a new panel until the sound got more… intentional. That’s the thing about pasture camping: you’re not just a guest of the landowner. You’re also in the livestock’s territory, and sometimes they say hello in the only way they know how.

B) Midnight piss in a flannel mess It’s 3 a.m. and the bladder never waits. The rain’s still going. I pull on damp sweats, unzip the tent, and try to keep my socks off the mud. Sometimes it feels ridiculous squatting by a fence in the middle of the night like a raccoon with stage fright. But it’s part of the rhythm now. When you’re this close to the earth, dignity becomes negotiable.

C) Wet Dog Warmth Forget fancy heating systems—my dog Lucas is the heater. He curls up beside me at night, sometimes under blankets, sometimes just pressed against my back. When the rain cools the tent down and the damp creeps in, that little body heat buffer makes all the difference. There’s no substitute for the loyalty of a warm, sleepy dog on a cold, wet night.

Section 6: Investigative Mindset—What the Road Reveals

Wolves & Fire Studio isn’t just about meandering. It’s investigative. It’s about watching systems operate outside of city limits and seeing who gets left behind when things stop working.

Being on the road exposes a lot—especially in places where infrastructure thins out and assumptions break down.

1. Infrastructure Fragility The moment the rain gets heavy, cell towers glitch, and the power hiccups. One strong storm can isolate you entirely. If your work relies on internet, cloud sync, or GPS, you're on borrowed time. That fragility changes how you plan and how you build.

2. Housing Precarity I’ve cut out rent—but that doesn’t mean I’ve escaped the pressure of housing insecurity. Living mobile still comes with high stakes: campground limits, rising fees, unspoken social lines. There’s a quiet but persistent pushback anytime your shelter doesn’t look like a mortgage or a lease.

3. Policy Blind Spots Rural areas and temporary housing get left out of the conversation. Land use laws are scattered, zoning is messy, and enforcement is inconsistent. You can park in one spot for weeks without issue, then be told to move in the middle of dinner at another.

4. Everyday ResilienceBut I’ve also seen people improvise with brilliance. Tarps reinforced with irrigation tubing. Showers rigged from milk jugs and paracord. Battery setups MacGyvered into little solar powerplants. People adapt fast. And those solutions matter more than what’s sold in a gear catalog.

There’s journalism here. There’s truth buried in the way people make it work without the systems meant to support them. Out here, we see the cracks—and how people stretch themselves to span them.

Section 7: Loneliness vs Solitude

This lifestyle gives you lots of alone time. Sometimes, it’s perfect with room to think, to breathe, to feel like yourself again. Other times, it creeps in with an edge, and suddenly it’s not solitude—it’s loneliness in disguise.

There’s a difference.

Solitude is choice. It’s the silence after a productive day. It’s listening to the rain, writing in your notebook, and feeling in control. It’s peace.

Loneliness is heavier. It’s when you’re sitting in the truck eating cold leftovers, scrolling TikTok just to hear voices. It’s when Lucas is asleep and you realize it’s been a full day since you spoke out loud to another person.

Both have a place out here. Both teach you something.

What helps:

• Leaving voice messages to friends, even if they don’t respond right away

• Making eye contact with someone at the grocery store

• Sending a blog post into the world, hoping someone resonates with the words

Connection doesn't have to be loud. Sometimes it’s just knowing you're not the only one riding the edge of the storm.

Section 8: Ember Relay—Code Born in the Field

Note: EmberRelay.com is coming soon. Bookmark it. You'll want to see this.

Out here, you quickly realize traditional tools don't cut it. Laptops die. Wi-Fi disappears. Transcripts vanish unless you’ve saved three backups. That’s why I’m building Ember Relay—a tool born from the wet, wild realities of the road.

This isn’t a sanitized app made in a WeWork. It’s code built in a tent, in a truck, in cafés, in the unpredictable gaps between cell signals and forecasted storms.

Why Ember Relay exists:

• The field is messy. Your tools shouldn’t be.

• You need to record, transcribe, analyze, and tag insights fast, even when offline

• Metadata matters: GPS, timestamp, local weather—all logged automatically

• Sync happens when it can. No internet? No problem—just keep working.

What it is: Ember Relay is a web-based platform, built for modern investigative fieldwork. That said, we’re totally open to building local offline file drop support if enough users want it. The mission is simple: don’t let spotty service kill your story.

Who it’s for:

• Journalists working remote or solo

• Investigators who travel light and need secure, organized notes

• Storytellers and documentarians tired of scattered scraps

Why it matters: Tools like this don’t just support fieldwork. They preserve stories that otherwise get lost—because they weren’t polished, or timely, or “big” enough. But everything starts somewhere. Often, in the rain.

Check back soon at www.emberrelay.com. The domain isn’t live yet, but the mission is. We’ll be posting teasers and more info over the next week—so keep an eye out. If you’re curious, this is your official invitation to watch it unfold.

Section 9: Reflections from the Tent

Camping in a pasture, living from a truck, building tools by lantern light—none of this is glamorous. But it’s real. And it’s taught me more in four weeks than the last four months inside.

Things I’ve learned:

• A dry pair of socks is worth its weight in gold

• A good dog is the best form of companionship, even on your worst day

• The moment you think you have this lifestyle “figured out,” it changes

• Weather governs mood, body, and plan—learn to let it lead sometimes

• The story doesn't start when you're comfortable. It starts when you're paying attention

This tent, this little life on the road—it’s full of limitations. But it’s also full of clarity. You notice everything. How long your eggs last. What sound your boots make when they're soaked. The moment your brain sparks with an idea.

The world doesn’t feel so big when you’re this rooted to the ground. But you feel more in it than ever.

Section 10: Conclusion—Still Here, Still Watching

It’s the end of June. Oregon is wet. My gear smells like damp nylon and hope. Lucas is snoring next to me. I’m writing this with half-charged batteries and a full heart.

This life isn’t about constant motion—it’s about intentional placement. Where you go, where you pause, what you notice when you finally stop scrolling. And write.

I’ve felt isolated. I’ve felt powerful. I’ve felt like the only journalist left in a field of grass.

And still—I’m here. Still writing. Still watching. Still building, because there’s something out here worth documenting. Worth understanding. Worth sharing.

These are my field notes.

– Wolves & Fire Studio, Molalla, OR