The Freedom Mobile's Last Stand

This piece was written for this week's Durango Telegraph. 

I’ve waited until the last minute to compose these words. Not because I’m slacking off, but because I caught the flu during a trip up in Salt Lake City, Utah for the Winter Outdoor Retailer Show. For the past couple days I’ve been laid up on the couch, unable to write. This morning, as my deadline is staring me right in the face I feel much better, grateful that this nasty bug seems like it’s going to pass.

Even though I do feel better starting to write something feels like I’ve never written before. It feels like this bug has attacked some brain cells, in addition to the other havoc it has wreaked on my body.

So as I was working through this post-sickness writer’s block, I decided to look though last week’s issue of the Telegraph online. Since I was out of town last week, I hadn’t seen the paper yet. The title for Missy Votel’s La Vida Local “Germ Warfare” caught my eye. As I read through her comical take on the flu season I felt grateful that my bug seems like it wasn’t going to stay around for as long as it does for some folks.

Anywho, after that dismal introduction, what I wanted to write about this week was cars, specifically The Freedom Mobile, my graffiti-ed, red, white and blue 1988 Mazda that I recently replaced with my dream ride, a Subaru Outback.

Before it was Freedom, it was just a car I bought for a thousand bucks. I drove that thing all over, from Mexico to California, even before we spray painted it. It was reliable and got great gas mileage. I lived out of it for months at a time, camping, climbing and devising systems to get around that pesky 14 Day Limit rule. One of the most hilarious antidotes happened when my Dad was taking a look at my car, and opened up the flap under the trunk. To our surprise, there was a plant growing out of some dirt that had found its way down there. Further investigation revealed a bag of beans I’d bought in Mexico slipped down there, and so had a patch of dirt. Yes, this car was fertile.

The patriotic, spray-painting was inspired by the 1969 American road movie, Easy Rider, with Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda, where they travelled the country in a red, white and blue motorcycle, donning the clothes of the same color. I’d already put some 40,000 miles on this car, and figured it would last maybe another year or so, why not graffiti it up?

photo by Braden Gunem

When I painted the car I was living in Gunnison, gainfully employed, and I could have easily afforded a new ride. Instead I decided to spend my money on things that seemed more important at the time: gear for the outdoors. I had two bikes that were both more valuable than the car itself, not unusual for a mountain town resident.

When the economy tanked my job got cut to half-time, and I was ready to move on from Gunnison. I packed up everything I owned into The Freedom Mobile and hit the road. I knew I was moving to Durango, but wanted to take a big road trip first. I’d planned the trip with my buddy Dave from Telluride, and at the last minute his truck blew up. We’d have to take The Freedom Mobile.

We drove into Utah, to Red Rocks in Las Vegas, over to Joshua Tree, California and over to Yosemite. Now well over 200,000 miles the Freedom Mobile just kept rolling. Never mind that every single warning light was lit up, and it made weird clicking noises and smelled like leaking antifreeze. All over the American Road we got positive responses, my favorite, a woman sitting passenger in a truck who passed us in Utah, hooked up to breathing oxygen, she looked at us, and gave us the biggest grin I’d ever seen and two big thumbs up.

At the end of that trip I just prayed it would take us back to Colorado. I scored a house sitting gig in Durango that would start soon, and had to meet the owners of the place. They lived in a plush home in Durango West 2, and upon seeing the car remarked, “it looks like it’s been through a war.”

Every time I thought the Freedom Mobile was going to die, it just kept going. Nothing lasts forever though, and as winter was approaching I considered getting a new ride, something with four-wheel drive to be a little safer in the snow. I started looking around, and really started getting serious when my friend and mechanic, Andrew Kubik took a look under my car and said, “You need to get a new car.”

Andrew helped me find a 2000 Subaru Outback, with a mere 150,000 miles. To me it feels like a new car, and drives like a dream. The first question my parents asked me was, “you’re not going to spray paint it are you?”

I ensured them that I wasn’t going to, much to their relief. I do still love the concept of art cars though, and there’s nothing like someone rolling up next to you at a stoplight and giving a big smile. There are some cool art cars in Durango, more than I’ve seen in any town in Colorado. I even met a lady in Telluride one time who organizes an art car parade in Houston, Texas, apparently the biggest in the world; who would have thunk it?

In the end I quit while I was ahead with Freedom. It could have easily broken down somewhere out in the Utah desert (that became the furthest I would take it after the big trip), but it didn’t. When I got the new Subaru my friend Katie Brown asked me if I was going to miss the Freedom Mobile. I replied, “definitely not.” I’d taken Freedom so far I was just glad it didn’t leave me stranded in the middle of nowhere.

I’m more excited about where the Subaru will take me; it’s a good feeling to have spring around the corner, and to have a new ride. But, for now, I’m headed back to the couch to nurse the rest of this sickness. 

Freedom and Volume 4

Well of course The Climbing Zine Volume 4 is taking us longer than we expected. The zine always does. This time we're making sure it's our best volume yet, so it will be worth the wait. We're also figuring out distribution, and the whole e-reader thing, to reach as large of an audience as possible. That said Volume 4 WILL drop this month, I promise. In the meantime, here is a poem that will be published in Volume 4. Cheers, Luke.

Freedom by Luke Mehall

Freedom, where are you?
I found you briefly, growing up in the flatlands
And then, you were flattened
By growing up, taking tests
Who would have known to fail was the best?
I failed so many times I failed at failure
Wailing with the prospect that I had nothing

Freedom I looked for you in magic mushrooms and LSD
Smoking marijuana every chance I got
Risking getting busted and imprisonment to escape a mental prison
Freedom, I found you in Allen Ginsberg’s America
As my tears spilled into my murderous coffee
Freedom, did I see you again at the campfire?
Did I see you when I gave up and wasn’t looking?
When I wanted to die because I had nothing to live for?

Freedom I found you in climbing, higher and higher
Till all negativity and doubt perspired, leaving just me
Realizing at the time all I wanted to be, was to be

Freedom, then I got addicted to you
And the addiction was just as false
As freedom being found in simply the red, white and blue

It can be, true, but what I learned most about you
I learned you are an ingredient
An essential part in the recipe of a human life
Too much and your heart and soul will ache
Not enough give, too much take
Freedom I think I understand you more
I learned more than I ever wanted to know (at the time)
Freedom now I’ll compliment you in rhyme
Freedom I’ll always be searching in climbing, above
Freedom you are the best when complimented with love

The Great American Dirtbag

“The world has enough for man’s need, but not enough for man’s greed.”
-Gandhi

Where do we look for hope, for America, the planet, for the human race? The dirtbags. They have usually descended from the Middle Class, where they had enough material-wise where their bodies could be content, but not their souls. Their souls were driven to live, so much, in fact that they gave up all conventional Middle Class ways of survival. Instead embracing another way, the way of the dirtbag. A way, if the entire world lived in this fashion, we could be saved. We could be saved because the spirits of mankind could be fed. When the spirit is fed greed disappears, and without greed there is enough for everyone on the planet.

Freedom Mobile Story in the Winter Crested Butte Magazine: Roll on Freedom

Below is a story I wrote about my car, The Freedom Mobile, which was published in the most recent issue of Crested Butte Magazine. Below is the draft I submitted, surely just a bit different than the finished product. Hope ya'll enjoy, and be sure to pick up a copy of the CB Mag. when you're in the Gunnison Valley. A link to the online version can be found below.

Our vehicles make statements about our lifestyles, and here in Crested Butte we have quite the diversity in modes of transportation. From the high class Hummer SUVs to the old Subaru station wagon that checks in well over 200,000 miles, the car we drive can be a dead giveaway to the activities we pursue. I often wonder what strangers think of my car, an old 1988 Mazda that is spray painted red, white and blue, most commonly known as the Freedom Mobile.

Ever since I saw the classic 1969 American road movie Easy Rider with Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson, I’ve wanted to paint a vehicle in the colors of our country. I’ve always sensed that us mountain folk are living out our own version of the American Dream up here in the Gunnison Valley, and my car is representative of our unique culture. Adding to the mystique, I also wanted to feature the OM symbol, to show that the east and west can come together, and to show that although I am a proud American, who has been heavily influenced by the ancient, Indian-based art of yoga.

Reactions to the Freedom Mobile have been mostly positive since I graffiti-ed it up with my friend and artist, Nathan Kubes, three years ago. I can count on children smiling and pointing at it, supportive nods from people on townies crossing Elk Ave., and my fellow climbers saying, “I love your car” at various locales across the west. The most predictable response, however, is from hitchhikers; as I slow down to pull over. Their response, with a glimmer of hope in their eyes, is something to the effect of, “I knew you were going to pick me up.”

I’m proud to drive a vehicle that elicits such a response. It took some time to get to this level of pride though. The very next day after we first painted the car, I was pulled over by the police, saying something about my headlights not working properly. I thought they were, and wondered if I’d just set myself up for getting pulled over all the time. It took some time getting used to driving a car that attracted such attention.

A couple months later I had a first date, at the Almont bar of all places. (The woman was living in Crested Butte, and I was living in Gunny; a good mid-way meeting point I thought.) I had the usual butterflies of a first date, and as I walked out to get in my car for the drive I wished to the heavens that I hadn’t painted my car in such an outlandish manner, so I could just present myself in somewhat of a normal way. She ended up loving The Freedom Mobile though, and I learned an important lesson that our inner freak is usually a beautiful thing, and we should not hide it; if someone is a kindred spirit they’ll love what is inside you.

Something I did in the Freedom Mobile, that I never dreamed would happen, was taking it on a major rock climbing road trip, across the Western United States. It all went down like this. I’d just lost my full time with benefits job in Gunnison, with the downturn in the economy, and recently broken up with the first woman I’d ever been in love with. I needed to get out of the valley, and I’d made plans to move down south, to Durango for a fresh start. In the interim my friend Dave and I would make a month long road trip. It would be one of those coming of age trips to do something exciting, and forget about the trials and tribulations of the past.

At the last minute Dave’s truck broke down, and now the trip relied on the Freedom Mobile. With nothing to lose I decided to take Freedom on the trip. We drove to Red Rocks in Las Vegas, Nevada down to Joshua Tree, California, up to Yosemite, to Vegas again, and finally down to Durango. There were many moments of pure bliss, and the country’s reception of the Freedom Mobile was incredible. At one moment, driving in southern Utah a woman sitting shotgun in an old truck, with oxygen hooked up to her nose, pulled up next to us, and gave the biggest grin I’d ever seen, and two thumbs up. Later that same day, pulling into a gas station in the Middle of Nowhere, Utah, some good ol’ boy mechanics were staring us down. We were slightly defensive until they started talking, “Nice car, it looks like something Evil Knievel would drive.”

Durango ended up embracing the Freedom Mobile, and there are more spray painted cars there per capita than any other place in Colorado I’ve been. Work ended up being scarce in Durango, as it is many places in our country these days, and when the spring ended, I found myself returning to this sacred valley for the summer.

The Freedom Mobile made its first appearance in Crested Butte’s Fourth of July parade, and somehow I managed 16 of my closest friends to spell out The Freedom Mobile in body paint across their stomachs and chests. The wildest incident though came later, in the fall, as the deadline for this piece was approaching.

I’d teamed up my friend, Braden Gunem, to do a photo shoot for this article. He rigged up a camera on the front of my car, with all sorts of lighting inside; including a small rag in a bottle he wanted to light on fire to add a wild touch to the photos. While we were keeping our eyes peeled for the police to make sure they didn’t see our shenanigans, I looked up to the last rays of daylight to see a major townie takeover headed our way. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was the Brick Oven Pizzeria’s softball team, dressed complete with their signature red, yellow and green tank tops, and hairnets on their townies; thirty of them, followed by a police officer.

As we watched it all go down, wondering what was going to happen, the police officer ended up escorting the Rasta Hairnet townie takeover down Elk Ave. Only in Crested Butte! With the police busy escorting the wild Brick Oven crew, we commenced with our unorthodox photo shoot.

I never know what’s around the corner for the Freedom Mobile, and I like it like that. It’s headed back down to Durango for the winter, so it won’t be rolling the streets of Crested Butte when the snow falls. The spirit of Crested Butte lives in the Freedom Mobile, wherever it may go though. Let freedom ring!

Crested Butte Magazine online

Old Man Winter and Writing

“You could have been anywhere on the internet right now, but you’re here, and I appreciate that.”

I have several writing projects in the works, and I've got a great space to write here in Durango, out in the hills, with little distraction. The ground is covered in snow, and old man winter is in the house. This is typically the most productive time of year for me, writing wise, as long as I don't get the blues; which really doesn't happen to me here in Durango, it's just too mild of a winter for the dark side winter to really get to me.

When I really get into the writing zone I typically start as many writing projects as possible, I think it is the so called ADD of my mind (ADD is a term I've never liked, but I won't rant here) to start multiple projects at the same time, and then focus on whatever one I like when the time is right; or when I have a deadline.

Those are just some random thoughts, what I'm really thinking about this morning is making it, as in making it as a writer; supporting myself with the pen. I've done it before, professionally, when I worked in public relations in higher education, but that was writing for someone else, creating stories for an institution, telling their story. Now I'm trying to make it with pure honesty, my own words, my own stories.

Trying to make it, on my own, has been directly tied to the economy, and I imagine there are thousands and thousands of other artists out there who lost their 9-5 jobs with the downturn, and are now focused more on their art. That’s exactly what happened to me, my job was cut as the government gave less to the college I was working for, and I was one of the victims.

Economically that may have been one of the worst things that could of happened to me as my thirties started, but artistically and spiritually it was the best thing that could have happened. Now, a year later after being laid off I have my first book, “Climbing Out of Bed” nearly done, and it’s so, very close to publication. I don’t think I would be so close if I was still slaving away in the 9-5 world.

For this blog, as I really delve into my writing this winter, I’m going to use it as a forum for more than just climbing, as I don’t only write about climbing, and also because The Climbing Zine is finally going to have its own website, and thus I won’t have to use lukemehall.blogspot.com for the zine’s main page. (Look for The Climbing Zine website to drop within the next month or two.) I’ll probably change the name of this blog, as I have many times before, but the address will remain the same.

So, welcome old man winter, and to all of the artists out there, putting your 10,000 hours in, for the love, keep your head up, stay positive, and create. After all, what else is there to do with your life?

Here's a couple photos I took yesterday during a snowy bouldering session in Durango at Turtle Lake. We had seven people out yesterday, and I'm relieved that so many folks here are willing to climb in the snow, because I plan on doing that all winter long baby!

Heather and Tim, psyched on winter bouldering!