Hemodiealysis (225.n.2)

CONVOY The convoy starts moving at 1 a.m.. Today is Saturday, July 2nd of the July 4th weekend, which we hope will be symbolic. It being a Saturday means the Tuesday–Thursday–Saturday dialysis groups will be affected first by our encampment, but all local dialysis patients will be affected by July 4th. Our fleet of 24 Cascadias (half electric, half diesel) is pulling two dozen 40-foot containers. A dozen Freightliner M2 and Ford 650 box trucks are carrying supplies and tiny houses in collapsed form. And a dozen Ford F-450 duallies are pulling LVs and pipers.

Two tanker trucks are full of mostly diesel with some gasoline mixed in. Two more are full of potable water. There are also a large number of Jerry Cans of diesel and gasoline, along with lots of other supplies including water in 3.5 gallon storage ‘Lego Blocks’ redundantly dispersed around all two dozen containers. We spaced the departure of each truck by about a minute, with an escort SUV for each vehicle.

It took almost an hour to get the final of the 52 trucks on the road.

The first half of the trucks had parked before the second even started, so we only needed a couple dozen escorts.

Our encampment is the parking lot of the mostly vacant Peninsula Boardwalk shopping center. Presumably the name ‘Boardwalk’ was meant to conjure an image of being right on the bay. It used to be thriving with a Toys R’ Us and other magnet stores. But the universe killed those stores, and only a rarely patronized Sports Seller eventually took its place. The shopping center is notable in a few ways.

First, it is right next to highway 101, the major corridor up the peninsula side of the San Francisco Bay Area. Billions of dollars and millions of people travel the 101, many of them to Facebook, Google, and Apple. Those commuters will see our camp in the light of dawn.

The sudden appearance alone should be newsworthy.

Second, the shopping center is right next to a canal. Once people lived in low-cost house boats in the canal and the adjoining marina. But the moorings for those inexpensive house boats were recently transformed into million dollar homes at much lower density, and the house boats kicked out. Affordable housing became insanely unaffordable housing in exactly the same area of the city.

Third, the parking lot is not being used even to ten-percent of its capacity because the car traffic to the shopping center is insignificant.

All the people shopping there could easily use the non-freeway side - 73 -