The pink-haired cashier at the Grocery Outlet just outside of Antioch, California says she hasn’t seen the latest version of the New York EBT card. She tells me it used to be colorful. I wonder if she’s seen the Oregon card, The Oregon Trail, presumably named after the 90s side scrolling computer game, or the Louisiana card, the Louisiana Purchase, but I don’t ask. The cashier asks if I live in New York and I say yes, sort of. We’re spending the weekend on a boat nearby, Roxann clarifies. More specifically, we’re plotting our way to Ephemerisle, the annual seasteading gathering that assembles in the Delta region where the Sacramento River and San Joaquin rivers meet. Each year a couple hundred people arrive by boat and build temporary structures, or “islands,” connecting their various watercraft., then they live and host events there for up to ten days. The only way to Ephemerisle is by water. The only rule is “don’t die.” But I’ve learned to take proclamations about no rules with a grain of salt.

The cashier’s stepdad lives on a boat.

“It sounds nice for a week or maybe a month,” she says, but no longer than that. “Maybe in the Netherlands, where the infrastructure exists, and the attitude toward living on the water is different, but not here, not yet.”

She’s confident that the attitude will change, though – that it will have to, due to rising sea levels and housing costs. I ask to use the restroom, but there isn’t one open to the public.

“The 7/11 up the road has been cool lately,” the cashier says, and, mistaking us for homeless, offers a few other local resources before handing us our bags.

Heading back to the highway, the 7/11 is one of the few buildings not boarded up. Whole strip malls have been left behind. The city of Antioch’s motto used to be The Gateway to the Delta; in 2020 it was changed to Opportunity Lives Here as part of a municipal rebranding campaign. We’re about 20 miles from the coordinates where Ephemerisle is set to take place and less than five from the river, but it’s hard to imagine water anywhere nearby. Much of California is characterized by this contrast between wet and dry. We’re looking at rolling golden hills, dusty skeletons of strip malls. With any luck we will soon be floating on the San Joaquin.

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