Rolling Home

We woke up in Missouri, 980 miles from home, and headed east.  Our first destination was Columbus, where Jon's uncle Peter lives, and we were trying to get there for an early dinner.  Like all the other driving days of this trip, things went surprisingly smoothly.  Jon found the lowest priced diesel in the whole country (or at least on our path):  $2.29/gallon.  Crazy.  The lowest price for regular fuel was $1.55 in Hannibal.

We saw a long, strung out caravan of wide load trucks, each one carrying one gigantic piece of pipe.   We are still curious.

At another point there was a wide load truck that stuck out about four feet over the shoulder, carrying a huge assembly of pipes all fitted together.  The trucker was some kind of impatient and he was actually passing people on the left, so then his load took up the left shoulder instead.  His advance car was about a half mile ahead of him, so maybe the trucker knew there were no obstacles on either shoulder, but the whole thing seemed completely reckless. 

We finally allowed ourselves to think about the list of tasks that await us at home.  Jon wrote down everything we could think of -- from farm taxes to setting up the CSA registration to ongoing construction projects to financial aid forms to planning our Israel trip.  Then we put the list away for another day.

As we got closer to home, the scenery got less interesting.  And the roads got more crowded.  And there was never a glimmer of sun.  But the soil in Illiinois is still incredibly black and delicious-looking and much of Ohio is still used for farming so all was not lost.  All across the country, the rest areas are getting very technoswanky with all these no-hands devices.  You can walk into the building without touching a door, all the water goes on without any intervention, the hand drying machines turn on and off without running forever.  Mostly.  We crossed the last time zone, which made the end of the trip feel very close.

Peter was ready and waiting for us when we rolled in at 5:30.  We packed a lot of conversation into three hours, and had a delicious Italian dinner just a half block from his house.  Peter lives within easy walking distance of the university where he was a philosophy professor until his recent retirement, and every time we visit him we are treated to a different restaurant, just a brief walk from his front door.  We learned about his current struggle with tendonitis in his ankle, which is limiting his ability to walk much at all these days, but he is keeping busy and does not seem much slowed down, even in retirement. We are always glad that we have a 30+ year tradition of going through Columbus each time we go west and Peter is incredibly gracious, no matter what time of day or night we arrive.

We headed toward home at 8:30, not sure exactly where we would stop.  And then we didn't stop after all.  We just traded naptimes, listened to the full cast recording of Les Mis on Sirius, and wrangled the last mountains. It felt surprising to be back up at 2800 feet after so many hours of level terrain.  Saw more snow in Garrett County MD than we had seen since Minneapolis. Rolled into Blueberry Hill at 3:10 AM after the longest day of driving.  There is no bed like home.

Quick summary:

19 days

7800 miles

46.5 mpg average, not one moment of car trouble

20 households visited (loosely counted, some visits not at home)

3 museums

4 outdoor destinations

12 restaurant meals

6 supermarket stops

6 motels

no exercise at all 

temperature range: -8 degrees to 60 degrees

Not a moment wasted.  

Such a good trip.

(Photos to follow, when this rises to the top of Jon's list. As expected, his list expanded drastically when we walked through the door...)

On The Road Again

This report can be brief -- in summary, we left Denver at about 7 and we got to Macon, Missouri at about 8:15.  In between there was a lot of Kansas.

The longer report only includes details about eating and talking, which is all that happens when we sit in the car for 12 hours.  And napping, which doesn't make for good stories.  I did get a solid 90 minute nap after lunch, which was deluxe.

Well, first we dropped Lee Lee off at school before we hit the road. It was just starting to snow very lightly.  By the time we got onto I-70, it was snowing for real.  I have said this before: snow is not my favorite. Jon is unperturbed about light snow but I am on high alert as I sit in the passenger seat and fret more than necessary.  I point out the trucks in the median strip and tell Jon repeatedly that I do not want to be there.  We left the big interstate and got on Route 36, which goes north and then east parallel to the big highway but is a 2-lane interesting road. 65 mph instead of 75, but that is more our speed anyway.  Last time we drove to Denver, we took this road all the way from Indianapolis and we liked it a lot.  It is the Pony Express Highway.

I think I like the scenery in Kansas as much as anywhere. It isn't as dramatic or picturesque as Utah, but it is beautiful and full of life.  There is farming everywhere, small towns not very close together, and there are cows and huge tractor dealerships and the sky is full of color.  When it stopped snowing after a couple of hours, the edges of the sky were a pale 1970s aquamarine and above there was a layer of violet clouds. Not boring.

Most of the day was sunny and clear and we zipped along at 65 mph.  Once a police car pulled up behind me with lights flashing and I pulled over, somewhat confused, but it was the truck in front of me that was in trouble. He had indeed passed me a bit earlier, but I bore him no ill will, unlike the pushy  SUV guy in California.

We stopped in Kensington, Kansas ("the biggest town of its size" was on the welcome sign) at the city park and used our little Sterno stove to heat up some soup and have a picnic.  It was too cold to hang around, but it was a good time to get out of the car.

As we cruise along, we are reminded of past road trips and we continually try to piece together where we went, when.  Before the kids stopped coming with us, we were restricted by the academic calendar so our trips were shorter.  When Rebecca left for college, we got more ambitious.  We have crisscrossed the country a number of times in recent years (but have never gone as far as this).  Route 36 is worth a return trip and some day we will stop at the Pony Express museum.  Two years ago we deliberately drove through downtown Oberlin, Kansas but this time we just stopped there for a bathroom break.

Dinner was barbecue, since we are in Missouri.  Jon says at the moment he doesn't think he will ever need to eat again.  And now we are in another pleasant motel in the middle of the US, maybe for the last time on this trip.

Oh, and today was the day that Jon had the highest hopes for fuel efficiency, as we were coming down out of the mountains, with the wind at our backs. The car did not disappoint.  51 mpg for real. Not bad for a vehicle with 234,000 miles on it.  And counting.

Denver

It seems we come to Denver relatively often -- we were here two years ago when we bit off a smaller bite in miles and this was our furthest western point.  Now it is a place to stop and be pampered on the return trip.  We have two homes here and over the years we have provided many occasions for Jon's sister Dena to visit with my brother Charles, so we all do things together often.

We spent Sunday night at Charles and Lee Lee's house, lounging on the couches with their very friendly and smelly dogs, and getting caught up.

Lee Lee is thinking of leaving her job of 14 years (as a drama teacher with a huge work load) and looking for a new position -- she is giddy with excitement at the thought of escaping that environment and finding something that allows her more time for writing and creating. Charles' job continues to take him away from home to exotic places (soon he heads to the Philippines and Chile and I forget where else).

We all spent Monday morning getting caught up with work.  Conference calls from various couches, multiple computers open on the dining table, fingers tapping away.  Dena came over in the late morning and we got organized to go outside where it was sunny and gorgeous and almost hot (could it have been 60 degrees?).

In all our visits here, we have never actually spent any time downtown, so we piled into the Newcomb tank and headed for the big city, maybe 10 minutes away.  Took us much longer to park than to get there.  We had lunch at a fancy restaurant, The Kitchen, where Lee Lee had a gift certificate from one of her students.  We tried out the turnip ganoush (at my insistence) because it sounded so interesting. I liked it but it still tasted like turnips.  

We wandered around in the newly renovated Union Station -- Charles describes it as a combination Starbucks and Tattered Cover.  The building is beautifully restored with all its Victorian trim, huge light fixtures suspended from a curved ceiling maybe 30 feet above.  The whole space is full of cozily arranged couches and chairs and library tables.  All around the outside edges are places to get expensive food and drinks.  The room was full of people working and reading.  Any city would love to have that space.  We asked so many questions about it that Charles went up to the ticket counter and got all the answers (who paid for this, how many trains come through here a day, what happened to the model trains...).  Then while Charles had another conference call the rest of us walked up to Coors Field to look at a sculpture of a lot of clever interpretations of "ball" -- spitball, Lucille Ball, rubber ball, snowball ...

And a bear trying to look into the Denver Convention Center.

Then to the Tattered Cover, another Denver institution that we absolutely covet. It is a huge and wonderful old book store with floors and floors of books and spaces to sit.  We ran into Ken Snyder, Jim's brother who lives in the same neighborhood as Charles.  That was fun.

The rest of the day was for lounging around some more. We all had dinner at Dena's house.

Jon and I hung out with Dena and Jacob and spent the night.  Jacob is home from school for winter break, and probably finds it amazingly easy to return to old patterns even if he has been away for four months in New York.  Late nights, friends, he even has his old job back, delivering pizzas.  

On Tuesday we all took a trip down to Castle Rock (well, first we helped move some heavy furniture out of the house that Neil came to retrieve; no one got hurt and the furniture did not get damaged -- success) to see "the ranch" where Neil has lived for the last five years or so.  I didn't realize that Neil is happily retired already, but he didn't love his job enough to extend it beyond the minimum.  He has moved to 80 acres of scrubby, arid hills and some wide open grazing areas, a couple of horses, a barn with woodshop, a lovely house that continually benefits from his steady effort (he builds beautiful furniture, improves existing structures, does projects alone that would be easier with another pair of hands). We didn't get to meet Lauri who still has a real job, but maybe on the next trip we will.  The two dogs who used to live in Denver with Dena now live at the ranch with two other happy dogs: it is dog heaven out there.  Jon and Neil gathered up some materials for a small gate-repair project that Dena and Jacob scarcely notice, but we noticed it right away when we pinched our fingers the first time we arrived here yesterday. Anyway, it was fun to get caught up and to see how well Dena and Neil and Jacob all get along, so easily. 

Many Miles, Few Stops

We left San Francisco at dawn on Saturday and started a long day in the car.  We were armed with many podcasts, knitting, Sirius radio, and the promise of a lot of scenery.  We drove and drove, listening to the radio, looking out the window, continuing our various unfinished conversations.  It was a  relaxed day with no news.

Nevada probably always looks dry but it is bone dry, with snow only on the tops of the mountains. We are continually amazed by the engineering that went into all these highways crossing these valleys, climbing these inclines, crossing through these passes and occasionally creating amazing tunnels.  The speed limit was 75 most of the way and there was no reason not to go that fast.  

We tried to go to a restaurant that was known for its Navaho cooking but it closed before we got there so we settled for a very popular burger place in Salt Lake City.  Just fine.

We stopped at about 9:00, when we had gone about 800 miles.

On Sunday we got up and realized how gorgeous it is in Utah.  So often we drive in the night when we go between Boston and home, but out here it is a total waste of driving and it is better to stop soon after dark.  We went on a smaller road between I-80 and I-70 (one we had never used before) and went through more dramatic landscapes of steep mountains and wide basins and wide open space. We saw some turbines that seemed like something Charles would know about (later he told us that they were indeed built and run by his company).

At some point Charles called to check on our progress and I asked him if he thought we should take a detour and go to Arches National Park.  It turns out it was only 27 miles off the highway.  Lee Lee said we definitely should do it, so we headed south and went sightseeing.  

It was well worth it.  At first we were just going to drive through and look, which is completely reasonable in this particular park, but then it became clear that we should get out and walk a bit. There were some short trails so we went up for a closer look.

So then we ended up missing the mountains closer to Denver in daylight but we have been over those passes in daylight before.  After we got over the Vail summit (about 10,000 ft), there were some long, steep downhill grades.  After Breckenridge we hit the first traffic since the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, and we had to come in slowly with all the ski traffic.  I only listen to football when we are on cross country trips, but by now I understand the game well enough to be able to appreciate what is going on -- the Patriots had a very good game and the Colts had a terrible day in the pouring rain.  

Arrived at Charles and Lee Lee's house where all the comforts of home awaited.  Hugh is home for Winter Term, so they have all their kids again for January.

San Francisco

Most people would have made a plan to stay a few days in San Francisco, and they would have been right.  For some reason we made this part really tight, arriving on Thursday evening and leaving on Saturday morning. What exactly were we thinking?

We had a very nice visit with Rasa.

She treated us like royalty, with half grapefruits waiting on beautiful plates and a basket of delicious breakfast pastries.  We had a quick tour of her daughter Usha's house (that they built in the backyard where Mel's studio/the carriage house used to be).  It is a perfect little house with lots of clever design features to make use of every bit of the 500 square feet on each floor.

Rasa is still working on her book -- a memoir of the beginning and recent years of her life, but she says she has been sidetracked by lots of research about the years between the world wars.  She started out in Lithuania and while following various research detours she has discovered lots of documents that she didn't know existed -- she was amazed to find the interrogation report from her father's last days (he was an important person in the Lithuanian military) in her hands, and someone is translating it for her and then they will put it on the internet so that others can use it as a resource. That kind of sidetracked.  

Like so many of our other 80 year old friends, Rasa is still an activist with passion for causes. It gives me hope to see people whose politics have remained consistent even as they came to own property and have children and things to protect (I have very generalized theories about why/how people come to be conservatives after starting out as normally progressive young people).  Rasa and Carol C. and Dorothy and Gene N. and Timothy (not 80 yet, I know) are all still leading the way.

We went to check out Bi-Rite with Sarita and found a much smaller store than I was imagining -- established in 1940.  It still has that 1940s vibe, but the shelves are stuffed with cheeses and salsas and fresh baked sweets.  A really crowded space with excellent signage.  Then we went across the street to the creamery and had some of that ice cream.  Sarita said there is always a long line down the block, but (we were not surprised) we just walked right in, no line. The ice cream was divine.

After a quick stop for a mid-afternoon burrito, we went to the Arboretum (virtually empty) and wandered through all the nice plantings.  55 acres of quiet beauty.  It even rained lightly for a while; they are still in the midst of a four-years-and-counting drought.  Jon and I really need to get to California more often.

Then we all really needed naps, so we went back to Sarita's apartment and went to sleep until it was time for dinner.  Back to the Inner Sunset for a relaxed dinner with Bob (who Benjamin used to call My Friend Bob 25 years ago).  Jon has some very nice friends.  We have had so many good conversations on this trip.  Bob told us that his dentist once advised him that you need to take two big trips a year: one that is easier and one that pushes you.  Travel is always hard work, but not all trips have to be equally challenging.  This trip is our easy trip -- no language issues, no booking ahead, just riding around in the car and seeing people we really like.  What could be easier?  Meanwhile we are trying to plan our hard trip to Istanbul/Israel that will happen in about a month. Bob tells us that he recently spent two weeks in Istanbul and there was so much more to see/do.

Tomorrow we begin the trek eastward.  One more week on the road.  Right now Jon is fixing the closet doors in Sarita's bedroom -- good thing he brings his Leatherman wherever he goes.  

Redwood HIghway

Today was the day that road trips are all about.  You don't get to see trees and coastlines and mountains and vineyards all in one day when you travel by air.  If we were avid bikers, we could have experienced all of this in one day, but what a lot of planning and fitness that would have required.

We hit the road at 8, as is our custom, and almost immediately we got our first close-up view of the Pacific Ocean.  First time in four years.  We spent a good part of the day near the ocean.  Steep cliffs reminded us of Hawaii, some nice bays and coves and sandy beaches, lots of big waves.  Now and then we would see signs alerting us that we were entering/leaving a tsunami zone.

We also got right back into the redwood forest.  Jon wondered why those huge, perfectly straight trees make me so happy.  First of all, they are gorgeous. Second, they are old.  And they are so out of scale with anything we normally see.  They just thrill me.

We made a detour on a scenic road that looked like the Old Pali Highway with different types of vegetation (lots and lots of ferns as ground cover) and stopped at the Ah-Po Interpretive Trail.  Again we had the entire forest to ourselves, which is usually not true in the areas closer to San Francisco. The trail followed the path of an old logging road that was removed so that the forest could go back to its former condition.  Without the signs along the trail we would not have been able to understand all the un-doing they did, taking out culverts, unflattening areas (road removal is near and dear to my heart, so this was all interesting).  The trees, of course, were magnificent.  By 9:20 in the morning I was satisfied with our day of touring.

We saw lots of signs warning us about elk, and finally we saw some elk lounging in large groups.  So are there elk in the west and moose in the east?  They certainly seem related.

Our kids will be interested to know that we finished the Serial podcast on the way to Seattle (fascinating and disturbing) and we listened to Invisibilia as we swooped through Northern California.  It does make the day go faster somehow, although I would not say the days go slowly anyway.  But it gives us even more to think about.

We saw the most amazing lumberyard we have ever seen.  Piles and piles and piles of trees -- it was impossible to capture the vastness of the inventory.

When we stopped to get fuel, there was one of those automatic car wash machines -- and the price of fuel was twenty cents less per gallon if you took that option.  We have never gone to a car wash at a gas station before, but our vehicle had about 4 layers of salt adhered to the paint, and the effective price of getting that scrubbed off was $4.  So we spent the big bucks and pushed the button.  Lani always says if you wash your car it will run better.  Such a deal for $4.

We were transporting a cooler full of frozen smoked fish to Lisa and Alan in Berkeley (Laura and Stuart have always had a source of Alaskan fish, taken it to the butcher for processing, and some of their friends benefit from all that industry...not unlike our venison process).  So we climbed up into the Berkeley hills, practically to the same neighborhood that Laura's grandparents used to live in, and delivered 40 pounds of still frozen salmon.  Lisa and Alan live in a beautiful house with a view, Alan is an avid beekeeper in his backyard, it is always interesting to see where people live.

Then we plunged into the traffic and went across the bay, across the city, and up to the top of Twin Peaks to Sarita's apartment. We have been here many times before. The view is stunning every single time.  I am sitting on her couch looking out her big windows, waiting for the sun to appear.

We had a lovely dinner with Bruce and Anne, Jon's best friends from Dartmouth, and Anne's husband Rick. They are all crazy athletes (I can say that because I am related to some crazy athletes) who have spent all of their California years skiing and biking on the weekends.  Extreme distances.  Bruce was just on the cover of some Nordic skiing magazine, looking like the super athlete he is.  Anne and Rick live in a big old Victorian rowhouse on Dolores -- Anne told the story of how their neighborhood was saved during the Great Fire that came after the earthquake.  All the rest of the city had no water but there was one hydrant in their neighborhood that was fed by a spring from up on Twin Peaks. The neighbors rallied to stop the fire at 20th St, and that is why their 1880 house still stands. Their house is made of redwood -- 6x6 posts that are 44 feet long. In an earthquake it just sways but does not suffer damage. It is a house to love.  Anne says they feel like they are the stewards of this beautiful building. I think we forgot to take any pictures at all there, alas.

Rick now works as a production manager (not sure if that is the exact description) in a food-making facility for a really high end store that specializes in real food with real ingredients.  They make everything as if it were being made in a home kitchen, making pie dough, rolling it out -- they made 1500 pumpkin pies by hand for Thanksgiving.  He has 24 employees working in this one kitchen.  They make 900 gallons of ice cream a week, using two small ice cream machines.  His personal goal is to make some of the ice cream flavors out of only cream from Jersey cows (I can understand his love for Jersey cows, we had a Jersey when we were growing up and Rob Moutoux has Jerseys).  One of the challenges for him is what he will do with the skim milk that is leftover -- they have no use for skim milk at all.  This sounds like a store/business that we would love if it were near us. Maybe we will get a chance to go see it today.  This business started a long time ago so it has a very old-fashioned and not sparkly name for such a cool place:  Bi-Rite.  I mean, really.

Heading Down the Coast

The Google told us it would take about 14 hours to get from Seattle to San Francisco, with no stops and driving the speed limit the whole time.  So we are giving ourselves two days to make the trip, with some opportunities for unplanned detours.

By now we have some established routines in the car.  Now that our lives are governed by Jon's phone, it seems that I drive a lot more than I used to. I am learning to navigate with that little handheld tool, but I am still baffled by the ways that it changes scale and I really like to be able to see more of a map than is commonly available on the screen.  So whenever there is map-reading or decision-making to be done, I am usually the driver.  Today I did, however, locate all the supermarkets along Route 5 and I picked out a Whole Foods that was close to the highway and we only had to go around one extra block before we pulled into the very busy parking lot.  

This was one fancy Whole Foods.  We don't think we have seen one like it before.  It had multiple dining areas -- picnic tables in the middle of the store where you could eat barbecue and drink beer.
Bar stools around one of those moving sushi tracks.  An outdoor, heated seating area.  And a really extensive hot food bar filled with so many choices plus the six kinds of soup plus the salad bar.  I don't remember ever seeing real dishes for people who eat in -- the bowls and plates were hideous, like hospital dishes, in a nasty green color.  No one would ever steal them  Plus real silverware. And a plethora of recycling/composting options.  So we had a delicious hot lunch on real dishes, put them in the tub, and then we headed south.

I also drive while Jon works. He gets text messages and emails and phone calls, he sets himself up with all his plugs and wires and computers, puts in his earbuds and shouts at Al over the phone as if they each have a tin can at the end of a string. Today we thought he was all done working so he was driving when he got 12 text messages in rapid succession.  So I read him the texts and typed in the answers.  At the end I revealed to the group that it was me doing the typing and Tony responded:  "None of this is real.  We just make up obscure sounding terms so that we can bill Al."

Today something happened in the category of Wishes Coming True.  I was driving along, a tiny bit faster than the speed limit, and a big SUV came up behind me and practically pushed me off the road. I moved over as soon as I could and glanced at the license plate as he zoomed past.  A few minutes later I had forgotten all about him when I saw a police motorcycle zipping onto the road...then he got the guy in the SUV with the license plate I recognized.  That is so rare.  I exulted at his misfortune.

Now that we are traveling by smartphone, most of the mystery is gone.  Jon reads reviews and chooses the cheapest motel he can find that still has the basics (we seem to have settled on America's Best Value Motel).  He looks for the cheapest gas that won't take us far out of our way -- today we broke all previous records and paid $2.49/gallon for diesel.  And he is getting speedy at sorting through the dinner options.  Price is not the only factor, but it is definitely part of the equation. Fortunately we have other rules about food and what kinds of businesses we will patronize when it comes to food.  Usually we eat at places that are unique to their region/town. Tonight we went to a tiny Mexican dive and our waiter was clearly the owner and the person who wrote out the menu and also the one who swept the floor.  The food was authentic but the salsa was not at all spicy.  It just needed some oil and vinegar and oregano and cilantro and red epper flakes and then it would have been almost as good as the Tortilla Factory.

We didn't know where we would stop for the night but I said I didn't want to go all the way through Oregon and Northern California without seeing some big trees.  We weren't paying too much attention when we realized there were lots of signs for the Redwood Highway and Ocean Beaches.  It was already almost dusk but we got off the interstate and headed west.  It was suddenly quite foggy and the road was good but had lots of twists and turns. I had to keep all my attention on the road for the whole 85 miles through the mountains, mostly going downhill.  Reminded me of Beulah Road or Swinks Mill Road or the road to Hana except that I knew we were missing some dramatic landscapes in these mountains.  And then suddenly we were driving through a forest of humongous trees right up at the edge of the road. It made me so happy, instantly.  Even though I couldn't see more than the bottom 20 feet of these gigantic trunks, just knowing they were there filled me with joy.  Tomorrow we will see lots more.  

We are spending the night in Crescent City.  Never heard of it but it has everything that is everywhere else in the United States:  Home Depot, Starbucks, Burger King, etc.  We are here because now we are positioned for a long drive down the coast with lots of California scenery. Today there was just about nothing to photograph, or we weren't paying enough attention.

Practically the Tropics

We can't remember the last time we were here -- maybe ten years ago? -- but I had already forgotten how lush and green it is in the dead of winter.  The air feels warm, even when it is in the 40s.  Of course, Laura is always cold and bundled up, but when the sun comes out it is practically balmy.

We have taken over the guest room, the dining room table, and most of Laura's time in the last two days.  We have seen Mark and Izzi three times, their mother twice and Charles even came back for a surprise second visit on his way down from work in Canada.

Yesterday morning Jon and I went to see Gene N. and Ann B. on the houseboat in Lake Union.  It is such a picturesque place to live.

Apparently the Sleepless in Seattle houseboat is docked at the next pier.

It would be another ideal setting for cohousing -- one of the boats could be the common house, there is a shared walkway, the boats are charming and cozy and snuggled up tight.  Anyway, we spent a couple hours getting caught up and hearing lots of stories from Gene's past. He has an amazing story, starting with a boyhood in Venezuela in a small community that was working in the oil industry, moving through a series of adventures in the Peace Corps in Honduras (where he met my parents when we were on a long driving trip to Tegucigalpa, visiting mutual friends in about 1967), Ecuador after a huge earthquake, and so on.

We had planned to meet Laura at the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI), but we could have listened to Gene's stories for many more hours.  Once again, the museum was virtually empty so we wandered through the exhibits that told the story of Seattle's beginning and evolution, the pioneers, the gold rush, the railroad, the immigrants. It all happened so fast. People worked so hard back in those days.  That is the main message we are getting from all these museum stops -- people had to work so, so hard compared to now.  There were other messages at this museum: innovation, creativity, entrepreuneurs, social action, political action -- they have it all here in Seattle.

Today we took a great trip, partly by ferry, out to Port Townsend and southwest, where Laura and Stuart have purchased a remote piece of property in the middle of a privately owned wooded area.

Stuart first heard about this from a colleague of his.  Their lot is right at the edge of a small pond that was supposedly full of fish, but to Stuart's dismay the fish are absent -- possibly because an otter has moved in and eaten everything.  They have been trying to figure out a name for their little piece of the wilderness; we suggested Red Herring Inn.  After going through a lot of trouble trying to get permission to build a cabin on their spot, they finally decided to bring in a mobile home.  But not just a house trailer -- they had one built by a custom carpenter in Oregon and then this 11 foot wide house arrived on a truck and was deposited on their lot.  It is a gem.  Jon explored all the systems, checking out the propane water heater, the stove, the possible spots for a tank to collect rainwater. It was easy to see his brain thinking about the project out at Timothy's.  Now he definitely wants wood paneling indoors.

After a supremely satisfying lunch of soup and salad at the Hillbottom Pie, we headed back to the ferry and ended up at tea with the Cooper clan in Carol's nice apartment.  This time including Mark's wife, Anna.



And now we have to get in touch with Josh, my stepbrother who is pushing hard on a deadline at work but we will interrupt his work long enough for dinner.  So much to eat, so little time!

All the Way to the Other Coast

We left at our customary time of a little after 8:00, which is getting easier and easier as we continue to cross time zones. But it was not the gorgeous day it was yesterday -- it snowed for the first few hours. This is not my favorite, driving on snow or in snow.  Jon thinks I worry too much (because I generally accuse him of worrying too much).  We agree now that we just worry about different things.  We had no trouble at all today as we cruised through Montana, Idaho and then into Washington.  We have now checked off all the states in the Lower 48 plus Hawaii. The scenery was stunning, even in the fog and snow.

Of course we have started to make new lists, including Jon's recent idea of going to all the state capitals.  Then we counted how many states we have actually slept overnight in, how many of those states we were together, separate, etc.  I was surprised at how many states we have slept in.  Between us, we are only missing North Dakota, Idaho, Mississippi (maybe, I can't remember if our parents might have parked overnight in a church parking lot on one of our many cross country trips). That's a lot different than just breezing through a state, or only stopping to pee.

And, thanks to Benjamin's concern about defending our marriage, we actually downloaded something that both Benj and Alissa recommended:  Serial, which grew out of a This American Life program.  We listened to about 8 out of 12 of the segments because we had to stop the show to discuss it so often. We can polish that off when we head down the coast. It is a long and complicated real life mystery.

We decided it was time for a hot lunch so we stopped in lovely downtown Coeur d'Alene, Idaho to look for soup.  After an unsuccessful search at a big natural foods supermarket, we settled for Safeway.  It was much cheaper than Wegman's and the soup was just fine.  

Before we knew it (ten hours just flew by), we were in the traffic of Seattle and we got to Laura and Stuart's house just as it got dark.  I texted Alissa immediately and she wrote back that we are road trip rock stars.  Yeah, that's us. I have been noticing that our car is smelling of garlic more and more -- Jon thought it was the food we are carrying, but it turns out that the half bushel of garlic we are bringing as house gifts is waking up as the weather gets warmer.  It is about 50 degrees here, which feels like the tropics.

Coincidentally, my brother Charles is in Seattle this weekend so we arranged to have dinner with him at Laura's.  It was a jolly dinner, graciously cooked, beautifully presented.  Laura's brother Mark and daughter Isabel came over to say hello -- the last time Mark saw Charles was at his Oberlin graduation in 1988.

Big Sky Country

Argh, I just typed a lot of words and lost them all (not the first time) because this system doesn't save stuff for me and I pushed the wrong button.

We had stopped for the night at a motel that was close to our morning sightseeing destination -- Mount Rushmore.  In the morning we got up and drove through miles of tourist "attractions" that were all quiet, waiting for summer. This is one of the unsung advantages of traveling in the winter; we have the whole place to ourselves almost everywhere we go.  Last year we just walked right into the Uffizi Gallery, no lines. Two years ago we had all of Canada to ourselves.

So we got to Mount Rushmore, we had several clear views from the road, we decided if we wanted to know more about it we could just look at Jon's phone.  We pushed on to Crazy Horse.

We were completely unprepared for Crazy Horse, having read nothing about it and no one had warned us.  It is a privately owned and operated institution, and we decided to pay for the tickets and go in.  There is a huge complex of buildings, beautifully constructed of tongue-in-groove Ponderosa Pine, all filled with artifacts, photos, papers, sculpture. It is supposed to be a museum about the North American Indian but it is really a museum about the man who started this project in 1947.

When we arrived we were greeted by a cheerful ticket lady who said we were just in time for the movie. I said I needed to go to the bathroom first, so they waited to start the movie because Jon and I were the only ones going into this big auditorium.

The story is about Korczak Ziolkowski, a Boston-born Polish sculptor who was invited by some Native American leaders to create a monument in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  He had worked on Mount Rushmore with the sculptor so he used the same methods (dynamite) but his vision was much, much grander.  He started by himself, climbing up the mountain with tools strapped to him, and he worked for years alone.  Eventually he met and married another visionary and they had ten children and this family has continued to work on this immense project since Korczak died over 30 years ago --which will never be finished in any of their lifetimes.

While we were truly amazed at the scope of this efffort, and the tenacity of this family, and the vast output of  this artist, and his incredible work ethic, we were aware that this is a story being told  by these people and we wondered whether there were other stories that were not told. It has the quality of myth to it, for sure. There are ancillary projects: a university for North American Indians, a hospital.  It is all funded privately because this guy believed that was the way to go.  Jon is reading a NYT article that tells some of the backstory, as we suspected.

The rest of the day we spent cruising through beautiful landscapes in South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana.  The colors changed all day long as the sun moved -- we started with browns and oranges and reds and by dusk it was all violet and blue and grey.  Sometimes everything was covered with snow, looking like baked meringue with little peaks and sometimes it was all open grassland with mule deer (we think) grazing in small groups.  Jon spotted two bald eagles, perched on fence posts.  Benjamin called and couldn't believe how unequipped we are in the audio entertainment realm.  We are just looking out the window and talking and sometimes listening to Sirius radio.  But we have gone for long periods forgetting to turn on the radio.  Jon told him to send us a list of suggestions for podcasts in case we run out of things to talk about or look at (Benj joked that we will need this to keep our marriage intact).

We stopped for the night in Butte and we even went out for a steak dinner.  We eat in the car by day (Jon does all the food prep while I drive) and we go to a restaurant at night.  It is an easy life, requiring only a credit card and a dependable car.  So far the car has been great -- although it is completely coated in salt and will need a rinse pretty soon. 

(Jon will put photos in later.  Stay tuned.)