Austin, first week

So, well, it's been a week. It feels like much longer, because every day has so much opportunity for newness, I think, but then again I am trying to remember what we've done.

We lay in bed while a thunderstorm made very large, wonderful noises outside.

We walked around in the evening in shorts and flip flops and weren't cold.

We walked around, later in the week, in pants and socks and were still a bit chilly (we seem to be acclimating).

We ate lots of Skye White's delicious cooking until we were embarrassed and insisted on making our own dinners some of the time.

We ate lots of good Mexican food, too (though in general we are eating much less than we did in Portland, and what we do eat is more vegetables and fruit and less butter and meat--funny how hot weather affects the appetite).

We have gone swimming at Barton Springs Pool, which is gorgeous. Dave has gone more often and swum much more then me, but that is to be expected. I realized that I need goggles to swim and sat on the grass and experienced Texan ants.

We have walked all over the place, since where we are staying is so wonderfully located. We can walk downtown, to many cool neighborhoods, through green streets filled with interesting houses. And yes, we are checking out real estate prices, because why not?

We spent a hot and sunny Sunday afternoon trying to find the entrance to an art festival with Laura and KJ, then after finding it we left and sat in a lovely pub and tasted the delectable local beers (and then I fell asleep REALLY EARLY).

I have missed friends and Bad. I keep doing things I would do if a cat was in the house, like thinking she will sit on our laundry or closing the door really fast.

I have spent an exciting hour or so doing about 12 errands with Skye and her kids, whipping through Austin traffic and pulling off feats of daring.

I have been soundly beaten at Sorry by Egan (Skye's 7-year-old).

I have seen Kaki's 8th grade prom dress (gorgeous and very chic).

I have met a wonderful woman who is a Death Midwife.

We have laughed a lot.

Dave has run many errands for and with his Gramma Marie, to help Laura who has been doing that for years and years. Yay for Dave and Laura!

Dave has worked a huge amount of hours. I have not.

I have alternately not been sleeping well and sleeping 10 hours at a time (change).

I have (spurred on by our lovely and attentive tenant, Christine) sorted out getting our house in Portland sprayed for carpenter ants for much less than the original estimate.

I have found I have 5,000 rollover minutes on my cell phone that I need to use up!

I have made about 10 necklaces, in an hours-long compulsive metal-crocheting fit.

I have started a project with Skye. It is a secret for now.

And much more of course, which I will remember later when I'm not near a keyboard. Oh, and

I have not seen the snake yet (that is okay).

DAY 08: Carlsbad to Austin

Monday, April 7th (Happy Birthday Janie!!!)

We woke up in a timely manner, packed the car, and set out to get a decent meal at the Blue House before taking off for the final leg of our trip. The Blue House was just as charming as before, and everything was just as delicious. As we walked out to the cars, Dave noticed that the electronic key wasn't working. Ack. He tried it and tried it, and then I reminded him that the driver's side has an actual lock. He unlocked it, and the unholy horn that is our security system started blaring. All was bad bad bad for a few minutes, Dave trying to start the car in the hopes the horn would go off (it wouldn't), people in the restaurant running out to see what was going on, and so on. Finally it timed out and we stood around thinking, NOW what are going to do? Dave called various numbers to try and figure out what it was, but basically we were stuck in a town that was essentially closed, with a packed car and no idea what was wrong. Luckily, we had Scott. He noticed that he was having the same problem with his key, but they don't have the security alarm, so he could start his car. He did that, and drove across the street. 30 feet from where we were, his key worked. I looked for traffic, and Skye and Scott pushed our car across the street (enduring the horn) while Dave steered and lo, as soon as we got across the street the key worked, the alarm went off, and we were all much relieved, though very perplexed. The consensus was to leave while the leaving was good (and it was noted that had this occurred in Roswell, not far away, we might have felt a bit more jumpy about it).

As we were gassing up the cars to leave town, Scott heard an older gentleman at the gas station yelling into his phone, "I don't care what it costs! Just tell me how to get out of this godforsaken state!" I don't feel that way about New Mexico, but Carlsbad proper? Well...

We drove and drove and ate bad road food and talked (I hung out in the White's car to give Dave some loud music time and to get some important catching up taken care of, not to mention a lot of jewelry-making). About an hour out of Austin I switched back to our car, so we could ride in together. We hit town about sunset, with the hills gleaming gold. It was about 70 degrees and felt tropical, like being in Hawaii. Dave had a huge grin on his face.

We had a nice dinner with the Whites, then drove to the duplex we're subletting. We were feeling a little trepidatious at first--the actual moving part of the move was hitting us (moving to a new space is always disorienting), and how much money we were spending, etc. etc. We moved our stuff in, and then met the folks we're subletting from, Mark and Annie (and their baby daughter Lulu).

Mark and Annie are great, and we felt immediately better. Basically our Austin counterparts, they were very friendly and told us lots of useful things like where to get the best tacos at 4 a.m. (down the street), where to get the best pitchers of margaritas (the same), to not let the lady next door into the house (she's nice but addicted to pain killers), and that there's a 4 foot ratsnake that lives in the big oak tree out back. "A snake?!?" I squeaked, "Yeah," said Mark, grinning, "welcome to Texas!" Ratsnakes are not dangerous to humans at all, but I am glad we left the kitty safe at home. I can see our small gray (slow, old) cat being mistaken for a rather large rat. Also, though I am afraid of snakes, I feel it is a beneficial, protective sort of beast to have around, although I may not spend much time out in the backyard.

We blew up our air mattress (we're getting a lot of stuff from Laura, including a bed, but hadn't had time to yet), had a beer in the unbelievably warm, sultry evening, and settled into our first night at our new place.

DAY 07: Carlsbad (some more)

Sunday, April 6th

Skye and I used the excuse of getting up early to avoid the ongoing restaurant conundrum and just ate breakfast bars. We were on the road by 8, with Egan tucked into the back seat. We were going to a guided tour of Slaughter Canyon (no actually bloody history, just a dude named Slaughter who had a home in a very picturesque canyon). Scott, Dave and Kaki were going to do a much more hardcore tour later in the day--wearing helmets, fitting themselves through small holes in the rock and so forth. Just thinking about it makes my chest clench. Scott, in his infinite wisdom, figured Skye and I would be disinclined for that tour and so we were taking Egan on the tour Scott had taken Kaki on when she was Egan's age. Thank god.

We drove and drove, and after awhile thought we ought to have seen the turnoff. Skye looked at the packet the Caverns had sent, and the directions were completely different than what the boys had told us. So we called, and were assured the packet was bollocks (as it turned out, in fact, to be). We kept driving, and eventually turned off on a dirt road. We paused for a wild turkey to cross the road (a lady we met said that she had stopped for a flock of about 50, so we got the straggler) and eventually made it out to the little rest stop at the base of the trail to the cave.

Ahem.

I had thought we were going on a rather leisurely walk to the cave mouth, mainly because that was my impression from a very brief conversation with Scott and because I had never bothered to actually read the description, so it is my fault, but I was very, very glad I'd worn good shoes (it was actually nice of Scott to assume I was a lot more in shape than I am ;). Turned out to be a 40-minute strenuous hike up a mountain at a highish altitude and blazing sun. We were not happy. Well, Skye and I weren't, because we hadn't realized what was up, because there was no place to fill up extra water bottles we realized we'd need, and because there turned out to be bees (Egan is very dangerously allergic, and we were clearly far, far away from any chance of medical treatment). But Egan thought it was great, and it was very beautiful (and by far the hardest part of the tour). And, of course, it was fine in the end.

We eventually got to the cave mouth, and sat around panting with the 20 other folks waiting for the tour (many of them had also had no idea what they were in for). There were several other kids Egan's age, which was nice. One of them asked a guy if he could see his flashlight. The guy said sure, and showed it. "My dad's is bigger!" said the kid. "Oh really?" said the guy, "that's nice." "Yeah, my dad's is really BIG!" said the kid again, and Skye and I made faces at each other to keep the sniggers down.

The two ranger ladies showed up eventually, and told us about the little off the path area we could use to pee before the tour. "Because if you don't go now," they said "we have some convenience bags for you if you have to go in the cave. They are a gift to you, we don't want them back, and really, they aren't convenient for anyone." That caused about a third of the group to peel off, and so was very effective.

The Slaughter Canyon Cave was rediscovered (as it was clear the Native Americans had discovered it long ago) by a goatherd in the 20's. During a thunder storm he lost about half his flock of goats. He found the cave, and the goats, and incidentally a whole lot of bat guano. He thought he'd made his fortune, but it turns out really, really ancient bat guano (from a rare type of bat that is now extinct) makes crappy (pun intended) fertilizer. So he was wrong. He was also wrong to drive front-loader trucks into the cave (illegal even in the late 20's when he did it), and to further crap it up with junk.

One thing Dave commented on is how clean the areas around all these caves are. He didn't see a single piece of litter, and I can't said I did, either. Pristine! Good for whoever is taking care of them. Well, actually, the only litter I saw was the aforementioned 1920s litter--a small rectangle of roped-off old bits and pieces in the cave. The ranger pointed out the tire tracks. She said that everyone talks about the footsteps on the moon, and how amazing it is that there are still there, and pointed out that these were even older. The cave is such a stable environment that any impact from humans lasts a long, long time.

We then walked into the guano trenches. This was nowhere as bad as you'd think. The trenches were dug so long ago that it just looked like colored rock. They pointed out the layers of bat bones compacted with the guano--tiny, cherry-stem sized bones.

The path was often slick, and I found that when I lose my balance I don't seem to be able to avoid saying "WOOO!" I did this quite a bit and realized that not everyone does. Oh well. I did, however, manage to climb the little slippery incline that was a Tricky Bit, avoid grabbing the pretty stalagmites, and make it into the "Christmas Tree Room". The stalagmites there were incredible--the Christmas tree itself was about 15 feet tall and covered in crystals. We all sat down on a handy incline and turned our lights out. Unfortunately Skye's hair now had a lot of glow-in-the-dark components, so it took much adjusting of her hoodie to get properly covered.

We listened to the cave in the dark. When I first went in to a lava tube, some years ago, I thought I would be terrified when we finally turned our flashlights off. I wasn't. It was actually one of the calmest and most peaceful moments I can remember. This was, too, though with so many people (and somehow thinking of Golem at the wrong moment), it wasn't quite the same. But still good, in the slow, still, coldness.

We climbed back out, stopping to view the bizarre figure of "the Clansman", so called by the movie crew of "King Solomon's Mines" back in the 40s', which filmed there. There is a bright pink imprint on a wall nearby that is supposedly drawn in Deborah Kerr's lipstick.

We walked out of the cave, stopping to see the incredibly bright light of the entrance, applauding our guides and gratefully sitting around with water and snacks on the rocks outside the cave. Egan practically ran down the path on the way home, and we saw some amazing views and delicate cactus flowers. We eventually made it back to the now incredibly cosmopolitan-looking rest station (no water, but toilets, of a sort), and drove directly to Denny's, where we ate lots and lots. Egan was allowed to bring his Gameboy inside, because, as he pointed out, "you guys are just going to be yakking." After stuffing ourselves we came home and napped until the muddy ones returned from their terrifying (to me) journey underground (I will leave that story to Dave, along with the amazing reaction of the waitress at Chili's to his iPhone ;).

DAY 06: Carlsbad

Saturday, April 5th

We woke up to birdsong and bright blue sky, which was in odd contrast to the general atmosphere of the Motel 6, but I was not about to complain. Skye had spied out a place for breakfast that turned out to be great food. Not only by far the best we had in Carlsbad, but great food, period. It was called "The Blue House", and was indeed a blue house, surrounded by a green garden and happy people sitting in the sun (not something we saw anywhere else in Carlsbad). Everything was clearly home made, and my fresh carrot-ginger juice and egg, cheese, sausage and green chile ciabatta was wonderful. We all were happier for going, but were very sad to hear they were closed on Sunday (as, it turned out, was pretty much everything).

We drove out to the caverns around 11. I'm sure most people have gone to them, but I never have. Dave went when he was about 9, as did my mom, back in 1952. Scott White is an avid caver, and in fact used to map caves. He organized this part of the trip and we thank him heartily! He'd taken Kaki when she was 7, and now wanted to take Egan as well. We were all going to do the self-guided tour of the main cavern today, then split up to do two different guided tours tomorrow.

The visitor center is under construction, but the location is still beautiful--high on a butte, with an endless view of the surrounding desert. The cavern entrance is an ampitheater, so that people can sit comfortably while waiting for the bats to exit on summer evenings. We missed that (it's a little early in the year for reliable bat sightings), but the main cave itself was more than enough beauty to absorb in one day.

It's surprising how cool and how moist the air gets almost immediately as you descend into the cavern. All I know about caverns is a lava tube walk I did once, and reading Tom Sawyer a long, long time ago. It got dimmer and dimmer, and even the number of people there (a lot, but apparently very few compared to summer crowds) didn't distract from the wonder of it. I mainly thought of Nibelheim, and Tolkein.

As we moved down, my throat got scratchy. I realized that the cough I'd fought for weeks in Portland must have disappeared as we entered the desert and now that I was back in a cool, damp environment it had returned! Ah well. It also took me awhile to relax about things not falling down. I come from earthquake country, and it's hard to remember that this is actually an incredibly stable place to be (possibly too stable--I chatted with a lady from El Paso later and she said that sure, they didn't have earthquakes or anything like that to contend with there, but then nothing really happened at all, which was sort of a pity).

We got to the bottom of path, and then took the 59 second ride back to the top to hit the bathrooms (the bathrooms at the bottom being out of service). So strange to literally pop up to daylight and then right back down again. We had lunch at the restaurant in the cavern (who can resist eating 750 feet below the surface?). The food was an 00' version of the cafeteria food I'd heard it used to serve. Junk food in plastic bags, oreo pie anyone? Still, eating 750 feet down was cool!

We entered the Big Room, the second part of the self-guided tour. The formations were incredible, and just kept getting more so. What it reminded me of most of all was the Summer Palace in Beijing. There is so much there, so many details, and so much astounding amazingness, that after a few hours you just sort of go numb. About an hour into the walk I realized my memory card was full. I mean, I kept oohing and aahing, because it is so gorgeous, but it is a lot to take in.

We took the elevator back up (the path down is one way), and lay about on the picnic tables, yawning. Walking downhill for 2 hours uses some funny muscles. We finally opted to go home and nap, then attempt, once again, to find something to eat.

I spent about 30 minutes on the interweb trying to find somewhere decent to go. Anything foodish about Carlsbad just said the Blue House was good. Well, there were a few other places, but when we finally went looking for them, they were all closed. On a Saturday night. Even the pit bbq place we were hoping for, which actually was open, was having a private party. We ended up eating at a bbq and Mexican restaurant (not a promising mix, actually) that used to be a Dairy Queen. It was...middlin'. They had a sign in olde country type which read "count your blessings". So we did, and fled back to the hotel and to bed, since Skye, Egan and I were up early for our Sunday tour.

DAY 05: Truth or Consequences to Carlsbad

Friday, April 4th

Woke up after a truly delicious sleep in the incredibly comfortable bed at the Fire Water Lodge. So nice to be able to actually stretch out, when you're tall. Took another quick soak before packing up our things (nicely decadent :), then wandered around the beautiful courtyard in the bright sunlight. The owner advised us to have breakfast next door at the Happy Belly Deli, which was tiny and friendly. The breakfast was extremely tasty--I had a green chili and chorizo omelet (yay for the south west!).

We rode out of town, curious to see what the landscape was like considering we hadn't seen anything on the way in. Mostly low mountains, and a long, gray lake (I think it was Elephant Butte Lake, and I tried to see the elephant in the butte, but am not sure I did). Blue skies, and lots and lots of cactus.

Near Los Cruces we drove through a dramatically dark pass, and even got rained on for a few minutes. A faux missile at the side of the road heralded White Sands, which has, in fact, extremely white sand. Also an immigration check, which is a bit weird because it is nowhere near a border, but they let us right through (I really, really didn't want to have to unpack the car). We then entered Alamogordo, a rather grim little town (well, the main strip was, but then main strips *are*). We got some really bad drive-thru food (no choice, really), and headed up into the Sacramento Mountains, which is sometimes a ski area.

The mountains were lovely, with many picturesque little towns, clearly mostly closed for the season. Lots of horses, lots of cotton willows along little brooks. As we left the mountains we came into a very bleak landscape. Scrub, I believe is what one would call it. Flat flat flat and dry. No houses, a few gates only. I started feeling a little freaked out, as I do when there is not much water around and it would be hard to find another person if the car broke down. I kept checking the map to see how far we were from a town but there really weren't any. Not with intact buildings, anyway. We eventually passed through Hope, and then turned south to Carlsbad, to meet up with the White family at the local Motel 6. We got there by 5 or so, noting the lack of any good-looking restaurants on the way in, and unloaded the car. The rickety motel and warm weather reminded me of moving into apartments back around my college years. The alarming slant of the deck outside in particular made me remember a sleeping porch on the house I lived in after college that surely crashed to the ground within a year of our leaving. In any case, we had just enough time to make a complete mess of our room when the Whites showed up.

This is all rather a big deal for us, because Skye White and I, who have been friends since college, have not lived in near proximity to each other for more than twenty years (and for the first 15 of those, I think we saw each other only a few weeks, total). The last time she was within hailing distance of me on a regular basis we were living in dorms. There was much hugging, admiring of Skye's amazing hair (I will post photos, it is at least 5 different colors and so cool!), saying hello to Scott, Kaki and Egan and grinning a lot. Then we drove around and around and around Carlsbad trying to find anywhere to eat that was not a chain, was open, and didn't look absolutely terrible. We eventually settled on a Mexican restaurant that sounded okay, but when we drove by had a $15 cover. We then verified (also through google) that there must be an actual family-friendly restaurant inside, and so there was. It wasn't great (the chile rellenos were almost frozen in parts), but it had a big enough table. Sometimes that's enough. We talked and talked and went, at last, to bed.

DAY 04: Flagstaff to, eventually, Truth or Consequences

Thursday, April 3rd

Woke up with a runny nose and sneezing, but Dave was still trying to sleep, so I busied myself taking a shower and reading in the bathroom ("Busman's Honeymoon" by Dorothy Sayers). Very hard to be quiet and out of the way in a small, echo-y motel room. When Dave got up we threw everything into the car and drove to a small local breakfast place, La Bellavia, that we'd spied the night before. It was very good! I had "eggs sardo": basically eggs benedict with artichoke hearts and sauteed spinach. Thumbs up if you are ever in Flagstaff. I noticed that one of the ladies eating there had been playing ping-pong at the pub we ate dinner at.

Dave agreed to detour so we could see some of the Petrified Forest. It's a place I've always wanted to go, though I'm not sure how much of that is because of the movie (which, admittedly, I've never seen). Turns out we could drive a few miles out of our way and then up through most of the PF park. There's a lot more there than we'd thought--parts of the Painted Desert, Blue Mesas, and on and on. Also turns out the park is designed for the most lazy of tourists--it's pretty much one long drive, with various viewpoints along the way and a few very short hikes. That actually suited us, though if we'd had the time doing it on a bicycle would have been really nice. Well, except for the gale force winds.

It wasn't quite what we expected. I for some reason thought the Petrified Forest would be more, er, verticle. Like a redwood forest but stone. I have no reason for thinking this, I guess the image just appealed to me. I don't think Dave had any expectations. The first part of the drive (coming from the south) was a lot of fallen petrified trees. It was easy to imagine the landscape as rivers and lush tree-covered hillsides--in fact, a lot like parts of the North West (it was pointed out in the museum that trees on the slopes of Mount St. Helens might end up petrified, because of the ash).

From there we drove on into the painted desert, with specific areas of petrified forest sort of layered on top. There would be more, but tourists of the past had taken huge amounts of the wood home. Bitches. The Blue Mesas are a valley of incredibly wrinkled hills in shades from dark red to deep blue. You can walk down through them. It reminded me a bit of walking across the lava beds on the big island without the intense fear factor. The bits of the Painted Desert we saw were pretty fantastic. Scott White asked if we've been taking pictures and yes, we have taken many. Oh so many! We hope to even get them posted some day.

After a much longer time than we'd originally estimated, we were at the other end of the trail, promising the park ranger we hadn't picked up any souvenirs, and then buying some legitimate ones once at the gift shop. At this point it was about 3 p.m., and we hadn't eaten since breakfast, but due to having a lot farther to drive, we each had a banana and pushed on.

We drove through Navajo country (beautiful), then finally into Albuquerque as the sun was going down. A pleasant city, with adobe homes on the one residential street we saw. I'd googled "food albuquerque" as we came into town, and we found a wonderful big restaurant specializing in "New Mexican" food--hurrah for the internet, as it was off the beaten path and we'd never have found it otherwise. The salsa was actually spicy, the beans were perfect, and each meal came with sopapillas and honey for desert. We ate and ate and ate and it was good. We squeezed back into the car and headed south to Truth or Consequences, Dave noting a sign for the "Albuquerque Isotopes" on the way out of town.

I think it's supposed to be gorgeous country, but it was too dark to see much on the two-hour drive to T or C. It was hilly, and at some point I noticed that most of the lights I was seeing were stars, which was lovely. We made it in to the Fire Water Lodge around 10:30.

I have to thank Erika Kosina heartily for recommending the Fire Water Lodge. T or C used to be a big spa town, apparently, and had lots of places to enjoy the local hot springs. Now there are only a few, and the FWL is one. It has several private rooms, and we were staying in the Waterfall room. We parked, then walked through a courtyard that was colorful even at night--turquoise walls, pillars held up by red stone lions, green palm trees. We found our room, and it was everything I'd hoped: as colorful as the courtyard, with beautiful tile work everywhere, and a huge tub, right in the room. Once we our things were stored, we turned on the tap and watched the hot spring water slide down the waterfall. The tub was large enough for both of us to stretch out completely, and with a few cold beers it was pretty fabulous. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED to anyone staying in the area, I hope we will go back!

DAY 03: Calico Ghost Town to Flagstaff

Wednesday, April 2nd

Woke up early and went out to the bathrooms. The sky was bright, and it was so quiet I could hear the wind blowing. I like that quiet, I only find it occasionally. Tried to stay in bed until a reasonable hour, then ventured into the shower. It occurs to me that the worst place for hot/cold knobs--especially ones that aren't labeled--is where you have to lean through the stream of water to adjust them. I leaned forward and turned the right knob and jerked back, out of the stream of....cold water. Then leaned forward quickly, through the stream, turned off the right knob and on the left, jerked back. The water was...cold...warmer?..hot! Now I could adjust, still having to lean into the water to make changes. Still, hot water in a campground is a delightful thing.

Drove up and wandered a bit through the Ghost Town proper to find the guy to give our key to. Funny how familiar ghost towns and general gold rush-related attractions are. I spent most school field trips at these places growing up, and lived in a small town that had once almost been the capital of California during the gold rush. This place was way touristy, though. I was more used to being warned against falling into mine shafts than having them picturesquely framed in the hillside. And the dedication of the town was to the "heroic silver miners". Er...heroic? From what I know gold and silver miners did what they did to make money, and while the stories are great, I'm really not sure how you can slap "heroic" onto them (and think they would have been highly surprised and amused if they'd known about it). In any case, for a tourist trap they had a lot of stray cats, and clearly took good care of them, and so they are probably nice people.

After a late breakfast at "Peggy Sue's 50's diner" (it's everything you could imagine), we drove off through the desert, which means past a lot of military bases, but also past a lot of beautiful country. I forgot how many colors the earth comes in, and it was quite green, for the desert. April seems a nice time to travel through this area. Dr. Suess-looking cactus, long vistas with bright yellow wild-flowers (and bugs that seemed to be the exact same hue when they hit our windshield--coincidence?). I just stared and stared. After two days of driving, I didn't even blink at 6 hours in the car, though I think parts of my lower back have just numbed out. We ate a nutritious lunch of a shared root beer float and a few handfuls of cheetohs, then made it into Flagstaff, AZ with plenty of daylight. We'd meant to go into Sedona, but realized we have a long driving day tomorrow into New Mexico, and as we were just planning to stay at a motel, the extra driving time might not be worth it (if we had more time, sure, but not this trip).

We drove around a bit, got lost near the campus, but found the brew pub I located on my iphone as we drove in. Good. Nice sandwiches, good beer, though I think I am actually getting sick of cheese and salt (and if you know me, you will know how extreme a statement that is). We found a little motel I liked because of the quaint shutters (and because Dave noticed it had wifi). We checked in, then found out the wifi was iffy, and I realized I tend to pick places like this, so maybe next time we travel I'll encourage Dave to choose where we stay. We sorted out the wifi enough for me to send these, then decided to walk into town to get a little exercise and drink more beer.

Walking into town, at least the up and down parts, left me a little breathless. I swear I'm not THAT out of shape, and when we got to the (other) brew pub we were aiming for, we found that the altitude of Flagstaff is about 7000 feet. Having spent time in Denver with Dave's family, I realized the symptoms and forbade Dave from allowing me any whiskey (a long, sad story that many of you have heard). We hung out at what was clearly a colleg-y place, going by the clientele, the music, and the gigantic portions of food, that we made small headway on. We wandered home, noting that there was still snow on the streets (and being happy we'd come when we did, and not when there was snow everywhere, as we hadn't brought chains), and now I'm sitting and writing and about to curl up with my mystery and then to sleep.

Missing you all, but happy to be on the road. Alison asked me today if we were warm yet*. While it's chilly here, we did pass through 81 degrees today in the desert, and were warm to being in tshirts and shorts and sandals most of the day. It is nice. My horoscopes said it was a good time to take a sabbatical/that I'd experience long periods of doing nothing with short periods of busy and interesting activity/that I'd experience different climates and textures one after the other. Right on.

*on twitter--if anyone is on twitter and wants to follow me/be followed, I'm "modemeter". Yes, I am a geek.

quick note

I can usually get email, but sending email out is sporadic--I love your emails, though, so please feel free to send! I will reply to all (and post some of our many photos, etc.) when I'm able!

DAY 02: Oakland to the Calico Ghost Town

Tuesday, April 1st

After a 10 1/2 hour drive, a 7 hour drive seemed something like cake (thank you Dave for doing all the driving!). We said our goodbyes to mom and the doggies, then dropped by my friend Janie's for a brief hello/goodbye (Janie and her family are temporarily living about 10 minutes away from my mom, around the edge of Lake Merritt). Janie had been up most of the night with her 6-month-old twins, who are teething. Dave hadn't met them yet, and they were delightful, which they are whenever I've seen them, though I know they can make quite a noise. Janie fed us breakfast, and we helped dandle the babies. It was a nice way to start the next part of our journey, and I hope to be back in the bay area in the summer to see more of her and all our other bay area loved ones.

We headed out down 580, which was much greener than I'm used to, as was the drive down 5. California is a blond state. Growing up in drought country is a big reason I'm so in love with Portland's lush green, but I am still at home in the purple blues and faded golds of California. When I was taking painting at CalArts, my teacher commented on one of my color studies (purple blue-faded gold) as being particularly reflective of the local landscape. She was from the east coast, and said those colors would just never occur to her. We drove from soft green into hazy and yellow--the valley. We stopped at Kettlemen City for lunch, there being an In-and-Out Burger there. My mom called and I could hear her shiver when I told her where we were. My mom grew up in Bakersfield, and does not have much good to say about the Central Valley. My grandfather Art actually worked as an engineer for an oil company in Kettlemen Hills, back in the 30s, pre-air conditioning. I can only imagine the bleakness.

We turned east and went through Bakersfield proper, something I haven't done in a long, long time, though I spent time every summer there for most of my childhood. Grim, really, though I liked thinking about my mom and aunt riding bareback through the dry riverbeds, and my grandmother presiding as the Judge of Weed Patch county. Still, every sympathy to Mom!

We rolled out into real desert, which was quite beautiful once the houses died down. We planned to stay the night at the Calico Ghost Town, a few miles past Barstow. We showed up just as the light was golden, but no one was around to tell us how to get into our cabin. We backtracked into Barstow and had one of the blandest Mexican meals ever. We got back to Calico, crossing fingers we actually had a place to stay for the night. We eventually found the ranger, who was fairly unapologetic about the lameness of the directions we'd gotten about the campground, but did get us into a very cute little camping cabin (about the size of a bedroom, one queen-sized bed and two bunks). It had electricity so we shamelessly charged our laptops, ipods and iphones, and watched the pilot episode of "The Ladies' No. 1 Detective Agency" that Dave had snagged. Roughing it! :)

LAST HOURS/DAY 01: Portland to Oakland

Sunday, March 30th-Monday, March 31st

The night before we left Portland I had a bad moment. The house was in pieces (more pieces than one would think possible), I was tired of dealing with it after several days of 12-hour packing and cleaning sessions, but it had to be sorted in order for us to leave town by 9 a.m. Monday morning. I ended up having a big cup of tea, and we managed it, in fact did more than I'd thought (though less than I'd planned--sorry Christine!). We got to bed before 2, and the kitty was thoughtful. No yelling, and cuddled lots, which was good as she had been especially precious to me the last few days. I've never been away from her for more than a few weeks in the last 17 years, and knowing how much I would miss her had been adding to the strain.

We actually got out by about 9:20 on Monday morning, and even ate a breakfast, of sorts. It was as close to being on time as either of us ever remembers being. It was a soft green and gray day as we drove out, saying goodbye to the river and the rows of cherry trees. I haven't done the drive down 5 to the bay area in about 10 years. Back then it was a much older car, we didn't have ipods, probably not even a cd player, and certainly no iphones to scope out possible lunch spots and routes. In mid-afternoon, we passed from Oregon into California. I started sneezing immediately. I am allergic to California, which is not entirely psychological, because I grew up there and had plenty of time to get sensitized to all its lovely flora. Plus, while Oregon is starting to bloom, California is in full swing. Dave commmented that we were essentially driving into Spring. The scenery going through Shasta county was gorgeous--soft greens and purples and dark orange earth. Not that Portland isn't enjoying a lovely *early* Spring, but we were passing through Spring full-blown, in a landscape that had been saturated by a lot more sunshine than we've seen up north for almost a year. I remember the orange earth. I think it's because of the high iron content, but I forgot to ask my mom, Jane about that. When we lived in the Sierra foothills, we were surrounded by the rich orange dirt--used to get covered in it fairly regularly, and when it rained heavily (rarely) the tap water turned dark red, though it was apparently perfectly safe to drink.

It was a long drive to the bay area. I've heard of people doing it in 8 hours, but they were crazy--we made it in 10 1/2, taking no real breaks except to run to the bathroom or do a drive through. We first glimpsed the bay at sunset, and lugged our bags into my mom's house just before dark, enjoying the 60-plus degrees and the soft flowery smells. My mom's partner Bill made one of his amazing spaghetti dinners (involving lots of wine, cheese, very long pasta and several sorts of meats). He is an Italian from New Jersey, and was heartily approving of the Soprano's Cook Book, said it was very accurate to his own family cooking (and so must be pretty great). My dad Steve was there, too, and we had a wonderful meal, with several stories of the old days told by Jane and Steve in classic tag-team fashion. Around 10:30 Dave and I flopped with fatigue, and so to bed.

P.S. Thank you so much Christine for taking care of Bad!