"Green"burg

This is just a quick post, because I heard about this and first thought "Hey I've been there" and then "That's pretty cool." The town of Greensburg, Kansas, which I visited this summer on my trip, was hit by a tornado earlier this spring. I saw first hand the total destruction of the town. The town didn't exist anymore. See my July 6 post - wow, huh, and why.

Anyway, Greensburg is rebuilding! And not only is that amazing, they've decided to go entirely green. A green town at this scale has never been done before. It's about time we see what can happen if we go totally green. Check out their website: www.greensburggreentown.org/

Frisco

I’ve been to San Francisco before, but never on my own, always with company to wander the tourist sites with…so this time things were a bit different. This time I feel like I can now say I’ve been to SF – went to a great show, wandered the streets, saw great views and gardens, and said a prayer of thanks at every stop sign that I learned to drive in a stick shift in Seattle. And all things have to be right with my karma as I had no problems finding street parking wherever I went. I would just pull up and there would be a spot right in front, across the street, or just down the block. So now that I have written that, it’s probably a good thing I’m leaving as my karma is now broken.


So as highlights go, my stop at City Lights bookstore filled some space in me that needed to be inspired. As the hangout and haunt of the beat generation, it is everything that an independent bookstore should be. It’s a place where guttural thoughts waft off the shelves and the history in the floorboards creak, where the books stand upright among each other in equality not laid out in glorified glossy pyramids. There was just something about walking through the door that stripped the air of chaos, yet left me totally blank and entirely humbled. So, are there words? Not really, but as someone who loves to stand in front of a bookshelf just to pet the covers, it is a stop that will carry me.

In the land of giants

I can cross another national park off the list. I am down in California, well central and northern parts because at this time the southern parts are going up in smoke. My October jaunt started in San Louis Obispo with my sister where I saw dolphins for the first time in my life. We were walking around Avila beach and out in the bay there were five or six dolphins feeding and playing. Somehow I thought all the animated and watercolor paintings of dolphins breaching and leaping seemed a little too idyllic and therefore must be romanticized or fantasized, but certainly not in truth. And it was a pleasant sort of image adjustment to know that really and truly that is what dolphins look like playing.

From SLO, I drove out to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. It was a pretty drive with fall colors and vineyards, but in all my 14,000 miles of driving, I can now say I made myself car sick. I drove the windiest road I have been on yet – 180 turn after 180 through forest and rock and farm. Those kind of roads always look so picturesque in the car commercials, but I can say they are not so much fun in real life.

Another new thing for me was visiting a national park in non-tourist season. The “winter” is when they do their road maintenance and close the lodges. Thus all the well traveled scenic roads with overviews you usually can hop out of your car, walk down a short path, and view the spectacular scenes were not accessible by car. To get to Moro Rock in Sequoia NP was a five mile hike round trip. But the view was amazing and I was the only one around.



The walk up the rock was another story though. I’ve never been very big with heights so this narrow staircase up the rock was not really my cup of tea. I made it up about halfway, which was fine with me. I figured that I could see the view on both sides and I was already above everything else around, how much more was a few feet going to improve my view.

Sequoia NP is home to the largest tree on Earth. It is called General Sherman. It’s scared and burned and missing most of it’s top it seemed. But, it is not the largest for its height but by its sheer girth – as you can see. The amazing thing about the tree was not the scars from forest fire or lightening, but that the old sepia photos of loggers and mountain men standing around the tree from 1900s had the same burn marks.

There were many amazing trees with fire scars and trees that reached amazing heights, but this one was my favorite. Burned completely on one side and full of life on the other. Just shows how resilient the tree is and unpredictable fire is.

Distracted in America

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted and really there should be no excuse for that, but if you are going to have one it better be amusing. I haven’t posted because I’ve been a little distract by…oh…I don’t know…what am I going to do with my life now. But when I get distracted I tend to collect stories, ponder oddities, and do some pretty stupid things.

I’ve spent some time, too much time, in local public libraries watching in fear of the immense self-righteous and indignant attitudes of pre-teens. My particular favorite story was listening to one girl tell her friends about this boy/kid who got in her way and showed her no respect. With an incensed head bob, she told all her friends about it to make herself feel vindicated. And my favorite part, her friend looked at her and said, “He’s a four year old. He’s supposed to be stupid.”

Among the oddities to ponder, I drove behind this Budget rental truck on my drive down south again. I drove behind it for much too long as it was going incredibly slow, but the back of the truck was spray painted on the roll up door. It said, “Runaway wifes. Laugh but u might be next.” Now first I thought, they spelled wives wrong. Then I laughed. Next I started to wonder…if your wife really did runaway and you were moving your stuff in the budget rental truck would you really paint that on the back of the truck? Would you? And then I thought, what if the person driving the truck didn’t write that. They rented the truck and pulled the door down to find it painted with that and had to drive down the road. The only thing that would make this better would be to know who was driving the truck. But I pulled around the truck still deep in thought and forgot to look. I told you I was distracted.

And the grand daddy of all distracted moments just happened and inspired this entire rant. I just sat down in a café on the beach in CA, pulled out my work and such, (I have been freelancing) when I grabbed my drink to shake it up forgetting that I had already removed the cap. I flung green machine super food smoothie all over myself, green guck– in my hair, down my back, in my lap, in both my bags, all over my books, in my ear, and the kicker of all is that I went to the bathroom to wash off my shirt (which was made much easier by just stripping it off and putting it in the sink) I had smoothie in my bra. How does that happen? I stuck my shirt in the sink to rinse it off and then… no hand driers to blow it dry. What’s happened to environmentally friendly – I mean really.

Partridge in a Pear Tree

So this is a bit over due, but I got distracted when I got home. I left Portland for the final drive home about a week ago. Well I’m hoping it wasn’t the final drive. I don’t think stopping will be that easy. I’ll have to take some side trip while I’m home.

I decided to drive east along the mighty Columbia River gorge and then track back west. I wanted to drive roads I haven’t ever driven to get home. That proved kind of hard. But it was interesting to go from west to east along the river. This is the western side of the state along the river – lots of trees and evergreen hills. But that soon gave way to the dry brown cliffs of desert east. Kind of neat to see the change. The whole drive along the river was dotted with Lewis and Clark historic markers. I stopped at quite a few of them to read about their trek and read the diary excerpts. I stopped to read about the Native American trading hub and waterfalls where they could catch salmon with nets as they jumped the falls to swim up stream…except there were no falls visible. How does that happen? Even if the river is damned and lowered in level, wouldn’t the water still have to flow over the rocks that created the falls to begin with. But no falls in sight…hmmm.


From the river I cut back west and drove through the Cascade Mountains and Mt. Rainier National Park. It was a pretty easy drive given that they had a massive flood last fall that wiped out most of the roads. The only evidence I saw were many downed trees clogging the streams. The one thing I did notice driving over the mountains were that they were the greenest darn mountains I had seen yet. Score one for copious rain.


I made it home and the first thing I did was give Chester (my car) a decent and proper bath inside and out. It had acquired quite a distinct smell. Then I had one great long sleep.




So looking back – this is how it sums up.

62 days on the road
10,430 miles driven
298 gallons of gas
1,083 pictures taken
21 states
30 National Forests
14 National Parks
2 oil changes
2 parking tickets
1 heck of good time
0 speeding tickets (yeah!)

I learned that good driving is free of competition and absent of pride. I happen to have a healthy dose of both, so…learning to swallow them was necessary at times. It also helped to drive back roads where there were no people. That probably also helped with the no speeding tickets.

So what’s next? I’ll keep you posted.

Crazy Scenic Roads

The play in Ashland was a grand time. I do love outdoor theaters…even when there was a bird that kept swooping down just a little too close (and for me that’s saying something).

Now I’ve driven some winding, narrow, two-lane roads that twist around some steep cliffs on this trip. Those roads are ambling streets in a Sunday park compared to the one I drove out of Ashland to the coast. I turned onto this road and there was a giant sign in red and white. It read: Warning! Remote road. Watch for log trucks and ice slides. It was a sentiment echoed by my map, which had a stamp across the road – closed in winter. I thought well, one it’s Sunday so the logging trucks shouldn’t be a problem and two it’s summer. So I started up the road. It narrowed very quickly to a one-lane road.


“Road” is being generous. It was more like a paved strip that wound around rocks and trees. Although some of the rocks and trees were in the road or caressing its edges so that the one-lane road was more like a half-lane road. And calling it paved is also being generous. There were places where the road had fallen away down the hillside – no guardrails of course. Other places there were pot holes/sink holes or places were the right side of the road was a good three inches higher than the left side. Although can't I really complain when all these obstacles were pointed out to me? All the gaps, rims of holes, and exposed edges where the road had disappeared were outlined in white spray paint. Helpful...really…. I passed a few signs that said rough road ahead. These meant the pavement disappeared altogether. It just stopped…thunk, thunk…and picked up again 30 feet down the road. Through this whole trip I have never been scared on the road, but this one had me sweating. Especially when other cars were coming at me and wanted to pass and animals were not running across the road they were coming up through cracks in the road. There is no warning for that. I could go only about 20 mph…20 mph for 72 miles. It did have an excellent view. I’m just not sure it was enough compensation for the road.


From that insanity, I made it to the Oregon coast, which is indeed a unique and great place. I stopped at this overlook where there was a spout. I spent forever trying to get a good picture of the water eruptinig from the hole in the rock. I drove up the coast and ended in Portland where I am staying with a friend. Yesterday, we went to see Body Works 3. It blew my mind. If you ever get a chance to go don’t even think – just go. Today we are heading to the art museum to see artist renditions of the human body. It will be interesting to see how they compare.

The Northwest

Leaving Yosemite, I drove across central CA back to the coast. I passed through rolling hills of toasty golden brown (otherwise known as extraordinarily dry) dappled with green trees. They looked almost polk-a-dotted. I kept trying to snap a picture while I was driving. It’s a problem when all the best views of the hills are in fleeting glimpses from the tops of a rise in the road. Unwilling to actually stop and take a good picture (that and any place to pull over had no view), I kept trying to grab a shot. I took many pictures of blurred guardrails and streaks of green. Obviously I eventually succeeded – not great but you can see the polk-a-dot hills.

It took me a day to get to the coast. I went from upper 90s hot, hot, hot to foggy misty and in a relative sense – freezing. What is it about the CA coast in the summer that it is perpetually foggy? I wonder if it’s like this in the winter. I have a hunch it’s not…so perhaps I’ll have to come back and check it out.

The next stop up the coast was Redwoods National Park…and again it was foggy. But then I suppose it is always foggy there. It is what helps the trees grow so big or at least that is what the video at the visitor’s center said. On days I’ve been going into national parks, I’ve been trying to get up early. I got to the Redwoods about 8:45am. Two things make that a great decision – one I beat the hoards. Waiting in lines and driving in traffic is not my idea of nature viewing. Second, I get to see things like this – the sun beginning to break through the early morning fog. I went a little picture happy. You can feel like a great photographer when there’s no bad scene in view and the misty fog adds a sense of the dramatic to everything. I had a hard time deciding what picture(s) to post.




I took few short hikes while in the Redwoods. One hike was up to this small falls –Trillium Falls. I had my first sense, on that hike that I was getting close to the northwest when I spotted a banana slug. For those who have never seen one, they’re long, thick, gelatinous things that happen to be bright yellow. My communing with wild animals continued when I spotted these elk just off the road. Boy are they big up close – good thing they seemed completely unconcerned by me. Which was unlike the group of five mountain goats that would not get off the road for me in Zion. Those goats turned their heads toward me, about six feet from my car, and gave me a nasty look, if that’s possible. These elk were slightly farther away and much nicer.

From the Redwoods, I crossed the Oregon border and am now officially in the northwest. A fact I kind of liked when I flicked on the TV last night and the Mariner’s game was playing. I am in Ashland, OR – a very quaint town in southern Oregon. It’s home to the Oregon Shakespeare festival. And as one of the last stops on the trip where I will be alone, I’m living it up. This morning I went to see if I could get tickets to a play for tonight. Last night, they told me everything was sold out, but I thought I’d try again. I met this very nice woman whose friend wasn’t going to be able make it. So I bought her extra ticket, front row center, to see Taming of the Shrew in the outside Elizabethan replica of the Globe Theatre. As my last solo stop things are working out nicely.

CA good times

So I think my stop in San Jose to visit my friend Rochelle was a very good stop – one of the best. But before I get there….

I took a day trip to LA to visit my college freshman roommate who works at DreamWorks Studio. All I can say is that my last job didn’t have a lunch area with waterfalls and a lagoon. It sure didn’t look like this and we had to pay for our lunch.



I then drove Highway 1 up the coast. This is what I saw. Nice huh? I saw a white wall, which made driving the twisty, windy road a bit tricky. From afar it looked like a thick white blanket tucked up to the chin of CA. Still pretty neat – better from afar than stuck underneath.




I did make a stop to see some elephant seals along the coast. They may look like a loving couple, but again they were fighting…or maybe it just looks the same.






So San Jose began with a wine tasting. The way any good stop should start. And from there it just went up hill. Of course there are no photos of the rest of the weekend. Funny how that happens when you’re having fun. And I’m kind of disappointed I didn’t get any pictures from my motorcycle ride! On Monday, I got to go for a ride and for anyone who knows me, knows that it was…hmmm…the best. Thanks again Greg.


So from San Jose, I drove east to Yosemite National Park. It was an amazing park. In comparison to other parks I’ve been to on this trip, Yosemite was like Zion on steroids. Every turn of the road was another amazing view. When I got up to this view, I thought – this looks familiar. It’s on the California state quarter. So very pretty!


Driving out of the park, heading west again, I passed a sign for a Mark Twain historic marker. Now I thought that was a little odd out in California. Then I passed a sign for the Calaveras county line. Then I got it! It’s my favorite Mark Twain short story. The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. And just incase I doubted it when I got to the town of Angels Camp there was a large frog painted on the road.

Ocean Life

I think there might be a saying about how blue the Pacific Ocean is, but I can’t remember it and my internet searching skills for something unknown are lacking. Anyway there should be a saying about how blue and large it is – something about how the pacific doesn’t ever forget. But then I think that’s an elephant.


I have been staying and driving along the coast of CA for almost two weeks now. I drove up from San Diego to San Luis Obispo, where my sister lives. I was going to take Highway 1 all the way up the coast, but…um…CA traffic stinks. Not only do CA drivers stop and look at anything on the side of the road – people, old tires - they’re bad drivers to boot.

San Luis Obispo was a good time. I stayed there a full week and relished in the feeling of not moving. I have been moving on every few days for a month and a half now and to stop and stay put for a week was a treat. I will tell you the one thing I was promised on my stop was sea life and it didn’t disappoint. First we stopped at Morro Bay and I got to see sea otters just swimming around having the life. Too cute!

Then we went out to somewhere I don’t remember (I wasn’t driving) and I got my fill of seals. It was windy and chilly out there on the beach, but it was a good time watching the seals all curl up every time a wave came in so as not to have their head or tail splashed in the water. This guy was not so fortunate. We also went down a pier where they like to hang out and eat the fish leftovers that are chucked over from the seafood restaurants also on the pier. I had a slightly closer encounter than I thought I would. This little guy shot up on the pier from the water right in front of me. They may look cute, but their not so nice – a fight broke out between a few of them and I ran. Still good times.



My first night in SLO, my sister and I went to the farmer market. It was a good farmers market…and then I saw this sign and it was a great farmers market. This sign hung over a booth where a man was standing giving his two cents to the world at large. This just might beat my other favorite sign I’ve seen. It was in Utah at a gas station. It read: Lotto, Gun, Ammo, Beer. Just seemed that was an appropriate order to life.

From hot to cold

Oh my goodness! It is hot hot hot in Arizona. There are many amazing things to see and hikes to take there, but alas none of them were done by me. Another stop to make when it is not so hot. The one place I did stop was at the San Xavier Mission in Tucson. It started in 1692, long before there were thirteen colonies. Two things I did not understand about the mission…I mean it was an amazingly beautiful oasis in the desert. It’s not hard to see why the natives of the area wanted to join up to be in such a place. The insides were incredibly ornate with many statues (sadly missing limbs from age). But here’s the thing I’ve never seen in any other church – the statues were wearing clothes. Real clothes that someone had made for them recently and put on the wooden statues. Now to me that’s a little odd. A statue of Mary was wearing this ornate white lace gown and another statue of a man was wearing a bright red button up shirt. Hmmm…

This is a picture of the side little chapel where you can light candles for Mary. There were more statues of Mary in there than I had ever seen. And the number of candles burning made it so hot that just standing in the door you could feel the waves of heat escaping. I couldn’t even go in.



So from Tucson I headed west to San Diego. And as my friend said that require a drive through Egypt. The drive takes you through a desert in the true sense of the word…rolling white sand dunes and the occasional palm tree. As I was driving, I pulled over to a rest stop on the Arizona California border which was only about 40 miles north of Mexico. This was the rest stop – a sandy clearing with three of the oldest looking port-o-potties I had ever seen. I decided to hold it.

I think this deems a side little story, because it has happened to me twice on this trip which is a little crazy if you ask me. I was in Missouri or Kansas, I don’t remember, but either way I was way out in the middle of nowhere with nothing around and I had to go to the bathroom so badly. There was nothing in sight except the flat bed truck driving in front of me with portable toilets on it. If that’s some sort of twisted cosmic humor I don’t know what is. The other time happened when I was stuck in traffic and couldn't go anywhere. And then a big truck carrying portable toilets got on the road next to me. Not so funny!

San Diego was so much fun!! Also crazy that thus far California is the coolest place heat wise that I have been. Would not have guessed that. I made it to San Diego for opening day at Del Mar racetrack. So much fun. I felt somewhat prepared as I had stopped and taken a tour of Churchill downs when I was in Kentucky. I went to opening day with a good friend of mine and her family. It is a tradition for them. Opening day at Del Mar is a tradition in and of itself. Every one gets dressed up wearing hats in that very My Fair Lady way. There were some of the craziest looking hats I have ever seen. There were hats with fountains, plants, buildings, and other craziness coming off them. Here are a few of my favorites.







I did not go so crazy, but I did wear a hat. I also tried my hand at betting. And sadly after five races I was 40 cents down. I’m such a big spender. Although, my first horse won the race and I won $10. Such a feeling of glory!

The Desert

So it would seem there is some extreme catching up to do. Life gets rolling, literally, and I get behind. My national park tour was continued slightly as I drove to the Grand Canyon after Zion. When I was in college, I did a six-day trip along the bottom of the Grand Canyon. But that was sadly…oh…um…like ten years ago. I remember it being the most amazing place, but I was wondering after all my recent national park stops how it would compare. And although Arches many well still be my favorite, the Grand Canyon is still amazing. It’s hard to take it in from one place or even one view it’s so big. It was fun to look down in the canyon and pick out the various mesas I remember camping on. Pretty cool. So for all those wondering it’s still there—still a big hole. Although I was a little surprised at all the blackened forest surrounding it. I don’t remember hearing about a huge forest fire there.


From the GC, I drove out to the Navajo and Hopi reservations and down through the Painted Desert. I find it rather interesting that two tribes, who in history weren’t the friendliest tribes with each other, have reservations on top of each other. Quite literally the Hopi reservation is in the middle, completely surrounded by Navajo reservation. Just thought that was interesting, nice of us to set that up for them.

The Painted Desert is a difficult thing to actually see. There are no roads that really go through it, and a barren flat space that is pretty much a horizontal line is hard to see. But I did take the nearest road I could find to drive through it and can you believe it start to spit rain. I was for practical purposes in the desert and it was raining. Interesting!

The next stop was Flagstaff. I don’t know whether it was because it was the first real town/city I had been in for a while. Or maybe it was just nice to be in a place with life, but the downtown area of Flagstaff was awesome. I loved it. I could have walked around forever. Alas it was only a few blocks, but I still enjoyed it. Also did my fair share of train track dodging. I felt initiated.


Now Arizona is an odd place. It seems like it should be a desert, dry and flat but there are National Forests, mountains, even volcanoes there.I stopped and looked at a few of them on my way to Tucson (yes not the most popular stop in July). I also stopped at some old pueblo ruins on my way down. This place sits out in the middle of the desert with nothing in sight and you have to wonder what it was like when it was built. There’s no way to tell really how old they are, but they guess around mid 1200s. Pretty crazy that any part of it is still standing or that anyone could survive living out there.


I also stopped at Montezuma’s Castle. I would have loved to go up inside of this place, but they closed it to the public a long time ago. Here’s something that blew my mind…this cliff dwelling was built around the same time as Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Um, slightly different building styles don’t you think?