Blown head gasket without regret...you just have to go

“I think that it is time for you to wander. The essence of wandering is that the exact outcome of it cannot be known…Though the geographic destination is not clear, the purpose of wandering is very clear….
“To bum around. To hitchhike, ride freighters, do odd jobs, wash pots and pans, pick fruit, clean fish, be a deck hand, work on the railroad, all the time watching the world and observing the rootedness of others, watching the backyards with their laundry on the lines drying in the sun, walking the aisles of the train, waiting to meet strangers….
“What do you know of your father's life? Is there a period that he sometimes refers to, a period of restlessness or trouble, when he did not know where he was going? Does he sometimes get this look in his eye, like whatever it was he set out to do is not completely finished, like there are things he's not telling you? Maybe there are mysteries of pain he wants to protect you from. Doesn't he know that's not possible or desirable? Perhaps he himself did not complete his wandering, and is protecting himself against the truths that emerge when we wander and give ourselves over to the forces of soul.
“Some people look back on such times-wandering-as dark times. And they may be dark. But they are also essential. It is not by accident that we get into trouble, that our lives are not beautifully ordered.
“It doesn't seem very grown-up, this wandering business. And yet it is essential to full maturity.
“I remember when the idea of "the road" arose in my heart. "The road." Bob Dylan and the road. A man on a highway with a guitar. A man on a road. Highway 61. Somehow in my adolescence I became aware that there was a road and I had to be on it, and the fact that I had no idea where the road led was part of the fascination. And this was a distinct change. This was not childhood. This was not a childish wish for ice cream. This was the call of the wild...
“[So]when I was 15 or 16, it became important to find a road and travel it. There was Bob Dylan with his guitar on the road, discovering poetic mysteries in the clubs of New York; there was Bob Dylan who'd come from Minnesota, a nowhere place, such as where I was from.
“So there was this urge to find something real. To be real, this thing had to be unknown; it had to be discovered. It could not come easily or as a gift. It could not be bought. I had to go on the road to find it.
“I remember a banquet. It was like we were in Beowulf. We had a banquet at Tracy Wald's house in Miramar. Mike Sirola and I were like kings and brothers, going out into the world in his Dodge van. We were going to discover what was there. We were going on the road.
“The road was quiet then. There were no cellphones. When you were gone you were gone.
“So we got gone. We made it maybe 75 miles and blew the head gasket.
“That's another story.
“It all fits. It's so clear. I know when you read this you will realize that what you are feeling is natural and good. You can't know everything that you have to do. You just have to go."

-Cary Tennis

The picture is from somewhere in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, I forget exactly where I was, but the clouds were in the meadows that day, too.

Picture Lake earns its name...

One of the most photographed spots in North America is 120 miles northeast of Seattle: a small alpine lake about 5200 feet up Mount Baker. (This factoid about the lake's 'photographability' comes from Life Magazine, and I guess they oughtta know.) It's one of my favorite places on the planet. I've photographed this lake in spring, summer, and fall. I've picnicked on its banks, plucked huckleberries for ice cream and pies from its fragile meadows, and imbibed intoxicants to the point of roaring drunkenness on the dock you see here on a variety of national holidays, including Labor Day when I watched snowboarders in cut-offs haul themselves further up snowpacked cliffs for a day of play in bright sunshine. It's a beautiful spot.

Aside from its showy prettiness, another reason I like going to Heather Meadows is that I never know what the lake will be like when I make the drive, which is exquisite itself. It's a place out of season, just as likely to be frozen over in July as October, and about half the time I've tried to get there, I couldn't make it--roads will be closed to vehicles without chains or piled so high with snow they are impassable in June. I'm not sure why I went this day, except that I recalled once I had gone on October 31st-precisely-in 2004 and found brilliant scarlet, orange and yellow woods filling with delicate snowflakes as they danced in the woods all around the lake. It was one of the most sublime and beautiful spectacles I've ever seen, and I saw it alone. The picture shows I was rewarded today. By chance. Just above the lake, literally just above, the snowline is creeping down. Another week, the possibility of seeing it this way will likely be gone, and I was reminded again at how brief are the opportunities life affords us sometimes.

It's hard to imagine sadness in such a spot, but that is how I felt. I'm a brooder sometimes, I guess. Today, I kept looking at the empty dock and thinking it should not be empty. A thermos of hot coffee and a friend to share this with me would have been nice. Ah, well. This shows the spot along with some additional facts, proof that while I might have been lonely today, I'm not alone in my fascination with this tiny, unpredictable spot tucked in the northern Cascade mountains.

Imagine the waste...

Imagine - four years you could have spent travelling around Europe, or going to the Far East, walking Africa or India, meeting people, exchanging ideas, reading all you wanted to anyway, and instead I wasted them at college. -- Shel Silverstein

One thing I know is that journeys begin in the mind before a step is ever taken. Whether that’s an eight year old drawing pictures of Berber goat-herders as she imagines obscure villages in the Atlas Mountains north of the Sahara or a thirty-something woman perusing pictures of India’s Holi, coming to believe the festival followed by a trek through Tibet would be the perfect antidote to a gloomy Pacific Northwest winter, the journeys I’ve made began first in my mind. Some journeys are a long time coming and some never happen, I suppose, no matter how much we might want them. An unused and quite beautiful visa to India is still in my passport, since expired, but the intent hasn’t left me. I wrote here first that I am still confident I shall go to India some day and drown in color, but I had to revise this, for it was a lie. I am no longer confident. And more and more the trek through Tibet—with a bum knee and difficulty traversing even the hills around Seattle, much less the highest plateau in the world—it seems unlikely. But I had a heart that wanted it is all I can think to write, and wanted it badly, even if it hasn’t happened and never happens. That is all I can think to say about it right now.

I quit writing because things became too hard to express. My mother was failing—I felt this—I have a photograph of her in front of a crumbling, old building in San Antonio as she looked away from the camera and into the distance. It was the last picture (except for her cat) at her memorial, so I am glad I quit my job to take her to the sea and glad, I guess, I didn’t wring that laundry out in public, even though some of it spilled here. And I wrote nothing of Africa, even though I went and remained there for some time. I was ambivalent about a lot of the trip, but there are sweet memories I have.

But of Africa…The house I was staying in and the bedroom I slept in opened over extensive and lovely gardens the likes of which I had never seen at a private home. Below the opened windows was the aviary. I’d lay in bed there feeling warm, loved, content and hear the caged canaries and finches, begin an aubade as the sun rose, their song mingling with the cheeps and chirps of other birds that lived freely among the trees in the garden there, and realize I was not home. Africa sounded so very different, so sweet and exotic behind those high, thick stone walls that guard the home. I could have dreamed in the warmth of that bed, the smell of those gardens and the bird song through those open windows forever. But it was seductive and lulling. Sometimes I felt like, I guess, I could have sank into it, but…it was disturbing in a way that I never quite understood at least then. But there is more I want to say in practicum about Africa, rather than ruminating.

So going to Africa, other than the getting there, is quite inexpensive. Most of the safari packages sold to unsuspecting Americans and Europeans are a complete rip-off as I know now. Game park entry fees are nominal, hiring guides into the bush inexpensive, and even staying inside the parks, almost free if you go for modest accomodations. If you see game outside a park, it’s even less expensive. The truth is these packages are bundled up for those overwhelmed and unfamiliar with Africa and desirous of security that in most instances isn’t needed, depending on where you go. You could pay 3-4,000 USD for something that might cost you $300, if that, once you get there. I did have the opportunity to go to a couple game parks and photograph big cats. The one above is my favorite. I wasn’t quite as close as this photo makes it appears. Cheetahs are an animal I’ve always been fond of, starting with Cheetos. Now how strange is that?

I’ll keep writing. Or start. Love, Beth

Blogs coming, I promise

1) Getting stranded at 5 AM in Madrid airport with no plane ticket to South Africa.
2) Having the door slam open while negotiating the toilet on a high-speed train (the caboose of "luxury class" whatever that is) to Fes where there was a) no toilet paper b) the water pump was on one side of the bathroom and the flush pump was on the other, both of which had to be operated with your feet while trying to get some water to clean up only to see c) three guys smoking outside and yelling loudly "Sorry, sorry, sorry!"
3) The young, fearless woman who jumped the crap of a taxi-driver who was trying to jack us at the train station and who launched into a harangue of an entire group of half a dozen taxi-drivers in Arabic to the sheer bemusement of both J. and I, who now have come to understand how bargaining is in the soul of Arabic trading. One must fight goodnaturedly--even over the price of meals. It's a cultural ritual and is only considered polite. They need this the way we need to hear, 'Hello' when the phone is picked up before a conversation ensues.
4) Not escaping Morocco without buying a carpet. How could I? It was impossible.
5) Tired, really tired, gratified, happy, full...oh traveling. Can work be far behind? I will make it to South Africa in November. I owe blogs, many numerous blogs, but they don't write themselves. The pic above is from a rest area, somewhere in the United States, out of 100s I have taken over the past months.

Tangier

From now on, I shall think of my travel fantasies as having the possibility of being pipe dreams. Morocco so far has been trying, fascinating, and exhausting. I chose to stay in the old town market of Tangier called the medina for the first three days. What a lot of characters and incidents I have to write about when I have time, but I do not right now. I will mention the smells of this city--the aroma of spices and meat cooking, the perfumes of musk and sandalwood--the sounds of it when the islamic call to prayer echoes in a haunting reminder call and response over the rooftops and the melange of tongues--Spanish, French, , Arabic, Portugese, English--the sights--1000 year old labyrinthian paths up and down the steep streets were an overwhelming experience,

Today it is on to Fes. The pic above was taken during the evening call to prayer. Our riad looked out over the mosque and the harbor. 20 dollars a night for such riches as these.

Morning Train - Algeciras

The 6 hour train from Madrid through Andalusia down to the busy port of Algeciras where northern Africa becomes accessible via a 2 hour sail across the Strait of Gibraltar winds through mountainous gorges, and past Spanish olive, grape, and sheep farms that look as though they've been operating the same way for 100s of years, if not thousands. The colors of the landscape until one reaches the Mediterannean are ochre and brooding, olive green, and the mountain vistas are forbidding and hot, if one must pick only a couple adjectives.

But they're fascinating, the journey revealing small towns in the back of nowhere in the Spanish countryside that appeared as though they've only the train station and around 100 inhabitants, if that. Twenty times today I wished I could emerge from the train to photograph this or that sleepy, isolated village. The houses with their red-tiled roofs and whitewashed, open walls look exactly the way one would expect them to were they transplanted into Daggett, California for example. Overall, I had a day of astonishingly unfamiliar sensations, buses crowded full of people arguing in numerous languages--mostly Spanish--accented by Tom Jones' music played loud, and then an entire school of British Catholic young girls piling on, cramming the port bus so full, I doubt another person could fit on, the driver shouting at us as we reached our hotel, so we could get off, then climbing a steep road to reach it...bus stops where horses and chickens gathered around the waiting kiosks and views of granite hills spilling over with row after row after row of whitewashed boxes that look as though they are about to fall into the blue sea. Everyone is so brown and so astonishingly "cosmopolitan" to pick another term. Languages seem to be interchangeable and come easily to the tongue, nationalities unimportant, and mostly good natured attitudes abound. The UK passport control folks didn't even bother to examine the passports of most people I saw, but only boredly waved us on. J., who is shockingly proficient in Spanish, fits in amazingly well here, floating from language to language with an ease that is barely recognizable in the person I've known who I've never seen in these situations before. He also exhibits an amazing street sense, navigating odd situations with an ease and sophistication that is surprising.

As I type this, I realize how exhausted I am, from the heat, and from the crowds, and from the unfamiliar languages and from the adventures still ahead. But I'm having the most wonderful time--the time of my life. It's all wonderful and so unfamiliar. The picture here was taken earlier from our balcony, which is far from being the Madrid dive, now. This hotel is first rate. You can see the coast of Africa, so very close now.

Segovia in the Rain

I am not much of a happy crier. Really. I´m a pretty emotional person, but happiness does not make me cry, and I can recall only once or twice this has ever happened to me. It did yesterday, however. J. and I were sitting in a park outside the Prado, having spent the morning looking at the Goya and Velasquez inside. The temperature was perfect, the leaves were falling, he was laying on the park bench with his head in my lap where I was sitting.

He was holding forth, as he is wont to do, about the real Goya. The Prado is full of Goyas and other wonderful things, and we had just seen his favorite painting, The Third of May--the one which is his background on his cell phone and the one which it doesn´t take much of a leap to understand gave him strength while he was in Iraq. We were drinking perfect iced lattes, and everything felt so wonderful. He seemed so happy, so healthy, so whole...he´d gone running earlier that morning getting ready for Soweto, and his leg hardly pains him at all now. It was such a beautiful day. I did cry.

Today we went to Segovia, which is another beautiful Castillian town with steep, narrow streets and built on a 1000 years of history. I got pictures of the cathedral and quite a bit of the architecture. The picture above is J. in a gazebo at Pl. Mayor we ducked in to avoid the rain. I highly recommend Segovia...and iced lattes and Madrid in October outside the Prado with someone you love. Tomorrow we leave for Morocco.

De Madrid al cielo

Little context is present for where I am or what I´ve been doing, but my itinerary is currently Spain-Morocco-South Africa, and I´m into it. I´ve been in Spain for a week now, staying at a bit of a dive in Madrid, and I love it. I love the dive itself--a crazy hostal called Villar on busy, narrow Principe where the youth from every capital in Europe seems to party. The hostal is loud, godawful loud, and abuts a small square of buildings where one can hear the water in every pipe, every kid screaming for leche, every drunken 3 am song by partiers from Santa Ana. At around 4 AM two nights ago, I was treated to a midnight gospel-reading by some guy at an open window across the square after listening to the couple in the next room have sex for almost two hours. Then, after J. arrived, the next night an entire street sang in the moonlight, hundreds of people who just launched into song. It sounds corny, but being around such goodnatured individuals is so infectious it makes the heart glad.

I love the Spanish--happy, jovial, tolerant, kind is how I´d describe them, and I have come--already--to love Madrid. I do not share, however, the Spanish passion for bullfighting. I went to the corrida at the Pl. de Toros, and I had to drink my dinner afterwards. The only thing I can figure is that the sport resembles the inexplicable American passion for wrestling, except the bulls are a little stupider than American wrestlers, and they die in the end. I had got an impression that this sport was at least a little--well, sporty, but it isn´t. It´s pageant, but one could not call it sport. The bulls are blooded and tired by various tormentors, piccadors and other matadors, before the main matador takes over to make the dramatic and macho poses with the cape and the bull. This guy´s goal seems to be almost to dance with the bull, tiring it out, and well-nigh hypnotising it with fulitily before he kills it. If the guy does this with style--which only happened once out of six fights with the tough madrilenos crowd--the whole corrida, particular the females, flip out, and the dude collects everything from flowers to silken panties thrown at him while he marches around the arena and selects the graceful flower of Spanish luciousness who will get the poor bull´s ear. If the bull is a cool bull, then everyone will cheer the toro as he´s dragged off--deader than hell and puking blood sometimes--from the arena. It´s tough to tell which bulls will please the crowd. One guy came out and obviously--probably alerted by the smell of blood in the sand, which is cleaned after every fight--knew some crap was up. He was more suspicious than anything and would just stare at the various matadors after making a few halfhearted passes at the capes. He was so reticent, they finally ran some cows in to see what he´d do, and he happily fell in line with them to get the hell out of the arena. The sexism was obvious, yet this cowardice on his part was enjoyed greatly and cheered happily by the crowd, who seemed to approve of his intelligence, if nothing else. His successor lacked his common sense and died just like the others. Ugh. The entire experience evoked a lot of feelings I have yet to process.

And oh, the Prado. And Goya. And Toledo. And Segovia. And...I leave for Morocco via Gibraltar later this week. More to come.


I

Imogene Pass, Colorado

I realize I need to do some backpeddaling to fill in where I am, what I'm doing, and why. Several false-starts on blogging, little internet access, crappy pictures, no agenda have conspired against me to post. But. Right now, I am in Ouray, Colorado, population 800. Ouray sits in a box canyon along San Juan Scenic Byway, around 30 miles from Telluride. The town has several claims to fame, having started in the 1800's as an old silver and gold mining town that due to its beauty and stubborn nature managed to survive, while 100s of other ghost towns around about did not. Ouray is currently the "Jeeping" and "Ice Climbing" "capitals of the world" or the Super Bowl of ice climbing and jeeping as one local describes it. The town benefits from the tourist spill-over from Telluride. The season for guided jeeping is about to close, so I feel fortunate lucking into some research that led me to get a guide to take me up to Imogene Pass.

This trip was exciting for me for so many reasons. First, companions on the trip included 4 professional photographers and travel writers. These folks have my dream job, as I told them. When I have more time, I will describe the trip in detail. It was hair-raising, beautiful, charming in so many ways that it simply was a superlative experience. The pic at right is a view of Red Mountain from the pass summit.

Crawford, Texas

Texas Highway 317 runs parallel to I35, a north/south US interstate that will take you to Laredo and further south if follow it. Driving to my Mom's house this weekend, I decided to detour to take a look at our former President's stomping grounds, Crawford, Texas. On 317, about 50 miles or so from Waco, Texas is a site where one of the most intense anti-war demonstrations took place several years ago. These demonstrations were unique in that they garnered extensive and mostly negative media coverage for the Iraq War. At Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas, groups from all over the US who were determined to end this war met to discuss how to do so. (The camp was named after Cindy Sheehan's son who died in the Iraq War.) She, along with thousands of other activists, gathered to attempt to pick a fight with W. in his supposed home-town. Now Crawford is like most any Texas-backwater--to the right of right politically where you might expect to see dusty roadsigns that read, "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition." Crawford barely tolerated this group and had little good to say about them, if you asked a local what he thought down at the corner gas station. I'm told the local utilities wouldn't even let the activists have water to drink or bathe in--this information from my brother-in-law who was trying to help them figure out how to set up some generators.

The pic at left, taken yesterday, reveals much. Ineffectual, hypocritical, anti-war polemic evaporated in November of 2008. Where are the protests now? Where is the ongoing demand for accountability for our current wars? Where are the activists (beyond the military families who actually have skin in the game) right now? So what was supposed to happen at Camp Casey? See here. You can look at the picture left to see what's actually going on. Nothing. Meantime, our MSM's preoccupation with Obama talking to school kids about studying harder continues--unchallenged.

Padre Island, Part Deux

For those of you who have never been down to Corpus Christi and Padre Island, there are reasons to go, most of which I won't discuss here. Yes, James B., I count you among these individuals probably, if you are reading this, which I doubt you are, but anyway....There are reasons to actually enter Texas. Padre Island would be one of them.

What follows may sound like typical tourist claptrap, but most folks know little, if anything, about Padre. Padre is a barrier island, the longest in the world, just off the southern coast of Texas. The western coast of Padre is called the Laguna Madre, a stretch of waterway that is actually saltier than the ocean, with numerous kinds of shellfish and crustaceans peculiar to the area. Most of the island is encompassed by a national park and wildlife refuge on the island. These public lands provide over 70 miles of coastal white-sand, pristine beaches which are unreachable by anything but you and a 4 wheel drive dune buggy. You can camp on these beaches for a mere pittance. The gulf waters here are so warm--like velvet, you can swim practically year round. Typical seaside activities are abundant, fishing, crabbing, and the like, but the waves are fairly shallow. I don't think the surfing is all that great here--at least it has not been evident the last couple times I've gone.

Anyone who does know anything about Padre probably thinks of it as a spring-break destination for the southern college kids. All true. It's a madhouse. Also, Corpus Christi is hideous, scabrous, and ugly. There are huge industrial complexes all around Corpus--probably oil refineries, but I don't feel like looking it up, but trust me, they are ugly. It's odd such an ugly city adjoins a beauty spot like Padre Island, but such is Texas.

And so it goes....

Padre Island

My mother said, "I can't believe I touched the sea. I never thought I was someone who could."

This trip was worth it, just to hear her say that. The picture is from day 2. I have some other pretty ones. I'm glad because I was beginning to think I'd forgotten how to take a decent photograph.

Nightswimming

My sister said, Let's go swimming. I said OK. Next to the hotel, there is a pool that is surrounded by sand and a few palm trees, yet it was clean. It was the shape of the shallow end and how the moonlight touched the water, that brought me back to another night long passed when the air was warm. We laughed as we slid into the water.

Promise me you'll remember this, I said. I will always remember this, he said, but why do you say that? When it gets hard, you'll need to remember, I said. I don't believe it will ever get hard, he said, not like that. It will, I said, it always does, it can't be helped. I will always remember this, he said.

Two years on, after we stopped swimming together, and I went alone in the mornings, I went to the stationery store and bought fine papers and fine ink. I don't remember what I wrote, but I wrote something and mostly what I wanted to say was, I remember you that night, I remember us that night. I gave it to you. Your face when you read it was tender. You said looking at me, I will always remember.

So after all these years, about you, about Texas, I wanted to say I thought about you when I went swimming last night with my sister. I thought about how I always loved swimming into the late fall. I remember I loved that about Texas. And how I was with you that first summer and fall.

Nightswimming, remembering that night
September's coming soon
I'm pining for the moon
And what if there were two
Side by side in orbit
Around the fairest sun?
A forever moon
Could not describe nightswimming

You, I thought I knew you
You, I cannot judge
You, I thought you knew me,
This one laughing quietly underneath my breath
Nightswimming....

I have always loved swimming--especially at night--this one laughing quietly underneath my breath.

San Antonio has a river--dammit!

I already talked about the amazing dissimilarities between San Antonio and Seattle. Now up in the Pacific Northwest, a major preoccupation of the populace is preserving the "natural state" of affairs. The recent snow debacle last year, in which Seattle came to a frozen halt because the mayor, Greg Nickels, did not want to use--ahem--salt on the roads because "it might disturb the salmon" when the city was buried in 20 feet of ice is a case in point. Nothing must disrupt the salmon, the streams, the oceans...Seattle means it. Well, mostly. Anyhow, San Antonio has a river, too. It's called the San Antonio river. In having this river, they have paved it, locked it, damned it, built hotels and margarita/salsa emporiums all around it, and used it to create entire lagoons of interesting water features that keep the water moving so moquitoes stay off their river. Heck, once a year, they drain the entire river and clean it. This is a city in control of its river!

Now, it may sound like I'm making fun, but I heartily approve. I mean if cities are going to allow rivers to run through them, then San Antonio has taken the right approach. Their river is ringed by shops, luxury hotels, spas and plenty of places to drink to alleviate the heat around here. It's also quite clean with no fish to smell up things or bother you. I was assured by two different guides of this city, that this is a real river. It has, according to one, "headwaters and everything." One might be surprised to learn that I verified what I was told these past days this morning. Yes, the San Antonio river exists outside San Antonio, but they aren't going to put up with much nonsense from it while it's inside the city proper, that's clear.

I enjoy the Riverwalk. In addition to being quite clean, it does wend its way past some truly interesting and old (by US standards anyhow) architecture, including the oldest cathedral in North America, a modestly beautiful church called San Fernando. This river has plenty of interesting things to look at even if it doesn't have fish, along with crowds of revelers mostly in a good mood, improved not by sunlamps but by mariachi bands and tequila. All the mad folks are apparently over at the Alamo and the various and numerous missions around the San Antonio suburbs. Leave it to religion to piss you off, but listen, there's too many of these missions around here to discuss them. Trust me, there's a LOT of them, if you want to look at old Spanish missions, feel free. But I prefer the river. San Antonians understand what to do with a river. They don't even allow soliciting, unless you count the mariachis. I also noticed a mosaic with a prayer for rain on it. This is a city that actually prays for rain. They pray for it. I love San Antonio!

San Antonio - Seattle's Inverse

I mean this in the best possible way. San Antonio is not only not remotely like Seattle, if cities were equations, you'd think San Antonio is Seattle's absolute, perfect inverse. It's so damned hot here that a fine film of orange, ginger smelling sweat was all over me the moment I stepped outside into the dry heat, which is as relentless as the drizzle in a Seattle November. The quality of Mexican food is seriously amazing with fire-roasted chili-based salsas that have nothing to do with tomatos, garlic, onions, or any other pedestrian defilements. Nothing gets between your tongue and the smoked chilis in these salsas. Top-shelf margaritas have a raw, peppery, crazy kick that make your eyes water, and you couldn't find the like in Seattle if you paid your best friend the bartender to try and make one for you. Ceviche of tilapia so fresh and wonderful with jicama, onions, cilantro, avocado and limes...oh heaven. (As an aside, ceviche is one of those things that either tastes great or like crap and here, it's great.) And well, the politics are sorta not what I'm used to lately. I have enjoyed myself here for the novelty. Whole buses full of Obama-haters who seem pretty upset about well-nigh everything ringed the Alamo for half a day today, for some reason fixating on the birthplace of Texas liberty to express their concern that Obama is going to tell schoolkids they should study harder. This is truly the beginning of socialism in their view. It was amusing to say the least. If I'd had the energy, I would have climbed on a wall and started yelling about the war, but I decided I didn't care about it enough right now to spoil my vacation.

Call me shallow. I'll accept it. Anyhow, San Antonio is fun. I cannot believe I lived so many years in Texas without ever coming here. Tomorrow we're leaving for Padre Island. Mom is actually enjoying herself so far, which has amazed me. It was her choice to continue this trip, and if you knew anything about my mother, you'd know how remarkable this is. More to follow. Meanwhile, enjoy the friendly neighborhood pic of someone who hates the Obamanation. He was pretty riled up. Personally, I think it must be because the bars hadn't opened yet. Some decent salsa and tequila in that fellow would improve his mood immensely.

My sister's backyard, Whitney

There are few things I like more than staying with my sister, D. I know this is true by how I tried to move in with her without asking when I was 19 or so. I'd wait 'til her husband was on a trip and then go down and stay with her until he came back. One of the most enjoyable times I ever remember having was spending the night with my sister, eating hand-churned peach ice cream and watching David Letterman in her waterbed. So I like going to my sister's.

She has a beautiful home right now in the country that a few years ago she finally finished renovating. Her patio is amazingly relaxing, and I look forward to waking up here and just going outside with some coffee and watching the deer. I took the pic this morning, while watching half a dozen deer or so play in some trees near her house. Mom and I have swung by here on the way down to San Antonio first before going to Padre Island National Seashore. I'm feeling happy and optimistic about this trip. Everyone is in a good mood!

Suspicious Narratives from this Narrator

I am the fourth child of east Texas white trash (some might say), hailing as my family did from the "river bottom" and the "sticks" of the Big Thicket. My father married my Mom when she was 16 after her mother told him it was alright. He was ten years her elder and ruled her destiny for the rest of their married life. Mom never graduated from high school, although she was so smart she was triple promoted in elementary, so she could study material somewhat comparable to her level. By all accounts, her school could not keep up with her and had a hard time teaching her. She did not understand basic mathematics and so she memorized equations. She told me once that it wasn't until she was much older that they figured out she did not understand the mechanics of math--that she had, savant-like, memorized everything in math class instead. My parents had been concerned about me when I was four, for instead of reading, I did the same thing. I memorized books, rather than read. They knew it because the narratives were not entirely synced up with the pages as I turned them.

I am told also my Mom drew. She painted. She wrote poetry. I have pictures of her when she was younger. I know I see with fond eyes--but to me, she was beautiful. As beautiful as any of the Hollywood starlets she ever craved to look like. She also had a movie-star figure--with measurements she often recited, and she was perpetually on a diet to make sure she kept that body. And she--well, she never did anything much other than be a mother. A mother who went to hospitals and stayed around the house, caring for a huge family: cleaning, cooking, laundry, and sewing, hanging clothes on a clothes-line and waxing floors daily. She was also delusional, when she wasn't actually hallucinating. She terrified me in a way that is hard to describe to those who haven't been terrified by the reality of others. What's all this got to do with anything? With travel, with where I am? Why is this post here?

I don't know other than my last blog was dishonest. It was dishonest in the way that when you minimize your feelings, you're being dishonest. The truth is the loathing I feel for Texas is tied up with everything I hate about my mother's life, and my own. The truth is that west Texas actually stinks to me, that it seems polluted with dust, the smell of manure, with spoors of strange things that stick in my throat. I got sick the minute I entered Texas--not mildly sick, but can't-lift-your-head-off-the-pillow-with-fever-illness. Just in time to collapse in the sad, dirty house of my mother, so ill I couldn't even speak. And I hate it here and I hate the path here. I hate flying here, and I hate coming here. That post masked loathing that encompasses everything about Texas. I wouldn't be here--except for her.

The one bright spot in my Mom's neighborhood for me is gone. I used to go early in the morning to feed the ducks and geese. The creek and pond where they swam is all filled in with landfill. My one thought when i discovered this driving in was--It fucking figures. I have told my mother we are leaving tomorrow to go see the ocean. She's a bit miffed at me, but seems to have resigned herself to accepting this freakish inclination on my part. She has even accepted my plan to care for her beloved cat while we're gone. I am not sure what I wanted to say in this blog, other than I guess I've learned that stories are always suspicious. Maybe the Llano Estacado isn't really 800 miles into Texas--it only feels like it. Maybe bears are not the thing I'm most afraid of. In noticing that the ducks were gone, recalled this poem of Yeats...I'll close with it. I left this duck pond in October 6 years ago with my Mom crying like a baby that day....

THE TREES are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine and fifty swans.

The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold,
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool
Delight men’s eyes, when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

The Most Boring Drive in the World

I hit the Llano Estacado around noon today in eastern New Mexico, a part of the southern Great Plains that covers much of Texas and gives it some of its loathsome character. The Llano Estacado goes on and on and on deep into the panhandle and west Texas. It was a balmy 93 degrees when my drive changed today abruptly from enchanting to barely tolerable, a temperature I was grateful for because I have driven through west Texas in the past when it was unrelentingly over 100. Since noon today, I've traveled for around 300 miles with only trucks and cows and the shapes of clouds for distraction. I don't count Amarillo, since no one in their right mind would count Amarillo. And tomorrow shall be the same drive for approximately another, oh, 500 miles. The same is: hot, flat, airid, without trees, shrubs, relief, or any points of interest for the hapless traveler other than speculating whether or not a tumbleweed will break loose or a tornado will blow up. Mile after mile after mile.

But I don't want to paint with too broad a brush the banality. There are some high points around here. Some guy has Cadillacs buried in the ground in a row on a ranch off I40. (I didn't photograph this because I find it boring now...I've seen it so many times.) You can, however, if you choose to do so spray paint, mark-up, or otherwise deface a Cadillac buried on a ranch. Art. Yay. Another group of folks built a 250 foot aluminum cross with around 200 - 300 other crosses piled at the bottom on a big mound of red dirt. Folks like to make clear which side of the Christianity issue they're on around here, and it's quite plain which side Shamrock and Old Mobeetie, Texas are on. They are on Jesus' side alright. There's also roadhouses, where you can stop and get a tasty flat-iron steak (a rib-eye seared in butter in a cast iron pan the way they ought to be) and a Lone Star on Saturday nights. The waitresses will be friendly, and you won't go to hell for eating either the steak or drinking the beer probably.

You still might die of boredom, however. I swear if you ever make this drive once, you will have a new definition of hell. But don't take my word for it. Here's a couple quotes from Wikipedia about this place. I tried to take a fair picture that shows you just how flat 800 miles or so can be...just how bad a drive can become. The colors are nice...the sky is big...and the drive, eventually, will end. Tomorrow and not a moment too soon.

From Wikipedia:
Spanish conquistador Francisco Coronado, the first European to traverse this "sea of grass" in 1541, described it as follows: "I reached some plains so vast, that I did not find their limit anywhere I went, although I travelled over them for more than 300 leagues ... with no more land marks than if we had been swallowed up by the sea ... there was not a stone, nor bit of rising ground, nor a tree, nor a shrub, nor anything to go by." General Randolph Marcy, after his expedition to explore the headwaters of the Red and Colorado rivers in 1852, agreed: "[not] a tree, shrub, or any other herbage to intercept the vision... the almost total absence of water causes all animals to shun it: even the Indians do not venture to cross it except at two or three places."

Bright Angel Speaks Again

My life contains two peak experiences related to goals I achieved. One of them occurred in 2002 when I hiked to the floor of the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River and back in one day on a trail called Bright Angel. It took me approximately 12 hours to do this (I started very early in the dark, cold morning and finished around five PM)--to descend 6000 feet and back up the same trail, through slogging switchbacks and temperatures that ranged from below freezing on the early AM rim to noon-day 110 plus. I was so keyed up after I did this--an event I trained for two years to do, I was sobbing on the phone to my boyfriend after I finished and shaking for almost two hours with exhaustion and happiness. I conquered fear of heights and my own lack of confidence in my abilities to do something few people will ever be able to do.

Now, if you peruse my interest list, you will notice several things I'm keen on related to this event, among them "hiking," "health," and "nutrition." Unfortunately, other interests in the years from that day to this have interfered with my ability to hike Bright Angel again, among them "cookies" and "cooking." Missing from this list is "eating like a horse when I want to and stopping exercise two years ago when I had surgery on my knee." I expected to be sad today when I swung by the canyon to say "hello" as I passed only 50 miles south of it on the way home to see my Mom, but even though I thought I would be depressed, I had to go. I love the Grand Canyon. I have loved it ever since I saw it first with my father's arm around my shoulders and heard him exclaim over its beauty in low, reverent tones. I have loved it the way it has symbolized for me and others "the most sublime spectacle on earth." You can tell I love it by the way I beg people to go see it. Please go see it, I tell them, don't die without seeing it. Please It's so beautiful.

But I wasn't sad today. Instead, I only recalled how happy I was that day on Bright Angel so long ago, staring my own fears in the face as I realized my vision. I only recalled the triumph I felt, not the fact that I'm in no shape to do it now. And mostly, I only felt the lack of comprehension of how someone could actually commit suicide last month by driving into the canyon near Bright Angel. How can such beauty make anyone feel like dying? The canyon, looking at it, only makes me feel so much like living, so grateful for the life I've had, I've got tears in my eyes recalling it now. I'd say, you know, everyone has a Bright Angel. And mine's still talking to me.

Luxe in Daggett, California

Welcome to my midlife crisis. It seems to have arrived just in time to rescue me. But how I can get fascinated by a dead town in the middle of the Mojave desert, I don't know, yet it happened this morning. Daggett, California is one of the sorriest places I have ever been, and that's saying something, since I have been to some crappy places. Daggett is located just off I40 past Barstow. Blink, you'd miss it. I would have missed it, too, but my car beeped at me--I needed gas, pulled off 40, and there it was. Daggett. The back of the beyond of nowhere, except hot. Most of the town's buildings--the ones that still exist as actual buildings--look like they are about to melt into themselves from the heat. Residents generally live in trailers. The main exception I found was an "apartment complex" called inexplicably "The Haven." The haven was located down a street barely wide enough to admit my car. It turned out to be a square of four double-wides shoved together and chopped up into separate units, with 4'x4' backyards that all contained various kinds of rusted junk. Although I didn't spot anyone, I could tell people were living in these. They had made patios with a central, shared barbeque pit out of bricks they'd piled in the center, which had been recently used.

Daggett also seems to have its own peculiar and noticeable conventions as a community, although I'd like to meet their zoning committee. "Beware of Dog" signs were universally posted on fences or in windows, even though I only saw one old yellow dog that looked up tiredly when I drove by. I didn't hear any dogs bark either even as I walked the ragged fences they were tacked on. Another universal residential habit were the curtains. These consisted of sheets tacked up outside the windows. Many of these were gayly colored, albeit a bit faded. The purple Dora the Explorer sheets in the window of a shotgun, single-room "house," made me quite sad--and I use the term house a bit loosely. What sort of little girl would live in such a house? And if it wasn't a little girl who lived there--I shudder to think of that as well.

So what was Daggett's charm that led me to circle the town repeatedly and even photograph it? Shock, mostly, I think, that or the 103 degree heat that had me panting like that early AM Yellowstone wolf I referred to below. I felt like I'd landed on Mars. I really could not understand why anyone in their right mind would live there. For Gods' sake, why? I kept asking myself. Why would such a place exist, why would anyone stay there voluntarily? Had they never been, you know, anywhere else to understand how much this place sucks? Are their brains fried on peyote or heat? Yet, signs of humor, signs of appreciation for life abounded. Right there in the desert next to the Marine Corps Logistics Center, the Santa Fe Railroad, old Route 66, population 200: Daggett, California. Go figure.

The picture is of the nicest house I saw in Daggett. If I've done a poor job of explaining this town, I think the picture will say it all for you. Pink flowered bushes, pink-painted..pipe of some kind that matches the trim on the house, and a pink, unrunning old car decorating the front yard...yeah, I dunno. It's the sort of place I can't understand, cannot describe, cannot even fathom. Daggett. Hoo-boy.