Day Five: Lo Lo Mai Springs Campground, South of Sedona

“Why is everything red here?” -- Isaac

I have no pictures of the actual campground, which was quite lovely as a matter of fact. All the state park sites we tried for were full up, so we headed for the private one that brought you around in a golf cart to pick out your site. (Isaac adores golf carts. He had a smile plastered on his face for hours. Maybe he picked up the obsession -- not to mention my own community obsession -- when we went to Catalina Island, in utero.Couple pics here.) I have no pictures because we were all a bit sick there (and super excited to be spending two whole nights in one spot). Pictures were not a top priority.

Isaac, who'd started to get a red, itchy eye a couple days back, now had two red, itchy eyes and a runny nose and just didn't look so hot. Allergies, we thought for the most part. Except in those dark recesses of evening when you are sure your child has a fatal disease and you've done nothing to help him. Are most parents familiar with this surety? Am I off in my assumptions here?

He woke up after our first night in Sedona asking for water and then spewing same projectile vomit style back up. Dehydration. I'd broken my baby. Crap.

And had the cat peed in the last 24-hours? And OMG, my ankles were the size of logs, and Mike's back was barely holding steady at “somewhat strained.”

“We should drive above the valley, get out of this heat today,” Mike argued.

“We should stay put in our shaded spot and not drive anywhere for a day,” I countered. “We all need a break.”

Sedona was somewhere we'd been looking forward to being for long before the trip started. Also, before we blew our cushion day by leaving Monterey so late and spending a night in that charming Paso Robles spot, we'd even considered chilling for a third night here. (We still had to make it to Santa Fe by Monday for a conference for Mike.)

Mike and I had come to the Sedona area years back, pre-kid(s). We'd caught Flagstaff on Flag Day (I have a vague memory of pig races down the main street.), went to Slide Rock State Park, an amazing natural water park, and tumbled further down the canyon to the red towering cliffs of Sedona. We enjoyed exploring the hills, and we liked the town itself – cute and ready with a multitude of cultural crafts.

I bought a beautiful jade ring in one of the shops and made the mistake of asking the proprietor some detail about the Native American history of the town, a question I was forming after visiting the landscape that I guess I was hoping a local could fill me in on. “I do not know,” the woman at the store told me rather haughtily. “They are people of the earth.” She pointed to the floor. “While I (pause) concern myself with things of a higher plane.” She fluttered her hands around her face for effect.

Right. Got it.

In short, we had very fond memories of our time in this town and, in that way that parents sometimes do, we looked forward to sharing this experience with our child, forgetting that, well, we had a child.

Isaac wouldn't care about the quaint coffee shops, he would miss the amusement to be derived from fluttery women not of the earth, he'd probably think the “Pink Jeep Tours” that sped tourists over the red rocks kicking up dirt and scaring away the canyon wrens were cool rather than obnoxious. His Sedona was bound to be entirely different than ours.

Before and after we came to the campground some 12 or so miles outside of town, we worried about having to drive back into the center with Emily in the van and no shade over the public parking and temperatures spiking at at least 95 for no good reason I could see. How would we get to do anything? Meanwhile, we were set up at a site with a river, mature Cottonwoods, a pool, a playground, laundry, and even some limited Wifi.

But, but, what about SEDONA??

“He should get outside and get some fresh air,” Mike said, always good for some stoic, fatherly advice.

“Leave him be. He's resting.”

Had my marriage gone through a time warp and come out in the 1950s? I wiped my hands on my flowered apron, then held one to my boy's forehead.

After Isaac had thrown up more water and the two bites of banana we'd tired to cure him with, he wanted to read a book. He and I settled in on the bed of the van together and I read him some soothing tales of extinct carnivorous reptiles.

“This is what I've been waiting for all night and all morning,” he said, resting his head on my shoulder.

“What?” I asked perplexed.

“This,” he replied definitively, and clasped my arm to snuggle in closer.

Day Four Continued: Nutritional Challenges & More of the Road to Sedona

Emily can be a bit of a backseat driver.

In Seligman, AZ we stopped for lunch. This had been tricky so far – lunch, that is. In preparing for the trip, I'd worried about going places to eat or run around along the way and having to leave Emilycat in a hot van. In fact, what we were finding was that there were no places inviting enough so far along the route to want to slide into a booth over.

Instead, we'd order a burrito to go from a window connected to the convenience store or patchwork together a meal from what we had on hand and the refrigerated cases at the gas marts. There was a bit heftier a selection than your average 7-11 of course. Aware as they might be of their strategic locations, these places were sometimes stocked in things like cream cheese, parfaits, and chopped apples, as well as bungie cords and neck pillows. Still. Baby ain't exactly enjoying an organic, gluten-free ride.

We'd left Monterey just hours before the first peaches of the season were due at the farmer's market, a detail I couldn't reckon with easily. Mocking my craving for fresh California produce were establishments we passed like “Wagon Wheel Restaurant” and “Roadkill Cafe.” These names repeated at the various exits. The issue was not chains and franchises, but simply people who thought they were all the very first to be quite that clever.

As she'd done at the last half dozen stops, Emily would just stay with Mike in the van under the shade of the gas pump ports while Isaac and I tried to find a compromise among the limited choices and use the bathroom. We waited in line with our hard-boiled eggs, banana, pretzels and ice cream bar behind a man talking to the cashier about Obama being a traitor to the Muslim world and blah, blah, blah. He finally turned his body enough that I could throw my pretzels on the counter and did so, attempting the hint.

“I've got a six-year-old by the hand and a cat in the van, pal,” I wanted to tell him. “Save it!”

He faded away still mumbling and we heard the bell on the door buzz.

“Whatever,” the cashier said, shaking her long grey hair and rolling her eyes.

“You're the bartender!” I told her laughing.

“I am,” she confirmed.

We left again for the parking lot where everyone was moving to and from their cars, pretending it wasn't hot enough to melt eyebrows.

We settled in, distributed our provisions, and headed off. The road kept stretching east, more mountains presented themselves, signs read “Elk next 20 miles.” And to think, I was so distracted when we left Monterey, I hadn't even noticed the moment we turned away from the coast.

Day Four: on the road to Sedona

Miraculously for our little troupe, we managed to leave from Mojave by 8:15am. The impetus? Having to drive uphill in the chugger through the hottest spot in the country. We needed an early start.

Across the border in Arizona, we stopped for gas. It was 9:30am, 94 degrees and climbing. The bathroom at the travel stop had three framed paintings – all of ocean scenes. Two beaches with swaying palms and sailboats, one of waves crashing on cliffs. Outside, truckers squeegied their windshields, the backs of their necks as red as the dirt surrounding us. A couple small, white clouds held perfectly still in a blue sky, as if they too were just too hot to move.

This desert was once the ancient sea bed. The bathroom paintings perhaps a nostalgia for glory days gone by, like the armchair nationalists I encountered in Hungary with maps of the old empire on the wall. Something missing that they've lost ownership of. Something that once held a key to their identity, no longer visible to others without props, without protest. I used to be single and childless and could sleep in. I used to speak Russian with ease. I used to teach at a university. I used to live in Monterey. Who will care about these things now?

The past always looks more attractive when you're peering over your shoulder. Be careful not to miss what you have; the road goes on, and on. 

Day Three Continued: Mojave National Preserve

I was reading. The boys were out exploring. It was after six o'clock and the evening had reached its cool, breezy desert perfection.

I kept hearing a rustling. After wondering for several pages if some really cool desert animal was just outside the van and ready for viewing, I sat up to look. The rustling was our trash bag shimmering in the soft wind, but there was something else I could make out now. I heard singing. I was pretty sure I was right about this one.

I looked out the window: the little cinderblock house for the pit toilet was in my direct line of sight about 25 feet away (purposeful site choice). Beyond it, another 80 or so feet to the left was a minivan with something tied to the roof and a man in a red shirt standing near it. To the right, a little further on toward the hills I could see a pick up and an RV.

I listened. It wasn't a radio. It was definitely singing. Pretty, though I couldn't make out the words. The red-shirted man walked to the other side of his van and eventually the tune changed. It was him for sure.

His song warbled and took a dramatic rise.

Not much by way of family camping in these parts. Most people seemed to arrive alone to an already lonely place. I am no expert on desert or landscape or spirituality, but there appears by all accounts to be something spiritual about these places. Some kind of secrets the barrel cactus holds in like spare water. The sage brush not giving it up either as we intruders tromped by their bristly hedges for a few hours, a day or two.

I wondered if the people who came here came because they liked the solitude or because they needed it. I was sitting here alone, too, and I could sit here happily alone pretty much all day. A book, a journal, a pen. I was set. The boys could explore without me. I did not feel cheated by the extra bedrest this pregnancy required. This is what I did often on a regular vacation. But that's different. I knew my family would be back eventually. I knew I wouldn't be the one maneuvering this van out of the sandy paths and back onto the highway. I knew it wouldn't be long before someone would ask me to read a dinosaur book or come look how high he could climb. I did not come alone to sing to the red hills whether or not anyone else witnessed it. Writers like audiences.

This personality is foreign to me, the one where standing alone you watch the Mojave yucca, that is also standing alone and this is enough. This constitution, like the desert itself, is something I can only observe with fascination and know there is something special in it, a magic I do not possess, but am more than grateful exists in the world with me. 

Days Two & Three: Red Rock Canyon State Park & Mojave National Preserve

That's a crazy idea.

Insane.

It doesn't make sense.

You'll do it?

Of course

I replied.

- magnet my friend Trudy gave me that now lives on the van dashboard

Five weeks+ on the road. My friend's 14-year-old looked me sternly in the eye. “Where will you shower?”

I had the urge to mess with her a little, say something outrageous that would confirm every fear and image of horror blown up in her imagination. Kind of like when a woman I will decline to identify, a mother of four, native of Massachusetts who has never traveled outside its tiny borders, asked me with genuine solemnity on a holiday visit there once, “Do they have Christmas trees in California?”

“No,” I wanted to whisper, teary-eyed and trembly-lipped after a pregnant pause. “Nn-Nn-No.”

“They make us decorate surf boards and sing Bob Seger songs. I-I would give anything for a blue spruce. A simple potted pine. ANYTHING!”

Red Rock Canyon State Park was beautiful. Loads of wacky-o hills and caves to explore. We saw some bunnies, some tracks that looked suspiciously road runner-like, and one gorgeous brown and gold snake while still driving around to pick a site which I consequently didn't get a picture of because I was too busy trying to alert Mike from running it over. 

We also had our first fellow-Westy encounter (as in Westfalia, as in, the VW camper, as in the van). Mike and the other Westy owner had a predictable conversation that went (I'm paraphrasing, but believe me, I'm not far off), “Nice ride.” “Yeah, yours too.” “They're great machines. “Yeah.” And so, with the male bonding out of the way, we settled in for the night. It was wonderfully quiet and starry.

We didn't go see the petroglyphs nearby and we didn't find the owl pellets on the cliffs. In short, we didn't do any of the magnificent things people recommended to us to do in the area. But we survived, and we were on our way on this crazy trip at last. My final argument with my landlord was over, and, though unsatisfying, calling his sorry ass wouldn't have to show up on my to-do list again. We had a little bouquet Isaac had picked drying on the dash, a healthy supply of water; Isaac had lots of impossibly long trains to watch; the cat hadn't yet thrown up or run away. Life was pretty good.

We headed out toward “Hole in the Wall” campground in Mojave National Preserve for day three. We were on 58E bearing down on Barstow and its hot, empty, why-would-anyone-live-here grandeur. “Flower Street” a sign said. I didn't see any hints of a clear street much less any flowers, but I could smell horse dung, which felt oddly familiar and reassuring after miles of flat red dirt and construction vehicles. The cat and the boy were asleep and I was looking forward to peeing in only another 10 miles or so. Maybe this scene was the “big adventure” everyone kept envying us over?

I'm reminded of when I lived in Hungary teaching English and traveling in Europe on my breaks and as my meager salary allowed. Friends from home marveled at my “adventurous spirit,” my “exotic” journey into international waters. I would often think of their words as I washed my exotic Hungarian dishes, or when I'd get on the wrong train, again, and find myself standing in a weedy lot somewhere in the Slovenian countryside, little boys begging me for gum. 

Day One: Paso Robles, an inauspicious start

We thought we'd never leave. But somehow there we were, staring out the window at the live oaks stuck into the gold hills like decorations on a cake, and the giant metal oil birds peck-pecking for the sludge we all live on.

We pulled into Paso Robles, CA around 8 pm, giving up the drive only four hours short of our original goal. We were not making it to Red Rock Canyon tonight. Even better, after following what initially sounded like decent advice at a local grocery store, we ended up at the “campground,” also known as “Wine Country RV Park.”

Wine Country RV Park consisted of asphalt alternated with concrete, in addition to small rectangles of grass where picnic tables were planted and watered nightly between midnight and 7 am.

It's been quite a while since we've gone south. We are pretty much NorCal people. Whenever I told people we were thinking of visiting the Mammoth Site – a tar pit of prehistoric bones in South Dakota, they'd inevitably bring up the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. Sure, I could go through L.A. county, when otherwise we'd have to drive days out of our way to South Dakota, completely mucking up my plan for a southern route and forcing us to travel through Nebraska or Kansas or Iowa, perhaps rain-soaked Missouri.

LA? SD?

South Dakota it is, then.

The RV Park confused Isaac, a seasoned camper. The luxury bathrooms were just beside the pool; both were empty; the token lawn chair display beside the behemoth living rooms on wheels, unoccupied. You think there can't be that many people willing to steer 45 feet of vehicle around, but then you enter their great pueblos and lo-and-behold, it's a far-reaching sickness. Enthographers and anthropologists be forewarned: don't expect much contact with this crew. You will probably just have to catch them walking their dogs – the size of which is in direct opposite proportion to the size of their ride.

 

There's our little out-of-place van, lost amongst the giants

I have forgotten many, many things from my grad school days. (My grad degree was my original purpose for heading out to Monterey.) But there is a line on of my profs said that I recall often from Second Language Acquisition class. I can't quite remember the context within which it was told to us, but I've used this information on innumerable occasions. I find it to be very helpful to set myself straight when I start to get all freaked out and fear-driven. (MIIS people, if you are reading this and it sounds familiar, please help fill in the background.) What Leo said was, “An organism will not carry with it what it can easily find in its environment.”

The human is one hell of an organism.

It's Mother's Day

Wait

Don't go too early.

You're tired. But everyone's tired.

But no one is tired enough.

Only wait a little and listen.

• Galway Kinnell, from “Wait”

The memorial brick for my mom should be installed this weekend at Leaming's Run Garden in Swainton, New Jersey. Here's what it looks like.

I recently found out that I lost two mothers last year. When I was in college, I spent a summer in Yucatán, Mexico. I lived in a small town with a host family that included four boys between the ages of seven and 16. My brothers. When two of them and I reconnected on Facebook, I discovered that their mom, Esther, had passed away last March. I was there, it was that summer, when she first discovered the cancer. I didn't make it back before it took her. She was a lovely woman, a teacher who as a child had to struggle to learn Spanish in school – her first language being Mayan. She didn't marry until she was 30 years old, unheard of in her community. She was fiercely dedicated to her faith. And I was privileged to be her only daughter for a few months a long time ago. I wish I could include her picture, but of course, it's packed.

Now, I will be a mother again myself. In all of the fuss and stress and planning of the move, the pregnancy has sometimes slipped back into the recesses of our days. I don't like this and, apparently, either does my body. I've had some issues with signs of preterm labor that have been worrying to say the least. I've had to stay off my feet as much as possible in these last weeks as time ticks away and the to-do list never seems to shorten. But baby kicks me constantly, letting me know s/he is in there, reminding me that despite it all, s/he's growing, s/he's alive and well, that s/he's exploring, that s/he is pretty jazzed when the ice cream comes, that s/he's firmly here and along for the ride.

Hope s/he likes Nebraska.

Shouldn't we be escorted out

as we are escorted in

to this world? When we go

there should be showers

and ceremony. Stretchy pants

with monkeys and beanies

stitched in hippos. Primary colors.

Cards with balloons. And most of all

our mothers should be there singing Hush

Our mothers, to show us this new

and strange world we will enter.

Our mothers to hold us while we sleep.

dogs, cats, and other hail storms

Maybe this is what it's like to get old. You just don't care. Certain hesitations and worry over social etiquette, social status, social posturing fall away. Next I'll start farting loudly in other people's homes. Leaving this place with a collage of beautiful friends behind us is incredibly difficult. In addition, I'm proud to say that as I look behind me, over the 13 years here, there is no need to scurry quickly out of range of any towering infernos where the bridges used to be. I'm good. I'm just saying that on a particular level, there's a freedom of movement I can now access.

Like when my landlord brought a young couple through our house. The third such event we've endured. Nowhere near the trauma of our last move and our last landlord, but still. It's a big fat pain in the arse. And that's even before we talk about the fact that after they left, they didn't lock the back door which doesn't latch properly and opened wide leaving my house unattended and my already freaked out indoor-only cat to go explore the neighborhood, which in turn created an stressed out mama in Braxton Hicks and a hysterical little boy who was convinced his pet was lost forever. But, hey, that's another story, right?

The people coming to look at our place, as I raced off to an appointment had at this point only committed the crime of inconveniencing me somewhat and casting doubts on the future care of my lavender bushes. They were 30 minutes early and toted along with them a little mop of a dog. Without making full eye contact, I blurt, “That dog isn't coming inside, is it?” Oh. Did I say that? Um. What I think I meant was, “Oohhhhh! Loooooook. What a sweet puppyyyyyyy! Hi little fella! Hi there! What's your name?”

Moving is also like short hand, then. Saves you words.

Monterey County

Elkhorn Slough, with its pieces of driftwood sticking up all over the place like some sort of strange graveyard of antlers

the otters, tagged and preening like floating kittens in the bay

the curry-colored house down the street which once or twice a year hosts a huge event in a tent, piles of shoes outside the flap, saris of every color in and out of the rented port-o-potty

the Salinas Post Office, where I once got to cut the line in exchange for translating (Spanish/English) for another patron

the Monterey Post Office, where they turn on jazz music when the line gets too long

the Pacific Grove Post Office, asleep, like the rest of that town

the Seaside Post Office, most multicultural spot per square inch on the peninsula besides The Breakfast Club restaurant

The Breakfast Club restaurant, with their flat screens rotating advertising for tire places, CoffeeMate, where “Anywhere is fine” and I once saw my favorite clerk from the Seaside Post Office.

the 50-degree July days

Marina, where every Mother's Day weekend the snowy plovers have to compete with the hang gliding demo at the annual kite festival

the homeless man who sits at the busstop on the way from my secret parking space to the Aquarium

the cuttings faires, third Saturday in March, where if you want to know anything about the plants you are taking home you have to ask the man in the white beard

the man from Salinas who delivered my storage POD, what was once surely a gang tattoo on his neck now inked over into a black pool

the ones who didn't deliver my storage POD and ended up buried, gang tattoo intact on their young necks

the summer movies at the Outdoor Forest Theater, bring your own picnic, cozy up to the fire pits

the “controlled” burns to rid the old Fort Ord of unexploded ordinances that send ash raining down on my yard on the most beautiful, fog-free days

the tiny airport that fills to capacity with golfers, conference goers, and where the TSA agents give out stickers to the kids

the conference goers, forever lost in the 1 square mile of downtown, their nametags thumping against their overdressed chests as they cross the street by the Chinese restaurant

Monastery (aka Mortuary) Beach each year sweeping someone from its coarse sand into its dangerous currents

Soledad, where the “It's Happening in Soledad!” sign is followed by the exit for the correctional facility

Carmel's art galleries

the cypress canopies

the baby harbor seals on Hopkins beach

the sea lions barking as you climb Rocky Ridge Trail

the gully at Garapata State Beach filled with calla lilies

the jump houses that fill the miniscule lots

the midnight drag shows at Norma Jean's

the coveted right lane at the Naval Post Graduate School on southbound Del Monte Blvd to avoid getting stuck behind the left turners

the National Steinbeck Center pretending to be dedicated to literature and history as if it's not funded by the big ag(riculture) companies

avocados year-round

the man who runs the old time clock shop whom I never got to interview, everything around him ticking, ticking, family photos from the old country shining in sepia tone from the walls

the Castroville Artichoke Festival

Pfeiffer Beach covered in photographers in waders all snapping images of light through rock windows

a charmed life

We were eating breakfast. Isaac was already late for school. Again.

The computer had seized, its hard drive grinding and gnashing its teeth for several hours before simply refusing to come to life at all. On it, downloads of 50 CDs that were to be our travel music for 5 weeks that Mike had not yet gotten onto an MP3 player.

I was limping around in pain, my back on the lower right side pitched to the point of no return; relaxation not so simple, my couch already disappeared into the storage POD outside my window and the religious peddlers forever pounding on the door while I try to prop myself in bed.

My garden had been ravaged – friends digging up my blooming beauties – better they have them than the landlord's extermo-gardeners mow it all down without discretion after we're gone, though in the latter scenario I wouldn't have to watch.

My son's pretty face was marred by the gashes and cuts of a recent and terrible asphalt tumble that left him trembling like I've never before witnessed, his knees torn up by the same fall and one more two days later when he grated his skin over a climbing wall after losing his grip and sliding the rest of the way down.

Mike was wearing a brace against his wracking cough that threatened to wrench his back out if loading the POD didn't first.

My father-in-law was in the hospital again.

I was showing signs of preterm labor.

We were leaving our life in 8 days, but it seemed already to be falling apart around us.

My husband's '93 Honda del Sol, the very same we traveled across the country in when we came out to Monterey was still not sold or otherwise disposed of. However, he'd had an inquiry, a man who might even pay him $1,000 for the junker – one dollar for every day that bag of chips and salsa have lived in the center console, I guess. We were discussing having to get that deal moving when Mike discovered he couldn't find the keys. The del Sol was down the block, booted from its usual spot in the driveway or in front of the house by the VW van and the POD, respectively. “Sometimes the keys get left in the trunk lock,” Mike offered.

“They do, huh? Just 'get left' there?” I asked, wondering if this was really the time to discuss the social and grammatical implications of the passive voice.

And then, I started to laugh. And laugh. Hysterically. I couldn't stop.

“Why are you laughing?” Isaac asked me half-concerned, half-giggling himself under the pressure of contagion.

I could barely catch my breath to explain. The sound just rolled out of me, on and on, full and maniacal. “Be-B-Be-Be-Cause...Our life...is a DISASTER!”

Mike returned from the car, which miraculously was still there, with the keys. “Yup. Trunk lock.”

Ah, see. No one stole the car. The keys were found. The gods, clearly, have been smiling on us.

From: These United States, an episodic tale. Pre-departure thoughts: Nebraska.

Though we haven't had nearly enough time to concentrate on planning the fun stops for our drive across country, we have the beginning and the end more or less mapped out. It's the middle that we're still not sure about. How many other treks, real and figurative, must share this dilemma?

As it looks now, we may be crossing the state of Nebraska on our journey east. When this first came to my attention, I of course emailed Megan, our former babysitter extraordinaire. She watched Isaac a couple days a week for us for about two years. Truly, if I thought tying her down or bribing her with riches would have kept her from moving to Portland (along with most of the rest of California), I would have done it. Megan was the kind of person you dream of watching your child. Isaac loved her; and what was not to love? She is fun, creative, responsible, infused with common sense, and dedicated to teaching young children (she left to complete a certificate program in Montessori education). Megan is also a traveler, a vegan, a generally interesting person and, as it happens, a native of Nebraska. I figured if Nebraska had produced such a soul, perhaps there was more than basketball and grasslands there. So I asked her what we should stop and see in her fine state. Her advice? “Just keep driving.”

Damn. But surely... With the determination that comes from an age honed in its futility by mindless hours of internet research, I soldiered on, finding with every Google click involving Nebraska, one common feature: “Carhenge.” Voted America's 2nd "Wackiest Attraction," it apparently just lost out for the top spot to a toilet seat museum in San Antonio. But nevermind the near miss, this is Nebraska's roadside claim to fame. A spot in the middle of nothing where someone has painted cars a silver gray and piled them up to resemble the ancient and mysterious Stonehenge of England. Except stacked cars are not ancient or mysterious, and neither, I was starting to see, was anything about Nebraska.

One more try – The Nebraska State Parks website featured links to their various regions and attractions of each. I chose a region at random and clicked. There were two attractions listed. One was a steak house.

Sometimes you try to give something a fair shake. You shake and shake, but nothing comes out.

some belly progression pics

Craig's List and other social experiments

“Eighty percent of success is showing up.” - Woody Allen

The eight-year-old was in the garage rifling through boxes, the three-year-old had found Isaac's room (“Here's the toy room!”), the smallest was still on his mother's hip for now, their father was talking about the computer hutch with Mike, and the people who came for the futon were inspecting bolts. It was our dinner time, our usual space to unwind, though any movement toward sustenance and family bonding had been arrested: the Craig's List people were here.

We had hosted a “give away” party for our friends the week before. They had come, dutifully, some sad, some glowing at the thought of snatching up my most prized succulents in their elegant painted pots. Books and candles, folding chairs, the streptocarpus, the solar dehydrator, tables, shelves, seeds, booze, it all walked out. Still, we were left with too much. So, against my better judgment, I placed an ad on Craig's List.

Strangely, the biggest draw was one of our dressers. We had recovered it from the garage of the last house we rented, swept out the spider eggs and repaired the drawer that had been driven into, then painted it a dark slate blue with cream drawer fronts, and bought it sparkly new knobs. Five years on, it wobbled a little and needed a new paint job. I posted it for 10 bucks. The crowd went wild.

Of course, there is the surge of excitement that precipitates that initial email of inquiry and then there's actually setting your Suburban's GPS to our address and showing up. The ten-dollar dresser almost brought me to my knees for the shear number of no-shows it conjured. But now, things were different. Here were two families perusing our various sale items – best to lump people at the same time, pull the Bandaid off zip, one, two, three. It'll hurt a lot but only for a second.

“Is this for sale??” It's the eight-year-old. He's got the roll of little plastic international flags we decorated with during the Obama party. “It's yours!” I say happily, and he clutches it gleefully to his chest. Pay back time. For all those garage sales we went to where people so very “kindly” gave Isaac huge bags of beads, stuffed animals, shit they wanted to be rid of that I didn't want any more than they did. “How about this?” the boy asks hopefully, showing me a book of traveler's quotes. “Take it!”

The kids are now rolling around on the futon someone else is looking to purchase. “Are they all yours?” futon lady asks me. “No, just that one over there. The one who looks stunned into silence.” Isaac is seated on the loveseat between two strangers, wide-eyed and quiet.

It's complete mayhem. The eighteen-month-old is on the loose now, our stomachs are growling, the three-year-old is driving one of Isaac's Lego trucks along the molding.

Before, everyone leaves, I discover a convoluted connection with futon lady involving poetry and events of some ten years back, and the three-year-old is looking hard to score something to take, just like his brother. “Can I have THIS?” he asks. He's holding our to do list. I'd love to say yes, take it, please, out of my sight forever, but I trade him for a pirate pencil.

Tomorrow there will be more of this: People who are getting some of our junk as temporary furniture, having just moved from Japan without any hope of seeing their things shipped while hundreds of thousands of displaced Japanese struggle to regain a daily life. A couple who've driven all the way from Salinas to take home my five-dollar butterfly chair. For tonight, finally, we've closed a deal or two, we can eat, maybe get our kid to bed before nine. Only problem is, we might have to dine on the f-ing dresser. Damn thing's still here, but someone bought our kitchen table.

three square inches, or, the problem with moving

 The detritus of drawers, shelves otherwise cleared. There is so much. Any small object that can act as a receptacle. It all comes back to haunt you. The contents of a ceramic bowl I made once upon a time in a pottery class that sits by the front door on a small drawered table Mike doctored the legs of and painted orange included three different kinds of screws, several paper clips, much lint, glass beads of unknown origin and conference nametag holder, and about 17 other items no bigger than your pinky tip but much less useful (photo to follow - of the content, not your pinky tip). This is just what was left after we extracted from it the car keys and about six dollars in change. Three square inches – multiply by god knows and that's the hardest stuff to sort, to “pack,” to have to see.

One week is a Monterey week. I want to throw my arms around the bay, pack the Aquarium, bungie a fleet of redwoods to the roof of the van. I can't go. My friends are wonderful, making this all worse, of course.

Another week is a fuck-this-place-anyway week. Backward ass ideas about health care. Schools floundering desperately in a sea of old people holding on hard to their inheritance. And an article, perhaps my last for the paper here before I hit the road, about a big New York show coming to town one night only – a Wednesday night. The ticket prices START at $53. What? I feel like I need to go over that again. A Wednesday night. $53. WHO is going to this?????? But that's just it. People are going. Just not the people I know.

I think this is the part of the movie where (naturally in the pouring rain) I pound my fists on the strong, hairy chest of my love and my nemesis screaming, “I hate you, Monterey! I hate you! I hate you!” Then kiss him passionately and with abandon.

 

trying to stay Zen about it all.

just a few of the beautiful people we're leaving behind

21 days til we hit the road.

foreign travel

I am actually panicking because I read somewhere at some point that children's perceptions of the world begin to solidify from the age of 8. Am I going to get this family abroad before Isaac turns 8? It's not looking great. But we are about to embark on a drive across the country and if I recall correctly from the last time I did such a thing, it was one of the most foreign experiences I've ever had.

I've been to 16 countries. I don't recall weeping for extended periods of time while traveling through any of them. However, I can't say the same for my time in Wyoming and Montana, for example. I'm just not a wild west kind of girl. These places, their emptiness and landlocked culture unnerve me, despite the fact that Glacier National Park was possibly the favorite stop on our drive. Apart from that, Mike nearly dropped me off unceremoniously somewhere outside of Butte because I couldn't stop blubbering.

Isaac just showed me a binder he's working on at school of the different sections of the country. We'll use it to track our route. I couldn't help but notice that he wrote “Momtana,” and that the label for Wyoming was upside down, that state alone not colored in. Perhaps I'm not the only family member that has a hard time grasping these places.

I want Isaac to know – to really get it – that not everyone lives like us, that there are choices, diversity, landscapes and traditions that dictate very different days. I want him to appreciate this point. I want him to spend time living in some of these different days. But I drag with me to the table of best intentions my biases.

While reading his UNICEF Children Just Like Me book the other day, Isaac shook his head slowly and thoughtfully. “Africa sure has some cool people,” he said. I love that kid. How right he must be. When I think about the African continent I have no doubt that given the first opportunity I'd go get whatever battery of shots necessary and jump on a plane in a second. But North Dakota? Idaho? Oklahoma? What will protect me in these foreign lands?

Here are some shots from our last cross country adventure. 38 days til take off. 

for the love of a van

No, I still haven't written about the fiasco that was to be our first van purchase – the camper that would have taken us across the country with shit for karma. If there is a saint of screwed up vehicle transactions, then his or her image must have been swinging from the rear view on this baby.

But why would I want to tell you about the people who lied, who made my son cry, whom I threatened with various legal actions and a few other thigns before they returned our money, when I can tell you about the van we did buy. The happy van. The one currently getting a facelift, due back in another day, if the mechanic is willing to part with it, that is. He seems kind of attached.

Here's what I hear on a daily basis now: “I'm so jealous!” Even my acupuncturist, a sweet, reserved Danish woman, when I told her we were driving across the U.S. in the van, stared at me for just a beat before her composure broke. “I've always wanted to do that,” she whispered.

Deciding to bring a wee bit of California with us when we charge east, we bought a VW pop-up camper bus. The whole of the west coast is drooling in envy and the whole of the mid-section of the country will hold us in suspicion and most of the east coast will likely just roll their collective eyes, the in-laws in particular should be fully convinced of our insanity, in case we had any chance left at redemption.

When we got married in Monterey almost 10 years ago, we thought it'd be funny if our guests threw granola when we emerged after the ceremony. You know, “crunchy,” “granola,” “California.” My father-in-law, thinking the mapley nuts and oats tied in small silk bags a snack, ate his. Some people just aren't up for a joke.

We hit the road in 42 days.

un-nesting

It's interesting how everyone assumed my first pregnancy was planned and how everyone assumes that this pregnancy was a surprise. The sky is a vast, people. Look up and out of yourself once in a while.

Things change. Ideas and goals change. So here's a little manifesto I wrote a while back about the phenomenon of the only child. I still believe all of it. And it's also true that when I wrote it, I never thought I'd have another kiddo. Yes, the sky is vast.

People often ask if this pregnancy feels different than my first. How could it not? But they're baffled when I elaborate. They want to hear how I'm carrying, what I feel like, but what I tell them is just what I know: that last time, I wanted chocolate pudding and watermelon, lots and lots of watermelon. This pregnancy I want lemonade, tomatoes and those Thai fresh spring rolls with peanut sauce. Last time I was pregnant, I woke up and sneezed three times every morning. This time it's two sneezes.

As my belly grows, we are also beginning to pack boxes, to unseat what we have built around us as a home. I am forced into the rather unnatural state of “un-nesting.”

Six and a half years ago when I was pregnant with Isaac I wouldn't have put much stock in the idea of biological urges to nest, to clean. The morning before I went into labor, I suddenly spotted a giant conch shell Mike had brought back from an island trip that was fated to live out its days in the tideless waters of our bathroom. Even as I grabbed it, scrubbing ruthlessly at the dust embedded in every crevice, dust I had never before cared about or taken notice of in any way, it did not occur to me that something was going on over which I had no control.

It's external forces beyond my control that are jostling me about this time. I've been un-nesting bookshelves, un-nesting closets. The packing has started.

We finally found an affordable house we really wanted, only to be told it had just gone under contract with someone else. One of the first baby names I put in our “like” column startled me when I punched it into Google and received back its meaning: new house. Um. Yeah. Apparently, I kind of want a place to live. Apparently, I want a baby. Go figure.

and dreaming, they say, is also free

My email address that I created almost 14 years ago is "montereybound." I can remember sitting in front of my new desktop computer at the little desk in the little kitchen of the little apartment I shared with someone I found in an ad, but who would become a friend and a kickass roomie (Hi, Dean!) in Arlington, Virginia and choosing this online identity. Dean was there that day, and Mike, too. I was bound for Monterey - headed for the Monterey Institute of International Studies and an MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages and I was way excited.

When I asked Mike if he wanted to come, I don't know what I expected, but I don't think I expected him to say yes. Which he did. And which promptly freaked me out completely. He left a condo he'd just renovated, a whole cache of friends, and a government job of seven years to drive across the country with someone he'd known about 9 months in a Honda del Sol with a lot of cassettes (yes, cassettes) and a couple of plants. We were on our way. Monterey bound.

Years later, still here and having acquired wedding rings, cats, that degree...the address worked on another level. "Montereybound," I'd recite to people to whom I was giving my email, "As in, tied here."

I have no plans to change my email, as we start the search for boxes, call for quotes on PODS.

During another long night of research and planning on everything in the world, we got on Craig's List to see if anyone had any moving boxes to give away. Typing "box" into the search under the Free category brought some interesting bits. Lots of box springs, for example. And one ad that had Mike and I about ready to bust a gut

"Small Box of Misc. Food."

Clicking on the ad, it began "I have one of those boxes of random food..." You know, one of THOSE boxes. In college once, my roommate woke up one day and said  to me: "You know when you have one of those dreams when all your teeth fall out?" Sure, Patty, sure.

In case you're in the area and interested, here's the list of Misc. Food available (and I quote...):

Jar of Preserved Squashes (not opened)
banana chips
split peas
microwavable brown rice
Mrs Butterworth
Kamut puffs
multigrain crakcers
a couple of mystery spices
ginger candy

After catching our breath on this little experience, we figured it might be only fair to check out what popped up under a search for "box" in the free section of the Western Massachusetts Craig's List. "Massive Box of Free Stuff" one ad boasted followed by helpful suggestions on what one might do with it all, including, "Some stuff could be burned for heat." Then there was the "indoor/outdoor ceiling fan," which had our imaginations going for quite a while. And finally, "Homemade time machine!"

Perhaps that last one could come in handy since our time here is running out much too quickly.

seeking the tools of the road

Clearly, when we leave this house the spiders will just take over. We're barely holding them off as it is. I am watching one as I type this. An enormous black creature hurrying over the highest line of wall in my bedroom, just below the ceiling. For any of you Harry Potter fans, I'd say definitely belonging to the progeny of Aragog; for those of you unfamiliar with HP, uh, it's a big spider.

Where do these things come in? Is there a spider hatch I don't know about? Do they momentarily stun me when I open the front door and slip in? And why are they never the ones I see in my garden? The tame, sweet eight-leggers trapping flies and feasting on aphids.

Despite the fact that we have no house to end up in on the other end of our impending move, we have been focusing almost exclusively on the road trip that will get us there. It's a bit like obsessing about the wedding day without a clue of what the marriage will require.

We just came from the bookstore where we perused fruitlessly the road atlases and USA travel guides for something useful. The atlas that touted itself as the best and only one you'll ever need seemed to choose its inclusions randomly at best. The chapter on Colorado featured a page on the restaurants of Denver. Nice. And...that was all.

There were “Easy Fold Out!” maps to Washington, D.C., Lima, Peru, Sacramento. There were big fat books of campgrounds across the country and state parks, often so huge you'd also need to pack the coffee table to accommodate them.

Mike found a tempting book called Watch It Made In the USA which took you through any factory tour you might want to go on. So the question here is not whether my son would like to watch how Harley Davidson motorcycles are made, but the problem with books like that is that after you invest $22 and fall in love with the page on blown glass, you find yourself trying to come up with excuses to drive hundreds of miles out of your way into the mountains of West Virginia and when you get there your kid is sick and whiny and no one wants to go. Also, you find things out you'd have been better off not knowing, like the fact that they make teddy bears and jelly beans in California. Remind me why we're leaving again?

It didn't take long before I gave up on the reference publications and zeroed in on the travel literature. There is no shortage. Postcards from Europe, Please Hug Me, I've Been Delayed, Venice is a Fish, Radio Shagri-La, The Woman Who Fell from the Sky: An American Journalist in Yemen...Among them was also this title by Doreen Orion: Queen of the Road. The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband, and a Bus with a Will of Its Own. This depresses me on several counts, not the least of which has everything to do with bitter competition. I feel, to some degree, upstaged, outdone, beaten to the punch.

I would like to write about my trip too, since, duh, it's what I do. But here's the thing: I have this crazy notion that I want to get paid for it. I'm hoping to hook up with a publication “on the other side” as I like to call our destination, to take on a series of tales about many fewer states than 47, many thousands of miles fewer than 22,000, about 2 shoes, only 1 cat, no poodle, a husband, a preggo wife, a six-year-old boy and, with any luck, a van that works.

We've also been shopping for used camper vans. If you've ever bought anything so much as a paper clip through Craig's List then you know that experiences with people who post there can range from delightful bargains to psycho scams. Somehow, buying a vehicle that we hope will move our family safely through a month-long 4,000 mile trip feels a bit more risky than scouting out those oak dining chairs we picked up a couple years back. 

There is a story about our first van exchange as I've already hinted at in my previous post, but that will have to wait for another day.

where to start?

Maybe with the road collapse that trapped us in Big Sur? Maybe with the 3 1/2 hour detour that got us home, me with an aching back since I'm now nearly 4 months pregnant. Did I say that? Maybe how we're moving across the country in less than 2 months? Or perhaps how we were nearly swindled out of thousands of dollars by a bunch weenie-ass criminals selling a camper van? Oh, so many choices. Will get to them all in time. Tune in soon.

some soundbites from the last few weeks

(looking out the window as we fly to a layover stop in Las Vegas)

“Is that a desert?”

“Yup.”

“A REAL LIVE desert??”

“Yes.”

“Camels?”

“No camels.”

“---.”

(at the rehearsal dinner for my friend's wedding, with an awful cold and knowledge of desserts ahead)

“Momby? It's weawy hard to breab.”

“We need to leave, Isaac, and put you to bed.”

“Whab aboud da tweats?”

(while getting dressed for the wedding the clip-on tie in one hand, holding up the untied tie in the other)

“This one's broken!”

(explaining his recent clingyness through the music & rhythm instruction he's gotten at school – learning basic four-beat bars, “ti-ti” = eighth notes, “ta” = quarter note)

“You've been wanting a lot of Mommy cuddles lately, huh? Do you know why?

“You know how there's “Ti-Ti Ta Ta Rest? Well, you're the Rest!”

(when his video clip wouldn't play on the computer)

“Click again!”

“Honey, I've clicked a hundred times; it doesn't want to work.”

“Punch the computer then!”

“Believe me, that method's been tried.”

(playing demolition with his blocks)
"Everything was wiped out! There was a WIND STORM! A THUNDERSTORM! A HURRICANE! A TOMATO!"