Listening Across America

We've Reached the End

2009-11-02T08:46:00.001-08:00

Since we have arrived at our surprising destination and are finished with the traveling part of this project, this will be my last entry in this blog. I have enjoyed writing it and hearing from people that I don't even know who have commented and provided advice as we have made this journey. Now we put together what we have learned in various ways.
Keeping this blog has helped me think through some things and I have found the process to be quite productive in that I sometimes was able to discover what I thought about something in the process of writing a blog entry. And I find my own journey continuing here in this most unlikely place. So I will continue to blog about my thoughts and observations at
www.shariburke.blogspot.com

Because I have been interested for quite some time now about the role faith plays in individual lives, culture, and society, and this trip has only intensified that, I am also starting a new blog devoted to that topic at
www.faithculturesociety.blogspot.com

This trip has made me even more aware of how large a role faith plays in the world and how inadequately this is recognized and addressed. That's not to say it is ignored. There's much attention paid to various aspects of faith, but much of this is superficial and beside the point. Thus, it's not very useful. I humbly hope to provide some fresh insight and new ways of considering faith in our culture and lives.

For those of you who followed along on our trek across the northern US, thanks for being there with us. It quickly became apparent that it was not going to be what we thought it would be when we started out and I was glad I decided to expect nothing but the unexpected. Rolling with things the way they were and not trying to make it all into something else was a valuable strategy and I am glad I planned for that going in. Otherwise I could have found myself miserable and frustrated. As it is, I learned so much and found myself in a large way in the process. So it's all turned out well. I hope to hear from you via email or through one of my other blogs. Take care and be sure to listen wherever you happen to find yourself—whether it's to someone else or to yourself. Especially to yourself.

Niagara Falls

2009-10-16T07:22:00.000-07:00

October 14, 2009
I still have a hard time believing that I live in Niagara Falls. This is a place that was never even on my radar screen before. If I thought about Niagara Falls at all, it was in some Hollywood movie kind of way, I guess or because I'd heard a story about someone heading over the Falls in a barrel or something. But it never occurred to me that there was an actual town attached to the Falls. At least until we realized that Burlington was not a good place to stop and stay a while and Bill said, “What about Buffalo?” Never gave much thought to Buffalo, either, to be honest. But here I am. As usual, when people ask how I ended up here, I will have a weird story to tell them. “Well, we were wrapping up a trip across the northern United States to observe the ways in which communities of faith were responding to the economic situation. We planned to stop and live for a while in Burlington, Vermont, but it turned out to be too expensive and homogeneous for our taste. We could not find an apartment and after 3 weeks, decided to move on. Bill suggested we check out Buffalo. We looked online and it seemed like an interesting place, so I began looking for a place to stay until we could find an apartment. Turned out there were more options in Niagara Falls, so we ended up at a Travelodge there. And the first night we were there, Bill looked on Craigslist and found a possibility.

He contacted the guy; we came to look at the apartment the next day; and we all agreed that we would rent it. So I'm in Niagara Falls.” Haven't seen Buffalo yet.
So, Niagara Falls. Even when I learned that it existed, I was unable to form a picture in my mind. I guess I thought it would be a touristy kind of area. That since there was a city/town (there is local disagreement about which it is), it must be full of suburban landscapes, manicured lawns, and spindly little trees. Good thing I didn't bother going very far along that road. It is nothing like I could have imagined a tourist area to be. This is clearly an area with problems. The results of a study were made public the first week we were here—Buffalo is the third poorest city in the country. Up here 12 miles or so north of Buffalo, you can tell. The whole town seems rather shabby. Some places seem worse than that.

We took a walk to the Falls themselves as a part of a church meeting and we walked by boarded up buildings and a dying city (or perhaps town). Even the motels that are within walking distance to Niagara Falls seemed kind of drab. Maybe it was because we are past tourist season. Maybe it was because it was a grey and blustery day and it seemed like it could pour on us at any minute. But I was continually struck by the drabness. I kept wondering what people think when they get here. This is supposed to be a honeymoon destination—at one time at least, the biggest destination in the country, I've heard. What on earth do people think when they get here? When we were at the motel, it was located on a strip with motels, restaurants, stores, etc. Many of these places advertised the fact that they had jacuzzis. Some of them had hearts beside the word. Whether that means it was a heart-shaped jacuzzi, I do not know. But I do know this: a heart-shaped jacuzzi would have done absolutely nothing to make me one iota happier about ending up in such a place for my honeymoon or even overnight. Some of these places looked pretty alarming. “Ok,” I thought to myself, “these are the low-rent motels farther away from the Falls themselves. The ones closer are probably much nicer.” Not so. They were better, I guess, at least from the outside.

But there seems to be an abundance of concrete block buildings that is highly unattractive and dull. It reminds me of the little bit of Medford, Oregon I've seen. Not at all pleasant to look at. Again, I thought about what I would expect in a place like this and it includes landscaping of some kind, some color from flowers—it's not winter yet—and some kind of interesting details. Something beyond blocky concrete buildings. Now, I try to remember that I have seen only a very small area and perhaps there is more elsewhere. I do not know. Surely there must be.

There was an ice park. That was strange. There it sits in one of the tourist parts of the city. It's just there—a big slope of ice with lanes for snowboarders. There is an ice rink and supposedly a place where people can make snow angels. That consisted of a pile of dirty, slushy snow such as you would see on the side of the road in February. And where did the water come from to make all of this ice? There was a big hose connected to the fire hydrant running under the chain-link fence. I have been told that the Canadian side is nicer. Apparently, they keep all the money that is generated at their park in the park. Here the money that comes from the state park goes to Albany to be spread around the state. As for the Falls themselves, I only got to see them for a few minutes from one particular vantage point, so I can't say much about that. I look forward to spending some more time there.
Having said all of that, once you move about a mile or so away from the Falls (we live about 1 ½ miles away), things are far more interesting. This is definitely a working class town. I have not seen anything resembling suburbia or manicured lawns. And I do not necessarily find this to be a bad thing—I should be clear about that. I am no fan of suburbia. Most of the houses in the neighborhood where we live and beyond are not showplaces, but are reasonably well-kept. Some have Buffalo Bills lawn decorations (alas, they are doomed to disappointment this year as the Bills are stinking up the league—a big topic in the media is whether the coach should get fired). Halloween and autumn decorations are in front of several houses that we regularly pass by on our way to someplace else. Some are quite elaborate. Many are made of brick, including the one we live in. Many have peeling paint on the porch columns, but are neat and tidy and may or may not have bushes, shrubs, and flowers outside. The sidewalks are a different matter—I always was careful of the ice in Klamath Falls that built up because people wouldn't shovel their few feet of sidewalk. Here the danger is cracked cement, dips and holes in the sidewalks, and pieces sticking up and ready to trip you. So walking requires a good bit of attention!

Little Italy is a few blocks away and that seems like a main drag in a working class town, which is exactly what it is. We were told that those who deal with tourism issues see that as a separate tourist destination. I am not sure I think that is viable. But it is a good neighborhood destination, I think. Again, though, these are all first impressions based on only what I can see as I move through my life here. So who knows.
It's a strange thing. There are blocks of houses in town that are all abandoned, with boarded and broken windows. Then you turn the corner and you are on a block with rows of well-maintained homes. To be sure, there are places I probably would not want to walk around in whether it was daylight or dark. At one time, coming out of my childhood suburban world, I would have been exceedingly stressed about even being near such a place as this, never mind living here. But I find myself liking it here. I don't get it. I like it much better than Burlington, which I loved when I got there but increasingly disliked as we stayed. It began to seem like a Stepford town. We were right to leave there. As I said, I didn't have a clue what to expect when I rode into town. It never would have been this. But I find myself fascinated by what is going on here. I feel that I am where I need to be for right now. I like it. Go figure.

It probably helps that I like this apartment. And I can sit outside on the porch or inside on my couch and watch my tree turn yellow. It's a good view, since we're at leaf-level up here. The squirrels sometimes pop up on the porch railing to say hi and the birds like to show up and see what's going on.

And we've already met some wonderful people. There's a Unitarian Universalist church that is a ½ hour walk from our apartment. The people are great and it's a good fit for me because they are inclusive and honor many religious/spiritual paths. There are banners on the wall with symbols from most of the major world religions, including the easterm ones. Too often people talk about world religions and they mean the 3 monotheistic ones. But there's more to world religions than Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. So those each have a banner, as do Hinduism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and there is one symbol that I am not familiar with, but I made a guess that it could be Sikh, since there is a Sikh temple in Little Italy. Anyway, they make no bones about being a liberal church and I like that, too. We went to a cluster meeting last week, a book discussion last night, and are going to another gathering in a couple of days. The people themselves have been very friendly and welcoming. I like them, too.
So there you have it. I find myself incredibly interested to see how it is all going to unfold. I can't even imagine it. But it is good to wake up each day and feel a sense of curiosity about what is going on and to be able to walk through my days with a sense of fascination about all the things I see around me. I feel alive. I feel interested. I feel at peace.

We're Here!

2009-09-26T21:37:00.000-07:00

We are in Niagara Falls, of all places. It was easier and cheaper to stay here than in Buffalo, 15 miles away. The people who run the motel even upgraded our room to one with a fridge and a microwave at no extra charge. We rented the place for a week. We got here at about 7:15 last evening after driving almost 500 miles from Burlington. Before noon today we had an apartment! Much different than VT! Bill saw the listing after we arrived last night, emailed the guy, who promptly emailed back and said to call in the morning to get directions. We did and went over. he lives in Ohio and was leaving this afternoon. He seemed like a nice guy. So this apartment is upstairs in a house--looks like a neighborhood of houses like that. The neighborhood seemed pretty quiet for a Saturday morning. There's a lady who lives downstairs. the rent is $450 and the landlord pays for heat. We are within walking distance of the supermarket, the library, downtown, Little Italy, the cultural arts center, Niagara Falls, and Canada. There's a bus line right outside. It's got two bedrooms and is set up pretty nicely to provide some privacy--one bedroom is off the kitchen and one is off the living room. The bathroom is in the middle. And there's a big porch that runs across the front of the house. I am going to crochet some lace panels to hang on the sides for some privacy because I think there is still time to sit out there wrapped in a shawl drinking tea! We just got an email from the guy saying that it'll be ready for us when we check out of the motel. So that is that! I am happy. We had agreed that we wouldn't make a decision right there, but both of us really liked it when we saw it. Life is funny, isn't it? After 3 weeks of cooling our heels in Burlington, we come here and in less than a day find exactly what we wanted! I know absolutely nothing about this part of the world, so it should be an interesting time here!

garbage!

2009-09-23T13:05:00.000-07:00

September 23, 2009
Well, our time in Burlington is drawing to a close. It has been quite an eye-opener. The situation here is serious and pretty alarming. People either have the money to rent crappy apartments at high prices or to buy a house. Many others live in motels and in places like we are staying. It struck me as kind of odd when we first got here that so many motels advertised that they offered extended stay options. Now it makes perfect sense. There's a whole bunch of people that have to live that way because they can't afford an apartment. The place where we are is actually like a neighborhood. People stop and chat with their neighbors who are sitting outside of their cottages, many of the RVs have skirting set up around the bottom, and clearly people have been here for a while and are planning to be here for a while longer. If circumstances were somewhat different for us, I would probably consider staying right where I am, because it's actually pretty nice. But the place we are in won't work for 3 of us in the long term, getting a two-room cottage is more expensive, and the rates for all the cottages don't drop until after foliage season—so that means November. From November through March, Bill and I alone could live here for $900 per month. That includes everything—furniture, heat, water, electricity. For around here, that's a real bargain. But it's not November and it's not just Bill and me, so we will move on Friday morning. We have decided to go to Buffalo. We had been thinking about Bismarck or Minneapolis/St Paul. The latter was my second choice before we left Klamath Falls, and I didn't see anything to really dislike when we were there. The hesitation I had was about the fact that it was a large urban area. I liked Bismarck. But we were limiting ourselves to places we had stopped on the way here. As we looked into both places, we saw some things that concerned us. Minneapolis had high rents like here. Bismarck had much lower rent, but not a lot available and not much new being added. So one day Bill said, “What about Madison, Wisconsin?” That seemed reasonable to me, so we looked into it. It's like the complete opposite of here! Apartments everywhere, new ones added all the time, and sales like free rent and low security deposits. This seemed quite hopeful. So we went through a few days planning on that. Bill emailed with some questions to one woman and she has emailed back a couple of times and is prepared to make an appointment to show us the apartment. Quite a shift from what we're experienced here! But then Bill said, “What about Buffalo?” I really don't care. So we looked into that. There are lots of affordable apartments and new ones being added every day. Not quite as many sales. But it is 700 miles closer than Madison, it is on Lake Erie, and close to Canada. So we will swing by there and see what we can do. We won't be staying as long as we've stayed here and we keep Madison as a possibility if Buffalo doesn't work out. I am interested to see what happens. As for Burlington, I find it disturbing that there is such a clear class divide here and it does not seem that there is any activism or even much discussion of this serious community problem.
In truth, it makes me far less enthusiastic about the community.
Last night we went down the street to the Pierson Library in Shelburne to see the documentary “Garbage! The Revolution Begins at Home.” It was a good film and the filmmaker had good intentions. As is often the case with these kinds of things, I felt that it didn't go far enough. It was kind of superficial to me, but then I have been aware of the issues addressed for some time and tried to make changes in my life because of what I learned. But I suppose that as an introduction to the whole subject, it was fine. The filmmaker got some friends of his to collect their garbage for 3 months so they could see how much they accumulated. They live in Toronto. In that community, they put wet garbage in separate containers to be picked up and sent to the composting plant. So rather than keep all of that, they weighed it and put it out for collection. They also separated their recyclables. In the end they had 320 pounds of wet garbage, and 83 bags of garbage and recyclables. They had 3 small children. Throughout the film, I had the feeling that this was not changing their lives at all. There were a few exclamations of surprise at how much trash they generated, but no real comments about changing behavior. Their house had 5 bathrooms. There was no discussion of using less water. The filmmaker was the only one who seemed serious about making changes. He got rid of his beloved jeep because of the poor gas mileage and other issues. He had it recycled. There was no discussion about buying less and using less, which is really what is going to have to happen if we are going to get anywhere. Recycling cardboard isn't going to cut it. We should all do it, but it's not enough.
There were a couple of things I did not know. One is that Toronto trucks its garbage to Michigan to be processed. One of the more powerful parts of the film was when they spoke to people who live near the ring of landfills about what they have to deal with. There are large truck speeding down their suburban residential streets—one woman can't even ride her bike like she used to because it's no longer safe. They talked about the stench they live with. One couple said that they had visitors from out of town one summer and they left because it was so bad. And there's the dust from the incineration of the trash—it floats down into people's homes and lungs and contains all kinds of carcinogens, including asbestos. And of course, they couldn't sell their houses even before this economic mess—and it seems fair to assume that what material wealth they had was probably tied up in their houses. The other part of the movie that was very moving and disturbing was the part where they spoke to people in West Virginia about the coal mining and processing plants that are ripping the tops off of mountains and threatening the health of children in school, as well as entire communities. They build these things right near schools, so if the containment ponds fail—as they did last winter—the school will be flooded with the poisonous sludge. Children have to leave school because they are sick and have terrible headaches when they are blasting and processing the coal, sending dust everywhere. One guy said, “There have to be some things that are more important than money.” as he walked around showing the filmmaker the giant cracks in the ground that have appeared because of the blasting—one was over 600 feet deep and 10,000 feet long. Not to mention the fact that they are ripping the tops off the mountains as far as the eye can see. The coal companies want him to sell his land and he refuses. He pointed out the bullet holes all over the place. People want him to give in because of all those well-paying jobs the coal company keeps promising to provide. It was another reminder that it is those who are better off and live in the suburbs with 5 bathrooms that are using the resources and the working class people who live in far more modest circumstances that get to be sickened and have shorter life expectancies so that all that trash has a place to go and there's enough coal to light those 5 bathrooms. I am not sure how someone could listen to stories like that and not want to do something. I can't solve the problem by myself. But I can be aware of what is going on and try to use resources more wisely in an effort to do my part. I want to know I did what I could as I watch the situation deteriorate a little more every day.
One other interesting factoid from the movie—dead human bodies are taking longer to decompose. They speculate this is due to all of the preservatives in processed food and cosmetics. Soon our bodies will have to be disposed of as hazardous waste!

Great Day!

2009-09-16T11:17:00.000-07:00

September 16, 2009
A beautiful day! Temperatures are in the low 60s, there's a breeze, the trees continue to get a little more colorful each day, and it was actually nippy this morning. It's going to be in the 40s and low 50s at night. This is supposed to continue for the next several days, with some rain added in on Friday. I may get out a shawl for tonight and tomorrow morning. I am always happy when I can wrap myself in a shawl!

We rented this cottage for another week. We had paid through this coming Friday (the 18th), but we are not having much luck in the hunt for a place to live. People are not calling or emailing back very much. A few are. But they either want only 1 person, or the place is being renovated or whatever. We went by one place the other day, but it was too far out—no bus line. And the place looked like a small motel or something. It was kind of depressing and I imagined doing winter there and could not. Plus it was an efficiency—400 square feet. That would work for Bill and I, but with 3 of us it just didn't seem reasonable. So we called the guy and said we didn't need to look at it. So we look some more. Rents are high and the market is tight. We may not make any progress by next week. But we're paid up here until the morning of the 25th, so we have a week and a half to see some movement. If we are still in the same situation by next week at this time, we will decide where to go next. We could either go back to St Paul or Bismarck and rent a place there, or we could go to New Mexico and camp for most of the winter if we need to. We will have to investigate the possibilities. Bill has done some looking and it looks like there is much available in all of these places. But we shall see. We would both like to be able to stay here, but we would need some shelter for the winter and if none is forthcoming, then we'll go elsewhere. If we do end up having to leave, we would make a decision about where to go and make haste in that direction. We would not take our time as we did to get here. I find myself really fascinated to see how it will all turn out. In ways that are completely unexpected, I am sure.

I was already in a great mood this morning as I took deep breaths of crisp fallish air, felt the breeze blowing, looked at the red, yellow, and green leaves, and walked back from the office after having extended our time here. We had some coffee and then went to get some more groceries. As if the day could not get any better, in the entryway of the grocery store was a shopping cart with books in it and a sign that said “FREE.” I grabbed a couple and Bill grabbed one. Free books. I can get into that!

Gratitude

2009-09-15T11:00:00.000-07:00

September 15, 2009
Fell asleep last night to the sound of pouring rain. It was really coming down hard. I don't even think it was in the forecast, but it arrived nonetheless. It was a pleasant sound and I am told that this area really needs the rain.
Woke up this morning filled with a sense of gratitude and even a kind of amazement at how this life is unfolding. I never could have planned for this and a couple of years ago when I was in overwhelming pain, I could never have imagined where I would be at this point in my life. But here I am. I am on this incredible journey—we have traveled over 5000 miles—and I have met so many people and seen places I never would have seen otherwise. I have been able to get a new appreciation for who I am and what my work is on the planet and for the wide range of landscape and beauty that exists across the northern part of this country. I have seen the differences and the commonalities between places and people. I have never been at a loss for things to observe, analyze, and think about. This is a trip that I will always remember, of course, but also one that will provide me with things to think about for the rest of my life. And for me, that's an important thing! I have also gained a deeper sense of possibility. We are living in a hugely dysfunctional society and seem to lack the will to change that. Oddly enough, though, the very fact that I have seen good people doing nothing gives me more hope than ever that we can save the planet. It may well not be the US that leads in this. I see no evidence that the will is here. But this country will collapse to a certain degree and that will give other people a chance to do things. And I believe that the only way enough people in the US will change is when there is no choice. Reality will dictate. Too bad, but really, the choices have been there and people have chosen poorly. Soon there won't be so much choice. And for the good of humanity as a whole, I think that this country will have to feel pain. The tragic thing is that it will take some time for the people who created the mess to feel this pain, and those who have never had much in the way of choice will suffer more. I have always wanted this to be otherwise. I used to think that surely, if only people realized how bad things were, they would choose differently. They would become more aware. They would think about other people or the long-term consequences of their actions. And going into this trip, I really thought that I would find some evidence that people are trying to make thoughtful and serious changes. I thought that churches would be taking this opportunity to remind people that there are things more important than a consumer lifestyle and that we're all in this together. Instead I found silence. Deafening silence. And I found people who live in complete ignorance of the fact that there's a world out there in which not everyone thinks the same way. I have lost hope and found it again. I have little hope left that this country will be able to change in ways that are sustainable and healthy. I have more hope than ever that other people in other places will heed the call. Being here makes me happy because I see—at least on the surface—a committed bunch of people living in healthy ways. There are not enough of them and it wouldn't work everywhere in exactly this way, but at least I have found some people who have an awareness and are willing to put that awareness into action and not just talk about it. This makes me glad. And now I know more surely than I ever did that I am not at home in this country. I never have been and I never will be. It may well be that I am doomed to perpetual disappointment. If that is to be the case, then so be it. I can live with that. That's another thing I have learned on this trip. I can be joyful in the midst of it all. But to do that I have to live my life in ways that are ethical and moral to me. I think I used to spend far to much time trying to find some little corner of the box to fit myself into. And now I am quite certain that the box that is US culture is far too small, far too confining, and doesn't have much to offer. I have to interact with the box, but I don't have to live in it. For me, there is no way in. So I guess the overarching discovery of this trip for me has been a sense of acceptance of what is. I don't mean acceptance in the sense that I thing everything's hunky-dory and now I'm going to settle down and be a good little United Statesian, but rather an acceptance of who I am and what this country is and how I need to maneuver through it all. I don't have to like things to accept them. I can accept that choices have been made and people are, by their lack of action and their ignorance, willing to go along with the way things are. I can accept the pain I feel that this is so. I can also accept that that way of life is totally unacceptable for me, so I choose otherwise. I can see the pain ahead and I can talk about things as I see them. In my experience people do not like this, even when it is the mildest of comments. I can accept this too. It is what it is. I am who I am. The universe is what it is. I just need to keep on educating myself and staying as awake and grounded as possible.
I have always been uncomfortable with thoughts like this because it sounds kind of condescending. But I was actually watching some show in some motel room and there were 4 different people talking about the health care debate. Jay Leno of all people said that people get what they deserve. They don't know what they're talking about, they don't care to educate themselves about the issue, and they just spout off these bumper sticker slogans that they hear on the news without knowing the first thing about what they're saying. The congresswoman next to him was pretty uncomfortable. But I think he was absolutely right. And he said it with an air of resignation about the whole thing. That's how I feel about it all. The only discomfort that remains for me is the knowledge that people without choices and without the same opportunities for education—either institutional education or self-education—will be the ones to bear the brunt of it all at first. By the time the powerful start feeling the pain, it'll be far too late.
And so midway through September I find myself at home in my own skin to a degree that I have never felt before. I am comfortable in my role as an outlier. I can embrace this and know that I could never be anything else. I am not sure I would know how to live in a place where I felt at home. I have always—from the time I was a small child—felt misplaced. That is what is normal for me. I live on the fringes and would be completely lost if I ever found myself smack in the center of anything. This used too bother me. And then I realized that this is where the growth happens—on the margins. Interaction, growth, expansion—it all starts at the edge and the edge is the world I inhabit. It's a good thing!

Alive!

2009-09-14T17:54:00.001-07:00

September 14, 2009
Another week begins. I have not felt this good in a while! I am energized and not tired. I woke up this morning and knew right away that something was different. I realized that I felt alive. But it was beyond that. Even when I was exhausted and my mind was foggy, I was aware that I did not have the oppressive feeling of deadness that I had been carrying around for years. It was always there, even on a good day in Klamath Falls. Sometimes I would feel like it was just sheer force of will that kept it from swallowing me whole. At some point in these past few months, it went away. I sometimes think about the days I spent in that house just trying so hard to get through each day—it was hard work to schedule myself and surround myself with what I needed to get through a day. I marvel at the fact that I did it. And now it's gone. I am grateful. The exhaustion I have felt over the past couple of weeks had more to do with a disrupted sleep pattern than any feeling of dread at facing another day. So this morning, after going to bed at 1:15 and sleeping through the night, I woke up at a reasonable hour and felt fabulous. This is how I work best. I am definitely not a morning person. But since sleeping in the tent necessitates a whole different system, it eventually caught up with me. But I was able to get a lot done yesterday and get back to a daily round that works for me. I can see the results!
We had an appointment to look at a place this evening, but it was too far out of town, which made it impractical for winter since there's no bus line out that far. We did find out that the local transit system includes express buses that go to Montpelier, Middlebury, and St. Albans, all of which are between 30 and 40 miles from Burlington in opposite directions. This means that we can expand our search, since we would be able to use the bus to get into the city in the winter. Bill does not want to have to rely on the truck. So now we have some leads in those places, too.
It rained like crazy yesterday morning! This guy came to Meeting on his bicycle and when he came in for the book discussion and removed his backpack, I could see a little wet dog head. He carried his dachshund in the backpack and the poor little guy was soaked. Cute dog, though. He was a good Quaker dog and sat quietly through the discussion and then Meeting, running around to greet everyone at the end!
Today was really nice. It was so peaceful sitting outside and reading this afternoon. It's supposed to start cooling down into the 60s during the day and the 40s at night starting tomorrow. The leaves are starting to change faster now. I am not really sure when peak foliage season is supposed to be, but it's a big deal around here. Today we saw some chicken breakfast sausage with Vermont blueberries and maple syrup. They are purple. I had to get a package to try. Last week we had some of the fatter sausage that was chicken and apple with Vermont syrup. Those were really good! Pick-your-own is getting started now and I might do some of that if we find a place before the season ends. I was able to get a Vermont tomato and a bag of local apples in the grocery store. I missed the Farmer's Market Saturday because of my migraine. Maybe this coming Saturday we will be able to go. There is a huge local food movement around here, which I think is great! It looks like we will have to learn to eat fewer potatoes, since we are no longer in potato growing territory. Some come from Maine, I guess. But there are lots of other things that offset the lack of local potatoes! Next Monday, Paul Roberts, who wrote, The End of Food, which is a great book, is giving a free lecture at UVM. I wrote it down so we can remember to go. There is just so much going on here—it is a very vibrant community. The community seems alive, too. There are lots of people from somewhere else here. I hadn't really thought of that before we got here, because my experiences with New England have been the opposite, both when I lived in New Hampshire in the 70s and 80s and had people openly expressing their unhappiness that outsiders were moving in, and when we visited Maine a few years ago. New Hampshire may well be very different now than it was then. But this place most certainly is not insulated or isolated. I am sure that there must be tensions between the newcomers and the old-timers, and it will be interesting to see how that all plays out as we learn more about the dynamics of community here. I think that the fact that there are people from all over is a good thing, because new ideas are always welcome. Well, they are not exactly welcome everywhere. But they are welcome to me and they seem to be welcome here, so maybe that's a good sign!

Discomfort

2009-09-13T17:42:00.001-07:00

September 13, 2009
Bill just finished watching the first game of a doubleheader. Last night's game was called in the 6th inning due to rain. But it was a complete game and the Sox won, so he's happy. They won the game that just finished, too. Looks like they will probably get the wild card spot in the American League. He has good memories of listening the the Red Sox as a kid. I listened to the White Sox, being in Illinois. We went to games sometimes at the old Comiskey Park when I was a kid and when we were first married, Bill and I used to go to Fenway Park and sit in the bleachers. It was fun. I used to really be into that stuff. Gradually I just stopped paying attention. The second game is at 5.

We went to Burlington Friends Meeting again this morning. There was a great first discussion about Quakers and racism. A book discussion is starting in a couple of weeks about the book, Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship by Donna McDaniel and Vanessa Julye. I think it will be a very interesting set of discussions, if this morning is any indication. People had very insightful and thoughtful things to say. I am looking forward to it.
I did experience some discomfort as we started to gather, though. There is a woman and her daughter that attend the meeting. They are fairly new in town as well and this woman had written a letter for inclusion in the newsletter, which I picked up last week, that asked for any possible leads in finding a place to live and she laid out what her needs were. Based on that, I assumed that she had chemical sensitivity. But she was also sitting in meeting last week and seemed to be fine. There was no mention of this problem. I am sure that regular attenders are aware of the issue, but most of the people last week were visiting so would not have known. Presumably, they had used soap, shampoo, and other personal grooming items. I say this because this morning, the woman and her daughter were sitting there wearing masks. Bill had gone off to the bathroom when suddenly someone was asking, “Are you wearing SCENT?” I didn't even realize at first that she was speaking to me. As it slowly dawned on me that she was looking at me. I shook my head no. “What about HIM?” she asked, sort of moving her chin in the general direction of the bathroom. I shook my head again. Then I realized I'd showered that morning and said I had used shampoo and soap. The woman with the mask said, “I am getting a migraine already.” This was repeated three times. Another woman was busily opening windows in an effort to solve the problem. I was unsure what to do. I mean, if we had known this would be an issue we could've stayed away or something, but there was no problem last week and the only reason I thought there could be an issue before we showed up was because I guessed based on her letter. Anyway, the first woman who spoke proceeded to lecture me about how they all use natural products. Natural scents are usually OK, but regular products have chemical scents and those decidedly are NOT OK. Now, I felt terrible because this poor masked woman was now going to experience a migraine and maybe even have a ruined day. I felt bad for being the cause of this, however inadvertent. But I didn't know whether to leave or what I should do. We stayed. After the discussion was meeting for worship and she and her daughter left. Again, if this was because I showered this morning, I am sorry about the way it turned out. But mainly I was struck by the other woman who took this really obnoxious tone as she lectured me about what kind of personal hygiene products I should be using. I realized, being on the receiving end, that there is a nice way and a not-so-nice way to state your views and this was a reminder to be careful in doing that. It also occurred to me that it's very easy to make assumptions about people and how they live. The incredulous manner in which she seemed to ask whether I was wearing SCENT indicated to me that the very idea was outrageous. It is also true that she was making some assumptions about class in her remarks. There was never any question in her tone or in what she said that we should all be using NATURAL products. This is probably a great idea. But not everyone can pay for these things. Buying specialty products is expensive—whether it is cleaning stuff for the home or personal grooming items. I am all for natural, but the fact of the matter is, like many other people, I make decisions about how I will spend my money and I am more likely to use less of something such as laundry detergent or shampoo than to buy items that are several times more expensive. I could spend $5 or more on a bar of soap or I could use the little ones that someone didn't use at a motel and spend that $5 on food or something. Is it better for the environment to use more natural products? In many cases it probably is, but sometimes it's all just a gimmick. Many people could not even think about spending the extra money on a bottle of natural shampoo, for example, when they can buy Suave for 79 cents and use the rest of the money on something else they need. And even if you buy some natural product, it still comes wrapped in plastic in one form or another. Of course, it is also possible that this is just the way this person communicates and I am reading too much into the whole thing. Even if that is the case, there's a lesson here. The truth is, I found her manner off-putting and I am far less likely to want to talk to her anytime soon. I thought she was kind of rude and certainly not at all (F)friendly. Not that she gives a crap about what I think! Still, it provided some food for thought and I am always happy when that happens! Not sure what we will do moving forward. I have a bunch of little motel soaps—a few that we've collected over the past couple of months, and a bunch that a friend gave us. I have other stuff that I bought on sale and still have. I am sure that there is other stuff that is not quite so full of chemicals, but I am not going to throw away what I have to buy some other stuff when I don't even know what is acceptable. I am thinking that since there was no issue last week, perhaps if we are in the larger meeting room and I sit farther away, it might be OK. There is no book discussion next week, so I won't have to risk sitting in the smaller room and ruining this woman's day. I don't have a problem with trying to accommodate her, but in order to do that I need to be able to know what is going on. I mean, I have some empathy for her. I am fairly sensitive to various things as well, so I know to some degree what that's like, even though it is not nearly as bad for me as for her. I wanted to talk to her—she had been knitting something and I wanted to ask her about that and other things, but I figured it wouldn't be good to get close to her. So I am left wondering whether my very presence next week will be a problem for her. And the next time I feel like saying something to someone I can remember this morning and be mindful of how I say it.

Headache and the Aftermath

2009-09-13T17:41:00.001-07:00

September 12, 2009
Woke up today with a pounding headache and a clogged head. I took an OTC allergy pill, which eased a tiny bit of the pressure. Then I took an OTC migraine pill. I knew I should eat something, but was afraid it wouldn't stay down. I felt a film of sweat all over and I could not breathe well. I just couldn't take a deep breath. I ate an apple. Then I was freezing. When that happens, I know it's time to lay down, so that's what I did. I fell back to sleep. When I woke up it must've been about 11. I ate some Cheerios with a banana and had some coffee.

Then we headed out to look at Middlebury. They were having a storytelling festival. I knew it wouldn't be the kind of story work that we do, but we wanted to check it out. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, I still had some headache left and while that went away after we'd walked around a bit, I was feeling the usual aftermath. I was utterly exhausted and foggy. We found the Folklife Center and went inside. The speakers were in a tiny room that was full to overflowing; it was roasting in there; and there was some kind of smell emanating from the gift shop that was just not working for me. One of the things that happens to me when I get a migraine is an extreme sensitivity to smell. There was a photo exhibit that Bill wanted to look at, so Heather and I waited outside. It was humid and uncomfortably warm. On the way back to Shelburne, it got cooler and rained a little. It was a pleasant ride and Middlebury is a nice town.

We moved from the campground on Friday morning. We came to the Shelburne Camping area. They have these nifty little cottages. It's just one room for the 3 of us and one thing we miss about camping is that we at least get some privacy when we all retire to our tents. They do have 2 room cottages here, but they are significantly more expensive, of course, and we decided that the money could be better spent elsewhere. In any case, it has been nice to have something of a kitchen. The refrigerator is not as small as the tiny one we had last weekend in the motel room. It's not full-size either, but it's big enough. And the freezer actually works quite well. The oven works great. There's a toaster and a small coffeemaker. The stove reminds me of the one we had when we lived in North Pole. It was my only experience having a gas stove and it was one I don't care to repeat. It had two temperature settings—high or off. I could not simmer anything. I ended up using my countertop electric burner for many things, since the gas stove was so crappy.

This one is the same. But at least the flame is higher than the one we get on our camping stove, so stuff cooks faster! Anyway, it's a simple place—no sheets on the bed, no towels, washcloths or little bars of soap in the bathroom, which is why the price is reasonable, I suppose. I was shocked when we first got to town and discovered that the Super 8 charged $141 for one night on a Friday or a Saturday. That is not a luxury hotel by any means! But this place is comfortable and clean. It takes less time to do little things here than it did at the campground, so I am hoping that means I can be more productive in other areas. I have all kinds of ideas about how to fill all of the time I will save on things like making coffee, cooking, getting to the campground sink to wash dishes and walking back and forth to the bathroom. Plus, I can take advantage of the wonders of electric lights to work further into the night! It was disappointing to not be able to do as much as I wanted to today because of my headache and the aftermath, but tomorrow is another day!
Last night, before we left the campground, we saw this guy with his leaf blower blowing the leaves from his rug thing that was outside his RV. I was amazed—not only that he was doing that, but that as they were getting ready for their trip he had the thought that he should bring the leaf blower with him! I don't think I would think of that!
We left at the right time. The rain held off until this morning. It rained pretty hard there for awhile.

Bill has been trying to watch the Red Sox game, since our little cottage has a TV and cable, so he gets the New England Sports Network. He used to listen to the radio broadcasts of the games via the web, but now he is back in his home territory (well, kind of—New Englanders make clear distinctions between people based on what part of the region you're from), so he can tune in via radio or TV. Unfortunately for him, last night's game was rained out. Tonight's was delayed for 2 ½ hours. Doubleheader tomorrow. I have been reading and crocheting—working on the lace shawl I am making for my friend. I am almost at the halfway point!

When we were in Middlebury this afternoon I saw a couple of hats in a shop window. One was constructed out of rectangular pieces of fabric and one was squares on old sweaters. I liked both of them. Bill commented that they were nice and I replied that they were, indeed nice, but they would be nicer in yarn, and once I make myself one, it will be nicer! So I was thinking about that, too.

Another Day

2009-09-10T07:56:00.000-07:00

September 10, 2009
We're back at the library--plugged in and online. One more night at the campground and then we will be elsewhere while we see whether it rains. It was cold last night! And being by the lake, damp, too. I think we are going to try to find a place where we can get some kind of weekly rate. It is getting increasingly tiresome to be moving every couple of days. We end up packing the truck, then going somewhere and unpacking, setting up the campsite or taking it apart. It eats up a good part of the energy I have for the day and we need to be doing other stuff. And besides, we are not sure how long the weather will hold out. As Bill pointed out this morning, if our stuff gets wet, it will take a long time to dry because the sunny and hot days that would take care of it are probably behind us. And I don't need a bunch of stuff ruined by mildew. But we will see what will happen. Everything will work itself out.
We ended up not going to look at that apartment after all yesterday afternoon because the person left us a message saying it was only for 1 person. Guess that wasn't the place for us. We've found one that sounds better in many ways and have contacted the person to try and look at it. We await her reply.
Heard from a guy at the Parks and Recreation Department. I had contacted him about possibly doing a class there. He sent me the proposal paperwork. It was good to get a reply!
Yesterday afternoon we drove up to St Albans to check it out. There is an available apartment there. We wanted to see how feasible it would be to live there. It's a nice little town—we stopped and had our picnic lunch in the park—but we both felt that it wasn't going to work for us. It's 30 miles from Burlington and we do not want to have to make that trip on a regular basis. So we would have to plan to spend most of our time in St Albans itself and there just didn't seem to be enough there for that to work out well. Today we will check out some other places around here so that we get some idea of where to look for an apartment and where not to look.
After we were done with all we had to do yesterday, we went back to the campsite and I made some coffee. Then we went to the beach. It was a beautiful day—not at all hot. I brought some crocheting and sat there working on a big lace shawl. It was wonderful!
Today it's supposed to be in the high 60s-low 70s. Should be another great day!

Fog, Calm, Exile

2009-09-09T07:56:00.001-07:00

September 9, 2009
I think there's something happening downtown today in honor of 09-09-09. I forget what it is. This is not surprising! I am walking around in a fog! This is not a bad thing, really, because it keeps me calm. Without my weariness, I would probably be completely stressed out at having to run around trying to find a place to live and settling in. But I'm too tired for that, so instead of being stressed, I am able to be very calm and composed. I know that things will unfold in their own good time. This morning I stuck my head into the back of the truck to get something—the peanut butter, I think—and I had to just stop and stand there for a minute as I tried to remember what I was doing. Eventually I found the peanut butter—how far could it have gone, after all—I just put it back there yesterday afternoon! After our experience in St. Ignace where the squirrel came and took our jar of peanut butter into the woods, I am very careful about leaving stuff out. So the back of the truck is now my moveable pantry.
We are back at the campground until Friday morning when there is rain expected. It's far less crowded now than it was when we left. It's a nice place. The bathrooms are clean and the beach and a bike path are right there. Lake Champlain is quite beautiful. Last night as the sun was setting over the lake, there were some clouds in the sky and there was a big orange sun lighting them from behind. Unfortunately, we were driving down Main St at the time and Bill was unable to get a photo. Maybe tonight. This morning, everything is very blue—the lake, the mountains across the lake, the sky. The lake looks a little choppy. And there is a slight hint of foliage on some of the trees at the campground. The squirrels are busy gathering food. You never know when acorns are going to rain down on your head, tent, or truck. Last week we watched two squirrels chasing each other in an effort to determine who would get a particular tree. They were running around and around the trunk of the tree in a spiral. It's been interesting to observe how different creatures behave. Back in Hardin, MT Bill dropped a walnut. Before long, the ants had organized themselves and were being very methodical as they swarmed the nut, taking away tiny pieces that were barely visible. They would march back in a procession to place these little pieces in their proper spots and then come back for another piece. We sat there for quite awhile watching them. Then Bill decided to freak them out by moving a small stone that they were walking over. It messed up their system and they had to regroup. But they did. By the next day, the nut was gone. Anyway, it's nice being outside after the motel room. The air is fresh and the scenery is beautiful.
Yesterday I got chatty emails from 3 friends in Klamath Falls. It made my day! I do not miss living there, but I do miss many people and it was nice to hear how things are going for them. And the fact that they all had good things to report was even better!
Today we have an appointment at 4 to go look at an apartment in Winooski, which is a couple of miles up the road. We realized right away that we might not be able to rent right in the city of Burlington, because of the two colleges. Rents are high and many apartments are not in good shape. And since there are two colleges right on Main St (!) scarcity is an issue. So we are prepared to look elsewhere. We're going to take a ride up to St Albans to see what that is like as well.
The other day I was finishing a book by Sam Keen called To a Dancing God. It's an old one, first written in 1970. In one part of the book he was talking about the idea of being in exile. This is something that I have thought about in terms of my own situation ever since I read Gerda Lerner's autobiography several years ago. Anyway, Keen was saying that people in exile either look back to the past and create a nostalgic glow around it, or they look forward to someday and figure their real life will start there. I do not look nostalgically back to my past—that has never been my problem. But I do end up doing the “someday” thing. I am not sure that I stop living in order to save it up for someday, but I do tend to be doing one thing and thinking about how it will impact the somedays in the future. I do spend a great deal of time planning. It fits in with my difficulties living in the moment and I think also has something to do with wanting to control outcomes. I had so little control as a kid that I always was trying to prepare myself for the (bad) things that were to come. When I got older, I tried to control things so that no bad things would happen. Not a successful enterprise. I would spend endless amounts of time figuring out what might happen and preparing for each and every thing I could think of. Problem was, if I thought of 27 things that might happen, it was usually something #29 that actually showed up, and naturally, I hadn't planned for that. So there I was. At least I know what I am doing now. I can see myself falling into that and stop myself when necessary. Or at least I try to stop myself by reminding myself that I have little or no control over most things. What I can control is my own response, so maybe the best thing would be for me to keep my mental self in good order so that I can deal with whatever comes up. This isn't easy for me. But I'm getting better at it and the truth is, it makes for a much better life. So I'll keep on plugging away at it!

One Moment at a Time

2009-09-08T07:21:00.001-07:00

September 7, 2009
Feeling better today. There is much potential here in Burlington. I am trying not to get too excited, because I want to avoid a repeat of what happened when I moved to Klamath Falls. I figure this is a chance to do it better this time. There are some things I can do in order to try and move in a positive direction and tomorrow when I can get back online at the library, I will do them. And then I will take it one moment at a time. I'm not really good at that. But I'm getting better. When I was at my lowest point—2 years ago now—and I had to find some way of dealing with things, Buddhist concepts that I found in books and in podcasts really helped me. And they continue to do so today. With technology being what it is, there are a number of teachings available. I am grateful for this. I try to listen to a dharma talk most nights before I go to sleep. I find that many of the practices are very helpful in many ways as I go through my day-to-day life. It's just very empowering to realize that I have the ability to handle whatever happens in a healthy and productive way. I have known many people who do not handle their pain, but rather try to bury it. This never works of course, but people still try. The other night I was laying in the tent listening to a talk and the woman was talking about trusting yourself. One of the things she said was that we do not do a very good job of self-examination in this culture. Amen to that, sister! And yet, this is a crucial activity. We have to know who we are before we can engage in any meaningful way with others and the culture around us. I have a tendency to go too far in the opposite direction. I am always analyzing everything and I have spent much time in self-examination. This has not always been a good thing. So, like with everything else, balance is needed. There's a reason Buddhists talk about the Middle Path :-) Anyway, one thing I have learned about myself through all of this self-examination is that I am stronger than I thought I was. And I know what kind of life I want to live. Maybe I will be able to do it and maybe I won't. Some things are just out of my control. But what I do know is that I can deal with things as they come. And I have plenty of ideas in my head to keep myself occupied.
We did some laundry today. There was a sign up at the laundromat that said, “WiFi Available,” so I got out my computer and tried to connect. The only available network was labeled, “Doesn't Work and Easily Hacked.” Not a great sign. I skipped it and read instead while I waited for the laundry.
Other than that we didn't do too much. It was kind of nice, although this motel is not the most wonderful place I have ever been in. The other day our “neighbor” was screaming obscenities. I was waiting to hear gunshots or screams—I thought he was yelling at someone in person and was concerned about possible abuse. Then we heard him threaten to hang up and we knew he was on the phone. We leave in the morning. Assuming that there will be space at the campground once the holiday weekend has ended, we will go back there tomorrow. Then we will head to the library to post some things on Craigslist and send a few emails—I picked up a community education booklet the other day and want to contact them about the possibility of teaching a class or two through their program.. We will probably go to the South Burlington library instead of the one downtown because it's easier to park and you don't have to feed the meter. They have a very comfortable computer room with plugs. There's a whole lot of interesting stuff going on there, too. It's pretty amazing. It's a really small place in the high school building. You wouldn't expect it to have so much happening, but there are several book discussion groups, upcoming lectures on really interesting topics, and even a knitting group on Wednesday nights! I am looking forward to being able to attend some of these events.
Part of me is still tired. Yesterday I caught a look at myself in the mirror as I was brushing my teeth and had to take off my glasses to see whether the bags under my eyes really are multiplying or whether it was just the light. They were multiplying. But there's another part of me that doesn't really care about the weariness or the bags under my eyes and is just really interested in observing how this all turns out. This is certainly not a boring ride, this life. So even though I sometimes have a bad day, mostly I am grateful to be able to live it. As Bill would say, “It is what it is.” Might as well focus on the good parts and enjoy them!

Timing

2009-09-06T11:31:00.000-07:00

September 5, 2009
So we packed up this morning, stopped at the Farmer's Market, walked around the pedestrian mall area on Church St., and went to the motel room. I wondered why the door was open again as it had been when we went to reserve the room. I began to think maybe it would not close. But when we got in and closed the door, we knew why. There is a smell of urine, probably coming from the carpet. Not too pleasant, but not overpowering. In any case, by the time we got there, there was a “No Vacancy” sign on the office door. It's not like we had too many places to choose from. I was a little bit depressed, though, to be honest. I wandered around and looked at all of the great local food at the market and felt crummy because I couldn't cook any. And then there was the fact of the motel room. I had a few bad minutes where I just thought that after coming all this way and traveling for so long, only to end up in that place was just too much. But I got over it. I am never good at waiting for things. Now that I'm here, I want to settle in, start cooking and baking in my own kitchen, get a library card, get involved in a bunch of stuff, and just generally get to know this community that I will live in for awhile. But this is a different kind of move for us and will require some different ways of doing things. So we're in a liminal state right now. We're kind of stopped and sort of not. We're in between. And that will just have to be OK. And I will just have to get used to it, whether I really want to or not! Anyway, I know that what will happen eventually is that I will have gotten to know this area. I may like it, I may not. But I will get restless either way. And I will then have to start getting ready to go elsewhere. It's sometimes tiresome to be this way. Periodically I wonder what it would be like to find a place, put down deep roots and stay there for a long time—like decades. And then I start to imagine it and I feel trapped and confined. I always get bored after awhile. That's just the way I'm made. So it's a better idea to accept this about myself than to try to do something else. But now is not the time to worry about all of that. I just got here. And while it is true that we hope our stay here will not be overly long, because we really want to go to Ireland, we have learned that things happen in their own good time and there's not much I can do about it. So I will try to relax and enjoy the ride!! We're all still tired, so since there's not a whole lot of practical stuff we can do over the holiday weekend, we might as well try to get some rest.

Burlington

2009-09-06T11:16:00.000-07:00

September 3, 2009
Well, we made it to Burlington. My first impression is good—seems like a very vibrant town. And there are lots of progressive people doing good work. At least it seems like it. I guess only time will tell whether that is real or just an illusion. I will not be surprised either way. My time in Klamath Falls has taught me to go into any situation with as few expectations as possible. I am not sure that completely doing away with expectations is possible, but when I find myself getting too enthusiastic and excited, I remind myself about all I have been through in the past 5 years and I sober up pretty quickly. On the one hand, this is a somewhat effective defense mechanism. On the other, I find it kind of sad that I now live my life expecting disappointment. Maybe I will be able to get past that someday.
We had an interesting first afternoon. We got to the campground where we'd planned to stay and found out that they only had a campsite available for Thursday night and Friday night. So we had to find somewhere else to go on Saturday for the rest of the holiday weekend. All of the other area campgrounds were also full.

So we found the library and so I could connect to the web and search for a place to stay. I found a few that were outrageously expensive, but at least it was something. I found a place that was cheaper, but the website didn't have any way to check for availability. So we went outside and called before we left our parking spot. The guy said he had a room, so we went over and he let us look at it. It was shabby, and not what I normally would've chosen, but it was clean enough. So we reserved it. Then we found the grocery store.

By then we were able to get into our campsite, so we went and set up. It's a fairly nice place.

Later, we walked down the trail to see Lake Champlain. What a beautiful site. We're all pretty tired, so it will probably be an early night.

Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

2009-09-02T18:57:00.000-07:00

September 2, 2009
It was a beautiful day in Vermont! We woke up to fog covering the trees and hills. After breakfast, we headed out to Thetford, a small town about 10 miles from here where Bill used to live. He saw a house that he used to live in. Another road that he wanted to take was blocked by a concrete barrier. Then we went to Hanover, NH, parked the truck and walked around. By then it was sunny, but pleasant. Not too hot and the sun did not have anywhere near the intensity it has in Klamath Falls.

After lunch, we went back to the Welcome Center in town and back to the food coop.

Then it was off to Quechee Gorge, with a stop on the way at the Cabot Cheese Store. We got to sample several kinds of yummy cheese. They had some cheese that was encrusted with various flavors. Butter, too, though we didn't have a chance to sample that. Still, it seems like it would be easy enough to make. When I get a kitchen again I will have to try it. I saw a book put out by King Arthur Flour about whole grain baking and I was reminded again how much I am looking forward to settling down for awhile and having a chance to cook and bake again. Quechee Gorge hasn't changed much in the 28 years since I saw it last—at least not that I noticed. I still got slightly dizzy looking down at the bottom.

We walked down a path through the woods to get to the visitor's center. It was quite lovely—trees, shade, squirrels—and pretty quiet.
Tomorrow morning we head out for Burlington. We will check out a campground in town and see about staying there for the next several days, since the weather is supposed to be good. No rain in the forecast until late next week. I think it will be somewhat frustrating to have to wait over the holiday weekend before trying to find a place to live. We have no idea how long that will take. I hope it doesn't take too terribly long for several reasons. First off, though the campground is open until mid-October (ready to take those foliage-watchers), it will presumably be getting somewhat cold at night. We could deal with that if we had to. But it is also the case that it takes lots of effort to live in a tent and we have things we need to do, so it would be easier to not have to expend energy unnecessarily. And, there is the fact that we are looking forward to being settled for at least a little while. I am sure that in the spring I will feel my usual restlessness. But I am always a winter hibernation kind of person and I am getting into that mode. And I want to be able to cook and bake and that kind of thing, as I said earlier. But this isn't really something that we have control over, so we will just do what we need to do and deal with whatever comes. We have had lots of practice doing that.
The truck has been nice and quiet since last Friday, when we brought it to American Tire and Automotive on Route 22 in Green Brook, NJ. They were great. We had an 8 a.m. appointment and they took it in right on time. They had a clean, comfortable waiting room with really good coffee. They came out and told Bill that it was his U-joint that was the problem. And the front shocks needed to be replaced. Neither of these things was a surprise, since he had done some research on the web. What was a surprise was the price. One of the things Bill was able to do was to get an estimate for that area. We thought it would cost between $750 and $1000, and hoped it wouldn't go higher. It was $500. And Bill had found a coupon on their website, but couldn't print it out, so he asked them if he could use it anyway. They got one for him and took $20 off of the price. I took home some cards and recommended them to my aunt, cousin, and cousin's daughter. They also gave me some coupon books to hand out, so I did that as well. We were really pleased with the way it all turned out.
The adventure continues!

Vermont

2009-09-01T17:24:00.001-07:00

August 31, 2009
We left NJ this morning, heading for Springfield, MA. I got the directions from a website. I had no idea they would take me over the George Washington Bridge and through a part of Manhattan. It was not fun. There were far too many cars piloted by aggressive drivers. I am sure that they have to be that way in order to survive out there, but it was highly stressful for me. At one point, Bill thought he'd gone the wrong way and there were no signs on the road telling us where we were, so we had to ask at the tollbooth. We were on the right road. Phew! It was crazy! I was so glad to be out of that mess. Then once we got beyond Stamford, CT, things eased up and we were out of the urban insanity. Bill told me that Springfield is the second largest city in Massachusetts. I did not know that. In any case, it was a pleasant afternoon. Bill lived here decades ago, but of course it all looked unfamiliar.

September 1, 2009
We're in Vermont!! YIPPEE!! It is beautiful here. Green everywhere. As heather pointed out, the very name of the state means “green mountain” and that is what we're surrounded by. OK, so they aren't exactly mountains by Alaska or even Oregon standards. But they are green, with just a hint of yellow and red starting. Soon the color will explode, I guess.

We stopped at a welcome center that was really nice—we got lots of information and there was some great art to look at—including a textured woven rug and a knitted baby sweater.

We got to White River Junction at midday. Bill lived here in the 70s and he was able to recognize some things. We will stay here until Thursday so he has a chance to explore his old stomping grounds and then we will move along to Burlington on the last leg of our trip. We are about 90 miles away now.

Unfair and Unbalanced

2009-09-01T17:06:00.000-07:00

August 28, 2009
I successfully made the sausage and peppers. Left them simmering for 2 ½ hours. They came out great! Now I know the new system.
I have been watching a lot of Fox News. This is new for me. I have not had cable for almost 15 years and even if I had access, it isn't the kind of thing I would normally turn on. But it has been interesting to watch the rhetorical devices they use in order to appear credible. Some of the people I have seen seem like they genuinely believe the stuff they are saying. For some of them, it all seems like a cynical ploy to make a few bucks. Either way, they engage in some pretty shady tactics. One guy in particular seemed like a lunatic. He spent a great deal of time yelling about a bunch of unconnected things, including communists. Are we still harping on that old stuff? Conservatives have been assuring us that the communists are coming for over half a century. They haven't shown up yet. For awhile, we were told to be very afraid of the terrorists, but they seem to be an afterthought now as they run terrified from the Obama administration, which is apparently teeming with communists. If you listen to Fox News for even a few minutes, you will get the impression that any minute now, we will be overrun with commies. It's all in the works right now, according to the conspiracy theorists on TV. At one point the guy had a chalkboard with a bunch of stuff written all over it and he was trying to make some point by writing “OLIGARH” across the top. He asked, “What letter is missing?” He didn't listen when I was yelling at him that he forgot the “C” because he insisted that the missing letter was “Y.” So he had “OLIGARHY.” OK. He probably goes on about immigrants learning English, too. He might want to try that sometime—learning English, that is. I mean, he didn't catch it, his editing team didn't catch it. I'm sure plenty of people in the audience are busy trying to figure out what an “oligarhy” is. Any credibility he had—which was admittedly microscopic—vanished at that little scene. In addition to being unable to spell, he spent a great deal of time in a hysterical diatribe against something that had to do with President Obama. Unfortunately his ability to accurately listen to and comprehend English was as bad as his spelling. He showed a clip of Obama talking about a “civilian intelligence agency.” As he ranted, there was a scroll at the bottom of the screen that talked about the “civilian security force.” Quite a different idea. After he had run that scroll for a few minutes he began to use that language in his rant as well. On a different evening he showed a clip of the diversity specialist at the FCC talking about Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, mentioning the “democratic revolution.” On the transcript they showed on the screen, the word they had instead of “democratic” was “dramatic.” Later, they had “incredible.” By the third time—when I bet many people had stopped paying much attention since it was so repetitive—he put up the correct word. So the basic structure of the show is that the guy starts out calmly and very apologetically talking about the bad news he is forced to pass on to the audience. No one has disputed anything he has said, except for a few minor details, though they have attacked him personally. He does not worry for himself about the forthcoming takeover of the airwaves by the communists, because he will be just fine, thank you. No, it is simply concern about his fellow countrymen that drives him. We should all be very scared. I am a little, but not for the same reasons as this nut. As he talks, he gets more and more agitated until he is almost foaming at the mouth. Then suddenly, he stops the rant and looks sincerely at the camera and says—and this is something they all did, the sane ones and the nuts—that this is not a partisan issue. It is not a Democrat or Republican issue. No, it is something we all must worry about. I find this pretense that they are not partisan interesting. Since people in this country are sick and tired of the divisiveness we've experienced over the past 8 years, that old crap doesn't work anymore, so they pretend to be genuinely concerned about everyone. It was almost humorous to watch guests from the Bush administration talking in serious tones about the dangers of having so much power consolidated in Washington (!) and the threats to personal liberty. Almost humorous, but not quite. I was not sure how they could sit there and say this stuff with a straight face.
I watched a woman attempt to play this game. She had one one person from each side. Before she began the interview I turned to my daughter and told her, 'You watch what will happen now. The woman in the red dress (the Republican, naturally) will be able to speak freely and without interruption. When the Democrat attempts to speak, she will be continually interrupted and not even allowed to finish a sentence.” And that is exactly what happened. I was told that many people on the station are lawyers. This explains their ability to use language in skillful ways that are not exactly honest. A totally different crew was showing clips of a congresswoman talking to her constituents. She mentioned that she'd met Fidel Castro and she found him to be one of the brightest leaders she'd met. When the commentators started talking, they twisted this all kinds of ways—she was a full supporter of Castro, she backed him, she basically agreed with everything he said. Again, this inability to understand English properly is pretty disturbing. Or they are deliberately twisting people's words on a regular basis (ya think?) because they know they can make it seem like people are saying things they are not. Because this happened on several shows at different times of the day, I must conclude that this is a deliberate strategy on their part. How else to whip people into a frenzy of fear? Because make no mistake, this is what they are (still) doing. I wonder how long it can work. How long will the conservatives spread fear far and wide and have people fall for it? They are going on and on about the “health care bill.” Never mind that there is nothing resembling a bill that is about to go to the White House for signature. There is a House bill. Everyone (or so I thought) knows that now the Senate needs to craft a bill, vote on it, and then IF it passes, get together with representatives from the House to hammer out a compromise. We are far from having “a bill.” But accuracy won't get them anywhere so they resort to falsehood and twisting the truth. And the thing that gets me is that they keep talking about what will happen, as though everything will stay the same even if we do get a health care bill passed. But this is short-sighted. One change leads to other changes. You don't make serious changes and expect other things to remain the same. It doesn't work that way. Maybe this is where the fear comes from. Because I do believe that underneath everything, this is what drives this—fear. People are terrified of change. At one point, one of the commentators said that Ted Kennedy's vision had not been fulfilled, so why the accolades? “We have never adopted the things he has wanted to do,” she said. And I so wanted to respond, 'Yeah, and look at where we are today. How's the status quo working for you people?” I guess for the people at Fox, they're working pretty well. They have nice jobs that require them to do very little. Thinking is not required. They can just rant and spout a bunch of nonsense and collect the paycheck. That's nice for them. Too bad for the rest of us.

At The Jersey Shore

2009-09-01T16:10:00.000-07:00

August 27, 2009
So on Monday I watched how the sausage and peppers are made. The secret is in the slow cooking. I have made them myself on many occasions, but they never tasted quite like Aunt Marie's. I took about 15 or 20 minutes to cook mine, she took about 2 ½ hours. Now I know. And boy did it all taste good!!

On Tuesday we gathered some stuff and headed for the house down at the shore. I have not been there since the 1970s. Bill had never been there, and of course Heather had not been born yet the last time I was there.

We took Babe, the little white fluffball dog, with us. She would've missed Marie terribly if she'd been left at the house. She had a tendency to get carsick, so I covered my lap with a big towel and had a pile of napkins with me just in case. She made it almost to the house when she threw up. No harm done, except that poor Babe was a bit jittery for the rest of the day as she got used to a new environment. Bill and I took her out for many long walks in the couple of days we were there. She was fine after awhile.

Everything was so built up. When I was last there, the house was new and there were not as many houses there. Now there are lagoons and houses everywhere. But it was nice to be there again.

On Wednesday we went to Long Beach Island and the Barnegat Light. We walked along the boardwalk and enjoyed the view. Bill took lots of photos. Marie and Babe sat under the gazebo and Babe happily accepted a bunch of attention from the kids that walked by.

Later we went and got some amazingly excellent New Jersey pizza. The crust was just right—nice and floppy. And Bill and I split a sub. That was just right, too. It was a real Italian sub, not the sort of pseudo-Italian ones I've been eating for the past decades :-)
On Thursday we went home and again Babe almost made it before she got sick.

Poor little puppy—her day got even worse after that as she got a bath, which she hates. Then she got a blow dry, but not her head—she puts her foot down about that! Tomorrow I will try my hand at sausage and peppers.

Anniversary in New Jersey

2009-09-01T06:03:00.000-07:00

August 22, 2009
We're in New Jersey! I have not been here in 12 years and before that it was 10. I spent lots of time here as a kid because most of my mother's side of the family lived here. We're staying with my Aunt Marie—she looks just the same! She still lives in the same house that I used to visit and stay in when I would hang around with my cousin. So much of the surrounding area looks completely different, as you would expect, but then some familiar thing jumps out and I find myself saying, “Oh yeah, I remember that.” Anyway, it is kind of strange to be in this house where some things look different and some things are the same.

We have met the dog, Babe, and commenced with the fussing and spoiling. We plan to go down to the house at the shore, which I have not been to in over 30 years, and Bill wants to get his truck looked at. For now, I am just enjoying being here and catching up with my aunt!

August 23, 2009
Today is our 29th anniversary. I never would have guessed that I would be spending it in New Jersey! Life takes us in interesting directions sometimes. It doesn't really matter where I spend the day, though, as long as I'm with Bill. Our marriage has been the thing that I am the most grateful for in my life.

Aunt Marie took us to see the spot where my Nana's house used to be. After she died, a developer bought the houses and property and is building some new McMansions. You would never know what it used to look like. That makes it easier somehow, because there are no traces of what it used to be and I have my memories. Then we went to the cemetery where we saw her vault, as well as that of my grandfather and uncle. We went back to the house for awhile and then Aunt Marie took us out to lunch at a place called Panera Bakery. It was really good. I'd seen the signs on the highways, but had never heard of the place before that. I had some broccoli-cheddar soup and a turkey sandwich. Yum! Tomorrow, she is going to show me how she makes her sausage and peppers. Tuesday, we go down to the shore house.

Almost

2009-09-01T05:41:00.000-07:00

August 21, 2009
Interesting day. Good thing we got the wipers replaced on the truck. We were driving across Pennsylvania and entered a fog area—lots of hills and valleys around. The sky was dark. Before long, it was like night. It was only 10 in the morning, but the sky looked like it was nine at night. The rain started. Then it poured. It was coming down in sheets! We were on this narrow bit of road with two lanes and a very small shoulder area. Bill was getting extremely nervous because he could not see—a minor detail when one is driving! We knew that pulling over would not be safe, so he kept his eyes glued to the lights on the truck in front of him and kept us moving forward, trying to ignore all of the people passing us on the left. It didn't last long, but it was a stressful few minutes! He had those new wipers going as fast as they would go and it still wasn't fast enough. Still, if we'd had the old wipers they would've been flung from the truck and into a valley or something.
We got to our destination and were sorely disappointed. We knew there would be bad weather, so we were looking for a motel room that was along interstate 80.

The night before—in Streetsboro—we watched as more tornado warnings were issued. One was for the county we were in. I had to look at the phone book to find out what county we were in, and sure enough, the funnel cloud or whatever it was passed about 10 miles to the south of us. So we wanted some shelter. We searched and searched with our atlas in hand, but could not find anyplace that would take a reservation. Finally we found a Red Roof Inn in Danville, PA that had a room available, so we booked that. It was a somewhat longer drive than we'd been making in a day and we were somewhat nervous about this because of the clanging and clunking noises the truck is making (Bill did some research and thinks it's the U-joint). Anyway, there seemed to be little choice, so we reached Danville, found the motel and proceeded to check in. The room itself was nice enough—clean and comfortable. But the free coffeehouse style whole bean coffee that they trumpeted all over their website was unavailable because the machine was broken. There was no internet connection available. I was in desperate need of coffee. So after bringing our stuff in and laying down for awhile, Bill asked the woman at the desk where the nearest grocery store was. It was right down the road a couple of miles, she said, so we got into the clanging truck and headed that way. It was there.

I love walking around new grocery stores. You can tell a lot about where you are by observing what kind of food they sell and do not sell. I find it fascinating. On this day, my mind was pretty foggy, though, so I kind of stood there feeling overwhelmed as I tried to figure out what to buy for supper. By this time I had found the coffee and purchased a 20 ounce cup. It wasn't great, but it was good enough, and I was grateful. So while I waited for that to kick in, I kind of wandered around looking at stuff.

Then I spotted the pizza in the hot food case. It looked almost like New Jersey pizza, which seemed reasonable, since I was almost in New Jersey! I had been looking forward to NJ pizza for a long time. There's something about it that's different from west coast pizza. Anyway, I looked up at the sign and saw that they sold whole pies. I knew what I wanted for dinner. So Bill ordered some and we went outside to drink our coffee while we waited. Bill decided he didn't like it, so he gave me most of his 20 ounce cup, too. I was feeling much better. We went back to the room and I tried the pizza. It was almost NJ pizza. The crust was a tad too thick, but it tasted wonderful! And we even have some left over for breakfast tomorrow!

Scratching the Surface

2009-08-20T13:38:00.000-07:00

August 20, 2009
We have avoided Cleveland and are in Streetsboro, Ohio. Seems like a nice enough town. But I say this based on one short drive down a road, a stop at the grocery store and a dash into a motel room. The latter is nicer than what we had last night. Of course, yesterday afternoon when I walked into the lobby and saw the desk people behind the plexi-glass windows, I knew I was in a different world than the U.P. I don't know whether it was bulletproof or not, but I assume it was. And the toilet was on pretty soft flooring. You could feel it sinking. Someone sometime will have an unpleasant surprise. Anyway, we had a good drive here. We discovered some excellent signage just into Ohio directing us to the Rt 80/Rt 90/ Ohio Turnpike. We stopped to get new windshield wipers because we did hit a rainstorm and the driver's side wiper started coming off.
Last night we watched the news and there was a story about a 12-year-old who shot and killed a 24-year-old woman. He is being tried as an adult. This is certainly tragic and indicative of some serious personal AND cultural problems. But the station did a poll asking people whether there should be more regulation around how people store their guns. The result was that 80% said no more regulation was needed/wanted. They talked to the victim's father who felt that the death penalty would be a better result for this child than the possibility of life imprisonment. I understand his position and I cannot even begin to understand his pain. But how exactly will any of this help solve the larger problem? His daughter is dead. She will be dead no matter what happens. And because we refuse, as a society, to deal with the real problem, in the future someone else's daughter will be dead too. Does this kid have serious issues that need to be addressed? Absolutely. But we live in a society where guns are everywhere and violence is entertainment. There's enough evidence to show that these things matter. Who knows what particular dysfunction was afoot in his family. In spite of the lip service we like to give aboyt "family values," this society does a great deal to undermine family relationships, not support them. I don't know the details, but clearly this boy had troubles in his life, probably at many levels. But do we want to take any small part of the responsibility? Nope. People just keep going on about rights. And they keep hoping that they can take care of the problem at the surface. This is the case here, with the economy, and in so many other ways. Imprison a child and pretend that you're actually done something useful. Then when it happens again, be surprised at how bad these kids today are. The economy is crumbling. No kidding—it was bound to happen. It's not sustainable as currently constructed. But what kind of serious discussion is going on about the foundational issues that led us to this point? The voices must be few and far between, because I am not hearing them. This is so typical of this culture. People run around like their hair is on fire trying to take care of things after the fact. You can't make big changes—which is what is needed when you are dealing with things from an emergency perspective. The emergency has to be dealt with, of course, but the root of the problem must be dealt with as well. Going back to our old economic habits—if that is possible—will not get at the real problem. Throwing this young boy in jail after trying him as an adult will not solve the problem. It's hard to deal with these big problems, but what is the cost of doing nothing? It will be pretty high.

Places

2009-08-19T18:09:00.001-07:00

August 19, 2009
We're in Flint, Michigan. Might as well be another planet. We started off in the peace and beauty of the U.P. and ended up here. The bridge was a trip this morning. It seemed huge. According to a postcard I saw, including the approaches, the bridge is 5 miles long. It's an attractive structure. They were working on it, so we were in the inside lane, and there was equipment between us and the view sometimes, but it was still a nice sight. Then it was a few more hours of nice scenery until we gradually ran into more traffic and eventually, 4 lanes of it. By the time we drove by Saginaw, we knew we were back in what people tend to call “civilization.” I think we were going by the outskirts of Saginaw—at least I hope so, because it seemed to be pretty industrial. There was a weird smell in the air. Thirty miles later, Flint. Bill's stress level kept rising as the traffic got thicker. I don't blame him. There's a reason I hate driving.
This seems like urban with some grit added in. Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Fargo were urban. The first two were pleasant enough. They seemed like nice places, even if they were large and too busy for my taste. I wouldn't want to live there. I didn't much care for Fargo, but it was still not quite like this. I could visit the Twin Cities again. I hope to never be here after tomorrow. Of course, tomorrow I will be just outside of Cleveland, so I am not sure how much of an improvement that will be. I am sure that there are people who adore Cleveland. I have only been there once. I have what is probably an ignorant and stereotypical idea about Cleveland not being very inviting. And since I will just be passing through, tomorrow will not do anything to enlighten me, I suppose. I have been thinking today that Burlington will be interesting. We read that it is the smallest town to be the largest city in a state. The population is about 35,000 people, I think—maybe a few thousand more—so it's about the size of Klamath Falls. But it's close to places like Boston and Montreal, and seems to have some really progressive thinkers. I know from experience that you can't go by what you see on the web. There were things in Klamath Falls that looked really good until I got there and saw the reality, which was nothing like what was advertised. So I am either a chump or a hopeless optimist or something, because even after my experience in Klamath Falls, I am really starting to see possibilities for our time in Vermont. I am hoping that some of this stuff really is happening and really is there for me to be involved in. The Quaker Earthcare organization is based there. The Quakers seem like they're active and involved. There's a whole bunch of stuff. So I am starting to feel hopeful about what we will discover. And the city is small enough to be comfortable and not so small that we will be isolated. Larger cities are close by in case the opportunity to do projects or some other kind of work comes up. And it would be nice to see Quebec again. Bill and I went there for a weekend once (when we lived in NH) but that was about 25 years ago. Anyway, those are my rambling thoughts about places for today.
Tomorrow, Cleveland.

St. Ignace

2009-08-18T13:48:00.000-07:00

August 18, 2009
St. Ignace, Michigan. We're ate the southern edge of the Upper Peninsula. Tomorrow when we leave here, we will get on the Mackinac Bridge and cross the Strait of Mackinac, which is the point where Lakes Huron and Michigan come together. We're at the eastern edge of Route 2, which we picked up in Duluth, MN a few days ago. It has been a very beautiful portion of the trip, with plenty of wildflowers, big trees, lots of green, and even the beginning of the fall colors. We have enjoyed being in some rural areas and driving through small towns. There were many “For Sale” signs on various tourist-related businesses, so I guess the economy is having an impact.
The campground here is nice. It's very quiet, which is appreciated after the noisy, chaotic mess that was Hayward. And it's clean, which is something we all appreciate much more after Moorhead! I am reminded of Fairbanks, because the leaves are changing, though they are probably farther along up there than they are here. We have lots of birch trees around us here, which is what we were surrounded by at our house in Alaska, as well as pine trees. When we lived there, I would start sticking my head out the door every morning at around this time of year to see whether that nip was in the air yet. I knew fall was coming. And so I am reminded here that summer is passing and soon we will be in a new season.

The town of St Ignace is very pleasant. It is apparently the 3rd oldest city in the US and was founded by father Marquette. It seems that the French were big colonizers around here. We drove downtown earlier today, parked and spent a few hours walking around. The main street is State Street and it borders Lake Huron.

There's a boardwalk that goes along the lake and one that goes out to a lighthouse and a fishing dock—at least, fishing is permitted in a corner of the dock. Along the boardwalk is a public marina and a little park with a couple of picnic tables and grills. I was happy to see this. One of the things that struck me as we have been looking at various downtowns on this trip is the lack of public community space. There are plenty of places to buy things, and even places to gather if you want coffee or food. And revitalization always seems to mean putting more stores in so people will come downtown, buy stuff, and leave. I understand this and think that it can be a positive thing, since usually downtown areas consist of small merchants who are local and not giant chain stores. On the other hand, since I am not a fan of mindless consumerism, and many of these places need to encourage that to stay in business, I am uncomfortable with that being the only focus. I think there need to be more places where people can come together and just be without having to buy something.

And to their credit, the people of this community seem to have done some of that with the public areas by the lake, and the summer activities like music in the park a few nights a week, and fireworks downtown every Saturday.
It's been interesting to see how the available food has been changing as we've come across the country. Here it's pasties. For those who don't know what these are, they are little pies filled with meat or fish, potatoes, onions, and sometimes rutabagas. As far as I know, these were common food for miners in Wales and other parts of Britain, because they were cheap, filling, and the miners could bring them down into the mines and eat them there. I was kind of surprised to see them as a big thing here, because when we started out in Iron Mountain, we were in Scandinavian territory—the next town was Norway. But there are pasty shops and stands everywhere—much like you see salt water taffy everyplace in a coastal town. Somewhere in the midwest—I think it might have been Moorhead—I noticed the summer sausage. I had forgotten all about that. It's a big thing here and I remember it from my days in Illinois as a child. As I recall, I used to eat it once in awhile, but I never liked it as much as Italian sausage. And somewhere in Montana or maybe it was in Bismarck, I started noticing how hard it was to find chicken and stuff like turkey sausage. When I could find it, it was outrageously expensive. At that point, it was practically all beef and pork. In the store in Hayward there was a section near the deli with premade sandwiches. One of the selections was a pork roast croissant. I thought that was interesting. And food simply seems more expensive. Maybe because I am not shopping the way I normally would, but it just seems like everything costs a great deal more.
I got a sad email from a friend yesterday telling me that her dog had died. Kiki was 15 and a wonderful 4-legged-furry person. She was very important in the life of my friend and I felt so bad for her. I was remembering my own pain at the loss of my dogs over the past couple of years and I wish I could do or say something to make it a little less painful for her. I know she will get through it, but it's hard. I met Kiki when she was just a puppy back in 1994 when my friend was living in idaho and we went to visit her. It seems like she's just always been there. She loved to play ball and would go get it and bring it back for you to throw again and again and again.
We are enjoying what will probably be our last rural stop until we get to Vermont in a couple of weeks. We are heading back into congestion and crowds and all of that. I imagine there will be some space in between cities as we are driving, but we will zip right by it. We are also supposed to be getting rain and thunderstorms, so we will be moving along a bit faster and planning to stay in motels for a few nights. Tomorrow we will be in Flint, Michigan. The next night we will be in Streetsboro, Ohio, just outside of Cleveland. We found a good deal on a room there—only a few dollars more than the campground, and the campground looked most unpleasant. Based on the map they provide on their website, it looked like a small city unto itself. And it was expensive. So we will stop, sleep, and move on. On Friday we will be somewhere in Pennsylvania. And on Saturday we will go to my aunt's house in New Jersey. I am looking forward to that. I have not been there or seen her in over 12 years. She was very important to me when I was a kid and I spent lots of happy times in the house where she still lives. She is going to show me how she makes sausage and peppers. My Nana always made ravioli and Aunt Marie always made sausage and peppers. I do love sausage and peppers—especially hers! So it will be great to be there and see her!

Urban Camping

2009-08-16T07:06:00.000-07:00

August 15, 2009
Glad to be leaving Hayward. This campground has been crazy! The first night we were here, some people moved in across the “street.” There were about a billion little children who seemed to cry at the drop of a hat. Cry, cry, cry. Festive. They also felt the need to set up one of their tents right next to the fence, banging our truck with their tent poles and stuff as they did so. Later, after we were in our tents, a new bunch moved in across the other street (we were at the end of a street). It sounded like a family reunion or something. Clearly, it was a rude and inconsiderate family because it was dark out and past 11, which is the beginning of quiet time. These people had no clue what to do with the concept of “quiet.” We were treated to the saga of where to put the tent, as in, “What do you think, Chris? Where should we put the tent? It looks pretty level, but there could be a slight incline over here.” Then after awhile, “What do you think Chris? I think it's pretty level, but there could be an incline. Chris?” I am sure that Chris had run screaming from the campground by then. After this scintillating conversation, there ensued the endless repetition about what kind of sausage was available and how many of each. There were two blue cheese and one of a few other kinds. I was hoping that there would not be fights over the limited sausage supply. Stakes were pounded into the ground as the loud guy finally decided to leave the tent where it was, incline or not. Of course no night at the campground would be complete without a discussion about texting. Not about any specific text message, mind you, but just about texting. I had no idea that people could find this fascinating enough to discuss in loud tones in the middle of a campground in the middle of the night.
After finally falling asleep, I woke up the next morning with a completely blocked left ear and some sinus pressure. There were so many people jammed into the small space at the campground, each with their own fire pit. Everyone needed a fire for some unfathomable reason. It was hot, so why fire sounded like a good idea, I do not know. Wood smoke has a bad effect on me, so I was not surprised to wake up as I did. Fortunately for me, my friend, Doctor Ken, had given me some OTC allergy medicine that works well for him. When my head started to pound, I took a pill. I was feeling great in 15 minutes. Thank you, Ken!!
It's a good thing I didn't have to go through the day with a headache, because the Rude Family reunion would have done me in. People kept arriving. They—and several other people—kept their fires burning throughout the day. The loud discussions continued. And though some of the group tried to be considerate and walk around our campsite, a bunch of them kept walking straight through to get to the bathroom, instead of going around. It was like Grand Central Station. People constantly walking back and forth through our campsite, the children across the way crying endlessly, smoke everywhere—it was a zoo.
To add to the fun, our tent pole snapped. We had seen that it was cracked when we put up the tent and we went into town to see if we could find a replacement pole (unlikely) or a new tent (possible). We found neither, but I did get a pair of flip-flops for 99 cents and I came back and spent some happy time crocheting flowers out of some variegated sock yarn that I attached to the toe piece. Anyway, that afternoon, the pole snapped and Bill taped it and dug out some bungee cords. We attached these to either side of the broken pole and trees. It was enough to hold until we took down the tent. On our way to Iron Mountain, where we are now, we stopped at a Super K Mart in Ironwood (we are in iron country) and got a new tent on clearance. At least the timing was good.
Our cooler also bit the dust. It was leaking. Just a small leak, but I really didn't want to have it in the back of the truck when it sprung a big leak, so we left it there. We had it for almost 25 years, so it served us well. And Bill's backpack zipper seems to be shot, too. It's the one for the small front pocket, so he can still use it until he can find another one. He's had that for 12 years or so.
By the time night came, we were unable to muster up the energy to attend the clown show that the campground was putting on. But we could hear it and see the lights they used. The Rude Family had been playing catch—complete with family radar gun to measure the speed of the throws—on the road. Now, call me an old fuddy-duddy, but it seems to me that when there are people everywhere and cars parked in between, this is probably not the best place to encourage children to throw a hard ball around. OK, so they were only throwing at 33 mph, a factoid I knew because they had to announce—in the loudest possible voices, of course—the speed of each pitch. Still, I believe that this is why the campground provides a big field—so that people can play catch. Throughout our stay, other people seemed to have grasped this.
We were curious to see what would happen the second night. The tents were erected. The sausage was, presumably, eaten. There seemed to be little left to say about texting. What would they talk about? How would our neighbor feel about all of this? She had complained to Bill about their behavior on the previous night (it wasn't just me!). On this night, it was the lights. They sat around their campfire with lights blazing. Lights—bright lights—everywhere. Looked like headlights being beamed into the tent. The chattering continued, though pancakes seemed to be a topic of discussion instead of sausage. People kept walking back and forth through our site. It was hot. There were more fires than the night before. And on this night, campground security came and told the Rude Family to turn off the lights and be quiet.
The next morning we packed up and left for Iron Mountain in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We drove on Route 2. There were beautiful wildflowers on the side of the road, more foliage, and lots of trees. We drove alongside Lake Superior for a time. It was beautiful and it was far more peaceful in the truck than it was in the campground!

Tamarack to Tamarac

2009-08-15T15:23:00.000-07:00

August 13, 2009
We left Burnsville, MN (just south of Minneapolis/St Paul) this morning. We started on Tamarack Drive and drove to Hayward, WI, where we pulled into the KOA and parked on Tamarac Lane. We were in Burnsville for 4 days. It was great! We stayed with the cousin of a friend from Klamath Falls. We met a few days before we left as she was visiting family while on her own journey. Anyway, she started out as a friend's cousin and ended up being a new friend!! She was so kind to all of us. We were very well cared for, which we all greatly appreciated. We got to spend lots of time talking and getting to know one another. We were driven around the area and Bill got to be a passenger for once and take lots of photos.

We went to the Mall of America where I was reminded once again of the short-sightedness of our leaders—corporate, political, and others. The whole thing is, of course, devoted to mindless consumerism, though there is a small church on the first floor. I am not sure what kinds of things they do, but there was an announcement about an AA meeting. So you get to go to your recovery meeting in a place that feeds on a different kind of addictive behavior. Crazy.
There are food places scattered all around the place, but there is an area where they are more concentrated. With many different options to choose from, I noticed that the lines were by far the longest at Taco Bell. Next longest was Burger King. I suppose this may have something to do with price—you can get cheap food that fills you up at Taco Bell.

I was walking around the 3 floors of the mall wondering how many clothes stores can possibly be kept in business. The clothes all looked the same. Of course, I am someone who has worn hand-me-downs from friends or bought stuff in thrift shops for years. For the entire 5 years I lived in Klamath Falls, I think I bought 2 flannel shirts new and they were on clearance. That's it for new clothes. So I don't know much about buying clothes in a store devoted entirely to that. And I suppose that in a large metropolitan area like that, it is easier to build up brand loyalty or something. And then there are the tourists. I noticed a bunch of hotels/motels around the mall. Some of them were already there because of the proximity to the airport, but some were built especially to cater to the tourists who come to the mall.

Perhaps they need to consult with the “pout expert” on the 3rd floor. I am not sure how many towns have one of their own. As far as I know, I have never lived in a town with one, but then I am far, far out of that loop!

A couple of days later, we went to the Global Marketplace downtown. It's an old Sears building that was closed at some point. Then they turned it into a little mini-mall type of place, but with a twist. There are a bunch of vendors from all over the world that have stalls inside. Some sell merchandise and some sell food. We had some really great curry there. They have places to sit down scattered all around. You could get Mexican, Italian,. African, and Middle Eastern food. I was thinking as we were eating that it seems symbolic to have such a place in an old Sears building. You always hear these stories about people in rural areas long ago waiting eagerly for the Sears catalogue to come in the mail. It's like a piece of US history. And now it illustrates a new segment of US history where people from all over the world become United Statesians and make lives here. It was a great place.

We also got to spend some quality time relaxing and recharging. That was nice and very much needed after our weather adventure over the weekend.
We headed out in the morning and only later realized that there was a shorter route we could have taken. It would have saved us about 80 miles. Oh well. When we pulled into the campground, we were glad to be stopped. It was clearly very full, so we weren't sure we'd get a site. But the woman at the desk found something and as we were registering, she suddenly got very animated. “You are VIPs!” she exclaimed. “ Has anyone given you your tablecloth yet?” she inquired. We told her—in a rather dazed fashion—that we had not yet received our complimentary VIP tablecloth. She was highly excited. “I get to give it to you!” she enthused as she went to get it from the cabinet. Then she was eager to read us the letter that was on her computer, which she proceeded to do in very enthusiastic tones. I could feel the smile freezing on my face as she went on and on and everyone else stood around watching. I clutched my new tablecloth—complete with elastic edge so it fits right over the picnic table and a design that consists of the map showing all the KOAs in North America—and we went back to the truck. The one good thing about it all was that we had enough points racked up to not only be VIPs, but to get $25 off of our fee. And that was besides the tablecloth, of course.

We found our site and were a bit taken aback. There were plenty of big trees. And plenty of people. Unfortunately, what there was not a lot of was space. They crammed people in like sardines. There was no grass. There was barely space to set up both tents because the trees were too close together. Bill was having fits trying to figure out where and how to park the truck so that we could get out and not block our neighbor's space at the same time. We figured it out. It was hot. Odd, that, since we had seen the leaves turning on the trees on the way to the campground. So I was reminded that fall is on its way—YIPPEE--and then experienced some of the hottest weather we've had on the trip. Bill commented that he hoped it wouldn't rain because everything was dirt. If it did rain, we'd be washed away on a river of mud. But we were tired and stiff from sitting in the truck, so it was good to be stopped, even if it felt more urban than the place we'd just left!

tornado

2009-08-08T19:10:00.000-07:00

August 8, 2009
More weather. Our decision to come back to the motel today is looking better and better. We knew there were severe thunderstorm warnings for the area and a heat advisory. As I type, Bill is looking out the window at the lightning. They were saying flash floods and hail were possible. Then this afternoon while Bill was happily watching the Red Sox-Yankee game on TV, we saw the scroll at the bottom of the Tv screen that there were now tornado watches in effect for many places around the state and Wisconsin, including the county we are in. It seems that now that has been changed to a warning in counties north of here as a tornado has been spotted. The sky is pretty interesting out there. Fortunately, we are still under the watch—it goes until 10 o'clock central time. I have not been paying attention to tornado watches/warnings in a few decades! When we went out to the truck to get some stuff out for dinner, I walked out of the building and my glasses fogged up from the humidity. Some guy is talking on the TV from St Paul. He and his family have taken cover under a structure because the tornado sirens have been going off for 10 minutes. Even though we are not in the path of this tornado—it is moving away from us--I am glad we are not in our tents! And even without the tornado and thunderstorms, we would have been miserable outside with the heat and humidity. I have been exceedingly grateful for the air conditioning today!

Depends on What You Mean By Sun

2009-08-08T11:18:00.001-07:00

August 8, 2009
Weather. I am always interested in how that will be. I hate summer heat and sun. Love rainy, grey, overcast days, precipitation and coolness. Since we're camping in tents, it's become even more relevant than usual. So the other day when we saw that it was supposed to be in the upper 80s/low90s with sunshine on Friday and Saturday, I began my mental preparations. I would be uncomfortable, but we have had such mild weather for the most part on the trip that I figured it would be ungrateful to complain. Sleeping temps have been good. Of more concern was the “isolated thunderstorms” that were supposed to be around, but we figured it would rain hard for a little while and then stop and we would be dry.
Thursday night, the rain began. Then it stopped. I went back to sleep. Bill got up at an unknown hour, but when I opened one eye to see what was going on, I could tell from the light outside that it was far too early to be moving around and I promptly fell back to sleep. I am not a morning person. I don't know how long I dozed there before I woke up to the sound of raindrops falling on the tent. It was still too early to get up, but when he got back from his shower, I got up and took one, too. I later discovered that it was about 6:10. Ridiculous. I am sure I was on autopilot, because I do not function at such an hour. And as it turned out, I needn't have bothered!!
It was still raining after my shower, but not very hard. I moved some stuff around and got into the truck and picked up my book. After awhile, Bill joined me. When the rain stopped, we fired up the stove and heated a pot of water for coffee and then another to pour into the thermos. By the time the second pot was almost done, the rain had started again, so I got out the umbrella and stood with it over the stove so it could finish. We got back into the truck with our coffee and the heavens opened up! The rain came down. And more came down. It kept coming down. Rain, rain, rain. The fire pit, which consists of a big tire rim sunk into the ground at a depth of at least 12-15 inches was half full of water. I looked around for some sign of that sunshine they had said was going to be the main weather feature of the day, but I couldn't see it because the sky was full of black clouds. It kept raining. We kept reading. After awhile I noticed Heather's tent rocking from side to side and bulging momentarily in various places. Suddenly she was sprinting to the bathroom. Then she sprinted back and I got out of the truck to let her in the backseat. There was soaking number one. I sat back in the truck dripping. Then we figured we'd better get our pillows out of the tent, so we did that. Soaking number two. I dripped some more. Then I had to go to the bathroom and change my shirt, since I apparently had not placed the cover tightly enough on my coffee cup and I dribbled coffee on my shirt. Soaking number three. I sat in the truck with a drenched, but clean shirt on and used my coffee stained T-shirt to try and dry my hair. The windows fogged up. The tent was leaking and the rain wasn't stopping, so we figured it was time to get out the backpacks that contained our clothing. Soaking number 4. Bill decided that we needed to seek some shelter, because, try as we might to find what the Minnesotans apparently refer to as sun—at least the meteorologists—we were never successful.
Since we basically had no clue where exactly we were in relation to anywhere else, except that the Twin Cities were north, and Bill did not want to drive in the urban area where we did not know our way around in a torrential downpour, we decided to head south. We'd seen a couple of motel signs so figured we could find something in Belle Plaine. We started off down the road after wiping down the inside of the windows. The windshield wipers were on as high as they were going to go. Bill could not see. Big trucks barreled by us sending us the spray from their tires. We had the windows open to prevent more steaming. The windows were dripping on the inside and the outside. Bill could not see. We passed a giant sign for this place that sells 83 kinds of licorice. I did not know there were 83 kinds of licorice. One is quite more than enough for me. The same place also has something called jalapeno eggs, which, as Heather pointed out, would be useful as an early morning wake-up breakfast. We saw a blue sign that said, “LODGING” and got off on that exit. Then we were directed to go in either direction for lodging. We took the right turn and drove. No lodging here. There were some lovely cornfields, but no lodging. Bill turned around and we got to look at what I suppose is downtown Belle Plaine. After driving parallel to the road we'd just left, I looked across it and saw an AmericInn. Cute. We had no clue how to get there. So we kept trying to head in that direction. I kept trying to keep the water from dripping into my face from my hair. We finally found the parking lot after driving around Emma Krumbee's apple orchard. Seems to be some kind of restaurant chain. Not sure if they all have accompanying orchards and markets. But this one has an accompanying AmericInn, which was the most important thing for our purposes. We parked and made a run for the lobby. Soaking number 5. I am sure I looked like quite a sight standing there dripping on the carpet.
We asked about a room. “For how many nights?” asked Tammy, the very helpful and kind woman behind the desk. We weren't sure. We explained the situation—we were camping, the rain, etc. We were thinking that since Saturday was supposed to be sunny and hot, things would dry out and we could go back to the campground. But then, should we trust the forecast? After all, at that moment, I was supposed to be dripping sweat, not creating my own personal rain shower. She looked up what she had available. She said she had one room left for 3 people for both nights. Then she said she would give it to us for both nights and if we decided on Saturday morning that we didn't want to stay, we could let her know before 11 and she wouldn't charge us for the room for the extra night. I thought that was very nice. Usually there are all kinds of time restrictions on cancellations. Then she said that we'd get a Triple A discount. Then she told us that none of the rooms were cleaned yet—it was still a quarter to noon—but she would get one of her housekeeping staff right on it so the room would be ready in half an hour!! And check-in time wasn't even until 3!! I decided that I really liked Tammy a lot! I began to have visions of a hot shower and some hot coffee.
But we still had to go back and get a few things from the campground. We left the tents there and picked up some other stuff. The fire pit was overflowing. We grabbed some lunch. It had stopped raining, but that sun was still nowhere to be found. The wind was blowing. I was soaked and cold.

We got back to the motel, got our room, put some stuff in the dryer, and learned that there was hot coffee available for free 24 hours a day in the hospitality room. Heaven! Hot coffee that I can just pour into my cup. I don't have to make it or clean up the grounds. I just have to drink it. And it is there 24 hours a day and I don't have to pay for it. Ok, I know, I already paid for it when I paid for the room. But still. Shower and a trip down the hall with my big metal cup. It is amazing how little things can bring such joy.
The afternoon passed without more rain. Then at night, I thought I heard thunder. I looked outside and discovered the lightning flashing. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. Instead of flashing and then hearing the thunder and then seeing more flashing some time later, this was like someone standing there turning a light switch on and off. It just kept on flashing. The rain was coming down in buckets. Bill commented on the fact that there was a river flowing by our window. The rain was coming down so fast that the ground couldn't absorb it fast enough. I was glad we were not in our tents. But we figured we would go back to the campground in the morning and the Minnesota sun would be out to dry everything in short order. It was supposed to be sunny and 90, after all. But since there was a chance of thunderstorms and severe ones at that on Saturday night, we decided we would come back to the motel.
So we woke up on Saturday morning and made our way to the hospitality room for breakfast. We looked out the window. No sign of that Minnesota sun. just more grey sky. After our waffles, oatmeal, yogurt, coffee, and juice, we headed out to assess the situation at the campground. It wasn't too bad. The air was humid, so we felt like we were wrapped in wet blankets, but the only ones wet blankets around were the ones in the tents. We brought the wet stuff to the laundry room and put some in the big dryer. When our time was up, we went back to check on it and the dryer had not even gotten hot! Well, we could bring the other stuff back to the motel and dry it there, but no luck with the sleeping bags. We looked up at the sky and still there was no Minnesota sun, but there were big black clouds, so we worked a little faster. We tipped the tents to get the puddles out. We put the wet stuff in the back seat. We got things loaded up. It began to sprinkle. Bill turned on the windshield wipers.
Back at the motel, we got the littler stuff into the dryer and the sleeping bags draped over the clothes racks in the room. We brought in the air mattresses one at a time and spread them on the floor so that the wet spots would have a chance to dry. Too bad there's not enough room to set up the tents in here!
We turned on the Weather Channel and discovered that there is now a flash flood watch and a heat advisory going at the same time. More storms are expected to come through here. Torrential rain is expected. The ground is saturated and can't hold any more water. We are here in our room with the air conditioner running and the hot coffee right down the hall. It's there 24 hours a day. And did I mention that I don't even have to make it?
We still haven't seen the sun. Maybe sunny means something different in Minnesota.

New Thinking

2009-08-06T07:48:00.001-07:00

August 6, 2009
We're in Jordan, MN. Another KOA that is a world apart from the last one. I took a shower in a clean bathroom this morning—what a treat. We're in a pretty quiet spot with lots of big trees. Hard to believe that a little bit up the road is a major metropolitan area. At some point yesterday I noticed that instead of two lanes in each direction, there were 3. I can't say that I have missed the traffic and the whole urban thing. We will take the northern route out of here and delay our immersion into the congested Midwest for a few more days when we leave here sometime next week!
I heard on the news the other day that consumer spending is up slightly while wages and saving are down. There was some euphoria about this. I just felt myself groaning. Here we go again. Everyone is trying desperately to put Humpty Dumpty together again without recognizing that that egg is rotten. How many times do we have to go back and try the same old stuff? An economy that relies on overconsumption for 70% of its activity while at the same time lowering wages whenever possible is not a sustainable one. Yet everyone keeps wanting to do it again and see if maybe it will work this time. Someone once said that was a definition of insanity. Do people never learn? What is it that makes us so unwilling to change, to try new things or new ways of being? Is the cultural pressure that strong? Do we lack a sense of responsibility for ourselves, our fellow citizens, and the planet? Or are we afraid to look at our own role in what's going on? Maybe we're scared. I don't know. I am scared, too. I am scared to keep on living in a culture that is so blind. I am scared to think about the kinds of devastation we will be witnessing if we don't start getting a grip. I am scared for all of the beings on the planet who will suffer terrible consequences as a result of our old thinking. What scares me is not new ideas or challenges, but rather having to keep living in a culture that avoids them. This is supposed to be a country where innovation is prized and original thinking is valued. The reality is rather different. Innovation? Original thinking? Great, if you can turn it into a money-making operation. Innovation and original thinking that works in service to human beings? No thanks. This is not the kind of world I wish to live in. I guess I still have some hope left that things will change and people will awaken from this consumer nightmare. Or maybe I just need to wake up!

The Worst KOA I've Ever Been In

2009-08-01T07:47:00.000-07:00

August 1, 2009
Welcome to August. It was a strange way to end July. We went to park in the Moorhead Center Mall parking lot. The mall is not doing well at all--more empty storefronts than full. It must’ve been doing well at one time because there’s a parking lot and then a multi story parking garage!

Anyway, we parked there and walked to the Red River veteran Memorial Bridge. There is a monument halfway across, benches, and little factoids about the river and geology of the region. Rain was threatening, so we went back to the truck and drove into Fargo where Bill parked and walked around to take photos. I stayed in the truck and read and crocheted, working on the shawl my friend asked for before I left. I just don’t have a good vibe about this place. I was thinking about why that is so. I liked Bismarck a lot and I just don’t like it here. Part of it is the campground. The owners just happen to be a company that sells RVs. They never seem to be here and they leave the operation in the hands of very young people who seem to be unable to do anything. As someone told Heather in the bathroom yesterday, “This is the worst KOA I’ve ever been in.” The bathroom is never quite clean. The other day a woman stormed into the office demanding to know whether the bathroom was going to get cleaned that day. “Yes,“ the girl chirped. “Good, “ the disgruntled woman replied, “because it hasn’t been cleaned in days.“ “I just cleaned it yesterday,“ the girl squeaked. I don’t think I’d admit that, given the situation. We dread taking a shower. So I have tried to look beyond the immediate surroundings and consider the towns themselves. I realized that it’s a bit too urban for my taste. I have never liked cities. I was happy living in Portland, but the reason we left was to go to a more rural area.

As I was looking at Fargo yesterday I was struck by how similar downtowns tend to be. The names of the shops are different, but the whole point is to get people to consume--usually stuff they don’t really need.

I am sure there are some interesting things in Fargo--Bill was struck by the historical markers on the corners. There are a couple of old churches. It’s not a bad town, but it just doesn’t appeal to me. I am curious to see how things go in Minneapolis.
Observing life in this particular campground has been interesting. There are a lot of people who are temporary or seasonal workers and they are living here for the time being. Whereas the other campgrounds had lots of newer, bus-like RVs, here there are lots of older ones that need to be towed. And the whole culture is different. A few of the guys (and they are guys) have their significant others with them. They are pretty quiet. The ones that are on their own, though, are a whole other story. The other night I was kept awake in part by male people drinking beer, being loud, and throwing their empty beer bottles around. They weren’t being obnoxious, just rude. I had to get up in the night to walk to the bathroom and I didn’t want to bother Bill, so I went by myself and I will admit to being nervous about getting there in the dark. All was well in the end and the worst thing that happened was that I was tired yesterday. Still, we are all looking forward to moving on in a couple of days.

Blessings

2009-07-30T07:43:00.000-07:00

July 30, 2009
Hard to believe another month is almost over! July flew by. It is normally my least favorite month of the year because it is pure summer. This year, it hasn’t been too bad in the weather department. I have had days when I am too hot. But then I find some shade or jump in the shower in the evening when it cools off. Sleeping weather has been excellent! Of course, jumping into the shower here is not quite as nice, since there is mildew everywhere. We know they don’t clean the bathrooms each day because Bill has noticed the same beer bottle in the men’s bathroom for a few days now. He was in there at 5:30 in the morning the other day having a conversation about how yucky the bathroom is with some other guy. The guy said that he had been thinking about stopping in Bismarck, but he came to Moorhead instead. Too bad for him. Bismarck was great. This is the worst campground we’ve been in.
I am happy this morning because my friend, Karen, emailed me and said the workshop on Celtic blessings she did was a success. To read more about what she is doing, go to her website at www.faith-writer.com
Her blessings are really special and she does a great job with her workshops so that people can learn to write their own. It’s a beautiful and unique way to let people know how much you care about them.
We had a little rain yesterday afternoon and night, but the showers were scattered enough and light enough that the tent did not leak. That’s good. Chance for more showers today, but the good thing is that it will only be in the 60s. Klamath Falls is in the 100s and the pollution is building. I am grateful to not be there!

We tried to walk around the trail of the Minnesota State University Moorhead trail at the science center where they are restoring the tall grass prairie habitat. We did a bit of one trail, but then the mosquitoes came out and since Bill and Heather seem to be very flavorful to mosquitoes, we had to leave. But while we were there it was lovely--very quiet and peaceful. It was a real reminder to pay attention. You look out over the prairie and see grass which looks like a sea of green. But when you’re close, there are wildflowers all over. I enjoyed it.

Contrasts

2009-07-28T09:25:00.000-07:00

July 28, 2009
New town, new library! We’re at the library in Fargo and camping in Moorhead. Bismarck turned out to be great. I really liked it. I guess it wasn’t what I expected, though I’m not really sure what that was. I liked the landscape, though I’m told that it is unusual to have things be so green at this time of year--they’ve gotten lots of rain.

We made contact with the clerk of the Bismarck Friends Meeting, so we were able to go there on Sunday and participate in a really thoughtful and interesting discussion regarding an excerpt from Quaker Faith and Practice.

Later we went to the home of the clerk and his wife, where we went out on their boat. He ran it down the river and out into the center and we floated back. Other than a motorboat that went by, there was no one else there. It was quite peaceful and very beautiful. Then we had tea and cookies on their deck and had a nice chat. It was fun!

The campground at Bismarck was the best we’ve stayed at. There was the usual problem of inadequate bathroom/shower facilities, but that was the only drawback. The tent sites were away from the RVs, nicely shaded, the boundaries were well marked, and they were large. We got to Moorhead and things were rather different. It’s just got a different vibe. The guy did put us in the back away from the highway, which was nice. It was pretty quiet, which was nice, too. But the bathroom is kind of yucky--the showers are full of mildew stains and the toilets full of rust stains. I suppose this is a difficult problem because you deal with the kind of water that you have, after all. But it doesn’t look nice and it’s not pleasant to try and take a shower in such conditions. But there’s hardly any water pressure and one of the showers doesn’t work anyway! So last evening, I went and got ready to step into the shower, turned the knob and a trickle of water dribbled out. Thinking I was doing something wrong, I tried every which way, to no avail. So I packed up my soap and shampoo, got dressed again, and stormed off in a bit of a snit. I was highly annoyed. Then awhile later Bill decided to do laundry. While we were waiting for that to be done I jumped into a working shower. Then we went back to the laundry room to put stuff in the dryer. It wouldn’t work. The only other dryer was being used and the same person had two more loads of laundry in washing machines waiting to be put into the dryer. So we loaded up our wet clothes, went back to the campsite, and hung them up in and on the truck. The office was closed by this time. This morning we got up early and used the working dryer and when he came in the guy gave us the money back that we had placed in the non-working dryer. I was just so annoyed last night. Coming from Bismarck where I had enjoyed myself and the campsite to the Moorhead campground and all of these niggly little issues was not fun. Things seem more reasonable this morning. I am still not a fan of the bathroom. But I should not have to do laundry again while I am here, so that will be one less thing to get annoyed about. The campsite is pretty nice--or at least I would’ve thought so before Bismarck. We are backed up against a couple of rows of big trees and beyond that is a cornfield. The wind was blowing pretty good last night, but we didn’t feel much of it because the big trees acted as windbreaks. So we have shade. Not sure that will be much of an issue this week as the temperatures are supposed to be in the high 60s tomorrow (!) and the 70s for the rest of the week. We will go on to Minneapolis/St Paul next and maybe have the opportunity to teach a workshop. We will see how that works out.
I was thinking about the fact that it was Sunday yesterday and I suddenly had the thought that I was homesick! I had to unpack that a little bit because Klamath Falls as a community never felt like home to me. I tend to create “home” wherever I am, so I had my house and that felt like home, but not the community. That felt more like a prison. Now I have my truck/tent and those feel like home. I have been astonished to realize how much of my life gets lived outside now. Anyway, I realized that for me, the church felt like home in some ways. Not that I was in line with the stated Christian theology. I feel like a Quaker, but not a Christian one. I recently read a book about the history of Quaker thought and found myself in the idea of a post-Christian, nonrealist Quaker. So I was not at the same place as many of the attendees of the church. But that really didn’t matter. We were all there, doing different things and being in different places, but we were still a community. It made me feel good to think about that.

Observations

2009-07-24T10:09:00.000-07:00

July 24, 2009
Back at the Bismarck Public Library so Bill can catch up on photo processing. We can connect at the campground, and there are a couple of places to plug in, but he has a hard time seeing his screen outside--not a good way to process photos. So we come here. It’s a really nice library. For those people who don’t want to use their own computers or do not have one, there are many internet computers and then a few that are for database searches and word processing. It’s a very pleasant space. Spacious with good lighting. Comfortable furniture and air conditioning--this last was a big plus yesterday when it was in the mid 90s here. Today is supposed to be around 80. Not my favorite, but I can live with it, especially in July and especially when my friends from Klamath Falls are telling me that it’s been in the 90s there for several days with more to come. I miss the friends, but not the weather!
I like Bismarck. It’s very pleasant. The one fly in the ointment is that there is apparently some sort of pollen or something here that doesn’t like me. In Klamath Falls I suffered to varying degrees from some kind of allergy or sensitivity to plants, pollution or something. My ears would get clogged up and crackle, my throat would burn, I would cough and be congested. Once I left, I was relieved of these issues until we got here. And then yesterday they cut the grass at the campground. My throat burned, my ear got even worse and when I spoke, I could hear my voice echoing through my head. Then my wisdom tooth starting hurting. Don’t know what the deal is with that. I spent last night in a great deal of pain. Finally I took some Benadryl to try and relieve the pressure that was building up in my head and to hopefully get some sleep. It worked. This morning, the symptoms are back. The tooth pain is the worst, of course, and I don’t know just how that fits into everything. But surgery to remove a wisdom tooth--or I should say what’s left of it--is not an option, so I just have to hope that things ease up.
Other than that, though, we are having a good time here. The campground is nice and peaceful. The town itself is interesting. It’s like a suburb without the urb. There’s no city to speak of.

The center of everything seems to be the Capitol Grounds. That is where the North Dakota Heritage Center is--a place I highly recommend for anyone traveling through Bismarck. It’s very well done and informative and there is no admission charge. They also have an extensive group of walking trails on the grounds. We walked around this morning before walking over here. The one we were on had some sculptures, which are scattered all over, as well as different kinds of trees. There were markers set into the ground alongside the trail telling you the common name and the scientific name for the various trees. And there was a set of petrified logs that are apparently 57 million years old. Those were great--such a wonderful group of textures! Anyway, it looks like people come from town to walk on the trails. It’s a very nice place to walk. Lots of green and plenty of shade!
Last night we saw in the paper (after the fact) that the Lutheran Church was hosting a community dinner. I wish I would have known earlier so I could have gone and helped. It was good to see something going on, anyway. We are still waiting for a reply to the email we sent the clerk of the Bismarck Religious Society of Friends. When I googled them to find out where they are and what time they meet, I got two different addresses and a meeting time with one of them. Who knows whether this is accurate. We will try to get in touch by phone and if we can’t, we’ll try to go to the Unitarian Church. I am appreciating more and more the great job Jan McClellan does on the Klamath Falls Friends Church website. It contains the kind of current information that I have been looking for and not finding on this trip.
Yesterday was the day to have the gas gauge fixed. It decided to stop working as we left Butte and it was making Bill nervous. On the highway it’s not so bad because we know how far we can go on a tank of gas. But as we get into more urban/suburban driving, we’re not quite sure. It turns out that the floater had filled with gas and sunk to the bottom of the tank, so it was registering as empty. Mr. Lubester put a new one in and now we’re back at full.

Heritage and Tradition

2009-07-22T07:27:00.000-07:00

July 22, 2009
I am sitting here by the pool. No one is in it yet. We had to meander around this morning looking for a place where the wifi connection would work and Bill could see his computer screen. The connection doesn’t work at our campsite--too many trees, maybe. But there are a couple of different places here where we can sit and plug in when we need to charge the battery, so that’s good.

Yesterday we went to the North Dakota Heritage Center. It’s a museum with a permanent exhibit that traces ND prehistory and history. And they have rotating exhibits in a different part of the building. It’s on the Capitol Grounds and is free. It’s very well done. We spent quite awhile in there. They had fossils, artifacts, replicas, old photographs and film, and even a few old crocheted things J The bathroom had collages of ads pertaining to bathroom things grouped by decade. That was fun to look at. The rotating exhibit was about the atomic bomb and the North Dakota connection. They had Minuteman missiles in Minot (about 120 miles north of here). The people were not in favor at first, but then for economic and patriotic reasons, they decided it was OK, even though they knew that they would not survive any kind of nuclear war! Remember that old song, “The Things We Do For Love?” Maybe we should update that to, “The Things We Do For Cash.” There was a place where they had sticky notes and a pencil for people to write their thoughts. Someone wrote that “the collective ability to delude ourselves is astonishing” or something like that. Amen.

I was getting a little foggy by the time we left. I practically live on coffee in the summer and the instant we have becomes a bit hard to swallow after awhile. We needed ice for the cooler and found a grocery store where they had a big cup of coffee for 59 cents (tax included). But we wanted a better system for coffee so we could make it at the campsite. We looked at a percolator for the camp stove, but it was small. We found a little individual cup filter for the princely sum of $15! Then I saw the strainer. You know, one of those things that you set on top of your cup or whatever. $1.99. Coffee filters on sale for 99 cents. So for $3 I solved my coffee problem. It’s my own version of a drip coffeemaker. That coffee tasted good this morning! Bill was laughing at me. However, I do think he also appreciates the new system because it means he does not have a crazy, cranky, coffee-deprived wife to drag around Bismarck J
We’re staying at another KOA kampground. As you may remember, they like to use the letter K a lot. At this particular kampground, the have a kookout on Friday and Saturday nights--ribs, chicken, hot dogs, and stuff like that. There are flyers everywhere, even on the door of the bathroom stalls. I don’t know about this. Everytime I see it, I think kook-out. Doesn’t seem very appealing somehow.

The people that own this campground have some horses in a field next to it. It was very peaceful watching them yesterday. There’s a little dog who rides around on the golf cart with the guy and he was herding the horses. Kind of amazing that such a little dog can get the horses to move so fast in exactly the direction he wants them to go! One of the horses had a great deal to say yesterday. The others were pretty quiet. I think there are 5 of them.
Bill was commenting yesterday that there doesn’t seem to be an actual city center here. There may be one and we just haven’t found it yet. But there does seem to be a bit of sprawl. Of course, Bismarck and Mandan are two different cities that seem to kind of blend in with one another. It is interesting to see how Bismarck plays on the Native American heritage and uses it as a tourist attraction. And it is a part of the state’s history. In Hardin, there was none of that. This fits right in with the tendency to glorify native cultures of the past and to ignore what is happening today. There is a romantic idea about “Indians” that involves not looking at individual cultures, but sort of collapsing everything into a Dances with Wolves kind of picture. It’s all about the Sioux 150 years ago. Native cultures as they are today are ignored or dismissed. This is a part of the identity problem I talked about a couple of days ago. It seems that for too many people--including some Native people themselves--the only way to be a true Native American is to do things in the “traditional” way. But “traditional” is a useless term. What does it mean? It means people pick some arbitrary time period and freeze it to make the argument that THIS is the true cultural picture. Native people don’t go to Harvard, they dress in animal skins and commune with nature or something. It’s pretty offensive. I mean, who among us lives the way our ancestors did 150 years ago? Why should any group of people be expected to do that? So in this part of North Dakota, they can play the Indian card to help with the tourism. Because there is no reservation or anything here which would bring people into contact with the current situation, it is easier to play on that glorified past. This is a big contrast with Hardin, where the current terrible situation is on display as you walk downtown.

Change in Time and Plans

2009-07-21T07:38:00.000-07:00

July 21, 2009
Never mind Glendive! We got there and went to the campground. There were RVs there, but the office was locked. We waited around for a few minutes and no one came, so we left. Next biggish town on the map was Dickinson, ND, so we headed there. But Bill said he felt pretty good driving, and Bismarck was only 100miles down the road, so we headed there. Now instead of staying in a place for a few days, taking everything down, packing the truck, and driving elsewhere for a couple more days, we will stay here for a week. We are both kind of pleased about that. And this KOA is the nicest one we’ve stayed at.

After Spokane, they got steadily better. Hardin was the best at the time J But this one is better than that. The Rvs are in a separate area from the tents. The sites are big and clearly marked. There are trees everywhere. It is green and quiet. We woke up to the sound of the birds this morning, not a train or road noise. And, we are adjacent to a covered picnic area, which means that if it does rain, we can go sit there, instead of all jamming into the truck!!
I like the scenery in North Dakota better than Montana, too. Once we crossed the border, the landscape changed and there were all these little hills sticking up. There was very clear stratigraphy, visible even from the highway. I am sure that geologists have a name for these things, but I don’t know what it is. As you move east, these pretty much disappear and things get flatter, as I thought they might. Having lived in Illinois for several years as a kid, I remember the flat Midwestern landscape.
The weather is supposed to be pretty nice here for the next several days--mid-70s today--in July!!! Then low 80s. Friday will be the most unpleasant at 86ish. But the nights cool off nicely. The sky was full of puffy white clouds when we arrived.
We were tired last night so we ended up in the tent early. I fell asleep and Bill processed photos--he’s falling behind J We have given back two more of the hours we gained when we moved from NH to Portland in 1987, so we’re now on central time. Today we plan to go into town. Bill needs to talk to someone about getting the gas gauge fixed on the truck.

Heartbreaking Hardin

2009-07-21T07:35:00.000-07:00

July 20, 2009
We’re on our way from Hardin, Mt to Glendive, MT. We spent the weekend in Hardin. It was depressing. It was a study in contrasts. Downtown was in pretty sad shape, with lots of empty storefronts and a few businesses valiantly trying to make it. There were Native men wandering around or lolling around in doorways, clearly intoxicated. It was sad and reminded me a lot of Kotzebue, Alaska. This is unfortunately not uncommon in areas around reservations. Alcohol and drug abuse is far too common. It affects all ages and women and men, of course, just as it does with any other group of people. But there is, in Alaska at least, a problem among Native men. Some have written about this as a problem of extended adolescence. This makes sense if you consider the circumstances. There is much talk about Native people having to walk in two worlds. To some degree we all have to do that. But the situation is a little different when you are coming from a village and have been brought up to expect certain things. You are probably not going to live a total subsistence lifestyle, but sometimes hunting season means you will miss some school. School is, in any case, not valued by some people. And if you go too far, you may get some negative feedback from others in your community. I remember talking to a classmate in my Inupiaq Eskimo language class at UAF. She was talking about the new head of Alaska Native Studies in a very negative way. I was confused and asked her why she was so upset. It seemed to me better to have a native woman at the helm instead of the white guy that was there before. She looked at me and sneered, “She’s not Native, she went to Harvard.” Ok, then. It’s no wonder people suffer from identity crises when there seems to be no place for them. You need cash now, no matter where you live, so subsistence can be a part of your life, but you’ll probably have to do something else, too. And then if you try to further your education, you get dissed by people in your community. I will point out that the young woman who was so dismissive of this professor was at college herself. But the University of Alaska Fairbanks is not Harvard. I would have liked to have known exactly where the line was that made you no longer a real Native person. Anyway, I don’t know much about the specific difficulties faced by people in the Crow Agency, which is just outside of Hardin, but I am sure there are many.

We went to the grocery store and I was appalled. You read about this stuff, but I think that, with the exception of Kotzebue, where very high prices are to be expected, I have never seen this kind of thing in person. A container of oatmeal that I am used to paying around $2 for was over $4 and a box of the packets was over $5!! Cheese puffs and pork rinds were, however, available for less than $2. Junk food was abundant and cheap. Real food was expensive. For people living in a very depressed community such as this, such a situation will only make matters worse.
As we drove downtown the first evening we were there, we saw these banners hanging on lampposts.

One simply said, “Welcome.” One said, “Catch the Spirit.” The last one said, “Welcome to Hardin. It’s a great place to be.” It seemed pretty pathetic, really. It did not seem at all like a great place to be. In the weekly paper there were 3 job listings--all with the county. I am not sure where people would work. There’s the grocery store and a little cluster of fast food outlets--complete with casinos, which seem to be everywhere in Montana--gas stations and motels. There are a few businesses downtown. Mostly there are empty buildings. There was a coal fired electric plant across the street from the campground. Some people must be doing somewhat well, because there was a mix of run-down kinds of homes alongside more kept-up places.

And of course, there is the brand new shiny prison built just off the main road in town. The barbed wire sparkles in the sunlight. It sits empty. This is why they want to bring in the prisoners from Guantanamo Bay. They have the beds, they say, and they want the jobs. But I am not sure who would get those jobs, even if the prisoners did go there. Probably not the people of Hardin.
The last day we were in Butte, we were talking to one of the people who works at the campground. He and his wife travel each summer to a different KOA to work. We asked him what he thought of Butte. He said he liked it, but there were problems. Young people were leaving and not coming back. His opinion was that Butte is dying. I thought it was a good point. It applies to Hardin even more. It was sad to see.

Teeth and Community

2009-07-16T13:34:00.001-07:00

July 16, 2009
Spent most of the morning at the dentist’s office waiting for Bill. The other day he had a crown fall out of his head. He saved it and looked up how to fix it. Couldn’t find the cement. Just as well. He started having pain--pretty severe pain--shortly thereafter. Finally he called around to see if there was someone who could put the crown back in. He found a person who could fit him in this morning--Robert Wilcox. So we arrived, he filled out the paperwork and we waited. After what seemed like a very long time, I figured that there was something happening, but probably not a simple recemeting job. Sure enough, he came out and said that the dentist told him that he was really uncomfortable putting the crown back in because the problem was with an adjacent tooth. There was a small hole there that was somehow managing to drain well enough to avoid infection, though Bill has had some pain and discomfort in that area in the past. Anyway, he was concerned that if he put the crown back on, it would block the hole and an abscess would be the result. Bill explained to him that he could not afford to have any extensive dental work done right now, so Dr. Wilcox came up with an alternate plan that was actually somewhat cheaper than recementing the crown. I guess it is pretty much the beginning of a root canal that will have to be completed at a later date. Bill is just pretty happy to have the pain gone. And Dr. Wilcox gave him a bunch of stuff and a note to give to the next dentist. And a prescription for an antibiotic, just in case he needs it. He did say to keep the crown because it’s a nice one (!) that is worth between $750 and $1000. Once this other tooth is fixed, it can be put back again.
As I was waiting there for him, I was amazed at how happy everyone seemed. It is a dentist’s office after all. I have not been in many of those, but I do not believe I have ever seen such a group of cheerful people in such a setting before! It was clear that these people cared about one another. The receptionists were asking very specific questions about people’s families, trips, the hay crop, and other things. It was plain that they keep up with one another’s lives. It was pretty nice to watch! One of the big topics of conversation this morning was that Town Talk is closed this week because the owners have gone fishin’. The people in the office were, however, willing to put up with Safeway doughnuts so that they could have a great time fishing. As one woman said, “I’m glad they went fishing. They work really hard.” Everyone agreed wholeheartedly with that sentiment. A patient actually brought the doughnuts as a gift. I guess that I never considered a dentist’s office to be a place where one would witness community, but I saw it there today.
Tomorrow morning we leave for Hardin, MT. I have no idea what to expect, so I have decided to expect nothing and see what I get! Might as well embrace surprise!

A Hole in The Ground

2009-07-15T14:33:00.000-07:00

July 15, 2009
Butte, Montana. I have been surprised. It is somehow not what I expected. I have only been in Montana once before and that was only for an hour or so in Missoula. I thought it would be spectacularly beautiful. Maybe I have been spoiled by spending some time in Norway--the most physically beautiful landscape I have ever personally seen. Maybe it was those 9 years in Alaska. Whatever it is, I have been singularly unimpressed so far. The areas we drove through yesterday were nice enough, but somehow just not what I was expecting. Granted, that is a very narrow sample. Maybe the really spectacular stuff lies elsewhere in the state. I can tell you this--it is not in Butte, whose big selling point appears to be a giant hole in the center of town that used to be a mine, just like everything else here, I guess. Town itself is pretty old and, as Bill put it, dingy. He is having a great time photographing it all--it’s right up his alley! I find myself uncomfortable in a place like this, though. Where Coeur d’Alene had a really great vibe going and downtown was an inviting place to be, this place just looks like it’s been kind pf patched and papered over. And there is something disheartening about the idea that if you can dig a huge hole and suck something out of the earth, exploiting people along the way, that this is a history to be proud of. I know that whatever kinds of things they’re digging up I probably use, so I don’t necessarily have clean hands either. But it is somewhat disconcerting to have this kind of grimy exploitative, earth shattering industry be celebrated. On the other hand, I suppose if you want a few tourist dollars, then you will work with what you have. And this, apparently is pretty much what they have. We went into the visitor’s center, which is right next door to the campground, and it has a few old photos, an extensive display of fishing flies, and a bunch of information about other places! Bizarre!
So I can stand here at my campsite and look at the giant hole known as Berkeley Pit and think about that old Midnight Oil song which contains the line, “nothing’s as precious as a hole in the ground.”

Let It Rain

2009-07-15T14:20:00.000-07:00

Well, the rain didn’t stop until the middle of Monday night. It came down steadily and fairly hard for over 24 hours. The tent continued to leak. We got what we could into the truck and hung out there after we got back from the library. I ventured outside in the rain to make myself some lunch. We went back into town for awhile. Then we all tried to get a few winks of sleep in the truck. This was not a very successful endeavor!

None of us could really move, so we had to choose a position and plan to pretty much stay in it--sitting up, legs bent and cramped, and no way to get comfortable. Heather decided to take a shower at midnight and when she wasn’t back after a fair amount of time, we stiffly marched over to the bathroom building to make sure all was well. It was--she said that the hot water felt good so she stayed there a long time. Then she stood outside the truck until 2 a.m. since the rain had pretty much stopped by then. My legs still hurt.
Morning came and we got stuff tossed into the truck. The sun was trying to burn off the fog, so we took the top off the tent and laid it in a sunny spot. We moved the tent there, too, to help it dry a bit, but first we had to turn it upside down to dump out the water! Finally we just folded it up and put it in a trash bag. Then off we went.
We had decided to go to Butte, Montana. We were planning to stop in Missoula for a few days first, but we never heard back from the person we contacted from the Directory for Traveling Friends so we figured we’d skip it. We looked up the mileage from Coeur d’Alene to Butte and it said 232 miles. Turns out it was really more like 275. That was longer than we’d wanted to drive in one day--especially this day when we were all operating on a couple of hours of sleep. Bill had it the worst, of course, since he had to drive! We stopped several times along the way.
When we crossed the border into Montana, it felt like we were making progress somehow, but we were not far into big sky country than that big sky was full of big grey clouds. No rain at first, though, so we held out hope. We really wanted to be able to put up our wet tent and have it dry. We figured we could put the sleeping bags in the dryer. A couple of hours in, there was a mist on the windshield. Half an hour before Butte there was splattering on the windshield and the wipers came on. Fifteen minutes out of Butte we stopped at a rest area again because Bill was practically hallucinating. We sat there, almost in tears, watching the rain fall hard. We all agreed that we could not sleep in the truck again. We were all still in pain and exhausted from the night before. I declared my intention to sleep in a wet and dripping tent if necessary. Bill started the truck and we drove the last few miles.
We found the campground and the rain stopped, though the big grey clouyds still filled the big sky. We got our tent site. We pulled out the tent and the sleeping bags and then--believe it or not--the clouds seemed to disappear and the sun came out. The sleeping bags dried. The tent was ready to go in half an hour. We were grateful. We all began to harbor fantasies of an early night and a full night of sleep!

Something About Sunday

2009-07-13T11:06:00.001-07:00

July 13, 2009
What is it about Sunday? Last Sunday in Spokane we were awakened in the middle of the night by a thunderstorm and then kept awake by the heavy rain. This Sunday in Coeur d’Alene, same thing! It was pretty muggy and warm yesterday afternoon and the clouds were hanging around all day. But we saw no rain. The wind kicked up last evening--we watched it blow the tent sideways so that half of it was practically on the ground. It wasn’t until about 11 that the thunder and lightning began along with the rain. It was quite something from our vantage point inside the tent. The lightning was so bright and the thunder was cracking like the sound of tree limbs breaking. And it seemed like long thunder. The wind kept blowing and the rain started. It was over in about 45 minutes and we took the opportunity to run to the bathroom building. We dozed and then woke up again to more thunder, lightning, wind, and rain. Again it was pretty intense. I went back to sleep because it looked like the tent was holding up well. Then, a few hours later, I felt the icy plop of a raindrop on my face. It was raining again--no thunder or lightning, just steady, pretty heavy rain. And more rain. And then as a bonus, some more rain after that. The plops came faster. I put my pillows under the sleeping bag so they would stay dry. More plopping. Finally it was going on and on and there was more and more plopping, so we struggled into our shoes and got stuff transferred from the dripping tent to the back to the truck. We got everything in there except for the sleeping bags, which were already too wet to do anything with. There are a few puddles there in the tent. Then we piled into the truck ourselves. Eventually the rain stopped, I went and took a shower, and I found my clogs--I’d been walking around in my sandals without socks, since everything was going to get wet anyway. My toes were cold! That hot shower, a fresh pair of socks and some closed-toe shoes felt really good!
We read a little until we could leave for the library again. I love libraries anyway and this is a nice one. Plus, it’s more comfortable than all 3 of us being jammed into the truck! And it is looking like we may have to try and get some sleep in the truck tonight. The sky is one big grey abstract. Everything is misty. The rain picked up again as we were headed over here and it was coming down pretty good. No sign of sun. It really is quite beautiful with all of the trees and the lake and everything. But it’s looking like it might be too wet for us to sleep in the tent tonight, though if the rain stops for an extended period of time we may have a shot. Tomorrow we head for Butte. We’d thought about stopping in Missoula and contacted someone through the Directory for Traveling Friends, but never got a reply. Not getting a reply is becoming a common theme for us on this trip. Anyway, we decided to skip Missoula and go straight to Butte. I probably should look up the weather forecast for that area!
Just before we left the campground to come into town, we were eating our breakfast of Clif bars when Bill said, “Uh-oh, I just lost a tooth.” One of his caps fell off. He had a crummy dentist as a kid and he and his sisters have had teeth problems all their lives. So now there’s this. We are hoping that there is no pain to come. Right now, he is writing down the directions for how to fix this kind of problem yourself. There’s nothing wrong with the cap itself, just the cement wore away, so apparently you can get cement and engage in a little DIY dentistry! Who knew?

Where Are Your Manners?

2009-07-11T14:13:00.001-07:00

July 11, 2009
Here I am at the Coeur d’Alene library. It is a lovely building--very airy and spacious. Lots of light. It’s air conditioned J The people seem very helpful. There is art everywhere. And as soon as you come in, there is a used bookstore that benefits the Friends of the Library. I’m sitting by a window and looking out at more public art and a bunch of green space. It’s too much grass, I will grant you that, but there are also trees with picnic tables underneath them in the shade. And best of all, there are people wandering around with armloads of books! This can only be a good thing! I continue to be amazed at how much people have invested in their community. I think that there are about the same number of people living here as in Klamath Falls, but the contrast is striking. I will admit that this place has many advantages--the scenery is beautiful--there is just a natural beauty here that Klamath Falls simply does not possess. And this is a kind of a destination to a larger degree than I imagine Klamath Falls is. Still, people are clearly making an effort to move forward and not just look backwards. Downtown is thriving, not dying. People seem involved.

There is a Farmer’s Market that sets up twice a week and another similar thing that sets up on yet another day. We went to the market this morning and many of the organic produce booths were just about sold out. There is a second Friday art walk. The whole vibe is different and I find it completely refreshing! And the people seem so friendly. Everywhere we go people are just extremely friendly. Lots of smiling faces and happy greetings.
The campground got busy last night as you would expect. Unfortunately one of the new arrivals is a little boy who seems to not understand the idea of manners or polite behavior. Last night he began to hang out a couple of feet from our tent. The creek runs by there. There are “public spaces” where he could have gone to look at the creek, but he had to do it there even though you’re not really supposed to be getting in other people’s space. Bill and I were in our tent and had to finally zip up the screen covering. Then he proceeded to run around with this flashing light thing while yelling. He continued this well after quiet time had begun. It was highly annoying to have this light flashing on the tent walls. Do I sound like an old fuddy-duddy yet? This morning was the clincher, though. He ran around our tent and stood a couple of feet away next to the tall grass on the creek bank. He proceeded to rummage around in his pants and urinate in the grass a few feet from our tent! I could not believe this and I wish now I has said something. Where are this boy’s adults? Has no one ever taught him that he is not the center of the universe and that a bit of consideration fro other people is a good thing?
Of course, I do not enjoy being around children, so I am not inclined to be amused by this kind of thing. And I have noticed that things seem to be way out of control in many cases. This does not hold true for everyone, of course, but I can remember being in the library and having parents tell their kids to place the books they wanted to check out on the counter. When they did this, they were praised as though they had just composed a masterpiece of music or something. “GOOD JOB!” their parents would exclaim. I used to want to ask whether this was really the response that was necessary. If you shout to the heavens every time your kid does the most mundane and basic things, they will get the idea that they must always get this kind of praise. And in he real world, as we all know, it is not forthcoming. That is not to say we shouldn’t tell people when they are doing something we appreciate or when we are impressed by something they have done or whatever. I try to do that on a regular basis. But I never once told an adult library patron, “GOOD JOB” when they handed me their library card! And I grew up on the other side of things where everything I did would be met with criticism. I am not advocating that, either. It simply seems to me that there must be some happy medium. And parents should always remember that their little darlings are not so darling to everyone. The older I get, the more I value consideration of other people and I thing that being polite is a good thing. And being polite does not include wandering into someone’s tent site and urinating!
I must say that being in these campgrounds is an amazing way to observe people and their behavior. I am now pondering all sorts of questions about why people do what they do!

Camping, Not Kamping

2009-07-09T16:30:00.000-07:00

July 9, 2009
Well, we have moved to a campground a few miles east of Coeur d’Alene called Wolf Lodge RV Campground. It seems like it will be a nice spot. We have trees around us and I am sitting in the shade as I type! This will be good as it is supposed to be 90ish on Saturday. I will be grateful for the shade then.

Right now I am actually slightly chilly--something I am not at all used to in July!! We got here and got out of the truck to decide where to put the tent when this guy rode up on his golf cart to greet us and ask us whether we needed anything. He said he wanted to make sure we had the tent site we wanted and that if there was anything at all we needed to let them know at the office. What a totally different experience than the last place! We are in a spot that is in a little bowl shaped area and we set up the tent next to the creek. I think we won’t be able to hear the water go by because the freeway is right there, but maybe there won’t be so much traffic at night. In any case, there is no train! And the view we have is beautiful. We have some tall grass and small trees that block our view of the freeway and across the street there is a big forested hill. It all seems so green! There’s something else I’m not really used to seeing in July--green.
We both decided we didn’t feel like going out again yesterday, so we will go to the Farmers’ Market on Saturday. It’s not downtown, but I think it was the original one in the area. It was nice to just get some work done, have some supper and relax. We are rested and recharged now and figure the couple of nights in the motel did us all some good. I will say, though, that I was finding it to be a little bit stuffy indoors and was kind of looking forward to getting back outside.
We’ve been noticing how much people seem to care about this community. It’s pretty evident in how they have clearly poured resources into downtown. And in yesterday’s paper there was a little blurb about how they are soliciting ideas for projects that will benefit low income people and neighborhoods. I guess they’re giving grants to individuals or groups who can present a good plan. It seems like a community that really works well, though I say that from my perspective as an outsider. It may be different if you live here. And in today’s paper there was an article about this guy who is running for mayor and has declared that the current constitution of the United States does not apply to him. He is a believer in the 1787 and 1791 versions. I do not know whether this means he would take away women’s right to vote or reinstate slavery--the article really didn‘t say. So there’s an element of the absurd here as well. I guess it’s not too alarming that someone like this would run for mayor--people have strange ideas everywhere. What would be alarming is if the guy actually won the election. My guess is that he won’t. There just seems like too much good stuff is happening here for a majority of the citizens of this town to vote for someone like that. But what do I know? I’m just passing through!

It's a Whole Other World!

2009-07-08T15:05:00.000-07:00

July 8, 2009
I am awake!!! YIPPEE!! We caved in to exhaustion and got ourselves a motel room for a couple of nights. The other afternoon in the library I was looking up different places to stay in Coeur d’Alene. I had the vague thought that it would be awfully nice to be able to sleep in a quiet and comfortable place and to just be able to regroup a little bit after several almost sleepless nights and time spent chasing shade. I was rather shocked at how expensive motel rooms have gotten to be. But I found one that was only a couple of dollars more than the cheapest room I could come up with and it offered far more--free wifi, free breakfast, a microwave, a fridge, and a coffeemaker. Most of all, it has given us a chance to rest and catch up. Bill spent several hours last night processing photos. I got caught up on all of my notes, and we all slept through the night. There were thunderstorms and rain showers in the forecast for last night and tonight. It was so quiet in here that I have no idea whether they actually happened. But I do know that I am full of gratitude for a good night of uninterrupted sleep. I rather frightened myself yesterday when I saw the bags and circles under my eyes! This morning we went out to a campground that I had found in my search Monday. It’s quite a bit cheaper than the KOA in Spokane was and it seems to offer the same amenities and to be much nicer. The woman in the office heard our story and said that we were welcome to look around and even choose our campsite if we would like! She gave us a map and told us which ones were available. We picked a nice spot that is between a creek and a tree (a tree--hurray!) and is located in this little bowl-shaped area a little bit farther back than the other sites. Since it’s supposed to get hot again this weekend, I am sure I will appreciate that beautiful tree! We are going there tomorrow and will stay until next Tuesday morning.
I must say that I have had the thought cross my mind that maybe I’ll just stop right here and settle in Coeur d’Alene! I have never been here before, but it is a beautiful place. I am amazed at the huge difference between Spokane and here. Part of it is simply that I found the landscape in Spokane to be rather yucky. I felt the city exuded an air of decay. It was not pleasant at all. It was not a place that I would want to spend any time in, but the kind of place that had me looking around and wondering how quickly I could leave. Not good. This is completely different. Since we had to leave the kampground by 11 yesterday morning , we couldn’t check in at the motel until 3, and it took us ½ an hour to get here, we had time to spend.

We found ourselves downtown at this incredible park in the heart of the city on the edge of the lake. There’s even a little beach! There are many different areas for kids to play in--the beach, a big playground with castle-like structures, basketball court, and lots of room to run around. I was impressed. We parked and started walking around.

We sat by the beach and watched the float planes take off and the people playing. We went further into the park--trees everywhere--big, big trees--and ate our lunches. Then we walked around for a couple of hours.

We walked on the world’s largest floating boardwalk in search of the next in the series of Mudgy and Millie statues. There are 5 of them, based on a story in a children’s book. Mudgy is a moose and Millie is a mouse.

We found the library. I went into the Visitor’s Center and asked a couple of questions about the effects of the economy on tourism. The ladies in there were incredibly friendly and helpful. They went out of their way to help me and gave me some really useful information. The area around our motel seems like the usual chain store strip kind of thing, but downtown really seems vibrant and alive. It is clear that they have invested significant resources into the area and it shows. We went back this morning to walk around and felt the same vibe. Bill and I both agreed that this seemed like the best place we’d been since we left Alaska. We’re going back out later because the Farmer’s Market is happening between 4 and 7.
So after several strange days in eastern Washington, we find ourselves in what seems like a completely different world. Relaxed, functional, getting things done, rested, and enjoying the surrounding area. It’s a welcome change!

Sleep? What's That?

2009-07-06T13:28:00.000-07:00

July 6, 2009
Sleep. I have almost forgotten what that is like. This morning we were treated to the train again at a little before 5 a.m. It didn’t really matter, though, because we were already awake and had been for a couple of hours. We had had some thunderstorms last night, but they were dry. Not so at 3 in the morning! The wind was whipping, the rain was falling, the lightening was flashing and the thunder was booming. We were checking for leaks. We didn’t have any leaks as in one area with rain coming in, producing puddles, but the rain did get through the tent fabric in places and we lay there with it falling on our faces every once in awhile. Then it stopped. Then it started again. Then we got into the truck. We went out into the rain after a bit to make ourselves some breakfast--yogurt with raisins and walnuts. Then when the kampground store opened, we went there and got coffee. The way I see it, since I am being awakened every night by a train just beyond the fence, the least they can do is provide me with free coffee so I can make an attempt to function! An IV drip would probably be more effective, but I will take what I can get!
After coffee we headed out. We had to go in search of a place to obtain a wifi connection and an electrical outlet. It has been a challenge over the past three days to get our computers in sync with both a charged battery and an internet connection. The batteries die down quickly, especially when Bill is processing photos. And the wifi connection at the kampground is erratic. We have used the power inverter when we are driving, but if we’re not going longish distances, they don’t charge fast enough. Someone needs to invent a fast-charging computer battery that takes a few minutes to charge and then lasts a long time. They’d make a fortune!

But before we could find a place to work on our computers, we had to get the truck mirrors fixed. They’d seemed fine before we left Klamath Falls. But on our way up to The Dalles, there was some wind and when a truck went by going the opposite way, Bill’s mirror blew down and stayed at such an angle that he could not see out of it without many interesting contortions. He drove much of the rest of the way with his arm out the window holding the mirror in place. This left only one hand free for driving. Several days later, after we’d left Vancouver, the same thing happened to the passenger side mirror and then it was my turn to get a sunburned arm from holding a mirror in place. He tried to figure out how he could fix it, but couldn’t. As he is fond of saying, “I am not a mechanic.” He drove like this for some days but on the way here he decided that he would have to try and get it fixed. It didn’t seem like a safe situation. So he stopped at a Schucks that we happened to see. We knew we couldn’t get it fixed over the weekend, but Norris (the guy at the counter)gave him a name and this morning we went in search of the place, which happened to be right around the corner. It’s called Alton’s Tire Rama (22117 E. Country Vista Dr, Liberty Lake, WA/ www.tirerama.com/509-922-7771).

The guy there--Neil, the new manager--said he should go to Schucks, get the new mirrors and bring them back for installation. We did this and it was done in less than 25 minutes! And they charged us for the actual time it took, not for the whole hour! We were very pleased with the service and with the fact that now Bill has two hands free for driving!
So now we are in the Liberty Lake Library in the quiet reading room, both plugged in and working on stuff and both of us sort of napping as we go. We’re leaving here tomorrow and I am a bit apprehensive about what tonight will be like. It has stopped raining and the sun came out (there’s a first for me--hoping the rain will stop and the sun will come out), but there are more clouds everywhere. So we don’t know how wet we’ll be tonight. Or what time the train will come screaming through. Or how much actual sleep will be possible. I hope the next campground is much more quiet!

Spokane

2009-07-05T17:50:00.000-07:00

July 5, 2009, part 2
This morning we were up early, thanks to our train horn alarm clock. We packed a lunch and headed out for the ½ hour drive into Spokane to the Spokane Friends church. They have an unprogrammed worship time at 8:45, an adult education class at 9:30, and programmed worship at 10:45. We participated in all of it and it was quite an interesting experience. I found the discussion in the class to be very thoughtful with people thinking about things in really insightful ways. I enjoyed it very much. It ranged from how things worked in various places historically, the way culture works, mental illness, and much more. To begin with, there was an article in a local newspaper insert or something that people read and discussed. I guess they do this each week. Someone brings in an article and they discuss it.
The programmed meeting was quite nice and different from what we’re used to. It was very meaningful, though. The people were very friendly and welcoming. I got the feeling that the people who attend came from a mix of backgrounds and political inclinations. Seems to me that this is a sign of a good, strong community. It was clear that whatever the differences, these people have genuine care and concern for one another. This is very hopeful.

After we left the church, we went looking for a place to eat lunch. We drove through parts of town that looked very run down and very rough. They were not places I would want to be walking around in. Buildings were vacant and boarded up. Some of them were in very bad shape. Nothing was going on in these areas.

Then we turned a few corners and we were at Riverfront Park. Found a place to park and walked there. We sat down on this sculpture to eat our picnic lunch, since it was an available shady spot. The sculpture consisted of flat-topped rocks of various heights arranged in a semi-circle.

In the center was a goat statue. We were munching on our cheese and crackers when a family of bicyclists rode up. Dad was on his bike pulling the baby trailer--complete with baby--behind. Mom and the other two kids each had their own bikes. The kids got off their bikes at went up to the goat. Mom asked us if it wasn’t working today. Bill said, “I don’t know. We’re not from around here. What’s it supposed to do?” Turns out that if it had been working properly, the kids would’ve been able to push a button and the goat would have consumed their garbage! After that, several other people appeared to feed the goat and we had to be the bearers of the bad news that the goat was not working today. Unfortunately, some people had left their garbage there anyway, so whenever he is back to normal, he will have plenty to do! I thought it was kind of funny that we had unwittingly sat down in front of one of the parks more popular attractions--at least for the kids!
We got back to the Kampsite and discovered that most people had left. The place was packed when we left and full of lots of empty space when we returned. We plan to claim some shade in one of those empty sites--at least until someone comes to take it for themselves!

Kamping, Not Camping

2009-07-05T17:49:00.000-07:00

July 5, 2009
So we got to Spokane Friday. We were in for a surprise. We soon realized that we had been under a misperception of what camping is. Or, perhaps to be more precise, we discovered that we really didn’t have a full grasp of kamping. We’re at a KOA campground and their slogan--which seems to be plastered all over everything--is “remember, it’s not camping, it’s kamping.” We found the place and Bill went in to register. He came out with our campsite number and we went there. It was grass--a welcome change from the dirt and rocks that we had at the last place. But there was no shade at all. This was the case for many sites--a few had a scraggly tree that would provide some shade at some times of the day. We had a bush growing up against the fence. There was enough shade to place the cooler there. OK, then, it is what it is. We now understand that while camping, one may expect some level of nature actually in the campsite itself, when kamping, trees are apparently some kind of bonus that those places lucky enough to be tree-rich use as a way to advertise. The reason we decided to stay in this particular place was that most places do not take reservations for tent sites and we were concerned about being able to find a spot over a holiday weekend. This place solved that problem. It would be hot and we would have preferred shade, but we would deal with it. After putting up the tents and getting what we’d need out of the truck, we went to use the restroom. I walked into a stall and found it filthy and apparently clogged. It remained this way for a couple of days. Bill told me that the one available stall in one of the men’s rooms was the same way. Fortunately, there was another restroom, but there were many tent campers this weekend, many of them male, so I am not sure the facilities were adequate. Then we tried to find the place on our map (which we got when we signed in) where we could plug in our computers and connect to the internet. We’d used the wifi connection earlier, but we needed the electrical outlet as well at this point. We didn’t see it so we asked the young women behind the counter in the store where we could plug in our computers to recharge our batteries. They seemed puzzled. “There are plugs in the store,” one of them said. I just sort of looked at them. I mentioned that it said there was a place to plug in shown on the map. She brightened. “Oh, you want to PLUG IN,” she exclaimed, removing a yellow modem connector cord from someplace underneath the counter. I declined her offer, repeating that I needed to charge my battery. They suggested the Starbucks a few miles away. I left it alone for the night and the next day charged my battery in the car as we were driving into Spokane.

The real fun, though, occurred when we were sleeping. Suddenly we were jolted into wakefulness by a train horn screaming and the earth shaking underneath us--the train was a few feet away rumbling down the tracks. It was 4 a.m. Festive. We hit the jackpot this morning as the scene repeated itself at 3, 5, and 7 a.m. Can’t wait to see how many we get to experience tonight! Needless to say, this is not conducive to a good night’s sleep.
I will say that there is coffee in the morning and the people seem friendly enough. The whole thing is just kind of strange. I used to camp with an aunt and cousin as a kid in their Skamper (there’s that “k” again) and I just don’t remember it being like some sort of kamping suburbia. There were trees. There was green space. And there just seemed to be space in general. There is a lot to observe in these places and some ideas are bubbling around in my head about what it all means. It is rather odd to be in the tent listening to people’s air conditioning, TVs, and vacuum cleaners running.

One guy has his TV outside in his “yard.” I was puzzling about why he might do this and it occurred to me that maybe he couldn’t fit it into its appointed spot inside the RV. It’s kind of big. Yesterday the Direct TV guy was there hooking him up. Now every time we go by his spot, he has the TV on. Other people avoid the whole TV installation problem by carrying around their satellite dish. I am not sure why they do these things. If you consider what they pay for the house-on-wheels to begin with, then add in gas, insurance, and upkeep, it’s already pretty expensive. Then add the site fees, TV fees (and in the case of the guy above, installation of Direct TV) and whatever else they have to pay for and I am wondering why they don’t just go to a motel or something. It’s not like they’re out there enjoying nature or anything. If anyone has any experience with this kind of thing and can offer any insight, I’d really be very interested in what you have to say!
It’s been in the 90s since we got here, but comfortable at night. Last I heard it was supposed to cool off some. I hope it does. And we will see what the train schedule is for early tomorrow morning!

Downtown

2009-07-02T14:07:00.000-07:00

July 2, 2009
So here we are in Ellensburg. Looks like downtown is not a very happening place. I went into a yarn/tea shop and it was very quiet. Partly that’s because summer and 90 degree heat is not the time to work with wonderful mohair and wool yarns. And the shop didn’t really have any thread or anything that would be the kind of thing that might be more likely to sell in the summer. The workers were eating lunch and didn’t seem very interested in starting a conversation, so I chatted a bit and let it go.

We stopped into the museum so Bill could ask where he might buy a postcard and the woman looked at him like he was from Mars. “You mean a like, picture postcard?” she asked with wonder in her voice. When he said yes, that’s what he meant, she was clearly very puzzled, but she directed him to the Chamber of Commerce. There were no visitors to the free museum, either. Possibly the fact that it is Thursday has something to do with that. There does seem to be a big issue about downtown and how the town will develop. This seems quite like Klamath Falls and other areas that are trying to save their downtown areas while the box stores keep on coming in. And I am sorry to say that we contributed to the problem. We needed some groceries and there was Fred Meyer, big as life and easily accessible. We could have--and maybe should have--tried to find a locally owned store that we could shop at. But we did not. We were all hot, the truck is full of stuff, and we didn’t want to drive around looking for someplace that may or may not exist. In any case, they have a Farmer’s Market on Saturdays downtown, so that probably helps get people down here. One thing that I am finding very interesting is how food keeps coming up as an issue. We don’t often think of all the roles it plays, but here and elsewhere farmer’s markets are being used as a tool to help revitalize the downtown area.

In The Dalles, our hosts told us about how they are using their own yard and the vacant lot next door to grow food themselves and also to let other people come in and plant vegetables for themselves. Then they share it with other people in the neighborhood. And sometimes people bring their kids along to help plant. Then there is the CSA (community supported agriculture) movement. Ellen and Brigg have joined such a thing in their area. Brigg does grow some food in the yard and they have cherries and raspberries, which Ellen processes. Because their growing season is so long, she can grow cool weather crops in the spring and fall and use those while not doing any gardening in the summer when it is hot and she has other things she wants to do. The CSA arrangement works well for everyone. She gets fresh, locally grown veggies and gets to sample things she never even heard of while not having to sacrifice her summer to food processing and gardening when it’s too hot for her. This is good for Ellen and Brigg because they are getting a variety of high quality, organic, locally grown produce. It’s good for the environment for the same reasons. It’s good for the young woman farmer who gets to have a sustainable farming operation. And it’s good for the local economy because the dollars are staying within the community. I think we may see many more kinds of small-scale, local solutions to problems as we move forward and food may well be at the center of many of them.

The campground is kind of interesting. I am not sure which came first--the tent sites or the overpass, but it is not exactly a relaxing experience to hear the cars whizzing just over your head at night. When we got here yesterday, Bill went in to register. We went to our tent site and I was not sure whether to laugh or cry. Every other tent site in the place had some shade where you could set up the tent, except the one we were assigned to. No trees, no shade, just relentless sun beating down with temperatures in the miserable 90s. Bill went and asked for a different site and we were able to move. Crazy! Bill decided that he had to take a photo. He chuckled about that for several hours.

We’re in the library at the moment. It seems like a nice little place. They are fielding calls about when they will be closed for the holiday--reminds me of when I used to work at Klamath County Library--we got the same thing. But we would probably only have been closed on the holiday itself. These people get Friday and Saturday off! YIPPEE for them!

Botanical Gardens

2009-07-01T20:00:00.001-07:00

July 1, 2009
Before we left this morning, Brigg took us to his botanical gardens. He volunteers there as the compost guy. It’s a really cool place. People have many different gardens with different themes--butterfly, the manor garden, one with native plants, and many others. It’s a beautiful spot and very peaceful. The compost section has many different compost piles constructed in various ways from inexpensive using recycled materials to commercial compost bins. The educational opportunities are amazing. And Brigg tells us that the worm composting class fill up fast! Lots more interest than there used to be! The website for this great place is www.naturescaping.org check it out! It was a wonderful way to start the day.
After we got back from there, we finished loading the truck and said goodbye to Ellen. It was a fun visit. Then we got some gas and took off for Ellensburg. Took us about 5 hours to get here, but we made it. More time to set up the tent. Then we grabbed something to eat and walked around the park a bit. I would love a cup of coffee, but there’s nowhere near here to do that right now, and none of us feel like driving into town. So it’s some peach cold brew iced tea for tonight!!
Tomorrow we plan to head into town and go to the Chamber of Commerce and a local museum to get a feel for the area and ask some questions. Friday morning it’s on to Spokane!

the next step

2009-06-30T22:12:00.000-07:00

June 30, 2009
The end of another month arrives. Tomorrow we begin a new month by heading for a new destination. We’ve been going back and forth about where to go next. We thought maybe Pullman, but then we discovered that it’s a 6 hour drive and we really didn’t care to do that. I thought we’d looked up the mileage before and found it to be only 250 miles or so, but it turns out that it’s really about 100 miles farther than that. I am either hallucinating or just getting very confused! Anyway, we realized that there is really no need to go great distances in one day--at least at this point--and to tell you the truth, six hours in the truck on a hot day doesn’t seem appealing. So I looked on a map and found Yakima was closer. The search for a campground began. There didn’t seem to be anything much coming up as a result of the Google search, so I said we might as well go on up to Ellensburg, which is about 40 miles up the road. They have a campground there and we were able to get reservations. We’ll stay for a couple of days and then move on to Spokane. We managed to reserve the last tent site at the campground there. I felt that with the holiday weekend coming up, it was a good time for reservations. I really do not want to be driving around searching for a camping spot that has a tent site available. So this will work out. We will be in Spokane until July 7, so will attend meeting there on Sunday.
We will have to try and time things right so that we don’t end up in whatever rush hour traffic there is in these places. We’ve spent a couple of days now dealing with Portland traffic and it’s not at all fun! It was not this bad when we lived here. Then again, we never traveled around during rush hour. We’ve picked Heather up at the transit center for the last couple of days at 4 o’clock. Yesterday wasn’t too bad, although it was bad enough for Bill to get really stressed out at having to drive in it. Today was a different story. There was an accident on the Washington side of the northbound freeway bridge, so what should have been a 15-minute ride back to my friend’s house turned out to be a 45-minute ride in stop-and-go traffic. Bill kept repeating that he would never live in a place where he had to do this every day. I was just hoping it would be over soon. Bill had the radio on and some guy was rambling on about basketball and repeating the fact that Yao Ming was a science experiment. Whatever, dude. I can see how people can easily fall into anger and road rage. I wasn’t even driving and I was highly annoyed. I was quite relieved when he turned the radio off. After awhile we passed the accident scene and it didn’t look too bad, although there was an ambulance. It didn’t seem as though there was any urgency about things, though. Just in case, I sent some good thoughts into the universe for a good outcome.
It’s been really fun visiting with Ellen and Brigg. I have enjoyed our conversations and appreciated their hospitality. It’s also been an experience revisiting some old stomping grounds and realizing that I’ve moved on. You can’t step in the same river twice as the saying goes. And before this trip, I would have put Portland down as the best place I ever lived. I suppose compared to the other places, it would still be the best, but it doesn’t hold the appeal for me that it once did. Life goes on; people change; and nothing remains the same. This is a good lesson for me to learn right about now. In many ways, we are starting over in our life together. Our first big move was from New Hampshire to Portland. Now we’re going back the other way. As I do that, it is good for me to see with my own eyes that this part of my life really is over. It was fun while I was living it. But I’m not the same person I was when I lived here. I will never be that person again. So it’s time to turn around and move in a different direction. And so I go from Ellen’s to Ellensburg for the next step in the journey!

Freedom Friends

2009-06-28T22:29:00.000-07:00

June 28
Started off the day with some great coffee, homemade blueberry pancakes, a cloudy sky, and conversation. At about 9, we hopped into the truck and headed south. We headed over the bridge and into Oregon, dropping our daughter off at the transit mall so she could spend the day in Portland. Then we went on to Salem. We found the church and rushed through the door rather breathlessly, because it was just about 10:30 and we didn’t want to walk in late. It was a small group, but there was a really good vibe there. It was different than what we are used to, but still good. I enjoyed the way they focused on gratitude in the prayer time. I think that’s so important and often overlooked or considered as a kind of an afterthought. I think that somehow we tend to obsess about what’s going wrong as we see it and we forget to pay attention to what’s going well. But if we can shift our thinking to the things we are grateful for, we can find joy and peace, even in the middle of a hard experience. There was time to talk about the things that aren’t so great, too, but they started with gratitude and I thought that was a powerful thing.
After the meeting for worship, we were able to spend a couple of hours with the pastor of the meeting and the presiding clerk. We had a great conversation and we were grateful that they took the time to talk to us. We learned something about how they started the church and why and how it has been progressing. They can tell it better than I can, so I recommend that you check out their website at www.freedomfriends.org They are a very welcoming and inclusive church and if anyone is looking for a church on a Sunday morning in Salem, Oregon, I can happily suggest that one. They are in a funky little building right near 13th St. And they even have a neon OPEN sign in the window.
As I was riding down the freeway, I was struck by how familiar everything seemed. We lived in Portland from 1987-1995 and I have driven down that road countless times. Now, yesterday when we drove off the freeway and through our old neighborhood, there was much that seemed totally foreign, but still other stuff that made it seem as though I’d only been gone a week. But what struck me the most yesterday was how agitated I felt almost immediately upon entering the city. There were too many cars, too many buildings, too many people, too many things going on. I marveled that I used to actually live in that environment and thought nothing of it. Now that I have been away from it for 14 years, it all seems different. Today, though, we were on the freeway and there wasn’t much of that. There was what seemed like a great deal of traffic for a Sunday morning, but other than that, it all just seemed like something I had done one time too many. The funny thing is, I enjoyed living in Portland. If someone had asked me the best place I’d lived, I would have named that as the place. And now it was just someplace that I was done with. That’s the thing. I was flooded with the knowledge that it is simply time to move on. I know that I am in the process of doing just that, so all I have to do is proceed. Still, there was a twinge of sadness as there is when you realize that something you valued is over.
And so we move on, with a big thank you to Freedom Friends for a great Sunday morning experience and for being so welcoming.

the next place

2009-06-28T21:26:00.000-07:00

June 27
Left The Dalles this morning. Before we did we had a nice visit with our hosts, a friend’s brother and sister-in-law, Larry and Paula, over coffee. They were so nice to us and very welcoming--wonderful people. We enjoyed meeting them and seeing the town, which we had only driven by in the past. And we so appreciated their warmth and hospitality. Both of us are still trying to get used to this new life. It is a weird thing--it seemed like all we did was talk about doing this project for a month and a half. It was as though that was all we were going to get to do--talk. Then came a flurry of activity that picked up as we got closer to a departure date, but somehow it still seemed like actually leaving was some sort of distant thing. Even on Thursday, I woke up and reminded myself that I would not go to sleep in the same bed I woke up in. The day had arrived. It still didn’t seem real. Then we were on the road. In some ways it was like it was never going to happen and in others, it all happened in an instant. And now we’re in the midst of it and it is unfolding with each passing moment. The thing is, even with all of that planning, we are still kind of feeling our way along and figuring it out. That is how it should be. Even if we had planned even more, there’s no way to plan for every possible thing, so it’s best to plan for uncertainty and flexibility.
So now we’re in Vancouver, Washington at the home of an old friend of mine from grad school, Ellen, and her husband, Brigg. We had a chance to visit and ate a delicious meal. Everyone is kind of tired, so we all decided to just veg out after dinner. I am looking forward to being able to talk more with them over the next few days. We are also enjoying getting to bond with their two cats, Ollie and Cocoa. They are quite friendly and we’re told they may decide to keep us company as we sleep. I think all of us are kind of hoping that this will be the case.
Tomorrow we head for Salem and the Freedom Friends church, but not until we‘ve eaten a breakfast of homemade blueberry pancakes.

Resting

2009-06-28T21:24:00.000-07:00

June 26
I woke up this morning and realized that I have no house or apartment keys to carry around with me. We have no home in the traditional sense of the word. Home now consists of the three of us, our truck and tents. There is an amazing sense of freedom in that. I am starting to see that with a little rest and a few days, I could really embrace this whole thing. Not that I haven’t been excited about it in the time leading up to our departure, but it was easy to get wrapped up in the details of planning and preparation and to forget about what we were preparing for! I suppose that’s good--then it was time to prepare and now that is done and it’s time to experience what we have been preparing for.
We had some ideas about what kinds of things we could do on our day here in The Dalles. But the other day a friend suggested to us that the first order of business should be to rest. The old me would have never been able to do such a thing. She would have pushed herself to get something accomplished and then eventually been too tired to function or gotten a migraine or something. But this is not the old me. I realized today that this friend was absolutely right--we do need to rest. So after breakfast, we took a walk into town and just looked at what was there. It seems like a nice little place. It was about a five mile walk--downhill on the way in and uphill on the way back. It was nice to walk. We’d been taking the truck so much to do what we had to do and not had much time to walk the way we used to. Now it’s afternoon and I am sitting on a lovely deck with a breeze from the Columbia River blowing through the garden. I might make some coffee. I can do that because we unloaded half the truck this morning to rearrange things. Yesterday we put in the big stuff, realized what big stuff we couldn’t take, and then started putting other stuff on top of what was there. Then Bill decided to stick in some of the smaller stuff we thought we didn’t have room for. I did not know this. So when he handed me a pillow last night as we were removing our backpacks, I almost dropped it because it was heavier than a pillow! Turns out he’d grabbed a pillow and wrapped a lamp that used to be his late aunt’s inside the case. Good thing he mentioned it, because it almost hit the ground! Anyway, things are much more accessible now. I am avoiding the thought of where I will put the books I removed from the box before we shoved that further back into the truck. That will be an issue for tomorrow morning. For now I am just going to savor the afternoon, knowing that I don’t have to be anywhere and I don’t have to do anything. It doesn’t really matter what time it is. I can get some of that rest I need so much right now and gather my thoughts for the coming days. And maybe I’ll even read on of those books I took from the box this morning!

and they're off...

2009-06-28T21:23:00.000-07:00

June 25
Finally, we’re off! It feels like eons ago that we decided we would do this project and even longer than that since we knew we wanted to leave Klamath Falls and now it seems that suddenly, the day is upon us. It was a busy one and by the time we left, I felt kind of numb. It has been a very long process and it’s actually hard to believe that we are gone.
We brought our cat to her foster home where she will be until another person can be found for her. So it was another sad good-bye. It feels like all I have been doing for a week is saying good-bye to important people in my life and crying.
Then came the fun part--loading the truck. We had to leave some stuff behind, of course, since there was more stuff and less room than we figured on. But we got what was important loaded into the truck, leaving enough space for the people to squeeze themselves in, and we headed out at about 2. We drove through some familiar territory and then into parts of Oregon where I had never been, arriving at The Dalles at about 7:30. We got out what we needed from the back of the truck and sort of vegged out for a few hours before going to bed. It just doesn’t seem real. I kept thinking about the fact that it feels so weird to be not exactly on vacation, because there’s no place I am going back to at the end of it all. I have nowhere I need to be and no timetable beyond the next couple of days. As I looked at landscapes and places I had never seen before I felt a sense of wonder that for most of the next 3 months, that is exactly what I will be doing. And as I walked around what was my house for the last time, thinking about how much loss I had suffered there and how unhappy I’d been, I felt a heavy sadness inside. But at the same time, I could feel the little kernel of hope that has been growing for the past few months and I felt excited because this is the beginning of a new direction, or maybe it’s just a continuation of the old direction that is leading us further into who we are. I don’t know. But in any case, it’s a fresh start and it’s happening somewhere else. Or in many somewhere elses. I wonder how long it will take before it seems real.

Goodbye Miki

2009-06-28T21:20:00.000-07:00

June 24
We woke up today dogless for the first time in 21 years. Yesterday we brought our dog to be euthanized. It was not something we wanted to do, but we knew it was best for her. She would get crazy in the truck and hating being out of her routine. Even while she was still with us, she knew something was going on as we ran around getting ready to leave and the boxes piled up. She did not do well with other people when we were not there, so we couldn’t try to find her a new home. She was 12 ½ and was slowing down. When the vet felt her leg just before she gave Miki the injection, she said she had a small tumor. She had a good life and a peaceful death, even though she was agitated in the 15 minutes before she went to sleep. We’ve spent a lot of time crying. Last night my sinuses were killing me as I lay in bed until after 2 a.m. not sleeping. It was something we dreaded, but knew we had to do. It is hard to believe she’s not here anymore--we keep thinking we see her or hear her tags jangling. Both of us are glad that we are leaving tomorrow so that we don’t have to be constantly reminded that she’s not here. Bill woke up at 4 a.m.--the time he would usually get up to let her outside. We came home from having dinner with a friend and she wasn’t shoving the drapes aside with her nose to look out the window. Both of us got into bed and lay at an angle, leaving a space at the bottom in the center where she would normally be sleeping. I realized today that it has been a decade of loss--animals that we had for some years began to die and though we had other animals, the pain is still there. I found myself thinking that since we will not have any four-legged-furry people of our own for awhile, I will not have to feel this again, at least for some time. There was a sense of relief in that.
We took some of her fur and that of the dog we lost a year and a half ago and scattered it in the peace garden at church.

Camping

2009-06-21T16:53:00.000-07:00

June 21
We have been noticing camping gear for the past month or so as we have been gathering what we will need for the trip. We had a tent that was a couple of decades old. It got used when we lived in Portland , but not so much when we lived in Fairbanks. We used it a couple of times here and the last time we discovered it leaked when it rained really hard. Fortunately, it was set up in the backyard for us to sleep in during the hot summer nights, so instead of getting wet we could just go into the house! But we figured we would need a new one before heading out, so a couple of weeks ago, after looking at sale ads, we went and got one. It was a bit smaller than the old one--very basic and simple. But as always seems to be the case, once we started looking for tents, we saw them everywhere. Today they were all over the weekly ads. And we continue to be amazed at the kinds of tents they have! We had noticed before a shower/changing room tent. Also, a cottage tent. It had rooms and everything. Today there was a lodge tent, which is apparently somewhat bigger than the cottage. And they had a tent with closets! This seems like quite a concept. Closets in a tent! I can see that have a space to put your stuff that is out of the way might be a good thing, but it seems kind of amusing to think of it as a closet! Anyway, I have chuckled at the idea that you could go out for a camping trip and spend quite a bit of time setting up something like a whole little village. You could have your cottage and your lodge, which may or may not come with closets--the ad didn’t really say. You could set up your shower/changing room tent. Then there are the portable toilets and I suppose you would need to have some kind of tent like structure for that, unless you wanted to use one of the existing “rooms” in your lodge or cottage. Maybe one of the closets could serve as a bathroom. And you’d want one of the portable kitchens they have as well, though probably that would have to be outside. I am exhausted just thinking about it. I can see the utility of this stuff if you are going someplace and staying there for a fairly long period of time. But for a night or two, or even a few, it seems like a lot to go through. I knew that RVs were getting larger and fancier, but I honestly had no idea that the same thing was happening with tents. It’s a far cry from what it used to be. I wonder how it will all evolve.

People

2009-06-20T14:09:00.000-07:00

June 20
More good-byes. Yesterday we went to see some friends and former coworkers and said farewell to them. In a little while we will be going across town to see another friend. This is really reminding me of how many wonderful people we have come to know here. It is sometimes easy to take people for granted, but saying so many good-byes in such a concentrated period of time really makes me aware that I am leaving something valuable behind. I never thought I would feel sad at all when I was preparing to leave here. I used to think about how wonderful it would be to know that I was leaving and to be actually getting ready to go. Sadness never entered my mind as a potential part of that process. But here I am and here it is. It is, however, gratifying to know that some good things came out of my time here. All too often I have felt as if I were wasting my time and doing nothing of any value. At other times I felt that I was being wasted because I was doing so little and not even close to what I was capable of doing. But in this last week, I can see that I was building relationships and that is important. And that makes me happy. So it hasn’t been a total loss.
I’m kind of tired, so I am hoping to take tomorrow off. We’ll see how that goes. It would be nice to just hang out for a day after church and to give myself permission to lounge lazily around for a whole afternoon and evening! If I can just ignore the boxes and totes that are all over the place, I might be able to pull it off!
We got rid of more stuff today--we put all the kitchen stuff that we can’t take on Freecycle as a batch and off it went. That is good. We will be passing stuff along at an accelerated clip for the next several days.
We have our first two stops confirmed. We’ll be in The Dalles, Oregon first, and then we will go to the home of an old friend from grad school for a few days. That will be fun. I am looking forward to catching up with her. I last saw her a few years ago when she and her husband drove over the hill from Ashland, where they making their annual visit to see the Oregon Shakespeare Festival offerings. We went to lunch and spent the afternoon together. After leaving all of the people we will miss so much here, it will be nice to see a friend from the past. It’s a good reminder that sometimes people never leave our lives completely!

Important People

2009-06-18T19:18:00.000-07:00

June 18
Today we spent the day with some of the important people in our lives. And while it wasn’t our good-bye, we all knew that day was coming. For me, it was a rather emotional day as everything has started to seem more real and less like something that might happen someday. I know that in many ways this will be a tough week. We have to say good-bye to people we deeply care about, we have to give our cat to someone else, and we will have to put our dog to sleep. She does not travel well--even with sedatives. She is 12 years old and showing her age. Even so, we would have considered giving her to someone else, except that she gets very distressed when we are not with her. So we have determined that the kindest thing for her, even if not for us, is to celebrate the good life she has had and let her rest in peace. It is not easy to anticipate this, and it brings up memories of other 4-legged furry people we have lost over the years. We are both glad that we will be leaving and not having to spend a long time in this house when she isn’t here.
I still find it amazing that there are so many people that I will miss when I leave here. It’s hard to imagine not seeing them on a regular basis. And it has been truly amazing to be on the receiving end of such generosity and open-heartedness. Everyone wants to make sure we have everything we need; they ask us what they can give us; and they offer us things they have that we might not have thought of. Today we received a power inverter. I didn’t even know what that was when someone offered it to us, and at first we declined, but then we thought about it more and asked a couple of questions. Turns out it is something you connect to your car battery either via the cigarette lighter or the terminals and it turns it into a regular household current. So we will be able to charge our computers as we drive! There’s something I didn’t even really know existed and now I have one! I wouldn’t even have been able to ask for it, but someone cared enough to think about what we might need and to offer it to us. I am grateful for such caring and generosity and I feel lucky to have such people in my life. As excited as I am about what we are doing, saying good-bye will be hard. Endings and beginnings all at the same time. It’s hard. I feel drained tonight. But I will rest, maybe do some reading and crocheting. Tomorrow I will get up and go say good-bye to a couple more people and be happy that I got a chance to share a part of my journey with them. They have all enriched my life.

One Last Time

2009-06-17T14:09:00.001-07:00

We have set a date! If all goes according to this part of the plan, we will be leaving Klamath Falls on Thursday, June 25th! I am afraid to get too excited about the whole thing, and there is a bunch of stuff to be done between now and then. Nevertheless, it feels good to have that date to plan for.
Yesterday we gave away a bunch of stuff and then ran around doing errands. We drove. Both of us have noticed that we really miss walking like we used to, but we had limited time and the things we had to do took us in opposite directions, so using the truck was the wiser choice. This morning, though, we were able to do what we needed to do in town and walk. It was nice to be able to do that even though it was a little hot. The sun here is just relentless. The quality of heat and light just seem completely different than anything I have ever experienced before. Still, I had an unexpected gift of a couple of weeks of clouds and rain, so I can’t complain.
One of the things I did this morning was to stop in at the yarn shop and say good-bye to the owner. I have worked there on an occasional basis for 4 ½ years, teaching and taking care of customers when she needed an extra pair of hands. The shop opened up just a couple of months after we moved here and I was so excited. I remember how I used to wish there was a yarn shop within walking distance when I lived in Fairbanks. So I got it here instead. It was a whole new area of my life that just blossomed. It’s a good place. So is the library.
I stopped in there yesterday to talk to the people I used to work with in the Circulation Department and to give them some cards with this blog address, our website and email. Before I left, I told them that the library had helped to keep me sane--not because I worked there, but because for the whole 5 years I have been here, that library has been a beacon of light for me. It is an excellent library for a town this size. I was surprised at this when I got here and to some extent, I am still surprised. But they have great people working there; they order great books; the circ people get them out on the shelves so I can find them; and what I don’t find, I can interlibrary loan and they will do their best to get what I want. It has been wonderful to have access to words, ideas, thoughts, and knowledge. I have missed having a university library to use, but this one has been almost as good!
So it has been interesting these past couple of days to stop in one last time at these places that have been a part of my life here. It seems unreal that after 5 years of popping in on a regular basis, I have now done that for the last time. But I will always remember the people and the places here that enriched my life in various ways when I really needed them!

Getting Back to Work

2009-06-15T15:44:00.000-07:00

Back into the preparations after a day off yesterday. I didn’t really plan to take yesterday off, but when we got home from church it was already 2 o’clock. I read email and talked with Bill over coffee. Then I went into the bedroom and stretched out to watch Knit and Crochet Today. It was an old one with a host that I really don’t care for. But I just felt like vegging out and watching people manipulate yarn is a good thing to stare at while doing that. The episode was about felting. Some interesting projects were shown. After the show, I didn’t really feel like moving, so other than pressing the power button on the remote to “off,” I decided not to move right then. I felt so peaceful and it was so nice to just lay there with the dog. After awhile I got up. Eventually I boiled some ravioli for dinner. I made some tea and headed back into the bedroom. Watched some news, read, then I just lay there listening to an Anonymous 4 CD (English Ladymass) in the dark. I thought I might get so relaxed that I would melt! Then I listened to a couple of dharma talks from AudioDharma.org while crocheting. Went to bed at midnight. I sort of half woke up for awhile in the middle of the night because it was pouring outside. I always like to hear that--especially in June!! So it turned out to be a very nice day. I had a momentary thought that perhaps I ought to be doing something more constructive, but it didn’t last long before I told myself I might as well take a day off and rest.
I’m glad I did. I got busy enough again today. After breakfast and email we went and picked up my friend, Karen, and some boxes so she could donate some of her things to Goodwill. Then we had to stop and pick up toothpaste, toothbrushes and some other stuff like that for the trip. Then we stopped at another place to get a few groceries. Then home. Lunch was next. Then it was time to start planning. I had my road atlas, the Directory for Traveling Friends, the Directory of Friends Organizations, and my little netbook with its Google search bar fired up and ready to go. For about 3 hours, I flipped pages and did searches. I see signs of progress!! We have our first few stops ideally planned out. I say ideally because to do it this way will require us to send some emails and hope for replies, something that hasn’t worked out well so far. But we will see what happens! I think we are both prepared to adjust as necessary. Not that we have a choice about that! Anyway, I have a plan with one place leading to another, but my mind is swimming at this point, so I have decided to not work on dates at this particular moment. I will do that later this evening or tomorrow morning. Once I do that, I will send out those emails. And then, we wait!

Celebration

2009-06-14T16:24:00.000-07:00

Today was our going away celebration at church. We had an opportunity to share our story and update people on our progress and to accept people’s good wishes and blessings. In fact, my friend, Karen, whose website is listed in our links list on the side of this blog, wrote us a beautiful blessing that we will carry with us as we travel. And we had a potluck with excellent food and a chance for good conversation with (F)friends. It was a bittersweet experience because although we will be there for one more Sunday next week, some people will not be there. So today was the last day for some things. Though we will see some of these people again, the context will be different. For me, it was a reminder that this is really happening. We really are leaving. It hardly seems possible that after everything we have been through in the past five years, it really is coming to an end. It reminds me of the lines from the T.S.Eliot poem that go something like, “to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” That is what this is--both an end and a beginning. I am excited for the beginning, since I have waited so long for it. But I am also--surprisingly--sad about the end because I will miss many people here. I will be in touch via email, of course, but I will miss seeing them on Sundays, spending time over a leisurely lunch or cup of tea and having interesting conversations, and just spending time together. It won’t be the same. But I am glad to have had this time with these people and knowing them will enrich my life whether I am here or not.

Letting Stuff Go

2009-06-13T18:02:00.000-07:00

More packing and sorting today! I went through my 3 boxes of Christmas stuff and got it down to one box. I will give away the rest. I got a closet cleaned out. Got more totes packed. And we brought the computer to its new home and got to enjoy a couple of hours of tea and conversation with friends as a bonus! It is surprisingly easy for me to just put stuff in the “give it away” pile. I had been putting off doing the Christmas stuff because I am a Christmas junkie and have always enjoyed putting up and looking at all of my decorations. But maybe because it is June or maybe because I am excited about what we are doing, it was pretty easy to just let go of stuff. When we left Fairbanks I did the same thing. I was thinking that it used to take me all day to decorate the house for Christmas, but we keep on downsizing, so it will be quick as a flash this year. The ease with which I was able to get rid of stuff may also have something to do with last Christmas. I had the decorations all up on the day after Thanksgiving as usual. Shortly thereafter, we had weeks of air stagnation and heavy pollution, which caused me to have runny nose, watery eyes, sore throat and a bad cough. A cough that kept us awake at night. Then the week of Christmas, Bill got some kind of weird digestive ailment or something. He spent Christmas in bed. So the decorations in and of themselves weren’t that important in the end. I would’ve rather had both of us feeling good in a house devoid of decorations than to be sitting there coughing and having Bill sick in my decorated house. Anyway, progress has been made! And tonight I should be able to finish the sock I am working on. It is the second of a pair--I finished the first months ago and figured I should make the mate before we leave so I can tuck my double points into a tote. Slowly but surely we are getting there!

Surprisingly Productive

2009-06-12T22:51:00.000-07:00

Turned out to be a pretty productive day, though I had my doubts when I woke up too early this morning, very congested and freezing! I yawned my way through breakfast and then we headed out to go to the bank and to pick up a Tracfone for the trip along with a few other things ( canned fruit, salad dressing, etc.). We got home and I felt worse. Then the headache started with a bit of discomfort that soon progressed into pounding pain. Eating lunch didn’t help--at least right away. But then I made some coffee and took a migraine pill and things settled. I was still tired, but no longer yawning and freezing and the congestion eased somewhat. So I sat and ripped out a vest I’d made for myself in Tunisian crochet a few years ago which fit at the time, but was too big now. I wanted to salvage what yarn I could to reuse. I’d done the front sides earlier in the week, along with another vest, so getting the back done today meant that I was done with that task. And now I have some more yarn--never a bad thing! While I did that I listened to a couple of spoken word Cds I’d gotten a couple of years ago--one about women in US history and one about US poets. Neither was very long, but it was another thing I was glad to have done. I plan to put them on freecycle now that I’ve listened to them. Then I got some more stuff packed, sorted for giving away, and recycled. Got another tote packed. And since Bill finished scanning our old photos yesterday, we were able to put the scanner on freecycle and it is now in its new home. Some people also came and picked up our houseplants and a ladder. Bill wiped the hard drive of our desktop computer and we will be bring that to its new people tomorrow. Things are moving--even though it sometimes doesn’t feel like it! Someone suggested to Bill that Route 2 in Michigan is a really nice way to go, so we looked at a map and decided that this would fit very nicely into the trip. We are disappointed because we sent out a couple of emails to people to were recommended to us and they have not responded. Since they would be people we’d be seeing at the beginning of the trip, we are getting to the point where we may have to just decide when to leave and plan to not stop in those places. We have to make a firm decision on when we are leaving so we can get the utilities shut off and call the person who has already said we’d be welcome at her house and give her a date! I don’t know if they are on vacation or just not interested, but it’s been a week already. I guess this is a good reminder that stuff happens and we will have to be prepared to adapt as we go. And to end the day on a pleasant note, it is raining outside. It’s been below average in terms of temperatures with grey skies and rain on a fairly regular basis. I love it! It’s not what I have come to expect from June in the Basin, but I will take it and consider it a gift!

Lessons Learned

2009-06-11T10:22:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about yesterday’s post. In the process, I was reminded of all the things I learned in spite of the pain. And I thought about my firm conviction that growth usually happens as a result of suffering--maybe that’s why every life has some. When things are going well, we have little incentive to think about them or to try and change them in any way. In fact, we are probably more likely to cling to and grasp at whatever it is that we think is the cause of our good fortune. As I said yesterday, though, all is impermanent--the good times and the bad times, the boring times and the exciting times, the joy and the pain--it is all here for awhile and then gone. So it is important to remember the gifts that come with each thing and to be grateful for the lessons that we get to learn along the way.
I have learned plenty of lessons in my five years here. Many of them I am sure I will come to appreciate even more when there is some time and distance between me and the experience. Some I am sure that I am not even aware of yet. One of my biggest realizations has been that without my five years here, I would probably not be able to do this project. The person I am now is not the person I was when I rode into town. That person would not have so readily jumped at the chance to do something like this. Oh, I would sometimes think about doing it. But then I would rationalize about why it wasn’t time, or how I didn’t have the resources, or how no one would want to talk to me anyway--and on and on. So there’s one lesson learned. I am far more comfortable now going with the flow. I am comfortable with uncertainty. And I no longer have any delusions about being able to control anything other than my own thoughts, feelings, reactions, etc. Maybe people won’t want to talk to me. Ok, then, I will figure out some other way to make something meaningful out of the process. And really, what are the odds that no one at all will want to speak to me? Pretty slim, I’d say. So I have learned to observe the thoughts and stories that spiral out from my brain in a given circumstance and to let them go--maybe even laugh at them.
Letting go--there’s another big one. I sometimes feel that I have done nothing but let go for years. I have let go of attachment to outcomes, I have let go of other people’s issues that I somehow felt compelled to fix for them, I have let go of my ideas about what kind of community involvement I would have here. I have learned to accept help from people in a generous way, even though sometimes it is painful to do so. I have learned that sometimes people really do want to help. Before, I simply tried to do everything myself so I would not be a burden on others. Somewhere along the line I realized that instead of feeling like I was a burden, people genuinely wanted to help and that it was OK for me to let them do that. This is also something that I had to understand before we could do a project like this, since we will be relying on people giving us their time and stories at the very least.
I have learned that things come flying at me out of nowhere. When I think I have nothing left, something comes from somewhere--a kind word, a check, a bit of work, a bag of garden produce. Whatever I need shows up and it is my job to be open to that and to accept it. This also means that I cannot plan far in advance and try to control every outcome. I think this is a human tendency because we are looking for security. But I have seen too many people throughout my life sacrifice their own lives for some hope of a kind of security that simply does not exist in this human existence. Someone recently told us that we are living on the edge, but that things always seem to work out. I think everyone is living on the edge. The only difference between me and them is that I know this and they seem to be trying not to know this. After all, cars run red lights, planes fall out of the sky, people we love leave us through death or abandonment, cancer, heart attacks, strokes happen, or the CEO runs off with the retirement money you socked away for decades and you’re left with nothing. How do we protect ourselves from those things? The truth is, we can’t prevent bad things from happening. All we can do is learn to tap into our inner strength and wisdom so that when they do happen, we have the resources to deal with them in productive ways. That is probably the biggest lesson I have learned here and I think that it will serve me well throughout this project and beyond.

Courageous?

2009-06-10T15:21:00.000-07:00

We just got back from a visit with a friend, during which we shared coffee and conversation. She wanted to give us a good luck charm that was small enough to take with us and that would remind us of the people who are supporting and caring for us. She chose a small blue glass panda bear that has watched over her while she writes. We have been thrilled by the support and love being shown by her and many other people as we move toward our departure date. It is impossible to overstate how much it means to us.
At one point she mentioned that she thought that this is a courageous thing to do. This seems to be a common sentiment. But for me, it simply feels like what I must do--it doesn’t feel courageous at all. The thing is, after five years of torment here, the thought of what is coming seems exciting rather than daunting. Will there be moments of distress and discomfort? Sure. But I have had five years of that and more just existing here. I know that there will be moments when I am uncomfortable or when I have a series of interviews scheduled and I just don’t feel like going anywhere. There may be days when the most attractive thing would be to lounge around in or near my tent, reading and stitching, and I will have to drag myself somewhere else anyway to do some work. But that happens anywhere. And, the truth is, all I have to do is remember any one of a number of days that I spent dragging myself down Main Street yet again to go somewhere I did not want to go, and I will feel better. It is hard to express how very difficult these five years have been to people who have not experienced anything similar or who live here and like it, or who even live here and find it tolerable. For me, it has been excruciatingly intolerable and most days have been some kind of struggle. At least on the road, the scenery will be different. The challenges will be different. And it will all be wrapped up in the hope that things are looking up and that I can build a life, rather than hoping for continued existence.
Today is the fifth anniversary of our arrival in Klamath Falls. It has been the most difficult five years of my life. The only way I have been able to get this far is by constantly reminding myself that all is impermanent. Even when I didn’t believe it, I kept repeating it to myself. And so, while I recognize that there are challenges ahead, I also know that now, after this time of just hanging on and making it through one miserable day at a time, I am a very strong person. I will meet the challenges ahead. And when they come, I will acknowledge them, say a silent prayer of gratitude that I am somewhere else, dealing with something else and no longer in Klamath Falls, and then I will hunker down and proceed to solve the problem.

Bargains for the Road

2009-06-08T09:06:00.000-07:00

Only 2 or 3 weeks now until we leave. We’re still waiting for answers to a couple of emails we sent out. We’ve started getting provisions for the trip. We are trying to get stuff that is nonperishable and can just be eaten without much preparation. We will fire up the camp stove for awhile in the mornings, most likely, so we can heat water for coffee or tea and to fill our thermos. We have a grill that we can use once in awhile to cook some chicken or something, but we plan to cook enough during those times to last for a few days. There will be so much to do on this trip and we will never know what will happen, so we need to be prepared. I have issues with my blood sugar--there are times when I get hungry and just feel hungry. But at other times, I feel queasy, get a headache, and have trouble focusing. I need to be able to eat something right away during those times and Clif bars seem to do the trick. Bill also has issues sometimes, though his symptoms are different. The Clif bars work for him, too. So we knew that one thing we wanted to have was a good supply of those. Happily, the weekly ad for my local Fred Meyer store had those and Luna bars on sale for 89 cents this week. We each got a box of Clif bars and a few Luna bars. They also had bulk walnuts--$2.99 per pound, which is a $2 a pound savings over the regular price. Walnuts were on our list too and I was hoping they’d go on sale. We mix them with raisins and eat this with breakfast, lunch, or for a snack. They can be tossed into what I call soaked oats. I put some raw oats into a container and cover with vanilla soy milk. Let it sit in the fridge overnight. For breakfast, I put some of this in a bowl, top with berries, peaches, or raisins, add a handful of walnuts and then add a bit more soy milk if needed. Yum!
We had also hit pay dirt a bit earlier in the day when we went to our local Grocery Outlet store. We’d gotten our cold brew tea bags already, since in the summer we drink a great deal of water and iced tea. But we still needed some kind of coffee. We had decided on instant coffee. I am not sure how this will go--I don’t think I’ve actually had instant coffee in a couple of decades. But practically speaking, we won’t have time or equipment to keep on making coffee on a camp stove with a percolator. So instant it shall be. We knew it would be cheaper at Grocery Outlet and indeed it was--$2-3 cheaper per jar. I would have preferred to get some kind of organic/fair trade coffee, but we couldn’t find any. Anyway, we picked up some other stuff for the trip there--canned fruit, peanuts, and a few other things. But the big bargain was the crackers. We both love Stoned Wheat Thins, but they are so expensive--$3 per box in one local store. I’d gotten some at Grocery Outlet before when I found them for 99 cents a box and was happy with that deal. Yesterday, I turned the corner into the cracker aisle and figured they’d be out, but it didn’t hurt to check. They were not out and the price had dropped to 2 for $1! That’s because the date on the end was a couple of weeks ago. For some things that would make a difference, but not for crackers. Since we’d already put a dent into the boxes I’d bought before, we decided to buy the two full boxes they had on the shelf. Each larger box contained 12 boxes of crackers. We left four loose boxes of crackers on the shelf for someone else. So it was a day for bargains on stuff we really needed. The crackers cost us $12. Had we bought them in another store, they would have cost $72. I probably would not have bought 24 boxes at that price, but now we have them. Buying the Clif/Luna bars on sale saved us about $20. And buying the walnuts saved us about $18. Best of all, we will have healthy food that we can grab and eat on the run if we need to and enjoy in a relaxed way when we can. We plan to stop at farmer’s markets when they are available to buy fresh local produce that will supplement the staples we are stocking up on here. It’s important to us to maintain the healthy food lifestyle we usually have. It makes such a huge difference. It would be really easy to end up eating lots of stuff that has too much fat, sugar and salt or that is just empty calories. But if I do that, I will end up getting sick with my migraines and blood sugar issues and I don’t want that! Plus, we just feel better when we eat better. We’ve gotten used to a diet rich in fruits and veggies, with some lean protein (chicken or fish), nuts, and whole grains. Whenever I deviate from this way of eating, I can feel it. I get more headaches, I feel lethargic, and just out-of-sorts. Since I do not want to be dealing with those things on this trip (or anytime, really!), I will make it a point to eat well. And it will be easier to do that if I provide myself with the staples to do that. Then we’ll see what we can find at the farmer’s markets to round things out!

Control

2009-06-06T09:01:00.000-07:00

It’s funny all the little things you start thinking about when you’re trying to plan an extended camping trip. Yesterday I dragged some mp3 music files--Bach, Beethoven, Haydn--to my jump drive so I could put it on my little computer and then onto my mp3 player if and when I wanted it. Suddenly I had a vision of myself relaxing in the tent, hearing a breeze dance through the surrounding trees and needing a Bach fix. It’s kind of like my thoughts yesterday about always wanting to be organized and prepared--for any eventuality. But of course, stuff happens and the one thing that wasn’t thought about is the thing that will happen. I have some of my classical music available, but it is perfectly possible that I will want none of that when the time comes and decide that what I really want to listen to is something I didn’t make easily accessible. Oh well, I will survive! It’s the same with the books I have packed in my milk crate, which will go on top so I can reach it whenever I need it. I have no doubt that at some point on this trip, I will look at what is there and say, “I don’t want to read any of this. Why didn’t I bring that other book?” And of course, that other book will be packed away and inaccessible. That’s life. No matter how much we try to plan in advance, we can’t plan for everything. No matter how much control we think we gain by doing this, we really have very little, at least over the particular circumstance that will magically appear to throw us for a loop. And even if something has worked well in the past, that does not mean it will continue to work well.
We had our plan in place, and it was one that had worked before. We’d live in our house until it was time to move on, then we’d sell it and use the proceeds to get settled in a new place. We had done this three times in the past 20 years and it had worked fine. This time was different. And frankly, I had little control over the circumstances that led to the situation being what it is for us.
And yet, I did have some control, not over the circumstances themselves, but over how I would respond to them. I could choose to wring my hands and get upset. And at first, I will admit, I was feeling some pain. My experience here has been so horrible that the idea that even this dream had been taken from me was hard. I cried. I gave myself permission to take most of a day to grieve what I had lost. But I knew that this wouldn’t be useful in the long run. So I stopped that and realized that I could still do all of the things I was planning to do--I just couldn’t do them right now. It wasn’t time. But it was time for this great other thing that I would do instead. Now I would get to do that and go to Ireland later--I could have both experiences. And that’s the key--all I could control was my own response to the crisis. I chose to do something positive instead of spending a great deal of time agonizing over what was not happening. It was a choice. That is one of the biggest lessons I will take from this place. I am stronger than I thought and I can never plan for every possible eventuality. All I can do is develop my own sense of mindfulness, awareness, and inner strength, which will allow me to take things as they come and make a joyful and peaceful life in the midst of whatever happens to show up. That’s where I have control. But it’s up to me to develop that and act on it.

Flexibility

2009-06-05T11:33:00.000-07:00

We are moving toward our departure date. We actually have the first few stops planned. Through the whole process, we would like to maintain a balance between planning and flexibility. So we are trying to keep ideas in mind, make contacts, and do what we need to do to make things go smoothly, while at the same time not doing things too far in advance. This is a good exercise for me. I am prone to making lists and being heavily organized. There will be some room for that in the short term, but I know I can’t start planning for where we will go in the Midwest, for example, since I have no firm dates to confirm and it is far too early to predict how things will unfold. We want to keep that flexibility in place, since it is part of the beauty of this trip. We can go where we feel led to go and take as much time as feels right in the places we stop. If I were to schedule everything for the entire 3 months, we would lose that spontaneity. So we’ll see how it goes planning a couple of weeks in advance and watching things happen as we go along. As I told a friend, the only thing I am expecting is the unexpected. It’ll be fun to see what happens!

Making Space

2009-06-03T09:11:00.000-07:00

June 3, 2009

We continue to prepare for our journey. The truck has gotten 4 new tires, an oil change, a tune-up, and a check up. We find ourselves giving things away at a very fast clip. Oddly enough, even though we will be living out of our truck, we have a little more leeway in terms of taking things than we thought we would. When we thought we’d be heading for Ireland, we were planning on taking no more than 120 pounds of stuff, because we’d have to mail it and that’s expensive! For me, the toughest things to weed through are my books. Books are heavy! So I now get to bring more books than I thought I would. I have some tucked away among other things in the totes we will be bringing. I have a milk crate stuffed with books to read along the way. It’s always this way when I travel. First I decide which books and stitching projects to bring and then I pack clothes in the room I have left. It’s bad enough when I am going away for a few days or even a few weeks. I have never tried to work this out when I will be gone for a few months! I keep reminding myself that there will be places to get more reading material if it looks like I’m going to run out. And since I have long ago made peace with the fact that I will never get to read all of the things that interest me, I can be pretty certain of finding something in a reading emergency!
With the books and everything else, it has been fun to think about who might like the particular object I am giving away or what group could best use it. We brought a bunch of clothes to the Gospel Mission the other day so they could give them out to people who could use them. We have given away books to various individuals and to the local library. Some will become a part of the library collection and others will go to the Bookie Joint, a twice weekly used book sale with proceeds going to Friends of the Library. Freecycle is a great place to find new homes for things that we can’t take with us, but could be useful for someone else.
There is something completely freeing about this exercise. I am getting rid of most of what I have in order to move around freely. I find that I really do not have an attachment to most of this stuff anyway. The stuff that means something to me can come, but it is a valuable thing to discover how easily I can let go. I also am doing this in an environmentally friendly way as much as possible. We are not throwing things away, we are giving them to people who will have a use for them. As we proceed, I come to a deeper realization that this trip will lead to some fundamental growth and lead us into deeper insights into who we are and what we believe in.

planning

2009-05-31T17:51:00.000-07:00

So we have the project in mind. We have funding for it. Now how to proceed? We knew we wouldn’t get very far if we just pulled into town and stopped people on the street, asking them to talk to us. We decided that the best way to do this would be to contact churches. They are the ones out in front helping people who find themselves in need, through food pantries, community meals, financial assistance, and in other ways. In addition, I have always been very interested in people’s experiences in their spiritual lives, so I am curious to know how the changing economic reality has impacted people’s faith. So that’s our plan. We will talk to various church people in the towns we stop in and will ask them if they know anyone else who would like to talk to us. We will observe the ways in which they are responding to meet the needs in their communities. We will attend services when possible. Now I am even more excited about what we will learn on this trip! Since we have been attending a Quaker church here, it will be particularly meaningful for us to be a temporary part of other Quaker meetings, since there is a wide variety of practice within this small denomination.
A friend donated a road atlas to the cause, so we have examined that, looking at the possibilities. We had decided to point the truck in the direction of Burlington, Vermont and take 2-3 months to get there, stopping along the way. We knew that going south wasn’t a viable option. I hate the summer heat, so try to avoid as much of it as I can. That meant staying north. Even so, there were a few options. We opted for the most northerly interstate, so starting in Oregon, we will go through parts of Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Then we will head southbound for a short while and then eastward again to get around the Great Lakes, going through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, a small portion of New York, Massachusetts, and finally Vermont. I have an aunt in New Jersey that I have not seen in 12 years, so we will plan to stop in and visit with her. We have a few potential contacts already in various places and we hope to get more. We will organize things around whatever contacts we can gather before we leave, knowing that as we proceed, we may end up with more. We are being very flexible. We are open to whatever comes. Living in Klamath Falls for 5 years and dealing with one bizarre experience after another has allowed me to grow into a level of comfort with that kind of thing. The only thing we are expecting is the unexpected!

dealing with the unexpected

2009-05-29T16:29:00.000-07:00

Recently, someone said to me, “Living in Klamath Falls is hard.” I was so struck by that comment because I have spent most of the last five years trying to come up with language that was adequate to describe how horrible my experience of this community has been. There it was in a nutshell—clear, concise, simple. Living in Klamath Falls is hard. Yes, indeed.
Though I have found it difficult right from the start, my lowest point occurred during the last 4 months of 2007. I found myself praying the same thing every night before I went to bed. “Please don’t let me wake up in the morning,” I would ask. Then it would be morning, I’d be awake, and I would lay there talking myself into getting up and performing my day. And it was a performance. I put on my plastic face, plodded through each excruciating minute, and looked forward to the moment when I could get back into bed. I spent a great deal of time lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, and crying.
After this had gone on for awhile, I knew it could not go on much longer. I would have to make a choice about whether I even wanted to bother anymore. As I pondered this question, I discovered that I did indeed want to bother—but not like this. I wanted to have a life. And I knew that while I could exist here, I could not have a life. It was a start. From there I was able to begin tossing aside some of the excess baggage I’d been carrying around with me. I knew I would have to turn my attention elsewhere instead of focusing on Klamath Falls. So while I have been physically here for the past year and a half, in every other way, I have been somewhere else. I stopped reading the local paper, terminated—except in the most peripheral ways-- my involvement with everyplace except my church, and I simply got my information from other places—podcasts, websites, books, magazines, etc. This requires a great deal of effort and that is something I will always remember. It is exhausting to do what is required to be in a place like this and stay sane until you can get out. I am tired.
The next step was deciding that we would do what we have done in the past, which is to sell our house and use the proceeds from that to get us started in the next place, which was going to be Ireland. Not the right time for that as we quickly found out! The realtor came and gave us the news—the house is worth less than it was when we bought it five years ago and we owe more than it’s worth. It took a bit of time for the market to deteriorate here to the degree that it had done elsewhere, but it has done so now, and she expects this to last for two more years. So selling was out. So was staying. That meant that we would return the house to the person we bought it from and who was carrying the loan. It also meant that we had nothing financially speaking, since everything was put into the house. This was actually kind of freeing, since it left us with few choices to consider!
We decided to hit the road in our 19-year-old truck and camp at various places in our tent. We would have to figure out how to get money for gas and food along the way. This did not seem unappealing. Then as we were walking around town doing errands we started talking about doing a project while we’re out there. We could collect stories from people about how the economic situation has changed their lives—in both positive and difficult ways. We began to get excited about the idea. We told a few people. The next day after church we were taken to lunch and offered support for this trip! We were astounded and grateful! After that, we began to plan in earnest. The people who decided to support the trip told us that we could keep it between the five of us if we wanted to, but they thought other people in the church community would be interested too. We assured them that we had planned to tell others, but hadn’t had time yet. A couple of weeks later, we gave a presentation at church and the members agreed to set up a fund to which people could contribute if they wanted to. Every person we tell has been very enthusiastic about the idea. We have gotten all kinds of support—people have offered their good wishes, financial support, and donated things we need for the trip. It has been an amazing experience. So we are preparing to leave. And even though we’re still here, it’s been an amazing journey already!!
The prayer flag was created by Dawn Wood from the Klamath Falls Friends Church. Thanks Dawn :)