Merry Christmas!

Christmas dinner with my family was such a delight. Everyone brought something to the table and, since the majority of my family members are vegetarian, it was all meatless. I made wild rice stuffing, one of my favorite holiday dishes. My family transitioned away from bread-based stuffing a long time ago when we found out my dad can't eat wheat. Thank god for that, because I never would have known how fantastic rice stuffing is if we didn't have to give up the bread. Mmm mmm!

Wild Rice Stuffing with Cranberries and Pecans
(adapted from http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Wild-Rice-Stuffing-with-Hazelnuts-and-Dried-Cranberries-102482)

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
2 onions, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
6 3/4 cups low sodium organic vegetable broth
4 cups Lundberg Wild Blend rice (this stuff is fantastic but other wild rice will do if you must)
2 cups dried cranberries
3/4 cup chopped pecans
2 tbsp chopped fresh thyme

Melt the butter in a big stock pot, then toss in the onions and garlic and saute for a few minutes until the onions are starting to get translucent. Add vegetable broth and bring to a boil. Add rice, stir, add a little salt (maybe a pinch or two), then cover and simmer for 40-45 minutes.

When most of the liquid has been absorbed, mix in the cranberries, pecans, and fresh thyme. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Turn the whole mixture out into a baking dish and cover with buttered foil. At this point you can stick it in the fridge if you're making it ahead. About an hour before serving, remove from the fridge and put the dish and foil into a 350 degree oven for about 30-40 minutes or until warmed through. Serve and enjoy!

It begins...again

I got an email yesterday from the teachers of my chemistry course for next semester. I'm filled with more than a little dread at the prospect of starting that class again. I know I need the credits to finish my degree but last semester was a pretty stressful experience and I'm not looking forward to repeating it. On top of that, last semester I only pulled a B and this time I really really want to get an A.

I know...no pressure :)

One thing I'm struggling with lately is taking ownership of my choices. So much of the time I feel like I'm making decisions based on what I think the world thinks I should do rather than what I genuinely want to do. It really makes life feel like an effort sometimes, like I'm constantly trying to maintain this facade of what I think people want to see from me. I'm not entirely sure how to break out of that mentality, but I'm trying to at least notice when I'm doing it. I'll keep you posted.

Happy Holidays!
xo,
C

The downside of contentedness

This morning I got out of bed, walked down the street and had breakfast and a latte and now I'm snug in my apartment with the gas fireplace on and jazz radio playing softly in the background. God, I love living here. Sometimes I think I love it a little too much, to the point where even if some fantastic gentleman came along and swept me off my feet, I wouldn't want to move, and I probably wouldn't want to have to share this space either. So I don't know. Being so contented here worries me. :)

This reminds me of my brother's situation, where he has to work a day job he hates but he's a filmmaker and a writer at heart. He stays with the crappy day job instead of finding something that would content him more because the dissatisfaction of his daily situation keeps him working on the writing and film. I totally get that.

Hopefully my contentedness will be a good thing, relationshipwise. If I was dissatisfied with my living situation it might cause me to jump into something I will regret with someone who isn't worth it. So my kick-ass apartment and neighborhood will help me keep my standards high. I hope.

I hope you're all having lovely weekends.

xo,
C

Can you still believe in fat-acceptance and actively want to lose weight?

An excellent question, and one I've been puzzling over for a little while now, because I do. Both. And I think it can be done, but the important factor is the *reason* I want to lose weight. It's not because I hate myself or I think that fat is bad or ugly or I think that there is something wrong with being fat. It's simply because I am a supersized lady and my size is stopping me from doing things that I want to do.

I made a list last night of how many different ways my weight affects my daily life (it was a looong list). I was amazed to see on paper all of the circumstances that are made more difficult in my life because of my size and how I almost completely ignore them most of the time. Sometimes I feel like I carry around an apology in my head for every situation where I can't just sit in a chair with arms or fit into the robes at the spa or take up only one seat on the bus, as if I'm inconveniencing the world around me for being the size I am. I know that's bullshit, to an extent, but it's still there in my head.

There are just so many things I want and that I want to do that being supersized gets in the way of, like traveling, shopping for clothes, being in any new circumstance where I might have to sit somewhere, and even being able to simply get on the bus and sit down next to someone. I want to do these things. I want to experience the effortlessness that comes from living in a smaller-sized body.

Something I find interesting about the thought process that led me to decide to lose weight is that I really and truly had to love my body as it is to be able to do this. This sounds contradictory, but it's not. I found once I got to the point where I could look at myself in the mirror and smile and enjoy the way I looked, it was like a switch flipped in my head. Suddenly, the problem I had with my body wasn't all about appealing to other people anymore. It wasn't about wanting to look pretty for some man or wanting to fit society's ideal. Don't get me wrong, I am well aware that being smaller will likely have the affect of attracting more people and gaining more approval from the world around me, but that's a side benefit, not my main goal (and I have a lot of mixed feelings about it).

So yes, when I finally felt most of that yearning for outside approval melt away, it was replaced by a quiet but constant voice in the back of my head reminding me that I want my body to be smaller. But how to accomplish this? First, is it even possible? I've written enough times about how diets don't work and how many people gain back what they've lost and then some (plus I've experienced it many times myself) to know that I can't just eat rice cakes and work out seven days a week and expect that to be a livable solution. Luckily I have some advantages in this situation. Having legalized and equalized all foods a long time ago, I am as excited about a good brussels sprouts recipe as I am about cupcakes. I also actually enjoy cooking, know a little bit about it, and since I live in Portland, I have easy access to an array of fantastic ingredients. On top of that I am lucky enough to have a great fat-positive trainer who is willing to work with me to accomplish my goals and who works out of my favorite gym in the world which is only a mile from my house. As if all of that weren't enough, I talked to my family about all of this over Thanksgiving and I really feel like I have their genuine support to do whatever I want to do with this body, which is a huge deal given our history over body issues. In short, everything seems to be going my way.

The only thing I'm really worried about (besides complete and utter failure, which is always a concern) is the fat acceptance community and how the folks within might react. I think the important thing is to keep this business to my own webspace. I wouldn't dream of telling someone else what they should or shouldn't do with their body (or worse, *how* they should do it, just because some thing or another worked for me), and that will continue to be the case. I still believe wholeheartedly that people of all shapes and sizes deserve to be treated well and have equal value. I will continue to fight for rights for everyone and visibility for fat people, no matter what size of fat I am.

I'm excited about this and what it means to my life. No judgments, no good/bad dichotomy, no infantilizing. I'm going to eat less and exercise more, but at levels that I am comfortable with and enjoy. I'm going to see if it is possible to become a smaller person while continuing to love and respect who you were before. I think it is.

xoxo,
C

Writer's Block

I haven't written anything on my NaNo novel for over a week now. I'm not quite ready to throw the towel in on the whole month, but it would take some serious heavy-duty writing sessions to get me back on track at this point. The writing stopped when I got to a break in the story. See, my premise this time was to have Anna get kidnapped in the beginning of the story and then Frank tries to save her but is unsuccessful and she ends up having to save herself, the result of which is that she loses faith in Frank and probably goes through post traumatic stress or something, so she decides to go stay with her mother in the country for a while, where she does a bunch of soul searching and then a new love interest comes around and then it's all, "is she going to get back with Frank or is she going to stick with the new guy?"

But there are a few things. First of all, I felt uber-creepy when I was writing the kidnapping scenes, because I vacillated between wanting the villains to be really villainy and having empathy for them and their motives. So sometimes they're these vile characters but sometimes they're almost..appealing. Clearly I have read too many Iris Johansen novels in my day, where the dangerous dark handsome stranger with the sinister motives ends up saving our heroine and becoming the love interest. So anyway, yes, I couldn't quite make up my mind with that part.

Also, Anna and Frank kept fighting about whether or not she was going to move in with him, which is how the second novel opens. In a way, I found myself wanting to split them up sooner rather than later. Then there's the business with Frank being unsuccessful at finding Anna, which makes me kind of disappointed in him as a character. I mean, when I first wrote Frank last year he was the consummate hero, saving the day exactly when and how Anna needed it. He was romantic in just the right way, forward in just the right way, reticent in just the right way....he was perfect. In this second book, I find myself annoyed with his imperfections. He is so clingy and overprotective with Anna in the beginning of the book, then he utterly fails to get any leads on her kidnapping (which is really my fault, to be fair), and completely doesn't save the day. What good is a handsome boyfriend who can't even save you from being kidnapped?

I know, it sounds like I don't want him to be human, and I guess I don't. Imperfection is all fine and good for real men, but fictional men (especially ones I am writing about) should be exactly the way I want them to be, dammit.

I'm still excited about the possibilities of the story line. I'm intrigued with the idea of exploring Anna's relationship with her mom and potentially a new love interest, plus seeing if Anna and Frank's relationship will grow and change or if it will just fall apart. I honestly don't know what will happen.

Okay, maybe I need to start writing again.

xo,
C

Fakesgiving

I threw a small housewarming dinner party last night in my new place. It was all folks from work plus some of their significant others. I had a good time, though of course I made myself a little crazy stressing out over details and worrying about whether everyone was comfortable. We ate thanksgiving food (I roasted a turkey, not my best effort but not a total disaster either) and drank wine and beer and played Trivial Pursuit and Uno and had fun, but once everyone left I was struck with the feeling that I still hadn't quite yet found my tribe.

At least now the apartment is clean and there's leftover wine and turkey and pie.

Stressed

Lately I find myself going in so many directions that I feel like I'm hardly doing any of it well. School has been a trial, as usual. Throw moving into the middle of the work/school conglomeration (not to mention NaNoWriMo), and all of a sudden my life is a big quivering pile of demands, obligations and overly critical thoughts. I don't know how I do it all. I don't know why I do it all. It's like at some point I decided that the only way for my life to have value is if I crammed as much experience into it as possible. Also, if I can continue to distract myself by being super-busy, I won't notice that I'm really kind of running in place. When do I stop powering through something because I believe the long-awaited end result will make me happier? When does the plain ol' enjoyment of life happen?

I don't know the answers to these questions. Hopefully someday I will.

So this is how personal debt happens

It's been about a year and eight months since my bankruptcy was discharged. As you can imagine, following that frustrating and humiliating process I swore to myself that I would never get in that deep again. For a long time I refused to even have a credit card at all. I felt like they were pretty much evil and I didn't need one since I use my debit card for everything. But then the credit card industry reeled me in under the pretense of "rebuilding my credit" and I got a card with a small ($500) limit. I vowed to only use it for groceries or other things I already had money for. I thought I was playing the game, see. I thought I was being "responsible". Then one week I overextended myself and I needed to use the card to buy groceries that I didn't have money for. So I started carrying a balance. At that point, my relationship with my card underwent a subtle shift. All of a sudden I started seeing my available credit as extra money I could spend. After I made a payment I would think about what I would use the available credit for. I wasn't struggling financially at this point at all...I had enough cash in my bank account to take care of my needs without using the card. In most cases I was using the card for retail therapy, buying stuff to make myself feel better.

Believe it or not, all of this was happening without my even registering it. Here's what happened next: I had some extra money left over from my tuition reimbursement and I planned to spend it on fancy things for my new apartment. Initially I was going to buy a big TV and a sofa so I could watch football games and movies and invite people over to do the same, but one day I was looking at my credit card bill and I realized I was over my $750 limit (they raised it a few months in to reward my good spending) so I decided to use the extra cash to pay my card off and then use that available credit to buy stuff. It wasn't until I was standing in the shower last night, thinking about what I wanted to buy, that it occurred to me that that credit wasn't money to spend...I had, in fact, already spent it and was now simply paying it back. It seems like such a simple thing to realize, but it really did take me that long.

That credit card thing is a slippery slope. I'm just glad it finally occurred to me what I was doing before I got myself right back on the path to drowning in personal debt. The sad thing is that now I can't buy my big tv for another few months. I know, poor me. Being an adult is hard.

xo,
C

Fall haiku

I am not alone,
I'm attended by the wind
and the crunch of leaves

Nesting

(I'm moving at the end of the month into a bigger unit in my building)

Since Friday I have had a nagging thought in the back of my mind that the new unit isn't the right one, that I should hold out for a one bedroom instead of a double studio. Well today I saw on CL that a one bedroom is also opening up in my building on Nov 1 so I arranged with the manager to take a look. Let me tell you, I am so glad I did. I'm still going with the double studio, but at least now I *know* it is the right choice. It's a vastly superior unit to the one bedroom. There's surprisingly more storage space, the laundry area is larger, it's on the second floor so it gets so much more light during the day, and it faces the back of the building instead of Hawthorne so it'll be a lot quieter. On top of that, it's a hundred bucks a month cheaper than the 1br. Not a bad deal.

I'm excited about moving. This is no big surprise since I have always loved the feeling of reinvention that comes with moving to a new place, but I feel different about this move. For a while after I moved out of Theresa's house I was reeling, just trying to grab onto something relationshiplike, trying not to be too much of myself so I could more easily adapt to the people around me. I was reluctant to settle into my own space, to make it my own, for fear that the love of my life would come along and I would have to uproot everything. Well when I went on my trip I saw how much bullshit that was. Spending day after day alone in my car or in a tent, having to make my own decisions about what was going to happen next reminded me of what an empowering feeling that is and how much I don't ever want to give that up to anybody. So a natural extension of that is wanting to create my own space.

I'm planning on buying things, like brand new linens when my linens are perfectly serviceable. New dishes...maybe new cookware. I'm going to mull it over and over and pick out just the right things...things I love. And I'm not going to bring anything with me that I am not emotionally attached to or that doesn't serve a specific purpose. I'm going to pare down to the things I love and can't do without, and every time I use them I will remember the care that went into choosing them and will be glad to make space for them in my life. Everything else? Goodwill. Seriously.

Hello lovely

Rosie is laying beside me in a drug-induced haze, poor girl. She had to go to the vet today and get a dental cleaning and they ended up extracting two of her front teeth. Her smile is actually even cuter now, if you can believe it.

As for me, things have been pretty normal around here. Work has been a little over-the-top stressful but things are about to calm down a bit now that the beginning of the school year is behind us. Speaking of school, PCC classes are starting next week. I'm taking Spanish 101, Women in Art, and Chemistry. I have to actually go to class for Spanish but Art and Chem are both online classes. I had to order this chemistry kit so I could do all of this semester's labs at home. It was so exciting unpacking the box to find all of these beakers and clamps and things, plus a bunch of little vials and baggies of chemicals. I doubt I could get into all that much trouble with the small amounts of chemicals in the kit, but it's still funny(ish) to think about the possibility of my blowing up my kitchen.

I started volunteering at a transitional housing center near my apt last week. I go in once a week and help with their homework club, which means kids bring their homework and I help answer their questions about it. My first time at homework club was so great! I got to explain the FOIL method for simplifying equations and I could totally see the moment when the kids I was helping understood. They learned something because of me...that was a fantastic feeling. I know every time won't be that great but I had a grin on my face all the way home and it really made me think about teaching some more.

I made some more cupcakes this week. I ordered a copy of the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook last week and when it arrived I couldn't help but make a batch of their vanilla cupcakes with vanilla icing. They use a different method for the cupcake batter. Instead of the usual butter and sugar together, then eggs, then flour and milk, they have you put the butter and all of the dry ingredients together, then eggs and then gradually add the milk at the end. It seemed to work pretty well and the cupcakes were delightfully light and fluffy, so maybe that's the method I will stick with for a while. Here's a pic of the loveliness.


Looks good, right? :)

xo,
C

Oh come on...you're not even trying

Click the picture to enlarge



Hee!

xo,
C

Oh for fuck's sake

I had a crappy, stressful day at work. The best way I have found to deal with days like this is baking, and since everyone else at work was stressed, I figured it might be fun to make something I could bring in and share. So I stopped at the store and got all the ingredients I would need to make cream cheese cupcakes with cream cheese icing. I know, it sounds like a lot of cream cheese but I was hoping it would work anyway. Well. No, no it didn't work. First of all, the batter came out tasting...salty? Really? It's true.

So I added a little more sugar and more vanilla to take the focus away from that one note of saltiness. That seemed to work, and I found myself longing to eat a big spoonful of batter which is how I know it's going to make a good cupcake. Okay, problem solved. On to frosting. Dude, I don't know what planet the person who wrote this recipe was on, but the frosting just tasted like a big bowl of cream cheese. Again, not sweet enough. I ended up almost doubling the amount of sugar in the icing recipe and, again, adding more vanilla to round out the flavor. Perfect! So I'm all thrilled with myself and my flavor-adjusty ways when I realize there is an unwelcome scent in the air: something is burning.

Agh! I threw open the oven door and realized that yes, even my gas oven has hot spots and the cupcakes on the edges were browning way before the ones in the middle. I swapped the two cupcake pans and let them bake a little more, but some of them still got a little too browned on the bottom. I turned them out onto cooling racks (burned my finger...sigh...) and just got out of the kitchen for a while before I started throwing cupcakes against the wall in frustration.

I'm sure some of them will be fine and I'll probably still be able to share them with everybody, but on days like today when nothing works the way it's supposed to, it makes me sad that I can't even count on baking to go my way. Bah.

I took pictures but I am too tired to put them in the right places and such. Dear God let tomorrow be a better day. Seriously.

Update: Can I just say...best...cupcakes...ever. Even the burned ones. Also, I really need to invest in a cupcake carrier.

The one where I get groped by a stranger and like it

I got a full body massage yesterday. Yep, you read that right, naked and everything. I can remember being freaked out about the idea of that maybe not so long ago, but for some reason when I decided to do it yesterday it didn't even occur to me to be freaked out. Well, mostly.

So what happened was, I went back to work out with Maria on Tuesday, the first time I'd been to the gym since I left on my trip. It felt good to go back, good to be using my muscles again. I may have pushed myself a little too hard, or maybe I was exactly as sore as I would have been before the trip, but either way, on Thursday morning my arms and shoulders hurt. For reals. I had been tossing around the idea of getting some kind of girly spa treatment soon, like a facial or a pedicure or something, so I just figured, why not a massage? I googled around and found a spa in NW Portland called The Dragontree and lucked into a same-day appointment.

I was a little nervous walking up to the front door, mostly because I had no idea what to expect. Once through the door, I got the impression that The Dragontree was maybe trying a little too hard to be more fancy than it actually was. But whatever. I was just ready to get going. I filled out some brief paperwork and then was led back to the ladies' dressing room. The price of the massage included free sauna time and luckily I had arrived plenty early and could take full advantage of it. They gave me a key to a locker (mine had a little bronze tag on it that said 'spirit'. aww) and ushered me inside the dressing room. I was supposed to get naked, put on their provided robe and "spa sandals" and hang out in the little waiting area next to the dressing room until my massage therapist came to get me for my appointment.

I opened my 'spirit' locker and got down to business. Sadly but not surprisingly, the robe didn't fit, so I had to figure something else out. I decided to hit the sauna in a towel since it was right in the dressing area anyway, and wear my street clothes out to the waiting area for my massage. I must confess, I had a moment of shame that my body wasn't small enough to fit into their robe, but a moment later I snapped out of it and remembered that it's up to the spa to make me comfortable, not the other way around.

I was the only one in there, which was nice, so I got naked and stepped into the sauna with my towel. There's not much to say about a sauna really. It was as hot and soothing as you might imagine. I sat in there for a good 15 minutes or so, just relaxing. I didn't want to go into my massage all sweaty so I hit the showers. The spa showers had nice big showerheads, good water pressure, and all of the products a lady could want were provided free of charge.

Scrubbed up and squeaky clean, I threw my clothes back on and walked out to the waiting room. My massage therapist (Serena, I think) came for me almost immediately, we walked back to her room and talked about what areas to focus on, and she gave me a little time to get naked and get up on the massage table under the sheet.

A quick word about massage tables: they look spindly and like they might collapse under even an average person's weight, but they are sturdy as hell. I learned this years ago when I went to an acupuncturist. I remember walking into her office and having a little freak out moment before I made myself climb up on the table and could feel how strong it was beneath me.

So anyway, yes. Massage tables, very sturdy. I arranged myself under the sheet and Serena came back in the room and got down to business. I won't take you through the whole 60 minutes of massage because that would be kind of boring, but I will say I had a bit of a hard time speaking up when something was too much pressure. I'm hoping that will get easier over time. Also, when they say 'full body massage', they really mean your full body. I mean, not personal private business, but pretty close. I actually felt pretty matter-of-fact about my body being viewed and handled and when I noticed that feeling it made me happier than anything. It would still have been an awesome experience to be freaked out about my body and have gone and gotten the massage and enjoyed it anyway, but not being freaked out was a very pleasant surprise. I was just there to have a service performed on me, like a haircut or a manicure. I didn't have to be anything in particular. Everything was perfectly okay.

After Serena was done I laid there for a few minutes then groggily got to my feet and got dressed. They make you pay afterwards, which was a good thing for them because I was all euphoric and gave Serena a big tip. Then I hopped on a bus and headed home, completely satisfied.

I had a little soreness this morning, either from my workout still or from the massage, but some ibuprofen took care of it. All in all it was a great experience and I definitely want to go back, though this time I think I'll bring my own robe :)

xo,
C

We're at now now

I know, you're all clamoring to hear about Yellowstone, and I promise I will eventually get around to writing about it, but for now I'd like to get back to writing about the present.

It's Sunday and the Hawthorne Street Fair is going on outside my window, which sounds like a lot of fun but I am just not up for it today. I feel like I've been going nonstop since I got back from my trip, a lot of random social things, plenty of work stress, and of course things in my apartment are all in disarray. I have been trying, little by little, to sort out the massive pile of stuff my place has become in the past six months or so. When William moved in I feel like I voluntarily gave up ownership of my space and just started putting things anywhere and not caring anymore. Then I went on this trip and basically lived out of a car for five weeks and when I came back I realized I didn't really have a home here, at least not in the sense of having a refuge to go to when I need a break. Piles of things are not restful, and they were everywhere. Well, they still are in most places, but I feel like I've made at least a little headway.

I'm letting go of a lot of furniture I took with me after the breakup with T. Most of it was inherited from my parents when they moved into a smaller place and the thought was that it would stay in the family and my kids would get to use it, etc. But the life I was headed towards with T is not my life now, and I would like to stop holding on to that idea. The thing is, I don't really know what direction my life is headed in now. I have a lot of things I want to do, and while I still like the idea of settling down and having a family, I'm really beginning to appreciate the freedom I have now, like the freedom to take a five week road trip if I want to, or the freedom to quit my job and live on ramen and financial aid while I finish my degree, or the freedom to take two years and join the Peace Corps.

I can't believe how limited I thought my options were until now. I put myself inside this tiny little safe box because I believed there was only one way to achieve a happy, satisfied life, but I was totally wrong. I can see so many more possibilities now, so many more directions I can go in. I want to travel and experience more of what the world has to offer. I want to actually do something in the world that makes someone's life a little better. I want to (someday) raise the happiest, most well-loved children ever. I still want to write something. I still want to run a marathon. And even though I feel like I should be beyond this at this point, I still want to be loved like in a Meg Ryan movie. Heh...some things never change.

xo,
C

An observation

I have been reading some entries I wrote in the very beginning of this blog, when T and I were still together, and something just struck me. Everything that isn't about my job is in terms of 'we'. Everything, as if there was no 'me' then. In a way, I guess there wasn't.

I give myself a lot of crap sometimes about caring too much about what other people think and not being my own person enough but if I look back on things that I wrote not even three years ago, it is amazing to see how far I have come. Cool.

xo,
C

Prune Creek, Wyoming

I....didn't sleep well in Prune Creek. It wasn't Wyoming's fault...Wyoming was lovely. I didn't sleep well in Prune Creek because I am a very very bad person. Very bad.

So, the drive into Wyoming was pleasant enough. About halfway through the day the road started climbing into the Rocky Mountains which made the drive more challenging but also a bit more interesting. I mean, what's more compelling than the idea that any moment you could drive right off a cliff? Fun stuff! :)

After at least a couple of hours of mountain driving, I arrived at my destination, the Prune Creek campground. I thought I had reserved a site at Prune Creek way back in the planning stages of the trip, but when I got there, instead of a reservation, all I found was a cash box for payment of camping fees. Okay, I figured I must have gotten PC confused with one of the other bajillion sites I had camped at during the trip, so I started digging in my bag for cash for the fee. Ruh roh. I only had eight bucks and the fee was 14. They took checks but I had managed to get away with not paying the fee at Holy Ghost in NM, so I was very, very tempted to just say screw the fee and try to camp for free. But I couldn't just drive away, see. I had to make it look like I was putting my fee envelope in the box so I could take the little slip to clip to the post in my campsite to demonstrate that I had paid. I know, I'm a terrible person. So anyway, I did that. I totally made it look like I paid my fee, grabbed my slip, and then I drove around the campground to find a good site.

I stopped at a site near the eponymous creek, clipped my slip on the post and began to unpack my tent and stuff. A few minutes later, here comes trouble. A big green pickup truck with an insignia on the side that said "campground host" pulled up to my campsite. Shit. The jig was up. this dude was going to take one look at me, know I hadn't paid, and call the Rocky Mountain cops. I braced myself for the inevitable judgment as an old gentleman in a fishing cap and a very well-worn old plaid shirt ambled up to my car.

I was trying to remain upbeat and seem like not a criminal, so I gave the gentleman a friendly "hello there" as he eyed my license plate. After a few moments of intense license plate scrutiny he looked up and asked me where I was from. I figured that was obvious from my plate, but I answered "Oregon" anyway. This was clearly not the answer the gentleman was looking for and he cocked an annoyed eyebrow at me. He asked me where in Oregon and I told him I lived in Portland. An awkward silence passed while he thought that over. Anxious to fill the silence I added "It's a nice town." A beat later the old gentleman wrinkled his nose and replied "not really."

Oh dear...if my beloved Portland couldn't win this guy over, what possible chance did I have?

So I asked him why he didn't like Portland and it turned out that he used to be a long haul trucker and it's hard to deliver things in Portland because the streets are narrow or complicated or something, which I could totally understand. Driving in Portland can certainly be a challenge. I attempted to convey this understanding, but the gentleman was clearly done with pleasantries and ready to move right on to business. He mentioned that he had stopped his truck because he saw me "messing with" the cards clipped to the post at the end of my campsite (they had these plastic cards where they could say if a spot was reserved or not and that was the same place you're supposed to clip your little strip). Apparently they have a lot of trouble with people messing with the cards. Gah! Don't touch the cards!

So he stopped his truck and (in his words) was about to start hissing and spitting about the cards but then he saw that I was just a "nice lady" instead of some sort of delinquent so he didn't have to worry about me. Oof. I felt like such a schmuck. Yep, I'm a nice lady who is totally stiffing you on camping fees, sir. Sorry bout that. Business handled, the gentleman bid me good night and ambled off to his truck.

I resumed setting up my campsite and quickly headed into my tent to escape the aggressive mosquitoes (and the SHAME). I stayed in there for quite a while, reading my book, still a little shaken from my close encounter with the campground law. And then I heard the crunch of gravel under tires. Oh. Shit. He had probably been to the cash box by now and found that I hadn't paid any fees! I unzipped my tent window about a quarter of an inch and peeked my eye out. Green truck. He was totally coming for me! I watched from my tent, my insides churning, terrified to be caught in the lie of not paying and saying I did, trying to come up with a way to play it off ("Oh, I was going to pay on my way out" or "Oh, did I not pay? Silly me, I never was very good at math. Just a girl, you know") . The old man climbed out of his truck and peered at my slip of paper clipped to the campsite post. He peered for a good long time. Finally, he got back in his truck and slowly drove away. Whew, right? Wrong. Now that he had had a good look at my slip, I was entirely convinced he was going to go compare it with what was(n't) in the cash box and come back to take me away or at least yell at me in a really mean way. It could happen.

I was a little wound up and stressed about my inevitable humiliation and/or arrest but I tried to make myself go to sleep anyway. Unfortunately, one of the campground host's duties is to drive around every now and then and make sure everything is okay. So just as I would get to sleep I would hear the crunch of tires on gravel and have to peek out the window, freaked out that he was coming to get me. After a while it didn't even have to be his truck...any car on the road woke me up and made me look out the window to make sure he wasn't coming for me. It got to the point where I knew I wasn't going to get much of a night's sleep and I decided that as soon as it was a decent enough hour I was going to pack up and get the hell out.

5 am finally FINALLY rolled around and I popped out of my tent and packed everything up as quickly and quietly as I possibly could. The only road out of the campground went right past the host's RV and truck so I had a hard time deciding whether to drive nice and slowly so as not to wake anyone, or as fast as possible so I could get out of there ASAP. I don't remember what I chose...it was all a blur. What I do remember is about half a mile down the road, I saw a green pickup truck in my rearview mirror.

....I know, right?

So, heart pounding, I nonchalantly pulled over into the nearby welcome center parking lot (because I'm sure lots of people want to check out the welcome center at 5 AM...what's weird about that?) and held my breath waiting for the truck to pass.

It turns out it was a blue pickup truck, nobody was after me, and the old man at the campsite probably never even realized I had stiffed him his camping fee. I freaked out and twisted myself up into knots over absolutely NOTHING (which btw is easy to see in retrospect, but I was perhaps not in my right mind at the time. Maybe it was the altitude).

About 100 miles later I was pulled over by the police in Cody, Wyoming. Just for speeding, though, not campground larceny. The nice cop knocked ten bucks off of my fine because I was wearing my seatbelt. How about that? Also Cody is apparently the rodeo capital of the world, but not at 7 am on a Monday morning. Bummer.

So yes, I am a bad person for not paying my campground fees but boy, I paid for it in stress. Next time I'll just write a fricking check.

Next stop, Yellowstone!

xo,
C

PS: Want to know the kicker? I looked it up online and I was right the first time...I HAD made a reservation and paid already for my Prune Creek campsite. So it was ALL FOR NOTHING. Ha!

South Dakota

I'm afraid I don't have a whole lot to say about South Dakota that hasn't been said before. It really is flat, it's freaking boring to drive through, and goddamnit, the Corn Palace is not even made entirely of corn!! Okay, maybe that last one is just me.

So I left my hotel around 9ish, which was a big deal for me because I like to sleep way in when I'm in a hotel room. At least on this trip. But Mpls to Badlands is quite a long drive and I didn't want to be setting up my tent in the dark, so I got up "early". Actually, okay, to be entirely truthful at that point I was thinking about getting a hotel room near Badlands and not camping at all. I was getting soft, see. My delicate sensibilities wanted a bed. Anyway, I got on the road relatively early and drove and drove and drove...

And drove and drove and drove...

Thank god for audiobooks...seriously.

And drove and drove and drove...

Finally I got to my first fantastic stop, the world famous Corn Palace! The tagline on their website brands it as The World's Only Corn Palace! To which I have to say...um...maybe there aren't corn palaces all over the world because building a "palace" (not even entirely) out of corn is kind of a dumb idea. But you know, I forfeited my right to be an authority on palaces of corn when I decided not to get out of my car in Mitchell, SD. I just couldn't bring myself to get that excited about the corn, especially with the rest of a day's drive ahead of me. So I did a drive by. Maybe I missed something fantastic, I don't know. And I really never, never will. I'm okay with that.

Corn Palace experienced (sort of), I got back on the road. There honestly aren't any highlights to mention or I would...driving, driving, driving...

Eventually I got to the Badlands area and had a decision to make...I was still thinking about staying in a hotel but I could save myself $60 by just camping as I had planned, plus I'd get to see Badlands NP. Okay, that's an easy choice. I turned into the road leading to Badlands, paid my fee, and proceeded into the park. The experience of driving through Badlands was very similar to Joshua Tree. It's a windy, twisty road surrounded by gorgeous scenery and all I wanted to do is get out and take a picture but you're not supposed to stop. Finally I came to a viewpoint and got a few shots. The sun was setting so I headed for the campground and got set up.

The campground at Badlands was one of the most unimpressive, nondescript campgrounds I have seen on the entire trip. You can't have a campfire there because of the dry brush, so campgrounds are just vague areas in a big field with picnic tables next to them. No bushes, no trees (because of the climate, of course...I didn't see any bushes or trees in the whole park, not that I can remember anyway), just you and all of your camping neighbors. It was a good thing I already had some camping experience under my belt and was able to just ignore everybody else...if this was my first camping trip I would have been freaked out, feeling like everyone was watching me. Paranoia, you know.

So the night at Badlands was fairly uneventful. The stars were beautiful, of course. I read a bit of my book and made some dinner, then turned in early. Sometime in the middle of the night it started to rain a little bit. Sometime later, it started to rain a lot. By the time I woke up and was ready to leave, everything was pretty well soaked. I had left the folding camp chair and a towel out in my campground and of course both were soaked, not to mention my rainfly and tarp. Inside my tent was completely dry though, even with the little tears in the rainfly from rolling around in Joshua Tree. So go tent! I didn't know how long it would keep raining and I was so ready to go, so I just sucked it up and got wet while I was packing up the tent and stuff. Naturally, three minutes after I packed the last item in the car, the rain stopped. I sat on the edge of my trunk and enjoyed some honey nut cheerios, then it was time to get going again.

I drove through the park and got some more lovely shots of Badlands. Just gorgeous. The park loop road spat out right next to the famed Wall Drug and I had seen signs for it the whole drive through SD, so I figured I'd better check it out. I would like to take this moment and give Wall Drug the finger. I was expecting some giant, incredible, over-the-top campy experience and all I got was the same lame ass crap you can get at just about any truck stop on the road. In WD's defense, I didn't scour the whole place, so maybe I just missed the delightfully campy section. If you ask me though, they should put that part front and center.

I was open to the idea of maybe getting a souvenir there (which of course is how they getcha), plus I wanted to get something to thank my boss for approving my five weeks off. I took a little time and looked through the t-shirts but I couldn't find one that said "I rolled my eyes at Wall Drug" so I didn't buy. The next room was full of more touristy crap, including a giant selection of shot glasses with the Wall Drug logo on them. I carefully selected a shot glass with a plastic jackalope on the inside for my boss and, with a quick look over the rest of the hideousness, I took my leave. In Wall Drug I saw the following: dreamcatchers, jewelry boxes with wolves on them, silkscreened wooden plaques, shot glasses, magnets galore, an animatronic country band, coon skin caps, cowboy hats, socks with prairie dogs on them, kitten sculptures made from rabbit fur, a giant wall of porcelain dolls, garden gnomes of every flavor, and more jerky than I've ever seen in one place. And yes, that was still not enough for me. Clearly I've seen too much of the world to be so jaded at such a collection of atrocities.

Anyway, I was done with WD and I needed to make it to the middle of Wyoming that night, so I took off. The rest of South Dakota was a tapestry of driving and more driving, which I will not waste your time with. Next stop, Prune Creek, Wyoming and the worst night's sleep evar!

Minnesota

One thing I never expected was how hard I was going to fall in love with southwestern Wisconsin on this trip. The morning after I left Paul and Jeani's was sunny and warm, a welcome change from the drizzly grayness that greeted me when I reached Chicago the day before. As I drove through Darien, Whitewater, and Fort Atkinson, WI, I couldn't help but entertain the notion of leaving everything behind and settling there, maybe finishing school and becoming a teacher in some rural Wisconsin town where they would wholeheartedly embrace my wacky big city ways. I didn't say it was a realistic notion... Maybe it's because I was born in that state, but something about Wisconsin just felt like home. It was the same feeling I got when I visited Portland for the first time...something just felt right about it.

But Wisconsin wasn't my destination. I was on my way to Rochester, Minnesota, to camp at Whitewater State Park. This was the first camping I had done since Kansas, approximately 8 states ago, so I was excited to get back in the swing. Something about spending all that time in other people's houses had thrown me off a little...as gracious as every one of my hosts was, and as comfortable as I felt, it was still nice to have a night with no socializing, no worrying about being in someone's way, no internet. Hard to disconnect from that internet, you know. So I was looking forward to camping in Whitewater SP.

You would think I would have learned my lesson in Lafayette when my phone sent me to the wrong house, but I clearly hadn't. I punched in 'Whitewater State Park' and was given a set of directions that I followed to the letter until I realized that I was (literally) on a lonely dirt road in the middle of a cornfield with no state park in sight. Oh dear. So I backtracked...a LOT...and started following the road signs for Whitewater instead.

It turns out the road signs are perhaps a tad more accurate, because I actually reached the park by following them. Whitewater's camping rates were expensive (over $30 per night) and I'm still not entirely sure why. The site itself reminded me of my first site back at Honeyman SP. Just some grass, a fire ring, a picnic table, and a parking pad. The end. Not that sites at any of the other parks had been like luxury hotels or anything, but $30+ is a lot for a campsite. Anyway.

I was draaaaagggging by the time I got to my site, but it was still plenty light out and nobody else was there to care how quickly I was moving, so I took my sweet time getting my tent set up. I had bought a bundle of wood at the ranger station so I started a nice fire in the ring and settled down with my book (The Soul of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman...a good read if you're into cooking at all). Whitewater seemed to be a good park for birdwatching, as I saw at least five or six interesting species of bird in the trees near my site.

This next part I'm not all that proud of....it turned out my site at Whitewater had an electrical hookup. I just happened to have a 15 foot extension cord and a whole slew of episodes of House I had missed in the last season on my laptop sooo....let's just say maybe I didn't commune with nature quite as much as one would hope when camping. I even unstaked my tent and moved it closer to the power source so I could watch from inside the tent and avoid the bugs that were attracted to the light given off by my laptop screen. Some time later I fell asleep to the the soft blue glow of the charging light...:)

The next morning I packed up and got out of there. I think one of my favorite parts of any of the camping legs was the packing up the tent and leaving thing. There was something so satisfying about knowing I had everything I unpacked back in the car in the right place (but not obsessively so :P) and I could be on my way.

The route for the day was kind of up in the air. I had attempted to change my reservation at Big Sioux, my intended destination for that night, but they had been booked solid for that day so when I left Rochester my first thought was to just grab a hotel somewhere between there and Badlands National Park whenever I felt ready to stop driving. I had a bit of an idea to take a few hours' detour up to Minneapolis to have lunch at this restaurant Paul and Peter were raving about, Hell's Kitchen. On this trip, a bit of an idea is all you need, so of course I went.

Rochester is a little over an hour outside of Mpls and I got the impression while driving between the two cities that a lot of people probably live in Rochester and work in the twin cities area. It was kind of a depressing commute...it reminded me of when I lived in Athens and worked in Atlanta. Now I live around 2 miles from my job and I couldn't be happier about it. It's a pretty dreadful feeling to know that even if there is no traffic whatsoever it's still going to take you an hour to get home.

So. Minneapolis. I had approximately zero expectations of Minneapolis. I can't say that I've ever spent all that much time thinking about it, honestly. As I drove into the city, headed for Hell's Kitchen, I saw a billboard advertising an exhibit of Titanic artifacts at the Science Museum of Minnesota. At that moment I started to get an inkling that maybe I would like to stay the night in Minneapolis and really see the city. I pulled into a parking garage around the corner from HK and looked at my budget on the laptop. Everything looked good, in fact everything looked more than good. I was starting to get a little worried...things couldn't possibly be going this well at this point, could they? I closed everything after booking my hotel room and took the elevator down to the street, feeling bouyed by my abundant funds with a nagging little doubt in the back of my mind.

I had made my way to HK, been shown to a table, and was perusing the menu before it finally occurred to me. See, I do my budgeting on this spreadsheet. I put my current balance at the top and then on the left I list all of my upcoming bills and expenses and the column to the right shows what the balance will be after these expenses are removed from the account. Well I'm reading over the description for the steak and eggs when I felt a stabbing of fear and anxiety down my back. I had forgotten to update the current balance!!! So no wonder my budget thought I had all this extra money...the current balance was the same as it was a few weeks ago, very early into the trip. Oh. Crap. I did my best to enjoy the lunch I had come all the way to Mpls for and put my money woes out of my mind until I could verify my mistake.

After lunch I headed back to the parking deck but in the elevator I was struck with another alarming realization: I hadn't bothered to notice where I parked before I left the deck. Sigh... So I tried guessing, then I tried looking at each floor. In the end I had to go to about five different floors before I finally found the car. All I could do was roll my eyes and laugh at myself at that point...there were more important things to mentally flog myself about.

So yes, I booted up the laptop and pulled up my budget and alas...I was not wrong about the mistake I had made. My steak and eggs churned in my stomach as I tried to figure out what the hell I was going to do. Suddenly the clouds parted as a generous benefactor who shall remain nameless (my mom) had at that moment sent me an email asking if I needed a little extra cash to get home. I gritted my teeth against the voices in my head screaming about how much I had fucked up and accepted her gracious offer of assistance. So, emotional upheaval notwithstanding, on paper the problem was solved. Time for the Titanic.

The Science Museum of Minnesota is located in St. Paul. Paul and Peter had been kind of meh about St. Paul but I really liked it. The architecture had a nice, quaint, smaller town feel to it and I found myself again thinking about how I might like to live there. It was nice :)

So I went to the Titanic exhibit in the SMM which is normally right up my alley, but I think at this point I've maybe seen so much Titanic stuff that it's not all that special to me anymore. I did like seeing all of the artifacts though and I really enjoyed the mock-ups of the first and third class staterooms (also how expensive they were...a one way trip in first class was upwards of forty grand!!) and another room where they had a giant chunk of ice that you could touch to get an idea of how cold that iceberg must have been. It was a neat idea. There was also a room with a projection of a lifeboat plan on the floor so you could see how big they actually were. One of the reasons the lifeboats weren't full is that people felt more secure on the big ship than in the (comparatively smaller of course) lifeboats, so I can only imagine how gigantic the ship must have felt, to be sinking and still seem safer than these giant lifeboats. Another nice touch: when you enter the exhibit you're given a card with some information about a particular passenger on board and at the end you can look at the lists of survivors and those who perished for your passenger's name. Mine survived, and I was very glad of it because she was a young pregnant girl. All of the survivors are dead now too, of course, but I like to think that she and her baby had some happy years to enjoy after the disaster.

I had purchased a ticket to the Titanic-related IMAX movie playing at the museum, so after the exhibit I made my way down to the theater. I typically tend to avoid IMAX theaters because they don't ever have moveable armrests, but I had been to three theaters without moveable armrests so far on the trip (Joshua Tree, Sudekum Planetarium, and Lafayette) and everything had gone fine, so I figured what the hell. I was still a little nervous about being comfortable, but it turns out my anxieties were unfounded. I fit just fine and though it was a little squeezy, it wasn't enough to disrupt my enjoyment of the film. Yay for pushing boundaries!

I was of the mind that no trip to the Minneapolis area would be complete without a visit to the Mall of America, so I didn't spent much more time in the SMM before heading for the parking garage (and yes, this time I remembered to make a note that I was in the green dinosaur section :D).

You may not believe this, but the Mall of America is just like a big mall. With a theme park inside. The parking garage there was big enough to fit a regular sized mall into, I think. And boy, was it crowded!! I'm not really a mall fan in general, but the number of people who wanted to cram themselves into MoA was just insane! I didn't have any particular goal when I got to MoA, I just wanted to see it. So I walked around a little bit, then found a MoA gift shop where I got William the cheesiest keychain in the world (it flashes his name and says mall of america on the back. Fantastic!). I was getting a little hungry and after the morning's money freakout I was all about eating on the cheap, so I took the escalator two floors up to the food court and had some bland and questionable chicken(?) teriyaki. Good to know that's the same everywhere. I took my tray over to the balcony that overlooks the theme park and watched all of the kids on the roller coasters for a while. It reminded me of how much I used to love roller coasters and how humiliating it was, as an older teenager, when I became too hippy to ride them. Bah. Anyway, the MoA is a giant spectacle, but it's also just a mall. I wandered around a bit more before I was sooo ready to go. I drove down the road a little ways to my hotel (a really nice one!) and settled in for a nice, relaxing evening.

Cary, IL

The drive through Chicago was a little trafficky, but as I like to say, we don't have traffic in Portland so when I run into it it's more of a novelty than anything else. Paul and Jeani live a ways outside the city, in a lovely suburban town called Cary. It was drizzling slightly when I pulled up to the house and noticed a note from Jeani on the front door that she had gone to get their dog and she would be right back. There were no cars in the driveway, so I parked out front and waited...

Sometime later I woke up in my car and decided to give Jeani a call to see when she might be back. Of course, as I'm sure you saw coming, she had been in the house the whole time! The note was from earlier and she had forgotten to take it down. I felt somehow silly for having paid attention to the note instead of calling right away, but the nap I had in the car was so refreshing that I just chalked it up to a happy accident.

Jeani and Paul's dog Wally is incredibly cute, by the way. Sadly I have no pictures of him...you'll have to take my word for it.

So Jeani and I had a good chat while Paul was at work. It was one of those interesting experiences where you know someone as part of a couple but not much about them personally...I finally got to know Jeani a little bit this trip which made me simultaneously happy and bummed that I don't live closer so we could be actual friends instead of once-a-year buddies. Oh well...maybe someday.

Paul and Jeani's friends (and mine) Liz and Peter live in the same neighborhood, so Jeani had invited them over for an impromptu barbecue. I was very excited to see everybody...the last time we had all been in a room together was the last COFRA think tank, almost a year before. Conversation was easy and jokey, as if we had all been friends for years and years. I love moments like that. After dinner (I had my first official bratwurst!) we talked for a while and then played Apples to Apples, possibly my new favorite game. Paul had to go to bed early for work, but Jeani, Liz, Peter and I stayed up a little later, chatting and finishing the game. It was a super fun time but eventually we ran out of steam and the party broke up.

The next morning, Jeani had to put up with my awkward goodbye and I was on my way to Minnesota.

Lafayette, IN

I had been looking forward to Lafayette the whole trip because Mychii lives there. She and I have been internet friends since we met at my first COFRA think tank a year and a half ago. I just love her...she's so fricking smart and opinionated and fat positive and...I don't know...just a badass. I'm a fan. So anyway, I was excited to hang out with her, though still riding the wave of funk from Atlanta so I hoped she and Chris wouldn't be bummed if I was all mopey and low-key.

I was following the GPS directions on my phone to get to her house, but apparently my phone had decided that she lived in the house across the street so I went over there first. Their neighbor was not pleased. Finally I got straightened out and knocked on the right door. We hugged, she introduced me to Chris, and everything was cool. Turns out they're pretty low-key themselves, so with my mood I fit right in. We went out to a Mexican place for dinner (can't get enough of that cheese dip!) and talked about all sorts of things, including the future of the fat rights movement and what TFRC should do next. I had a lot of fun hanging out with them...everything was comfortable, like we were old friends.

The next day Chris went to work, leaving Mychii and me to our own devices. We had talked about maybe checking out the local art museum but at that point I was in much more of a mood to just hang out and do nothing touristy, so we watched the Michael Jackson memorial instead and then went to the movies. It was an excellent day.

A quick aside: I have realized, after thinking about all of the visiting of friends that I did on this trip, that I am a total goober when it comes to saying goodbye. In every case, the day I was leaving, I would get up, pack up the car, and then just say see ya and get out of there as quickly as I could. I want to apologize to everyone I stayed with. It's not you...I love you...it's me. I'm awkward.

So that next morning, I got up, packed the car, said my awkward goodbye to Mychii and Chris and hit the road, bound for the Chicago area.

Nashville and Kentucky

I left Atlanta in kind of a funk, emotionally exhausted and a little tired of traveling. That morning, I had stopped at a gas station to check out the status of the items in my cooler and found them, not surprisingly, all spoiled and floating in about a foot of lukewarm water. See, you can't ignore your cooler for 6 days and expect everything in there to still be good. I have learned. I was having such a shitty day and feeling so overwhelmed and exhausted that morning that I didn't even throw everything away, I just drained the cooler and bought some more ice to keep the spoiled food from being even more gross when I was ready to deal with it. Tasty!

So I got a late start, was feeling crappy, and had a cooler full of nasty food in the trunk. All I really wanted to do was find a bed, crawl under the covers, and wait for the day to be over. Luckily the drive from Atlanta to Nashville soothed my rankled nerves and put me in a much better mood, as did the fact that I was going to get to see my friend Drew, who I know from my college days and haven't seen much since then (he works at the Sudekum Planetarium in Nashville which I think sounds like the coolest damn job). I pulled up to his place, we did the awkward haven't seen you in 14 years thing, and, due to the fact that neither of us had a game plan, ended up just hanging out on his sofa watching Firefly. It was perfect...exactly what I needed.

A little later on we headed out to a nearby Mexican restaurant so I could have cheese dip (they don't have it on the west coast, you know), then we proceeded to the Science Adventure Center where he works to watch the giant 25th anniversary Nashville fourth of July fireworks extravaganza. We had just settled on the lawn in front of the museum when it started to rain. Sadly, it showed no signs of stopping, so we ran to the museum and stood under the overhang for a while, still watching the fireworks. Eventually the rain got so heavy that it drove us inside. Then the fog rolled in, and we couldn't see the fireworks anymore anyway. I couldn't help but laugh...weather-wise we were probably at worst case scenario but at least we weren't downtown with no available shelter. Anyway, after the fireworks Drew showed me around the astronomy portion of the museum, which I enjoyed immensely. I always feel like a little kid in those places...everything is so exciting and interesting! I'm sure I looked like a giant goober with the grin on my face :)

After the tour we took in the patriotic laser show in the planetarium (folks in nashville really love their patriotism, as demonstrated by the loud cheering and whistling every time the laser show hit a high point. It was a singular experience) and then headed back to Drew's so I could drop him off. I'm so glad I got a chance to see him again.

That night I slept in a motel in Glasgow, KY, fairly close to Mammoth Cave. The idea was that my friend Joel (also from a million years ago) was going to drive down from Louisville to catch up and see the cave with me. He did drive down and we did catch up, but we never did make it to the cave. It's my fault mostly...I was still a little down from Atlanta and wasn't feeling particularly cavey. So we just hung out, which was fun too. The next day I met him in L'ville for lunch and continued on my way to Lafayette, IN to see my friend Mychii.

Atlanta

Atlanta was simultaneously better and worse than I expected it to be. This was my first trip back there since moving to Portland and since T and I broke up, so I had the sweet nostalgic moments of "oh look, that's the road I used to turn on to go home every day" plus the hellish judgment of "oh look, that's where T and I had dinner sometimes! But that life is over and is never coming back. Awesome."

One of T's and my old best friends offered to let me stay in her guest room (which was fantastically nice of her and she was an incredibly gracious hostess). It seemed like a good idea at the time, but in hindsight probably caused more awkwardness and stress than I expected. More on that later.

So I got to M's in the early evening, she introduced me to her new puppy and her new (to me) girlfriend, then we all (minus the dog) went to dinner at their favorite pizza joint. There was a pretty hardcore bingo game going on which made it a little hard to talk but we managed okay. After dinner we stopped at the Target T and I used to shop at, and that was a little gut-twisting. We used to spend a whole lot of time in Target.

The next morning my one plan was to head down to Turner to see some old work folks. I was nervous but excited to see everyone again. I had no idea how I would be received or if anyone would even care all that much that I had come to visit. I really really didn't want to be that old coworker that comes back and makes a fuss and everybody is just waiting for them to go away. Luckily, things didn't go that way at all. It was surreal to be driving into the Turner parking garage like I had so many times before. I ran into a former boss of mine (Ed) and a former coworker (Justin) in the parking garage on my way up and we did the awkward 'are we going to hug?' thing. I decided that yes, we were going to hug.

I went to the front desk to check in and they took my photo for my visitor's badge, but the quality was so horrible I ended up looking quite a bit like Snuffleuffagus. Close enough. They called my host, an old friend of mine from way back (Steve), and he and another friend of mine (Scott) came out to get me and got hugs as well. They took me back into the cubicle farm and I went around and said hello to everyone and got pictures with them. Scott then gave me a tour of the campus as there had been many changes and improvements made to it. I even got to see the view from the roof! Not bad at all :)

We headed back to the tech area and ran into Lisa, another of my old coworkers who was now working in another department. She told me about a going away party for one of my old coworkers from CNN, so we decided to go to that. I was a little anxious about heading over to CNN since I had maybe one or two enemies who would likely be at the going away thing, but eh..life's too short to worry about that crap for too long. I'm so glad I went because I got to say hello to a bunch of people I would never have connected with and some of them were old bosses that were really important to me, so it was a nice moment. To my great relief I ended up not having to talk to either of my arch-nemeses.

After the going away party, I headed out to Steve's house for a poker game he was hosting. This was something we did a couple of times before T and I moved away, so it was nice to get the chance to play again. I didn't win, sadly, but I did get to deal which was a lot of fun, plus I had a really nice time talking to Steve and his wife after the game. It's a shame we don't live closer to each other...we could totally be friends.

Poker ran late and I didn't end up getting back to M's until around 3AM, so the next day I elected to lounge around all day and not do much of anything. M and A went out and left me to my own devices and I had a lovely day of watching movies and relaxing. That evening, A had invited one of her work friends over for dinner so I came downstairs to help them get ready. M let me make the icing and frost the cupcakes which, as you can imagine, thrilled me to no end :)

Things got weird when the friend got there though, not because of her..she was very cool. The weirdness came from the history that T and I have with coming over to M's house for dinner. We used to be great friends with M and her ex and would frequently come over for dinner and cards. This evening, either M or I (probably me) made the mistake of suggesting that we play a card game that T and I and M and her ex used to play all the time. Bad, bad idea. First of all, it's kind of a convoluted game and I think A was aware that we used to play it with M's ex so she was not all that excited about learning how to play. There was a moment where we were going around the table placing bids and it just occurred to me how wrong it felt for M and me to be sitting there playing cards with people who were not T and M's ex. I actually had to get up from the table and go sit in the bathroom and cry for a little while, just to get the sadness out of my system. Horrible how you can't go back, isn't it?

M and I talked a little later about it and she mentioned that she had felt weird too, so at least it wasn't just me. But that's the way life works. Things change and move forward and there's nothing anybody can do about it.

The next day, I packed up the car, said my goodbyes and headed out. I drove to the neighborhood T and I were living in right before we moved to Portland. It was freaky to look around that neighborhood...it was completely the wrong type of place for us, or maybe just for me. But that's what I thought I wanted then. That's what everyone in Atlanta seems to be striving for. Kind of hard to realize that you don't want that thing you're supposed to want once you've finally got it.

After that I got the hell out of there. Too many memories. I definitely want to go back again someday to see my friends and maybe play some more poker, but I think I'm going to try to avoid the old neighborhoods this time.

Memphis

I actually didn't do a whole hell of a lot in Memphis, but I had a fantastic time there anyway. My first stop when I got into town was the local Kroger. All I had left of the food I bought in Portland on my way out of town was some stale bagels and freaking goldfish crackers. I should have known the goldfish would stick around. It always seems like a good idea to get them but I get bored with them almost instantly. Anyway, I was ready for a new taste sensation at that point.

Kroger was a hell of an experience because the population that shopped at the particular Kroger I visited was mostly African American. This was such a change from Portland and really from anywhere I had been so far on the trip. So I was one of maybe three white people in the whole store, which I found fascinating from a sociological perspective. Here I had the unique opportunity to feel, at least the tiniest bit, what it might feel like to be part of a minority population. Even the short experience of getting my groceries at a store where I was the minority was intensely eye-opening. I felt completely out of place and on edge, as if at any moment one of the other shoppers would decide that I didn't belong there and throw me out. Of course that didn't happen and everyone was just as friendly as they would be in any other grocery store.

I had found Pilgrim House hostel online during the giant rejiggering of the itinerary in Tucson. Initially I had had reservations about staying there because it is affiliated with a church. In fact, the hostel is actually in the rear of the church. I was almost expecting the same reception as I did in the grocery store...they would take one look at me and realize I was a total heathen and eject me from the hostel immediately. I am all about the irrational thoughts sometimes. So of course I get there and the people running the hostel are entirely lovely people and there is no bible-thumping and no sideways glances at the blue in my hair or the nose piercing and everything is just fine. With no drama whatsoever, I paid my money, was handed my linens and shown to my bed.

At that moment, the only thing in the world I wanted was to wash the Oklahoma City off of me, so I grabbed my shower things and headed for the bathrooms. One of the great things about this hostel is that instead of one big community bathroom they had a row of individual bathrooms. Lots of nice privacy there. Anyway, I had an excellent shower and then spent the rest of the evening futzing around on the internet and eavesdropping on the other hostelees.

When I woke up the next day I had one simple goal in mind: find a laundromat. So I turned my phone on, did a quick search, and found Washtown.

Washtown was everything I wanted it to be, in that it had washing machines and dryers that seemed to work. The rest, like the Ms. Pac Man machine, the vending machine that stocked Tahitian Treat (right??) and the incredible people watching were just gravy. As I waited for my clothes to wash, I attempted to finish the rest of Northanger Abbey. A young(ish) gentleman walked by and said, "Oh you like books, huh? Well I've got some books at the house...want to come check them out?"
I assured him I was all stocked up on books :)

Laundry finally done, I set about finding something interesting to do in Memphis. At that point I was still planning to go to Graceland the next day. I found some information about the National Civil Rights Museum and it sounded interesting so I went to check it out. It was a fascinating experience that I highly recommend for anyone who is going to be anywhere near Memphis. Get the audio tour and definitely watch the movie they show in the theater every hour about the assassination of MLK. It was just incredible how much black people had to fight for all of the freedoms that I have always taken for granted. I mean, sure, I knew a little bit about the civil rights struggles from school but the way the museum presented the history of the movement just made such an indelible impression on me. At the end of the museum's progression there's a balcony where you can look out over the entire exhibit and see each of the individual struggles as part of this enormous whole...it was just incredible to see it all laid out like that.

After the civil rights museum I headed over to Beale Street to check it out. Even in the middle of the day there was a live blues band playing in a courtyard on Beale. Very festive. None of the bars were really open but I did happen upon a bbq joint called Pig on Beale that looked like it was doing some business, so I went inside. Oh my god that was some incredible barbecue! I got a half rack of ribs, barbecue beans and potato salad. Sweet tea to drink (of course). When they brought my plate out I knew I was in for a treat because of how simple the plating was. Nothing fancy, just good-ass barbecue. They had peanut butter pie on the dessert menu and I just couldn't resist that. It was all fantastic. So so so good.

I was a little worn out from my time at the museum (it took me a good two hours to see everything in there) so I headed back to the hostel to relax for a while. Later that evening I headed out in search of dinner and ended up at Lou's, a pizza joint in walking distance to the hostel. I had an incredible piece of pepperoni pizza and a not-so-great caesar salad, plus a giant bottle of Fat Tire beer. I was the only one in the place but luckily I had brought Northanger Abbey again. I finished the book and my dinner and walked back to the hostel with a nice buzz on.

The next morning, after much internal debate, I decided to skip Graceland. I was tempted to just lie in my bed all day and do absolutely nothing but I decided instead to take advantage of the hostel kitchen and bake something. I had been on Joy the Baker's site the day before and had seen a recipe for chocolate cookies that looked just heavenly, so I went back to the Kroger and bought the ingredients I'd need, then commandeered the hostel kitchen so I could bake my cookies. At first it felt highly awkward to be baking in someone else's kitchen, especially because people were constantly walking through and looking at me a little funny. Eventually I finished all of the cookie batches and piled them high on two plates and set them on the counter. They turned out pretty well, I think. The other hostelees seemed to enjoy them and I got a few kudos, though I still felt awkward about calling attention to myself. The rest of the day was nice and relaxing. I watched Sense and Sensibility which was much more fun after having read the book because I could tell where they had rearranged the plot or plain left out characters or any number of other horrible things filmmakers do to books. It had been a good day, if a little uneventful.

The next day I packed up my things, left the hostel after doing my final chore (they give you a new chore each day. Mine was always sweeping something...not bad at all), and headed for Atlanta with much trepidation.

Some stuff about feelings

I'd like to interrupt your regularly scheduled travelogue with a few paragraphs about my feelings. Brace yourself.

Sigh...I'm sitting in the hostel dining room in Memphis with a gnawing ache in my stomach. I just ate, I've gotten plenty of sleep, and I'm not sick, so what's the deal, you might ask? The deal is, my next destination is Atlanta and I'm totally nervous about going back there. I can't exactly put my finger on why, but I have several theories. For one, I don't really know many folks back there anymore. Theresa and I were pretty private people when we were together and we hardly ever went out or did anything, so my experience of Atlanta pretty much happened entirely in our own house and at my workplace.

But, you know, I'd never seen much of Memphis until I got here, so I can counteract that feeling by visiting Atlanta like a tourist, despite the many years I spent there.

Another thing that might be causing me anxiety about Atlanta is that I grew up there. I was at my most vulnerable in every way in that city. There are landmarks all over the place that bring to mind moments of weakness, hurt, sorrow, and disappointment (and that's just my teen years! ba dum bum!) and I'm not so much looking forward to reliving all of that crap.

But, you know, I'm all old now with experience in life and everything, so I should be able to revisit those places without freaking out, right?

I actually don't have a third thing. I thought I did, I enjoy presenting ideas in threes, but I only have the two ideas. But they both seem manageable, see, so I don't know what I'm all twisted up about. I still am though. That is all.

Oklahoma City

Oh my. I had such low expectations for Oklahoma City that I was sure I was going to be pleasantly surprised. Sadly, I was not.

To be fair, my first impression of Oklahoma was a good one. About twelve miles inside the state line I came upon the Oklahoma Visitor's Center, which was also the most beautiful, fancy rest area I have ever seen in my life. We're talking Corian countertops, gleaming fixtures, stone floors, stalls with actual doors that locked...you name it. Oklahoma, it seems, is serious about making its visitors feel welcome. The center was staffed by two older ladies in american flag shirts and was decorated liberally with animal skins and wagon wheels. The actual helpful part (excepting of course the lovely bathrooms) was two giant banks of pamphlets and brochures in the center of the room, detailing any number of activities to be enjoyed in the state. Two things immediately caught my eye: first, a brochure for the bombing memorial because that is the only thing I think of when I think of Oklahoma City. I literally know nothing else about the city (and I'd like to say I know a whole lot more now that I've visted, but....) Secondly, I saw a brochure for the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, which featured on its cover a number of gorgeous works of glass art and a tagline that advertised "the largest Chihuly collection in the world" (!!!!)

It was already 2 and the art museum closed at 5 and the bombing memorial at 6, so I drove straight to the art museum. I was on my very last bit of clean laundry so I was wearing a fairly goobery white tank and blue short combo. Not my favorite, especially for going out in public. I didn't want to take the time to check in at my hotel and change though, so I sucked it up and went anyway. I also had my backpack since my shorts had no pockets, so I definitely looked like nerdy tourist girl. It was kind of good for me because I tend to feel self conscious when wearing certain things and this was a good example of why that is so unnecessary because nobody is looking at me. Anyway.

Parking is free in Oklahoma City on weekends, so I found a decent spot and walked a few blocks to the museum. It was seriously HOT outside, sun beating down, no breeze whatsoever. Walking into the museum, however, I was greeted with two fantastic things that made me forget about the hot weather. The first was a giant blast of conditioned air. The second was a giant Chihuly sculpture in the lobby of the museum. It was at least three stories tall and I didn't even bother to take a picture of it because I wouldn't be able to get it all in the frame, but it was fantastic (here is a picture). I proceeded to the front desk, bought my ticket, then headed right up to the third floor to see the Chihuly exhibit. I loved it. My favorite part was probably the hallway with a Chihuly ceiling. So beautiful.

After the Chihuly I drifted into other exhibits in the museum. There was a great kinetic art exhibit and another room dedicated to minimalist art that contained some interesting pieces (though there was one minimalist piece that was just two similar shapes arranged together, both painted the exact same shade of lavender that kind of annoyed me with its simplicity. What could any artist possibly be trying to say with that kind of work?). The other exhibits were mostly portaits which didn't interest me so much. I really enjoyed seeing the museum by myself because I could take exactly as much time as I wanted on each piece. I could linger with the ones I wanted to see more of and breeze right by the ones that didn't grab me. Another good experience for me.

When I had seen everything of value (to me), I took off. The heat slammed me in the face when I exited the museum and sucked every last impulse to see the bombing memorial right out of me, so I headed for my hotel. I was staying in the Econolodge, in a cluster of similarly priced hotels on Oklahoma City's west side. Only forty or so bucks a night, and it showed. I approached my (accidentally smoking instead of non-) room and with equal parts delight and apprehension noticed several rows of motorcycles in the motel's parking lot. Now I don't want to stereotype bikers, in fact I am sure they are all probably just enthusiastic, delightful people, but the vast numbers of them did give me pause. Some of them were outside their rooms, smoking and chatting to one another and I did my best to give them a friendly smile and wave, but they were not charmed enough to return the gesture. Just as well.

I carried my essential stuff into the room and headed out in search of food. Dinner acquired, I set about locking myself in my room for the rest of the evening. There was a deadbolt but no chain and the door didn't quite meet the frame, plus I was on the ground floor, so I felt a little exposed. It didn't help that five minutes after I sat on the bed (that caved in if you didn't sit exactly the right way, btw) the family in the room next to mine began a loud, shouty, violent fight. The walls in the Econolodge? Very thin. Also, our two rooms had once been adjoining so there was a door right there that would shake every time one of them slammed the door to the room (which happened often). It sounded like a mother and father and potentially two kids, one in his late preteens or early teens and one a bit younger. The father seemed to be the violent force but everyone was willing to join in on the shouting without too much trouble. The initial conflict was about chinese food that the one kid brought back that the younger kid didn't want to eat, but there were myriad other conflicts throughout the night that resulted in loud arguments. I turned the TV up as much as I could to try to drown them out without disturbing the people on the other side of me. There were moments when it got particularly heated and I considered intervening somehow, but I was worried that they would retaliate at me if they knew I had said something (They were in the room on the end so I would be the only one who could have heard) and I rationalized that it probably wouldn't do much good anyway. It really broke my heart every time I heard one of those kids crying though...and it happened at least five times that night.

The next day I packed up my things, eager to get the hell out of there. Next stop, Memphis!

Colorado and Kansas

Colorado hadn't been in the original plan. It wasn't even in the first draft of the revised plan. After I left the desert I had planned to stay in Santa Fe for three nights to recharge my batteries, recuperate, etc. Well at some point on the way to Roswell it occurred to me that instead of cooling my heels in Santa Fe I could continue north to Denver, Colorado and still get to Oklahoma City in time to take advantage of the hotel reservation I had already made for Saturday night.

I was excited just to see Denver but there was an added bonus: my friend Tony from high school moved there recently and I was going to get to see him! I was so excited :)

On the drive through Colorado (I don't want to be all predictable but...it was beautiful!) I started thinking about what I might want to see in Denver. Tony wasn't going to be available until later that evening and he was going to let me crash at his place, so until then I was free to do anything I liked. I posted on Facebook to ask for suggestions and I was referred to a fantastic bookstore downtown called Tattered Cover. I headed over there, found a parking spot, fed the meter, then went inside. Now I'm a little spoiled since I live right down the street from Powell's, a decidedly excellent book store, but Tattered Cover was just everything a book store should be and it was the perfect place to spend a couple of hours while I waited for Tony. For some reason whenever I go to a bookstore I always think I'm going to have trouble finding something I'm interested in but then I always end up with the opposite, a giant stack of books I absolutely have to have right now! Five minutes after going upstairs to the fiction section, I already had my hands full of books. One of the things TC does better than Powell's (sorry Powell's..you know I love you) is that it has cozy reading areas tucked in every section so you can sit down and get an idea of the books you are looking at before you buy them. I read a little bit of each of the books in my stack and decided which ones I didn't want and which ones to buy at Powell's when I get home. Believe it or not I actually managed to leave TC empty-handed.

Another excellent suggestion that was made was for Falling Rock Taphouse. I looked it up on my phone and it was only about four blocks away so I put some more quarters in the meter and walked over there in the light rain that had just started. Once there I grabbed a seat at the bar and ordered a pint of porter, I forget what brand. After that I asked the bartender to hook me up with something interesting I might not be able to get somewhere else so she had me try a few different things. It was a lot of fun, actually, tasting all of these different beers. Of course it didn't take long for me to feel a tiny bit buzzed. Almost two hours had passed so I had to run back and feed the meter again, then I texted Tony and asked him to meet me at Falling Rock when he was done with work.

At some point during the evening two intelligent-looking gentlemen sat next to me and we started talking about all sorts of things...beer, IT, cell phones, etc. You all know how talking to men in bars is not really my strong suit, but this was a lot of fun. Eventually Tony showed up and the other guys took off, so he and I stayed for one more beer (for him...I had switched to water a while ago) and then drove back to his and his wife's apartment to talk some more and finally get some sleep.

Now I don't have a high tolerance for alcohol to begin with, plus supposedly the altitude affects that sort of thing as well, so the next morning I was definitely hurting. I was nauseated and felt like I had been run over by a mack truck. Still worth it though. :) Tony made me some tea, we talked for a while longer while I played with his cats and then it was time for me to hit the road.

The only logical way to get from Denver to Oklahoma City is to drive right into the heart of Kansas so I prepared myself for a long and boring day of driving. There are definitely a lot of similar-looking wheat fields but I have to tell you, Kansas is (you guessed it) beautiful. I stopped that night at Wilson State Park which is arranged around Wilson Lake. Many of the campsites go right up to the lake's edge, in fact my tent ended up maybe 15 feet from the water with an incredible view. It also had a covered patio area near the water which seemed like a nice place to set up my laptop and write a little. Eventually the sun went down and the heat, which had been a little uncomfortable when I was setting up the tent, began to dissipate. A nice, cool breeze flowed off the water as the sky darkened and the stars began to show themselves. It was a fantastic evening, another perfect moment.

The next morning I awoke to the honking of geese! When I crawled out of my tent there were several families of geese (including fuzzy little goslings) just milling about the campsites, looking for some tasty bugs for breakfast. I stayed as still as I could against the car and they came close enough for me to get a few good pictures. Soon afterwards, I was off again, this time headed for Oklahoma City!

New Mexico

So as I said, driving through New Mexico was fantastic. Honestly, I saw a difference only a few miles after I crossed the border from Arizona. Not that Arizona isn't beautiful in its own way, but New Mexico has something special...I don't know. You'll have to drive through it one day and see for yourself (or check out my pictures).

The whole Albuquerque/Roswell thing turned out to be kind of a bust. First of all, I don't know what I was thinking when I was planning it out, but it would have made much more sense to drive directly to Roswell from Tucson and then to Albuquerque or Santa Fe the next day. As it worked out, I drove all the way to Albuquerque, didn't have time or energy to do anything so I just went to the hotel. Then the next day I drove back down south to hit Roswell.

Roswell itself was not what I was expecting and I kind of wished I had skipped it altogether. First of all, they are so not into the alien thing as much as they should be, I think. Maybe one city block was dedicated to alien stuff and the rest was just an uberconservative rural town. I was so bummed by the half-heartedness of the alien museum I didn't even bother to pay money to see the inside. Instead, I went and had a pretty excellent Mexican dinner at the Capitol Cafe (recommended by a friend of a friend) and then just went back to my hotel room.

The one saving grace of the trip to Roswell was that on the way I missed my turn and ended up backtracking on a deserted country road with some of the most beautiful scenery I have seen in my life. It was one of those perfect moments where you know you're in exactly the right place at the right time. Fantastic.

So the next stop after Roswell was the Santa Fe National Forest. Driving into the forest was another incredible experience. Beautiful mountains, incredibly tall trees, a rushing stream...just fabulous. When I got to the campground it was a little crowded but I managed to find a decent site. I had chosen Holy Ghost campground because it was rumored to be haunted. I didn't so much expect to see any ghosts but I thought it might be fun to be a little scared.

Turns out the scariest thing about the campground wasn't the ghosts...it was the latrines. I had dealt with vault toilets (basically an elevated hole in the ground with a seat on it) in Joshua Tree and, while they weren't all that pleasant, I could certainly deal with them. It helped that the bathrooms there were big and bright and the climate was such that there wasn't a ton of flying insect activity. Not so in the SF Natl Forest. Oh dear. Okay, first there's the smell. Naturally, a big hole in the ground filled with excrement isn't going to act like a giant air freshener, but this was just overpoweringly gross. Then, there are the bugs. I warily moved the door aside to check everything out and I swear, it was like Amityville all of a sudden with the swarms of flies. Effing creepy. I did my best to shake them off of the door and kicked the side of the latrine to encourage any stragglers to depart. Then I closed the door behind me (sigh, it didn't close all the way, I had to hold it) and it was way too dark in there so I ran back to the car and grabbed my lantern. On my second approach, the majority of the bugs seemed to be gone, but I was still loath to expose my privatest business over a hole that might contain any number of horrifying crawly things. I was genuinely afraid. I had to stand there for a minute and talk myself down before I finally sucked it up and got the job done. Ugh...still makes me shudder to think about it.

The rest of the evening passed without incident. I got my tent set up, made some dinner, went for a lovely walk by Holy Ghost Creek while listening to the end of Sense and Sensibility (I love audiobooks), then hit the hay. The next day I got up early (of course) and packed everything up. No bugs on my tent this time, which was nice, but every little surface was covered with condensation which made it difficult to do all the rolling up and packing away without getting everything wet. But, you know, I managed. After a quick stop at a convenience store to change my clothes and brush my teeth, I headed north to Denver.

Joshua Tree 2 and a change in plans

The next morning I woke up pretty early again (this is becoming a pattern),this time due to more loud boy nonsense from the camp next door. I don't know if they actually slept at all. Anyway, morning in the desert is nice and cool, at least before the sun gets too high in the sky, so I decided to make the most of it and go do something. The day before I had driven past a sign for Key's View, a lookout point where you can supposedly see all the way to Mexico. I was of course intrigued.

So I drove the 20 minutes out to Key's View (still in the park...I told you it was enormous) and walked up the ramp to the viewpoint. I hate to be all jaded but the view, while pretty great, was nowhere near as fantastic as I wanted it to be. It was neat to be able to see the San Andreas Fault, and the mountains were beautiful, but it wasn't quite what I wanted. I did get to see some lizards up at Key's View and on the way back I actually saw a roadrunner (!) so it was still a worthwhile diversion, to be sure. Next I headed over to the Hidden Valley picnic area across from my campsite to check out the 1 mile Hidden Valley nature trail. The ranger had given me a newspaper with Joshua Tree info when I entered the park and one of the pages has a list of all of their trails. There are ten or so hiking trails and about the same number of "nature" trails, which I took to be a euphemism for, you know, your grandmother could walk this trail with no problem. Yes, well, my grandmothers probably could have..they were both tenacious old ladies...but I think most average people would have found the trail a little...challenging. I walk a mile to the gym and back twice a week, so I was all "oh a mile...piece of cake" but I had no idea what it would take to walk a mile over uneven, rocky terrain in the beating down sun. Luckily I had brought plenty of water with me, I had liberally doused myself in sunblock and I had my hat, so all that remained was to take my time and hike that trail.

Despite the unexpected toughness of the terrain, I loved the experience. I saw all sorts of incredible plant life up close, plus plenty of lizards and chipmunks. There were rock climbers on a rock bank in the middle of the trail so I stopped and watched them for a bit. Fascinating...I still may want to take that up one day. It was still early, so nobody else was on the trail for the most part, which was nice. When I got to the end of the trail I headed back to my campsite. I was roasting, the interior of the car was roasting, the sun was beating down on my tent, so I decided it might not be a horrible thing to go into town and do some laundry to escape the heat. So that's what I did. I had seen a laundromat in the town of Joshua Tree just before I entered the park, so I headed over there.

Laundry didn't take nearly enough time and I had no desire to hang out in the sun at that point so I decided to head into Yucca Valley in search of a movie theater. Luckily they had one...I saw a late matinee of The Taking of Pelham 123 which, I'm sorry to say, was one of the most ridiculous movies I've seen in a while, and by the time it was over it was 4pm and the sun was starting to set. I headed back to my campsite, a little irrationally nervous that someone might have either messed with my stuff or just poached my campsite altogether (since that day was a fee free day and the ranger had said it would probably get crazy crowded). Turns out I needn't have worried about what the other campers would do...nature was already messing with me.

When I got back to my site, my tent was gone. For a split second I started to freak out until I realized that the wind had just blown it away and it had rolled behind a giant rock. See, the thing about camping in the desert is that it's hard to stake your tent down. Either the soil is sandy which doesn't do a very good job of holding onto stakes, or, as in this case, the ground is solid rock a few inches down, so you can't drive stakes into it at all. My solution had been to weight the four corners of the tent down with heavy rocks, but apparently they were no match for the wind. That's another thing...it's really windy at Joshua Tree, which is nice when it takes the edge off the heat but not so nice when it's rattling your tent in the middle of the night.

So I managed to pull my tent back to where it should be, observed a few minor tears in the rain fly and scuffs on the tent poles, and reconfigured the whole heavy rock situation. After that I felt nervous about leaving the tent alone again, so I ended up not going to the star party I had been looking forward to. I did get to see the stars you can see with the naked eye, and let me tell you, the night sky in JT is lousy with them. Just exquisite. I sat up with my book and waited for it to get dark, then I spent a fair amount of time stargazing. Eventually I realized I was having trouble keeping my eyes open so I went to bed.

The next day I woke up early, ready to get out of the desert sun and get going, so I packed up my gear and got on the road. The way the park is configured, I could either go north 17 or so miles and leave the way I came, or I could drive down south, all the way through the park, maybe another 40 miles or so. One of the great things about being on a trip like this by myself is that I don't have to be in any particular hurry to get anywhere, so I decided to see the rest of the park. This is an experience I would recommend to anyone, especially at 7am. There are some incredible things to see in the southern part of the park (conversely, if you stay in the south you should take the time to drive up to the north...the vegetation is so different...but gorgeous in both places). Even the rock formations have a different character in the south. Also, I saw quail on my drive through the park...quail! At first it was just one and I was suitably excited but about a mile later I saw a quail parent followed by at least nine little quail babies! So that was definitely worth the extra time it took.

The plan for the day was to drive to Picacho Peak State Park between Phoenix and Tucson, AZ. When I was making this plan, it never occurred to me that a park in the middle of Arizona might be very deserty and hot, but as I got closer to it, I found myself wanting to stop less and less. The temperature was already above 100 and all I wanted at that point was some air conditioning and a bed. So I ditched Picacho Peak and dipped into my reserves to book a hotel room (btw, I pulled the car over and used my iPhone to find the best rate and book the room. Took ten minutes, tops. Such a handy little gadget). Once in the room I took a hard look at my itinerary and realized I needed to make some changes. The whole southern part of my trip would take me through some really hot temperatures and I knew I wasn't going to want to camp in that heat any more than I had that day.

So, change of plans. The next day, instead of continuing west I headed north to Albuquerque. Driving in New Mexico was such a glorious experience...there's never a moment when the scenery isn't beautiful. Also, I got to drive through Truth or Consequences, which was fun. In the end it looks like just another town, btw. Today I'm planning to head down to Roswell and see what all that alien business was about. Tomorrow it's back up to Santa Fe to camp for a few days in the Santa Fe National Forest, then out to Oklahoma City and then to Memphis before hitting Atlanta. Looks like I'll get to see Graceland after all!

xo,
C