Retrospect

It's so interesting to look at these time capsule blogs. 

 Though I wrote these, I was both the same and oh so different. All of these posts bring the memories and emotions into bright clear view in my mind. I remember this person I was. 

 And so much of me is still the same. The love of the open road. The need to spread my wings and experience life, not just watch it pass. There is far too much in this world for us to only stay in our tiny corners. And though the world is incredibly accessible these days via the internet, it is so different to actually BE there, somewhere different, and feel and breathe it all in. 

 These days I have a partner who has the same wanderlust and craving for the road and the experiences it brings. And a tiny human who lets us see even things we've experienced with the eyes of someone somewhat new to the planet. It may take a bit more planning and money to travel with a tiny human, but we're making it happen and I love it so much! 

 The bucket list is neverending, and sometimes I think perhaps I should pick back up here and record the new adventures. Then in another fifteen years, I can look back at those too and smile at who I am now.

Slow build

Something I’m coming to learn about myself is that my anger takes a LONG time to break. When something happens and people are watching my reaction, more often than not I am calm. My instinctive reaction is to forgive. But that doesn’t mean that I remain unaffected. Maybe it’s shock? Whatever it is, my anger rises in the days after the fact. A slow swell that nonetheless is powerful as a tsunami. Yet after it crests and breaks, my instinct to forgive re-emerges. I’m stuck feeling like I am not entitled to my rage because I have already expressed forgiveness. And if I express it, people question why I didn’t express it immediately. And after expressing it, when I am back in a space of forgiveness, people act like I could irrationally enter a rage at any time or like I always hold past offenses against them. So I try to hold my tongue as my anger swells and crests. I know I will be back in a place of forgiveness afterwards, and I’d rather not muddy the waters. But forgiveness is not the same as pretending it didn’t happen. Our interactions will not remain unaffected.

Interminable Distance

I woke up from a thicket of strange dreams where you were there and you were there and you were there. Feeling as though I had just come an interminable distance in those moments between sleeping and waking. But the feeling didn't leave as this reality settled back into place. Rather, it grew. In the last three years I have indeed traveled further than I had imagined possible. Not physically. The paltry distance of 3,000 miles is nothing. But the person I was, with all her dreams and hopes, her desires and beliefs about herself and the world around her... She would never have seen me coming.

New Coast, New Adventures

I've been living in New Hampshire for a month now. It's interesting how sometimes it feels as though this is perfectly normal and there is no real adjustment. I've working full time. I'm nocturnal. There's not a whole lot different there. And yet sometimes I'm struck by how much I took for granted while living in SF. I find myself craving pho or sushi or real Mexican food. Mango sago and jasmine milk bubble tea, how I miss you. All the organizations and venues whose mailing lists I was on in SF continue to send me updates on all the amazing things I'm missing out on. And yet, as the weather cools and the leaves begin preparing for fall, I can feel that excitement that autumn air brings. I find myself anticipating hikes through colorful woods and hot cider. Sailing with hot tea in the thermos. The aurora borealis. The reemergence of my sweaters from my closet. And, hopefully, visits from a few friends with whom I can share some New England adventures.

Rumney

When Sleep Walks

Sleep has been elusive. Time to stalk it.
On the plus side, I'll probably be painting more again.

Blue Fairy

Late Night Kitchen Experiment Success!

So this was a soup experiment that I think turned out rather well:


Heat your oven to 400 F and put in two potatoes and two sweet potatoes.

Sautee a white onion in coconut oil and curry powder, add water and lentils and quinoa and let those cook. Remember, quinoa expands. A lot.

Take the potatoes and sweet potatoes out of the oven when they're mostly cooked through; cut them into large chunks and add them to the pot.

Either add raw broccoli or in a separate small pot blanch the broccoli so it's bright green, then add it to the pot. For those unfamiliar with blanching, it's when you drop it into already boiling water and then drain the boiling water and run cold water over it immediately.

When the soup is done, stir in some fresh kale and serve!

Thanksgiving on the East Coast

New England has to be one of my favorite places to be when the weather starts getting colder. The fall is amazing, and I'm one of those silly people who actually enjoys cold weather, provided I'm adequately dressed for it. And ESPECIALLY when there is a wood stove and hot beverages involved.

Florida

We got evacuated out of the State Park we were staying at on the Keys. Apparently they
don't stay open for tropical storms. And we stayed in a Travelodge last night in Florida City. This morning it was raining sideways and the trees were shedding palm fronds and all the hotel employees were running around slamming and locking all the storm-shutters, so we decided to move up our St. Augustine stay.
Still. Tropical Storm Bonnie was nothing to what's going on up in Wisconsin right now. I saw the weather map last night and the entire lower half of the state was covered with tornado and flash-flood symbols. Yikes.

New Orleans, LA

Delicious. All I'll bother saying for now.

Texas

So we stayed with Gray's brother and his family in Plano while we were going through Texas. Originally we thought we'd only be in Texas maybe two days. But it turned out to be more like four. It was fun! We visited Dallas and Austin.

Bluewater Lake and the Land that Never Was

So, today we left our camp site early and piled in the car, driving south and then east on I-40. We got slightly lost near Flagstaff thanks to some confusing signs and some highway construction, but we managed to get to the Petrified Forest by mid-afternoon.
We had a great tour with a Park Ranger named Tiffany who turned what could have been a mildly entertaining excursion through some pretty petrified wood into a mind bending tour through a land described in scientific projection. A washed forest in the tropics full of 200' tall coniferous and rampaging reptiles. A giant river that carried trees along, stripping them of bark and limb and root and then submerging them and covering them in mud and ash, sealing the away from oxygen so the silica could slowly replace the trees' cells with crystal.
After bidding Tiffany goodbye, we drove north through the park and exited on I-40E... So far so good... Then came New Mexico.
When we crossed the border and passed Gallup, it was still PLENTY light out, and between the GPS and the AAA Road Atlas, we felt confident about our ability to find our camp site in Bluewater Lake State Park. I mean, it was a state park after all, how hard could it be? ...That's when we turned on the NM-612...
For anyone travelling through New Mexico, who happens to want to stay at or even visit Bluewater Lake, be warned: DO NOT TAKE NM-612! It's a dirty trick. There's a road that ends in water. And there's a tiny town that doesn't appear on the map or the GPS, and the ratio of cars to houses is rather alarming. What was that movie with the mutant cannibals in New Mexico? Well we were a little worried that the residents were collecting the vehicles of the lost tourists they'd eaten. Also, the only living people we saw in town were four 10-13 year old boys on bicycles who were riding down the road into oncoming traffic (and by oncoming traffic I mean us, cause there were no other cars to reassure us, which should have tipped us off perhaps) and they looked at us as though they'd never seen other people before in their lives and weren't at all sure what to make of us. Another house we passed had several abandoned kids bikes strewn along the driveway, but no sign of life. The town seemed quite abandoned, despite the twelve cars in various states of repair in every single yard. And some of those cars were quite shiny and new looking. Anyways, we were content to follow NM-612 despite the warning signs, trusting that it would eventually lead us either to our camp-ground or turn into NM-412 and loop back around to I-40... Untill the pavement stopped and the road started going through an uninhabited part of Cibola National Forest and the sun started setting. As we turned around and decided to force the GPS to recalculate, the giant ominous cloud began obscuring more and more of the sky. We followed the GPS back through the tiny town (the boys on bikes now nowhere in evidence), and soon we were turning onto some other tiny unpaved road. Concerned that the sun was setting and it was starting to throw random drops of rain at us every once in a while, not to mention worried that the driveways of the two lonely farm houses on this side of the lake looked more worn than the unpaved road that led past them, we decided to stop and ask a local for directions. BAD idea. We never actually caught the man's name, but apparently his neighbour (who may have been his brother or his cousin) was named Jerry. Anyhow, when Irwin shouted "hello", he shouted "goodbye!" from somewhere inside his house. When Irwin asked if we could bother him for directions cause we were lost, he told us every question would cost us $5. Irwin and Grayson told him we didn't have that kind of money on us and he demanded what we planned to do if we got robbed, because, he assured us, robbers prefer cash. Luckily that's when Gray cut in and asked him how to get to the Bluewater Lake State Park Campgrounds. The man didn't know, but he became very chatty. He went on some long rant about going fishing with his brother-cousin-neighbor-Jerry and how they ran into a bear with two cubs and he nearly didn't make it back in time to meet with his parole officer. That's about when Irwin and Gray started backing toward the car. We thanked him for his help as he told us Jerry would know better, and the boys jumped in the car and we left as fast as we could, retracing our steps to I-40.
Eventually we found our camp ground, but it was dark and the sky was full of mosquitoes and threatening rain and the camp ground was closed. So we drove back toward I-40 yet again. As we crested a hill and came into view of the interstate, someone set off a bunch of fireworks to our left. It felt congratulatory as though celebrating getting out alive.
So tonight we're staying in a hotel nearby. Linzy and I used the pool which is open all night. It was extremely refreshing.
And now I'm off to go enjoy a real bed for the first and last time in a while.

Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

So after changing cars and loading up on provisions, the City Kid Liberation Front marathon drove to the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona where we pitched our tents and napped for two hours. We decided to take in our first awake views of the Grand Canyon from Grand View Point, and the beginning of the old Copper Miners' trail there.
We're going to do a little hiking and explore the Painted Desert and Antelope Canyon before we move on to the Petrified Forest and then to Bluewater Lake in New Mexico on the 6th.

Possum Kingdom vs. Dinosaur Valley

What do you think?