October 5, 2013

Even though I’m spending this evening in San Francisco I am currently riding south on I-5, the north end of the great interior valley, which spans California and is its agricultural heartland.  Last year on this day we were driving through Iowa,  which can claim the heartland title in the geographical (and probably more valid) sense. I have feeling that dinner tonight will be better than at the Holiday Inn Express in Des Moines a year ago.  Tonight we are meeting old friends from my hometown (Silver Spring. MD).  I love San Francisco and am excited to share a little of it with my friends.

The timing of this trip could be better.  We are remodeling a bathroom with all the mess and bother that implies.  Added to that, my brother and his wife are arriving for  a visit Tuesday and we already know the shower glass won’t be installed by then. Add to that the painter decided to paint the ceiling blue and I am determined to repaint it white before Tuesday.  This is a good place to interject an explanation about  how we get projects done at our house.  First of all, we are solely motivated by company and parties.  So of course we tried to squeeze the remodel in before a family visit.  There is a genetic component here.  I vividly remember my father caulking the new bathtub in the main bathroom in our house as my aunt and uncle and 6 of their 10 children pulled up the driveway in the family station wagon. in my memory parties at my parents were always preceded by major cleaning including washing walls (who does that?).  This genetic mania has affected my siblings as well. Ask my sister who marshaled her friends and family to move and arrange all of the furniture in a new home (including hanging pictures) in one day and then threw a party for the workers in the new place that night! Ask my brother who purchased a table that seats 24 people right before the annual Thanksgiving dinner at his house. Ask my niece who can work all week as a vet, manage two active little boys and their dogs, and throw a Lego theme party on the weekend.  None of these things would be possible were it not for the patient, some would say long-suffering, forbearance of our spouses.  None of whom fully understood what they were getting into when they married us.  So tomorrow morning we will leave San Francisco, less than 24 hours after arriving, so that Mike and I can get home in time to paint, clean, rearrange furniture, garden, shop, change the air filters, fix a sprinkler head….

But tonight–my favorite city, my favorite man, old friends, good food, and great conversation.

Walnut, Iowa–the Antique Capital

Everyone has an opinion… so “fun” traveling during a presidential election season

Oct 5, 2012: Des Moines, Iowa

I had just mentioned to Mike that I hated antique shopping and hoped never to be in another antique store when we saw the signs for “Walnut-Iowa’s Antique City.”  I’m not kidding.

Walnut is a picturesque town—old homes in tree-lined lanes, an adorable downtown with brick streets, a bakery featuring homemade jams and pies, and…(wait for it) at least a dozen antique stores.  Shoot me.  In the mood to be a good sport, I slogged through several shops of collectibles; including a disturbing amount of Aunt Jemima products (actually any amount is disturbing).   I did get some good pictures including a sign for Aunt B’s—no Opie, though.

I don’t know why, but this was a tough day emotionally—sometimes the process of leaving the school and 35 years of being an educator is wrenching.  It didn’t help that Des Moines is huge and we went several miles out of our way before circling back to a Holiday Inn.  I must have looked as bad as I felt because the manager who checked us in gave us a break on the room and included a free (full) breakfast and a goody bag with water and snacks.  We were so wiped out that we didn’t want to venture into downtown for dinner.  Plus it was 35 degrees.

Sidebar—a week ago today, I was leaving Playa del Carmen, south of Cancun, after a wonderful, fun, relaxing week with 3 friends.  I had a pale tan (not an oxymoron when you’re mainly Irish and German) and my hair was full and curly from the humidity. Today I’m upset and tired, my tan is fading in ugly patches, my hair is limp and dry, and I have a trip pimple on my chin.

Back to Des Moines: Mike and I headed immediately for the bar, ordered martinis and indulged in complaining.  We decided, before the trip, that we would have “Road Rage Fridays”—a cocktail hour in which we could freely complain about the things that annoyed us the previous week.  All we could really come up with was the truck driver that almost killed us and the exaggerated way Mike grips the door and braces when I’m braking…  Mike didn’t mention my tactless remark about antiquing (he loves it) since Karma had dealt with that…  After that we had a mediocre dinner surrounded by teams of U13 soccer girls.  It took us both back to the days we traveled to soccer tournaments with Max and both endured and enjoyed the relentless energy of youth.

October 4, 2013

What I remember about the visit with my Aunt Aggie a year ago is that she suggested I get some of my mother’s old clothes to her so she could make memory bears for the family if my mother passed.  She may have said “when” but I heard “if.”  Aunt Aggie told me that my mother thought it was ghoulish to plan ahead.  But when Aunt Aggie showed me the bears she had made with her husband’s (Uncle Dave’s) plaid shirts for all the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, I could see the love and care that went into each bear and that created each memory. Little did I know that two and half months later my mother would pass away and that Aunt Aggie, my cousin Denise, my sister, and I would look through my mother’s clothes and select the items that would make 24 bears for our family.  Aunt Aggie and Denise outdid themselves.

October 3, 2012: Montrose, Colorado

Last night we drove around BYU, Mike’s alma mater, and then spent 47 minutes trying to find our motel. Provo is laid out in a logical grid, but we didn’t have the secret handshake so we added to our car time. This morning we toured the beautiful campus on foot and I discovered BYU is built on a plateau which is accessed through several levels of stairs. Regardless, I did enjoy the campus and I needed the exercise. From Provo we drove to Montrose, CO, to see my favorite aunt, my mother’s younger sister Aggie.

Aunt Aggie is the favorite aunt of all her 35 nieces and nephews because she’s a kick in the pants. When showing us the huge shower in the master bathroom of her daughter’s home, she said “it’s big enough for a threesome.” Vintage Aunt Aggie! Like her older sisters (Alma, Eileen, my mother, and Mary), Aunt Aggie pulls no punches, tells hilarious stories, and expresses affection through action. These days she makes “Memory Bears” for children who have lost loved ones.

After our visit we checked into a motel, ordered Thai food for delivery and turned on the Obama-Romney debate. No comment.

Oct 4, 2012: North Platte, Nebraska

Ended up stopping late in North Platte—after 3 near-death experiences on the road.  Well, maybe only one could’ve resulted in our joint demise.  Mike was looking at the lane to the left of us, when a truck pulled out in front of us.  Luckily, my inarticulate gurgle alerted Mike and the good brakes on the Santa Fe kept us from hitting the truck.  Later, exhausted, Mike drove around North Platte looking for a place to have dinner; as much as we would prefer to eat at local places, sometimes there’s no choice, so Applebee’s it was.

A word about the so-called breakfasts at the places we stay.  Keep in mind we choose our motels based on having memberships and the inclusion of breakfast.  So far the 3 Hampton Suites we’ve stayed at—including the overpriced one in Colorado, which smelled like cow poop (just outside)—have provided the same limp, almost disgusting choices.  Hot brown water (erroneously labeled coffee), watery juice, 3 kinds of milk (all are skim but they are labeled skim, 2% and whole) are the beverage choices.  No water, which would be better.  Anemic plain bagels, always stale pastries, selections of cereals no one eats, and congealed oatmeal do not prepare you for the horror of the hot dish possibilities. Home fries consist of uniform squares of a potato like substance.  While he avoided those, Mike actually put the “western style omelet” on his plate before coming to his senses and throwing it away.  I don’t know what it tasted like but it looked like it had been made last month in a microwave with powdered eggs and three pieces of bell pepper (2 green, one red).  Not for the faint of heart.  I tend to eat an English muffin with peanut butter and an Activia yogurt.  Yes, Activia.  Yes, for the reason you’re thinking.

Even though North Platte wasn’t the most exciting town, we did manage to get out of there ahead of the snow…  Also, the nice folks at Hampton Suites gave us a conference room, which enabled us to bring in the luggage and repack so that we now have access to our cold weather clothes (since a cold front has definitely moved in).  Mike decided to use a new app on his phone to start the car; it worked and he got the message: mission accomplished.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t our car he started.  Somewhere in the world a car is warmed up and ready to go…

Beautiful Colorado

North Platte, NE: One of the many Buffalo Bill historic landmarks–apparently he got around

A year ago today, My husband Mike and I left Redding on a cross-country trip; we planned too many places to visit and I got a crash course on American geography. (“Yes, Erin, there is a Santa Fe” and “No, Erin, New Orleans is not close to Nashville.”) I liked that travelogue: it was fun to write and I had lots of down time to do it.  I wanted to publish it on anewscafe, an online journal that I admire but it seems that my verbose and meandering style is more suited to blogging.  If there’s a way to archive this travelogue on my blog for posterity, I haven’t figured it out.  So I thought I would pull excerpts from last year’s journey and comment upon them (or let them stand on their own merit) on the corresponding day this year.  This, of course, means I’m recycling old work, but I will be interspersing posts with new material.  And I will be working on that novel…  Really.

10/2/12: Orem, Utah

Hard to believe that at 6:30 on Monday night (10/1) we left Redding and today we are in Utah and starting our cross-country, family visiting, genealogy exploring, 37-38 day trip.

The “Plan” was to leave early on 10/2 and do the long haul to Utah in one day. While I was packing I noticed Mike removing the pillows from our bed and bringing in the cooler from the garage; this was my first hint that we were leaving sooner. In the interest of full disclosure I should say that I wasn’t really packing; my dear friend Sally Burnham was packing for me. Sally claims that I’m the worst folder she has ever met and that I completely miss the part about packing where you flatten the clothes and make them smaller not larger before putting them in the suitcase.

So at 6:30 PM (a full 12 hours earlier than I had planned), Mike and I left Redding on a “Road Trip.”

While the term “road trip” conjures images from 20-something movies for some people, it takes me back to family vacations from Maryland to visit relatives. Pretty much every summer, my parents would wake up their four children in the middle of the night, pile us into a large American-made vehicle (okay, a Ford) and take off for Michigan. I remember pillows on the floor of the back seat that Noni, the youngest, slept on. I think I was down there sometimes, too (those were big cars). Rick and Mike, my brothers, were somewhere else—maybe on the back seat, maybe in the 3^rdseat (facing backwards) of a station wagon we had for several years (I learned to drive in it). Mom gave Noni and me a Dramamine and we crashed. We stopped in Hagerstown, PA, for breakfast; I didn’t eat, just stared into bleary space until I could climb into the back seat and sleep again. Sometime in the afternoon we would stop for a quick lunch at a Howard Johnson’s on the Ohio Turnpike. My dad was a proponent of “making time,” always striving for a personal best… After lunch, more Dramamine, sleep and arrival at my Aunt Madeline’s around 5 PM. I often woke up in her driveway—no wonder I thought it took 3 hours to get from Maryland to Michigan until I was an adult and made the 10 hour trip myself.

A few words about Howard Johnson’s: Noni and I loved Howard Johnson’s. I always ate the same thing—a hot dog that came in a stiff paper holder with part of a toasted bun cut off. I considered this to be the height of fine dining. But the real draw was the vending machine in the ladies room. Noni and I would save our quarters and choose carefully from the various items that could be had for 25 cents. Over the years we purchased tiny manicure sets (so dull that even the TSA would let them through security screening), lovely plastic rain bonnets, miniature flashlights, “imported” perfume, key chains, small (and fragile) stuffed animals, and coin purses.

I’m pretty sure this road trip will be different, even though the 10 hour haul from Sparks, NV, to Provo, Utah, is reminiscent of Dad’s three stops a day—at most—approach to family vacations. For one thing, Mike and I will not engage in silent battles over space, usually the arm rest. My brother and I would push grimly against each other’s arms, in a no-win contest for dominion of the back seat. Even though we were completely quiet, my little sister (a notorious puker wedged in the front seat between my parents) would rat on us and bring down the “don’t make me stop this car” threat. I was happy when she outgrew her car sickness and was relegated to the back seat. Of course her memories are different and include big fat lies about me singing “Red Rubber Ball” (an unappreciated classic) all the way to Michigan.

The Nevada-Eastern Utah segment of our journey will not be represented in any photos—incredibly ugly terrain– enough said. The highlight? We stopped at a casino in Winnemucca to use the rest rooms and I put a dollar I found in my pocket in a machine I thought was video poker (that’s what the sign said); I pushed a button and the machine went crazy. When all the binging stopped the number 2010 flashed from the left corner. For one heady moment I thought I won over $2000. Since this turned out to be a penny machine (this was not a high end casino), I netted $20.10. I consider that my mad money to be spent on something foolish and fun.  Mike played a dollar, too, and lost most of it in 5 seconds.