Sequoia National Forest

National Parks are not dog-friendly. But National Forests are. So much driving is necessary in order to Bring Fido. Today Calli and I went to a park in Visalia to meet Veronica, who is scheduled to pet sit her on Thursday. This venture will entail my driving from Three Rivers CA back to Visalia, drop off the dog, drive back to Sequoia, run around the park dog-free, and then go back to Visalia to pick up Calli. But that night I am staying in Visalia, so that’s fine.

After we met Veronica and her dog Fiona, we drove to Springville CA to the Sequoia National Forest. It took 2 hours, the last part of which was very windy indeed. But beautiful.  We drove through already parched fields dotted by trees

Driving to the forest
This doesn’t do the view justice

Calli got a treat when a herd of cattle decided to use the same road:

Cattle crossing
This black cow (right) made her crazy

We finally arrived at the aptly name Trail of 100 Giants

Trail of 100 Giants

Calli did some real estate shopping

Calli’s new condo
Or maybe this one
Ready to move in

I chatted with three guys from Europe spending a few months in the US traveling, took their picture, and they returned the favor:

In the roots of a fallen sequoia tree

These things are BIG

Big Fella

As in really really big.   An example of scale

To get some sense of just HOW BIG

The fallen giants can accommodate lots of people playing on them at once

Tree Bridge/ Playground

We spent a couple of hours walking around the trail (it’s not long–we did it twice) and then moved to Dome Rock Trail:   not really a trail (so short) but the views were magnificient.  These photos don’t do it any justice at all

Dome Rock
Sierras still snow capped
More inadequate shots
The Intrepid Explorer hiding under my knees

It took a long time to drive down.  I got to the hotel in three rivers about 5.  It’s fine (Comfort Inn). Overpriced (with dog fee will be about 200 a night). Run down.  Clean enough. (looked behind the desk for a plug. Dear god.  The dust.

Met Jon for dinner and we walked across the street to a pretty pleasant outdoor Mexican place.  He worked on his final paper in my room (no internet in the park) and we looked at my plan for tomorrow. Might be ambitious. I need to ask at the park.  Weaver Lake: in the wilderness area, pretty high up, 2 hour drive. But they let dogs.  So… Maybe.

Friends Never Age

Saturday night Jon and I had dinner with my old and wonderful friends, Shelby and Paul.  I’ve known Shelby since 1979 and, yes, we’ve aged, but she still looks the same.  Ditto for Paul.  They just look the way they are supposed to look after all these years.  They first met Jon when he was a tiny baby and have not seen him since, so that was fun.

This non-aging phenomenon I first really paid attention to at my college reunions 10 years ago.  I hadn’t been in quite some time and yet I recognized everyone and they looked…well, the same.  The essential qualities that shine through everyone don’t change, and even if the skeletal qualities undergo some revisions, we all just seem pretty much the same.

After leaving Jon and Celina I drove to Ojai to visit more old friends–Bo and Julie, whom I’ve known since we were all in our 20s.  They moved to Ojai 30 years ago and I had seen them only once since.  It felt to me like we had last talked a year ago, not 30.  Their home overlooks the Ojai Valley, with spectacular views:

The View from my friends’ house in Ojai
The same view this morning
The view from my bed when I woke up

Gorgeous.  Their neice and her two children were visiting from Australia, and 8 year old Ivy became new best friends with Calli:

Ivy and her new friend

Calli is still sleeping off her amazing day in Ojai.  We went hiking, then I got a tour of the Thatcher School, then a delicious pizza dinner (Julie is a fabulous cook) with yet more relatives and friends. After all those years,  I should rank as an outsider, yet they made me completely comfortable and at home.  During a mid-dinner walk (after one set of pizzas before the next) we all took our wine glasses and went for a walk to see the cows and horses. Calli rolled in what Ivy’s little brother called “horse mud”.  An excellent name for an unexcellent dog body ointment.

This morning Bo, Julie, and I (and Calli) hiked up to a spectacular lookout over the school and the valley

View from the rocks to which we hiked

I left around 10 and drove through the Los Padres National Forest, making the drive both longer and unforgettable. The South side is awash in trees:

Los Padres from the south side

But on the Northern side it’s mostly rock and desert:

Getting Sparser

But with some pretty lovely flowers and views:

Flowers in Los Padres
Los Padres view into the valley

I took the slow route so it took me a while to get to Visalia. But now Jon is here and we are going to go watch basketball!

More Plummer Park

I readily admit to being a bit obsessed with this park.  It’s so urban and so diverse and just so great. In addition to the Babi Yar Memorial, near the little tennis shop is a WWII Memorial:

WW II Memorial commemorating the soldiers who died from the (former) Soviet Union

Today I met a woman who lives in her camper van and travels around. She is from Vancouver and her daughter lives in LA. She is here helping her daughter.  We both have dogs.  The great conversation starter.  She was very friendly and eager to tell me about shedding all her worldly possessions and traveling all around.  She spends a lot of time in LA.  She seemed oblivious to everything around her, however, and didn’t much seem to care when I pointed out the memorial, but turned the conversation back to her camper and the joys of traveling.  I immediately launched into one of my familiar internal arguments:

Me 1: What is the point of seeing new places if you don’t care at all about the context of the places you are seeing?

Me 2: Stop being so judgmental–you have traveled through lots of places without having a clue what you are looking at.

Me 1: Point taken. But at least I was open, indeed eager, to find out the context of the spot of earth on which I was standing.

Me 2: Good grief, you are so annoying.

This went on as my new acquaintance told me about parking at casinos and paying $20.00 for hot showers and airconditioning and her eagerness to be back on the road.  The argument in my head ended in aporia, as it almost always does.

There were tables of older men playing dominos, cards, chess. There was one table with two chess games going on and you could see the game boards only by looking through the narrow crevices between the bodies of the men crowded around to watch.

Chess at Plummer Park
Lunch and Dominos at Plummer Park

The benches were full of older women talking.  (They were harder to photograph without being intrusive).  Around the eager conversations at benches and tables were playgrounds full of kids, basketball courts, tennis courts, interesting park buildings whose function remains a mystery (Me 2: See?  Ms. Smarty-Pants, see?  I rest my case).

 

Russian West Hollywood

I just corrected my post from yesterday. Russians, mostly Jews, came to West Hollywood not during WWII but starting in the 70s to escape the anti-Semitism back home. Plummer Park (near Jon’s apartment) has rule signs in both English and Russian:

Plummer Park signs in Russian and (other side) English

The middle of the park has a monument to those who perished in the Holocaust at Babi Yar, near Kiev:

The Plaque for the Babi Yar Memorial in Plummer Park

At Babi Yar on September 29, 1941, the Nazis slaughtered about 34,000 Soviet Jews.  The ravine at Babi Yar eventually became the mass grave of upwards of 100,000 victims of the Nazis. The monument in Plummer Park,with the words “Remember” in English, Hebrew, and Russian, was dedicated on Sunday, September 29, 1991 (as I learned from an article in the LA Times, Sept. 30, 1991).

At the cermony for the memorial, Yevgeniva Podolskaya spoke about that horrible day in 1941. Podolskaya survived the slaughter but saw her parents–and thousands more–killed.  “She said the Jews of Kiev were ordered to meet on a street corner and forced to remove their clothing and all their valuables. The naked masses were then marched to the edge of the ravine, where they were shot and thrown to the bottom, she said.” (http://articles.latimes.com/1991-09-30/local/me-2258_1_babi-yar ).  Podolskaya and her two sisters survived.

West Hollywood became for these immigrants “Little Odessa.” Three of the six apartments in Jon and Celina’s section of the building are home to Russians. It used to be four.  The decrease may be part of a trend cited in a recent article in LA Weekly (April 19, 2017), which claims the Russian population is shrinking as new stores, esp. chain stores, squeeze out mom and pop stores, as young people leave for more opportunities, as West Hollywood’s increasing status as the hip place to be makes the neighborhood unaffordable.

L.A., with reassurances from John Steinbeck

Hi Full disclosure: it wasn’t only that I was too tired to write yesterday.  Somehow I couldn’t.  I had been alone for a week, enjoying casual conversations with people whom I had never before met and would likely never meet again.  I had figured out a pattern to traveling: go early while energy levels are high, explore in the afternoon, read and write at night.  That might sound very solitary and even boring, but it suits me, a fact of which I’m not particularly proud.  It’s not an accident that quirky types wind up in quirky fields, and Classical Philology is definitely quirky, at the very least.  Finding myself in the company of my son, Jon, and his lovely partner, Celina, I was out of my element of aloneness and suddenly in a different world, full of familiar connections.  The silence of the last week made the shift more pronounced and weirdly unsettling–it felt a bit like landing in a different country.

I didn’t have anything to write, even though I had lots I could write: the remarkable, ever-changing vistas through the hills and then the desert in Arizona and California:

Arizona to California
And another one

the long drive interrupted by adobe-looking portals with a huge inscription CALIFORNIA through which one must pass, and at which one must stop and pass visual inspection by uniformed young men before getting waved into California (I was passed through with a smile, but it made me wonder what the other possibilities were–and triggered by what); the sprawling squalor of East LA and increasingly insane traffic going toward the middle of the city; getting off to find a bathroom for the both of us,with only Calli having any success (the gas station’s restrooms were clearly limited to the dirt around the perimeter, and, judging by the smell, they were heavily patronized).

Celina had a small dinner party in honor of Jon’s graduation and I met some of their (really lovely) friends, ate yummy vegetarian dumplings Jon made and drank an amazing cocktail that Celina dreampt up, and finally fell deeply and gratefully asleep.

Their neighborhood in West Hollywood wraps a lot of jarring contrasts into a fairly pleasing bundle: cars on Santa Monica Blvd whizzing past tiny side streets hiding lovely (expensive) small houses, with lovely plantings:

All over Poinsettia Drive

shiny new buildings next to pretty decrepit hold-overs from another time;

Our lunch Cafe, next to the venerable Formosa Cafe
Calli waiting for Frank Sinatra outside the Formosa Cafe…he didn’t show

Both the Mendicino Farms (where we ate lunch) and the Formosa Cafe (famous for its famous clientele) are on Santa Monica Blvd, which is also old Route 66.

Among the faded glories of the neighborhood is Normadie Towers on Formosa Avenus, a cottages built by Charlie Chaplin in 1923 for his actors and crews (the studio was just down the street). Among its storied tenants were Chaplin himself, Douglas Fairbanks, and Rudolf Valentino:

Walking the streets of are lots (too many) of beautiful skinny well-dressed people sharing the sidewalks with Russian Jews escaping anti-Semitism who came as refugees from the 1970s to 90s (those are not necessarily mutually exclusive groups, but you get the point); homeless folk and actresses (both present and very-former). And the faint but so pervasive smell of urine everywhere announces itself.  Fortunately, the weather is so amazing  (as I have told Jon all day) that you can almost forgive the smell.

Calli and I took ourselves to the park, which was full of the above mix of physical beauty both youthful and venerable (those faces of character appeal to me more): gorgeous bodies doing yoga on the lawn and wizened old men chatting at picnic tables.  I met Peanut, a 19-year-old chihauhau

Peanut

I also met Riley Cyrus (whose instagram account, yorkiewood, is very much worth a look). I got so caught up in talking to Riley’s owner that I forgot to take a photo.  Super nice guy.  Calli chased Riley a bit, ran around kissing random strangers lying on their blankets and reading (good sports all) and got out some Calli-energy.

So what does any of this have to do with John Steinbeck?  In Sedona I started re-reading Travels with Charlie (which I haven’t read since…high school?).  It’s a different time now, in many ways, and I’m a different person, and it’s a different book to me.  Not always in pleasing ways.  A perfect thing to read while I go, however. Today, fortuitously, I read the part of the narrative where Steinbeck meets his wife in Chicago at a good hotel. (Have I mentioned how great it is to just hang out and read?)  And he finds himself unable to write:

“Chicago broke my continuity. This is permissible in life but not in writing. So I leave Chicago out, because it is off the line, out of drawing.  In my travels, it was pleasant and good; in writing, it would contribute only a disunity.”

Well, there you go.  If John Steinbeck, who won both the Pulitzer and the Nobel, can get knocked off kilter by being reintegrated into his life, then my own disorientation seems fated.

Long Day,Short Post, No Photos

Last night after packing up my stuff, I took my vouchers (given to me at check in) up to the restaurant, hoping to run into the Zeitlins. I missed them. So I sat out on the patio and had a glass of wine and crab cakes (they were really good).

Got up at 5 itching ot get on the road to get to LA before the traffic got nuts.  At check out my $161 room  (x 2) came to $495.00.  I was floored. And not in a good way.  Lots of hidden fees.  Oh well.

Spent the day in the car (8.5 hrs, with stops). Beautiful until LA. Then horrific.  Listened to the entired Comey session and the aftermath.

Great to be with Jon and Celina. But oh, my I’m tired.

A Homeric Sedona

Our first stop of the day was Ranger Station, so I could get my official lifetime pass to the National Parks.  It didn’t open until 9, late for us, but that was ok–it gave me time to work on Latin Placement, a task made far more onerous this year by our switch to the new version of Moodle. I won’t bore you with the details but let’s just say I’ve had to write apologetic emails to first year students because I can’t see their scores as well as scores of emails to ITS.

Even so we were early and sat outside, near the bronze wild pigs.  Calli took one look at the wild pig sculptures and got a bit unhinged. Backed away. Barked. Generally amused the other early arrivals with her antics.

The broze wild pig at the ranger station

Smokey the Bear, on the other hand, passed whatever sculptural test dogs run on things, and she struck a stoic pose.

Bears are ok. Just not wild pigs

The first guy I asked about my Senior Citizen Pass made my day by saying “you have to be old enough before you can get that pass.”  When he discovered I was indeed old enough, I had to go to a different agent, who complied and gave me what seemed like very good, but were in fact very bad, directions to a hike that had a stream but where I would also find parking. Lest the photos entice you to buy land in Sedona, let me tell you: it’s crowded with more cars than places to put them for the trails. Note I did not say “with not enough parking.”  How much parking is enough?  How much do you want to alter the natural beauty of the landscape with more parking spaces?  Yes, there were trails I might have liked to hike on and by the time I got my pass (I was told) it would be too late.  But if you want to hike those trails, get up early and get a space.

Eventually I found the spot she told me about, in the shadow (metaphorically, because shade of any kind is at a real premium here) of Cathedral Rock. I took off blithely on what looked to me like a trail. We climbed up, and up, and up.  It really did look like a trail. But after awhile, I realized it was an Assos. And I without Annie Merrill to get me found again.  So I turned around, much to Calli’s relief.

In 2013 Annie and I went for a hike in Assos Turkey.  We wanted to climb to a cliff we could see. I think. Or maybe we just wanted to hike.  Annie is a mighty hiker and trail finder.  It is my job to repeat the mantra “Are you sure you know what you are doing?”  We went through sheepfields and bogs and over rocks and on goat paths that wanted to be trails when they grew up.  She led. I repeated the mantra. Eventually, and I do mean eventually, we crested a cliff with spectacular views.  It was breathtakingly unforgettable.

Not, however, quite as unforgettable as the descent.  I was pretty terrified.  I was sure we were totally lost in rural coastal Turkey.  The shepherd who saw us perched on rocks whence there seemed no descent thought we were …well, I have no idea what he thought, as his face registered so many shades of disbelief, not one of which suggested amusement or annoyance.  Just complete disbelief.  We gestured. He gestured.  Eventually, we found our muddy way to something that resembled a road.  And got back.

But Annie has a sense of DIRECTION.  I do not.  So I turned around.  The trail, it turns out, is on the other side of the road.  It is marked. But not as well as one might hope. About 10 minutes in I ran into Hermes of the Forest.  A tall, amiable man of about my age with an official name tag on one side of his chest (Greg? maybe?) and another official-looking tag on the other that said “Friends of the Forest.”

Me: Hello!

Hermes: Hi! Do you know what you are doing?

Me: Nope! Not a clue!  I tried the trail behind the parking, but it doesn’t seem to be a trail. I’m looking for the trail with the stream.

Hermes: It’s not. It’s a ‘social trail’–people use it but it is not marked or charted and not official. You are on Baldwin Trail. If you keep going you will come to a fence and the Oak Creek Trail will be right in front of you.  [continue with lots of great information as given by someone who knows exactly what they are about to someone who hasn’t a clue: that is, not as illustrative as you think it will be at the time]

Me: Thank you so much!  Well, if there is still a blue Subaru in the parking lot tonight, call the posse.

Hermes: Does anyone know you are out here?

Me: Yup. You do.

Hermes: I will check the parking lot when I leave.

Me: Thank you! Have a wonderful day!

Calli and I wandered off, and I regretted not asking him if he had read the Odyssey.  Sent by the forest gods he was.  Turns out the creek is at the END of the trail and we were at the beginning.

The trail was gorgeous

Baldwin Loop Trail

and not hard for humans.Hard for dogs wearing coats.  We spent a good deal of time in the shade of scrub.

Hot dog

Fortunately, I had brought a lot of water.  For most of the time I was completely alone with Calli.

Baldwin Loop
Another one
There are more…

At one point we ran into a couple from Switzerland who were looking for a different trail and we stood around trying to figure out where we were.  Then the husband said something to his wife (who, I think, was the one who knew English). “But! You are speaking Italian!” Turns out they were from Avellino, Italy, near Naples but now live in Switzerland.  They were really surprised that I knew Avellino.  We walked together for a bit, but Calli insisted on hanging out under another bush.

While still sitting under the bush…..

It’s really TOO hot

…Calli panting, Jeanne trying to absorb the beauty all around us, A shirtless long hair guy who looked like he belonged on the cover of a romance novel came running up (literally)  with three dogs, and Calli was thrilled to see that canines might survive the torture we were going through.  The canines were thrilled to smell the dog treats in my bag. He assured me that Oak Creek was close. Close is a relative term. And then Apollo of the Forest took off with Artemis’ hounds right  behind him.

We did finally get there.  Calli was happy.

Ah, this is more like it

We had found Oak Creek but never did find the Oak Creek Trail…and I had no idea how to get back to the car. We did find another part of the creek that is popular as a swimming hole, and Calli immediately commandeered a towel from some unsuspecting bathers (who, blessedly, thought it was funny).

The rock is just too hot

I was pretty happy too:

Happy Feet: for Amy

Finding the car was a bit tricky. But the walk back was great:

Cathedral rock, as seen on the walk back to my car

I was thrilled to finally see my car…

Thank God I found my car

…and immediately start planning my perfect afternoon.  Back to Whole Foods for a huge salad to go and drinks.  Back to the hotel. A long bath. A book and Calli doing this:

Calli Racked OUT

I had started to work on this piece when Calli finally roused herself and demanded a walk.

This resort abuts a neighborhood. I decided to explore.  Two giant poodles objected, loudly.  Well, one objected  (Sophia Loren) one just watched (Robert Redford). I know their names because their owner, Patsy, came out to quiet them. The next thing I knew I was in her home with her husband, brother, and sister-in-law drinking good red wine and laughing as if with old friends.  And if that weren’t treat enough, their home is the original ranch house of the whole area.  And, well, just jaw-dropping.  Just beyond wonderful.

If the day starts with Hermes (with a would-be Apollo exercising his sister Artemis’ dogs thrown in for good measure), how could it not have ended in Odysseus’ palace with (instead of a bed built round a tree) a kitchen with two beautiful trees as orthostats?

Odysseus had only Argos, but he could have used a few birds…in addition to the two standard poodles, Sophie and Redford, Patsy and Warren have three (?)  birds and four cats.  This is Millie, who hopped right on my shoulder and did not want to leave.

Millie the Magnificient

One walk, four new friends (more if you count Millie!). I will be smiling all the way to West Hollywood (it’s an 8 hour drive so maybe not all the way…)

Sedona, the unexpected

I knew Sedona was supposed to be beautiful. But not this beautiful. Prepare for photos. But first we have to get through the Arizona desert.

Some people have bucket lists. I have ‘in my next life’ lists. In my next life I’m going to be all the things I just can’t seem to manage in this one.  A lot of them free me from perfectionism. In my next life, exempli gratia, I am not, I repeat, not, going to need to put every thing in its proper spot when packing, only, comically, to get to the end and find all the little stuff I forgot, forcing me to ruin my perfection packing (because I just don’t have time to do it all again). Next time, funnel direct to suitcase.  Ditto on the setting up the hotel room.  And washing out clothes every night. My suitcase won’t die from dirty laundry. Ergo, despite getting up at 6, I wasn’t on the road until 8:10–partly because a delightfully comic gentleman in front of me at check-out needed, oh how he needed, to reiterate how the handle on the door to their room was defective and kept just swinging back and forth without actually being able to function properly.  He found this vexing in the extreme. I found it hilarious, for all kinds of reasons (including the one I should not have been thinking).  And what is the poor guy behind the desk going to say except he is sorry, he will have it fixed immediately (not adding “why am I hearing about this after the fact when you are checking out?”)  So. 8:10.  I thought I would be in Sedona at 1:30. I neglected to check that I would be crossing my second time zone in two days. So 2:30.  There’s a LOT of desert in Arizona.  It’s really beautiful. I don’t think I’ve been bored yet with the landscape. The narrator of Sicily: Three Thousand Years of Human History, on the other hand, I’m ready to stangle,  although I must admit I now get a lot of stuff about Sicily I didn’t understand.  Audio book: bordering on boring; desert: pretty cool.

Calli disagrees: she wimpered when I put her in the car and fixed me with doleful looks for most of the journey. Sorry, sweetie, but you are a dog.  The roadside “Indian Jewelry” etc looked tempting but I have my piece of kitsch (ceramic solo cup NM Route 66 jigger).  And no designated place in suitcase for “Indian Jewelry”.

I did get off at the rest stop near the Painted Rocks.  The photos don’t do them justice. Beautiful.  I also wanted to take a photo of the marvelous contrast between two RVs in the parking lot but the owners were chatting and it seemed a bit weird to photograph their adjacent mobile homes.  One was tiny (I wish I could remember what it was called) and towed behind their truck (SUV?). The other was one of those really mammoth class A motor homes. Huge. And the two owners were comparing notes. What I would have given for an excuse to walk up to the conversation.  I restrained myself.

This photo is from the first rest area. Not Painted Rocks:

The view from our first rest stop (impossible to get to)

Painted Rocks

Painted Rocks
Painted Rocks from rest area
Across the highway

One more from the car (I know, dumb and probably illegal)

It was prettier in person

Somehow I couldn’t remember what I was in for in Sedona, and assumed it was more desert. After yesterday I knew Calli couldn’t handle desert hikes so I thought, well, I’ll just hang in the hotel room and read/ sleep. Then I saw mountains in the distance and gladdened. And then trees. I was so excited to see trees. But nothing could have prepared me for the drive from 40 down to Sedona. Breathtaking.

My hotel (the Poco Diabolo Resort) is great.  The view from outside the lobby is nuts:

View from outside registration at Poco Diabolo

It is not pretentious (beyond the name). Not cheap by La Quinta standards but not crazy. Calli is not free ($20 extra, not bad) AND she got a little welcome doggie bag!  My room faces a lovely little garden.

View of Room (on right) from above

After settling in (a thing I will not do in my next life), I googled grocery. They have a Whole Foods. I got a turkey sandwich (they called it a ‘custom sandwich’, which enables them to charge $9.00 for it, but I didn’t care. I was so hungry), a kombucha and an extra water, got the dog from the car, and sat on their outside patio. It was lovely.  Then I found the dog park.

Sedona Dog Park
View from Sedona Dog Park

Ridiculous, right?  There are THREE separate areas: one basically sand with a shade building for the humans and tables (plus water and buckets, kiddie pool thingy) and two natural areas. A bunch of nice people showed up with their dogs and Calli stopped looking like a martyr and had some fun.

Calli and Jack:

Calli and Jack

Calli and Paws:

Calli and Paws

By this time it was almost 6 (7 for those of us who woke up in New Mexico) and we went back to the hotel, but by way of a cool trail back to the car.

Trail from dog park to parking lot
Trail to parking lot

I was hot and tired. But it was so nice out…getting cooler, so I fed the dog and loaded her in the car again and drove 2 miles to Little Horse Trail. We didn’t walk the whole thing but it was amazing.

Little Horse Trail
Another
Envious yet?
how about now?
Ok. I’ll stop

Back at the hotel, I took some more toward sunset photos

Back at the hotel
Another angle

And from my little courtyard

Last one.  The cup on the rim of the fountain holds almost the last of my Nalgene flask of bourbon.

Sunset view from my courtyard

Albuquerque is hot and also hard to spell…

Last night I was re-reading the blog and realized what a boon it is–to me!  I had completely forgotten that I got off to see Knoxville.  So, while John Steinbeck has no competition from this writer, at least I’ll be able to remember what I did!

Speaking of Travels with Charlie, I read a blog post (written in 2012) by Bill Steigerwald (‘truthaboutcharlie.com’) which he published (I think?) at the same time as his book (which I have not read) “Dogging Steinbeck”, an ‘expose’ of Steinbeck’s “literary fraud”. The post was a fascinating read for it’s vitriol and lack of damning evidence. Stiegerwald does show that Steinbeck’s travels were not as rustic as the book portrays (but, heck, has he not read “On Walden Pond”? really? the ‘makes a great book, but I still did laundry at mom’s’ approach to literature is not exactly new).  But the anger (and mediocre writing) puzzled me. So J.S. didn’t sleep in a van most nights. He spent time in nice hotels during the trip with his wife.  He didn’t really rough it.  Travels with Charlie is an amazing book.  Much better than Travels with Calliope. And–spoiler alert–I write this from a hotel room, not the back of a truck.  With a bourbon.  So on to the day…

We left Amarillo around 8:30 (by the time I do my yoga, coffee, pack the car, check out–life stuff is time-consuming).  It’s not true that the landscape dramatically changes when you drive over state lines, but it does seem to alter, or my imagination makes it so.  New Mexico is gorgeous.  Stopped at the Welcome to New Mexico rest area (and changed the time on my car clock–gained another hour) and watched a woman drape a green bikini top over the sculpture in front of the welcome center. So I had to ask. “Excuse me, but I really have to ask…”  Well she was driving to the Grand Canyon from Georgia and some friends had bought the green crochet (bright lime green) bra top from a flee market and she is taking photos of it all over the place.  Yesterday she draped it on the hand of a statue of George W. Bush.  She showed me the photo. See? It’s good to be nosey.  You get to see ridiculous things.  I started talking to another woman who  had a Roadtrek–it’s her second one and she has had this one for 10 years. Also travels on her own and has been doing it, apparently, forever.  Had a horrid chihuahua (another hard to spell word) that she had rescued and was hoping would become less horrid.

The New Mexico weclcome area

The rest area also had a map of interesting NM places to go, which included Tucumcari, one of the ‘see historic route 66’ exits.  I got off… I saw Tucumcari. Well, not really. I saw route 66, as sad as other route 66 exits. But!  There was still Santa Rosa and the Blue Hole.  Saw signs for it on 40. The women at the Welcome Center said ‘ah yes, the blue hole’. Can I bring the dog? ‘Sure, on a leash.’  So to me the Blue Hole is going to be like Hamilton Pool in Austin Texas–a wild wonderland.  I spent $5.00 to park (help them pay the rent on the billboard).

Get ready for amazement

Exciting, right? No.

The Letdown

The Blue Hole is a cute little (really little) swimming hole that you can walk around. It takes about 1 minute to walk around it.  I got back on the highway.

Did you know that Clines Corners has been operating 24/7 right off Route 40 in NM since 1934? Did you know the power of billboards?  I knew I would regret not stopping for the rest of my days. So many billboards.  So I stopped.

Just one aisle. There are many. Name your tourist must-have. They have it.

This is not an idea of the scope. That would be impossible.

A semi-vista

Of course I had to buy something.

My own totally perfect bit of cultural glory: a ceramic solo-cup inspired jigger

That little beauty is a jigger. A solo-cup Clines Corner New Mexico Route 66 ceramic jigger. You would have bought it too.

La Quinta let me into my (sizeable) room at 1.  We chilled (literally) for a bit and then went to the Petroglyph National Monument, of which I knew nothing an hour before we went.  The petroglyphs (rock paintings made by incising volcanic rock) were made by the Pueblo Native Americans over an astonishingly long period of time.  Spanish settlers continued the tradition by putting ranch names, animal brands, etc on the rocks.  The Visitor Center had a great little movie that I watched (I let Calli just lie down and she found her way out of the building; I got kind of yelled at, deservedly).

The flowers outside of the Visitor Center:

Desert Flower
Cactus

Then we went on a 2 mile hike that was not a great idea. I had brought 2 liters of iced water and her bowl.  I had on sunscreen and a wide brimmed hat.  The sand was so hot it was hard on her feet.  We stopped every time any of the scrub had low shade and I gave her water.

The slender shade of a rock–looks bigger than it was

She was miserable. But kept going. When we were on the back stretch of the hike she knew and really picked up the pace even though she was panting.  Afterwards we hung out in the shady place between a privacy wall and the bathrooms (!) so she could cool down.

SHADE!

The walk was really beautiful, in a stark way (and also hard–soft shifting sand is not the greatest walking material!)

The petroglyphs are very hard to see

More Rocks:

Impossible to see in a photo the petroglyphs. They were very cool
Rinconada Canyon Trail

We came back to the hotel. I had planned to go to Old Town for dinner.  But…maybe for breakfast.  I’m tired and sunburned (despite 50 SPF and a hat). Dog is dog-tired.

The Route (for Rosie and Helen)

Here it is, with the map at the bottom…

June 1: Davidson to Nashville Tennessee (410 miles)

June 2: Nashville to Little Rock Arkansas (363 miles)

June 3: Little Rock to Oklahoma City (345 miles)

June 4: Oklahoma to Amarillo Texas (255 miles)

June 5: Amarillo to Albuquerque New Mexico (284 miles)

June 6: Albuquerque New Mexico to Sedona Arizona (349 miles)

June 7-8: Sedona

June 8: West Hollywood (475 miles)

June 9: LA

June 1o: LA

June 11: Ojai California (83 miles)

June 12: Visalia California (197 miles)

June 13-14: Three Rivers California (29 miles)

June 15: Visalia California (29 miles)

June 16-19: Downieville California (344 miles)

June 19: Elko Nevada (389 miles)

June 20: Idaho Valls (320 miles)

June 21: Gallatin Gateway Wyoming (150 miles)

June 22: Cody Wyoming (172 miles)

June 23: Gilette  Wyoming (248 miles)

June 24: Badlands South Dakota (308 miles)

June 25: Sioux City South Dakota (287 miles)

June 26-28: Rochester Minnesota (238 miles)

June 29: Holland Michigan (hard to tell with the ferry)

June 30: Niagra Falls NY (394.2)

July 1: NYC? Rockville Centre? Quogue?

And…Davidson NC

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