Pacifica

It is now Tuesday, November 15.  We have been back in Pacifica since Saturday evening, living at the studio.  I haven’t wanted to finish my blog because I haven’t wanted to admit that the trip is over, but as I get ready to take Lily up to SF for an appointment and a ballet class and to help Cork fix the filter for the pond, it’s obvious that the days of delightfully aimless wandering are over, at least for the time being…  So this is it, the last entry of the trip.  There will be many pictures to follow….

So what have I learned on this trip?  That KOA’s and Good Sam RV parks ROCK!  They are dependable and clean, but the little out of the way parks can really offer some wonderful locations.  That our family can not only travel together, but can enjoy it.  That the desire to pluck my eyeballs out and bounce them across the room doesn’t happen nearly as often as I thought it would.  That my husband is a good man even though he’s a moody pain in the butt sometimes.  That our family laughs a lot.  That potty humor can really be funny.  And most important, that we are secure in the knowledge that we have given Lily the tools that she needs to go wherever her road takes her.

End of the Road

The Question of Why?

Today is our last full day on the road.  Tomorrow we will pack up and head to Pacifica, maybe 3 hours away.  I feel like that Tom Wait’s song I Don’t Want To Grow Up.  I want to dig my heels in and wail “Nooooooo, you can’t make me!”  Don’t get me wrong, we have a good life in SF/Pacifica.  We have a nice house/studio, we have great friends, and we have the kinds of jobs that give us freedom (i.e. self-employed, which means no work at times which can lead to stress…) Lily is happy here.  I guess it’s just that the bigger questions in life are different.  In SF they were about aging and right work/good work and whether I was doing enough politically and whether I was composting correctly and did we remember to put the garbage out.  On the road none of those, well, most of those questions haven’t come up.  On the road the questions have mostly been centered on the word “Why?”  Why do people live where they do?  I mean some of these places are truly in the middle of nowhere, maybe even farther.  You’ll be driving and driving and suddenly there’s a small encampment of trailer homes, some with tired swing sets in the dirt yard, just plunked down.  Or after miles and miles of nothing there will be an oasis with a beautiful house and manicured lawn, but without another living soul around.  Why?  Was it a choice or did they run out of money or gas or their car broke down and they just decided to stay? 

Are they happy or fulfilled? Where do they work?  Where the hell do they pick up a gallon of milk?  Do they know they can leave?  This set of questions was repeated over and over on our 32 states, 9,000+ miles of driving. 

The question of “Why” permeated other aspects of the trip, for me at least.  At the beginning of this trip I posted something about why we were taking the trip.  All joking aside, I felt there was a spiritual rift in our family.  Our connection to each other and to the world around us was fraying.  I’ve written about how I was struggling with the changing relationship I had with Lily.  Equally as important was my questioning my relationship with Cork.  I mean, why were we together?  Was it because we love each other or was it because we didn’t know how to leave?  Was our lack of conversation because we’re comfortable with each other or because we’re bored?  Was our lack of fighting because we get along or because we just didn’t care?  Do we have anything to sustain us as Lily becomes more and more independent?  For the first year or two of our marriage I likened myself to a fish on the end of a line, thrashing and pulling and flailing.  Cork would be, like, “Reel her in!”  I struggled with the entire concept of marriage, even though I’d always wanted it.  In the months leading up to the trip I was once again starting to flail.

So what was I hoping to accomplish on this trip?  I realize now that we’re perched upon the brink of our return that I was hoping for transformation.  I was hoping for a deeper connection with my family, one that will get us through the next crazy angst-ridden teenager/angst-ridden artist/menopausal mom stage.  I was hoping for some amazing revelation that would set the stage for my life to come.  I was hoping for our/my next steps to be clearly imprinted before me.  I was hoping… I guess I was hoping to come back different.

And am I?   In many ways, yes.  Maybe it’s a factor of my age, but I was hoping to return with boundless energy just waiting to explode with new ideas and projects.  Instead I feel more of a constant, steady thrum, an understanding that whatever happens next will be fine.  (Well, I say that with the knowledge that in the 7 days we’ve been back in the state of California we’ve munched the RV,  our cat has died, Lily has found out that one of her best “new” friends from her new school has left and my computer is biting the dust.)  I may not have returned a new person, but I returned a calmer person, and for my type A+++ personality, that’s a good thing.   I came back liking my family, which was absolutely NOT a guarantee on this trip.  Heck, I came back!



I love the thought of a beach specifically for vehicles!




Pismo Beach




Our campsite guests



AAAAAAHHHHHHH we’ve just left our final RV site of the trip.  We spent four days at a camp in Pismo Beach, a spit’s distance from the sand.  We drove cars on the sand and walked, walked, walked, and saw the Monarch butterfly-laden trees and had dinner with our friends Ray and Patricia, who relocated to the Santa Barbara area from Chattanooga a year ago.  We relaxed and read books and ate!  My jeans have become jeggings this past few weeks (for anyone teen-girl fashion impaired, jeggings are a cross between jeans and leggings…) and I’m happily allowing them to get tighter and tighter.  I figure what the heck, we’ll be so broke when we get back that we won’t have the money to do much so I’ll have all the time in the world to walk things off.  After Pismo we moved up to Marina Dunes, a tiny little RV park sandwiched between 101 and the beach about 10 miles north of Monterey.  We rented a car and toodled around Carmel and Pacific Grove and Monterey, revisiting places we’ve gone to in the past and visiting new places.  We ate a GREAT meal at a Greek place in Monterey called Epsilon.  For any Greek food lovers, it’s worth visiting the next time you’re down there.  We also had a great sanddab sandwich at a little place in Carmel, but I can’t remember the name.  We had an AWFUL meal at Kula Ranch, part of the Wyndham chain in Monterey.  It rained and rained yesterday, so for the first time in the 25 years I’ve lived in California, I bought an umbrella.  I don’t like umbrellas ‘cuz I’m always afraid I’m going to poke or get poked in the eye, so for years I’ve just worn hats or run from the house to the car.  But not anymore! 

Princess Zoe (aka the Small White Cat)

Zoe Dance (aka Princess Zoe aka the Small White Cat) 1988-2011

When Lily was three years old she was diagnosed with asthma.  The diagnosis came after a winter of severe rain and it seemed like every time we turned around she was battling another cold on steroids.  She’d spend weeks coughing and wheezing and throwing up really icky stuff.  Part of our response to the asthma was to strip our house of carpets and cloth-upholstered furniture and to take the two cats, Stinky and Zoe, to Cork’s studio.  Cork’s studio is a 9,000 square foot place on the ocean about 15 minutes south of San Francisco, and our friends Reid and Baker both have lived either at or nearby the studio since we bought it.  Anyway, Zoe LOVED living there.  (Stinky crawled into some shelving and wouldn’t come out for a week until Cork and I sat and called his name for what seemed like forever.  We ended up taking him home.)  We don’t know if it was because once again she was the only cat or if it was because it was quieter than the city or what, but she truly became the studio cat.  She was known to chase dogs down the street and visit the guys at the tire shop on a regular basis.  It’s sad to have her go, but she had such a long and incredible life that it’s also okay.  We aren’t home yet and it means a lot to know that Reid and Baker truly took care of her during her last few days.  They checked on her and sat with her and held off taking her to the vet to be euthanized so that she could die at home.  She was comfortable and loved. 

REST IN PEACE ZOE!!!

Sent from Reid Thursday morning, 11/10/2011

Zoe passed this evening sometime between 6 and 9:30.
She spent her last day on a pillow in the kick drum, resting more peacefully than she had in recent days.
Her breathing was somewhat labored when we checked in on her around 6, and she had stopped making any sounds, but she did purr a bit when we rubbed her head.
I am glad that her departure was in her home setting rather than at the vet.
She attended her last rock concert only last night, as we played music in there with her at the foot of the drums



The guys sent out an email letting people know where Zoe's rock memorial is.  This is the memorial at the beginning of the day.




Memorial at the end of the day.



More



Julia's store



California or Bust!!!

Well, it’s Monday, November 07, 2011 and we’ve now been in California since Saturday the 5^th.  From the moment we drove over the “border” we could tell we were in California.  For one thing, there was variety!  From the landscape to the fruit and vegetables available at the roadside stalls, you had choices.  Not that you couldn’t find choices in other states, but most of the time you had to look for them rather than them being offered in the same place.  Another thing we noticed was, of course, the roads suddenly became CROWDED.  I wasn’t too sure how I felt upon seeing the Pacific ocean, and I’m still not.  On the one hand it’s beautiful and feels like home, but on the other hand it means we are home which means the trip is drawing to a close.  Well, what did I expect?  I don’t know, to be honest.  But more about that later.  We spent our first night in California at the Goleta Holiday Inn.  We couldn’t find an RV park in the area and our friend Julia Crookston lives in Santa Barbara and has an 8-month-old business in Goleta and we just couldn’t pass up the chance of seeing her.  Cork has known Julia since 1984 and I’ve known her since ’98 and she’s GREAT.  A chef by training, Julia decided to open a kitchen/café showcasing jams, preserves, granola etc., but primarily to be able to use her canning expertise.  Anyhoose, she opened this little spot and it’s taken off like crazy.  They serve sandwiches etc…, but even better, they have close to a 1300 square foot commercial kitchen.  I’ve always been an armchair entrepreneur, hatching idea after idea of things to do, many of them centering around food, and this kitchen rocked.  It wasn’t just the appliances, but the fact that there was enough space to actually keep things orderly.  One of the things I always tell Lily when she heads into the kitchen is to “Set yourself up for success.” (she hates it when I do that)  which means to get everything you need out and ready so that you’re not running around trying to find things in the middle of your recipe.  The problem in our kitchen at home, and the RV, is that unless you’re making peanut butter and jelly, there’s not enough room to really do that.  It was a dream kitchen…

We left Goleta and headed north to Pismo Beach by way of Solvang.  Solvang is a little town constructed to replicate an old Danish town.  It’s not really my thing, but I did love the groups of old men sitting around speaking Danish and smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee.  And the “Seen on TV” shop… and the giant sock monkey.  I’m sure it’s not Danish, but there it was.  CRAZY!  After Solvang we headed west a few miles to Anderson’s, famous for their split pea soup, and had, wait for it, split pea soup, then off to Pismo Beach.

Ouch!

No sooner had I sent out an invite for everyone to get together when we return to commemorate our RV, Rollin' Home, which had incurred no flat tires or bumps or dents or scratches or malfunctions or tickets on our entire trip, it got munched.  The only good thing about this is that I wasn't the one driving!

Tucson Pics



Cork and Alice (G'ma)




My uncle Andy and his wife Ann (Ann now has advanced Alzheimer's.  I love seeing Ann because every couple of minutes she looks at me and lights up and says "Who are you again?  It's so wonderful to see you!"  and I feel totally loved!) 




Chieko and Lily




Party on!



The first group of trick-or-treaters

Halloween

A word about Halloween.... Halloween is Lily's favorite holiday.  Since she was born, every Halloween we/she'd go trick-or-treating along 18th Street on Potrero Hill.  We've always had a pre-trick-or-treating dinner (my thought is let's eat something good before something bad) and a post-trick-or-treating glass of wine and wind down.  Almost every year since Kindergarten, Lily has gone trick-or-treating with her friends Mala and Tanima, and we've walked behind them with Mala's mom, Rebecca, and Tanima's parents Milan and Nanden and her little brother Aniket.  For the last 4 or 5 years Lily has made her costumes with Cork and the neighbors always look forward to what they've come up with. 

This year there was none of that and I had underestimated how much it meant to Lily.  She was brave about it, using eye liner to make scars and wearing the witch hat/wig that grandma got her in order to hand candy out to mom's neighbors, but after the first group of kids left she burst into tears and I witnessed the anguish that can only come from missing someone /some thing you really love. 



Lily as an end table




Mala, Lily (as a chandelier that has fallen from the ceiling) Tanima and Aniket



Tucson

I’m cracking up as I’m sitting here listening to Lily Skype with her friend Aivy, imitating Arnold Schwarzenegger and various other people from around the world.  Her favorite imitations lately have been something she picked up from MAD TV having to do with the East Side Locas (Esa Locas) and I have to remind her not to do it quite so loud as we walk through parking lots in Tucson filled with authentic Esa Locas…  Cork is cracking me up too, ‘cuz when he starts to act weird and I tell him he’s behaving just a bit autistic, he says uh-uh, just artistic.  We’re in fine form tonight.  It might have something to do with going and seeing our first movie since we left.  It’s the new Rowan Atkinson movie called Johnnie English.  It’s a spoof on James Bond, and the main guy is the guy who plays Mr. Bean.  We made Grandma go, too.  She loved it!  It wasn’t a great film but it was nice to sit in a theatre and see something on the big screen.  Then Cork and I came home to the little rental and made dinner for everyone while Lily hung out with G’ma and did her homework.  After dinner and a few rounds of arm wrestling (I won all of them…) we dropped G’ma off at home and here we are hanging out.  We leave Tucson tomorrow to Cork’s relief.  Although he has come to really enjoy my mom, the combination of the heat and the rather dead-end feeling that much of Tucson has, has left him rather pissy.  We’re heading out just a bit faster than we were planning because there is a dust storm warning for the direction we’re going and evidently these storms are nothing to fool around with.  High winds, zero visibility, lots of accidents, that sort of stuff. 

My brother, Clif, is the one who used the term “dead-end” in relationship to Tucson, and I have to admit it does have that feeling.  It’s like many places we’ve seen on our trip, where it’s as if people got here and ran out of money or their car (or wagon or horse) broke down and they just decided this was it.  There are parts of Tucson that are beautiful, but there are just as many parts that are, as Cork says, soul sucking.   My family moved to Tucson when I was a junior in high school.  My grandmother and my uncle had lived there much longer.  The Tucson I lived in then was small and slow with a lot of charm.  Tucson now still has charm in some places, like downtown and its surrounding areas, but in general is big and spread out with TONS of cars going really, really fast.

ANYWAY, there were many wonderful things about Tucson once we gave up our WorklMark accommodations and moved into a little rental a couple of blocks from mom.  I don’t know what I was thinking, but this WorldMark was about a 40 minute drive from Tucson, so each time we wanted to see my mom we had to really commit to going and staying for the day.  I think it took us one round trip to say forget that.  After spending some time on the VRBO website I found this great little one-bedroom casita with a foldout couch, all newly remodeled with a great little kitchen etc…  Joanne, the woman who owns it was kooky and wonderful.  It turns out that she spent many years at Rancho Linda Vista, the artists commune that my uncle started in the ‘60s in Oracle, Arizona.  A few minutes after meeting her we were finding all sorts of people in common that we knew.   Mom had a little catered party for us with some of my relatives and her neighbors.  It was interesting to realize that I was one of the “youngsters” at 51 years old!  Lily did an amazing job chatting with people and telling them about the trip.  I was thoroughly impressed with her ability to mingle.  Lily had a private ballet lesson with her Aunt Chieko, who is the Co-founder of Ballet Arts and the assistant artistic director of the Tucson Ballet.  Chieko stands about 5’10 and has always been a great role model for Lily.  The two of them get together and I just KNOW that half their time is spent chatting about life, which is a good thing…

It’s Friday the 4^th, my sister Alison’s birthday.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALISON!!!  We’ve left Tucson on our next leg home.  I guess I should still refer to it as the next leg of our journey, but now that I know home is only a week or so away, everything has taken on that hue.  I’m sad to say there is not one part of me that’s ready to return.  Maybe by the time we’re driving up to the studio I’ll be ready, we’ll see. 



It only looks like Lily is winning....




The "Look"




Spooky!




Spookier!!!





Lily, G'ma and Gille the dog





The girls




Lily and Chieko



More Marfa and Ozona



City Hall in Marfa, Texas







Eveything's big in Texas!  The night before we visited Marfa we stayed in another middle-of-nowhere town called Ozona.  We got to Ozona on a Saturday and started our stay by walking around this historic town.  Ozona's claim to fame is the Davy Crocket Museum.  We walked for about 30 minutes and did not see more than 2 or 3 people.  All the businesses were closed or out of business.  It was weird.... The houses were well kept and the lawns perfect but there was no one around.  There were NO grocery stores and we hadn't shopped before we got there so we had to go out to dinner and the dinner choices were Dairy Queen, Sonic Burger or the Hitching Post.  At least the Hitching Post had a salad bar, so we went there.  (The woman at check-in said "You go down to the next light, take a right and then a left."  So we decided to walk 'cuz it was a small town.  She neglected to mention that the Hitching Post was about a mile out of town making it a round trip of about 3 miles.  It totally creeped Cork and Lily out walk that far in this deserted town.  For  some reason it didn't bother me as much.)  At dinner we ordered a side of onion rings.  Yup, this is a Texas sized "side"!



Squeeze Marfa!

Marfa, Texas

What can I write about Marfa, Texas?  Maybe that after two days of slogging across the state of Texas, Marfa gave us a reason to be?  Maybe that after a night in Ozona, Texas, Marfa made us feel better?  Maybe that when you’ve been traveling for eight weeks and are now heading home, finding a place that feels like that, home that is, in the middle of nowhere (really, really in the middle of nowhere) is an amazing thing?  

Marfa, Texas is a little town about 8 hours from Austin, I think even farther from Houston and about 4 hours from El Paso.  If you’re traveling west along Route 10, you drop south from Fort Stockton for about 1 ½ hours and you’re there.  Marfa is/was built around the arts and has attracted a small community of people wanting to build a larger community of artists.  There are galleries and shops and a couple of 4-star hotels and restaurants.  Unfortunately we were there on a Sunday so many things were closed, but we did manage to have lunch at this place called Squeeze Marfa.  From the moment we stepped into Squeeze Marfa I couldn’t stop thinking of our friend Martha.  Martha is the BATSNABF in the world and I could just here her with her Tennessee drawl saying “Squeeze Marfa!  I just love to be squeezed!”  Squeeze Marfa was maybe 600 square feet total, including the patio, and is owned by a Switzerland/Houston transplant named Sven.  After moving to Marfa about 10 years ago, he loved it so much that he convinced his parents to move there and they opened the business together.  His mother was in the kitchen making the best “rustic” sandwiches we’ve had on the trip; perfect proportions, perfectly toasted.  Lily and I both had a hummus/black olive tapenade/tomato sandwich and Cork had a smoked turkey sandwich.  We followed those up with the best espresso we’ve had on this trip (I don’t think we’ve had any since) and a bar of Swiss chocolate.  AMAZING!  We would like to stay in Marfa longer, but tomorrow is Halloween and we promised Lily we’d be in Tucson in time for her to at least hand out candy at Grandma’s, so off we go.

Lily outside of Squeeze Marfa!



Inside of the Paisano Hotel, refurbished within the last few years.  The hotel also has a 4-star restaurant that I soooo wanted to try, but they're only open for dinner.



Scattered Pics

We're in Tucson right now with lots of family stuff going on so there's no time to write right now.  In the meantime....

The beginning of Fran's birthday celebration

 




One of the many great bands throughout New Orleans




Tree of Life at Disney




Swamp



My favorite part of the swamp tour was airboating down these canals



Airboat





Winter Buns
One day I was having lunch with a group of girlfriends.  We were asking my friend Cheryl, whose boyfriend had just moved to SF, what kind of job he was hoping to find.  Cheryl said that he was really interested in winter buns.  As we all sat there nodding politely, I was thinking what the heck are winter buns?  I couldn't help imagining these beautiful baked goods that were specifically made in the winter. I finally asked her just what winter buns were and she said "Oh, that must be my Kansas accent coming through.  He's interested in wind turbines!"  Needless to say our family now calls them winter buns, one of the most constant sights we've seen along our trip.  These winter buns were along a pier in Kitty Hawk, NC



More: A Picture Speaks A Thousand Words

Lily had NO idea that Briana was coming.  I almost blew the surprise (after the entire trip) because I was so excited.)  Lily thought it was room service.



This is right before we loaded all of our stuff into the RV to take off.  HEARTBREAKING!



Robin, I LOVE YOU!!!



1. Briana spent every night with Lily on the pull-out couch.  The true testimony of a friend...




I figure I better put at least one picture of a cultural icon.  Unfortunately I have no idea who this is...