Driving Home

In my last post I told you I got to meet some cool girls in my Santa Monica hostel. 

I met two blonde English girls who were almost done with a self-planned five month world tour. They were friends when they started and they still are!  They went to Australia, Fiji, Thailand, and I can't remember where all else. They were super friendly.

There was also a girl from Indiana who had come for a personal training conference and was keeping up with college work and visiting nearby friends all at the same time! 

Then there were a couple of ladies who with whom I got to chat: one is an art-supporting astrologist and engineer and the other studies biological geography.

It felt like a big sleepover with a bunch of not-so-strangers, and I loved it.

That evening there had been lots of people on the sand by the pier, and even one boy in the ocean.  Tons of people were taking photos. There was one older man taking photos of his wife who was posing happily by the waves for him. Heather and I had come to "touch the pacific" (i.e. poke at the water while running away from it because we still had our shoes on). I didn't think I'd like being on the crowded beach like that, sharing the sunset and the water with all of these other tourists, but instead I felt happy to be exactly there because there were so many happy faces.

The next day was PCH day: the day to drive highway 1, or the pacific coast highway, the road that runs right along the edge of the cliffs facing the pacific, so we were told.

Day one we spent rolling on busy highways and through unimpressive farmland. And even so I insisted on skipping the 101 bypass just so we could say we did route 1 (sound familiar?) As I guided Heather with the help of Google, mostly successfully, through towns and on-ramps and overpasses and cloverleaves and the like. Watching our little blur dot move slowly along the lines representing route one. "Here! Here! Turn here! - Wait, the dot's not there yet, never mind."

When it was my turn we started getting into some of the greenest America I had ever seen. It was surprising to me, then, to hear later from our ranger friend that California had been in a state of drought for the past few years, because I felt we had been transported to the high rolling hills of Ireland. Mom asked if there were stone walls; alas, there were not, and neither were there sheep herders, but man.  I was a happy camper.

And at last - at LAST - we reached The Cliffs.

"Stop looking in your rearview mirror. The car behind you doesn't matter, us staying out of the ocean matters" was the gist of Heather's pep talk as the winding turns began. I took her advice to heart and enjoyed the real-life driving challenge. Not all of the world is designed to accommodate idiots.

I turned Burt on our dashboard so he could look at the scenery for me. Some people believe crystal skulls store memories that can be unlocked later under the right conditions, so maybe sometime Burt can show me some of the views I missed while focusing on the sharp PCH turns.

We spent two days on route 1. Our hotel had a fireplace which I guess made up for the outrageous rate, sort of.

When we arrived in San Francisco the people we met were trying to direct us to places to eat: "if you want to take the scenic route..."

Our joint response: "NO MORE SCENIC ROUTES!!!"

We are so done with finding our way places off the main roads. Give us the direct way, the multi-lane, the angry drivers, the trucks, the merging, please. Someone told us we might be hooked on scenic routes from now on.

I don't know about that. We'll see.

Did I tell you about returning to sea level? Nice. I stopped yawning all the time.

I accomplished three things after arriving in San Francisco:

The first day I slept all day.

Yeah, you heard that right. Heather did her ranger thing and when she got back after 5 PM she found me in bed. "You didn't get up all day?" And I slept all the next night too.

Heather and I went on a hike up some mountain or hill to get a view of the golden gate bridge and I found the conditions to be rather hellish. The only reason I finished was to make up for the day before.  I had to accomplish SOMETHING in the area, after all.

We drove a few of those those steep, steep roads. If someone happened to peer into our windows upon our ascent, they would see our horrified faces or maybe even hear our shrieks as we reachednstop signs. They would see me hugging my backpack. We marveled at the parallel parkers. 

The next day our hotel provided boysenberry syrup for our waffles. It sounded super awesome, although I have never seen a boysenberry. Have you?

California has tons of bike lanes. One of our friends shared his opinion that bikers (as in, people on bicycles) are the third most arrogant people in the world besides the French and the Texans. Most of the bicyclers I saw were quite personable, though. They even stopped at stop lights.

Returning our dodge journey at the airport was kind of a sad experience. I was kind of proud though. Among all the shiny vehicles, ours was covered in mud "battle scars." We drove that car to the max.

I swear enterprise only hires attractive men.

Just saying.

And now we're driving home from Michigan. The trip's almost over, thank God.

Honey Bunches

Last night it was time to take out my braids. Here's why: little pieces of my hair had begun to sneak their way out of the braids and turn brown and orange all at the same place - the length of my actual hair, creating a gross visual cutoff. Also, I had at least a half-inch of regrowth that was messing with the pure bright pink of the kenakelon braids. On top of that, I was sick of the "braid itch" and the weight of the extra hair and the difficulty putting shirts on and the long drying time. 

So, I bore the left-handed sewing scissors I appropriated from mom's sewing desk a while ago (I am not left-handed, I just always need scissors) and happened to bring along and cut off the fake part of the braids, then unraveled the rest.

What remained was not as horribly faded as I had feared, but at the base of each braid there had formed a little "dred," if you will.  Hair products, dead skin cells, grease, and dust from the air built up in spite of my shampoos - not to mention the braids trap natural shedding of hair.

I had no choice but to savagely rip them apart into pieces that my comb could digest - and even then it lost a few teeth. The sound of the ripping was rather unappetizing but Heather and I managed to eat the pizza and two huge chocolate chip cookies we had ordered to our room.

Heather: "I had no idea Papa John's sold these [warm delicious gigantic] cookies but now that I know, they're going to be the death of me!"

The removal of tumbleweeds from my hair was painful and tedious but did not leave me bald, and I feel oh so free!

I'm on the airplane to Phoenix now, going to connect to Detroit. Heather and I went to two post offices to try and mail something back that we didn't think we could get on the airplane only to find out we were too late or too early.

We now officially detest the united states postal service. It doesn't even get its name in caps.

And what really bugs me is that both times, behind all the rows of p.o. boxes, we could hear rustling and shuffling. Someone was in there who could totally mail something for us, but the doors were closed. The second time, we got really desperate. I got semi permission from Heather and walked down the hall:

"Excuse me, my sister and I desperately need to mail something before our flight leaves, and we can't wait for the office to open, can you please help us?"

Pause.

"We know you're in there."

The shuffling stops.

A voice comes from behind the veil: "This office doesn't open till eleven, you have to go to another post office."

First of all, the sign says ten thirty. Second, ugh.  We argue a bit more and then roll our eyes and leave. We begin our second consolidation process. You should have seen the first: mail this - no it fits better that way - leave this with our host, we might still eat this, trash this, wear this, this doesn't fit - it's okay I have room if I sit on my suitcase! 

We had so much food we had neglected to eat on the road that we left a big box with our final host: a park ranger in San Francisco. He is super passionate about the part he plays in the park system and was beyond hospitable to us.

He might trash most of the food.  "I'm sorry, there's not much to eat here," he apologized upon our arrival. Well, that's not quite true. But I'll put it this way: I was in such need for sugar the night I slept all day that I raided the car for EVERYTHING we had left that tasted sweet: gross orange vitamin drink mixes, and maybe I changed my mind and like pecans, and - AHA! - there's still a nerd rope left, and I know I saw a granola bar in here somewhere, and, and, yes - hot cocoa mix.

Heaven. 

We're at the Phoenix's airport. It is like any other, except we witnessed a pilot spilling his steaming red rooibus tea (a nearby woman suggested hydrogen peroxide to get it out of his white uniform as the friendly staff took care of it. I hope it didn't ruin his day) and it has Arizonan-themed gift shops.

It is like others in one way: everyone got to the charging outlets before us and the ones that are left don't work. Heather provided an example of a similar experience when there were outlets between each seat at the terminals - and none of them worked.

But at least it looks fancy, right?

But back to our mailing problem: we had a big package to mail: a cooler full of maps and AAA books, glass bottles and even a bag of cereal we never opened. Now what?  I figured out that if I give the bag of cereal to the other people sitting in the post office parking lot, blah blah blah and the cooler magically can come on the plane with me!

The people in the car were so happy for the Homey Bunches. On their way out they wished us safe travels.

Doctor Quinn, Medicine Woman

After my perfectly formed waffle in needles, I check the tour book and say, "look, heather, the world's longest map of route 66 is painted on the side of this motel on needles! And the neon sign behind it has been restored! We MUST go!"

So we go and find that the "map" is a cartoon illustration of a wavy road and its typical landmarks, not particularly to scale and not particularly photogenic. I do my best to take good pictures, also competing with the sun. We leave. Today is desert day. Like, Mojave desert. From what I'd heard, I was expecting Prince of Egypt-style sand dunes, but I was quite disappointed with much of the same tumbleweed country that i had been seeing for days now. This country was train land and truck land. And us land.

I began to wonder what WOULD happen in an emergency. We didn't pack a gallon of water per person per day.

(Speaking of gallons - remember when I said leaving a gallon of milk out for an hour takes a day off of its shelf life?  I'm curious about soy and almond milk. Ours went through many temperature and pressure changes but stayed good for quite a while. I thought the cartons were puffy because the milk was putrefying but it was just because of our higher altitude. But they're nuts and vegetables...so how long does it take for them to actually go bad?)

Thankfully we were fine.

We stopped at a well-kept but nonfunctional gas station/diner/motel and had a good talk with the guy there as he sat upon his red vintage car and let us use his water cooler to refill our bottles. "Quick! Before anyone sees!" He gave valuable advice and I bought chocolate which gave us valuable energy on our hike up the volcanic crater which was right across the street, sort of.

The station is defunct because the ground only has saltwater and the first go-round they found out the hard way as it destroyed the pipes (we found this out from the T-shirt guy on the Santa Monica Pier - isn't that awesome that we can mention a place and he knows EXAVTKY what we're talking about?). But it's still painted bright, bright white. I commented on this to a lady who had just gotten out of her car as we were about to depart.

Just like that, we were sucked in to another conversation. A nice one, though. According to the woman's husband, Nikon cameras are better than Canons. And back in the day, 66 was full of traffic. Bumper to bumper, he said. The government didn't build I-40 just to be evil and divert traffic from towns and turn them all into "ruin porn" (a popular term used for when artists over glorify the artistic value of decay), they did it to alleviate traffic and make things easier for Americans! And easier to escape to wherever of the Russians did something evil, I believe was the reason the interstate act got passed.

Anyhow, those are what nice Californians are like. I am also meeting lots of nice girls in my hostel. People in Santa Monica give off the vibe of being very...other. I can't say I'll be sorry to leave.

The Amboy Crater. The part worth writing home about is the fact that I hiked every inch that Heather did, and I have a picture and a human being to prove it. The part not so exciting was the crater. Once we hiked  the mile out and up to the rim, there was no beautiful concave shape to observe, just continued hills and piles of rocks. There were two flat spaces on which people had arranged stones to form a heart and a snail shell pattern. Google picture search "Amboy Crater so you can understand the hike. It's three miles round trip, and some of it is kind of treacherous. I didn't bring anything except water and car keys.  If I had brought my camera there would have been cool pictures but it would have been way too much to worry about.

The black rocks sound like glass when you kick them together.

Then we find another hotel with exterior doors, and our dinner counts as lunch the next day. The girl who hostessed that night served in the morning with the same cheerful attitude, which made me feel hopeful too.

That town we stayed in was the border of civilization. It was the end of lonely little blip towns and the beginning of the traffic lights I told you about.

I forget what else I said. I had fish and chips (so much better than fish sticks) and heard someone else snoring last night which means I'm not the only one!

Today Heather found the toaster at breakfast (small victories) and I enjoyed my breakfast too in spite of the fact that butter came in a serving bowl and was the consistency of chunky yogurt (you spoon it on, yum).  We wash our own dishes which either increases my faith in their cleanliness or decreases it,, not sure which.

I got to see the !aids change the sheets. HOLY COW. On point and with amazing teamwork, they pull the mattresses out, drape the covers, fold them under, and throw the mattress back in the bunk- and it looks tidy, tight, and fresh as can be.

We went to a combination national park/state park/private land place today.  The drive there past the impressive green mountains reminded me of some shots from the Sound of Music. We arrived at one building that shone just as brightly as the whitewashed gas station buildings in the desert a couple of days ago. It featured a tiled fountain with ultramarine tiles on the bottom.  You can bet you'll see a picture of that. Without the water feature the building wouldn't be as memorable.
Between sections of park live many celebrities. The two of us rode along with a friend of Heather's as he gave us the low-down on the community. My favorite was knowing where Beyonce "lives."

My FAVORITE favorite, though, is the section of the park with a "wild west" set on it where numerous movies and TV shows have been filmed. Some of them use other parts of the park too. Heck, American Sniper filmed something in the park we were at! But, back to the set. This set is the Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman set. It is The Town. We touched her office, stood on her porch, went into the sheriff's office. We saw the bridge where little Brian regained his sight.

It was beautiful. I thought I would never see it.

There was also a meadow with yellow flowers and I spun around in it.

Heather and I got seafood (me: fish and chips) from a recommended location, then touched the pacific ocean, found muscle beach, and parted ways. I found a swing and came back to the hostel to befriend some cool ladies. Heather got some cool shoes.

And that's actually it. It's kind of scary to not have anything else, but tomorrow I'll have a chance to get behind on my updates again, right?

Saving Your A**

Before I tell you if we had to push our car around the bend to the gas station, let me tell you about the lady I met at the snow cap restaurant in my previous blog. Yes, I forgot. But she's not someone I can forget to tell you about.

First of all, she had some really cool bling jeans on. Second, long, shiny, dark hair. And beyond appearances, we got talking about my camera (one of the fastest ways to my heart besides Jesus, and picking up interesting things off the ground) and I learned that she loves snowcap food that she would drive three whole hours from her home to come and pick it up!

(The grill is over 60 years old and, yes, they do hold birthday parties for it.)

Today she happened to be in the area, though. She suggested lots of things for the two of us to see but emphasized one: at a lodge in Peachman (the only town with road access to the Grand Canyon), there is Native American art done by a man related to her - and her kids are artistic, too! We're totally friends. Heather and I went to see and it was just like she described. It looked like charcoal on wood, human-animal forms which were beautiful.

On to The Gas Dilemma.  According to the book, Oatman is coming up. Oatman is touristy. Oatman will have gas.

Oatman does not have gas.

A girl about our age sucks a lollipop behind the counter at the Oatman hotel and comes up front when we ask her if there are any rooms. She tells us it's not really a hotel. Then a guy in a yellow T-shirt approaches, hears our dilemma and suggests someone who might rent us a cabin or a camper...or he thinks the mayor does a "bed and barbeque." And as for gas...

People must have their own gas fountain out here because they get blank looks when we ask about the nearest station. Or else they siphon tourist tanks.

There's a bright yellow sign boasting "public restrooms" down the road. We follow it and find a store called "Saving Your Ass" with a sexy looking burro out front and a sign saying "I found my ass in oatman." Well, nature called, so I passed through the short shorts and corsets and into the store. In front of a wall of tee's I secretly laughed at but would never wear were standing our saviors: Dwayne and Nancy. Dwayne told us two routes to get gas.  One for faster, one for cheaper. If the "empty" light isn't on, he gave us comfort that we would be alright. He gave us time estimates, pointed to places on maps until they made sense, probably gave us brochures, and didn't pressure us to buy anything. He is also a firefighter, a nice one. His partners in awesomeness Chandler and Amanda.

"This is the wild west, so you see that tree? That's the public restroom."
"Okay, but I really hope you're joking."
He was joking.

And you know what? He had sugar skull art in the back. Canvas prints, poster prints, and postcard-sized prints I could stick on my car if I wanted to. Guess how I supported Saving Your Ass in return for its saving our asses? I bought nine postcards for quite a deal. Minimal bargaining and eyelash fluttering may have gone down.

Bottom line? If you're going to stop at Oatman, stop when the light is hitting the wild-west storefronts just right, take some pictures, pet the burros walking the streets, and stop and chat with Dwayne and Nancy (and maybe put a dollar in the fireman's boot on the counter). But make sure you stop and get gas WAY before you reach the squiggly line on the map.

It was scary but at last we saw the lights of a station.

A girl in a hoodie who looked like she owned the place sort of crunched her eyebrows and said "sure, whatever" when I asked if she was the proprietor and if we could use her microwave. 

We drove and drove, crossed a river, saw a welcome sign, and made it to a hotel in Needles, CALIFORNIA!!!!

Heather and I always had this thing about hotels with exterior doors, thinking of them as shady places where people go to have affairs and buy and sell drugs, but unknowingly reserved this room with (gasp) an exterior door. Guess what - it was fine. Orange on the outside, blues and greens on the inside, the most beautiful morning and the most perfectly formed waffle I have had since I started 66.

Dead Chicken Earrings

The next day, we entered a town first called Seligman. Unlike many of the run-down towns, Seligman is a real destination. Its Snowcap restaurant is like a giant assemblage work of art and it has a flushing outhouse with a sink that's so covered in stickers and signage that I could barely find the door. And on top of that, they sell dead chicken earrings and are incredibly friendly.

As we ate (OUTSIDE - I forgot to mention we started putting our coats in the trunk about this time), the speakers started playing "Jesse's Girl" which had been playing the previous night at the bar when Heather said that if she were at home she would be at her martial arts class listening to a song like that.  We liked the coincidence.

Just when we thought it couldn't get any better, we centered a fairly generic 66 gift shop and then when I started a conversation with a gray-haired lady about my hair (she has dreams of tints of lavendar - I told her if she does it a little at a time her husband won't even notice, like a frog in boiling water) SHE started a conversation with us about how Seligman is integral in route 66 history because the barber of the town, Angel, fought and fought for signage, etc. to get people to come through again. Then she showered us with brochures and information, showed us the barber shop, and showered us some more with friendliness.

The walls of the tiny shop were COVERED in business cards from people all over there world and there was a shelf of binders with more cards inside.  There was another wall in the attached gift shop with foreign money collaged all over it from visitors.

Angel had hung a frame with a sign "two waiting, no barber - two barbers, no waiting." He also had a heartfelt (and that's about all I can say for it) poem about his career called "a little off the top." I sat in his ancient barber chair and was glad about this stop. 

By the time we left, I was too tired to make Heather stop at any of the other colorful buildings left in the town, even the one with several mannequins standing on the porch - AND the roof. Regret.

Our next stop, Hackberry. Not really even a town, it was just a building with lots of interesting junk tacked up on  and around it. It rivaled the Snowcap in some ways. Inside the owner's obsession with pinups, Marilyn Monroe, and mannequins was evident. Two blonde mannequins stand perpetual watch over the toilet, for example.

We read that if we had sharp eyes we might spot Hyde Park's ruins on some hill or other right before we got to the somewhat hokey Grand Canyon Caverns (which are so named because they get their natural air supply all the way from the Grand Canyon), but we didn't. It used to be a resort, and it bears our name, but our "no backtracking" rule forbade us from going back to search for it.

Grand Canyon Canyons is a dry cavern. No stalagtites or mites. It's so dry that a wildcat who wandered in was mummified. There is also an artful recreation of an extinct mammal whose bones were excavated from the cave's rocks.  She looks like Snuffaluffagus from sesame street. She died when she was a year old, say the professionals, which are very sad, and you can see the scratch marks on the cave walls from her trying to climb out the hole she fell in.

The concrete walkways and wooden stairways are made from excess materials sent over from the hoover dam project.

You can stay the night in this cave for 885 per night. They have a flat screen TV, good movie selection, a running toilet and shower, two queen or double beds, and walkie talkies that connect you to the earth above.

The whole vibe I got, though, was a bit campy. Dinosaurs in the front yard, a very casual tour guide, and a dark, vacant,  odd-smelling cafeteria upon entrance to the building turned me off. And the tour was more of a fun uphill trudging physical challenge than a visual masterpiece.

But we love caves.  And we got to meet a cool dog and his humans.  The dog was very well behaved and quiet in the cave.

Next, we arrive at the section of road represented on the map as a little squiggle.

I forget what it's called, but it was beautiful, and I'm glad I wasn't driving.  We drove on a two-lane road around true hairpins around green mountains and cliffs. The green things were desert-y, though, like weird cacti and palmy things we hadn't seen before! Very cool. I'm learning to appreciate the panorama feature of my phone camera.

You bet there's more! We're comin' round the mountain and runnin' out of gas. And will we find it on the other side? Wait and see.

Beeline to the Bar

Here's something I forgot to say. I fell flat on my back in the parking lot while I was trying to pack the car before we made the trip to the grand canyon. I started laughing hysterically and the maintenance guy on the other side of the car totally ignored me. Fun stuff. Didn't hurt.

At the canyon, heather and I got so hungry that we could not think straight, so of course we walked to the in-hotel restaurant. Sorry, the host said. We're closed for the next 20 minutes until dinner starts.

Really.

We couldn't think straight, but we could walk straight to the bar and ask desperately for them to give us food.  We found disgruntled customers who came to the bar for the same reason as us and I felt a sense of community.

Some battered zucchini and mushrooms later, we met three sisters who were very encouraging about our trip. One knew the canyon trails like the back of her hand and had hiked 23 miles that day. Things had lined up for them, too, to spend time together. One of them had great hair herself - the one who had approached me an asked to look at and touch my hair in the first place. Darker underneath and then at least three subtly different golds on top. One of them had been "restructured" out of her job, and I like that she used that word instead of more negative ones she could have used. Sometimes restructuring involves unpleasant changes that nobody wants to make and the fact that she didn't make a face or dwell on the subject meant a lot to me. I think someone will restructure her into their business sometime soon.

And then we got our checks, and they got their fries, and our intensely friendly conversation was gracefully finished, just like that.  I love when I know exactly how and when to hang up the phone, and when conversations come to an end exactly when they should. Even my grandma has tact in wrapping things up - and she likes to talk (and I love talking to her)!

And although the room was a bit simple, the staff was eager to please and had one of us wanted to take a bath there was an old claw tub available in one of the shower rooms. How ABOUT that!

And this is the most important thing: through watching the park film, I learned that the canyon has an artist-in-residence program. And I asked more about it, and did research, and found that about 50 other national parks do too! That means that if I were accepted, I could spend several weeks housed and sponsored by a national park to make art inspired by that park, and then be able to share it with visitors!

I am going to do this if it is the last thing I do.

Red Nail

There are nail salons all over the country. We passed one today named "red nail." And I pictured entering a store with baskets and baskets of iron nails painted red before the rust even had a chance to get to them. Four for a dollar. The red nail store.

The other day Heather and I pulled over at a "landmark" suggested by the author in our tour book: somewhere in the middle of the desert, people spell out messages with rocks. I didn't even bother.  It's February and it was hot. I just picked up some green glass.

That wasn't really much of anything, except a source of green glass for me. But today a source of pride came to the two of us in the form of the Bottle Tree Ranch, somewhere in the middle of California. And we're proud of it because the author over whiose book we pored day after day for the last three weeks DIDN'T include this exceptional landmark! 

We found it ourselves!

It just dawned on me that he might not have mentioned it because it's not "historic." But the man who greeted us sure was. Long white beard, told us he got up at 6:30 in the morning to clear out some land before summer comes. He's been building his metal-and-bottle-and-found-object forest for fifteen years and isn't stopping. And he won't ask the state for an outdoor welding permit so he does it in the house.

I've been cracking my wrist a lot. It's a favorite pastime when I'm driving (because that's when it wants to crack).  This is my wrist hurt in the stupid beauty school fall. It used to just hurt. Now it's in the fun cracking stage. But heather the EMT just notified me as we drove from traffic light to traffic light during the final stretch of our journey today that I'm not just popping gas bubbles; I'm releasing bursal fluid and thus relieving pressure on my joint. Which is unattractive sounding.

So, um, I'm still going to do it.

Speaking of picking things off the ground. Heather and I were hiking a volcanic crater (more on that later) and passed a little girl with her family who was carrying a pieces of volcanic rock. "I'm going to bring this home!" she said. "Oh, are you going to bring it to show and tell at school?" "We don't have show and tell. We just show things to our class at the end of the day."

Uh huh.

And this is on a piece of national something or other, so not only does she not know show and tell when she sees it, she's probably committing a felony (or would be if she was in a legit national park, I believe) by removing the rock from its natural environment.

Cute.

But we finished the road today!

I'll backtrack later.  I ran with my arms stretched out on the Santa Monica Pier past the "end of route 66" sign and hugged my travel buddy (not before experiencing the best parking situations and friendliest drivers Santa Monica has to offer).  We watched the sun disappear under the PACIFIC ocean. It was the first time I had seen the Pacific!

Before we found the sign, we saw an "end of 66" T-shirt stand. To this stand we returned and, to our surprise, met someone who applauded us and talked to us at length about our journey. When we took pictures of each other in front of the sign, Heather and I were just two girls at a photo op. No one knew we were actually at the end of the road. But Ian asked, and we had a good time talking.  He studies sections of 66 slowly and thoroughly, from what I've gathered, and I appreciated that the shirts heather and I bought were American-made.

The last stretch, man - it was tough. I had gotten used to those roads with no other cars. But once the desert ended, it was OVER.  Then we were in suburbia, then upscale suburbia, then city.  And traffic lights all. the. way.

I started doing my boredom thing and taking pictures of people out the window until I was told "enough." And then I just had to wait too.

That's pretty much today. We stopped at a gas station and reheated last night's fajitas and they turned out quite well, as did our friendship with the gas station guy.

We're staying at a hostel right in the middle of town and I'm waiting until everyone is decently asleep to go to sleep so they won't have as much trouble with my snoring.

Oh, and the trees at the grand canyon? Plenty blocking the view. Also plenty of idiots posing on the OTHER side of the fence.  One of our trails had a fence not on the side that would keep us from falling off, but on the onside to keep us from messing around in the trees. And the canyon was really crowded. The shuttle buses were full, the overlooks were full, the hotel lots looked full - please remind me of my vow to never go in peak months. 

When the sun set (not as cool as the Santa Monica set) the temperature dropped immediately.  I thought it was in my head but soon I figured out it wasn't.

We went on a night "hike" which was really a walk, stop, and talk a lot in the freezing cold with a ranger as a leader who is very informative and sweet. I asked, there aren't any chinchillas at the Canyon. She covered constellations, moon-based holidays, night predators, and more. It was worth it. I lay awake that night processing the remainder of my 5-hr energy drink. That night in our "adequate" room at the Bright Angel, the two of us dreamed of sunflowers and spiders. I won't tell you who. We watched the sunrise and were on our way.

And of course I took a nap on the car.

Hello Canyon, Goodbye NM

Bandolier hiking dinner with parents is that it?
Today the two of us attempted to board a train ride to the grand canyon. We found that the "not inexpensive" experience only departed once per day and allowed only three hours at the park, then had a one-chance return. We had been on the fence about this anyway, so our decision was made.

We're in the car now. Around Flagstaff we had driven through a snow-covered area dominated with coniferous trees that reminded me of upstate Michigan (except for the snow-covered mountains in the distance). I couldn't explain it because on both sides of this swatch of sizeable trees is a semi-savanna with low bushes and dry grasses about to become tumbleweeds (I say semi because I think savanna has to be totally flat and a little more dry...and I don't want to be wrong so I'll just stick that prefix on). 

If I knew more about geography, weather patterns, ocean currents, whatever, I could make a guess. Anyway, at the park we visited yesterday it was nice to see trees again. It felt like home.

But as the landscape changes it's becomeing more easy to believe that we will soon come upon the rocky, vegetationless canyon we have seen in countless pictures. 

I'm gonna go back to New Mexico for a moment. One thing worth mentioning was getting to meet our host Matt's parents. They were totally awesome and as the waitresses cleaned up around us they continued the conversation ad long as possible.
Heather and I ate at Baskin Robbins the next night and then reheated our leftovers the next night in the next door gas station's microwave without buying anything there,  but the staff wished us a good night and I felt okay about it. We went back to Baskin Robbins to eat. I think that was the first time spaghetti had entered the haven of sugar and dairy.

That night we stayed at an historic hotel from our guidebook, which made me quite giddy: El Rancho.  It's claim to fame is that many black-and-white movie stars passed through its rooms in days of yore. It also had a cozy lobby and great, well-kept neon outside. There were even complimentary postcards in our room.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Did I tell you about old city Albuquerque yet? Our second morning in NM we visited the cluster of shops in the center of town. It was desolate because of - oh wait, I did tell you about that, because I told you about the church. And did I tell you about our frozen picnic? We got back to the car and decided to eat outside. And my scatterbrained self focused on organizing the meal instead of bringing my coat. Yet I feel very fond of that meal.

That was the comedy day.

The next day we learned about forgiveness in church as I looked at a stained glass depiction of Jesus all the way at the end of the sanctuary from my balcony seat. Through my contact lenses which are usually just a bit off, and with the distance and the lighting, and the artist's choice of colors, Jesus looked not like he was surrounded in a bright and blinding aura, but in a sea of beautiful foresty greens, green being the color of welcome, and he WAS the light, depicted in whites and golds.

And I enjoyed the lesson, too, and even the prayer, which included the phrase "web of life." I'm familiar with the phrase "web of lies," and to hear "life" in the place of "lies," I will never think of entanglement in the same way again.

We also came on communion day.

At my church, communion is done kind of in isolation.  You go and get your bread, or someone passes it out to you. Here, you can't get it unless you go up front and get spoken to by a pastor/priest/reverend/not sure what they were called there but it doesn't matter. Scary, huh? And I was in the balcony so it was quite the decision to go down. I didn't just follow my row up when it was time. So I talked to God and when it was time we went up. It was a good time.

So the trees just got MUCH taller. Maybe I didn't look at those photos close enough.

So anyway, second day, quickly since the canyon is right around the bend: we hiked at a place called Bandolier something or other, where pueblo people both built residences and lived in naturally-formed caves in the faces of the orange cliffs. We climbed inside them and took many, many pictures.

It was a "hike" back, too. I thank Heather for driving as I no doubt snored in the back.

I thank Matt profusely for his hospitality and bid NM a temporary farewell.

The Skull

At the Barnes and Noble in New Mexico, a woman approached me about my hair and I told her I was an artist and she told me she knew she was an artist inside too but just hadn't created anything yet. All of the people at her spiritual center are artists, she said. So I gave her my card and told her to look at my art and email me to tell me more about her spiritualism.

I don't know why, I just want to listen openly to people. But I had another run-in with spiritualism today, in AZ. We were at the site of a meteor crater and of course I had to browse through the gift shop. Gift shops for places like this usually have similar things: rocks and crystals imported from somewhere else that have nothing to do with what you just saw, books that are about what you just saw, and, in this region, jewelry with local stones like turquoise.

This time in one of the glass cases something caught my eye: a display of crystal skulls. My own thoughts, rumors, clips from geology and history films from my public school education, and sentences from magazine flip-throughs of yore flooded my mind and I knew this was one piece of useless junk I really wanted.

Functional (i.e. wearable) is the way to go with souvenirs so they don't end up in the "throw away" laundry basket on cleanup day/judgment day for my room.

As I made my purchase the girl at the register got really enthusiastic when I asked for information. We talked for a while about how the skulls have a mysterious history and some people think they have supernatural powers. Some people meditate with them. There are large famous ones at museums and personally owned that are thought to have the knowledge of our ancestors gathered inside. Some of what I read online got to be a little much for me.

A little much both ways: the Wikipedia article was depressing because it debunked every myth and story about the skulls. It outlined that the skulls are really only a couple of hundred years old (and not the ancient artifacts they were said to be as they were donated to museums). The pro-spiritual link I went to had testimonials about people happily dancing around their thirteen skulls and smiling all day, and their skulls helping them with bills and constipation.

When Heather and I walked out to the car after my purchase, I explained that I try to be on the same page as people as long as I can keep Jesus involved and give Him the credit. Only He can help me with my bills and constipation, thank you very much. But if God wanted to trap memories in crystals, or if he wanted to heal me with the way the light waves change as they shine through the crystal, then so be it. So long as it doesn't become an idol.

So, no Bert sits on our dashboard as our trip mascot.

He stands for life and beauty, because our skeletons are the foundations of our bodies and they are beautiful. He also stands for clear-mindedness, because I picked the little clear crystal skull, not the cloudy one.

Oh, and by the way, this one isn't a legendary one or anything. He's pretty small and was probably carved a week ago. He's staring at me right now.

Busy Busy

Besides the meteor crater and the skull, we had a busy day.

Our next stop was a place called "two guns." Not sure why. Our guidebook promised a day's worth of photo opportunities but Heather and I knew better. It was an abandoned/ruined site with a rocky dirt road and barbed wire fences leading up to it, plus a random UPS truck resting at the entrance. This set of circumstances led us to not venture far and not take longer than five minutes. The place used to be a motel, restaurant, zoo, and fake ruins park situated on a treeless landscape with a mini canyon running through it. One of the owners shot the other and things went downhill from there.

But really, once you've seen a hundred abandoned buildings, you've seen'em all. (I am still obligated to myself to take pictures of course.)

Next, "twin arrows." We turned the wrong way and thought the Native Americans had gone and built a casino on the site we wanted to see in the year since our book was published! - but the valet pointed us in the opposite direction, and once again we had to go off-road to photograph this ruined road stop (which I loved).  I walked the whole way around it and got pictures on each side, but the one we both came for was of two gigantic red and yellow arrows sticking into the ground. Fancy that!

Then we went to...another national park! Walnut Canyon. Lots of steps, lots of windy trees growing at strange angles, some Pueblo housing remnants, and real live prickly pear cactus!  There were lots of markers with explanations of plants and their usues.

Finally, in Flagstaff, we visited the Lowell university.  It is at Lowell that Pluto was discovered. This is special to me because I did a project on Pluto in third grade, and third grade was the big year when we started doing PROJECTS, so I remember each one I did.

Heather and I watched two lengthy presentations in their "planetarium." Folks, this was no ordinary planetarium. No comfy seats, no projection on the ceiling.  But there was a projection on a half-sphere in front of us and the two of us agreed that after the initial nonplussed-ness, we became fascinated with the format of the presentations and with the new information. We had no idea so much research is still being done in space! In a couple of years, someone plans to send something out to drill through the ice on one of Jupiter's moons. And this year, there's something flying by Pluto in July that will send us back data and better pictures!

And after two hours of that, we went to the Olive Garden instead of staying to look at stars, which is what an observatory is for. Oh, well. Other people can look at the stars and planets for us.

Yesterday we went to the Petrified Forest National Park. Can I cheat and get that in this post too? It feels like forever ago.

The clouds were all perfectly flat on the bottom and the sky was bright blue, until later when some of the clouds would bleed toward the ground in some form of precipitation. Overlook upon overlook showed us first a pink, green, and orange desertscape, then mountains horizontally striped with purple, then orange cliffs. I found that the park was more about the land than the wood. It was only on the last two little loop hikes did we see concentrations of petrified wood worth writing home about. The stone that formed in place of the wood took on many colors. Some of the logs even looked painted.

The park made a huge deal out of not leaving a mark, not leaving the paved trails, and not taking any wood with you. It was incredibly saddening to hear that the reason the wood we see today is all chopped-up-looking is because in the past people used dynamite to break the wood into saleable chunks.

That's a common theme in most of the National Park films we view: for many many years until anyone decided to do anything about it, people looted and destroyed the land, resources, and history of each new place they found, because, really, why not?

So after being saddened by the fact that I am seeing a fractured remnant (albeit still glorious) of what used to be, I exit the park and IMMEDIATELY see billboards on my right and left advertising petrified wood for sale. Sooo...I guess these people got it off their property? And to add it to the park would be cheating, so I guess it's fine, but you see the irony, right?

It was a good day. And I actually ate Mexican food at the end of the day. No red or green chile though.

Texas

It was a cold and bright morning and we were off to Texas. We wanted to stop at a place called Lucille's to eat and flew past it on the road. My GPS had failed me once again.  But wait! There's an identical building just ahead with the same name! And this one has cars parked in front of it!

I guess someone wanted to replicate the old rest stop closer to town.

We also passed by a leaning water tower which was built leaning next to a truck stop to attract customers, and a hundred-some foot cross on the other side of the interstate. I admit to photographing these out the window of our moving vehicle.

At the church with the huge white cross, we could've visited and even  series of more life-sized crosses arranged in the "stages of the cross." This term being unfmilir to me, I looked out the window and said, " ooh, there's three crosses! And there's a cross! (pause) and another! (pause) and another!" It took me bout seven crosses and wondering how many crosses there were going to be to realize I had begun counting telephone poles.

We also stopped at a run-down building with five or six old vw bugs standing up covered in graffiti with their noses buried in the ground. It was dark and we used our headlights to help with photos. This was an excitng precursor to the next day's viitto cdillc ranch (more on that later), especially for someone who loves junk art. 

I had my first fried pickles and got another glass bottle to take home. Not long after, we arrived at the Laur's, much to the delight of their little white fluffy energetic dog Mumbles!  Mumbles and I made friends.

It was dark when we arrived, but we could tell already that the landscape had changed. Finally, we weren't in the east anymore.

Yeah. It took that long.

The deer here are bigger.

That reminds me: at the house in OK, the walls were covered in paintings, photographs from all different time periods, and lots and lots of deer heads. There were skins hanging over the railing overlooking the foyer. I loved it. Back home, if something's going on the wall, there seems to be a two-yer thinking/waiting period before it goes up. Negative space is very important. The walls in Texas are filled, too. I liked that the Laurs told us about the art on their walls.  I like when people share my mentality, "if you like it, hang it up!"

But one thing is the same: when in doubt, people will name their streets after dead presidents.

Texas has taller billboards, more tacky big statues of cowboys, cows and horses (we actually just passed by a giantncowboy boot), more trucks (there are even places with stacks of truck beds five high and dozens wide, and trains stacked with truck beds), and bigger steaks than I've seen so far.

Driving through some of the more desolate locations, I wondered aloud why anyone would want to live there. (And previously I had come to understand why Missouri might sometimes be referred to as "Misery.") Heather pointed out that everybody has to live somewhere.

I have to point out that I don't really know why people settled in PA either, with about 5% of the year having nice weather.

It's all kind of low and dusty, but when I went in the two different churches where Mr and Mrs Laur work, I started to see why someone might enjoy living in Amarillo.

Mr. Laur is the organist and choir director at his church. Besides the sun-filled sanctuary, my favorite part of visiting was meeting his coworkers. I couldn't believe how genuinely friendly they were and how excited they were to suggest must-see locations in town.

Mrs. Laur does a whole lot of everything - including teaching - at her church, which has a traditional service in an elegant, sanctuary with dark wood and stained glass simultaneously with a contemporary, family-friendly service downstairs. 

I was shocked and awed by the four large paintings in the entrance hallway. Upon first glance, they look like the paintings from sixteen the century Europe that have darkening varnish and all look the same.

Upon second glance, I see four scenes: Mary and Martha, the prodigal son, the good Samaritan, and the poor woman with the two pennies. They have been painted within the last fifteen years and are secretly full of color, generous paint application, imaginative color choices, and an illustrative style that I am glad exists in this world. He paints like the old masters but doesn't let their fading paint and rusty ideas take over his soul. He includes dozens of flawless fabric studies in each painting, he uses atmospheric perspective and adds unnecessary yet helpful elements to the paintings. But he does it in a way that I can't stop looking. He thinks of everything, whereas another might only hurry to finish the painting and lose focus paint the elements separately, and call it done when it's not.  I saw God through the stories in the paintings and through the incredible gift God gave the painter. 

People out here don't speed as much and don't tailgate as much. It's refreshing.

We ate "tex-mex" at Ruby Tequila's which I totally ruined because I had only awoken an hour before and stuffed my face with a muffin and a half, but I got the idea that it was a fun-loving place with great food that's not TOO Mexican (that's what they told me when I said I don't love Mexican food).

That day it was beautiful outside. It was the second beautiful day of our journey. To Heather I stated, "good weather just puts me in SUCH a good MOOD!"

"Yeah, and everybody else, too."

Good point.

About this time I realized my boots would stay on my feet without me lacing them each time I put them on. My boots from then on became slip-ons. No loosening, tightening, tying, (oh, we're going out again? - repeat process) anymore.

That's right, for some reason, I didn't bring my fake boots that lace up the front but zip up the side. Okay, well, not some reason. It was a style issue. If I'm going to spend a month in one pair of boots, it's going to be the flowery ones. So there.

One special conversation I had in Texas started when I was talking with my hosts about the Oklahoma memorial I had just seen. I asked - because I had always wondered, how the events of 9/11 affected people who were far across the country and more physically removed from the situation. The answer:

"Well, I'll put it like this: people driving home from work that evening saw trucks stopped along the highway with the drivers standing on top of them waving the american flag."

Wow. 

I sure got my answer.

So, everyone we met told us we HAD to see sixth street in Amarillo. As we drove down the street, the bail bond signs, car washes and empty lots confused us until we reached a T.  We obviously weren't on the right sixth street, but it had led us to Amarillo's centennial monument/park. There was a long pool with little fountains, lots of little stones with names, and a timeline around the pool with one hundred significant events in Amarillo's history: one for each year. Heather and I walked around trying to find the 90's and realized that sometimes important things happen before we're born.

But I haven't told you the best part: the source of the pool is this elevated water feature with a, ahem, monumental black granite globe (I could hug, like, half of it if i wanted to get my shirt wet) appearing to float on top. The water seems to make it spin perpetually on its side, not on the earth's normal axis. I wonder if this was designed so that Amarillo would be on a more important latitude as it spun by. Watching the perfect globe with the outlines of the continents spinning so oddly made me think of maps I've seen that are "upside down" - but if you flip all the labels so they're legible, it's just as correct. We only look at the solar system the way we do, thinking we're looking at it right-side-up, because we live in the northern hemisphere and we like ourselves and want to put ourselves on top. So I liked that this globe was spinning oddly, in addition to being visually striking. 

We found sixth street and what I might call its main attraction, The Nat. Once a Natatorium (where people would go to swim), this place is a vintage/antique/junk/craft-lover's dream. I was just bowled over, especially when I realized the front room wasn't the whole shop. (Duh, there used to be a swimming pool in here.) I adjust my browsing speed according to the size of a shop; more time in smaller shops to be respectful, but in THIS place, I had to constantly pan and sift and not stop for more than three seconds because if I stopped for longer my brain would fry by the time I got out. As it happened, my brain did come very close to this state. At first, I had a list of "maybe" items and as I kept looking I stopped wanting all of it. It was very strange. Like eventually the excess got to me and I didn't want to be a part of it anymore (but you know that's not entirely true because I would totally go back). I ended up buying a couple of thongs from the front room. The friendly room.

After that, Heather and I realized most of the other shops along the way were selling the same type of stuff as we had just waded through for what felt like so long. Agreement came easily as we looked in the windows or looked at the signs, identified the nature of the wares, said "nope" in unison and moved on.

There was one store we went in that was worth it just for the friendly girl working there. It was a combination route 66/vintage clothing store. They had gorgeous wedding dresses that I would have made a bigger deal about if not for the poufy shoulders.  The girl was encouraging and enthusiastic about our trip and totally into vintage (if you're reading this, hey girl!)

To wrap up Texas:

I, I actually ordered a steak at a big yellow restaurant called the Big Texan which boasts a 72-oz steak-eating challenge.

I also visited Cadillac Ranch (not sure what makes it a ranch) which looks really pitiful from a distance but becomes impressive up close. Layers upon layers of graffiti make for good photos and the flat, undeveloped landscape does too.

The two of us were reviewing our trip and we brought up Lincoln. "Lincoln? What did we do there?" I couldn't remember where we stayed or what we did...and Heather told me I was about ready to pass out even before we picked a hotel in Lincoln.

I'm about ready to pass out now, too. I'm in AZ now, in a semi-creepy town which randomly has an airport. But you still need to hear about my last days in New Mexico!

Wrathful Grapes

The comedy we can chalk up to experience. Our friend the comedian didn't make it because of the snow. 

Can you believe it? We arrive in New Mexico and it snows. Last night we ordered pizza and the drive was perilous. Freezing slush caused cars to slide into 180's and the pizza place understood why we were 40 minutes late picking up our order. "Drive safe!" The girl at the window admonished. I decided to close my eyes and pray hard the whole way home (since a third set of eyes doesn't do any good anyway) and I prayed for her since it was still snowing and it would be worse when her shift was over. 

We watched "the Grapes of Wrath" with our pizza and Angry Orchard hard cider (another first for me - I'd never had a beer before). We agreed as we ejected the VHS tape an hour and a half in that the movie was incredibly well-acted and -flmed, and that we had seen enough. I read the Wikipedia summary of the ending and confirmed out decision. 

The depression-era movie about a large, dirt-poor family searching in vain for work was heavy on my soul. We watched Frozen in order to lighten the load. 

Anyhow, we listened to recordings of the guy we came for on the way home. 

There were four acts tonight and we stuck through them in spite of the cringes and awkwardness of new performers. The crowd was kind and it really was a good time. 

Arriving in Albuquerque, Heather and I hung out in a Barnes and Noble to shelter from the gray cold outside. She told me that the state was more enchanting and colorful to her the last time she had come. I haven't been before, so the landscape is thrilling. 

The mountains are pointy and jagged like the kind I used to draw as generic mountains when I was a child. I might not yet have seen snow-covered mountains making those nature drawings but something in me believed they were out there when mom told me to draw them and so I drew them. 

Heather loves the state nonetheless. She will live there someday, she says. She turned to me and asked, "What state will you live in?"

"All of them."

I learned a little about Cirque de Soleil from the guy we're visiting here. He has a huge book all about it. I can see Cirque's makeup and art and travel being part of my future. 

I'm sitting in the back seat of our Dodge Journey because Heather and Matt are navigating. It makes me feel like a kid again when mom and dad would sit in the front!  

We visited the "Old City" of Albuquerque and a lot of places were closed because of the snow. Sugar skulls abounded at the tourist shops which speaks to happy memories of mine from my face-painting days at Dutch Wonderland. 

I found a ring that made me think of the "frozen fractals" Elsa sings about in the movie we watched last night but how nice that I told the lady I felt I could spend my money more wisely! I had room to buy the better ring tonight!

In the old city was an old church. The walls are five feet thick. Most importantly, on the walls were numbered paintings depicting the narrative of Jesus' crucifixion. Could these be the stations of the cross I had been wondering about earlier? I think so. 

New Mexico was a good state today. 

 

Simply Southwest

So, I'm in New Mexico right now. But pretend I'm in Texas still, because I still have to tell you all about it, and this is a blast from the future. 

I just have to tell you about my very exciting experience shopping for jewelry today. 

The farther west I travel, the more hell-bent I become on buying beautiful and unique jewelry as means of "souvenir."  And today, rifling through shop after shop in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, I searched anxiously for the perfect piece. 

I found it in:

Simply Southwest Trading Post

78 E San Fransisco St.

Santa Fe, NM 87501

Traipsing through the cold streets as darkness fell, something drew me inside. Maybe it was the name of the store or the window display. In any case, I met a lady who showed me to the rings that came from the time when the store used to accept pawned jewelry. 

I was immediately captivated. These pieces had stories, and appealed to my "goodwill"/"thrift store" shopping sensibilities. 

Make no mistake, however - there were no thrift store prices here. 

I had my eye on three pieces. And of course, the one vying for first place was way outside of my price range. 

This is when the store manager comes over, listens to my plight, and whips out his calculator. He takes almost half off of the original price. 

And this is the part I'm proud of: I bargain him down fifteen dollars further with my iron gaze (I'm sure those of you who are familiar with me know exactly what I'm talking about or are laughing right now). 

And he shakes hands with me and both of my accompanying friends. 

The least I can do is give the store a big blog mention. 

I haven't taken the price tag off the ring so I can remember exactly how blessed I am by this event. 

I should put my blogging device down, I suppose, because I'm trying to experience New Mexican night life at a comedy club. My friend knows the comedian and I feel so grown up being 21 and allowed into a bar! It's good to be enchanted by the little things, right?

Blue Bell

The second day in Oklahoma I got baptized which you already know about.

We went to Chipotle afterward. It was my first time there and I definitely didn't know what to get because I didn't want anything there. So I got lettuce with roastred vegetables and cheese. I could've at least gotten meat.  *facepalm*

I hear great things about this chain and was surprised and nonplussed by what I found inside. The cafeteria setup reminds me of a place back home called Taco Maya which is at least 100% better. Maybe because it's not a chain and because I'm more familiar with it. Anyway, Leslie, if you're reading this, this is for you: GO TACO MAYA!

During our dinner, I learned that Phillip (one of our friends) works for Blue Bell ice cream. I was reminded of this because Heather and I are driving out of Texas right now and we just passed by some trucks with the Blue Bell logo on them. I smiled.

When I heard this, I smiled politely and nodded, thinking of Bkure Bunny ice cream which my friends tell me doesn't actually ever melt but just kind of congeals and turns into a spongy flavorless mass. They only purchase the big tubs for kids' parties. But Phillip quickly assures us that Blue Bell is at least 100 times better than the bunny stuff. Apparently his company receives letters of adoration and videos of grandkids eating a gallon of their recently deceased grandmother's favorite flavor. Therefore, I was impressed.

It was a good night. Phil and Sarah are great people.

But the night wasn't over. Nick, our uncle-ish cousin, has connections and got us a ride on a police helicopter. I was more nervous about the controls and communication inside the helicopter than actually flying in it, but everything turned out fine. Cousin Vinny, Heather and I squished in and it was a good time.

We flew over a giant cemetery.
A pilot: "No heat signatures there." Heh heh.

The next day we took a tour of the police station. It was something else. Then we drove around Tulsa in the dark and took pictures of everything we didn't get to!

The last thing we did on the way out of OK was make a pilgrimage in the falling snow with Peaches and all to a special gas station/gift shop/restaurant/soda bottle heaven called Pop's. It has a giant pop bottle out front and its glass walls are lined floor to ceiling with over 600 flavors of bottled soda. I got prickly pear pop. Heather and I bid our goodbyes to the Hondroses and moved on.

Well, I guess that wasn't the last thing to report - carrying on courageously (behind low drivers) through the slush and the filling snow, we made our way to Oklahoma city. And what do you know, the memorial museum there was closed early for bad weather.  Lots of the recommendations in the tour guides can be skipped if they're closed (like the Devil's Rope museum somewhere in Texas - totally devoted to barbed wire), but the bombing memorial isn't one of them. We stayed the night and vowed an early start the next morning.

Hotels were especially full. Nobody wanted to drive in the snow. This brought out a bit of Massachusetts pride in my sister as she expertly navigated the slippery mess on the roads. "It's not so bad," she said, "these people have no idea what they're doing." I was very proud of her.

The museum was on point. The curators used technology to make an impact rather than simply to impress, and everything was tastefully done.  For example, the exhibits barely mentioned the person at fault until about halfway through the walkthrough plan of the museum. That way, the memorial was sure to be about Oklahomans and the american spirit rather than a monument of anger against a single man.

I feel like if I was doing a paper on the event, going to the museum instead of to the library would be a good idea. The memorial left no stone unturned.

Basketball

In Oklahoma our family has been incredibly welcoming.

When I say "Oklahoma," I always want to sing it like they do in the musical: "OOOOOOO....klaHO-ma!" Not that I've ever seen it before or anything.

We stayed in Tulsa with a geriatric dog named Peaches. I think Peaches and I became friends. Peaches' brother Buck died a few years ago and the way you hear the owners talk about him and see the way they treat Peaches is really wonderful. I love it when people have deep love for animals.

The first thing we did upon arrival at the Hondros' house (besides flopping on the couch) was go to their son's basketball game. The last time I had watched a basketball game was in middle school when Heather was a cheerleader. I was bored out of my mind.

It's been several years since I was in sixth grade, and I couldn't believe how exciting this game was. It ALMOST made sense. The suspense, the emotion, the excitement, the disappointment - and the HAIRCUTS. Each of the players must have gone out and gotten a fresh one before the game because I was fascinated by the cleanly executed coifs. It was a hairdresser's dream.

Another amazing thing:  before the game, there was a senior player-honoring ceremony. Seniors walked onto the court with their parents to recordings of their voices introducing themselves telling about themselves and their future plans. One of the guys shocked me by saying his "pre-game superstition" is praying and one of his future plans is to go to Bible school and study missions. I totally wanted to give him my number.

But that's not all. A girl walked on and I don't remember what else she said but at the end she quoted a Bible verse and said straight out "I give all the glory to god and aim to serve Him in everything I do."

That's my GIRL!

I've never seen anything like that happen at MY school. I don't even know if I'd have the courage to do that. I was so happy in that moment.

I was told later that everyone knew there were two new faces in the stands that night. And when we went to Applebee's the Hondroses had never gotten better service, they joked. That made me feel special.

I also feel super-cool and mature going to a high school game since I'm not in high school anymore. I can observe high school social dynamics and antics from a removed standpoint and find a sort of enjoyment from the fact that I'm not stuck in that hell anymore. But I didn't see anyone not enjoying themselves either - which was enjoyable too.

And I almost forgot - there was an INCREDIBLE dance team at half time (and they sure knew how to tease their hair, man). They did an Alice in Wonderland-inspired dance with talent that I wouldn't expect to come consistently from such a large group of high schoolers.

What a full night. I also got coffee at Starbucks instead of a frappuccino. So many discoveries!

So it should be no surprise that the next day I slept IN.  And the next, for that matter.

Baptism

There was a commercial the other day where I turned around just in time to see a man rescuing a goldfish (fishbowl and all) from a burning building.

I had never thought of that before. Have you? Cats and dogs, yes, but fish?

Well, fish are people, too.

I also just saw a poster with the words, "men are only temporary. Cats are eternal."

Yes.

Speaking of water and eternity, I got baptized yesterday. I can't help but think about the Crystal Castle's song "baptism" which I love. But that song is about bitterness and hopelessness, which is not how my baptism was.

As you know, I'm on a road trip. I'm currently in the state of Oklahoma, and Heather and I were visiting her good friends by going to their church for a Saturday night service. It was great. I was skeptical at first about the genuinity of the worship and the biblicality of the teaching, but it all came together, for SURE. And, go figure, this church has the resources to have an ever-ready baptismal pool thing in a room adjacent to the sanctuary. After each service, if someone "gets saved," they can get baptized immediately. The church is called Church on the Move, but when I messed up and called it "Church on the Go," maybe I wasn't so wrong.

A cool thing about this church is that at the end of each service, EVERYBODY stands and says a salvation prayer together. There's no altar call or awkward hand-raising and every believer gets the opportunity, not to say it again in case it didn't work last time (that's not how it works) but to tell God again how much they love Him and want to love Him more.

And it gives those who weren't  believers the chance to say the prayer with the rest of the church and maybe to mean it for the first time.

I love it.

And then there's no awkward waiting time like I had where I felt like I had to wait until it was JUST the right time to get baptized. The church is bringing it back to the days when preachers would come to towns and the people would experience revival and run to the river to be baptized (that's how it is in the movies anyway). And even to when people listened to John and did the same thing!

You don't have to wait. Get baptized spiritually and physically!

Anyway. I hadn't gotten this feeling in a while, but I got it when everybody stood up to go home or get drinks from the church café. That sinking, tight stomach feeling that I can kind of ignore until I get out into the parking lot and it might go away but it pretty much means God is convicting me to do something right away and I'll feel better if I do it.

So, I ask Heather and her friend (who works for her church) "can you guys baptize me?"

So we do it. Finally.

I was really concerned that everyone would think I wasn't truly serious about having Jesus as my savior. I wanted them to know I had been a Christian for a while and I was "one of them."  I know I looked so nervous and shifty to them.

The first lady I talked to asked me, "do you accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior?" (Or something like that) and I answered yes and then tried to spit out the rest of my testimony. She stopped me and said, "it doesn't matter, so long as Jesus is in your heart."

Well, okay.

The next ladies I talked to I told them I was from PA and this was my first and only time at their church and then kind of tried to dig myself out of the implication that I was a thrill-seeker getting baptized so I could come home and have a really cool story to tell. I dropped some words like "Kenya" and "obedience" and "conviction."

But that might be part of why I did it to be honest.

I also did it so I didn't have to make a big deal about it with all of my Christian friends (this includes my parents).  At home, I'd have to tell everybody and they'd all make a big deal (and probably cry and pray over me and come to the ceremony and cry more).  I'd have to take lots of classes to make sure i knew exactly what I was doing. Get it?

When I got baptized, nobody cried, nobody gave me wise words or said, "you've been washed in the Blood, sister." I did it for God and it wasn't about anyone else.

And honestly, I don't feel overcome with anything. I can just check it off as a big thing God says to do so when he comes back, I won't have to snap my fingers and go, oh shoot, I never got around to that.

There's a woman who came into the bathroom when I was changing and she told me she had gotten baptized (and implied that she got saved at the same day) three years ago. It changed her life, she said, and it will change my life, too. She told me to remember that when I fail (which I will), everything has been left behind in that water.  It's still taken away and paid for by God. That was beautiful.

I didn't care that she thought I had just come to Jesus. Each of us comes to Jesus each day anyway and Jesus sometimes rewards, celebrates, and honors the new workers in his vineyard more than the old ones. There's no shame in being new.

I See People

I am currently experiencing the length of a cargo train. If a train is going to carry cargo, I guess it had better carry a lot of it. Probably a good five minutes past a road of it. Okay, it's done.

Today we visited a national park dedicated to george Washington Carver. He had a disturbingly high-pitched voice, but otherwise, the path his life took and the path he took his life was enthralling. (We watched a film.) He helped farmers plant their way out of poverty, man! And he made paintings! He earned respect from white people even during a time when segregation made no leeway for him.

Heather and I had good burgers today, with everything on them that a burger could want and nothing that a burger wouldn't want.

We are on our way to Tulsa to see family and have stopped at a couple of old gas stations. We drove through the corner of Kansas, which we could count as an accomplishment.

I would like to note that, especially in Missouri, consistently and almost equidistant from ome another would be flocks of small birds that would lift off from the road just as they were about to be run over. Not so much in Oklahoma where we are now or in Indiana where we were before, or back home where the main ani!Al's of the road are squirrels.

We have passed by a few interesting billboards:
"Does your logo look like poop?...."
"Quick and easy divorce!"
"We see people."

And some license plates:
S8N H8N
AS U WSH
YES LOVE (that was actually at home before are left)
DOG LB

I think I'm officially caught up on here!
Check back for more, eventually!

Precious Moments

The first stop after the wagon wheel hotel was "the world's biggest rocking chair." It has a sign not to climb it. I wonder why it was built, and if it rocks. It towers above the gift shop and indoor archery range next door. Built of cedar and filled with candles, it is a good-smelling shop indeed. We leave in search of another cavern.

This time our tour guide was a geologist but she didn't skimp on the fun history. This cave was a speakeasy at one point, for example. And the first people to explore it were twelve women. Women.

The best part was that we didn't have to walk. It was like a hayride. We sat and drank coffee from the gift shop and took pictures and asked questions without shifting our weight and getting bored of standing up. This is the lazy Danielle shining through. The edge of the trailer gave me a place to stabilize my camera since I had it on "no flash" which makes the shutter speed really long which makes the pictures really blurry. I felt like I was a sniper, holding my breath and squeezing the trigger between heartbeats.

Heather and I met this great girl our age in the restroom and talked about hair extensions, life, and travel. She was so friendly and if she's reading this, I just want to give her a shout out for !asking my day!

Then we rushed to a national park before its closing time to get more stamps for heather's national parks book! This park was a civil war battleground where a lot of guerrilla-style warfare went on. There I met a woman and we connected over her hair. I learned how to achieve the blonde she has, too, because her hairdresser let her in on the ins and outs of the whole process. She is also a historic costume designer! How cool is that?

There, I also got a high-five from a ranger for having pink hair. That made me feel good.

We found a warmer hotel. It is called the "precious moments some chain or other hotel" and has precious moments sculptures and stuffed animals in the gift shop and precious moments artwork all over the walls.

How precious.

Gateway to the West

So anyway. Getting to saint Louis was easy; getting a cheap room in the city was not (go figure). I was tired and ready to spend anything, or even go for a hostel with very eerie reviews, but heather and I used an app called "hotel tonight" and found something surprising. Our room wads spacious and even had couches! We ate easy mac with my business cards folded up as makeshift spoons at the coffee table just like we eat dinner at home (minus the cards).

We asked the man at the front desk where we could get milk for the cereal we brought in and he activated a card for us: "room 817 - and feel free to leave some of your pop tarts." Room 817 was for premium guests it had a fridge with milk and a rack of granola bars, etc. We left a couple of our pop tarts in exchange for the milk. I felt very surreptitious.

We walked to the arch the next day. St Louis seemed windier than the windy city, and very quiet. We asked about this and apparently it's normal. Due to its unusual shape, there are very star-trek ish "trolleys" to the top instead of "regular" elevators. And the sound of shifting cables plus the sight of dimly-lit spiral staircases, riveted sheets of metal, and ladders was what I like to call "something else."

Upon arriving at the top, the windows were just like they look like from the bottom, little horizontal rectangles with a big view. While trying to get a meaningful photograph out of one of them, I hear a beckoning to come over and get a picture taken with my sister. And then, the unthinkable. The man asks, "Would you like a picture with your camera?" I pause visibly. There was that one cute kid in Kenya, but normally I don't care for people to use my camera.

One of the ladies with him read my mind. "He's a photographer," she said. I smiled at myself as I handed my baby over and got the first picture of myself (plus my sister) on my memory card for this trip. It was quite a nice photo.

The four people were so pleasant and encouraging about our journey. I hope to see them again someday!

There was also a very cool law enforcement ranger who referred to the first half of our drive through Missouri as "deliverance" country (and then had to explain the movie to us). If the first part was, then I'm pretty sure all of it was, actually. But the people were nice. Two people so far have pulled over and asked if we were okay (which of course we weren't). One man even got out of his car.

The ranger told me that once the museum underneath the arch is finished, it won't be about westward expansion anymore, it'll be about Missouri. And the arch is supposed to be the gateway to the west. Sometimes governmental people have to make decisions and the ones they make don't always make sense.

Also, rangers have to pay for their own oparking (including when there are big games and events in the city and the price goes wayyy up). Ridiculous.

Fellow ranger "deliverance country"

Coming in from our long walk through the blustering walk to the arch (our only stop was a brief stop in the entrance of an old church recommended by a tour book. It was in the entrance while people were exiting with ash on their foreheads that we realized Mardi gras, was, on fact yesterday and today was ash Wednesday. We made a graceful exit and left the full church with beautiful singing behind.), the security guard notifies me, "you've got a little...run...there." - referring to the mascara running down my face.

This is no ordinary mascara. This is IT mascara, innovative technologies mascara, the first to make me feel comfortable without fake eyelashes since I first started wearing those eyelash-destroyers.

I also I have an IT suitcase. Coincidence? I think NOT. Not significant, though.

...And these are no ordinary mascara runs. They are scars from doing battle with the eleven degree wind chill outside. They will be documented forever in the souvenir photo heather and I are bringing home with us.

We get get "concretes" (blizzards) from a stand where you I have to order outside. Ridiculous, right?  The man there tells us about people who pass through driving the route in brand new cars given to them by radio stations for some reason. Guess we missed that boat.

But we didn't miss the boat to the meramec caverns tour. Heather wanted to see it and she wished so hard that even though we arrived significantly past closing time, a very charismatic and knowledgeable man led us on a tour that lasted an hour and 20 minutes. I mean, that's what he said it would be. I wouldn't be surprised if it was two hours. I learned about dolmite, limestone, manganese, iron, expand more. Even a different kind of formation that takes place in stagnant water which was unfamiliar to me.

This man's life story came out slowly. He was an artist and continued from there doing a range of things until a misunderstanding sent him back to Missouri. It was hard for me to understand, but tjhe thought came to mind that everybody's life story makes sense to them.

There was a motel along the way with some history, next to a barbecue place with some authenticity to it. We stayed there. It was a creepy night. I put my coat and the laundry bag up against the cracks in the door to insulate. The front desk lady left right after we checked in and the only other guests left just as we were settling in. It's called in the wagon wheel motel. It has a nice sign and a nice gift shop.

My sister made a recording of my snoring on her phone and played it for me upon my waking. She says it's constant. Her life must be very unpleasant when I am asleep.

Let's Not and Say We Did

Have I mentioned that, among all of the unrelated and ridiculous jewelry you can buy in Chicago gift shops, I did not see any jewelry boasting a shiny replica of the Chicago bean. Of course, one never finds what one hopes to find. Perhaps the bean is copyrighted, as any other work of art would be.

You can get bean jewelry online but the beans are shaped like vegetable beans.

In Lincoln, Illinois, there is a building with a telephone booth on the roof. In the tour book there was a picture of a different picture right next to that paragraph so I was led to believe the booth was inside the dome of the courthouse. The nice man who showed us the beautiful domed ceiling of the courthouse pointed us across the street to the city hall, a brick building...with a white, glass-walled telephone booth right on the roof. (It would've been cooler if it was blue since I'm a Doctor Who fan.)

We walked inside knowing they were planning on taking it down soon for "safety" reasons but asked to go up anyway. The person up front was a woman so we couldn't flirt at all to make our way up the stairs. She said no. (So I guess it's for the best it wasn't blue!)

Somewhere along the road after that we were passing through yet another lonely agro-industrial town-village and nearly drove by this gloriously kitschy route 66 junk storefront. There was a big sign, a few old cars out front, lots of lawn ornaments, a Betty Boop poster next to one of Marilyn Monroe, lots and lots of old gas station signs, a couple of old pumps, and a sign that said, "open all the time, except when closed."

We took lots of pictures, then moved on.

We most recently saw a giant sculpture of a green and yellow frog up the hill from us on our side of the road. Before that, there was a pink elephant wearing hipster glasses. I write these down because these things are smack on the side of the road with no place to stop and get out to take pictures. It's also cold and we also don't have all the time in the world.

When we got to Springfield Illinois, our magnificent tour guide Jennie took us around the house former President Lincoln owned with his wife and I believe four children (one died very young). I was very impressed by how much of the interior was original.

Maybe it's just because I'm older now, but the tours I've been on are incredibly more I interesting than I have expected.

There's a place called Carlinville (which I imagine is a bit like Levittown) where there is a large remnant of houses installed right out of the Sears catalog.  People could pick a house, order it, and have it built by sears, and here in Carlinville was a whole neighborhood if we were willing to drive 24 extra miles.

Nope.

We'll look up pictures later.

Right before Saint Louis there is supposed to be a super-long walking bridge called Chain of Rocks bridge. And I couldn't help but sing "chain chain chaaain....chain of rooocks"

This bridge is difficult to find in the dark with contradicting signs and directions. We found a bridge but it didn't look like the one in the picture and so I will refer to grandpa's legendary joke statement (because I'm pretty sure he never actually did this) "let's not and say we did." Therefore: we saw Chain of Rocks bridge and moved on to Saint Louis.

Hot Sauce

Today Heather and I set out for Springfield after a healthy, hearty hostel breakfast.

It quickly became apparent to us that there would be little staring out of windows today. We brought books along to read to each other across the country, but if the complicated directions in our route 66 guidebook continue, the trip will proceed like this: Heather drives, I read the directions, and when the directions stop making sense we pull over and Heather makes it work again.

We were introduced to the feeling of being half in the middle of nowhere but half somewhere. The snow spread flat and largely uninterrupted except for roads and industrial shindigs and power plants.

Signs would pop up: "Town Name : Population 500" or even 2500 for one town. One town described itself as a small town with a big heart, which was very sweet.

We stopped for some legendary hot dogs which were pretty much hot dogs, and photo ops along the way "Look over THERE! Pull over!"

As the light faded our quest for Springfield became more frantic. Would our exhausted minds make it? No, let's just get to Lincoln and stay the night.

No doubt due to the season and a God that loves us, sister and I found a hotel room. I feel like a queen in my queen bed.

Also, there is a man named Billy Bob who lives in Chicago and is looking for work and makes YouTube videos and wants to make a Wizard of Oz remake based on the healthcare system and wants to be a motivational speaker. His favorite restaurant gives him hot sauce whenever he walks in, and he told us where a better sign was for The Beginning of route 66. I wish him the best.

The Road

Trucks are a big part of the road system anywhere one goes. In Kenya they're called "lorries." We passed by one that I imagined looked about the shape of the kind of truck that hauls pigs off to the slaughter - except this one was covered in black tarp - a small nod to humanity perhaps, on such a cold day. Not that such a thin covering would keep the poor pigs from dying of cold before they got to the slaughterhouse. 

But that was all in my imagination. Perhaps I should do more research. 

There's an Elizabeth Arden perfume, I believe, called "red door." There was a spoof on it in the form of an SNL "ad" where a man narrates "she's funny, but not in a ha-ha sort of way. (Awkward pause.) More in a scary sort of way." The visual is a well-dressed and polished woman at a society party making faces at a man and then changing them after hiding her face behind a napkin. A deep advertorial voice comes on and names the perfume as the image of the bottle appears: "Red Flag." 

Another SNL clip worth reporting: a hick voice narrating the beginning of a movie: "papa always believed laughter was the best medicine. I guess that's why eleven of us died of tuberculosis when we were youngins."

There's a reason I was glued to the TV instead of the pizza. 

Have you experienced a suddenly warmed heart when someone driving your way on a dark, dark road has turned of his brights for you? It makes you feel seen, considered. Loved. 

Have you also experienced the miracle of four-way flashers? It is so accurate and understandable. "Avoid me."  "I'm lost." "I'm not from around here." "Just drive around." "Don't expect me to do anything right."

A miracle. 

It is also a miracle that we are doing this in the OFF season so that the pressure comes only from our own confusion, not from other frazzled drivers, too. 

There's a lady I met at a gas station as I was buying yet another red bull in exchange for the use of her bathroom. We exchanged our hair's life stories. I never once told her about my cosmetology background, but was able to understand her as she told me about getting the type of perm she didn't ask for and the type of haircut her hairstylist wanted and she didn't. I congratulated her on cutting her mermaid hair to a more reasonable length (after having thought about it for two years) and we parted amiably. I really hope that as a cosmetologist I will be able to maintain the identities of my clients that they have through their hair. I love out-of-salon experiences like this to show me how to listen. 

Now that I have left the Chicago hostel, I can officially say that the girls with whom I shared the room totally friendly, totally respectful. I think sometimes it is easier for people to get along the less we are familiar with one another. We respect each other's strangerness. 

In Chicago were a few beautiful sculptures. My dilemma: if they already are works of art, why photograph them in an effort to make my own piece of art?

I tried to express this to my sister whose indifference showed me that my idea was kind of an excuse not to try. The next morning we revisited the sculptures and I found the most amazing compositions in some of them. At the end of my trip, I'll give you the link to see the best photos from my trip. 

I have so much more to share: lincoln's house, the St. Louis arch and the amazing people I met there, the wagon wheel motel - the nice man at the hotel before that who let us get milk for our cereal out of the vip lounge (!) - but there's more driving to do. Probably in Tulsa Oklahoma where we stop to see family I'll catch up. 

I also want to share about running mascara and my sister's seventh circle of hell (aka my constant snoring). More later. 

Gift

Heather and I spent Valentine's day with our family near Detroit.

Mommy and Daddy gave us chocolate in envelopes to open on that day. My bar had a colorful Mona Lisa on it. My parents know me.

And do you want to know something dreadful? One of our cousins is sick! But this cousin was such a good sport, and so was everyone else about our stay. Heather and I kind of didn't want to leave.

The drive from PA was rough. We stopped as little as possible, didn't lollygag, didn't run into traffic. We lapped each rest area building to keep our sanity. But it kind of barely worked. If aunt, uncle and cousins weren't there to greet us we might have been very forlorn that night.

My cousins are adventuresome, achieving, atypical, amusing, and attractive (good for "a" words, right?) and each time I see them they're so different from the last time yet very much exactly themselves.

I visited the MAC makeup counter at the mall with the gang and the manager and I had a nice conversation. I kind of want to move to Detroit now and work there.

But I also want to live in Chicago and go to the art school there. This is why: Heather and I walked by the Art Institute and, among the omnipresent "falling ice" signs on the sidewalks, a student had posted: "falling ice/falling dice/falling mice/falling rice/in any case, take care and use caution." And I laughed and said, "There must be an art school nearby." And I looked up, and there was the sign.

I'll probably want to live in all of the places I stay.

Gift or curse?

Certainly not a curse.