Marching Ever Onwards
Monday 1 March 2004
At home, very late: Departure still looks to be a week away at least. Shit shit shit. Snow snow snow. Just one damn thing after another. This is so dispiriting. The winter of our discontent stretches on and on.
The problem is psychological. We've been anticipating, expecting, depending on this jaunt for O so long now. Every obstacle seems like FATE deliberately thwarting our desires and needs - and yes, we NEED to get away, to see much more of the world. We've been so tied down, so constrained. Bitch wine bitch whine grump groan grumble... Meanwhile:
Saturday we hit Sutter Creek for lunch, then did Folsom - returned GARGANTUA, the usual shopping, then wandered the historic downtown. Not as good as Jackson, but OK.
Lunch: Back Roads Coffee House on Hwy 49, downtown Sutter Creek (209.267.0440) - voted the best sandwiches in Amador County for the last two years, and with good reason. Coffee machines are noisy but the food is fresh and tasty, ambience is comfy, and the joint usually jumps.
Sunday we drove over to West Point for lunch, looked around the snowy landscape, returned home and I hauled the bike stuff in from storage. I think a skunk is hiding out near the storage container - all our gear smells skunky. Think we'll need new helmets.
Lunch: Grady's BBQ on Hwy 26, downtown West Point (209.293.3303) - the usual tasty BBQ stuff with lots of extras, a good deal and always satisfying. Good place for local gossip too. Sit outside if the sun's out.
Monday we did Jackson for the usual [no fancy lunch]. I'm getting so tired of the usual, including snowy mountain views. The nice thing about snow: days are brighter than during heavy rain, Meanwhile, some of the skunky smell is blowing off the bike gear, but now my office has that sharp odor. I gotta get OUT of here.
Wednesday 3 March 2004
Midday - Sacramento: The last few nights a sadistic moon and bitter sun shone down on our snowy field and forest, outlining wavering tracks of dogs and kids and skunks and cops. Now at last the weather seems to be breaking (Sierra snowpack is at 150% of normal) and a departure date looms: next Monday. That's the current fantasy.
Yesterday was immemorable. Today we're in Sac for provisional approval of Maureen's business plan, our last financial hurdle. Housewise, a fixit guy came this morning, one day early, and hadn't time to complete anything. More harsh words are due the dealer. But now we can concentrate on packing, visiting family over the weekend, then FINALLY hitting the trail for 14 weeks, heading for Desert Rat country.
Lunch: Rubio's Fresh Baja off Truxel at I-80 in Natomas Marketpace, Sac (916.928.8211) - the usual very good Fresh Mex food, fish tacos and phat burritos and salsa bar. Attentive staff. Money's worth.
Later - home: In Sac we scoped-out some electronics - miniDV camcorderws are too expensive just now - finally bought a small cheap printer-scanner-copier for the RV. We shall portate our office across the landscape, woo woo.
Then we rolled homeward under the gunmetal sky, across the rolling indifferent valley margins and up our contemptuous slopes, alone sharp-witted streams and arrogant treelines. Exhausted from the day's psychic exertions we grabbed a huge bake-your-own pizza and submerged into it, gnawing fiercely, mesmerized by hunger like entranced hamsters.
Monday 8 March 2004
At home, early: The weekend is past, the visiting is done, the celebratory meals (bake-ur-self pizzas at Brad & Beth's, Combo 'C' for five at Le's Chinese) are digested, the music CDs are almost in order (a 1.5 day task), and our goal is clear:
pack up and be gone by midday tomorrow. The season has turned; it was warm last night, has been warm for a few days, the roof stopped dripping Saturday because all the snow was gone. Departure is so near.
One waypoint is certain: I just checked with the prediction page and wildflower blooms at Anza-Borrego State Park should peak in the last two weeks of March. The Wildflower Hotsheet doesn't say anything good about Carrizo Plain Nat'l Monument so our hopes ain't high there. But roadside blooms along the Mission Trail should be pretty good.
The latest NPR news says that California gasoline prices just hit a record high. Good thing our fuel bill will be subsidized this trip. Meanwhile, This is probably the last update to this log for awhile. For journey notes, see the SouthWest Slide page and/or the Go2: Journal page. Hasta la vista, bay-beez!
Troops: Forward, HALT!
Wednesday 10 March 2004
Still at home, early: Most everything got loaded into the RV but Maureen was in pain all day Tuesday so takeoff is delayed until today. Probably. She still hurts, will call for medical aid as soon as the help desk opens.
Meanwhile, all change is difficult. Embedded in homesite activities, pulling ourselves away is hard even though desired. Once we hit the road, travelling ANYWHERE, I'm reluctant to return home. We get into a pattern and we stay with it.
LATER - Folsom: We're not journeying yet - Maureen hurts so much (lower back pain - pinched nerve?) - we've done the usual run to Kaiser / Folsom for a fast mid-afternoon appointment - will we ever get away?
The weather is absolutely gorgeous, warm and windy, clear skies. Last week we were snowy, today it's mid-80s and everything blooms. Record high temperatures and gas prices and pain levels.
Lunch: Quiznos Sub off US-50 on E Bidwell in Broadstone Marketpace, Folsom (916.608.9228) - when yer burnt out on Subway, Quiznos is A-OK. Just as long as those wretched sock-puppets ain't "singing". Yow.
PS: The doc (Jim Bui) sez it's just a strained back, no nerve damage. He provides more painkillers and sez to delay the trip for a few days. Bother. I wonder what the fock will happen NEXT?!?!?
The future's not ours to see / Que sera, sera
Sunday 14 March 2004,
strolling down the ridge road
Maureen's pains are diminishing; we MIGHT get away in the next day or two. Unless something else happens. I have despaired for awhile that we would EVER begin this trip.
Which by my internal calendar is now delayed a month and a half. Or half a year, Or something, And now we may have to head straight for Anza-Borrego, skip the Mission Trail leg of the trip. Bother.
This is the first stroll I've taken in awhile. The weather broke about a week ago, but otherwise it's been too inclement to walk around up here. And I'm getting SO BORED with hanging around here. This rural life offers few fresh inputs. Almost wish I was in a town.
So my time has been spent hunched over the computers, expanding and reorganizing my websites.
Couple days ago, I OCR-scanned and formatted those old pseudo-revolutionary notes (I wonder who wrote those?) I just got the SkeptiBot chatterbot installed today. It's very rudimentary, needs a much larger response base. So I need to install responses to all the buzzwords I have on file - metaphysical, paranormal, political. And then expand its area of expertise to include photography, art, music. Yah, that'll sure give me something to do when nothing else is happening...
Recent local events: on our way back from Folsom Tuesday, there was a rollover just downhill from the post office.
Yeah. A pickup, lots of highway impedimentia / emergency vehicles: Highway Patrol, tow trucks, fire trucks, ambulance, all dealing with that. And Friday I drove down to check the mail and just uphill from the post office was another rollover, similar circumstances. And that one had JUST happened, the emergency vehicles were en route as I rifled the PO box. Flatlanders trying to go too fast to get up to the high country, or what?
And then yesterday, the news of the mass murder discovery down in Fresno. Not really local but close enough. Or too close.
GO: To the SOUTH-WEST SLIDE Travel Journal
Travel Op Aborted
Saturday 20 March 2004,
back home again
Umm, well, we drove pretty much full-blast for four days, bagged three missions, had two medical stops, and now we're back. That didn't last long. Got back, wired up the network and found an email from sister Marsha asking where we were. My reply:
From: "Ric Carter" [ric@sonic.net]
To: "Marsha Carter" [dzuki@pe.net]
Sent: Saturday, March 20, 2004 12:03 PM
Subject: Re: your trip
> Hola, mi hermano
Yo, Mar:
> greetings from the armpit of southern california
Armpits are supposed to be warm and snuggly
The Inland Empire must be some other body part
> I assume you have left home and are on your travels,
> wherebouts would you be?
We left early Tuesday afternoon; drove to Kaiser/Folsom
for more medical stuff, then headed south. Campered near
Manteca. Wednesday we cruised down to Los Banos, over to
San Juan Batista (mission), thru Salinas, and crashed at
Laguna Seca. Thursday we soared around Seaside, Monterey,
Carmel (mission), down the coast; campered at Pfeiffer Big
Sur park. Friday Maureen hurt so bad we turned around,
whizzed thru Monterey, Gilroy, Mission San Jose (mission),
Tracy and back to Kaiser/Folsom for a med check and more
drugs. Then we came back home.
So we have no idea what our plans are. Maureen takes
Vicodin and reads about sciatica and lays around until
she stops hurting. Then we take off again, route to be
determined by weather etc. I'll call you when we are
REALLY ACTUALLY on the road and likely to drop in on you.
> and remember this little piece of advice " having a
> positive attitude will not solve all your problems,
> but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the
> effort" I read that somewhere and have chosen it for
> my mantra to live by
"Vicodin will get you thru times of negative attitude better
than positive attitudes will get you thru time of no Vicodin."
That's a paraphase and it's applicable right now.
Hasta la whenever
--Ric
So I'm putting together my notes from the (aborted) trip - they're right here and I may have some pictures up in a couple days. Plenty of time for that before we can try to depart again. If nothing else happens...
Meditation: Why Travel? (4)
Wednesday 24 March 2004, at home
Saturday: do nothing. Sunday: do nothing. Monday: take a walk, do nothing. Tuesday: do nothing. Wednesday: take a walk, do nothing. Thursday: same as before. Friday: do something.
Friday 26 March 2004, Volcano
I'm walking down the ridge road. Manic dayglo squirrels speed by at all levels, cursing me and upcoming generations. The horse looks weary. Something falls from the sky. Meanwhile it was stormy yesterday, colder, rain down here, snow up above. A good day not to go over the hill to Terry's party, up by Mono Lake. Especially with monsters in the Pass.
Current travel fantasy: Maureen's scheduled for a therapeutic massage Monday, so maybe maybe Monday afternoon [or Tuesday morning] we can hop in the RV and go, drive 2 hours at a time, then stop for several hours, do that a couple times a day. And the fantasy goal is Anza-Borrego by next Friday night because the Pegleg Smith Liar's Contest is Saturday next week. That's April 3rd. I sure would like to be there.
Meanwhile I've been doing nothing, which means pounding away on the computers. But they still work! Must get larger hammers.
GO: To the SOUTH-WEST SLIDE Travel Journal (resumed)
Back From The SouthWest
Friday 18 June 2004,
Sacramento, sitting at Kaiser MedCtr
MIDDAY: Waiting for another medical check. Well we got in over a week ago, we've been catching up on things. G'z what happened? Gavin's junior high school graduation - we didn't used to do stuff like that when *I* was that age, the whole outdoor thang with speeches and music and balloons and everything. Then on Friday was Kittra's high school graduation, an even bigger affair. And then on Saturday was Gavin's birthday party with BBQ at the B&B's, and many younger people being thrown into the pool.
We waited around a couple days for the Bisbee documents to arrive. The papers got in, we got'em and signed'em, we shipped'em off on time. We had a Chinese lunch along the way that's messed up our intestines for a couple nights now. Gloop. No more Golden Wok for us.
Somehow the days are blurring, but we are maintaining and preparing for the next phase, which is, what? Get out of town in a month or so, head back to Bisbee. So this first week back is lost in a blur of fatigue and heat. And I've been busy processing pictures and ignoring texs and emails pretty much. Ah, that's gotta stop. Gotta get to work with words.
LATE AFTERNOON, Greater Sacramento. We're staying in town for an Indian auction this evening, and taking a room here at the Marriott in Rancho Cordoba where the auction is happening. We have not stayed in sort of faciliy before except back in Panajachel Guatemala. The situation is somewhat similar: the pool out back, the snack bar by the pool, the greenery, the high-rise monolith. The differences: MANY fewer people here and MUCH louder here since the Marriott is right next to US 50, a major 6-lane, 8-lane freeway. All the phony waterfalls along the soundblocker wall do *something* to ameliorate the noise, but not the sirens. But we'll survive somehow.
Saturday 19 June 2004,
Rancho Cordoba, California
MORNING, 2nd floor, Marriott hotel. The room is comfortable, clean, cozy, quiet except for the bar-club downstairs and the jamming until two in the morning. But the auction and dinner kept us up late so we survived. Dinner at the local Dennys at midnight, the food surprisingly good; ambience, not.
Fun at the auction. A few pots, old and new. A few rugs. A basket. Jewelry. Some decorative items for Bisbee. Some not.
NOONISH, Folsom California. We had brunch at Mimi's on Bidwell, got there just in time for the noon rush. The food is very tasty. Our crab benedicts, crispy crabs and wonderful flavors, good red potatoes. And a little *pain perdu* on the side, that's French toast stuffed with cream cheeze and marmalade. Very satisfying and the place was hopping, with good reason. Now I know why my father used to rave about Mimi's. Not cheap, Not expensive. Not bad. Mimi's is faux New Orleans, possibly cleaner and brighter than the real thing. We noted how much cleaner and brighter and tastier Mimi's was than many of the interiors in which we've dined in the last few months. Tables were full, we ate at the bar, a non-smoking bar. There ARE benefits to being in California.
Tuesday 22 June 2004,
at home in greater Volcano.
Well, busy busy busy. Yeah, Friday night, the auction. Saturday, a busy day of shopping and gadding about the Sacramento area. Then back up here in time for a Newcomers Group dinner, where we sat on a wide porch with a vast overview of the Mokelumne River canyon, talking with an old Scot and an old Bisbeeite and a bunch of other people who I can qualify as old. The Newcomers!
Sunday I keyboarded all day, plugging at processing pictures. Pretty much the same yesterday. We also went out for a swim at Beth and Brad's. Today Maureen's arm hurts so we're not swimming. Tomorrow she's gonna be busy so we won't be swimming. And Freddy's here, taking care of house construction preparatory stuff, so tomorrow will be social. And Thursday will be contractors coming to do some of the warranty work on the house. And life goes on in the mountains. Never a dull moment.
Humdrum Of Life Continues
Thursday 24 June 2004,
at home in greater Volcano.
LATE NIGHT: The humdrum of life continues. Today we waited half a day for crews to come out to work on the house. They never arrived. They couldn't find it. They gave up and turned around, returning to Sacramento without phoning for help - try again tomorrow! So we drove downhill for RV tire repair *that* will be delayed, they didn't have a replacement tire in stock. Then we wandered through WalMart, ran separately into a couple of the Abuelitas, Aunt Ginny and Grandma Shirley. A fine day for family in the aisles.
These last few days we've been accumulating *stuff* for the Bisbee house. An entire kitchen outfit at the dollar store except for the coffepot and toaster from WalMart (both later returned - shoddy crap). But generally, events on the home front aren't worth reporting.
Exept that Fred flew into town to coordinate some details of the construction of his and Sharon's new house. So we dined locally at Le's Chinese with Fred and Bobbie last night. Then sent Fred back to the airport for his return to New Jersey, and had an extensive chat with Bobbie, our first major debriefing of the SouthWest journey.
Other than that our routine has been: Maureen catching up with the paperwork; me catching up with the computer work. We'll break this up this weekend when we go to Tahoe to spend a few days, working off the last of our journey subsidy.
Possible Projects
Maybe somewhere along the time here I'll have time to write again. I'm thinking of some more MORONS guides:
ECONOMIC SYSTEMS FOR MORONS, which would mostly be a collection of jokes pulled in off the InterNet, on the order of: In Communism you have two cows, and in Capitalism you have two cows, et cetera.
BODY PIERCING FOR MORONS would cover the many ways you can be mutilated. Fun fun fun.
DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY FOR MORONS would encompass AboveGround, UnderGround, AboveWater, UnderWater, in light and shade and darkness, photographing the living and the dead, the interesting and the dull, the textured and the flat and the invisible.
MUSIC FOR MORONS would be about making music, experiencing music, avoiding music, stealing music, marketing music, et cetera.
RVing FOR MORONS would be about short- and long-term motorhome experiences, and could spin off a series of travel guides, state guides: CALIFORNIA FOR MORONS and ARIZONA FOR MORONS and NEW MEXICO FOR MORONS, et cetera. And national guides, and theme-travel guides, all that crap. Make a fortune.
Next project: Take or steal photographs of Navaho rugs, process'em to look like art. Print them, see if they sell. Do that with Indian pottery and jewelry and everything, images of SouthWestern pueblos and ruins, images of missions, and of course the old processed pictures of landscapes, famous people and animals. All cropped and posterized.
More immediately, I'd better.bag and pack my synthesizers. I'm not gonna be using them for a while. Might as well get'em outa the dust. Damn, and I'd had such high hopes for making electronic music.
MEDITATIONS: Which reminds me that traveling through space is like traveling through relativistic time: everything left behind ages more quickly. Devices, especially technological, left behind become more obsolete, faster. The left-behinds are stranded in realtime while we move on through a distinct space-time bubble. Which is all the more reason for possessing only the smallest, most portable devices. Anything not taken is just another anchor in the past.
All those projects I kept putting off are also such anchors; or more likely, baggage left behind during the overland journey-crossing, like the household gear abandoned by westward migrants on the California Trail, the Oregon Trail... Jettisoned for another necessity because they can't be borne on the wind of time.
Eventually all we can carry with us are memories. But are they the lightest or heaviest of our loads? No, I try to cast aside the heavy memories too. Is that a part of self-reinvention?
I don't know when or if I'll play guitar again, or mandolin; and what's the point of writing songs that I'll never sing? So much baggage, so much weight, so many (mumble)...
Wednesday 30 June 2004,
Tahoe City, California.
TAHOE HO! We came up here for a few subsidized days - drove up Sunday, up the Carson Pass route. As I recall there was at least one accident. I recall seeing a motorcycle very badly smashed up. We came up the west side of the lake to Tahoe Vista, over my protests. I was exhausted, would really rather have stayed home, but I agreed to come.
We had a cabin reserved for several nights in Tahoe Vista. But it was noisy and buggy and expensive for this long-faded motor court, even with the upgrade to a cottage. So we bugged out, headed over to Incline Village in Nevada to the Hyatt, and got a quiet room high above everything. (Insert comments about the room -- less than satisfied.)
Meandering around North Shore for a couple days, little to report. Expensive. OK high-end food at the Hyatt, really tasty low-end food at Mr. T's Mesquite. A really superb very high-end lunch at PlumpJack in Squaw Valley. In between, I almost got the work done I was hoping for, keyboarding, doing-up the journey journal. Processing pictures, many pictures.
Now we're wandering around in the dusk, in a park, a little spit of land shooting out from the north side of Tahoe somewhere east of Tahoe City. A riot of lupines and owl's clover and yellow peas and mullein. Beyond the lake filled with sails, heavy clouds overhead, snowy peaks to the south. And it's hard to hear the traffic. This little park is LAKE FOREST BEACH, PLACER COUNTY PARK. It's just so gorgeous! I think it's on Lake Forest Road. Duh.
Thursday 1 July 2004,
returning from Lake Tahoe
TAHOE HA! I've been busy busy busy working on journey images, haven't even emailed the Go2Go2Go2 list yet about our return. Soon... Then last Sunday we left for Lake Tahoe (north shore) for the last 5 days, 4 nights of what passes for off-time. I'd rather have stayed in Volcano and keyboarded - as it was I spent half our Tahoe time in hotel rooms, keyboarding. Big deal.
We'd booked into a lodge in Tahoe Vista, a queen suite upgraded to a full cabin, but it was NOISY, much too close to the highway. One night there was more than enough. Inquiries led us eventually to a discount room at the Hyatt in Incline Village, an alleged **** 4-star hotel with many amenities. Right.
Our Hyatt room was a Parlour, which is meant for business meetings but has a (small, uncomfortable) fold-a-bed for sleeping over. The room was 27 feet square, the size of my old house in 29 Palms, but somehow they put the EtherNet port behind the TV armoire and had the conference table on the other side of the room. Then there was the non-working phone, and the light switches, and... (don't get me started!)
Ah well. Food at the Hyatt was tasty, fat and overpriced, presented in a tolerable high-end ambience. Two lunches there were all we could stand. We had a final dinner at the Wild Goose in King's Beach, which was delicious and delightful five years ago but has slipped a bit since then - it's about to become a private club, and we won't miss it. By far our best meals were at the PlumpJack Cafe in Squaw Valley, expensive and worth every penny.
THE WILD GOOSE: This looks like the same place we enjoyed a fine feed with family from around the continent back around 4 July 1999. Enter along the narrow walkway into a glass-lined room bordered by dressed stone walls, past the fetching bartender's window-backlit performance space. Then out to one side or another of the plate glass that backs the breezy patio, a marina-load of boats foreshortening the east Tahoe peaks. Interior decor is stark, clean, modern, as are the staff. It all looks fine, even the menu.
But something ain't right. They don't pay close attention. The food is off, what there is of it (which ain't much), when they remember to deliver it (after being prompted.) One of the after-dinner sweets was the best part of the entire meal. Maybe it's best that this will soon be for the timeshare clients only - the Wild Goose wouldn't survive in the competitive Tahoe environment, serving the general public like this.
THEN WHAT? Other than eat and keyboard and sleep, what did we do? Poked around shops in Tahoe City and Squaw Valley a bit; saw a fine Salvadore Dali show at a gallery in Squaw; walked along the Tahoe shore a bit (wonderful parks at Tahoe City and Lake Forest, color-riots of flowers against the mountains and clouds and thunderstorms). That's about it.
So, no swimming or boating or parasailing or jetskiing or skateboarding or biking or rafting or gambling or divorcing. We just dodged the regular afternoon storms and pretended to be vacationing, as though life isn't a permanent vacation now.
So now we'll prepare to entertain on Saturday, then spend a couple weeks packing up for our sojourn in Bisbee Arizona. There's always another adventure, eh?
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