We Win Some and We Lose Some

One of the ongoing things about this nomadic life is that we sometimes feel like we have more control over things than we really do, and we have to remind ourselves to go with the flow and laugh about things that didn't go like we had hoped. Like a lot of other things (maybe most other things), it would go better if you could do it first and then do it AFTER you learned how.

Technology being what it is, we can mostly decide where we should go next, then find the campground that suits us best in or around that place, and make reservations. Mostly we are trying to figure it out based on some kind of understanding of where the campground is in relation to where we want to go, and then from an online map of the campground that shows where each available campsite is. The thing that requires a sense a sense of humor is that you can make these choices but it is still a crapshoot, and not the least of which because you don't know who is going to be next to you in the campground, or what is going to happen when you get there.

After we left San Diego (where, by the way, we had an infestation of VERY tiny ants, and it took days and more than a few barely repressed desires to blow the trailer to bits with a hand grenade to conquer), we stayed for one night in a spectacular campground in the part of Orange County I like best to remember from my youth. The Crystal Cove state park is partly in Laguna Beach, and partly in Newport Beach, and ALL stunningly beautiful. We had what was probably the single most beautiful campsite of the trip so far, and the sound of the pounding waves was spectacular. Downside, besides price? (California is remarkably more expensive than the other places we have been.) Next door neighbors who sat outside by their fire talking, drinking and laughing just a few feet away from our heads until we finally asked them to cut it out...first nicely at 11:30, and then not so nicely at 12. See what I mean? Great spot, lousy neighbors. By the time they finally turned in, we did in fact go to sleep to the crashing of the waves, but by then we were a little crabby.

Beautiful campsite

 

Ready to roll out after a bad sleep

From the bike path at the park

 The next night we went to what is likely to be even more of a win some/lose some memory. Los Angeles doesn't have many campgrounds to choose from. Basically, inside the city there is ONE. It is a state beach that is both directly on the beach...and almost directly at the airport. Because it is right on the beach (quite literally; the RV park is a parking lot at the ocean), there is the sound of the ocean and a big wide beach to walk on. Because it is at the airport, there is also the sound of planes going by. The bike path that stretches all the way from here to Santa Monica along the water is here too. The first day we were here we had a beautiful ride to Marina del Rey, and we liked it so much that we felt sad that the next day, when we had plans with friends and then a Dodgers game with family, we wouldn't have more time to ride along the shore and enjoy the weather. So we paid for another night.

Truly. This is the beach at the "campground"

We had two wonderful days in LA visiting several friends and seeing a great ball game. Then we came back to the campground to find that the nice rain that occurred while we were at Dodger stadium was a raging ocean storm at the beach. Our trailer awning, which we had left extended for the shade it was providing during the day, was ripped from its mooring. There was sand EVERYWHERE. The wind was howling! We did what we could and then climbed into bed in a trailer that was practically rocking from the wind. This morning we woke up to find sand blown all over the place, including covering some of the beautiful flowers they had planted near the buildings. And the extra day we paid for, because it was so nice, to ride our bikes? We not only couldn't ride our bikes, the wind was still blowing so hard we couldn't even walk on the beach. We have spent most of this "extra" day indoors, looking out the windows at spectacular high surf, then wandering outside for all of two minutes before we rush back inside! This is what I mean about trying to control what happens, and by winning some and losing some.

One more thing: being at the ocean and also at the airport means every time you look up, you see both pelicans and airplanes. The airplanes make a lot more noise.

We are just about to see the sun sink into the ocean, while tremendous waves and whitecaps crash the shore. Where are we going to be seeing this fabulous sight? From inside the trailer, out the window. Oh well. 

A plane and a pelican go by

That Feeling of Being Too Busy and Losing Track of Time

Somewhere about a month ago I lost my mojo for writing about our trip. It wasn't helped by the fact that I didn't have my iPad for awhile, and haven't had even a decent cell signal in some of the places we have been. And sometimes I'm just too busy doing it to think about it or write about it. Now I'm all together with my technology, and I'm going to try to catch up, but as our old friend Charles Bukowski said, the days run away like wild horses over the hills.

We had a wonderful time in the spectacular Sedona, which is simply one of the most beautiful places in the world. Well, I haven't seen much of the world, so let's just say one of the most beautiful places in this country. (But I suspect the world is right.) We stayed outside Sedona at a state park in a very sweet little town called Cottonwood. I fell in love with Cottonwood, and it is just about as cute as a town could get. We had a little fantasy about spending part of the year there, and a darned good fantasy it was.

Sedona is so beautiful that it takes your breath away.

Sedona landscape

Such blue skies and such red rock

It's a bit too much of a "resort town," which is why I think I might rather live nearby instead. We had a fun conversation about how different the trip would be if we were "auditioning" places to live instead of just visiting. Besides Cottonwood seeming pretty close to perfect, we spent an afternoon in Flagstaff, and it was wonderful. I was all ready to pick that as my new fantasy, but Flagstaff is quite cold and snowy in winter, so it's hard to see how that would improve anything for me in my fantasy life. But what a great place that is. I hope I get a chance to spend more time there some day.

Our campsite in Cottonwood at sunset

The most amazing place we went while I was "gone" from this journal was Joshua Tree National Park. That is one amazing place. We have seen a lot of interesting environments of mountains and rock formations and desert. Each of them has been wonderful and unique. But Joshua Tree is just amazing. It seems more like a science fiction western movie than a real place. There are so many different landscapes there, still inside the park, and each one seems more amazing than the last. Besides the Joshua trees, which are all by themselves worth a trip,

What interesting trees!

Joshua Tree landscape

Cholla cactus field

there are big boulders, acres and acres of cactus, tall mountains that give you a view for dozens of miles, and just the empty empty empty land and sky that make the desert such an amazing place. It seems rather unbelievable that people lived in the desert before the invention of air conditioning. I felt glad not to be there in summer! But when you are there on a beautiful warm day, and then get to sleep all bundled up in the covers at night because it's quite cold, it seems pretty delightful. Great walks, great drives, and an afternoon trip to Pioneer Town, which I definitely should have taken pictures of, because it's quite a place. Lots of western movies were shot there a long time ago, and it's still an interesting place to visit. It's not quite like a ghost town, but it has an interesting "movie set" feel. We visited the well-known Pappy and Harriet's bar and restaurant, and weren't too surprised to hear some people sitting at the bar talking about the musician Gram Parsons, who died at the Joshua Tree Inn back when it was the only motel in town. When there really wasn't even a town.

People sitting at the bar discussing Gram Parsons

After leaving Joshua Tree, we spent the next couple of weeks visiting friends and family in Southern California. Abbie and Hannah, and Abbie's boyfriend Mugo, joined us in San Diego, although only Hannah stayed outside the city with us at the campground. We had some wonderful times with family, and with friends that feel like family. It was so hard to leave them, but I can't say I will miss the freeways and the traffic and congestion. At this moment, however, we are in a campground in a state park in Laguna Beach, and I can hear the crash of the ocean waves while I'm writing this. There are the compensations!

Tomorrow it is on to Los Angeles for a couple of days, more friends and family, and a Dodgers game, which will be great because I haven't been there since I was a kid. I'm spending a lot of time thinking about the good parts and not so good parts of where I grew up and where I live now...and all the places I might live if I were trying to figure it out based on this trip. What a big country this is! And so many incredibly diverse landscapes and environments. I feel so lucky to see so much of it.

Respect for Water, Rocks, and Trees that are Also Rocks

While we were in Santa Fe we went to Bandolier National Monument, which is among about a dozen sites we have been to where people lived a very long time ago, on land that does not seem designed for human habitation. When you go to places like this, it makes you think about what it was like for native people to roam these lands, or make a permanent home, in a place where there is very little water, not too many trees,  both extremely hot and extremely cold weather, and very little shelter. It gives me enormous respect for the hardiness and resourcefulness of the people (even though they mostly didn't make it to this age and time). It's hard to stop wondering, where did they go? Why did they leave? It's an enormous mystery.  Many of these sites have incredible petroglyphs too,

so you can't help but spend a lot of time thinking about the people who were here, and wondering about their lives. They left so little of themselves behind; just enough to leave you awe-stricken and curious.

The site at Bandolier had a modern twist, because a year or so ago there had been an enormous flood across this land not suited for rushing water, and it swept much of a small forest down the canyon. The power of the water to sweep away everything in its path is a fearsome sight. In many places in
the southwest there are huge dry creek beds, so wide that it causes you to look around the desert and
wonder how so much water could have rushed by so fast as to leave a huge gap in the surface (not to mention carve enormous canyons), when you can't see any water, anywhere at all. Here is a modern view of the power of the water to move things, from the flood at Bandolier.

This water fountain was at the bottom of  the trail at Bandolier. Not sure how far away it started out.

Much of this land looks like something created for an amazing sci fi movie, with enormous mountains, rocks seemingly balanced on a tiny point high above the land, rocks that look like they have been painted for our enjoyment, and a science lesson which hurts the brain around every corner.

Yesterday we went to Petrified Forest National Park, and the Painted Desert. The views of rock layers in many different shapes and colors was just stunning. I don't think pictures quite reveal how eerie and beautiful and other-worldly  it looks.

All from the Painted Desert

At Petrified Forest, there are logs left from a very long time ago (Triassic, not Jurrasic, which means older than dinosaurs), when this land was densely forested and also kind of tropical. This was at the time before the continents broke apart. We are talking A REALLY LONG TIME AGO. The trees in this forest fell, as trees do, especially when there are torrential floods like the one at Bandolier but worse and for a long time. Then they were under water for a few centuries or millennia....and in a chemistry event that REALLY makes the brain hurt, the silica in the land and water covering the fallen trees started replacing the cells of the trees with cells of rock. No, I obviously don't understand it either. Anyway, then the water left, but first it washed away everything, and now it's a desert with no water or trees anywhere....but there are parts of these trees, that are really rocks, hanging around in a place that used to be a forest. It's all kind of impossible to either explain or understand. 

Some of these petrified logs look so much like rocks that you can't believe it was ever a tree.

 Some look so much like trees that it is shocking to realize it is really a rock. 

And some look exactly like BOTH a rock and a tree.

It's too bad I have never been a science-y person, because there is a boatload of science here that is pretty darned amazing.

We are continuing our trip westward. Next we will be in Sedona, where we will stay for a few days before going on to Joshua Tree. I'll have a lot more opportunity to think about land and rock and desert and the passage of time, and the people who came before, and what a person might learn from it all. If I'm lucky I'll also take some nice walks and drives, maybe ride my bike, and drink some good beer and eat some good Mexican food.

But in the meantime, on the historic Route 66 , there are all kinds of miraculous sights.  Like this one.

And on Highway 40, which replaced Route 66, there also occasionally interesting sights too. But none so amazing as this one:

Yes, they ARE related to me, and there is some sort of cemetery there where people who are related to me from a branch of my grandfather's family (can you tell I have no idea?) are buried, and the whole place is filled with McCarrell people. And even on this tour-the-whole-country-and-take-your-time-doing-it trip, we didn't stop to figure it out.

Maybe next time.

The Southwest, Petroglyphs, and Another Experience of the Past

We are in Santa Fe for a week after spending several days in Albuquerque. We are now fully immersed in the geography and the feel of the Southwest. The idea that New England, the South, and the Southwest are all part of the same country just boggles the mind.

Our sheltered picnic table at a campground just north of ABQ. In the middle distance is a bluff overlooking the Rio Grande.

The way the past haunted me while we were in the South has completely turned itself around in the Southwest. The past is everywhere here, too. But here the awareness of an area's past brings a feeling of reverence, respect, and awe. The landscape here is so breathtaking that it feels holy. Maybe it's possible to imagine a sort of romanticized vision of a life before strip malls and fast food and cars and advertising and modern chaos. Those images feel accessible when gazing across a landscape that is mostly open and uncluttered. Maybe it's just the bigness of the open spaces and the size of the sky. But it is hard to feel anything besides awe when gazing across this land. Pictures from a cell phone camera just aren't going to cut it.

We have visited a number of places where the mix of cultures that have defined the history of this region are visible in one place. There are many ruins of the Anasazi that were here longer ago than recorded time. There are many artifacts or ruins of the Pueblo tribes who were here before the Spanish arrived, and who are still here, in the same spot as their ancestors,  going as far back as can be traced. There is much evidence of the arrival of the Spanish, who came to "save the souls" of the native peoples. And, of course, evidence everywhere of the influx of Mexicans--well, of the fact that this used to Mexico--in textile patterns and foods, and the faces and voices of the people. It's all more visible here, in its individual parts, than in most parts of this country. It's very interesting. And the land is incredibly beautiful. The blueness of the sky against the red and gold of the rock, and the green of the piñon trees, just takes the breath away.

Among the most amazing of all of these things are the petroglyphs left on the rocks by people who were here about 700 years ago. No one knows for sure what the markings mean. Were they sign posts for people traveling in the paths of those who went before? Surely they were informational as well as
ceremonial, but all we know is the evidence that people were here a long time ago, and they lived a life that was very tied to the earth. How lucky we are to get to witness the evidence that they were here.

We were lucky to see wildflowers growing in the canyons.

This is what the rocks at Petroglyph National Monument look like when you're walking

This is what you see when you look up close

And the cities are interesting too. Albuquerque lacks some of the obvious charm of some of the places we have been. But the setting of the city is so spectacular, and it has a certain funky charm of its own. One of the best things we did was ride a tram up to the top of Sandia Peak. We had already been noticing the effect of the altitude. One day we were riding our bikes along the Rio Grande on a very nice bike path, and I kept thinking the wind must be blowing, because the riding felt harder than usual. Then I figured out that if you are riding at over 5000 feet above sea level, your lungs are just not quite the same! That tramway goes up a canyon to more than 10,000 feet, in about twenty minutes. When we got up there it was damned cold, first off (maybe 35 degrees with a 25 mph wind), but also both of us felt lightheaded and peculiar. But the view! Spectacular! And we timed it so that we would see the lights come on in the valley below, and see the sun setting. Really amazing.

 We have been lucky too that it is truly Spring here, too. It's still pretty cool during the day, and quite cold at night, but the flowers are blooming and the signs of Spring are everywhere.

Bandolier National monument, between Los Alamos and Santa Fe.

In Albuquerque

Also in Albuquerque

Today we are off to soak in the mineral spring waters at Ojo Caliente, about an hour north of Santa Fe. Santa Fe has charms that are so accessible, and it is so beautiful here, that there really isn't the need to leave. But who wouldn't benefit from a soak in the ancient healing mineral spring? I mean, really? Plus, Georgia O'Keefe's house at Abiquiu is on the way. Who could pass that up?