Past and Present Merging on the Road to Anywhere

"As travelers age, we carry along ever more journeys, especially when we cross through a remembered terrain where we become wayfarers in time as well as space, where physical landscapes get infused with temporal ones.  We roll along on a road, into a town, pats a cafe, a hotel, and we may hear stories and rising memories.  Then our past is got with feet, and it comes forth: There, I met her there.  Or, That's the place, that's where he told me about the accident.  Since each day lived gets subtracted from our allotted total, recollections may be our highest recompense: to live one moment a score of times."

William Least Heat-Moon: The Road to Quoz.

I'm driving through a circuitous mountain pass, tight switch-backs, sharp drop-offs--and I remember cruising through the Great Smokeys on the back of Mike's Harley, six years ago, and winding up in Gatlinburg, where we danced at some little roadside cabana, as In Love as teenagers. 

I'm driving down Route 66 on this trip, and I get a whoosh of memories of these same roads fifty years ago: once with my Uncle and two cousins in a red convertible, later with my parents and Bob in a 1962 blue Pontiac.  Time collapses and I can hear their voices in the front seat, and I am a passenger again.  We are singing in the car.

I'm driving through places that remind me of places we traveled in a blue Volvo in the 80s after our house fire, pulling a pop-up trailer.  It was the summer before Will's first grade year, and Day was about to start high school. They are talking in the back seat, and I'm eavesdropping from the front passenger seat.   Those ten weeks, those 26 states, stretch out in memory as the happiest of times.  Day is drawing in her notebook; Will is planning to pan for gold at the next river.    

Any trip takes a traveler through what I call "emotional currents"--just hearing a snippet of a song or getting a whiff of a particular scent can evoke a strong emotional reaction: physical landscapes are indeed infused with temporal ones.

I never know which me I will be around the next bend: daughter, lover, mother--or even some version of myself I haven't met yet.  Unfamiliar landscapes bring out all one's former and present selves,  reviving the past in ways that are both haunting and exhilarating. 

Barbel's Carrot Soup

I just got an email from Barbel:


I just read all your last entries with great pleasure, it's like sitting next to you in your cute car, loving the way how you drive, trying not to remind you about your 'leaning posture' (the worried Virgo) and just having fun in your presence and DISCOVERING.

It'll be fun being your 'ghost companion' on your travels.



Now here is the 'description' of my carrot soup since it varies whenever I make it, it's never a fixed recipe:

- slowly sauté  carrot pieces (peeled and cut into slices) in butter, 
  add chopped red onion, fresh ginger, apple, orange, pieces of half cooked sweet potatoes
- add spices: a little sugar, fresh lemon juice, salt, CAYENNE pepper, curry, cumin
- cover with organic vegetable or chicken BROTH
- cook until carrots etc. are soft (max. 1/2 an hour)
  when cooked:  mash it up ……. done =  lecker lecker lecker !
  (sometimes I add raw cashew nuts, or serve it with mango slices, or avocado slices, or sprinkled parsley ……….)


Traveling, I'm not gluten-free, dairy-free, meat-free--I'm eating whatever looks good!
But when I go home, this is going to be my favorite recipe--just hope I can make it as delicious as Barbel's.

"Lecker" is the German word for "delicious"--and that it is!

One for me, one for Day

So here they are:
the most incredible chocolate-
dipped macaroons from a Sedona
pizza shop.....

Just as I was on my way to get one for myself, Day called--and we were talking about a mystery ailment she's having checked out tomorrow.

I made this up on the spot, but I think it's true (and so does she:)  Dark chocolate, purchased by one's mother on one's behalf, guarantees that the results will be good, that all will be well.

Have I been in the woo-woo world
of Sedona long enough that it's getting into my head, or what?

All I know for sure is that if you tasted these, you'd believe in anything, too!
They are delectable, light and fluffy on the inside, with a dark chocolate crust on the outside--and I'm pretty sure that it's the dark chocolate combined with the vortexes and blue eyed bears that makes everything all better!

Woo Woo Cookies

I I haven't tried these yet, but plan to make them for my writing groups when I get back home--inspired by Pisa Lisa in Sedona.   Chocolate Dipped Coconut Macaroons Recipe Demonstration - Joyofbaking.com by Joy of Baking Recipe here: http://www.joyofbaking.com/ChocolateDippedCoconutMacaroons.html Stephanie Jaworski of Joyofbaking.com demonstrates how to make Chocolate Dipped Coconut Macaroons. Coconut Macaroons are a delicious combination of dried coconut, whole eggs, white sugar, and vanilla extract. Warm from the oven the contrast of a crispy exterior to a moist, soft and chewy interior is amazing. Enjoy them plain, dip the bottoms in melted chocolate, or just place a small chocolate chunk into the center of each cookie. This is such a quick and easy cookie to make that is sure to delight. We welcome comments on our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/joyofbaking Help center • Email options • Report spam ©2013 YouTube, LLC 901 Cherry Ave, San Bruno, CA 94066

Ghosts, Crystals, Blue-Eyed Bears and Red Rocks

Today was my last full day in Sedona, the weather beautiful, the skies brilliant blue, the rocks redder than Georgia soil.

I took a little drive over to Jerome, a little tourist town that used to be one of the prosperous copper mining capitals of the world--from 1900 to 1953.   Population: about 15,000.  But in 1953, when the mines closed, most of the inhabitants moved away, turning the town into a ghost town almost overnight.

"We had a death a day here while the mines were operating," said the man from whom I bought "ghost rocks" for my grandsons.  "Lots of spirits are still wandering around here, unsettled, from those days."

Colorful ghost rocks in hand, and a booklet on Jerome to read later tonight, I returned to Sedona to get one last dark-chocolate-dipped-macaroon before bedtime--and actually got two--which I'll write about in a later blog post.

Delicious!

"So what's all this about blue-eyed bears?" I asked as I was looking at tiny carved bears.

Turns out these smiling little bears are Zuni fetishes, believed to bring protection and strength.  The Zuni people come to Sedona in October to get the antler horns from which to carve the little bears, and turquoise is used for the eyes.  "The Zuni people believe in wasting nothing," the man told me.  "We use everything, from hide to meat to bone."  If you see a carved bear with a pack on his back, that's the Zuni way of expressing gratitude for a good hunt.

Further down the road, on the way to get my macaroons, I tried counting the shops that sell crystals and Tarot and chakra balancing tools.  Every block offers massage and Reiki and aura photographs.  "Sedona is," a man I met told me, "a healing center because of all the vortexes."

It is now time for me to research vortexes--and I will get back to you when I find out what that means.

No Worries

When I took my writing to the Iowa writing program one summer, the piece I was working on began like this:  "All journeys are threaded with trouble."

Then I went on to talk about Odysseus and Moses, one on his way home, the other to the Promised Land.  As the camera girl, panning the wide screen, I recalled a few road blocks, detours, dangers, and rascals encountered along the way.

Then I zoomed in closer: Dorothy on the Road to Oz, the poor wretched orphans abandoned in the woods with only bread crumbs to guide them home....

So far, my troubles on this journey have been minor: an inflatable bed that deflated in the middle of the night;  a motel with no water, a broken door, carpet cleaners pounding on the ceiling at midnight....
But no tragedies, not one.  Just tiny reminders that things do not always go according to plan, just like at home.

My friend Betty and I still laugh about the time we rented a cheap room in Cuba, New Mexico--everything patched together with duct tape, the AC with no temperature control,  the beds lumpy, the door lock broken, the toilet stopped up....As cold and dirty and strange as that night was, we got us a story that is, in some ways, better than those of the nights spent in perfect places.

Every journey begins with someone setting out.
And they end (or there would be no story) with Getting There in Spite of Everything.

The Sky is What? Falling?

I'm taking a break from the news--except for brief listens to NPR, assuring me that things in Washington, DC, are in their usual uproar.

I haven't seen an actual TV screen in over a week, and it's good to take a break from CNN  sometime
(even though I do care) where the same tragedies and discords repeat over and over and over, making the viewer think that the Sky is Falling.

I remember that Thoreau didn't read the newspaper.  Whatever happens today has happened before and will happen again--he said something to that effect, though I can't recall the exact quotation.

When we see the repetition of the same story over and over again, it is as if it's the Most Important Story, and it becomes what we focus upon.

To get a taste of local color in any region, I sometimes listen to local talk shows.  Usually, what you hear is ranting about the government, taking sides, polarizing opinions.  People call in, everyone feeding anger.

When I'm driving under the Real Sky, I notice that it isn't falling.
The Real Sky doesn't seem particularly interested in what the Powers That be are doing in Washington, D.C.  The Real Sky doesn't care much who likes who, who's popular, who's not.  The Real Sky is indifferent to the fluctuations of our budgets, personal or global.

If you want to hear some Really Good Radio, listen to local swap meets.  Callers call in to see who has what they might need and to offer to sell or give away what they no longer need: cars, refrigerators, puppies, you name it.

Driving across western New Mexico, I heard some man offer to give away" a whole bunch of ukeleles if some little boy would like to come pick 'em up."

That was my news story of the day.  I could imagine some little boy's daddy driving him over to the house of the man whose fingers had grown too stiff to play his ukeleles. I could imagine them putting ukeleles in the  pick up truck and hauling them home, someone teaching the boy how to play.

Hospitality

Kathleen Norris, in Dakota, A Spiritual Geography, wrote: "True hospitality is marked by an open response to the dignity of each and every person.  Henri Nouwen has described it as receiving the stranger on his own terms, and asserts that it can be offered only by those who have found the center of their lives in their own hearts."

Ever since spending four nights with Barbel, I have been reflecting on the art of hospitality.

When you ask your hostess for a recipe, as I have asked Barbel for her recipe for carrot and ginger soup, what you're really saying is, "I want to take this experience home with me.  I want to treat myself as extravagantly as you are treating me in your home."

Or:

"What I'm having here is what I want more of."

While I am not a stranger--we have been friends for a decade--Nouwen's definition of hospitality is an apt description of visits in Barbel's colorful house: she takes all her guests on their own terms, which may be why she has a huge circle of diverse friends who love to visit.

Home cooked meals, taking guests to places that bring pleasure, lively conversation, and big hugs--these are some of the features that make a visit to a friend's house unforgettable.

Words and Soundtracks for Travel

1. Day told me about Paloma Faith--and suggested I start a Pandora channel of her music.  I'm loving   listening to female vocalists in English and French, lyrical sounds that take me miles into reverie.

2.  An excellent companion for road tripping is the one Beverly gave me for my birthday: The Tao of Travel by Paul Theroux.

3.  I tried listening to Amy Sedaris' Simple Times, but it is jarring as road trip sound.  Maybe it will be funny another time.

4.  And of course--over and over, I return to David Whyte, John O'Donahue, and other  men and women poets and mystics of the road.

Who Knew? The Coconino National Forest?

From Albuquerque, west on Interstate 10, I had to stop at Gallup to travel along the iconic Route 66.  I remembered two trips to California in the Sixties, and wondered if any of the motels and burger joints I was seeing were possibly places where we stopped back then.

There's always a moment of sitting for a few minutes at a crossroads deciding where to go next: Do I drive on to Flagstaff?  Or do I drive north and explore the Navajo Nation and Canyon De Chelly?   I hear echoes of Frost's poem, "The Road Not Taken...."

So I saved Canyon de Chelly and the Navajo nation for another day, and headed to Flagstaff.  Whenever I saw the name of a place I remembered from 1963,  I had to stop, check it out, compare it with the version of it in my memory.

Gallop, New Mexico, for instance:  I can't say I remember it, per se, but what I remember is Route 66 on which we were traveling that summer, and how excited we'd get when we finally! found a Kentucky Fried Chicken.  That was our first fast-food, as I recall, and we were all over it--and vice versa.

When I traveled west twice in the Sixties, we didn't have much in the way of chains.  Motels had their own unique names: Desert Skies, The Road Wanderer, Gardenia Inn....

No Holiday Inns, nothing that matched the town you were just in.
No Burger Kings, Taco Bells....

When you travel the sections of Route 66 still open, it brings back memories of the days before fast food and chain-everything homogenized the landscape.  When the Interstate stretched all the way from one coast to another, you started noticing that The Road Wanderers and Desert Skies disappeared (or looked like relics compared to the new kids on the block) as  the Hospitality Industry began spinning out matched sets of motels at every intersection.

As a child, I found the Painted Desert a big disappointment!  I'd have much preferred more time in  souvenir shops and wax museums, stuff like that.

So when I saw the sign Painted Desert--an hour or so east of Flagstaff--I had to return to see if it was really as boring as I remembered it.

Sometimes it's not the places with the big recognition value that take your breath away, though; you go there because it would be a crying shame to be so close and not to get to Say You'd Been.

What I personally love more are the stretches of road before and after the places with visitors centers and post cards.

I love pulling over to watch an entire train, engine to caboose, crawl along the landscape.  Against the enormous skies and scale-shifting enormity of the red rock formations of New Mexico and Arizona, these metallic strings of boxcars always remind me of miniature trains.

I'll keep going to the state and national parks that have visitors centers and postcards and hat pins and patches and tee-shirts.  I'll rent a cookie cutter motel, too, from time to time.  But when I discover a lodging or a road I never heard of before, that's cause for doing the In Car version of Jumping Up and Down!

All the motels in Flagstaff were filled or outrageously expensive.  So I took my laptop into the Days Inn lobby and the young woman at the desk ("I wouldn't pay $225 for this room, either!") gave me directions to the Air B&B I booked right there in the Days Inn lobby.   It was called Solaris, a whole basement apartment in Lake Montezuma, Arizona, just south of Sedona.  (For $70 a night)

"The GPS will tell you to go Highway 17," she said, "But go 89A instead, through Sedona."

89A from Flagstaff to Sedona started out as a pine forest, then--without fanfare, without big signs--the road became tight turns, 15 MPH switchbacks.  At 6000 elevation, the canyons appeared to be lit by the glow of a fire as the sun was setting against their western walls.

No postcards.  No photographs--of mine or anyone else's.  Nothing can capture the magic and mystery of any place.  But we try, don't we?  And just trying, just looking through the lens of a camera, frames what we are seeing--as best we can--in that particular moment.

When we leave wherever we are, we will look back at the pictures as reminders of the whole day surrounding the moment when we clicked.

Last day in Albuquerque

Autumn Festival begins

in Correalas.  Then we went to an

opening of an

African American art show at the

Albuquerque Museum.

A wonderful finale for my visit with Barbel!

Heading west in the morning....

Advice from Carlene this morning

Be careful when you do the Libra naked thing to have a blanket nearby ... I hear it gets cold in N.M. in the evenings!

The most important thing....

I'm not sure if I believe entirely in astrology--as I know little about it, except that I've been told that my sun sign is Libra, my moon in Pisces, Aquarius rising.  But I do enjoy--with my friend Julianne who is also a Libra, Rob Brezny's "Free Will Astrology"--so I brought along a copy of The Current so that Virgo Barbel and Libra Linda could read our sign news for the month.

The advice for Libra speaks to me during what could be a three-week journey--though actually I think it might apply to us all:

"The most important thing is to find out what the most important thing is," wrote Shunryu Suzuki in his book Zen Mind, Beginner Mind.   That's your assignment for the next three weeks.  Do whatever it takes to find out beyond any doubt what the most important thing is.  Meditate naked for an hour a day.  Go on long walks in the wildest places you know.  Convene intense conversations about yourself with the people who know you best.  Create and sign a contract with yourself in which you vow to identify the experience you want more than any other experience on earth.  No waffling allowed, Libra.  What is the single most important thing?"

Meditating naked: Haven't gotten around to that yet.

Walks in wild places: Definitely on the agenda.  Barbel and I love walking in old cemeteries and taking photographs.   Cemeteries are both sobering and full of love--as the families and friends cover the old graves with plastic flowers, stuffed animals, and other mementos.  New Mexico has thousands of road-side memorials as well, including bicycles painted white wreathed with flowers.  Barbel tells me these are called Ghost Bicycle, installed at the exact points where bicyclers have died in roadside accidents.

Intenses conversations--about ourselves, philosophy, politics, art, and travel: Barbel and I have been having these for the past three days and will continue today, Day Seven.

Waffling, however, is part of discovering what the most important thing is--so I shall waffle along as I continue to seek The Most Important Thing.

What are the dangers of a single story?

The right road or the wrong road?

Good morning, Friends!

I got an email from Janet Penley this morning asking if I like to stay in touch with my friends back home, or whether I'd prefer to stay in the moment.  Definitely, I prefer staying in touch--it keeps me in dialogue rather than monologue!

On the road, alone, I have lots of conversations with myself: that's what writing is for, right?
But if you stayed on the road too long, you'd just start believing everything you told yourself.  Questions and news from home remind me of who and what get to return to after this journey, and they keep me connected to the ongoing conversation with the people I love!

Here is a good snippet from her email I want to share:


Gertrude Stein.and Alice Toklas are living in Paris.  They are helping the Red Cross during the war and driving along in a two-seater Ford shipped from the States. Gertrude likes driving but she refuses to reverse. She will only go forward because she says that the whole point of the twentieth century is progress.

The other thing that Gertrude won't do is read the map. Alice Toklas reads the map and Gertrude sometimes takes notice and sometimes not.

It is going dark. There are bombs exploding. Alice is losing patience. She throws down the map and shouts at Gertrude: THIS IS THE WRONG ROAD!

Gertrude drives on. She says, "Right or wrong, this is the road and we are on it."

Our Lady of Traveling

When Carlene and I travel together, we call the voice on the GPS "our lady."

"What does our lady say?" one of us will ask, and we'll check the directions on the phone screen and activate her voice.

"In 200 yards, take a slight right...."

Because I so often veer off the path she's made for me, what I hear most often is "Recalculating."

Is it just me, or does everyone's Lady sound peeved when you ignore her directions?  After several wrong turns, does she give you the silent treatment--as if to say "You're impossible!  You're on your own now"?

In Ruidoso, I discovered this sweet turquoise bear just as Our Lady was recalculating:

Would you believe me if I told you Our Lady said "Get out and take a picture of that bear?"

I wrote a few days ago about how I look for a certain thing each day: 

18-wheelers, reflections, the color red...

Bear's Bow and Flag: those were among the Reds of This Week

Barbel's table in Albuquerque

When I arrived here on Tuesday night, Barbel had a wonderful dinner (quiche and her incomparable ginger and carrot and apple soup)....Once again, I was the lucky  guest at her purple table.

I have such happy memories of times at this table--In San Antonio, in Alpine, and in Albuquerque.  If you know Barbel, you know that she makes every meal a party.

The drive here was long and circuitous--from Ruidoso through the countryside--details of which I will write more about later when I'm not so noodly and sleepy after today's trip to Ojo Caliente.

I learned today that we humans are never less attractive than when slathered with mud.  After several different pools, each with different healing properties, I curled up like a  burrito in a red hammock and watched big clouds drifting across the sky.  It's moments like that when I feel that all is really quite well with the world.

I always leave Barbel's house inspired to serve prettier meals, and to invite friends over for dinner more often!  This was truly the Numero Uno Meal of this road trip.

Away Alone

On some level, "solo" traveler is  a misnomer--because wherever I go, I take everybody I know and love with me.  For the first few days of any trip, all it takes is a phrase or a bit of a song to whoosh me back into unfinished conversations back home.

As I shift into Closer-To-Solitary, everyone I brought along is still present, just quieter.

Alone on the road, I notice things differently.  In a desert landscape, with all that space as far as the eye can see, I slowly unbraid myself from the social self I am on home turf.  The calendar with all the Very Important Things that define my days back home--it vanishes.

I love the ways land mounds and folds against the skies in West Texas and New Mexico.  The sunsets can break any heart wide open.  I love parking at a road-side table and watching a whole train, engine to caboose, move slow-motion against the backdrop of rocks and cacti.

I wouldn't choose to live out here in the desert, alone, no way.
But to travel through it in slow-motion refreshes my eyes.
There are--for many miles--no billboards, no signs, no cell phone signals.  Everything as far as the eye can see is ancient.

My list of Very Important Things To Do back home sometimes feel like mental equivalents of billboards: Do This; Buy This: See This. 

What a solitary journey gives me is white space, white as the sands on these improbable dunes in the middle of New Mexico.

The quiet motel across from the Ruidoso Downs

Today has been a full and happy day all around....
White Sands National Monument (not sure why they call it a monument?) was very beautiful--and I shared it with about fifteen people on this quiet Monday.

Then here, to Ruidoso, to my favorite motel: a courtyard with a gazebo, a hot breakfast (which you have to take back to your room unless you want to watch Fox News), nice people, and quiet....

Oh wait...

The door in Room 113 wouldn't open without the help of maintenance each time I went out....
Okay, no big deal.

Then the bathtub, it turns out, didn't hold water, and anyway there was no water forthcoming to be held--just a tiny stream, not enough to wash one's hands, let alone one's hair.

Then about 10:30--as I was talking myself into letting go of those minor inconveniences, the carpet cleaners in the rooms above 113 started roaring and grinding,  the carpet cleaning people pounding on the floors, dancing or fighting, it wasn't clear which.  I called to ask for a new room and am now quietly relaxing in Room 127.

By then, though, I was wide awake and went to the Walmart down the road to get a few provisions for tomorrow: mostly Reeses and milk and Diet Cokes.  A young man named Angelo wanted to help me find my stuff; he also wanted to tell me his life story and give me advice about Ruidoso.  "Don't even think about going 56 in a 55 unless you want a $200 ticket," he said, launching into his stories of bad policemen in Ruidoso.  I was grateful for the advice--as I believe I may have already exceeded the speed limit a couple of times today.

Softly and Tenderly

Driving through the desert yesterday,  I thought of Jessie Mae.

If you saw "Trip To Bountiful," (1985) you know Jessie Mae, the bossy daughter-in-law of Mrs. Watts (brilliantly rendered by the late Geraldine Page.) Poor Mrs. Watts.  Stuck in the city of Houston, in a cramped apartment, she has little to do but sing hymns--to the eternal frustration of her son's grouchy wife.

Mrs. Watts has one fantasy trip in mind before she dies--to her hometown of Bountiful, Texas.  She pleads with her son to take her, but he's too busy.  She tries sneaking off, but they always find out and stop her. When she has trouble sleeping, she sits in the living room and hums hymns, like "Softly and Tenderly."

So yesterday in the desert, my iPod set on random, up came that very song.  I sang along.  Then another of those old classic hymns--I know every one by heart, every word, every verse.  They were the soundtrack of my childhood.

I'd recently watched the movie again, still feeling sorry for poor Mrs. Watts.  But this time I could also see the story from Jessie Mae's point of view, at least a little.  If I were a young wife, and if my mother-in-law camped out right outside my bedroom door humming hymns in the middle of the night (humming anything for that matter), I might also be a tad frustrated.

Finally, Mrs. Watts makes her escape, and boards a bus in the general direction of Bountiful.  She almost gets there--but finds out that no buses go to that town anymore.  In fact, there is no longer such a town, she finds out, and her one remaining friend has just died the week before.

She's so close!  All she wants is one last trip.  She begs the sheriff to please take her there before her son comes to pick her up.  "I can't go back!" she wails.  "I'm turning into who Jessie Mae thinks I am!"

Though her childhood home has grown decrepit, and though no one she knew there is still alive, the going evokes good memories.  She walks around the empty house.  She imagines that her mama and papa are there, to meet her at the door. For a few minutes, she's home again.

By the time her son's car rolls up, you can see that she's at peace.  She is softer and more tender, even toward Jessie Mae.  Her heart is lighter.  "I've had my trip," she says.

Everyone probably has a place like Bountiful. We should go there, no matter what.  Going There is a bounty.  Going there is a reminder of who you--apart from what anyone else has to say about it.

Air B&B in Las Cruces, New Mexico

My first experience with AirB&B is one to write home about!
I have a private room cooled by a swamp cooler--which is quite a novelty to me.
Renate, the owner and hostess, is from Germany--like Barbel whom I'm on my way to see on Tuesday. One day, she got in her car on a road trip from Charleston, and picked this beautiful part of New Mexico for her home.  In our first hour, we discovered we have a lot in common--except she hikes extensively: 500 miles in the last three months!

Probably because of the humidity, the sunsets here are amazing--something I always notice in New Mexico.

I always pick something to look for each day.  Today it was Eighteen-wheelers.

Driving east on I10, as I was driving west, were thousands of big rigs, and their shiny colors entertained me for hours.  There were the usual whites and reds, of course--but many of  these guys were decked out in lime sherbet green, Road-Strip yellow, Merlot, grape bubble gum purple, and about fifteen different shades of turquoise.  I'm thinking these truckers must custom paint their cabs to get such vivid colors.

My favorites were a hot pink one with red stripes, and one that was eye-popping lavender!  As  I watched the constant parade of big rigs, I couldn't help thinking how like a necklace it was--bead after bead moving along an endless string of highway.  Driving in the desert, with no billboards, the road goes on forever and the party never ends!

While I did wake up in the middle of the night, as always, long enough to book tonight's stay at Air B&B (Thanks to you, Freda for this recommendation!)--I went back to bed in this wonderful king-sized bed with three pillows and slept until nine!

I looked out my back door and saw the blue of mountains, looked out my front door and saw a beautiful courtyard lush with bougainvilleas and a fountain. 

Tonight I'll be staying in a "Charming old adobe house" in Las Cruces.  I'll leave here after breakfast and drive in that direction, so that I can see the White Sands Monument Barbel recommended as I head toward her house in Albuquerque.  I was just about to book a cheapo place in Ft. Stockton when the phone rang and it was Barbel, just in the nick of time.  As I leave town this morning, I'm thinking I might take a dip in the spring-fed  pool in the Balmohrea State Park four miles from here.

For all your San Antonio people looking for a great one-day drive, this is it.  I was heading toward the state park, but by the time I arrived, the gates were closed.  Nice cabins and camping facilities there, looks like.

I met a couple from Pecos who told me lots more about this beautiful region than I would have discovered on my own.  That's how it is traveling solo: people show up (and call) just when you need advice.  Someone told me you get even better help along the way if you carry a cane and walk stiffly, but I'm doing just fine without a cane.

Day One: 365 Miles

Drove today from San Antonio to Balmorhea, Texas--where I'm spending the night in a beautiful courtyard lodge: El Oso Flojo Lodge. (The Lazy Bear.)

Had planned to leave a day earlier, but San Antonio got a beautiful rain on Friday, and I had to stay and look at it.  Suzanne took this photo in the parking lot of El Mirador, where the potato enchiladas on Fridays are just what a traveler needs before hitting the road.

I'm settling in for a lazy night in a great room in Balmorhea. This would be a great place for a week-long writing retreat or vacation!

"Operation Haul-Ass"

I credit to my son, Will, for this phrase: aptly applied to the traveling style of He Who Drove on our family road trips of yore. The mantra of these family vacations was "Get There."

Gas stops were permitted; fast food at Shoney's or all-night truck stops, okay.  Anything else was a distraction to the goal of getting to Point B. Taking pictures?  Take 'em quick while the driver's gassing up.  Shopping?  Five minutes, max.

Before the Interstate (such a boon to OHA travelers such as my ex-husband), front seat passengers had to consult the map at every intersection.  But make it quick, okay?  At night, read the map with a flashlight, no time to pull over.

The year after our house fire, we bought a Pop Up camper and hit the road--while the rubble of the fire remained for arson investigators.  For ten weeks, we traveled, 26 states, including quick trips into Canada: Banff and Vancouver.  Being with my children in the Volvo; looking out the window at scenes I took pictures of in my mind; meeting people in campgrounds while the driver fished--those were among the best ten weeks of those years.

After their father was settled in fishing, the children and I would take the car and go exploring.  Or we'd hike with our new-found campground friends, wearing bells around our necks to ward off bears.  Day and I would go into a nearby towns and shop.

Today I appreciate Operation Back Roads even more because of years in the passenger seat.  I luxuriate in the spaciousness of time behind the wheel.  This curvy road--to echo Virginia Wolfe's "room of one's own" (which  forever stretched the imagination of those of us who heard it in college classrooms in the late sixties)--is what I call "a road of my own."

No beckoning back road goes unexplored.  No photo op goes untaken. The best lunch stops are Mom and Pop cafes.

"How long does it take you to get to Atlanta?" my optometrist once asked me the day before I set out for Georgia.

"Four or five days," I said.

"Have they moved Atlanta?" he asked.

"Well, you never know what you might want to stop and see along the way," I said.  (I was talking to a supposed expert at seeing things.)

"That kind of traveling would drive me nuts!" he said. "I'll bet I could get there in 24 hours straight, stopping only for gas."

I bet he could!  It's been done before, many times.
I know, I was there.

Taking Pictures

My daddy used to stop at scenic overviews and snap one or two pictures, then we'd move on down the road.  By the time we got home and the slides of the trip were returned in a yellow box, my parents tried to remember where each one might have been taken.  He used a camera he borrowed from work, and the tan case was cracked from years of use.

When we were grown, my brother showed me a drawerful of boxes of  undeveloped photograph, and I could barely imagine the restraint it would take to leave camera rolls in their boxes all those years.  Me, I'd have to rush to the photo booth the minute I clicked the last picture on the roll, and I'd stand pacing outside waiting to see my treasures.

My mother takes the occasional picture of flowers, but she can ride for miles without taking a picture of anything.  She soaks it up in the moment, but isn't compelled to save it.

I inherited my daddy's love of making pictures.  My children, grandchildren, and friends have rarely seen me without a camera strapped around my neck.

I started with a used 35mm camera from a  thrift shop, 1971; from there, I moved through several cameras, from Canons to Nikons, with micro and wide screen lenses.  As I begin this trip, I have a camera with a telephoto lens (the regular lens broke a couple of years ago); a compact Nikon; and an iPhone5.  I love the immediacy of digital photography, as well as all the little apps and special effects that alter the original images.  I love the no-limits of taking thousands of pictures,  then deciding later which ones to keep, which ones to delete.

This morning, I've been scrolling through other people's pictures on Pinterest.  I searched for Verona, Venice, and the Cinque Terre in Italy.  Then, Greece: iconic blue-roofed villages, boats in harbors, marketplaces, and weavers--you name it.  Virtual travel is no substitute for the real thing, but it's its own delightful thing to do if you find yourself awake in the middle of the night with nowhere to go.

When we come home from travel, pictures taken on a journey evoke the moments they were taken.  We lay them out on the table, make albums and digital slideshows, maybe enlarge and frame a few.  We show them to our friends.  For me, though, the best part is the moment of snapping the picture, sometimes doing a U-Turn to get a particular image that calls out from the road.  

I am a scopophile--a lover of looking.
The acquisitive part of me can't resist clicking what I see through the camera lens--to freeze a magical moment in time.

When my friend Nellie and I got off the train in Verona eight years ago, and as we walked through the colorful curvy streets, I thought: this place, more than any other matches the contours of my psyche.  Tight labyrinthine streets, faces in open windows, and the juxtaposition of buildings in ancient colors made me feel I was walking in a familiar dream.  As I look at pictures of my favorite places in Italy, I'm seized by a sudden desire to go back there, to wander those streets again.

Maybe next year.

         Yoga is my exercise of choice.  In a tranquil studio, my mat is  like a car, my own space to stretch.  Our teacher reminded us today that the English name of my favorite pose, savasana, is "corpse pose."

         Some people say that this is the hardest of the poses.  My teacher said that doing this pose--completely letting go--is a way to "practice dying."  I'd never thought of it like that before.

         Who wants to rehearse the final event?  Who wants to let go of all the hard work we choose to do to make a living and make a life? The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea that in yoga, we're practicing letting go.  Every time I've ever lost someone, even sometimes when I've given up something I'd been holding onto for dear life--it's given me a taste of my own death.

           Leaving home for a road "walkabout" is my way of creating space for my mind to wander.  To prepare for such a journey means temporarily letting go of all the things that matter on home turf. 

          A friend of mine is hosting an art show on November 2nd, the "Day of the Dead." In keeping with the  Mexican holiday, Dia de Muertos, her art exhibit will feature paintings that honor those who have departed this life as we know it.

         Sugar skulls, marigolds, and private altars to the dead are part of this tradition.  Friends and family remember their loved ones with sweets and other favorite foods that the dead loved in life. I like to think that those who have died experienced the peace and letting go that I feel when I relax into savasana. I like to imagine that death is something like a long restorative nap filled with pleasant dreams.

          In New England, I photographed Halloween yard displays-- elaborately dressed scarecrows and bigger-than-life wooden bears, often arranged in family groups, each one doing the kinds of things we love in life: playing guitars, dancing, sitting side by side in chairs, and making mischief. Under the leaves of brown and gold, my favorite was a circle of ghost girls dancing around a tree.

           All the images of the afterlife pale beside this one! Give me dancing around a tree any day over pearly gates and gold-paved roads....

Six Years Ago, To the Day....

This picture was taken in Memphis, Tennessee.  I was on the sixth day of my New England Solo Road Trip, had just met a man named Mike in Hope, Arkansas.  We'd danced in every parking lot between Hope and Memphis; we'd ridden through the Great Smokey Mountains on his Harley for a couple of days, and we'd danced the night before on Beale Street. I was--how shall I say it?--crazy in love that day.

As he snapped this picture, I was heading east--toward Virginia, then Connecticut, then to Maine.  Would I like some company? he wondered.

The smile on my face is me saying no, not this time, though it was tempting....

When a girl has a vision quest, when a girl needs solitude, the real romance is with the road.  I had to go the rest of the way solo, I said.  I'd come back to Georgia on my way home.  We'd see where that other road was leading.

When you set out on a solo road trip, you never know who or what you'll discover along the way.  As I head out on another road trip, I'm looking for big skies and big waters and western fall colors.  But the thrill of traveling is not knowing exactly what you're looking for until you see it.

Riding around, stopping wherever you like, taking pictures. meeting strangers--that's its own dance!  My theme song for road trips is Keb Mo's "She Just Wants to Dance."

It goes like this: "She ain't looking for a lover; she ain't looking for a romance, she just wants to dance...."

If Day can figure out how to add the song to this blog, I'll post it so you can sing along.... 

"The Journey" by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting 

their bad advice--

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

"Mend my life!" 

each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly 

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world

determined to do

the only thing you could do--

determined to save

the only life you could save. 

Postcards From The Road

The road is calling--again!
Departure date: September 20, 2013--for Parts Unknown...

With Day's help on the phone today, I now have a blog, no more headaches trying to figure this out.  Thank you, Daisy!

I'll be using this blog to take notes of my trip and to stay in touch with friends and family.



As Steinbeck says in Travels With Charley, "We don't just take a trip.  A trip takes us." I'm excited about seeing where this trip takes me!