Travels with Otto

Peace, Love, Freedom and Whose Happiness?

2011-09-19T17:15:00.001-04:00

Shea calls herself a hippie.

An honest to goodness, 2011 hippie. Not a vestige of the '60s. But a 38-year-old free-spirit whose sooty overalls smell of yesterday's campfire and whose smile exudes joy.

She says she and her boyfriend, Clay, hang with the Rainbow Family. And they wander the US in a beaten-up Ford, towing their life behind them -- clothes, books, pots and pans stuffed in an open-bed trailer. They meet up with friends in national forests, where their "happenings" are called "gatherings." They're intentionally homeless. Free. Unfettered.

And I'm envious. Just like I was when I was a teen, when the first hippie movement swept through my life. I wanted that peace, love, freedom, happiness. And I mimicked the look, wearing tied-died T-shirts, beads, moccasins, bell bottoms. And flowers in my hair.

So I sit with Shea, the woman I wish I was, gleaning tales about the life I think I want.

She tells me about the thousands who meet up in the woods. The organized chaos. The mass feedings (she's part of the cook detail) and the intentional cleanings (leave the Earth unharmed.) They sing, dance. Laugh. Enjoy the freedom of an unfettered life.

Yes. Yes. I love it. Life should be this way.

But how do you pay for this freedom?

Between here and there, she says, she begs money for gas and food at street corners, "flying signs" (holding signs asking for money) or "bustin" (singing or playing music.). She (well, her boyfriend) has food stamps. They visit soup kitchens, food pantries and even attend some church services, where Christians pay them in gas vouchers to listen to the message of salvation.

Oh.

They work the welfare system. To finance their freedom to live an unfettered life.

My enthusiasm pales.

So, I ask, why are you here? In quaint Streeter Park, a free city campground in straight-laced Aurora, Neb. Hundreds of miles and attitudes from a "gathering."

She's stuck here, she says, because her boyfriend is in jail.

Ah, I think to myself. Just like the first-generation hippies, this one tousles with the law.

She says the cops pulled them over for a busted blinker. Then nabbed Clay on a weapons charge because his licensed handgun was under the seat, not out in plain view.

Later, while I'm back at my campsite having lunch, I see the cops pull up to Shea's and claw through her stuff in the trailer. (Pic at left)

They were looking for drugs, she tells me when I return (with a food donation for her). They're convinced she's dealing. She laughs at the thought.

She concedes drug use threads through the Rainbow Family life. But not sales.

Oh. Drugs. My enthusiasm dims. I don't like drugs.

And then her cell phone rings. And it's her 16-yer-old daughter. Wondering is Mom's safe. Is Mom OK? When is Mom coming to see her?

My envy flatlines.

And after 40 years, I finally learn the hippie life is not for me. Unfettered. Yes. But it is not free. Others pay. Some dearly.

Hey, You Never Know!

2011-09-15T15:47:00.000-04:00

We've just returned from the wilds of Wyoming.

Really.

We drove the Pilot Butte Wild Horse Scenic Drive, looping from Green River to Rock Springs. The dirt trail climbs up and around 50 miles through the White Mountains, where 2,500 horses run free.

We saw eight.

But those eight run free, across remote buttes and through canyons. Without fences. In Wyoming's wide open spaces. At one point, we looked out upon on an area cradled by three mountain ranges. A sign said Massachusetts would fit on this land, as far as we could see. That's how big it is. And wide open.

Not once did we think about safety.

Before heading out this morning, I read warnings (but didn't heed them) about the desolation of the place we were headed. Take plenty of water. We didn't. Tell someone where you are going. We didn't. Be sure to have a full tank of gas. Did we? And remember, there's no cell service.

None of these precautions seemed relevant. Over the past several months, we've explored intense wilderness in British Columbia, Yukon and Alaska. How dangerous could it be to drive a 50-miles loop from busy Interstate 80?

No problem. We finished the scenic, magnificent drive without delay.

Now we're at McDonalds in Rock Springs, needing to use wifi and get directions to the nearest post office. I see a young woman, maybe 22, sitting at a back booth cruising the Internet. So I ask: "Excuse me. Can you tell me where the post office is?"

She looks up from her computer and grins. "Don't trust my directions," she says. "I just got lost out by Boar's Tusk. For 12 hours!"

We saw Boar's Tusk on our little adventure. It's like Devil's Tower, only a bit smaller. Rumor has it you can find diamonds there. And that's what interested Britta (she tells me her name). She's a rock hound. And went 12 miles out from busy I-80 into the "wilds" of Wyoming's high desert to hunt for diamonds. And got stuck in the sand.

For 12 hours.

No one drove past her. There's no cell service. She told no one where she was headed. Her gas tank was full. But it did her no good stuck in the sand. She had a bottle of water. And prayer. "I kept praying that God would tell my husband where I was. I kept repeating Boar's Tusk, Boar's Tusk, over and over." That sustained her for 12 hours, when a Search-and-Rescue team appeared.

It was her husband, she said, who called the police and suggested she'd gone to Boar's Tusk. He'd heard God's voice, but called it a hunch. And it paid off.

So she's safe now, sipping soda at McDonalds, checking out sites to dig for her treasures.

And next time, she says, she'll heed those safety warnings and leave a note behind. Take more water and some food. And perhaps, she winked, we should, too.

A High Desert Serenade

2011-09-14T13:46:00.000-04:00

I'm at Buckboard Campground, 25 miles from nowhere in Wyoming, staring at a high desert sky so close I can smell it.

Across the horizon, I see mountains and buttes and a landscape polka-dotted by yellow and silver sagebrush.

It's still out here. Nothing moves, except jackrabbits.

A breeze kicks up. I hear leaves quiver.

Allen works on his bike and I'm sitting in the shade, reading.

I'm thinking it doesn't get much better than this.

When "Heheheheheheee wipe oooout!" The Beach Boys? They're so loud, the drum solo thuds in my chest. Where is it coming from? Who cranks up music in the desert?

Allen and I look at each other. And we figure it must be a fellow camper a little too enthusiastic about rock 'n roll. Disturbing my peace.

I stand up and scan, looking for the soure of our concert. And I see just one motorhome in the midst of the music. So I leash up my dog to take a walk to find out what's what. As I walk, the Beatles join me in this dusty place. And the Eagles, too, welcoming me to "Hotel California."

As I near what I think is the out-of-control music lover, I find the source. It's not a selfish camper at all. The strains waft from a marina about a mile away, next to the Flaming Gorge Reservoir. There's a bar-be-cue, I learn, for anglers in competition to raise money to support research into Down Syndrome. And it might go on for hours.

Nice cause. But hours?

Well, it could be worse. At least the music's not awful. Just out of place. Out of sync with reality. So we decide to ride our bikes, out into the desert.

I'm thinking we can get away from it out there. And recapture the bliss.

But it follows us. This concert. As we pedal along a dirt trail through the desert, past yellow and gray sagebrush, as the sun drops behind the mesa, turning the sky a brilliant red, orange and Prussian blue, we do so to a classic rock soundtrack. Like we're in our own personal movie.

And, oddly, I'm no longer bothered. Instead, I'm thinking, it doesn't get much better than this.

Jacob Goes For A Hunt

2011-09-12T14:37:00.013-04:00

We're taking a nap and I hear what I think is someone stealing my bicycle.

I raise up, peek out the window and see my bike, just sitting there, surrounded by Wyoming's high desert (See the pic? That's our view).

We're pretty isolated here, about 25 miles south of Green River, WY, in Buckboard Crossing Campground. I doubt a crook's anywhere nearby.

Oh well. Must have been a dream. I'm awake now. So I get up. And feel an eerie emptiness in the motorhome.

Because they are gone.

My dogs, my giant standard poodles. My babies! Are both gone.

Th door is wide open (that's what I heard ... the door opening) and my dogs escaped.

I don't panic.

I'm sure Joshua, our good boy, is near. Jacob, our hunter, our runner, is Milwaukee already (joking), so there's no sense in me running.

I grab Jacob' leash (joshua doesn't need one) and head out the door to hunt for them. And, amazingly, they're both nearby. And both come running to greet me. Wow. Jacob's not running away! Jacob's not hunting! Jacob's trotting merrily back to see me.

He's so happy to see me. Maybe he's changed?

For the next two days, we give Jacob freedom. And he's such a good boy. He stays right with us. He doesn't hunt. He doesn't run.

Until Day Three.

Allen opens the door to take the trash out and Jacob leaps LEAPS out, and runs RUNS deep into the desert. He' gone. Out of sight. Just disappeared, where scorpions and rattlesnakes live, where coyotes howl. Oh my. Jacob's GONE!

I grab his leash, run outside and start to call. JACOB! JACOB! JACOB!

A fellow camper stops.

"Are you looking for a black dog?"

"YES!" I say.

"He's across the road. Chasing a herd of pronghorn deer."

A whole herd? JACOB!

I jump in the car and drive back and forth along the road, looking for my dog, his deer or even a suspicious cloud of dust. Instead, I see a flash of black down by the marina. JACOB!

I zip down. Jacob sees me and a jackrabbit. And he's OFF, chasing that rabbit! And I chase them. In my car. Over ruts and across brambles. In the high desert. JACOB!

Then, I see Allen, on his bicycle, circling around to the left. I'm on the right. Jacob's in the middle. He stops. We got 'em. But ZOOM! He's off!

Oh, this is a bad doggie.

He stays 10 feet ahead and refuses to even look our way. He runs up hills, down the street , leaps over ravines and chases a whole warren of jackrabbits.

And then SPLASH! He goes for a swim in the Flaming Gorge Reservoir. JACOB!!

But AHA! Allen's set for the catch. Jacob comes out of the water the same way he went in. And Allen gabs him by the collar, hands him off to me, and I stuff him in the front seat of our little car (he's never been in the front; his head touches the ceiling). He' dripping wet. Out of breath. But, wait, is he grinning?

At home, he sleeps for hours and awakens with a limp. But he's not sad. Instead, I see that grin again. And think maybe he's thinking about the hunt, the excitement of a swim and the thrill of a front-seat ride home.

(Things) Really Go Bump in the Night

2011-08-18T19:31:00.003-04:00

It's dark out here.

For so long, well, since June 1, we've had so much sunlight, that the darkness tonight seems novel, and impenetrable.

But penetrate we must, because my dog Jacob needs to go out.

OK. Let's go. I leash him up and my hand's on the door knob ... Oh. Wait. It's really dark out there.

And we're nearly wilderness camping along the remote 450-mile Cassiar Highway, Route 37. It's a two-lane paved/gravel road flowing down from Yukon into British Columbia with burps of rustic population every 60 to 100 miles.

So we're next to nowhere. The most next to nowhere we've ever been. Really.

And Jacob wants to go out into that menacing dark. Where, in the past few days of driving, we've seen bears, an arctic wolf, a coyote and signs for moose and caribou. And then every half hour or so, we see a car, truck, motorhome or motorcycle.

OK. Now I'm spooked. What's OUT THERE, lurking, salivating for fresh blood? A grizzly, needing to pack on more weight to overwinter? A cannibalistic wolf, lying in wait to savagely destroy my dog? Or maybe a crazed mountainman, really ticked because we disturbed his peace? Maybe all three!!!

{{{Shivers.}}}

Jacob whines. I realize the inevitable. Grab my flashlight. Turn the porch light on. Step out.

What's that beyond the light? There. And over there? I swing the flashlight back and forth like it's a gun, ready to fire at anything that moves. Jacob trots along, gaily. How can he leave the protection of the porch light, where my feet are frozen, and my arms swing that flashlight wildly to save my life?

Hello? What's that sound? If it's an animal, maybe I can scare it away by making lots of noise: "I'm here," I whine. "You stay there. OK. I'm here, no need to come near to me."

I've had enough. We're going to die out here. I must save my dog. And me. I reel Jacob in and we both climb back to safety.

Back to where light wards off all dangers.

My Rock-Solid Friends

2011-08-16T22:58:00.000-04:00

We're heading north into British Columbia after visiting Skagway, Alaska, driving along the South Klondike Highway. Others encouraged us to travel this beautiful route. And we see why.

The miraculous landscape turns surreal at times. A handful of miles before Canadian Customs, we enter an eye-popping realm, where sub-alpine flowers in full bloom brush a moonscape with watercolors. And then the flowers and color disappear, replaced by endless scenes of solid rock, some rolling, some jagged and ... wait ... what was that?

Off to my right. Movement? And then again, here. Look.

WOW! What am I seeing? Scattered rocks? Wait. Little piles of rocks? NO! Rock PEOPLE!

Look at them all. There must be thousands of them built alongside the road, standing on multiple ledges in a barren landscape of mostly rock. But they're really hard to see; they blend into the background. Rock into rock. And as I turn my head left and right, they pop into my peripheral views, appearing to move. Menacing me with their outstretched arms.

Wow.

We stop. Get out. I want to salute.

Because there is an army of these silent sentinels, thousands and thousands of piles of rocks assembled to look like little people, guarding the land as far back as I can see.

I walk among these foot-high protectors, staring, my mouth open. I swear I see movement again. Back there. Over here.

I know it's not so. These are rocks, solid minerals. Collected and assembled by tourists like me.

So I do the same.

I climb back into the ranks (just a little), collect a pile of jagged rocks and struggle to build my own little man. When I'm done, he looks more like a pile or rocks than a little warrior. But he's mine. And I'm proud.

We take his picture (at right), salute, then drive off.

At Customs, the border patrol guard tells us these rock warriors are inuksuk, a native word meaning "in the likeness of humans." They are little markers People of the North build as signposts in a landscape barren of trees and other natural landmarks. They build them, he says, to point the way home, mark a burial site or good hunting grounds, and even to designate a place where powerful spirits dwell.

Sometimes, they build them as warriors, to act as fellow hunters, to scare animals right into a trap.

So, I'm thinking as we drive away, these little warriors are sentient beings with an inner energy. They serve. They survive.

And I imagine the gang we left behind is, at this moment, springing to life to help my little pile of rocks become a warrior, just like them.

Out Of Their Mouths

2011-08-15T20:37:00.000-04:00

Colorful leaves obscure Dillon the Screech Owl.

About 400 Bald Eagles live in Haines, AK.

In the fall, that number swells to 4,000 when a late salmon run chokes the Chilkat River.

So now I'm here, in the Valley of the Eagle. And to learn more about them, I visit the American Bald Eagle Foundation.

Once inside, I mosey around and watch a trainer feed Scottie, a resident (and permanently disabled) Bald Eagle who eyes me with mistrust. Then I see a barred owl on a perch. And he's watching me. His hoot-owl eyes are like saucers. Eerie.

Next up is a red-tailed hawk, who also watches me as I watch him. His eyes shiny, beady. Then I see Dillon.

Dillon (I learn his name later) is a tiny, tiny screech owl. He's so small, and blends in so well with the bark and leaves on his perch I almost miss him.

He catches my eye because his eyes are squinty. Little slits. Next to him is a little girl, maybe 10 or 12, with long dark hair, just standing there, wearing a huge heavy leather glove. I look around for Mom or Dad, thinking they'll take her picture soon.

I'm sure this is a touristy photo op, which means there's a person nearby to answer questions about the bird.

I walk closer and, yes, I see the woman. About 60. Wearing a badge. So I ask: "Is he nocturnal?" She sort of nods "Yes," but she doesn't look at me. "Well," I continue, trying to keep her attention, "I notice his eyes are closed down to slits ... is that what he usually looks like, or is he dozing?"

"Lydia," the woman says, ignoring me, "This is your question."

I'm confused. Who's Lydia and why is this woman giving away my question?

Then, the little girl with the long brown hair and big leather glove speaks. "Oh, Dillon is asleep. He sleeps pretty much all day." And then she smiles. And with her eyes, she begs for more questions. I donate a few: "Will Dillon ever go free." Oh, no. He's blind in one eye." "How can you tell?" When he opens his eyes, the pupils are different. One large, one small.

Oh my. This girl's not just a pretty picture. She's a smart little cookie and she's in charge of Dillon. And so we go back and forth, me with questions, her with answers. Answers she provides with grace and confidence.

I learn not just about Dillon, but I find out Lydia is a junior ranger of sorts, and went through a foundation training program to earn the right to handle the birds. She's even on YouTube, she tells me.

And then the woman, the one who didn't want to steal Lydia's show, tells her the time's up. Dillon has to go back to his cage.

So he and Lydia leave. I walk away, too, thinking "out of the mouths of babes ..."

Dancing With The Clouds

2011-08-14T20:25:00.000-04:00

We're driving south on Haines Road in Yukon, Canada, on our way to Haines, AK. Most people take a marine ferry to get to Haines, but we want to drive, to see the landscape. And maybe some wild animals, too. So we drive.

We see several pairs of trumpeter swans (monstrous birds, about 30 pounds each) gliding across Lake Kathleen. And a baby black bear runs right in front of us. We stop and look for momma, but she's not there.

And then, oh my, look at the clouds.

Thick, white marshmallows climbing thousands of feet high and dozens of miles long. Sticking to the sides of the St. Elias Mountains, leaving the tops to peak through, like space ships hovering quietly, stealthily. At times, the clouds morph into fog, and then a fine mist. So we see the entire mountain without its shroud. Massive. Beautiful.

Glaciers cling to the tops and sides of nearly each peak. And the sun plays hide and seek. Peekaboo. And loses, each time, as the fog rises up, back into clouds, thick marshmallows. David to the sun's Goliath.

And then, as we drive above the tree line, as the temperature dips from the 50s into the 40s, we see the clouds just up ahead thinning into fog. And we're going to drive right through the mist. So I hold on.

But there's no mist. Instead, it's remarkable. The thinning wispy clouds twist, bounce and swirl into elongated shapes. Almost human. They waltz just above the creek beds, hovering, gently swaying and turning. Stretching high and low, always moving. Swishing.

And now we're driving right into them. Like we're taking a spin on an ethereal dance floor. With partners who dissolve. Dissipate. Then reappear as marshmallows, stuck to the sides of mountains. As if we'd never met.

I'll Kiss 'n'Tell

2011-08-10T19:26:00.000-04:00

We're standing at an overlook along the Matanuska River, where glacial meltwater curlycues along miles and miles of a very wide riverbed. Towering mountains in the distance frame this magnificent view, lit by a rising full moon.

A car pulls up.

I look down (the overlook is high above the parking area) and I see a couple of kids, teens really, hop out of the car, and then jog up the side of this little hill. They ignore the long sidewalk we used to get up here, the one enclosed on both sides by a protective fence. Instead, they jog up the hill (on a well-worn path, I notice) and both leap over the fence.

They see us, nod hello, and begin to amble around separately, looking at the view, the trees, an interpretive sign about Alaska's gold rush days.

After no more than two minutes, they leap back over the fence and scramble down to their car.

Odd. I turn back to look at the abundant scenery.

I hear another car. I turn around to watch. Two kids climb out. Jog up the hill. Leap over the fence. Say hello. Wander around. Leave. A third car. A repeat performance.

I think we've found Alaska's Blueberry Hill, its own Lovers Lane, alongside the Glenn Highway just north of Palmer.

I tell Allen my theory, we mock a kiss for our camera, then return to our motorhome. But we don't drive away. Instead, we stay for the night. And listen as the cars come and -- eventually -- go. Not as quickly, now the chaperones are gone.

A Walk Along The Wildside

2011-08-09T20:37:00.001-04:00

Allen's about three feet ahead of me when I see it.

A bear.

Sitting at the water's edge along the Russian River in Alaska, about five feet away from Allen.

And he's looking at Allen.

But Allen isn't looking back.

So I do what the park rangers in Denali National Park told me to do if I ever encounter a bear out in the wild: Raise my arms and hands over my head and wave them back and forth (to make myself look bigger) and engage in idle chatter (so he knows I don't sound like prey).

It doesn't matter what I say to this bear, I just need to start talking. So, I chat away: "Yoohoo, Mr. Bear. Oh, Allen, look. There's a bear. Hey, Mr. Bear. We are here. Do you see us?"

So Allen looks to his right and sees the bear looking at him. I freeze. A little panicked. That bear is close enough to leap into Allen's face. So what does Allen do? Raise his hands so he looks imposing? Engage in conversation?

No. He grabs his camera and steps closer to take a picture!!! LOOK OUT!

But, the bear just shrugs.

Well, it sure looks like a shrug to me. He lifts his right shoulder up and down. And then I see what's really happening. He's eating. He's got a salmon in his paw and he's raising it up to his mouth, ripping off a hunk, then lowering his paw while he chews. And Allen keeps taking pictures.

But I notice Allen is also taking the offensive. He's raised his camera over his head so he looks imposing while he's taking pictures. Touché.

(In the picture I snapped, shown above, you can barely see the bear's ears above the tall grass to the right. Here are Allen's pictures.)

Within seconds, Mr. Bear finishes his salmon and ambles out into the water for another. With a single, effortless swipe, he snags a fish, then walks back toward us. Although this time, he anchors himself under a tree, behind some tall grass. Out of our sight. Which means if he gets cranky and wants to vent, we won't see it coming.

So we walk away, still talking, and now grinning. Because we finally met a bear. Out in the wild. But we're no fools. All the while we're smiling, we're looking back over our shoulders to make sure we left that experience behind.

Hiking to a Wild River -- Comfortably

2011-08-06T18:24:00.000-04:00

The sign says "To The River." So I head that way.

And I'm excited. Because I'm hiking to Alaska's wild Russian River, where salmon and bears compete for life. Literally.

The fish need to move upstream to spawn; the bears need to eat them to make it though the pounding winters.

It's also where anglers stand shoulder to shoulder, thigh deep in the river's icy waters, trying to land a sockeye before the bears do.

And I'm going to hike into the wilderness, this Alaskan wilderness, to watch the competition.

So I follow the arrow on the "To the River" sign and the first thing I see is a wooden fence, at the edge of a hill (I guess too many people have rolled down that hill). I walk a bit to my right. And look! Steps! Not the kind hikers fashion out of sticks and stones. But sturdy industrial ones, made of steel. They descend a pretty steep decline.

Hmmm. Man-made steps. Fencing. More steps. Then I'm at the river. But I'm not walking on vegetation or mud or even gravel. I'm on a rubbery mat that gently cushions each of my steps.

I'm not making this up. There's a cushy mat softening each of my steps at a popular wilderness fishing site. And there's nothing to step over or trip on. No stones, roots. No dirt!

And there's a railing between me and the river. And openings every now and then lead to a cushioned platform, where anglers stow their gear while fishing the rapids.

And I see just a few people -- not a throng -- standing in the water casting flies for trout and Dolly Varden. One kid (pictured) caught two sockeyes, one (the red one) too far past the eating stage. But the kid grabbed him anyway.

As I watch, he walks away, dragging his catch behind him, on the rubbery mat. Next to the fence.

And I think, 'What's with this cushy stuff?" Where is Alaska's wilderness?

I hike back home up a natural path I find cut nto the hilside, one that is steep (makes me breathe hard) and rocky and criss-crossed with vegetation and sticks. I feel better. More outdoorsy.

Back in my motor home, I'm so troubled by the excessive human intervention into Alaska's wilderness, that I Google a reason. I Google anything that might help me understand why the federal government would let someone wreck the wilderness.

What I find shames me.

Nobody wrecked this wilderness. Back in 2005, Alaska's Department of Natural Resources got a federal grant for $378,000 to make a part of the trail --- about a mile -- useable by people who are unsteady on their feet, or use crutches or a wheelchair to get around. Now they, too, can go watch the salmon swim upstream to spawn. Now they, too, can cast their lines in the water.

Had I started my hike a little farther south, I would have seen the ramp (no steps) at the site of the ferry landing.

And, definitely, not sneered at the effort.

Muscled into a Wonderful Meal and a Memory

2011-08-03T02:09:00.000-04:00

The place looks runs down. Deserted.

No one tends to the weathered pictures on the side of the building or shores up the leaning front porch.

No. The building is not attractive. Or welcoming. But Lonely Planet and a few other guides say this place, the Russian Samovar restaurant in Nikolaevsk, AK, has THE BEST food on the Kenai Peninsula.

So we go in.

And are met with a dizzying rainbow of stuff, of women's long dresses on hangers, four folding tables with colorful placemats (few of which match), ornate bowls, spoons, scarves, frames, pictures. The walls, floor and countertops in two rooms vibrate with Russian stuff.

And then some of this Russian stuff moves toward us. It's Nina.

Meet didactic, wacky Nina. A non-stop Russian Old Believer who runs this eatery. With authority.

She's dressed in classic Russian garb that covers her arms and sweeps the floor.

"You eat here Russian or on patio?" she inquires, loudly, her Russian accent colorful, frantic, as she whirls around. Picking things up. Putting things down. She doesn't stop moving. Or talking. The beads on her patterned headdress dance across her forehead as she moves and talks. And I have no idea what she means. Because her English is bent and twisted by her native Russian.

"You read this," she says as she passes by, jamming a plastic-covered paper in my hands. I try to read it ( a menu?), but she doesn't stop talking. And it's written in the same fractured English she speaks. "You want borscht, of course," she swirls to my left. "Two small. And you like Russian tea? You WILL like and I serve you. If you eat Russian, you talk to me and eat here ... I serve one combo. You like. For two." And on and on she talks and twirls. And, I guess, spends my money.

My brain hurts. She's still talking as she leaves the room and I scratch my head because I think I've just ordered a $60 lunch. How'd that happen?

Allen and I sit on the patio and give in to her control. Why not? It's fun. And the experience unmatched. We'd never met a woman like Nina before. She jabbers as she stirs the borscht and slices the sausage and heats up the sauerkraut and pelmenis (Siberian raviolis).

After we eat, we pay our bill (yup, $60) and before we get a chance to refuse, she dresses us up like Russian dolls and takes our picture.

We finally leave (escape?) and I realize I know a lot about Nina. Because she talks constantly. We know about her kids and grandkids still in Russia, about her arthritic knee, her disabled husband, her desire to close the eatery at the end of the season and write a movie.

Look out Hollywood. A whirlwind is headed your way.

Just Watch What Happens

2011-07-28T03:13:00.000-04:00

I sit high on a hill, overlooking Cook Inlet in Ninilchik, Alaska. And I'm not happy. There's nothing to see.

I wanted to camp down on the beach, right next to the water's edge, where thousands of people converge tomorrow to dig for gigantic razor clams. There'll be a negative tide, exposing clam beds normally out of people's reach. And I want to watch the action. I've been told its bizarre.

But a winter storm washed the campground out to sea. So we park instead up in this place, high on a heavily forested cliff, barely overlooking the action. Hrumpf.

From my campsite, I can see down the hill on one side, to an old Russian village, where girls and women still wear long colorful dresses and the men all wear beards. I can't see them because I'm too far away, but I know they are there. If I crane my neck and look out across the water, I see Mt. Redoubt and her sister volcano Iliamma, both wearing their snow-white caps.

And if I walk over to the next campsite, balance near the hillside's edge and whistle Yankee Doodle, then maybe I'll be able to see the clammers tomorrow. Barely. A lot of trouble. There's nothing to see up here. So I'm not happy.

I walk back to our campsite, grab my book and plop at the picnic table, basically looking at the tops of a lot of trees climbing up from far below. What I really want to be looking are the waves on Cook Inlet.

Then a commotion catches my eye. Just ahead. Look! LOOK! I can't believe what I'm seeing. An American Bald Eagle has just deposited her very large baby in a tree top not 20 feet from my face. Twenty feet! A baby bald eagle. Sitting on the top of a tee. Looking back at me. Mom flies away. Baby stays put. AND STARES AT ME!

What do I do? Stare back.

And holler for Allen who takes our picture with the baby in the background. Then, I sit at the picnic table and babysit, for 20 minutes. My life merges with this baby's. I'm thrilled, amazed and amused at what I'm seeing. But he's, well, sort of bored. I watch as he picks his feet. Looks all around. Cleans under his left wing; preens his tail. Shudders. Scratches his head. And picks his feet some more. But he stays there.

And I'm guessing mom TOLD him to stay put, while she goes fishing. Yum. He's waiting for lunch.

So I stay put, to watch for mom to come back. But I, too, get bored, just looking at a bird doing basically nothing. So I begin to read.

I hear a commotion.

When I look up, my baby is gone. I see a flurry of feathers -- mom's black and white mingling with baby's brown and white -- and they're gone.

What a sight. What a memory. There's so much to see high up on this wonderful hill.

Climbing Into the Ice Age

2011-07-27T19:35:00.000-04:00

The big blue blob (center bottom, first one on the left) is me, 20 feet away from the edge of Exit Glacier.

How exciting.

We're here. At Exit Glacier. The only glacier in the whole Kenai Fjords National Park you can walk to.

A little geography lesson: Alaska has a bunch of mountain ranges and the one called the Kenai Mountains wears a beret, of sorts, of ice, thousands of feet deep. It's called the Harding Icefield and it spreads over the mountaintops for 700 miles. Thirty glaciers spill out of this icefield.

The Harding Icefield and its glaciers are the reason the Kenai Fjords National Park exists. To see most of these glaciers, unathletic people like us travel by tour boat up and down the fjords (which we did) or take a plane (which we didn't) to do a fly-over.

One of those glaciers, Exit Glacier, is the only one you can walk to. In fact, it's called Exit Glacier because the first documented time anyone walked across the Harding Icefield (in 1968), they exited through Exit Glacier.

Today we plan to hike up to the edge of this glacier (not across it), a distance of just a little more than a mile. No problem.

We drive to the beginning of the trail (the parking lot is packed!). And redress ourselves for warmth. Exit Glacier's all ice. So, of course, we'll get cold in her company. We wear scarves, sweatshirts, jackets.

And off we go.

The first part of the trail (the part we see from the visitor's center, so it's the part that convinces us to do the hike) is wide and paved, straight and nearly flat. Young and old, thin and fat trundle along.

Piece of cake.

About 20 minutes into the walk, the crowd thins and the pavement ends. The trail turns into dirt and heads up to the right, into the trees and it gets narrower.

Piece of cake.

We hike on. Up. And up. There's no longer a crowd. And our piece of cake gets crusty.

Our steps get steeper, rockier and slippery as solid ground gives way to loose glacier gravel. So as we ascend, the trail beneath our feet descends, just a little. And, I notice the people heading my way, the ones climbing/sliding down, the ones who "HAVE BEEN THERE," mostly stare straight ahead, their cheeks reddened, their hair matted ... with what? Sweat?

We continue up, up, and it's so steep, the trail turns into multiple switchbacks littered with boulders and fallen trees embedded into the silt. Those trees become welcomed footholds as we climb this galcial stairway.

Look! There she is. Exit Glacier. We made it! She's big and cracked and cerulean blue in spots. And monstrous.

Allen and I the edge of Exit Glacier

I catch my breath, then rush down (yes, it's downhill!) the final few hundred yards of path that are new (because the glacier is melting, receding) and narrow. I get to the very edge, but I'm still 20 feet away from my goal. I see a sign. Oh, pooh. It says we can no longer touch the glacier. It's too dangerous. We could slip and fall underneath her giant foot, which would crush us after it froze us.

So I stand 20 feet away from this monstrous piece of ice, and enjoy the coolness of her breezes because I now understand the sweat I saw on others. I've shed my scarf; my cheeks are warm and red. I'm tired. But happy. Because I made it.

I'm not bragging. But I made it. I climbed up for 1.2 miles on a "moderately strenuous" hike. Then climbed/slid back down.

Just explaining. I made it.

In A Small Town Everyone Knows Everyone

2011-07-27T16:49:00.000-04:00

I'm connecting the dots.

That's what Judy says.

Judy is our campground host in Seward, AK, and she, along with her husband, Jim, invited us to go to church with them last week. And we did. Then, they invited us to go to a free salmon/halibut picnic by the bay (see the pic? click the link; there's more) with the senior citizen center. And we did.

This morning, we're back at church (a Methodist church) for the second visit. It's here I'm connecting the dots, and finding out that when you live in a small town, everyone knows everyone. And everyone knows your business.

Even if you've lived here only two weeks.

Here's what happened.

It started at the picnic, where I discovered a sturdy stock of senior Alaskans. A few talked about their hip replacements and some tottered about because they need one. But most were like Bob, and Monty and Louise, who talked about their love interests, their exercise classes and their fishing adventures.

I don't know how old Bob is, but I'm guessing he's in his 80s. He's lived in Alaska since 1953 and has a girlfriend (of eight years) who's down in the Lower 48 visiting family. Louise, (in her 70s), exercises a lot and volunteers for the local food bank. She's going out fishing for salmon on Wednesday with Monty, who's 93. He owns his own boat and although "he's slowing down a little," Louise says, he and his wife enjoy the sport of catching the salmon. I met his wife, too.

OK. Now back at church this morning, the preacher mentions he went fishing this week WITH MONTY! Our new friend Monty. Who's 93. And he caught 13 salmon.

I look over at Judy who winks at me and painted her index fingers together. She mouths "you're connecting the dots."

There's more. Remember, I said in a small town, everyone knows everyone and everyone knows your business.

Well, after the service, a young man (in college) comes to greet us in church because, he said, he knows our business (we'll, he didn't use those words.) He said he met us earlier this week at the SeaLife Center (it's like the state aquarium). He's the fellow who lectured on seals and sea lions and he remembered talking to us after the presentation and applauded his efforts. He remembered that, and was happy to see us again, this time in his church.

So, I guess after two weeks of living in Seward, AK, I'm now part of that "everyone" crowd. I'm beginning to connect the dots. I'm getting to know everyone and they're knowing my business. I can't hide. If I sneeze anywhere in town, someone I know will say "God bless you."

So while I'm loving it here, I'm rejoicing that we leave on Tuesday. And will regain our anonymity.

Crossing Over Into A Trailer Park

2011-07-07T15:35:00.000-04:00

This is an amazingly noisy campground.

We're in Wasilla, AK. And it's 10:30 p.m. (still sunny). And I see (and hear) kids playing chase and dress-up, a fellow toot toot toots on his harmonica, fireworks explode in the background, dogs bark, guys chat, more kids scream, guys laugh ... Man!

What a noisy place!

Our dogs need to go for a walk. So I guess we won't disturb anyone's peace if we do it now. At 10:30 at night. We leash them up, hop out and walk around.

What we find, in addition to a wide-awake neighborhood, is stuff. Tons of scattered stuff. Not really trash. But, well, sort of trashy stuff. One motorhome (an old, beat-up guy), shares its space with a mishapen freezer (a cord snakes through a hole in the window screen), a scooter and a pile of recycled wood (intended, I'm sure, to be a porch one day).

Toys, toys and more toys surround other trailers, as do dog cages, plastic tubing, wobbly gas grills, metal parts and aluminum siding. Blankets cover most window. A dog barks at us. Then pokes his head out one of those blanket-covered windows. And barks at us again.

"Conor's House" (see pic) doubles as a trailer and art easel for the young lad, who obviously shares love with his mom.

We realize as we walk that we've stumbled upon a different life.

We are camped in a trailer park. A permanent neighborhood where people cram their lives into rectangles. It's one of those places. The kind I've never been in.

We keep on walking and after covering the circuit, climb back into our little rectangle and feel better. This is our place, in here, not out there, where life differs greatly from ours.

We settle in for the evening, delayed by the midnight sun. And now the harmonica guy strums a guitar. And the kids play keep-away with a hose. And it's near midnight. When the dad comes home next door.

We met him earlier. He's the park handyman and works as a bar bouncer most nights. When he pulls up in a rattle-trap truck, his kids (five of them) run up to greet him yelling "Daddy's home!" He hugs, then hushes them. "Use your night voices, kids!" he stage whispers. Simultaneously, his wife climbs out of their box and plows through the kids for her hug.

Then, the gang sets out on a project together. They spend the next 30 minutes, in quiet construction, building a canvas tent. A big one. For the kids to sleep in that night. They've been waiting. For dad. To come home to put up the tent. And he jumps right in to the project without complaint. Without begging for time alone. Without reaching for a cool drink, an easy chair.

He leaps right into the family and they leap right back. They talk in whispers. They laugh in whispers.

Life is good, I realize. And I'll bet when those kids are adults, they'll look back at life in the trailer park as good. As theirs. Warmed by the fun times and love they received tucked alongside dog pens, piles of recycled wood, scattered toys and, of course, "Conor's House."

So This IS Alaska

2011-07-04T14:21:00.000-04:00

The doggie barked shamelessly. What a good watchdog!

Off the main road, into the woods just south of Talkeetna, Alaska, is a wooden cabin called the Flying Squirrel Bakery.

I want to go in because it's so rustic, so Alaska, sitting back in the woods like this. I bet there's a moose carcass hanging off a tree somewhere in the back, and a woodman nearby chopping wood to freshen the stockpile for next winter.

The setting is perfect. This Is Alaska!

So I'm excited. We go in.

And immediately, I'm not happy.

Up front, glass cases brim with sumptuous, eclectic sweets, such as ginger cookies laced with rosemary, chai tea cookies and flattened macaroons, the size of saucers, bearing those trendy unruly squiggles of milk chocolate. For lunch (if we want, but we don't) we can savor lamb-lentil stew with a hefty chunk of whole wheat, raison, cinnamon swirl bread (that's just one loaf).

Off to my right, a man feeds firewood from a wheelbarrow into the mouth of a modest pizza oven made of bright red brick.

And behind me, I see marble-topped cafe tables surrounded by two-tone wooden chairs. Paper lanterns dangle from the ceiling, dancing a bit in the ceiling fan's breeze.

It's comfy, beautiful.

But it's trendy. Not rustic. Touristy.

I wonder if these people even eat moose.

I shake my dismay and order coffee and sweets (trendy or not, I savor tasting rosemary/ginger cookies, which are YUMMY!) and chat for a minute with Joe, the waiter. From Wisconsin. Who wears stylish square squinty glasses with dark, dark rims.

"So," Joe inquires. "What did you think of Talkeetna?"

Talkeetna's a small muddy town bustling with activity, partly because it's where climbers must sign in before tackling Mt. McKinley. But also because somehow, I don't know when, Talkeetna got hot. It's twenty-something friendly. It's a magnet for the outdoorsy in-crowd.

They overflow into main street from the popular microbrewery and crafty little shops selling high-priced trinkets and high-end wearable art, such as silk-screened scarves, jewelry and hand-felted slippers. Cafes sells lattes. Every Friday open-air concerts rock the public square.

To answer Joe's question, I say, "Trendy," laced with a touch of disdain.

He misses my pitch.

"Yea, isn't it great?" he quips. "It's a real party town. And, kinda like Vegas. When you play there, it stays there."

His love for what's hot is cute. And I'm softening to this idea that parts of Alaska are growing up and out of that wilderness skin. So I ask, Why? Why is Talkeetna so cutting edge?

"Because," he says, with confidence. "We're a continuation of the Seattle scene."

So up here in the wilds, 2,300 (road) miles away, between one moose and the next, Seattle's little Alaskan sister rocks. She's hard-nosed, driven to succeed as an artsy, party town. On a very small scale. But she's doing it.

And it dons on me. This is Alaska. Her people don't give up. They go for the gold. And get it.

Friends We Meet Along the Way

2011-07-01T03:38:00.000-04:00

Allen with our new friends from Hawaii, Rhoda and Allan.

"Hello?"

There's a woman outside my motorhome, saying, well rather singing, "Hello?"

I think it's funny that people avoid knocking on a motorhome door. Most holler out "Hello?" Or "Anyone there?" Or, like my dear friend Carolyn, "Are you up?"

But they do not knock.

Like today. "Hello?" she repeats.

And I'm shocked to see who's there.

It's Rhoda and Allan, a couple from Hawaii we met a few days ago in Nenana, AK, around a campfire. They, like us, are now staying in Alaska's Denali National Park and from all of its 6 million acres, they chose to camp across from us.

Small world.

Yes, small, but spending time with Rhoda and Allan broadens our world in many ways.

They are so unlike us. My husband Allen and I were born to middle-class American parents in or near major cities. We had Mayberry kinds of growing-up lives.

Rhoda was born on a poor hillside farm in the Philippines, where she was raised by her grandparents on rice and fish. Allan was born in Hawaii to Japanese parents, who became American citizens before Pearl Harbor was bombed. And, Allan says, they were too poor for the government to bother interning. So they were left alone on their poor hillside farm where Allan and his siblings were born and raised, he says, "to be Americans."

He eventually bought his own education, through a government loan program, and became a nuclear engineer. ("I boiled water for a living," he jokes. His job involved testing nuclear reactors.)

Rhoda worked in Hospice care prior to her marriage to Allan six years ago.

And this is where our lives come together.

Like us, Rhoda and Allen retired and now enjoy an extended journey, traveling for months in a motorhome. Exploring Alaska.

From divergent pasts, we converge.

And now Rhoda and Allan are outside our motorhome door, inviting us to another campfire. This one at their campsite. And they'll provide the food, intending to broaden our palates as well as our lives: Hawaiian hotdogs (very VERY spicy and pink and made with pork, chicken and tofu) and savory bison steaks.

I'll bring a salad and dessert. And I'll be sure to holler "hello" when I get there.

Get Your Hands Off My Hubby

2011-06-29T20:04:00.000-04:00

Hubby Allen as a gun-toting Sourdough

Enough. Enough!

I'm jealous. And embarrassed -- a bit -- because I'm jealous.

But that woman dressed as a turn-of-the-centruy harlot is sitting on my husband's lap, pretending to kiss him. She does it once.

The audience yells MORE!

She kisses him -- my husband -- AGAIN! The audience yells MORE MORE.

I want to yell STOP.

But I don't.

Because this is all make believe. I know It's all in fun. So she kisses him A THIRD TIME and I let her.

The floozie and my hubby

What's happening is we're at a dinner theater presentation just outside Denali National Park. I have a two-for-one coupon to get into the show, so we gussie ourselves up (we're camping, so we're a bit dusty) and drive the motorhome into Denali's neighbor, a little campy tourist town that one day, I'm sure, will rival Gatlinburg, Tenn., for its honky tonk.

Right now the town's just a few blocks long. And in those two blocks, every merchant tries to look more rustic than the next because, after all, this is Alaska and the tourists who come here want wild. They want rustic. They want wilderness. At the tip of their fingers.

So the merchants dress themselves like sourdoughs (that's what Alaskans call themselves) and hang caribou and moose antlers over their doors. They sell guided raft trips, ATV tours and fudge to hundreds of tourists hauled into town by massive tour busses from cruise ships docked hundreds if of miles away in Seward and other ports farther south.

My hubby and me after we've made up

So that's the crowd we're mingling with. Cruise ship people. And that's the crowd -- a raucous bunch -- pushing this hissy to kiss my husband. Whose been swooped up out of the audience by the play actors to participate in this little historical performance about how Alaska became Alaska.

He's a gold miner. And he's got a gun, a floppy hat and a few dastardly lines. He shoots a thief, saves the day, I guess, and that's why he gets the girl.

But enough. I want my husband back. I want him removed from the clutches of this tart. The audience cheers the smooch, and he returns to his seat. Next to me. Where he belongs.

Where he sits, still grinning.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

2011-06-25T13:14:00.000-04:00

It's day Six at Denali National Park. And, still, the Visitor's Center portion of the national park's Visitor's Center Campus remains a mystery.

The two other times we got within sight of the log-cabin structure (more like a log chalet), the masses of people thronging forth encouraged us to stay away. But today's the day (well, evening) we join the zoo.

So we hop on our bikes and grind our way up a 1.5 mile uphill trail (puff puff, pant pant) intending to spend the whole evening inside the center, watching films, reading displays, listening to park rangers.

We're finally in sight of the building and we notice only few people milling about. Yeah! As we pedal closer, the few people leave, en masse, toward a bus. And then we notice the center is dark.

In denial, I rattle a door. NO! It's locked! It's closed for the night.

Rats! I want a reward for the sweat I shed to get here. So I look on the windows and doors, searching for a list of things to do. Bingo! I find one: A lecture on Alaska's permafrost. It started a few minutes ago at the "Science Center" a few blocks away. So we pedal over and make most of the talk.

Near the end, we realize we have only 10 minutes to get back to camp before the generator police arrest us (quiet time in these national parks is serious business and we've left our generator running.)

No problem. Easy ride. It's all downhill, the biggest reward for all that puffing and panting we did.

So we hop on, pedal past a few curves, then hold on for the ride as we zip downhill. Down and down we ride, gaining speed as we go, kicking up gravel, nearly flying when all of a sudden, not 20 yards away, a moose, a BIG moose, LEAPS onto the bike path and turns toward up, head on.

We slam on the brakes, startled, and slide to within 50 feet of this massive 700-pound creature, who is NOT happy.

Her ears twitch and twirl (moose do that when agitated), and then we see why. A baby moose, HER baby, leaps out of the woods right next to her. He, too, is startled, but he doesn't hang around to twitch and stare. Instantly, he disappears back into the woods to let Momma manage the moment.

And Momma does that well.

She stares us down, twitching and twirling her ears. Threatening us with her stance (and her size! She's easily 7-feet tall at the shoulder). So we back up, and back up and back up until she stops threatening to seriously hurt us.

And now we can breathe, because she's peaceful now. She no longer twitches and twirls and stares.

But, she doesn't leave either.

Instead, she dines, alongside the bike trail. And her baby joins her, figuring, I guess, if Momma's not worried, I'm not worried.

So it's our turn to stare, as they enjoy their meal. And all we can do is wait until they're done. And watch. And enjoy this, our biggest reward.

Glitz and Glamour, With Purpose

2011-06-24T02:09:00.000-04:00

It rained all night and the mountains wear the fog and haze down past their midriffs. Everything sparkles from nature's bathing, the trees, carpets of lupines and even our bicycles. I inhale the air, slightly crisp mountain air. Refreshing. Everything's clean, ready again.

We love our little neighborhood, here at Riley Creek Campground. Where most of the motorhomes are rentals and carry a slew of young kids, teens and their parents. They've come for the natural beauty of Denali National Park. Where red squirrels bark if you walk too close. A momma moose wanders around, foraging with her twins, just feet away from occupied campsites.

We represent the senior crowd, which makes up about 30 percent of the travelers in this campground. This, we decide, is a young person's paradise. Because of the challenge of the white rapids, the hills and rocks to scale. The wild animals to out run!

We love the bicycling and hiking opportunities. And the youth. So we decide to sign up for seven more days. To do so, we hike to a little store, called a Mercantile, where we mingle with hikers, backpackers, again, all young, twenty-somethings, while we all wait in line to pay for the privilege of staying here. So it's us, in this young person's paradise, and the wild animals.

But then again, there's this "place" here in Denali called the "Visitor's Center Campus." I call it the Great Denali Circus, the antithesis of natural and wild. Where we know there's an upscale grill there, with feeding stations and trendy foods like big, fresh cookies, veggie burgers and paninis. And we know there's a station for the Alaska railroad. But, what else?

So we visit.

We pull our motorhome into the confusing curly-que parking lot and get stuck waiting for a tour bus to unload. then we see another one coming, so we quickly zip around the corner, where we find people walking in swarms through the lot, each swarm's trajectory leading back to a tour bus.

I look left and right. As I suspect, people. Everywhere. People. People. And not the kind we find back at the campground. These people are old (so are we), and many are debilitated (we are not).

I'd say 98 percent of the hundreds of people hobbling around this "Circus" are seniors. Few wear hiking boots.

We walk to the grill, blazing a trail meandering around the swarms, and find it packed, too. With these seniors, laughing, smiling, enjoying themselves. A few tour guides buzz about, tending to their hives, making sure everyone is comfy, making sure everyone knows what's next on the agenda.

Something clicks inside my head. Had it not been for this Great Circus, for the wide, flat accessible walkways, the buses, the railroad just outside the restaurant's back door, these people would be left out of this great life.

But here they are, breathing in this luscious air just like we do, preparing to see the tallest mountain in the North America, just like us.

What a great thing this is, this Visitor's Center Campus. It opens up this great national park to everyone.

Where Has All The Wilderness Gone

2011-06-21T17:25:00.000-04:00

We're in Alaska, where game outnumber people a gazillion to one. Where subsistence living is the law. Where natives live off the wild that feeds them salmon, caribou, sheep and moose.

And we're in Denali National Park, where the wild consumes more than 6 million acres.

In deference to the native diet and the rustic nature of this land, I want to taste caribou. Especially after I find a domesticated version (reindeer) is served in a stew ($6 a bowl) at a grill just inside the park border, near the Visitor's Center. What fun.

So we talk our friends into joining us for lunch at this little grill just inside this wild, rustic park. But first, we travel by shuttle (few cars are allowed) a short ways into the aspen and spruce wilds to learn about dog sledding, the only way people can get around inside the park in the winter.

We meet the dogs that live and work here, who survive this wilderness. We watch the rangers hitch up a team, then demonstrate on a gravel trail how engaged these dogs become when at work. These are powerful, focused dogs, thrilled because they get to pull, to mush, to run. To live in this consuming wilderness.

OK.The demo's done. Time for lunch. I'm excited.

We reboard the shuttle that cuts through this wilderness, then ... What's this sign? "Visitor Center Campus." Campus? What does it mean, Campus? We turn the corner and HOLD ON! We've passed through a wormhole or somehow got dusted with floo powder. Because we're not in the wilds anymore.

We're in Denali Grand Central Station, where tour buses, trains and tourists outnumber the game a gazillion to one.

I climb off the bus, reluctant to let go of my last connection to the wild, to step into this human traffic jam. It's surreal.

The four of us instinctively huddle close and scratch our heads. Where are we? Which way do we go? People clog the pathways so we can't see beyond. My friend Rhodda hollers "Look!" "Baggage Claim." And, by golly, there's a log facility with a sign over the door that says "Baggage Claim." What baggage?

A Little Sugar Goes A Long Way

2011-06-19T16:11:00.004-04:00

We're sitting around a campfire in Nenana, Alaska, eating the best-tasting s'mores, ever.

The chocolate's so old it's chalky. And the slightly hard marshmallows stick together. The off-brand graham crackers maintain a memory of crisp.

Roasted and combined they become devine. Magical. Because they come from the heart of two very fine people, Larry and Earl. Two older fellas (they teeter on both sides of 80), who share our campground and started this evening of camaraderie.

Larry (who looks like everyone' grandfather) showed up at our campsite shortly before dinner and invited me and Allen to a campfire and s'mores. He said he'd carried the fixings for 3,300 miles (from Oregon) and tonight's the first night's the weather's been good enough to do it ...to build a fire and roast marshmallows.

How sweet, I thought. And yes, I said, we'd love to. So we do.

And we find Larry's also invited the United Nations: Johannas and Rike, a dentist and decorator from Germany; Adrian and Chantel, a young smoochy couple from Switzerland; Alan, a Hawaiian and retired nuclear engineer, and his wife Rhodda, a much younger Filipino; and Bob and Becky, a retired newspaper couple from Modesto, California.

We're a collection of differences, of uknowns, brought together by Larry and Earl, whose hearts are huge. They're best friends. And Earl thought up this Alaskan adventure to help Larry move past the grief he's feeing after his wife of 56 years died. She's been gone five months, Larry says. And it's time to live again. Or else he'll die.

So he and Earl fueled up the motorhome and drove north, to where we sit tonight. A circle of tentative friends, bridging a cultural divide with a slew of s'mores made with fixings so old, Larry's wife must have bought them a year before she passed.

The evening begins slowly. Almost proper and shy. We politely introduce ourselves and dip into esoteric conversations. About weather. Or coffee. Then someone loads marshmallows on a stick and chases our inhibitions away.

Allen's marshmallow is the first to catch fire and he waves it frantically. Plop! It falls in the dust. We laugh.
The other Alan kneels in front of the flames to produce a perfectly tanned specimen. We oohh and ahhh.

And then we laugh again, because the Germans and Swiss find s'mores addicting, but difficult to eat. Their faces and fingers get sticky. The graham crackers split and crumble. (We tell them it's a skill Americans learn in childhood.) The Hawaiian, a health-food aficionado, startles his wife by inhaling treat after treat. She finally cuts him off.

We're all laughing like kids, riding a fantastic sugar high. We swap tales of our Alaskan adventures, inquire about homelands, careers, kids. We continue to munch on the magical ancient s'mores and pick at an eclectic smorgasbord of donated oranges, a plate of peanuts, a bag of pretzels and a pot of very strong coffee brewed over the fire. We check itineraries, to see if we can meet up again, somewhere down the road.

I notice Larry's been quiet. And now he's standing, folding up his chair.

"Hey, Larry," I yell over. "Are you leaving?"

It's past his bedtime, he says. Time to yank out his hearing aids and hit the hay.

So over the din of conversations and laughter, I thank him for the party.

He smiles. And walks off. Leaving behind a legacy of friendship modeled by crumbly old chocolate, drying-out marshmallows, aging graham crackers. And, I bet, a wife's enduring love.

Catching The Train in Nenana

2011-06-17T16:31:00.001-04:00

I stand in knee-high weeds, hoisting my camera chest high. Waiting. Waiting. And I'm excited.

Because any minute, the famous Alaska Railroad chugs through town and I want its picture. Not because it's THE Alaska Railroad. But because Glenys says it's THE thing to do in town. To watch the 6 p.m. train roll through, then watch it leave, over the historic bridge.

Sounds so lame. Sounds so small town. Sounds so yesterday. But I have to do it. Because Glenys says so.

Glenys works in Nenana, AK's visitor's center, a small log cabin with grass, flowers and weeds growing from its thatched roof. I walk in around 3 p.m. because we plan to do laundry in town then head on to Denali National Park. And I need to locate a laundromat. So we stop at the visitor's center. Where Glenys works.

She sees me, smiles and nods a little as she ushers two other people out, handing them a map and her well wishes. She then walks over to me, well, she sort of wafts over, like an angel on a cloud. Unimposing. Sweet. Gentle. She's a minute of a woman, without enough fat to keep her warm during a heat wave. She wears her age in her eyes. They're blue and rheumy. So I'm not sure if it's the water or her excitement that makes them sparkle and shine when she talks about Nenana.

She loves this town of 400. And she sure hopes we'll stay and explore, visit the church, the historic bridge. Oh, and we MSUT go down to the General Store. It's like time stood still in there, she says, quietly, matter-of-factly. And, she says, then tilts her head, grinning, twinkling, town folks like to go down at 6 p.m. and watch the train come through. And wave at the tourists.

It's not a big thing, she says, "But it doesn't take much to entertain us."

She then directs me to the town's only RV park because the laundry facilities are clean and, she tilts her head again, "DO plan to spend the night," adding, "Judy and Larry are such nice people."

Judy and Larry own the RV park.

She hands me a map of the town and I know, for sure, that after I do my laundry, I'm heading down to the tracks. To watch for the train. It's like telling me the best place in town to eat, the place where the locals hang out. It's what I want to do to feel like a local. Lame or not.

So that's why I'm standing here. With my camera poised. My motorhome parked -- for the night, or three -- in the RV park because, just like Glenys said, Judy and Larry are fine people. And the park is squeaky clean.

Oh listen! I hear the train whistle. Wonderful. My excitement percolates.

And here it is! Rounding the bend. The Alaska Railroad. It's clinging and clanging, rattling the rails. Piercing the air with its forlorn whistle.

Now it's rushing past me. Car after car. And look! People are waving from inside the train at me. They think I live here!

So I wave back. Pretend I'm a local. Doing what the locals do. And, MAN! I'm loving this.

God Made Girlfriends

2011-06-16T05:18:00.003-04:00

Allen and I are sitting at McDonald's in Fairbanks (see the rainbow in the fuzzy picture?), where everything on the $1 menu cost $1.50. I think about my girlfriend Lin, and how I want to giggle with her about this extra 50-cent charge.

But we order our McDoubles and cheeseburgers anyway. And as we nibble away, I notice three women sitting next to us engaged in animated conversation. All three wear their advanced years without notice. One cherubic, one aristocratic, and one a diamond-and-fur-coat model.

They laugh in unison, lean forward to share their tales. They're so engrossed in each other, they nearly forget their meals. And they laugh again.

Girlfriends. They must be girlfriends. Longtime friends. Church? Work? I try to imagine where they met. I visualize them young together, raising their kids, perhaps learning together how to survive the frigid Fairbanks winters, where it can get to 50 below zero day after day. Maybe they shop together.

I dip a french fry in catsup and I miss my girlfriends. Betty, Lin, Kathy, Susan, Karen, Jill, Teresa, Judy, Michelle, Linda, Lynda, Leah, Kelly, Sue, and my dear Celeste, and so many more ... My girlfriends mean the world to me because I find them refreshing, resilient. Engaging, interesting. Exciting. Humorous. Pertinent.

The three girlfriends next to me turns serious, and I hear snippets of conversations about health problems. Sisters? Could they be family, getting together for lunch while visiting a sick family member in the hospital?

Well, we're done with our lunch and it's time to go. Time for me to let go of these women. But I can't. I turn around. Say "excuse me." They stare at me. Inquisitively.

And then I say something stupid, like "Are you three girlfriends, because I think you are and I miss my girlfriends."

They laugh and their eyes twinkle as they acknowledge my supposition as truth, then invite me to be their girlfriend, too. Makes me smile.

So then I discover how they met. Not at a garden party. Skating rink or day care. Nope. They met 10 years ago on a cruise to Antarctica and have been close traveling buddies ever since. This month, they're exploring Alaska. Together.

Girlfriends. Ain't they grand.

"I CAN See Russia From My House"

2011-06-16T03:58:00.002-04:00

We're walking through the Visitor's Center in Fairbanks (that's Otto in the picture, parked at the visitor's Center) and we see people going into an auditorium. Then coming out. Going in. Coming out.

So, we check it out, and find three men, all native people age 60-plus, scurrying about on stage, packing up fiddles, keyboards and speakers, cleaning up from an afternoon of entertainment.

One of the three sees us and does one of those arm waves. "Come on in! We just finished rehearsing, but you are welcome to come in, sit down." So we sit, in comfy upholstered movie-house chairs.

The room doubles as a movie theater and stage-show venue. The real show, he says, begins Monday, with a week-long salute to native cultures in Alaska. He's a musician.

But his first love is storytelling.

This older native Alaskan is a storyteller, and even though his audience is just us two, he entertains as he packs up with sagas about his life in the military in South Carolina and Kentucky (he jokes about how awful the chicken is at Kentucky Fried Chicken, but how wonderful it is in South Carolina.)

And then he vindicates Sarah Palin.

Now, I'm no Palin fan, so I'm not looking for ways to clear her name. And in fact, most of the people I talk to here in her state pepper their opinions with words like pit bull, mean and bullish. They roll their eyes. Call her an embarrassment.

So I was taken aback when this man, this native Alaskan, vindicates her. Without naming her, or even intending, he vindicates her.

He does it when he talks about growing up with Russia in his back yard. He say that during the Cold War, he and his hunting buddies used to see Russian submarines in the waters off the Alaska coast, and they'd shoot at the hulls.

I laugh, and say something about his story being a David-and-Goliath tale.

He doesn't laugh back.

Instead, he continues to story tell, and says the shooting scared the submarines away, because who wants a hole in their submarine?

He's serious. So I get serious, and ask the big question: Can you really see Russia from your house.

With binoculars, he nods. Russia is only two miles away from his village. He can see them; they can see him. With binoculars.

The famous Sarah quote that Tina Fey parodied ("I can see Russia from my house") actually went like this: "They're our next-door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska."

So according to this native Alaskan, Sarah's right. You can see Russian from Alaskan land. His land.

Heading to the Arctic Circle

2011-06-13T19:20:00.002-04:00

Allen is outside the motorhome taking pictures alongside the Dalton Highway, the Haul Road, the one made famous by The Discovery Channel because of how dangerous it is. Because it's nearly 500 miles of unpaved, winding, narrow road, full of sharp, tire-flattening gravel, vertical drop-offs and concrete-like mud. Manic 18-wheelers possess this road because they service the prize at the end: Prudhoe Bay, on the Arctic Ocean.

Our goal is less lofty. We want to stand on the Arctic Circle (about 115 miles in), then turn around and head back to Fairbanks and pavement.

Despite the danger, we find this dramatic road beautiful. That's why Allen braves the mosquitoes to take pictures. Mile after mile, turn after turn, we see panoramic vistas of endless mountain chains; clouds so low, we look down on them; and here and there we see the sun dance on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. It snakes aboveground through the countryside, secretive in places, commanding in others.

We're loving this daring adventure. Five miles in. Seven. Then 10 miles in on our 115-mile journey, the road narrows. The shoulders drop off into nothing. At one point, the soft gravel grabs our right front tire and pulls us in, like a goblin hungry for rubber. We wrestle free, shake off the mounting fear, and travel on, avoiding the shoulder, which, obviously, dissolves under the weight of our motorhome.

Eleven miles. Twelve. Maybe 20. We tire, because of the doddering pace. Because of the mud slapping our sides. Of the spitting gravel and ominous drop-offs. And gremlins lurking in soft shoulders.

And we're hungry. The dogs have to eat, too, and go for a walk. So we stop in a turnout, offside of the road. And so do all the mosquitoes of Mudville. Allen runs the dogs out into the swarm, then back in. Safe.

As we eat, two 18-wheelers splatter past. And we notice they zoom straight up the middle of that unforvgiving nightmare of a road. No room for us to stay safe. We'd have been pushed to the side, onto that shoulder. Goners. Muddy, gravel encrusted goners.

So as we continue to eat, we look toward the hills up ahead, and consider our goal, the Arctic Circle that lies just on the other side. And decide to wave. It's OK. We wave at the mountains that can see the Arctic Circle on the other side. Good enough for us.

We finish our meal, then head back toward Fairbanks. And on the way, we see an amazing sunset (well, the sun never really sets here; it just rests on the horizon), the end of a rainbow (well, they do say there's gold in these hills), and we get to use our mosquito nets (over our heads) to walk the dogs again.

And we get to stay safe, out of the way of those 18-wheel road hogs, who are paid well to drive this dangerous road.

Fashion Sense Has No Age

2011-06-13T18:55:00.002-04:00

She's so cute.

A little girl, maybe 5, stands in front of me just inside the Aurora Ice Museum in Chena Hot Springs, Alaska. We're getting ready to see the artwork of Steve and Heather Brice, world-champion ice sculptors, and this little girl begins making a scene.

She's wearing a thin sweater and it's 20 degrees in here. So her mom wants her to wear a parka (provided by the museum) to keep warm. Mom pulls a parka off the rack and drapes it over her daughter's shoulders. Who whines: "It's too big."

To prove her point, the little girl deflates, making herself even smaller and making sure the parka slides off onto the floor. I want to laugh, but I can't, because mom's not happy. And the tour guide's not happy. And others are getting antsy because we can't go into the main part of the museum until we are all suited up. And this little 5-year-old's a wedge in the works.

I inject myself into her world.

"Hey, I found a smaller parka!" I say, enthusiastically, to the little girl, right into her eyes, and I ignore her mom. "Want to try this one on?" To my relief, it works. She grins and nods her head.

I drape the parka (which is really the same size as the one her mom just tried) over her shoulders and the little girl obliges by puffing up a bit. I then take the arms and tie them in front of her (with Mom's help), chatting all the time about how much fun it must be to be inside a cocoon, just like a butterfly.

Now she's happy, and everyone's happy because we get to go in. And what we find inside is a darkened word of ice that titillates my senses with blue and pink and green lights shining through poles, bowls, horses and trees, all carved out of tons of solid ice blocks.

Even the floor is ice (stay on the carpet or you'll end up on your butt.) A nightclub bar -- carved out of ice -- offers martinis in carved-ice goblets for $15 to patrons who sit on ice stools padded with caribou skins. I pass and head for the three hotel rooms in the rear. They cost $600 a night (wow) and feature icy walls, floor and carved-ice beds. Caribou skins pad the bed, just like the bar stools.

After exploring all three rooms, I think about my little girl and wonder if she's having fun. So I stand near those rooms and survey the surreal landscape, looking for her. About 50 tourists mill about in the subdued lighting, taking pictures, sipping drinks, talking in hushed tones. As if we're in church.

And those who wear the parkas look like clones. Who's who?

But soon I see my little 5-year-old, who stands apart from the parka-ed crowd because she's so small; she looks like a walking parka. I see her tottering about, staring at the spectacular art, not shivering a bit. Smiling. Mission accomplished. Even her mom is smiling now. Enjoying this icy word of the Aurora Ie Museum.

What About Bob?

2011-06-10T04:17:00.002-04:00

Bob's a muskox (right) here at the University of Alaska's LARS (The Large Animal Research Station) at Fairbanks.

And he just head-butted his buddy. WHAM! Because the two of them want to eat the same pile of grain. So they whack each others heads. Well, really horns. They stand 10 or so feet apart, issue guttural snorts, race toward each other and WHAM, head-butt (an AWFUL sound, like the crack of a dozen baseball bats, only deeper, more resonant).

After the smash up, Bob wobbles over to the fence and stares at me, looking sort of woozy. He tilts his hairy ol' head sideways, looks at me, and bobbles, like his brains got scrambled.

I wonder, will he die? His eyes begin to glaze.

And then I hear the WHAM again. Only this time, it's not Bob (he's recovered and gone back to eating). This time, another 800-pound muskox refuses to share. And instead of just saying no, he gets violent.

Just like Bob. Who's at it again. A bigger brute ambles near Bob's grain and ROAR! Bob deafens me with a sound I've never heard, a mix of vocalizations -- maybe giraffe, lion and elephant. (Our guide later tells us she thinks Spielberg used that sound for a dinosaur in "Jurassic Park.")

Bob's bluster works. The other guy tottles off (they walk slowly), and Bob looks back at me. His head bobbing and tilting.

All this happens while we wait for our guide to begin our 2 p.m. tour. She tells us to wait by the pasture, where Bob and the other seven food hogs line up by the fence because it's treat time. Each day they get fortified grain to supplement their grazing. To keep them healthy. So scientists from all over the world can study them.

It's this treat these boys bullishly protect.

And whenever Bob's involved, he wins. He roars, snorts and head-butts. And he comes over to me and gives me that Jack Sparrow woozy look, with his head bobbing and weaving. Like he's on his way out. Fast.

So when our tour begins, I ask, "What about Bob?"

Well, the tour guide says, Bob's unusual. Because while he's the smallest muskox out there, he's the meanest, the Alpha. And all that bobble-head stuff?

He's not hurting, he's bragging. To me. He's hitting on me the muskox way, by showing his power, his strength, his tough-guy status.

Well, I'm impressed.

I Just Wanted To Buy A Pie

2011-06-08T22:54:00.003-04:00

I want to buy a pie for Allen. As a surprise. From this tuoristy place called Beautiful Downtown Chicken.

There really is no downtown in this town of 23 summer residents; 6 in the winter. So it's all for show; for the tourists who make it here, who drive very long ways from either Yukon or interior Alaska, in cars, motorhomes or on tour buses.

I read all about this intentionally rustic little place in "The MilePost," a guidebook to Western Canada and Alaska. On page 315 is a picture of Susan Wiren, "a pioneering-style woman," Beautiful Downtown Chicken's owner. She's smiling out at me, standing in front of a motherlode of fabulous looking pies, holding one up, waiting to hand it over to me. Now. Oh yum.

So when we get to Chicken, we find a row of three businesses, all wooden, all looking like a set out of "Gunsmoke." We pull up (in the mud). Park. I go in.

And WHAM! I'm hit with acrid, rancid smoke. Shudder. Through the haze, I see a long wooden counter. And behind it, next to the left wall, a double utility sink holds a pile of steaming red potatoes two feet deep and three feet long. Two institutional-size soup pots sit side-by-side on a stove against the back wall. Their lids dance to the rhythm of the boiling food inside.

To my right is my prize: Pies. Lots of them Maybe a dozen. Perhaps 15. The air's acridity dissipates under the lure of those pies: blueberry, apple, apples with cranberry. Oh, yum.

Then, standing in front of me, smiling, is a young 20-something guy, wearing an apron and carrying a mighty big shovel of a spoon.

I'm about to ask about those pies when SHE glides in behind him. It's her. The Susan Wiren from the pie picture. She then proceeds to chew the apronned guy out -- I'm standing right there -- about something he's left on the floor. She whines about how she might fall, and hurt herself because of his carelessness and she's getting old, so she doesn't heal like she used to.

I barely note this insensitivity because I'm starstruck: She makes these pies.

She walks out, fast, leaving this beaten-down guy to wait on me. "How much are the pies?" I ask. $4 a piece, he says. "How much for the whole pie?"

The question whirls Susan back into the room.

"I can't discount the pies," she says.

"Oh, I'm not asking for a discount," I reply. "What's the price of a whole pie?"

This tips her off. She chews ME out for wanting to buy a whole pie. (But in that picture, she wants to GIVE me that pie.)

So how come I can't buy a pie? Because, she insists, she CAN'T discount the pie. My head swirls.

"Lady," I say slowly, and grab hold of her eyes with mine. "Listen to me. I don't want a discount."

"Well, most people do," is her retort.

"I just want a pie. I'll pay by the piece... Now, I can do the math, or you can." I note the pies are cut into six pieces ... "So it'd be $24," adding quickly, "And no discount."

Nope. She won't sell me a pie. Because, she says, she's cooking for a busload of 90 people (a Grayline tour) who will be here at 4 (it's now 9 a.m.) and every one of them needs a piece of pie.

I guess I understand.

So I buy a slice, not a whole piece. And get a story to tell.

Crossing the Yukon

2011-06-08T01:56:00.002-04:00

We're looking for the ferry out of Dawson City. So I tell Allen to travel north on Front Street, which follows the Yukon, a river that promised extraordinary riches to so many people so long ago.

We found none of those riches in Dawson (our own fault) so it's time to go to Alaska. Maybe our fortune is there.
But first, we need to cross the Yukon, on a small, free ferry.

After driving just a few more blocks north, we find the dirt ramp leading to our escape. Two cars idle in the line next to us. We're the sole RV. So it's just the three of us, waiting to cross. On this very small ferry.

Small, yes, but we see it's sturdy enough to tote a double oil tanker (filled with another of today's extraordinary riches) from the other side. We watch it disembark. Then see the ferry rises a good two feet when relieved of the weight. A good sign. A strong boat.

Our turn. The two men and one woman in hard-hats and rain gear direct the three of us on, waving their hands and signs to inch us forward, as close together as possible, the two cars first, then us.

A man in the first car hops out to take pictures. What a great idea! So I follow suit. As soon as one foot touches the deck, the woman waves me back in. She's shaking her head furiously, pointing to a sign, waving her sign. The sign, I see, says I'm to stay in my vehicle. Oops. So I stay inside.

The Yukon's current tugs us sideways as we cross. I understand why she wants us all seated. It's a raging river. And it takes 15 minutes to go from one side of the river to the other because the powerful current wants to wash us away.
But, we reach land, safely, and roll off in West Dawson City and head up the hill to begin our journey on the Top of the World Highway, a 175-mile narrow, paved/gravel/dirt road that cuts across the mountaintops from Yukon into Alaska.

But we stop first, so I can get a few pictures of that ferry.

As I snap, I see the troublemaker trotting down to see me. He's the man whose lead I followed on the boat and got chastised.

"I've come to apologize," he says, in a lovely, cadenced British accent. "Because had it not been for me, you would not have been scolded so back on the boat." And then, he proceeds to make plans to email me the pictures he took of our motorhome on the ferry.

There's more.

We meet again, this British man, Keith, his wife, Janet, near the end of the Top of the World Highway, in a town called Chicken, Alaska, where we spend the evening chatting about the monarchy, the world, kids and travel. We become fast friends.

Our evening together sparkles, like flakes of gold in a miner's pan. So just as I though, we strike it rich in Alaska.

Exploring Dawson City

2011-06-06T19:07:00.005-04:00

Dawson City is a bust.

Sometimes, not often, but just sometimes I'm unimpressed with a place we visit. And I'm unimpressed with Dawson City, Yukon. Even though it's on the National Historic Places list.

We visit the government-sponsored Visitors Center and they ply us with brochures and suggestions about government-sponsored things we can do in town. Everything costs. $6 to do that. $7 to do that. Do three, and the price falls to just $16.

What's with the grab for my wallet?

We decide to ignore the government's gold digging and set out on foot to explore the small, dusty town on our own. We pass numerous decrepit buildings, most worn out by the region's nasty winters and apparent financial decay. We explored the outside of some government-restored properties -- the hotel, bank, surveyors and brothels, all vintage from the Klondike Rush. We read memorial plaques about how this place swarmed with prospectors after 1896, with the discovery of gold. The Great Stampede. The place rolled in gold dusted people for a few years, then, by 1905, lost its glitter for the little guy when the big guys brought in massive dredges to do the work.

Today's extraordinary riches are us, the tourists, who intentionally make a long wilderness journey into the Yukon to see this city, where the race for riches all began.

We buy into a $40-a-night campground and plan to leave in the morning. Afterall, what else is there do to? We saw the dust and the decay. After we sleep, it's time to go.

In the morning, as I walk the dogs, I chat with our neighbors who, from the looks of things, are preparing to leave, too.

"Heading out?" I say. The conversation that follow floors me.

"Oh, no!" she replies. Because THERE'S SO MUCH TO DO!

She and her husband plan to send the day out at a government-sponsored park, panning for gold, watching for wildlife, and resting up. Yesterday, they took a few of the government's WONDERFUL, INFORMATIVE, FUN tours and then, last night, partied with the dance-hall girls and the folks from The Discovery Channel's new show on mining for gold in Dawson City. They partied in the original, restored dance hall, where all those miners o long ago sought solace from the hardness of life here.

They plan to stay a few more days, to visit a few more parks. Because it's all so much fun. So wonderful. They struck it rich in Dawson City. They bought into the government-sponsored stuff I naively cold-shouldered. In Dawson City they found gold.

And I, to save a dollar, struck out.

Heading Into The Dark

2011-06-02T11:56:00.001-04:00

We're driving around Whitehorse, not as tourists, but as consumers, looking for a good place to buy material to make blackout shades for our bedroom.

I want them because the sweet kiss of the sun in the morning awakens me. And it's generally a cheerful awakening, a time for just me and the sun to reacquaint ourselves, for a few minutes before the start of the day.

But here in the land of the Midnight Sun, the sun gets up way too early to kiss me. Instead, it smacks me upside the head at 3 a.m.and screeches GET UUUPPPP! In a panic. Unkindly. Manically. What a grouch!

And, our dogs function poorly. Usually, they hop right up in the morning, excited to start their day, to go outside, to have breakfast, then to jump back in bed with Allen. And snuggle down for a nap.

Now, when I get up, they don't even raise their heads. They each open one eye, one glazed eye, and stare at me, as if to say, "You've got to be kidding." So I'm guessing their sleep pattern's disrupted, too, without the dark (well, with only three hours of it.)

So I ask around for a cure, and I'm told two things: Just get used to it. Or make dark. I chose dark. To make it, I need to fashion blackout curtains.

I visit Walmart's craft department. Nothing usable there. The precut fabric measures two inches too short.

Next stop, the quilt shop. (I find it in my visitor's guide.) The four smiling (and short) elderly ladies inside wear smock aprons and toddle around, constantly. Endless motion. They pick up swatches of their fabric and hold them up to the light, then assure me it just won't do. It's too thin. (They're the ones who told me to "just get used to it.") I tell them I want dark. They send me across town to a tailor/seamstress shop.

So now I'm at that shop, the Golden Thimble, where two young Asian men wait on me. Together, we find the perfect fabric (designed for blackout curtains ... even though it is white.) And I hand them the dimensions I need.
In inches. They can't covert to inches. I can't convert to metric. We're at an impasse. But wait! We notice their tape measure does both, so they measure in inches and cut, then measure again, and cut. And we discover, the material is TWO INCHES SHORT! Too inches short. Like Walmart. Only more expensive ($16 a meter; Walmart is $9). But I'm into it now. I can't back out.

So the two young men converse rapidly in their native tongue (Chinese maybe?). I can tell they disagree on how to right this wrong. Because they punctuate their conversation with scissors clacking and tape measures flying.

The front door clangs open and I see who must be Mom and Dad walk in to what must be a family business. Mom smiles broadly at me, then turns and frowns at her sons, instantly assessing the situation. She calls her boys over (in Chinese?) and gently and peacefully teaches them how to cut a straight line in blackout material.

There. Done.

Mom disappears and the boys finish the sale.

So I give the kids $2 each as a tip. Because Mom yelled at them. Because I want them to know i really appreciate their time and trouble. Even though I think, now I'm not sure, but I think the shade is still two inches too short.

Driving Through the WIlderness

2011-05-31T18:54:00.001-04:00

Was that a cat? A big cat? A WILDCAT?

We're driving up the Alaska Highway in the Yukon. And because a road runs through it, we forget this is wilderness. So it's possible I saw a wildcat. Earlier today, we saw a porcupine. Roadside. A porcupine!

And just now, off to my left, on a tall roadside bank, I see a cat. A big cat. Not a feral house cat, but a big wild cat. I'm scratching my head because I can't locate in my memory banks what wildcat wears mottled, shaggy fur and stands very long and tall. Allen and I rattle off the common wildcats -- cougars, mountain lions, pumas, bobcats, tigers, lions -- and dismiss all possibilities.

What did I see?

I don't doubt it's a wildcat. The collection of wild animals we've seen in this wilderness (with a road running through it) would make zookkeepers salivate: nearly two dozen black bear, stone sheep (even a baby), wild wood buffalo (perhaps 20 of them), moose, caribou, mule deer and half a dozen or more feral horses.

I now I have this mystery. But, it's easy to solve, because here in Teslin, Yukon, where we've stayed for the night in the parking lot of the Yukon Motel, there's a free wildife museum which, I imagine, documents all the wildlife in the Yukon. Even this wildcat. So I go in.

And I find (after passing through tons of souvenirs) an amazing display of taxidermied wildlife. Things we might see in the Yukon: polar bears, black bears, Arctic fox, Arctic wolves, grizzlies, mule deer, musk ox, dall sheep, mountain goats, beavers, Alaskan moose, timber wolves. And there, nearly at the end of the display is MY CAT! It's a Yukon Lynx.

I saw a lynx. In the wild. Alongside this road that cuts through the wild.

And I wonder what roadside attraction we'll see today ...

Everywhere a Sign

2011-05-31T18:52:00.001-04:00

Gimmicks attract tourists. Things like the biggest ball of rubber bands, the largest sculpture of a squirrel. The largest collection of road signs in the world. That's where we are.

It's called Sign Post Forest and it makes this little town of Watson Lake, a dusty respite on the Alaska Highway, a popular place for tourists to stop and play. And to leave their footprint, a piece from their life, a road sign from their town (swiped in the night?) a wooden plaque they carved their name on or even their license plate.
Everything gets nailed up on square wooden poles. And everything has words on it indicating whose footprint it is, who they are, where they are from.

There must be hundreds of these poles bearing thousands of signs. At last count, there were 72,000 signs. A battalion of footprints from around the world.

We see remnants of Germany, Japan, Holland, every Canadian province, Italy, Spain and, of course, the states and towns of the U.S.

And we see inventive footprints; outside the box footprints: an Igloo waterbottle, guitar, a Scrabble Board, flipflops, sneakers, fishing boots. But mostly, street signs. Mostly enthusiasm. Footprints from around the world.

And we see people darting through the "trees" of this forest with signs and hammers, to add their own presence, their own Kilroy Was Here" sign. There own footprint.

At the end of our hike, we find my favorite: A little plastic trash can, nailed upside down on the pole. Singed by Walter, Katie and Theresa, from various towns in Georgia. It's the message that I like the best: "No garbage here; life is wonderful."

Hiding Our Fears From The Kids

2011-05-30T04:40:00.001-04:00

"Come on, you can do it," Maddie says to me, giggling, encouraging me to swim under the birch tree that's fallen across the hot spring. When she giggles, she scrunches up an adorable little nose with dancing freckles.

I don't want to duck under the water. It's wild water, the Liard River Hot Springs, a provincial park in British Columbia. The natural hot springs (112 to 126 degrees) blends with a warm-water swamp inside a boreal forest. There's lush vegetation on all sides and I've been warned to watch for moose, who like to hang out here, and back bears, who've been seen crazing within 10 feet of the water. The same water I'm supposed to duck under.

The water's full of sulphur. What will it do to my hair? What else might be in the water?

But I do as she says. Because I refuse to show her my fear. Fear is contagious. And I don't want her to be afraid of the water, so I duck under and (I'm surprised) pop up unharmed on the other side of the tree.

She's thrilled. And claps her hands. She's so cute. She's 6, and along with her brother Joey, 4, splash around in the hot water with us and their mom and dad, Collin and Jackie. They used to live in Montreal, but now live in Whitehorse, a Klondike community about six hours to our north. They come here to play. It's one of their favorite spots.

"Come on. Follow me!" This time it's Joey, and he swims upsteam, then disappears around a bend in this little meandering waterway. He's leading us to where it's cooler. We need cooler right now. All of us have pink cheeks and arms. So we follow (Allen, too), swimming upstream. It gets so narrow, we swim single file.

Then I see Joey slip under a little v-shaped branch with about a 6-inch clearance from one side of the creek to the other and to the top of the water. I stay on my side of the claustrophobic 6-inch opening.

"Come on. You can do it." Joey's just as cute - and insistent -- as his sister.

NO I CAN'T. I tell him: "My head's bigger than that hole."

"My mommy got through, so you can get through."

"I have bigger hips than Mommy does," I tell him.

"The opening is bigger below," he says.

What a cutie.

Then I realize I must not show him my fear. I HAVE to duck under, in this cooler, muddy water, where leaves and branches reach out to strangle me, and snakes and bears await to gobble me up.

So I do. And I pop up on the other side (Allen does, too). Unharmed. Then we both quickly retreat back to the hotter water. Back to where we can see the bottom of the pond. We keep on swimming until we reach the steps and climb out of the water.

We're done. We're ready to go. We turn and see the kids still playing, still dangling off fallen trees. Still ducking under the water. Still having a grand time. Unafraid.

Lured On and On By Nothing But Beauty

2011-05-29T03:23:00.001-04:00

It's 6 p.m. and we call it a day.

We pull over at Summit Lake, the highest point along the Alaska Highway, to set up camp for the night. We walk, eat and gawk at the beauty surrounding us.

We're in a bowl of beauty.

But it's far from nighttime. The sun's still high and the road beckons. So we decide to continue on. For just a while. Because it's so beautiful up here in British Columbia, along this historic highway.

On the road before and after the lake, we flit past stone sheep, moose, caribou. Mountains rise and fall on both sides. Frozen creeks -- some five feet thick with snow and ice -- thaw under 20 hours of sunshine. Their water at first a trickle, then a stream, then a current. For miles we follow rushing waters snaking through glacier-flattened countrysides. Twice we see beaver ponds, their dams holding well, their lodges mounded high.
And then, what is that blue?

The color of Muncho Lake, an Alaskan Highway respite for boaters and campers, approaches both blue and green, but arrives at neither. It's opaque, thick. And it's big. We skirt its edge for miles.

The road meets the water on one side and the mountains on the other. And it's desolate. We meander past an occasional trucker, camper or pick-up truck, one with a dog in the back. But generally, it's just us and all this beauty. And that amazingly blue lake.

What is that blue? Cerulean? No. Ultramarine? No. I got it. Turquoise.

Muncho Lake is a bowl of turquoise.

Hours later, the intense beauty continues to lure us along. We can't stop. We drive and drive because over each crest, around each curve, down each valley, breathtaking beauty abounds. And, it's daylight. Forever it seems.

Finally, we come to rest in a long-ago glacier's alluvial fan. And we're in another beautiful bowl. It's snowcapped, and the steep sides rise into the Canadian Rockies.

And no one else is here. We walk, and gawk, then climb back into Otto, where we draw our shades, against the daylight.

At 10:30 p.m, I peak out and see the field of rounded stone, some the size of basketballs, with long shadows. Aha! A setting sun.

Finally, about 11 p.m., darkness. And we settle in for the night in our beautiful bowl. Finally.

Finding the Original Alaska Highway

2011-05-29T03:13:00.001-04:00

We do it.

We touch Mile Zero on the famous Alaska Highway in Dawson Creek, BC, and head northwest to Alaska.

The highway's famous because it's a Baby Boomer, a classic, an original. Born out of need in World War II. The U.S. needed to defend Alaska in case the Japanese attacked it, too. But how? There's no way from here to there unless you fly.

Or take a boat.

So,in '42, thousands of U.S. and Canadian military and civilians built this road, down from Alaska and up from Dawson Creek, BC.

So this highway is historic. Famous. Classic. An original. And one of the greatest engineering feats of the last century.

But here at the start, it's hard to tell where it really begins. The city maintains five starting places. So take your pick: A monument in the shopping district, another in a traffic circle. Still there are three more at the side of a big parking lot.

I can't tell which one is the classic start, the original start, so we just pick one, take pictures. And go.

About 18 miles into our historic journey, we discover a fraud. A big betrayal. This isn't the original Alaska Highway. Oh, it does the same thing, gets from here to there, but the years have straightened and widened it and in places moved it so the big rigs, carrying oil, lumber and even food, can pass through more quickly.

The surface we traverse is younger than I am.

We discover this remodeling of history because at Mile 18 we see a sign leading us to the OLD Alaska Highway, to a spectacular curved wooden bridge built in '42 and still in use. It's a classic. An original. 190 feet of it. A sign says it took nine months to build this bridge. It was the first of its kind in Alaska and the last one still in use. But not as part of the highway anymore. Instead, it's inside a provincial park. For tourists to use.

So we use it, and enjoy the view of the massive ravine is scales.

The awesomeness of this historic bridge -- and my need to absorb more -- leads us to where we are today. At the Fort Nelson Heritage Museum in Fort Nelson, BC, about 250 miles away from that bridge. We find something original, something classic. A museum about Fort Nelson and its past, told through display cases of mostly just stuff from the '30s and '40s. And mounted game. A white moose. Caribou and stone sheep. Even fish.

And then there's a video about the building of the Alaska Highway, some fabulous pictures documenting the travails, and cars, trucks and big machines outside, all used in building the highway.

But the best, was Marl Brown, who was 10 when the highway was built. He started this museum and caretakes all that's in it, including a car barn with fully operational antiques, a Packard, a Studebacker and a 1924 Model T he bought in 1950 for $100.

He's 79 and looks comic-book silly with his unkept white beard and hair. The twinkle in his eyes indicates he intends to create all this silliness. To entertain. To educate. And I love it. Because he' a classic. An original. And I found him along the Alaska Highway.

Just A Spot of Coffee and Conversation

2011-05-27T11:59:00.001-04:00

It's 6:30 a.m., and I'm having coffee inside the Buckinghorse Lodge Restaurant along the Alaska Highway. Horseshoes and pictures of horses, moose and bear decorate the paneled walls inside this low-slung eatery. The linoleum floor shows the cracks of age.

Two display cases feature hunting knives, another music CDs. Up at the cash register, there's a small display case with jewelry. And there's a table with last night's desserts wrapped up for sale.

It's just me this morning, with my coffee, sitting at a wooden table, soaking in the rustic nature of this out-of-the-way place. We're at Mile 175 on the Alaska Highway, and the cook tells me there's no name for this town. It's just a place. The mailing address is Pink Mountain, but it's not really Pink Mountain.

Like I said, it's an out-of-the-way place.

Then three grizzled men come in, separately, and sit at different tables.

These guys are truckers, and they're all eating breakfasts of eggs, toast and sausage. And they talk. To each other. In code.

"I came down the 85."
"I'm just going to kilometer 5."
"He might of did the fry head ..."
"He chained up in the middle ..."

And then there's stuff I do understand. These three men, all wearing denim and cowboy hats, all sitting apart, come together with their talk. They exchange stories about brake linings, oil pan repairs and bears. "Saw a big one this morning, coming down from Fort Nelson." "Seen any grizzlies yet?" "Nope, just black.")

A female trucker comes in.

The talk stops. I hear chewing. Utensils clanging on plates. She visits the washroom, then leaves.

The talk resumes.

One by one they leave, without a wave or a spoken farewell. Their bellies filled, their need for human contact satisfied.

And then a fourth guy walks in. This one's much younger. Maybe in his 30s. He orders coffee and toast. And heads for the jewelry, where he asks the price of a necklace. $8. He buys it. Slips it in his pocket and leaves.

A family of four (with the cutest little kids) comes in for coffee, potato chips, candy. And another trucker stops. And another.

And then it's just me. Sitting here, writing, drinking my coffee. Waiting for the door to open again. Realizing this is no out-of-the-way place.

Art So Real ...

2011-05-26T00:16:00.001-04:00

The dogs are barking. Incessantly.

They are standing on our bed in back of the motorhome, looking out the window and barking.

We call out to them to hush. They don't. We stand and wiggle our fingers at them. But they bark. And bark.
OK. SOMETHING is out there. And the dogs are worried. They aren't barkers. They usually hush on our first insistence. Well, maybe on our second.

But they are barking and ignoring our pleas -- our demands -- for silence. So SOMETHING OUT THERE is troubling them.

But it can't be serious. We're parked in downtown Chetwynd, BC, at the Visitor's Center, getting ready to explore the art that makes this place the Chainsaw Sculpture Capital of the World. We're surrounded by amazing craftmanship, amazing artistry.

Since 2005, artists from Japan, Germany, the US, and even right here in Chetwynd spend three days each June using their chainsaws -- THEIR CHAINSAWS -- to carve art out of cedar logs 8 feet long and 3 feet wide.

The sculptures decorate the town, in public spaces, in parks, along paths, on street corners, along sidewalks. So we plan to go for a walk, with the dogs, and enjoy this art.

And the walk is happening sooner than we planned because the dogs are barking and we can't shush them.
So I go into the back of the motorhome to look out the window. To see what they see.

And I see it. A bear.

The dogs are barking at a massive grizzly rearing behind a pickup truck. And he's roaring. A forever roar. Because he's a work of art. A sculpture. A wooden chainsaw creation.

And he's so realistic, he fooled my dogs.

Better To Be Safe ...

2011-05-25T12:43:00.003-04:00

We change our plans.

I'm not happy about it. But I'm not sad, either. Because I understand why we must change our plans. For safety.
The road I want (the Cassiar Highway) meanders through long, lonely, rustic, twisting, mountainous stretches of British Columbia. Gravel paves portions of this road.

The road promises a bounty of bear, moose, caribou, deer and other animals. But limited services. Like fuel. Limited because it's so remote; it's the road less traveled. That's why wildlife abound. And why I want to go there.
But we change our plans, trading endless vistas of animals for logic. I understand.

And logic tells us to use the the road most traveled, the famous Alaska Highway, know for years as the Alcan Highway. It's about 100 miles out of our way, but safe.

So we head northeast from Prince George, BC, up the Hart Highway, our eyes set on Dawson Creek (Mile Zero of the famous road) because, of course, there's not much else to do with our eyes. (I'm pouting.) I'm sure the wildlife hang out on the remote road, not this one, the one with lots of fuel and other vehicles.

Wait. Look, LOOK! A bald eagle, sitting on a low branch over that rushing creek. We pass by him within 100 feet. He's huge. I'm thrilled.

"Did you see it?" Allen yells. A bear. Allen says a black bear ambled down an embankment just as we passed by. He's about the size of a refrigerator laid on its side (not as long, but as wide).

WAIT! I see another bear, off to the right. What's he eating? Grass? We suspect maybe clover.

Now, LOOK LOOK! A beaver. And he's HUGE! I'd guess three feet by 18 to 20 inches. And what a LONG paddle tail! He' sitting on a log in the middle of a ponded area, chewing on something, using his paws to hold something up to his mouth. His redwood-colored fur glistens in the sun.

And, Yeah! Another bear. And another.

Within a four-hour span, we see seven bear, that bald eagle, the beaver, geese, crows and and something, maybe an otter, that slips into the water as we pass by. We also see magnificent vistas of snow-capped mountains, birch-filled valleys, mountainsides awash in spring colors, the edge of the Canadian Rockies, patches of roadside snow and the ice on a frozen lake beginning to give way to Spring.

And we find fuel, no problem.

Soup's On, Um Er, Off

2011-05-24T11:32:00.002-04:00

Soup.

I love soup and it's chilly today here in Prince George, BC, on Victoria Day, a day to honor the Queen.
So I order soup at DeDutch Restaurant, an eatery, we discover, that serves a motel, so it's no more Canadian than I am. Or elegant.

But it has free Wifi, so we decide to eat there.

With the soup, I order a patty melt (no cheese) on sourdough bread. Allen orders bacon and eggs and pancakes.
Our 20-something, fashion plate waitress bobs her head when I ask about the soup. Pea soup, she says. "We always have pea soup," she bobs, smiling wide, showing her teeth.

She can't vouch for the soup, because she's never had it. But (the bobbing resumes) she's seen it and it has carrots in it, and bits of meat, probably ham. And it's always available.

Her words end, but her head still bobs.

Yum. Pea soup. One of my favorites.

I'll take a cup, I say, along with my burger.

She bobs and bobs then heads to the kitchen, about two feet away.

I hear clangs, bangs and dishes breaking, then a voice sails through the storm: "Well, I eat my soup out of a bowl."

Soup? Are they talking about MY soup? More pointedly, ME?

Seconds later, Miss Bobbin' stands table side and asks, "Do you really want your soup in, like, a coffee cup?"

HA! They WERE talking about my soup.

Oh, sweet youth. She's never heard of a cup of soup.

No, I assure her. I'm not talking about the vessel. I just want a small amount of soup.

"We serve our soup in bowls," she says, and, yes, she's still nodding, and, clearly, misses my point.
So, I tell her, bring it on. I'll take the bowl.

She does.

And, it's AWFUL. Terrible soup. Perhaps it sat out all weekend (this is Monday) and spoiled. It tastes spoiled.

So when she returns to ask after our meal, I mention the soup's inedible. And she nods, and scrunches her nose, and says, "I imagine so. It's just powdered, you know."

Ack.

Yes, I reply, when she asks if I'd like it removed from our bill. Which, with the soup removed and the tip added, closes in on $40. For a burger and eggs with pancakes. But, of course, no soup.

Imagine That

2011-05-22T19:01:00.002-04:00

I'm sitting in the front seat of Otto, watching the clouds consume most of the mountains in front of me at Cache Creek, BC. And I'm sipping delicious hot coffee.

It rained all night long, giving the pastures a welcome drink and turning the rutted roads quite muddy.

It's OK. We're not going anywhere. I've got my coffee and we're camped at the Historic Hat Creek ranch, where yesterday I met Fergus, a 60-something grandfather (I met his granddaughter, Shelby too), who drives the tourist attraction's stagecoach.

Now, Fergus is a small man. I'd say he's a wisp. So when I see him this morning, I chuckle a little because he's nearly swallowed up by his 10-gallon hat, chaps and the ankle-length suede coat he wears as part of his stagecoach persona.

And he, like me, is sipping his coffee, but he's outside, walking down the muddy, rutted farm lane to where the Belgians graze.

I grab my binoculars because I'm curious how he beckons these massive beasts to come to work. Will he whistle for them, holler out? Does he hold up their harnesses and rattle them for attention?

So I watch. As he walks. And sips his morning coffee.

Then what do I see?

I see this pint-sized cowboy pitch his paper coffee cup into the woods.

The Belgians of Hat Creek Ranch ... My New Friends

2011-05-21T20:25:00.001-04:00

I hear the stagecoach, so I grab my camera. This time is has to work. It just HAS to work.

It's the fourth time I've tried to take a picture that shows how close the old-fashion stagecoach gets to our motorhome. Feet. It passes within FEET at least twice a day. And each time, my camera has failed. Bad batteries.
I want this picture for another reason, too. The Belgians harnessed to the stagecoach befriended us. Well, sort of.

We met the massive horses (2,400 pounds each) on our first day here at the Historic Hat Creek Ranch, a tourist area, really, where adults play make-believe to show kids and other adults life on a farm in British Columbia 150 years ago. As we walked the dogs past corrals and pastures that day, I saw four Belgians out in the field and just whistled "hello."

Two ignored my welcoming; two others, however, galloped up the hill to visit us.

What a sight! These are massive horses, easily standing five feet taller than either of us (to the tip of their ears). Their muscular legs end in pie-plate sized hooves covered in hair that dances about as they prance. They stretched their massive heads past the barbed wire to sniff us. I patted their muzzles. Scratched behind their ears. The dogs ignored the experience. I fell in love.

So because of that walk, and the friendliness of those horses, and my heart, I want to take their picture. And that's why I've run out for the fourth time when I see the them coming.

The stagecoach driver (the same one all these times) takes pity on me. And stops the team. "Want to get a picture?" he asks the obvious. Of course, I feel compelled to explain my odd behavior, to tell him about my bad batteries. He just smiles at my story. And keeps the team still.

We then introduce ourselves, and it's my turn to smile. He's Fergus and the horses? Arthur and Hobson. Solid names for loyal subjects of the Crown.

Fergus says this is the final round of the week for Arthur and Hobson. Soon they'll be turned out to pasture for a few days off.

And as I finish writing this tale, I hear the Belgians' throaty, gusty neighs, so I turn to look. And I see them gallop through their field, with their heads high and their tails and manes twisting in their breeze. Home from work, I see. Their weekend begins. And I think they know it.

Across the Border, Northward

2011-05-20T13:55:00.002-04:00

We stop just north of the border crossing in British Columbia. To breathe.

The days leading up to today compress in my mind into one big umbrella, with spokes leading to food, car, clothing, money, dogs, motorhome, family, friends. And so much more.

Nothing in our life went untouched in my umbrella. But we got everything done (packed the right clothes, got the right vitamins and medicines, packed the right food -- what is and is not allowed to cross the border, fixed the motorhome, stored the car, etc.). A whirlwind, but we closed that umbrella today, snapped it shut, and crossed the border.

Breathe.

I can breathe. And the dogs need to stretch.

So we stop at one of the first rest stops we see in British Columbia and walk. Well, we really hike. Up a hill, which is more like a grassy knoll or dike beside a meandering stream. The stream is deep, muddy, and moves slowly. The dogs enjoy sniffing around the edges. And we walk along the top, following a well-worn path. And breathe.
Then, something catches my eye.

Look. Up ahead. To the right. In the water, on the other side of the stream. There's a turtle moving pretty fast toward us in the water.

No. No. Wait. It's not a turtle. It's a dog.

There's a dog in the water, swimming toward us. Pretty fast. The sun glints off the side of his vey wet head.
NO WAIT! THAT''S NO DOG.

Good heavens. It dived. And it's still under.

It's an otter. AN OTTER! And he's up again and he's swimming toward us.

My dogs ignore the otter, who's not ignoring them. He's popping up and down in the water alongside us as we walk. LOOK! There's another curious otter. AND another one.

THREE. THREE otters do the dog walk with us. They stay in (and under) the water and we stay on land.

And they stay underwater for long periods. Then they surface and breathe. Just breathe. Here at a rest stop in British Columbia.

The otters and I. We just breathe.

Lights, Camera, Action

2011-05-12T02:57:00.000-04:00

I'm standing in make-believe land. Where Thelma and Louise drove off the cliff, where Indiana Jones tracked down that treasure, where massive red rocks formed the backdrop for Star Trek, Mission Impossible, Austin Powers, City Slickers. And a gazillio other films.

I'm in Moab, Utah, where Arches, a national park, unfolds just minutes outside town. But lightyears from anything I'm used to seeing.

We stop and stare at massive, brilliant red rock pillars so dramatic their names create tension: The Fiery Furnace, Devils Garden and Couthouse Towers. My favorite? The Three Gossips. And of course, Balanced Rock. I read where it weighs 7 million pounds.

Balanced Rock sits precariously upon its spire. As I walk closer, it goads me into rethinking my center of gravity. Or ducking. Logically, one sharp puff and Balanced Rock's a has been. But it stays perfectly perched.

And I'm standing for a while, just staring at this rock, wondering how it stays up there, when I see make-believe in the making.

A man (the actor) has stepped up on a rock and holds his hands out sideways while another man (the cameraman) sits on the ground, taking a picture of the man on the rock. Two more men stand behind the cameraman -- the director and producer, perhaps?

I walk closer; then I get it. They're just tourists, creating a silly picture. Here's the scene: At the angle of the camera-shoot, it looks like the "actor" is holding up Balanced Rock, preventing it from falling over. Like in this picture.

I wait. And when the picture's taken, the four men gather around the camera and laugh and pat each others' backs, because the shot's perfect.

I ask to see the picture, too. Yes, it's perfect.

As I walk away, returning my senses to what's real, I notice the four men walk apart. Apparently, they came together only for that moment of make-believe. In this land of make-believe.

Happy Mother's Day, from Moab, Utah

2011-05-08T13:58:00.004-04:00

Those who know me well, know of Emma. My daughter.
She died before she was born.

So I share this day, Mother's Day, with millions of women who unlike me, wear the Mom Badge for having survived:

* Endless nights of walking the floor.

* Singing nonsensical songs over and over .... and over and over.

* Streams, miles and piles of pee, vomit, poop; and baby burps.

* Tripping over toys; tracking down toys; putting toys together. Toys, toys, toys.

* Trying to figure out where it hurts; trying to figure out how to stop the hurt; knowing when you have to let it hurt.

* And letting go of the tiny hand; agreeing to stop holding hands in public; handing over the keys to the car. And handing over that hand to someone else.

A wonderful friend sent a poem to me with various titles: Awesome Mom, Before I Was A Mom, Being a Mom. And I cried. Not out of grief for what I never had, but because I finally found the words to explain why I, who never raised a child, wear that Mom Badge, too:

Until Emma, "I didn't know the feeling of having my heart outside my body."

Happy Mother's Day.

By the way, here's Emma's picture, along with a wonderful tribute my husband Allen wrote in 1997. But please, when you look, understand Emma never lived outside my body, so this picture is of her in death.

Here's another special link, EmmaKate, a song written in her honor by John Eidsvoog. Listen to the end, and you can hear her flight into Heaven. In Jeremiah 1:5, God said, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born, I set you apart."

Dancing With The Past

2011-05-08T01:03:00.002-04:00

I feel silly. Because we're doing something patently touristy.

While the rest of the world engages itself in Abbottabad, Navy SEALS and the death of the mastermind of terror, we're bouncing down a small side road through dusty farmland in Fort Sumner, NM, to see the gravesite of, ahem, Billy the Kid.

And were doing this because I read about it on the Internet, in a Things To Do link. And I like to do oddball things.

So we pull into the graveyard's parking lot and find it's just us and two other people today (both men; one a trucker) paying respects to the villainous kid.

And I think we're all embarrassed. Because we're not making contact And we're waltzing around the graveyard, staying equidistant.

It's easy to dance out of each other's way because the walled compound has sidewalks that meander past a few other graves, all from about the same time period (late 19th century). So I watch as we all feign interest in those other graves, dipping to read headstones, then swaying on to the next, all waiting for our turn with the famous guy, all staying out of each other's way.

OK. It's our turn. We cha-cha up to the gravesite (fenced-in to protect it from vandals) and read the tombstone (manacled, because it's been stolen twice). We take pictures and, when it's our turn, we sashay out.

And so ends the graveyard ballet.

The Signs Say It All

2011-05-06T00:00:00.002-04:00

It's time to leave Waylon Jennings Rv Park (pics) in Littlefield, Texas (population 7,000).

We spent two nights here with water and electric hookup for free, in exchange for, well, not much to do. Except watch a Little League game or two at night and, during the day, walk the dogs around a dry, dusty sports complex we share with tumbleweed, trash, broken glass and broken fences. Oh, yes, and prairie dogs.

We can see through the beginnings of decay where things were nice, once. And the city tries, we can tell, to keep this little horseshoe-shaped park, well, spiffy. Not current, but spiffy. Tidy. Tiny.

Homey.

Hand-painted signs ask for donations and suggestions (both "appreciated"). A big sign tells us the dos and don'ts of the place. Another small sign, beneath of flag pole in front, salutes a couple of fellows who thought up the idea of an RV park in the first place.

It's a very small park, with room for 10 RVs, tops. Yet, still, I find more signs.

Near the front of the park, I find a large sign, with a wood-carving of Waylon, Littlefield's most famous son. And then I see the impressions of his cowboy boots in concrete, the shape of Texas.

There's a sign for the Fannie Mae Horseshoe Court next door. Fannie Mae is Waylon's aunt.

Sweet. Simple. Connected.

But it's time to leave. Everything's packed away. We're driving out, when I turn and say "Stop!"

I see yet another sign. In front of a grassy area inside the horseshoe, where I count 13 trees. The sign says "Littlefield National Forest."

Spiffy. Tidy. Tiny. Homey. And definitely humorous.

Been There, Done that

2011-05-04T01:12:00.002-04:00

I find a Web site (freecampsites.net) that says in Littlefield, Texas, there's a free campground. We can stay for free, up to four nights, with free elecricity and free water. Free.

And what a fun name: The Waylon Jennings RV Park. Waylon's Littlefield's famous son.

The only drawback is it's pretty much in the nowhere of Texas, off the beaten path, up northwest aways from Brady on secondary roads. So, it'll take a while to get there. But we don't care. We're not in a hurry. And we love going where we've never been.

So we head northwest, through unfamiliar hills, valleys, mesas, cotton fields, cattle ranches. Pure Texas.
And we get hungry. Out here in our new nowhere. But we don't want to cook. So I ask our GPS to find the nearest eatery and it does, a McDonald's, 26 miles away. Straight ahead.

So we drive on and, finally, turn off the secondary road onto a tertiary road to get our fast food.

And we drive smack into a familiar place, Post, Texas, a town carved into the middle of a Texas nowhere in 1907 by the cereal magnate C.W. Post. But, more personally, it's a town we visited in 2007 on our maiden winter journey in our then new motorhome.

A small world.

Sometimes, You Don't Get What You Pay For

2011-05-01T19:27:00.001-04:00

I'm checking the Internet for a cheap place to stay tonight. We're meandering through the Texas Hill Country and like it here. And we want to stay, for just a few more nights.

So I'm cruising the Internet, checking for boondocking sites (a piece of ground we can park on overnight, for free, like Walmart.)

I find instead a curious thing. A city (very small) park, with water, gas and electric hookups, for $10 a night (cheap!). On the honor system. The little write-up warns the park has four unmarked spots with hook-ups.

Four sites? They're probably taken. So, I find a nearby Walmart, just in case ...

As we enter the small town, I warn Allen to drive into the campground slowly. It must be run down. Remember, $10 a night? So let's watch for nails, pipes, broken wood strewn across the road.

I see the sign up ahead and tell Allen to turn left, then slow down. Watch out for debris. He does.

No need.

We enter a park so luscious, so meandering, so lovely we're mesmerize. We pass a long manicured grassy area landscaped with war memorials and mock antique street lights. We drive by a swimming pool, a beautifully-appointed playground, a small softball complex surrounded by an exquisite shoulder-high stonewall.

And the trees! Beautiful live oaks gracefully reach out here and there, creating large pools of dappled shade.

It doesn't look like a campground. No concrete slabs or numbered pavilions. Only dirt/gravel lanes that swirl around shaded grassy areas. We know we're in the camping area because we see one other motorhome. Just one. We don't see any others, or any other sites.

So we ask our fellow camper for help, and he directs us to what becomes our own piece of earth, in a grassy circle far away from him, where we hook everything up and stay planted. Paradise.

Caught Up In The Moment

2011-04-29T01:32:00.002-04:00

We're pedaling through miles of open land at the LBJ ranch. Just us and a couple of herds of meandering cattle and skittish deer and antelope. It's a storied land in Stonewall, Texas, visited by the dignitaries and movie stars of my youth.

I keep reminding myself that I'm actually here, here on the ranch, when suddenly, around the curve, I see it. The House. The Texas White House.

We park our bikes and queue up for a guided tour inside the house. Inside history. I'm so excited.

Our guide, a park ranger named Ben, who knew Lady Bird personally, leads us to the porch.

And there they are. The rocking chairs.

The ones I clearly recall from my youth. The ones in the famous picture of Johnson and Nixon. We walk by and I yearn to touch those chairs.

The first room we enter is LBJ's office, with period pieces from the '60s, the phones, typewriters and a new gizmo called a remote control for the TV. I'm time traveling.

Suddenly, I smell cigarettes. Just a whiff. And I see ashtrays on all the tables. I know LBJ smoked incessantly, but could the odor linger nearly 40 years later? Hmmmm.

The ranger feeds my curiosity by saying often, at night, when he's locking up, he feels something in the room. And he thinks about all the powerful people who passed through here, about the Kennedys, Nixon, J. Edgar.

When the tour ends, about 25 minutes later, I'm still back in the day. And I want to thank the park ranger for taking me there. So I walk around the corner and find him, smoking a cigarette, crashing my time machine.

I giggle privately, and head back to today, where odors don't linger for 40 years and where my bike awaits the ride home.

Face to Face With A Longhorn

2011-04-27T00:20:00.000-04:00

We're hiking along a circular trail through wildflowers, grasses and cockleburs to see "The Johnson Settlement." It's in Johnson City, Texas, and it's where President LBJ's grandfather and great uncle started their cattle droving business during the Civil War.

Before our walk, I'd read where the boys made a fortune off cattle they never owned. They'd find unbranded cattle wandering the Texas plains, herd 'em up and move 'em on to market in Kansas. Along the famed Chisholm Trail.

Easy money.

The wandering cattle came from herds belonging to ranchers off fighting the war. No one was home to herd up and brand the calves, so the babies just grew up on the land, and wandered right into the hands of entrepreneurs like the Johnson boys.

Legal, but still, easy money.

So I'm thinking about those cows and the boys who just whisked them up and sold them, when we walk into a clearing and, voila, the settlement. We find a log cabin, some barns, a windmill and ... Wow! Two Texas longhorns. Within spittin' distance!

I've never been this close to a longhorn. I'm so close, I could touch them. So I try.

I walk up to the fence, and the black and white guy looks up. I whistle, snap my fingers and put my hand through the fence. And I talk friendly. "Here, boy. Here, boy."

Look! He's walking toward me. Man, those horns are huge! So long!

My dog Jacob, a large standard poodle, steps back away from the fence as the steer gets closer.

"It's OK, Jacob." I assure him.

Then WHAM! MAN! The longhorn slams his left horn right through the fence, and whacks Jacob on the side of the face. Jacob yelps (more startled than hurt) and backs off. I don't back off and WHAM SLAM, the longhorn tries crashing through the fence at me. He maneuvers those massive sabers deftly and bangs my arm briefly as I jerk it away.

Now Jacob and I both jump away from the fence. And the longhorn settles down.

I notice that as long as we keep our distance, he keeps his attitude peaceful. So we keep a big distance.

As we amble far away from the longhorn and through the rest of the settlement, reading historical makers and peering into doors, I start thinking about those Johnson boys. And if they ran across longhorns like the one we just met, then I'm thinking they earned every penny they got.

A Colorful Dog Tale

2011-04-25T01:57:00.001-04:00

I'm waking back from the laundry room at Padre Balli Country Park (Padre Island, Texas) and see a tiny, 40-something woman zigzagging across the RV park.

She's not much taller than a bar stool and is trailing a monstrous white dog on a thin wire leash. The dog's weight is so mighty he waddles, and the woman can do little more than follow in his meandering path. Which is heading right for me.

I say "Hi."

The dog stops walking and this woman starts talking. Fast. About how she was going to do laundry today, but noticed I was busy at mine, so she went grocery shopping instead. Yaddada Yaddada.

I'm enjoying her manner of speech. She's from Houston and her words roll one into the other, liltingly. It's lovely. Each well-formed word morphs into the next quickly, without hesitation, without corruption.

When she stops, I want to hear more, so I ask about Mr. Waddles, who must, I think, be quite old.
Never did I expect this story:

Storm, his name, is a 9-year-old wolf/huskie mix trained in Afghanistan as a munitions sniffer. He saved lots of lives there, and got a Purple Heart.

After his military service, he was used in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and helped locate the bodies of 133 people. His owner, a U.S. Army Colonel, is friends with Donna, her name, and gave her the dog when he could no longer take care of him.

And, Donna rattles on, Storm's not fat nor does he waddle because of his weight. His skeletal fame was altered, she says, as a pup during munitions training. He was walked on a short, tight lead, that held him back so he could feel trip wires. So, he learned to waddle.

It's getting dark, so we part with plans (that we broke) to have coffee in the morning.

Now, I don't know how much of this is true. I can't confirm a thing on the Internet. But I do know Donna and her husband love this dog, and use his image as their company logo. So I took a picture of the logo. That much is true.

Mystery Finds Me

2011-04-25T00:45:00.001-04:00

My mind's all a-flutter with the history and the humor I find in Comfort, Texas (pics).

The small town is just a chapter in the state's storied Hill Country, a huge, beautiful landscape that billows west from the San Antonio/Austin megalopolis like a deep, refreshing exhale. That breath is full of little towns, big ranches, ghost towns and nearly empty places. It's populated with people, longhorns, a gazillion goats, some camels, buffalo, antelopes and what game hunters call "exotics."

But Comfort has more. It has a mystery. Involving me.

First I find the history: We park Otto in front of a burned-out stone building that has "Peter Ingenhuett" barely legible on the nameplate.

Then we walk past other buildings so old and so well preserved, they're on the National Register of Historic Places. Each building wears a badge of Historic Places honor, along with a plaque detailing why. It's like the whole town's preserved, and, unfortunately, partially empty. For Sale signs hang on building after limestone building -- the town's first blacksmith shop, first saloon, first this or that.

I see where Peter Ingenhuett was the town's first postmaster, and owned a lot of property. His name appears on lots of the plaques as well as that burned out building.

Then I find the humor. A barber shop near the end of the street bears it's own badge from the "State of Mind 'Histerical' Committee." The plaque reads: "On March 2, 1836, Texas declared her independence from Mexico ... and this building was not here yet."

I laugh. Read the sign again. Laugh again.

And then, the big mystery.

I look down on the ground and at my feet (on a windless day) I find a folded, 8-by-10 piece of paper singed around the edges. Like it survived a fire. I pick it up. Open it. And find it's an original shipping order, dated June 16, 1925, for 4 bundles of galvanized pipes for $600. For PETER INGENHUETT!!

This is an original document. Worthy of a place of honor in this town's museum. What's it doing at my feet? On a windless day? When nearly the whole town is closed for Easter?

I look around and there's no one here. Nobody. Just me, Allen and this historic document. So I scoot up the street to the open-for-business antique store across from Peter's burned-out place and ask: When was the fire? Thinking, maybe, last night.

Five years ago.

So, I wonder, as I walk slowly back to Otto, where did this scrap from the past come from and why did it find me?

Egg-citing Enough, for Easter

2011-04-23T17:18:00.001-04:00

I'm standing in line at Walgreens to buy AA batteries when I notice the unusual heftiness of the man in front of me.
He wears a muscle T-shirt (popular down here in Texas) that stretches over his pot belly. The tiny drugstore shopping cart exaggerates his girth. And then, in that cart, I see a dozen "eggs." Not really eggs. But something I've seen marketed greatly over the past week or so, labeled "Cascarones."

Mr. Burly leans over to the cashier and they exchange a few words in Spanish. Gracefully, he dips his bigness out of line toward a pyramid -- and I mean TALL pyramid -- of these "eggs" and stacks four dozen under one massive arm, then two dozen more in his hands.

These "eggs" aren't still food, because they aren't refrigerated. But I have no idea what they are or why this large man needs dozens of them.

So, when it's my turn at the cashier, I ask.

She tilts her cute little teenage head and smiles a timid little smile.

"They have confetti inside," she says. "We crack them open on each other's heads."

Crack 'em? Heads?

"It's fun," she raises a shoulder to her ear, and giggles, then confides: "Especially on someone who doesn't like their hair messed up."

Crack an egg on my head? Cover me with confetti? It sounds like fun, especially if I get to watch a bunch of giggly kids go a'crackin'.

But, I say to the cashier, "I never heard of such a thing."

"Really?" Her little mouth turns pouty and her dark brown eyes become saucers. "Well, I'm from Michigan and we do it there. I thought everyone has Cascarones."

The great cultural divide of youth.

I remember thinking everyone ate peanut soup on Thanksgiving, got apples in their Christmas stocking and had to hunt for their Easter baskets.

So I guess it's a Mexican thing, because Corpus Christi has lots of Mexican Americans and my cashier is Mexican-American, too.

And as I drive home, I see makeshift egg booths popping up on street corners, selling the decorated, filled eggs for less than $2 a dozen. And Easter is just a few days away.

At home, I Google "cascarones" and find even Martha Stewart knows how to make them. And although they have Italian roots, they're cracked open mostly on Mexican heads. At Easter. For luck.

Perhaps I'm the only one who didn't know ...

A Sea Turtle Adventure, Well, Almost

2011-04-20T00:28:00.002-04:00

I'm sitting on the beach reading Agatha Christie's "The Moving Finger."
But I can't concentrate.
Up the beach, about a quarter mile, I see two Turtle Patrol dune buggies and a handful of people hanging out. Just hanging out.
I turn back to my book.
Starting in April, the Turtle Patrol volunteers down here at Padre Island National Seashore drive back and forth along a 20-mile stretch of beach looking for momma sea turtles to come ashore to lay their eggs. When they find a momma and subsequently her nest, park rangers come and pluck away the eggs, carrying them to an incubator where, Lord willing, the eggs hatch.
When the eggs hatch, the babies are reared to a young age then let lose into the Gulf of Mexico.
I look up again and wonder. Is there a turtle?
I turn a page. But, obviously, Agatha and her mysteries can't hold my attention because I'm watching what I think might be a sea turtle sighting. Catching, collecting, or whatever.
So I tuck Aggie in my beach bag and walk up to the crowd.
What I find is no turtle, but, frankly, it's almost as good. I find a young park ranger, in his mid-twenties, bubbling with excitement because today he spotted his first girl around noon and ended up collecting 101 eggs.
I don't think I've ever seen a 20-something man smile that big or that long. He's absolutely giddy. So we ask him lots of questions, about his momma turtle (a returnee ... she was tagged in 2009), the condition of the sea (turtles like it windy and it's very windy today) and the quality of the water (any oil out there?)
He avoids the oil question.. "We were told to just say 'no comment' when asked about the oil, the tar," he says.
"But why?" I ask.
In case, he says, someone from the media sneaks in for a quote, or an undercover agent from the oil company is out checking on what's being said about them. It's just safer, he says, to have no comment.
Hmmm.
Last year the park rangers told me the tar I found on the beach was naturally occurring tar, up from the ocean's depths.
This year they say "No comment."
A mystery.
Now where did I put Agatha ...

Nancy To the Rescue

2011-04-19T11:30:00.002-04:00

It's after midnight and it's time to shower and brush my teeth.

I open the door to the women's washroom at Padre Island National Seashore and I see movement. A fleeting movement. On the floor. Not the kind of movement caused by the wind picking up a paper towel someone left behind. A skittering kind of movement. By something small and low to the ground.

Oh, gee. There's a critter in here. I follow the path of the skitter, pushing open the door of the first toilet stall. Nothing.

I move on to the second stall and place my palm on the door. I'm not afraid. This thing won't launch itself at my face.

So I push. And there, I see it, zipping under the divide into the third stall. A crab. A ghost crab actually. And he's no bigger around than a tennis ball. He's quite flat, though. And transparent gold.

And scared. And totally out of his element.

These guys come out at night (ergo the ghost name) and hate the light. So this poor thing must be in a panic.
And I know I have to save him. Because earlier today, a family triumphantly killed a rattle snake. Killed him. Why? Because he lives here. Where they decided to visit for a while. He wasn't threatening anyone. He was sunning himself. Where they could see him. And that got him dead.

So I didn't want them to see Marley's ghost (yes, I named him) dead. I also didn't want Marley to meet the 17 junior high school students from a Montessori School in Dallas, who are sleeping on the beach. Imagine the screams! And it'd get him dead, too, just like the rattler.

So I get Allen and he holds the bathroom door open (he's standing behind it, hiding) and I get to rustling. I move to the rear of the washroom, further inside than where Marley is, and bluster my way toward the door. He skedaddles (sideways ... that's his forward) away from me, just like I hoped, and and now he's almost free. Then ACK! He ducks behind a couple of crumpled up paper towels, under the sink, way in the corner.

That means I have to crawl on the floor, on my hands and knees, and get my hands within inches of Marley's pinchers to pluck his shelter away so I can rescue him.

I need tongs, or a pole. AH! I have my toothbrush. And my toothpaste, which is longer than my toothbrush.

So I kneel, crawl and reach, using the end of the toothpaste tube to crunch down the paper towel and drag it away.
Poor Marley. He's flattened himself into the corner and is now the size of a quarter. And he's not moving.

So I get my bath towel and flick it at him several times. Now he's mad.

Out comes those pinchers and he scissors the air as he runs away from me, toward the door, out into the night, to freedom.

Yea, Marley! He's alive and free.

A Great Dad and a Great Air Show

2011-04-10T14:02:00.003-04:00

We're at an air show. With lots of macho Texans wearing their cowboy boots, sporting their tattoos, standing tall with sultry women hanging off their arms. And lots of families with kids, Vietnam Veterans. Current military men and women in combat camouflage.

This is a big show, one that celebrates the 100th anniversary of Naval aviation and thunders through the sky above the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station. And it's free.

We're watching amazingly skilled flyers recreate the sounds of World War II as they motor about the heavens in B-25 bombers, a Curtiss-Wright sb2c (its nickname is flashier - Helldiver), and the bentwing Corsair. We're awed as the massive hulk of Fat Albert (a Lockheed-Martin c-13ot Hercules) lifts itself skyward slowly, without groaning.

Barnstormers entertain and frighten us as they loop-de-loop and engage themselves in screw-driver turns across the skies, cut power and nose-dive toward Earth.

Contemporary fighter jets wow us with speed and sound.

Momentarily, I'm just as entertained by the family in front of us. The dad's model-perfect, and stand more than 6-feet tall. He wears a white muscle T-shirt and baggy, dusty bluejeans that tumble out cowboy boots. He sports a tattoo of Frankenstein on the rear side of his upper left arm and a tarantula opposite it on the right. He's sucking a lollipop and -- this is what's so entertaining -- he's sitting in his little boy's stroller.

Yup. This hulk hunk of a man is wedged in a kid's stroller. Just sitting there, watching the show, sucking on that sucker.

Six kids swirl around him, playing ball, gigging, plopping down on a blanket. He breaks his skyward concentration easily to offer up a juice box. Another kid gets a sippy cup. He unfolds one of his long arms and hooks in his little boy, smears suntan lotion on his face, then lets him go. He tends to those kids just as easily as he sits in that stroller.

I need to stop staring. It's getting rude. So I take a picutre (above) to remember the scene, and look up again and enjoy the show, the one up there in the sky.

And it's a big one. We stay for hours.

A Boating Adventure Captured from Shore

2011-04-08T02:24:00.001-04:00

I'm sitting in my lawn chair next to Otto, our motorhome, reading. Now and then I look up to watch the waves curling toward shore at Padre Island National Seashore. It's really, really windy with lots and lots of waves.

Actually, I'm looking up a lot, because I don't like the book. It's a real crime story, "The Innocent Man," written by John Grisham, who usually writes fiction. I like his fiction better.

So, I'm looking up a lot, out of boredom, out to sea, watching the waves. And suddenly I see something I've never seen in the three winters I've spent here. A sailboat. And in this wind?

It looks odd, like it's spinning, or something. So I drop my book and grab my binoculars.

Yup. It's a boat. And it's spinning. Not wildly, but it's dosey-doeing with the waves. And its main sail is flapping, not billowing, and it looks like another sail is dragging in the water.

What do I do? This boat is in trouble. Holler help?

I run to the camp host (a boater); he's not home. I remember campers from Colorado Springs, Lin and Andy, who kayak a lot. So I run to their motorhome, where I find them inside, writing in their journals.

When I say "There's a sailboat in trouble," they leap out of their motorhome and, as if rehearsed, assume different roles.

Lin grabs a marine VHF radio and tunes to Channel 16, the international distress channel, while Andy snaps up his binoculars to assess the damage.

There's no cry for help, Lin says, holding the transister-sized radio over her head and bobbing around, hoping for good reception. Andy climbs on top of his picnic table and focuses in on the boat.

He says the sailor's lost his jib (the big sail I saw flapping), but he's fashioned a much smaller sail behind it (probably the one I saw floating in the water earlier). And he's righted the boat to sail evenly.

We watch as the boat continues north and applaud the sailor's skill. He's got things under control. No need to call the Coast Guard. Crisis averted.

Excitement over. So I head back to Otto and see that awful non-ficiton book, its pages still flapping in the wind.

Beach Environmentalism 101

2011-04-07T00:25:00.001-04:00

It's Man vs. Nature. Guess who's winning.

We're sitting at the beach at Padre Island National Seashore watching two men, a dump truck and a backhoe make a mess in the sand. They've already shoveled seaweed (mixed with a lot of sand) into mounds, much like Northerners plow the snow in a paring lot. And now they want to move the mounds. So they've brought in the big guys to haul 'em off.

Three, four, five times the backhoe dumps the weed mixture into the bed of the truck (spilling a lot in the process). Then the truck drives its cargo of beach stuff off the beach (I don't know where it went from there), all the while more seaweed rolls in with the tide.

It's what happens here every year, this carpet of seaweed 10-20 feet wide. It's no surprise that seaweed clogs the beach from March through June. It's just what happens.

But people don't like it; tourists complain; local businesses suffer because who wants to play in seaweed.
So Man battles Nature.

After dinner, we return to the beach, and it's quiet. The big equipment is gone, but its scars radiate and undulate out from the remining heap of seaweed and makes the whole thing look like a giant octopus sand sculpture. Or the real thing, washed ashore, just not ready yet to die.

I also see big ruts in the sand. Deep, cavernous ruts. I had heard earlier that the dump truck had gotten stuck and had to be towed out. Makes me smile. Because it's like nature getting back at us for for our impatience. We can't wait for her to do her job of cleaning up the beach, of drying out the seaweed, then blowing it apart wth her fierce wind, thus scattering the remains throughout the dunes.

No, we go in with our metal shovels and deisel-powdered, 10-wheeled trucks to cart the stuff away. So she sucks us in. And then stands by to watch as we squirm our way out.

She's giggling right now. Because she's winning.

An Evening At The Water's Edge

2011-04-03T22:19:00.001-04:00

We take our coffee and walk to the end of the boardwalk, about a dozen yards from the ocean, where pelicans and seagulls fish for their evening meal.

The sun's setting and I realize we've lived here for more than a month, and this is the first time we've done this. The first time we've had our evening coffee on the beach.

And it's peaceful. We're alone. Except for the wind. It's pretty strong and we suspect it'll get stronger.

We sit on top of a picnic table and watch the pelicans crash into the gulf, fishing. First one, then another. And a woman walks by.

She stops to chat. About birds. We see a V-line of birds fly by and a lone cormorant brings up the rear. The woman delights in this. We talk birds and dogs and in the midst of our conversation another couple drops by. They pull a picnic table alongside ours and sit there, along with us, watching the pelicans dine. We talk about kayaking, RVing, coffee, islands and New Orleans.

Soon, the first lady leaves and is replaced by a man, this one with a dog. We talk dogs, rescues and the wind. We're suppose to get 7-foot waves tonight, he says. Unusual. For here.

Soon, two more people walk up from the beach and I notice the sun is gone. And so is our coffee. And so is our peace. Because it's more like a party out here. Because where it was just me and Allen a few minutes ago, is now all these people, along with the birds, the waves and the wind.

Next Time, I'll Pass On The Mud

2011-04-02T14:08:00.000-04:00

Gee, I'm hot.

Dripping with sweat after a two-mile walk on the beach with our dogs.

I climb into our motorhome and turn to sit when Patty walks up.

"I've been looking for you for an hour!" she whines. She's a minute of a woman, with short curly reddish hair, a deep tan and barely a wrinkle. And she's smoking.

I met Patty late last night, at the bathhouse. She was brushing her teeth when I walked in and she was wowed by my hair. (So she says.) She loves my hair. (So she says.) And, she says, she has just the product I need to keep it beautiful during the day. She'll bring some by in the morning.

She also managed to tell me, in those few moments together, standing in the restrooms, that she's 60 years old, from New Hampshire, and is staying with an elderly couple (in their 80s), who are leaving on Sunday.

Well, it's now Saturday morning and that's why she's been looking for me. To fix my hair. (Or so I thought.)

So I go outside, sit at a picnic table and cringe. Because Patty scoops up what she calls mud from a little pot and scrunges it into my hair. I hate this.

I'm sweating and sandy and sticky and now this woman smears mud in my hair. (I now look like the" Flying Nun," only too heavy to take flight.)

Patty yabbers the whole time she's scrunching and poofing my hair. (Why did I agree to this?) About the things she wants to see and do here in Corus Christi. About how she has three more days before her plane leaves and how she needs a place to stay because her friends are leaving in the morning.

"I guess," she whines, "I could stay in my car."

Bingo.

I think this woman wants to bum a bed off us. I think she's trying to butter me up through my hair.

"Yes," I say. "Lots of people stay in their car."

Mostly, I can tell the difference between a person in need and one in greed. And Patty, I think, guesses I can, too. Because she leaves soon after I fail to offer her a place to sleep.

But she's coming back later, she says. And I'm going to wash out my hair.

Not Your Average Day Shopping

2011-04-02T00:33:00.000-04:00

(Leah, This one's for you.)

My grocery list is small. Only 10 items and I'm out of the store, on my way back to the beach.

Allen drops me off near the front door and we both see a jaw-dropping sight: a gazillion and two high school kids (actually 220, I learn later), all wearing blue shirts and many grabbing shopping carts to head into the store ahead of me.

Yes, it's a monster grocery store.

I grab my own cart and follow them inside where a sea of blue spills everywhere. Except in the fresh veggies and fruits, where a dozen or so older people stand and stare.

As do I.

What I see are kids having a great time, shopping for groceries. Laughing, rushing here and there. Checking lists. Being very polite. I notice an adult wearing the same blue shirt that says "Plano East High School" on the front and "Spring Break 2011" on the back. So I ask. What's up?

The answer makes me smile.

All these kids are members of the Plano East High School Marching Band and are in Corpus Christi this weekend for the state competition. They rode in three buses for eight hours to stay in condos that have kitchens, but no food.

So, the kids came up with an idea. They formed teams and plan to do the Iron Chef thing to feed themselves and their band leaders and chaperones. The winners get to be, well, the winners.

The menus? I noticed a lot of macaroni and cheese in those carts, hot dogs and pizza. Pepsi. Cereal. Oh, yum.

I grab my 10 things and head to the front where all 25 cashiers stand ready. As I head to the door, I see a blue wave rising. Let the competition begin.

Fish Tales and Adulthood

2011-03-31T20:58:00.000-04:00

I'm visiting the Texas State Aquarium alone today. I go where I want, when I want. And as often as I want. Well, not really.

I'm dodging two classes of high school kids on a field trip. And one group of junior-high school girls and boys. The tweener girls all dress alike, gather in gaggles and giggle. The tweener boys walk into walls.

The high school kids blend naturally as coeds, and they carry school papers with lots of blanks for them to fill in, so they crowd around signs, tanks ad docents eager for answers to pencil in.

I hang on their periphery, enjoying them enjoying themselves. Until I come to the seahorse exhibit. And then I merge with them. I become a teen again.

We (me and three high school girls) seek out ghost shrimp and seashorse in an interactive exhibit that has a plastic bubble inside the tank. One at a time, we can crawl under the tank and stick our head up inside that bubble to become one with the seahorse community.

The girls go first. One at a time. We giggle and chat as they scramble down onto the floor and then pop up inside that bubble. And we take pictures. And giggle some more. Now it's my turn.

I get down on the floor and scoot, not scramble under the tank and, and slowly rise, not pop, until my head is partway inside the bubble and a distorted watery world unfolds along with a faint odor of chewing gum.

My legs cramp and I'm bent in such a way I can't breathe too well. Enough.

I lower myself slowly to the floor, then use a granny handle to lug myself back up outside the tank. Where I discover I'm alone again. They left me.

Memories of teenage angst assault my psyche. And they make me smile, because now I'm all grown up. And I no longer need to adapt, to change in ways that make me melt into the crowd.

So I'm happy to be alone again. To go where I want, and when I want as just me.

A New Favorite Place To Dine

2011-03-29T00:24:00.002-04:00

I love Thai food.

We've driven past the Bangkok Star Restaurant on Padre Island, Texas, many times and each time I yearn to turn in. But Allen prefers steak, hamburgs and french fries, so we don't swing in for Thai, Chinese or even Italian very often.

But today I'm alone, and it's lunchtime, and I want Thai. So I pull in. Park. And go inside.

It's small inside. So I feel huge. Vast. Immense.

There's a petite outer room with a wisp of a bar and cash register and a small inner room with a few tables. A tiny woman, perhaps from Thailand, asks me to follow her into that inner room. I do, and I feel like Madame Maxime (for my non-Harry Potter fans, Mme Maxime is a half-giantess).

My tiny Thai seats me at a little table for two, against the wall. I place my purse on top of the table next to my plate and I'm cramped. The waitress hands me a menu and as I begin to study it, a man, a very big man, who resembles John Goodman/Fred Flintstone, walks over to me and stands right next to my elbow.

How can I pretend he's not there? He's huge! He much be over 6 feet tall and his belly's so big, it flops over his belt. He's wearing a navy blue shirt (tucked in) and tan shorts and sneakers. His short, curly blond hair is scraggly, as is his day-old beard. What does he want?

I look up (and up) and he says, "Let me move your purse to give you more room." I half go to grab my bag because the great dichotomy between him and her screams at me. But I let it go. And he moves it across the table, to the chair on the other side.

And thus begins a perfect meal.

He's my waiter. Who knew? And he's a genuine delight. He pulls up a chair to explain the restaurant offerings and reminisces about the Pad Thai he enjoyed in California. He's serious about tending to my lunch. I tell him my favorite Thai food and he searches the menu until he finds the right fare.

I order, and soon, I'm enjoying veggies and tofu dressed in a full-bodied peanut sauce over steamed rice.

My waiter leaves me alone to dine. And I feel not so large anymore.

An Adventure in Flight

2011-03-26T21:53:00.001-04:00

We're on our bikes in the parking lot of the Malaquite Visitors' Center on Padre Island National Seashore.

I see about eight cars and 5,000 seagulls. Well, maybe not 5,000, but so many they form a massive ground colony and they all face south, into the wind.

Allen skirts this cacophony of screams, squeals and squawks; I pedal toward it; it's like a tracking beam drawing me in. I'm 10 feet away. Five feet. Three feet. Then, silence. And in milliseconds, WOOSH. The gulls take flight.

And then they do a startling thing.

Instead of flying away, heading out to sea, where it's safe from me, this wave of gulls transforms into a cyclone, swirling around me, rising barely a foot above my head (well, maybe six). Quietly, they swirl round and round, like a protective escort as I pedal away. But they don't let me go. They stay right with me, swirling, swirling, creating an airborne whirlpool.

I want to fly with them.

Then I look down. Splat. And I see another. Splat. Bird bombs. I duck. And they soon tired of this game and fly away, back to their Tarmac roost, to face south again. And I pedal back home.

Another God Sighting

2011-03-26T00:54:00.002-04:00

The signs scream "Christian Family Restaurant Open 24 Hours," "Floyds" and "Praise God." One towers over the restaurant in Corpus Christi, Texas, and another covers the length of the roof.

So we go in for lunch. Looking for God. And inside confuses me.

Allen smells old cigarettes and it's dingy. I see no trappings of faith. Big or small. No Bibles, pictures of Jesus, or scripture napkins.

A dour-faced woman waits on us, then argues with the cook, where we can hear, about the amount of bacon Allen has ordered. (Which is a lot, and the cook doesn't understand, I suppose.)

I notice that most of the 15 other customers sport tattoos. No one dresses well -- at all. And some look scary. One man's bears a huge Iron Cross tatoo -- on the front of his neck. Another wears a sleeveless T and a dirty bandanna over long dirty hair. He fidgets. A lot.

This is no church super. But it could double for lunch at homeless shelter.

I ask my waitress about the God thing and where it is. She smirks and says her boss bought the restaurant from someone else and that's all she can tell us because she doesn't know any more.

OK. Simple enough. New owners, and now no God.

We pay our bill and head out the door. That's when I hear something special. Something sincere. I hear a woman's sweet voice say confidently, "Have a blessed day." THERE IT IS! There's God. It might be a small amount of God, but it's God.

So I say back, without turning around, "OH! You, too." And she replies, "OH! Thank you."

Later, I Google the place and find nothing about the history or new owner. A few random diners posted good food reviews. And then I find this little nugget, on a coupon: Floyd's Christian Restaurant uses its revenue to feed the homeless.

So if this is still true, then THERE GOD IS. In a very big way.

Pretty Gets You Places

2011-03-24T22:01:00.002-04:00

Our motorhome's bedroom window stays open a little or a lot. There's no closing it.

It's been that way for nearly nine months now. And neither Allen nor his best RV buddie Louie can figure out how to fix it.

They spent a lot of time looking at it. I know this, because I saw them. Both standing there. Looking at it. Trying to figure out how to fix it. They leaned back on their heels, crossed their arms over their chests and shook their heads. I've since figured out this means "What a shame. It can't be done without a whole lot of trouble. And we don't have the right tools."

So now, nine months later, it's urgent we get it fixed. We're in Texas, in the spring. The mosquitoes and flies are coming.

So we head to the nearest Camping World and I ask for help. Well, I try to.

"We have a 2007 Navin J and we need the rear window repaired," I say to the woman behind the counter.
"No we don't," Allen corrects me, and he's smiling. "I told you, it's just the round crank."

"I know honey," I smile back, to placate him. Then say to the woman behind the desk, "The window crank ..."

Again, Allen interrupts. I giggle. "It's not the crank, it's the whole window that has to come out. I know this. I worked on it for hours." He's still grinning.

"OK, honey," I smile, daggers this time. And turn back to the sales desk where now two women have stopped to help me.

"We need ..." then argh! It's him again. Talking. I laugh! They're smiling. I shake my head.

Allen stomps on every comment I make (but sweetly, smiling and grinning) or tries to finish my sentences, all the while talking to me, not the people behind the counter.

Before our rift gets serious, Mister To The Rescue moseys out from behind the wall to save the day: "Hey, is the rig here in the lot?"

"Yes," Allen and I say, in unison. Of course.

"Let's go take a look."

Out he and Allen go and I stay back at the desk, with the two women. "I need estrogen!" I say, melodramatically.
With the guys out of earshot, one woman says, almost conspiratorially, "Is he always like that?"

"Well, sort of, I guess, but not usually this bad." I come to his defense, a little. I have to. I'm his wife.

And her reply? Egads, that's awful? Shame on him? How could he? Doesn't he know to wait his turn? Doesn't he know that it's rude to interrupt?

Nope. She says, with twinkling eyes, "Well, I'd a slapped him in the face if he JUST WASN'T SO CUTE."

A Meeting With Four of God's Children

2011-03-20T14:53:00.000-04:00

Our meeting is brief.

Me and four young college women (Bethany, Lauren, Emily and Stephanie ... I tease that their initials spell BLES. And that I am BLES(sed) by their company. They laugh.)

We intersect in the campground at night at Padre Island National Seashore, as we amble to and from the washroom. I rarely see such young faces here amid this sea of beautiful winkles and luscious gray hair. But it's spring break up North, and these kids, well, really young women, drove south to celebrate, about 1,300 miles, from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, because one of them found this beach on Google.

Google didn't tell them only old people play here (and are in bed by 10.). The hipper, edgy crowd parties up at the county beach (Padre Balli Park beach), or down at South Padre Island, so I tell them, because I figure youth needs youth to refuel, to revive.

"But we don't want to be a part of that crowd," the taller one says. Her name is Stephanie. Because, they all explain in various ways, they embrace Christianity, and don't want to drink or party. So they came to this beach, a national seashore with no boardwalk, no hotels, no bars, (but lots of retirees) to enjoy nature and to get a tan. But the sun's not cooperating, so their plan is to pay for one at a local tanning booth tomorrow, before going home.

We laugh and talk. I tell them about my life as a Christian and how much I like to play with other Christians. And what we do to play. And I answer their questions about living in an RV for months, traveling with large dogs. And I tell them how most of us retirees had careers, like teaching, editing, writing, dentistry, bookselling, computer technology. And we talk marriage, God and friendship.

We soon wave goodnight and good-bye, and off they go.

The next day, I head into town to shop. And when I return, I receive such a surprise: A handwritten note from each of them, all on a sheet of notebook paper. With words like "thank you," "grateful," "fortunate," "blessing" and "love." And "Jesu Christ."

I cherish the note. Take a picture of it. Then just stare at it and smile. I am BLES(sed) indeed.

A Walk to Remember

2011-03-20T01:51:00.002-04:00

We're walking the dogs on Padre Balli Park beach off the coast of Corpus Christi, Texas, and it's nothing like we've ever seen before.

Oh, we've been here before, on this very beach, and accept the novelty of dodging four-by-fours as they barrel down the sand.

But today, it's different.

It's spring break. And we see kids, lots of kids, big and little, everywhere, They're dotting the beach like seashells and chattering like seagulls. And we see lawn chairs, tents, cabanas, grills, dogs, a horse, more dogs and more tents and lots of trucks.

The beach is a wagon train of cars and truck, a carnival of people, some way out in the ocean, others just two feet away from each other. Dancing, singing, laughing, eating. The crowd is enormous. Vibrant.

And everyone, it seems, wants to pet our dogs, play with our dogs, ask questions about our dogs. They crowd around us, like a celebrity sighting.

Our dogs, of course, love the attention. And I do, too. We play with some kids; chat with some adults. But Allen, our introvert, might hyperventilate, so I suggest we head back to our RV and wait for the evening, when everyone's gone home and the Super Moon promises to bathe the beach in moonlight and we can walk in private. Maybe take a few pictures.

So, right after dusk, we leash up the dogs and head back out to the beach. Where we are shocked to see something we've never seen before: a nighttime crowd at the beach, with campfire and trucks, people everywhere. Dancing, singing. Or just staring at their fires.

Lots of 20-somethings drive in, dressed to impress and I watch as they park, then head up the pier, where there must be a popular bar just out of sight, where I can't see the fun.

I ask one of the guys, "Hey what's up on the pier?"

"Fishing," he says. "They're really biting tonight."

"Wait," I stammer, "There's no bar up there, no nightspot to hang out in?"

Nope. Just fishin'.

Wow. All those 20-somethings, on spring break, taking dates to a fishing pier, to fish.

Again, it's nothing like we've ever seen before.

Some People Can Sure Talk

2011-03-18T11:09:00.002-04:00

I'm in a nail salon in Corpus Christi, Texas, getting a pedicure because I'm tired, hot and my feet hurt.

The salon owner waves me over to a chair next to a little woman in her 40s with impeccable taste in clothing, jewelry and hairstyle. I must have sat on her on button, because as soon as I'm down, she starts talking:

1. Her name is Patricia; Patty for short.
2. She's been married three times; is single now, but is looking for No. 4.
3. Buried husband No. 2's mother last week and she REALLY loved Husband No. 2's mother.
4. Loves to wear white. which her grandmother told her to wash in cold water when she uses Clorox.
5. Has lived in Corpus Christi 19 years but hates it because of its diversity.
6. Lived in a Chicago suburb until third grade.
7. Has no pets because she has white carpets.
8. Love the color coral. But not accented with black.
9. Has two pairs of glasses (and she models both), but only one with clip-on shades.
10. Is an "assistant" in a local doctor's office where, if I call, ask for Judy, not Patty, because they know her as Judy. Her full name is Judy Patricia.

And on and on and on.

I keep scooching, thinking if I turned her on, I can turn her off.
Nope.

And then she asks me a question. An unusual one. Even for the pedicure chair: How's my health and what meds do I take.

What? Curious.

Fine I tell her. I'm great. My brief comment gives her time to refuel, and she's off again, this time about her employer, how wonderful he is, how she can get me an appointment without waiting.

My eyes glaze over. She rambles, on and on and on. I nod and nod.

A pregnant woman with multiple facial piercings and a colorful tatoo the size of Ohio on her leg sits down next to me. YEA! A reprieve! I turn to chat.

Patty taps my arm. I turn back and then she says something that stops me cold. "If you need anything from the doctor's office, just let me know. I can get it for you without you having to pay for a doctor's visit. Just give me your cell phone number."

And, she adds: "I'm just saying, a gift certificate for another pedicure goes a long way."

EGADS. I'm stunned. What is she thinking? I could not possibly ... heavens NO! Why, I would NEVER! I CAN'T.

I only have 500 minutes a month on my phone.

The Story of Ruth

2011-03-16T18:44:00.001-04:00

I'm doing laundry at Bob Hall Pier in Corpus Christi, Texas, when the Blue Bonnet woman walks in.

I kid you not.

This woman looks just like the lady on the Blue Bonnet label, only a little older, a little rounder. Her close-cropped blond hair tends to exaggerate her blue eyes, which really sparkle.

I apologize for monopolizing the washers and she just shrugs and says she's not put out. She has plenty of time, so she stays and talks.

And totally amazes and confounds me.

My Blue Bonnet woman, Ruth, lives on a 230,000-acre family farm in Nebraska, where she and her husband grow winter wheat, just winter wheat, under a government subsidy program. Her two daughters are grown and gone and don't want the farm. So it's just her and her husband on the 230,000, watching the wheat grow as they try to decide what to do with its future. In her spare time, she creates things.

She paints (oils, water colors, acrylics) and carves things like plates, bowls and little animals out of wood or stone and turkey whistles out of turkey bones (the wing bone, just before the tippy end). And if you buy a turkey whistle from her, she'll scrimshaw a landscape of your state, right on the bone.

She makes jewelry out of stones, sticks and other natural items and create furniture out of willow reeds and weaves pots out of pine needles.

She wants to teach me to weave a pot. I say "sure!" and wonder if she's a figment of my imagination or a real person.

I finish my laundry and we wave goodbye.

As I walk away, I have an urge to run back and pinch her, just to see if she's real.

It's Not How Old You Are ...

2011-03-11T11:56:00.001-05:00

I'm walking the beach and a fairly old cocker spaniel starts barking, yelling HI HI HI HI. She gets the attention of her buddies, a young Basenji and an old Schnauzer, who don't bark, but join in the run to greet me.

Problem is, there's a very old woman holding all three dog on very short leashes. And she's sitting in a very old and wobbly lawn chair. On an uneven beach. These are little dogs, but their efforts to greet me topple the old lady over onto her knees, in the sand. It' a scary scene.

This woman is not young.

She's at least 70, and as I watch her crawl around in the sand, trying to stand up, I see her dogs tangling her legs with their leashes. I run over to help. She waves me off. "I can make it," she says, causally, as if she's done this a hundred times.

I watch this elderly woman unwind herself from her dog leashes while on her way to standing up. She makes it. No problem. Then she points to the surf. "Oh, here comes Mom."

MOM?

I look and yep, I see an even older woman doddering up the beach. She's mastered her unsteady gait to the point she dodges waves, sand piles and seaweed successfully while holding treasures in her hand.

"How old is Mom?" I ask. (Am I rude?)

"90."

Giant Steps

2011-03-11T10:26:00.001-05:00

Linda and I sit and chat at our concrete picnic table here on Padre Island (just outside Corpus Christi, Texas) about, well, just things.

The guys -- my husband and hers -- circle about our motorhome. Like they are chained to each other, talking to each other, not us. About their RVs (they own similar models). They point at this door, that window; they get on their bellies and look up at the vehicle's belly.

They bob here and there in constant chatter.

Suddenly, they woosh past us, within inches of us and Stomp Stomp. The guys, in two giant speedy steps, clear nearly four feet to light atop the picnic table. Now they talk about the things on top of the motorhome.

They do this without so much as a deep refreshing breath. They step, one foot after the other, and STOMP STOMP! They land atop the picnic table.

Linda and I gasp. DID YOU SEE THAT? I couldn't do that. THEY JUST STEPPED UP! Hard to believe. LIKE IT WAS NOTHING! I couldn't do that without holding on to something. I CAN"T IMAGINE CLIMBING UP THAT FAAAST! They got up there with no effort. NO WAY COULD I DO THAT.

The guys focus so intently on their project they miss our gasps. They miss our surprise.

And they miss my plan to STOMP STOMP up there, too.

I start a ways back and take a running stomp stomp. AND I MAKE IT! A little wobbly. But HA HA! SUCCESS!

Now what?

There's no reason for me to be up here. It's kinda boring because I'm not talking RVs. And, frankly, I feel stupid standing on top of a concrete picnic table. So, I get down (with Linda's help) and we shrug at the uselessness of my effort.

Then, as usual, my moment up there becomes an epiphany.

I realize they guys scaled the table effortlessly because it was just a play in their game. They're still playing, and scoring loads of fun.

My effort WAS the game.

New Old Friends

2011-03-11T00:11:00.002-05:00

There are seven of us, sitting on the beach, well after dark, huddled against the wind behind upturned picnic tables, enjoying a campfire.

We're laughing a lot. Someone asks if anyone knows the lyrics to the song the Cowardly Lion sings in "The Wizard of Oz." He growls a few lines:

"But I could show my prowess,

Be a lion not a mouse, ..."

Another cuts him off with, "Hey, whatever happened to Kumbaya."

We continue to laugh. Belly laugh. Unencumbered laughs. No twittering or chuckles or respectful tittering.
We laugh with the confidence of old friends, like we've known each other for years. Even though our friendships began just hours ago.

We already know we have a lot in common: We're all living in RVs at the seashore in southeastern Texas. We're in our 50s and 60s. And all of us possess the desires and the means to wait out the winter away from the northern snows.

We share stories from the road (places we've seen, places we hope to see) and pass around a bag of potato chips.
Then the guy who sang the lion song mentions something most profound. He says when he and his wife plowed through their vacation photos recently, they found a million pictures of rocks and a zillion pictures of trees. But no pictures of friends. Like us. People you meet along the way. Who laugh with you. Who enjoy a campfire at the beach.

So, he says, he wished he'd brought his camera.

Me, too.

Just How Clean Is Clean

2011-03-09T20:46:00.002-05:00

My new friend Linda and I laugh and giggle at our blue jeans. They are clean. Wink wink. We acquiesce that clean is relative.

"I tell my friends I wear these three days before washing," Linda leans toward me and grins, then winks. I tell her "I can get a good two weeks out of mine!"

"Oh, but ..." she says. I'm missing the point. Clean takes on a new meaning here at the sandy, wet beach, where we're boondocking for a few months. Boondocking means access to laundry facilities is as limited as our access to power and fresh running water.

So, clean means nothing smells, nothing shows and nothing stands up by itself. Even if it takes more than two weeks to do so.

Our girlfriends back home might translate our new meaning of clean into "filth." They'd be offended by our clean. They comprehend the old meaning of clean only. It's the one accompanied by a washer and dryer downstairs and fresh water on command; hot water as desired.

Linda and I chuckle and nod conspiratorially and become fast friends. In our clean/dirty jeans. In this private club of understanding. We share the new meaning of clean. We are of the same school, buddies, partners. We're not offended by our clean. AND we protect our friends at home from knowing about it.

So why, then, when I dress to go shopping with her this morning do I feel compelled to pull on a old-meaning clean pair of jeans?

A Siren In The Sand

2011-03-04T09:22:00.003-05:00

A friend tells me the beach is filled with seaweed and I scrunch my nose.

Yuck.

When the beaches on Texas' Padre Island fill with seaweed, they look like salads, and smell like fisheries.

But we have to go for a walk. So we leash up the dogs and head out, only to discover Her.

She's a massive seductress with beautiful brown hair. A mermaid waiting for her wave to return to the sea. She's about 7-feet long and suns hersef with one arm cocked behind her, one knee resting over the other. She's sensual. She's a tease.

Someone saw the noxious seaweed littering the sand and turned it into beauty.

Someone made lemonade.

Sometimes Old Is Suspect

2011-03-03T13:37:00.001-05:00

I feel like Mrs.O'Leary and her cow.

I'm making breakfast. Frying bacon in a skillet I bought at the thrift store.

The skillet dates back to the '50s (Allen says the '80s) and excessive scrubbing successfully removed most all the grunge I found hidden around the screws, the handle and the grooves inside the frying surface. It works perfectly well. I enjoy humming along to its buzz/hum. Hummmmm. Hummmmm. Sometimes I hum in harmony.

OK. Bacon done. Pancakes cooking. Four done and four in the pan. When BANG. And I mean BANG!!!!

Allen feels his side of the motor home shake, rock 'n roll. The skillet stops buzz/humming.

OH MY GOODNESS! I've shorted out Otto (our motorhome's name) with my ancient electric skillet.
And then I hear other campers scrambling about. "Did you lose power?" I hear one say to the other. "Yes. You, too?"

Oh my goodness. My skillet is that cow. And it zapped the entire campground.

Whom should I tell?

We finish breakfast and I ponder our plight. Lawsuits, skyrocketing insurance coverage, our adventure coming to an end. We plug in our generator to test our wiring to see what damage I've done.

Nothing. We're fine. I hear other campers' generators running and they're fine, too.

So I stroll outside and casually ask our neighbor, "Hey, buddy. Any idea what happened to the power?"

"You bet," he says. "See that dangling power line?" He's pointing to a pole about half a block away. "It just up and sparked and snapped. I saw the whole thing."

Not me. IT WASN'T ME! No way my skillet could take down a mighty power line. NO WAY!

I'm off the hook. But what about my skillet? It's in the trash. Just in case ...

Tired, Sore and Still Kind

2011-02-22T00:14:00.001-05:00

My husband Allen and our friend Louie are up under Louie's monster RV trying to whack life into the rear jack. It won't retract. That jack is stubborn. Like Louie.

He refuses to quit until he's master of that jack. And that jack resists change. It wants to stay down, flush with the ground here at Padre Island National Seashore, in southeastern Texas. So Louie and Allen (mostly Louie, shown in the picture) whack it, knock it, wrench it and yell at it for hours. Allen offers some supplies, runs to the hardware store for more and gets his hands a bit dirty in the meantime. But it's mostly Louie under there, straining, pushing, shoving.

Now, there's another guy here. I don't know his name. But he looks like Santa Claus on vacation. He has a white beard and white hair. He offers a crowbar, but that's it. He plants himself in a chair and stays there. Watching. Oh, he offers an "atta boy" from time to time and he sips his water and reads his book. But he doesn't get up to help.

He sits there and lets Louie do all the work.

He moves his chair around to stay out of the sun, using the shadow thrown by Louie's motorhome to shade his throne. But he doesn't offer a hand to help. He lets Louie do it all.

After hours of strong-arming the jack (and a few calls to a certified technician), Louie (alone under there by now) finally wins, and cranks the now subordinate jack back up, with us cheering and hydraulic fluid squirting into his hair and down his arm.

Success. And Louie slides out from under there. And now, it's clean up time.

I hand the lazy Santa man his crowbar and he won't touch it. He moves his chin down and his eyes up and says, "Is it clean?"

Is it clean???!!!!

I walk away with the crowbar in disbelief.

IS IT CLEAN?

This man sat in the shade for hours, quenched his thirst, fed his mind while Louie worked furiously on the ground, got drenched in sweat and hydraulic fluid , cut himself, scratched himself, scraped himself. Stretched his muscles to the breaking point.

IS IT CLEAN???

I walk over to Louie and hand him the crowbar. "He won't take it," I say, nodding toward the Lazy One. "Until it's clean."

"Oh," says Louie. "OK."

Then this man, worn out, bleeding and sore, walks over to the spigot, and cleans the crowbar without complaint. Without judgement. While I stand there. And let him do all the work.

Immediately, I hang my head in shame. Why didn't I clean it? Why did I hand more work to this man who's overtired and stressed.

Because, I realize, I was too busy complaining about the Lazy One to see how lazy I had become.

Today's lesson: Matthew 7:3: "Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?"

Salve for my soul

2011-02-20T22:31:00.004-05:00

My lips are sunburned.

I push that thought to the back of my mind because I'm in church at the Island in the Son United Methodist Church on Mustang Island (in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Texas) and I need to focus on the Lord. And I need to be kind to the friends who brought us here by being polite. Being proper. Church-lady like.

I'm smiling, singing and worshiping, but my lips are so sunburned, I'm feeling the pain of each grin and all those Amens.

And I can't stand it any longer. Because I'm also hot and there's no air in here. My lips hurt.

So at the start of the next song, I decide to be kind to myself and sneak out the back (I'm in the back row anyway), run out to the car and grab my Carmex Moisturizing Lip Balm for relief.

OK. Go.

I scoot out unnoticed (so I think) and scurry to my car, where I swing open the door and find my purse. With my back to the world and my mind on my pain, I plow through the purse contents until I find my treasure, my little yellow tube of pain relief.

I unscrew the lid and before I even stand up, I smear the analgesic elixir way beyond the confines of my lips. I don't care how I look. I'm finding relief. I'm being kind to myself.

I straighten up as I turn around and a young woman is standing there, thrusting a gallon jug of frozen water at me.
A gallon-sized ice cube.

She's smiling at me. And she says, "Here, hold this. It'll really cool you down. You can even just sit there in church with it on your lap and it'll feel great."

I must have cocked my head or in some way looked incredulous because she explains she noticed me fanning myself in church, then saw me leave in a hurry. So she figured I was too hot. And she wanted to help. To extend a hand. To be a good Samaritan.

I realize I just received a kindness.

I take the jug briefly and thank her profusely, and assure her I'm OK. The problem is my lips, I say, not my temperature. And we walk back into the church together, where another woman comes to me and lays a gentle hand on my shoulder. "Are you OK, honey?" she whispers.

Oh my. I just got another kindness.

Yes, I tell her. I'm more than fine. I'm full up with kindnesses.

Look, Up In The Sky ...

2011-02-17T23:58:00.002-05:00

I'm looking up. Well, we're all looking up, waiting for what must be a most remarkable sight. The International Space Station is supposed to fly over our beach tonight, low enough and close enough for us to see. With our bare eyes.

Six of us stand at the end of the raised walkway within five feet of high tide on Malaquite Beach in southeastern Texas. We can hear the waves crashing against the sand and feel the breeze. We jabber away, about, well, just casual stuff.

We chat as we scan the sky, looking for something moving.

We're standing in the dark at the edge of the ocean looking up for something we've never seen so we don't know what to look for. Except something moving. We stand, chat, crane, watch.

Oh, look. Hurry, look! See it? There's a pinpoint of light breaking though the night sky, down to our south, making a beeline toward, well, up. It's arcing, like a tennis ball lobbed over the net, only it never breaks into descent. It just keeps going up.

Oh, look again! The point of light is now an orb, and it's getting bigger. Much bigger. Man! Look how fast it's going!

It's now arcing overhead and it's huge! It's transmorphed into that little triangular shooter in the original Asteroids video game. Well, it's now arcing higher and away from us and is getting smaller. It's an orb now. No, no. It's a pinpoint again and now, zip, it's gone. Just, well, gone.

Like it was sucked into a black hole.

We're still standing on the walkway at the ocean's edge and we're looking up. There's nothing up there to see anymore. But there's no idle talk, no chitchat, no jabber.

Just ahhs and ohhs and wows.

The Domino Effect of Words

2011-02-15T18:05:00.003-05:00

What I said got someone fired.

No, it's what SHE said that got her fired.

Actually, it's Camping World's laudable zero tolerance for racism that got a woman fired for using the "n" word in conversation with me.

And it all happened -- her words, my horror and her firing -- within two hours today.

Here's what happened.

We need a hose for our motorhome's bathroom, so we stop at a nearby Camping World. Allen wants to fix the broken one with duct tape and Super Glue. I want to spend $75 to buy a new setup.

The saleswoman looks at me and says he (meaning my husband) likes to "n"-rig things (she uses the whole derogatory word). What? I ask? "N"-rig things, she replies. Stunned, because I'm sure what I heard is NOT what she said, I ask again. What? "N"-rig, she replies.

I don't know what that is, I say. "Some say jury-rigged," she replies.

I'm shocked by her flagrant, unashamed use of the "n" word, yet I walk away, saying nothing to her. I regret not telling her how awful her words are. I regret I didn't verbally wash out her mouth with soap.

As we leave the store, I turn to Allen and say "I feel dirty." And the only way to feel clean again is to address the situation.

So, when we get back on the road, I track down the e-mail address for Marcus Lemonis, the chairman and CEO of Camping World, and at 1:58 p.m. (Eastern Time) I send him an e-mail outlining my outrage.

At 1:59 p.m. -- I kid you not; a minute later -- he responds with "Nancy, I am horrified by this and will respond immediately. This is unacceptable. ML"

By 3:15 p.m., I get an e-mail, from the president of Camping World, asking to talk to me personally.

By 3:30 p.m., we're on the phone, and he tells me the woman with the offensive mouth was fired. And assures me there is no room at Camping World for racism. And asks that I don't judge the 4,000 people who work there by the one who now doesn't.

And, he assures me several times, the woman with the racist language got herself fired because Camping World has a zero tolerance for such things.

I can live with that. I regret that this woman' life got turned upside down because I ratted her out. But I hate even more the insidiousness of racism.

Why Our Friends Won't Travel With Us

2011-02-14T12:46:00.002-05:00

We're finally heading to Texas. And we're tired.

So tired in fact, we decide to let our GPS find the nearest Walmart for us to park overnight in the lot. (It's called boondocking; and it's free, convenient and safe.)

The one we're heading to now is in Quincy, FL. We turn off the highway and follow our little electronic travel guide faithfully.

Turn right. OK. No problem.

Turn right again.

Really?

Turn here? Down this dark, potholed road with no shoulders? Down into a blackened abyss?

Well, OK. We trust our GPS, a Tom Tom, we call Thomas.

We turn right, right into a Stephen King novel. It's a dark, dark road that fronts a few ramshackle houses, a burned-out doublewide and several weed-draped driveways. And it's getting smaller. Sandier. Rutted.

"Turn around when possible" Thomas blurts without apology.

WHAT? There IS no place to TURN AROUND. We're in a motorhome towing a car, so we're a mini-train. We can't just TURN AROUND or even back up and we sure aren't going to hop out and unhitch things right here where "Pet Sematary" was filmed.

We lock the doors. Bump along. Slowly. Watch for Freddie Kreuger. Finally, we see something. A sign: "The State of Florida. No Trespassing." Egads! Are we stuck?

No, thankfully, the road shoulders appear, ones wide enough for us to use to turn around without losing our caboose.

So we turn around -- barely -- and head back to civilization, where we turn right and find our Walmart a few blocks down.

Diagonal from the Quincy Annex of the Florida Department of Corrections -- the state pen. Which is where, apparently, we just visited. In the dark dark of night. Thank you, Thomas.

An overnight sensation

2011-02-12T12:16:00.003-05:00

It's a simple request to solve a small problem.

My husband Allen, the Technofile, the man who packs his own roving Internet Wifi and four computers when he travels, left home without his iPad. The newest addition to his wired and wireless family, his baby, his newest passion lay on his desk back home while he and and I head south for the rest of the winter.

So we ask our friend to overnight the baby to us, using the U.S. Postal Service, registering it, insuring it and spending $50 for the peace of mind that the package will arrive by 3 p.m. the next day.

Which it doesn't.

So, we wait a few more hours, giving the U.S. Postal Service the benefit of the doubt. Our doubt has limits, so we call around 5 p.m. After crawling through excessive computer-generated options, I bang repeatedly on the phone's "zero" until I get a human voice to respond.

Nope. They cannot find the package. "We'll call you back real soon."

An hour and a half later, we call again and bang through to a human voice.

Nope. They cannot find the package. "We'll call you back real soon." Which they didn't.

In the morning, I check the USPS Internet tracking page and YEA! The iPad has made it to the local post office.
I wait for the call.

I make coffee, sit by the door, read my e-mail, then visit the bathroom. Upon returning I hear the postal truck DRIVING AWAY. I run to the door, throw it open and YEP. There, on the stoop, lay a little brown note saying the USPS TRIED to deliver a package.

I run back into the house and call the number on the little brown note. Again, I repeatedly bang through to a person. Ergh.

A guy answers the phone. I might as well have called McDonalds.

No, he says, he cannot call the truck back. He has no way of communicating with the driver. No, he cannot reschedule delivery for this afternoon. No, he can do nothing until Monday (It's Saturday).
We paid $50 for this service?

How can I, I ask, find out where the truck is? Because I'll jump in my car and catch him!

"I have no way of knowing; call your post office," the unhelpful fellow says.

"You ARE the post office," I seethe. "Give me the number," I ask (rather demandingly). "What's the zip code," he asks, maintaining a distanced calm.

"YOU ARE THE POST OFFICE SO YOU TELL ME!" I say back rather loudly. My voice is quivering. I must get a grip.

He flips through stuff (I can hear it) and gives me a number.

I call and the phone rings for more than a minute, when a woman answers. I tell her what I want (the package redelivered NOW and why I want it). She puts me on hold for 15 minutes. 15 MINUTES.

I hang up and call back, four times before she answers the phone again.

The moment she answers the phone, the mail truck pulls up outside. She's a miracle worker!

I slam the phone down (I do tell her HE'S HERE!) and I run outside AND THE TRUCK DRIVES OFF!!!!
Is this a circus?

I CHASE HIM DOWN THE ROAD YELLING STOP STOP STOP.

He stops.

I must have drawn lots of verbal weapons because the driver immediately starts defending himself aggressively. SO, I see my box, calm down, become pleasant, sign stuff and take my package.

Drama over.

Next time, FedEx.

Stumbling ahead

2011-02-09T09:58:00.001-05:00

And we're off. On our annual adventure.
Without a hitch? I think not.

To get going, we scurry about scrubbing toilets, dusting bookshelves, draining pipes and tending to a million last-minute things (including arming our burglar alarm systems) just to leave our house in good order.

Without water, by the way, bathrooms don't work. We didn't think of that; thank God for great neighbors.
Because our last-minute list expands into hours, we leave late in the day, around 3:30 p.m. and finally head south to Florida to see family and friends. But not yet.

Less than three hours away, we tunnel through sleet and snow and, about an hour after that, we hit ice. Ice forms fast in the great Northeast in winter. Exhausted, after a four-hour drive, we slide into a hotel that welcomes us and our dogs. (No water in a motorhome means the bathroom won't work.)

The dogs, our perfect wonderful dogs, defile the hotel room on sight. One pees on the bedspread and the other poops on the carpet. What? Allen scrubs the carpet and I hand-wash the bedspread, and then we collapse, still exhausted.

In the morning, the weather quiets down. As we continue our drive south, smiling at the pretty blue skies and inhaling crisp, dry air, I spill a full cup of coffee with creamer onto our carpet and one of the dogs throws up on the bed. The vomit soaks though two blankets and two sheets, all the way to the mattress.

So, Allen scrubs the carpet and I scrub the bed.

And we just shrug, and continue heading south.

It's a Murphy's Law beginning to our next great adventure. One to remember. One to chuckle about. Now that it's over.

Overheard in a Thrift Store

2010-09-12T22:04:00.002-04:00

I'm shopping in Deseret Industries (the Mormon version of Goodwill
Industries) in Vernal, Utah, when I hear this conversation between a
man (I'd say about 55) and a very young boy (6).
"Well, how ya doing, Tommy," the older man says.
Tommy says, "OK."
The older man continues: "You not kissing any girls are ya?"
What? My shoulders square. I'm on alert for inappropriate something, I
don't know what.
Tommy doesn't say anything, But, Tommy's daddy (I'm guessing) says,
"Be polite, Tommy, and answer Mr. Clark."
"No, sir." I can hear Tommy giggling.
"Well that's good, because you know what happens to little boys who go
kissing little girls?" I lean in, ready to intervene (and I still
don't know why.)
"They lose their teeth."
I can hear Tommy really giggle now. Then he slides into one of those
really good childhood belly laughs.
Turns out Tommy just lost both his front teeth and Mr. Clark knew this
and was giving Tommy a good tease.
And me, too.

A Real Regular Day

2010-09-12T20:56:00.001-04:00

My shuttle bus seat is small, because I'm not. That's often the case
with seats, doors and the like. I'm a large person and regular stuff
doesn't fit my regular.
I try to stand between me and my immense bounty. I'll bike ride,
paddle, hike, climb, swim or take steps (450 of 'em in Wind Cave) to
explore and enjoy the world. Frankly, I often do it slower than
regular people, or with more gasping. But I get it done. And I love
getting it done.
Today, I'm on a shuttle bus to explore a dinosaur fossil field 5,000
feet up in the Utah mountains. It's a part of the Dinosaur National Monument, a federal park in the upper eastern corner of Utah, on a
border shared with Colorado.
We ride halfway there, then hike a 1/2 mile up into the craggy
mountains in search of the remains of the largest creatures to ever
hang out on Earth.
I look around. There are six other people. No one else squishes out of
a seat. Just me. OK. Game plan A: keep up with the crowd, no matter
what, so I don't stick out. Pretend to be regular.
My group of seven plus our park ranger (a college intern) hop off the
shuttle and begin our ascent. I take up the rear (so no one can hear
me pant).
This isn't bad, The initial ascent is minimal (See the picture? That's
my crew and I'm lagging behind). We hike through three distinct
ecosystems and millions of years of the earth's history. Along the way
the ranger stops us for a chat, to explain the rocks, the mountains,
the dinosaurs. To transform us into amateur paleontologists,
archeologists and geologists. And to rest! Catch our breath! Then we
move on.
As we near the dinosaur field, the pitch becomes steeper, more
challenging. We see fossils, small ones, and learn how to find other
ones. The ranger promises big discoveries. Up there. She points up. To
the trail that goes up. It's a switchback path. With very steep steps
at the end. And it's at the end, she says, where the biggest fossil
can be found.
Bait. She's dangling bait to get us to climb. I go for it, of course,
and I pant my way to the very end, where I see and feel a 6-foot
section of dinosaur femur, just hanging out in the rock face, where
it's been for millions of years. My reward. So worth it. (I didn't get
a picture. Go figure.)
I turn to scramble down and I see a startling sight. Three of the
regular people on this adventure ignored the bait. They're sitting on
a rock ledge. Resting. They've had enough. The steep climb back down
scares them, so they don't climb up. And miss the catch.
OK. This is a big lesson for me. I can climb up and down this mountain
because I want to. Because I challenge myself to do it. Not because
I'm overcoming obesity.
It's because I want to.
So I do.