A Real Dog Day

Today, Bo joined the Obamas in the White House.

It's a milestone day for dogs, so I'm telling a dog story. This one is
about the ugliest dog I've ever seen in my life. And I saw her today.

I'm sorry I left my camera behind. Because now I have to describe this
little dog. And you'll just have to believe what I say is true.

We're in Norman, OK, at a dog park, hoping our Standard Poodles can
work out their motor home kinks. As we enter the small park, I
notice bales of hay set up inside.

Then I notice a young, delicate woman, maybe 20, sitting on one of the
bales, cradling this ugly dog.

I stare (how rude). I think the dog's a failed Jack Russell Terrier/
Chihuahua experiment. Something went badly wrong. She is a little
bigger than a normal Chihuahua, with a chunky midsection and sporadic,
wiry blonde hair.

I mean, it grows a little here, a little there.

Her pointy ears are hairless, as are her tiny feet and rat-like
tail. She has wavy, very thin hair on her back, legs and snout, and a
mohawk of blonde on her head down her neck. Her skin is mostly pink,
with accidental splotches of brown.

Long, whimsical eyebrows straggle above her bug eyes. Those brows flutter
when she growls. Oh, yes. She growling because I  extend a hand
in friendship and she's not impressed.

"Oh, she's mean," her owner apologizes. "Just a plain ol' mean dog.
She doesn't like people or other dogs."

Mean Dog's eyebrows flutter. She stares at me (how rude!) and dares
me to just try that hand of friendship again. I learn fast.

Here's Mean Dog's story.

Her owner found her alongside the road about three years ago.

"How'd you pick her up if she's so mean?"

"She was hungry."

After a few bowls of food and a good night's sleep, Mean Dog showed
her mean side.

"Each time she'd growl at me, I'd whup her butt," her owner said. "I
did a lot of whuppin'."

Who'd a thought this delicate young woman would raise her hand and
whup. (For the record, I disapprove of hitting animals. I endorse the
voice-activated control system.)

It didn't take long, she said, before she finally whupped Mean Dog
into submission.

It's clear the ugly, cantankerous old pooch feels safe on her owner's
lap and enjoys the warmth of their friendship. She's content to sit
there, not be touched by anyone else, and just growl if anyone tries.

My Life in a Beetle

As we zip down the I-40 thoroughfare in Amarillo, Texas, we're hungry.
And we want someone else to do the cooking. And we want the food to
taste uniquely Texas.

But that's a tall order. Arbys. Texas Roadhouse. McDonalds. Olive
Garden. Homogenous. Anytown USA. Yawn.

We keep on driving. When cotton fields replace Amarillo, our dining
opportunities disappear. Which means we no longer care where we eat.
We'll take what comes next.

And according to a highway billboard, that's the Motel Cafe in Conway,
Texas, right off I-40 on a section of the Historic Route 66.

We pull off and, alas, it's obvious the Motel Cafe closed years ago.
So, we aim to return to I-40.

But wait. Look at that! It's a bunch of colorful VW Beetles nose down
in the sand. I yell to Allen: Turn in! Turn in! Turn in!

There's a sign. It's says "The Bug Ranch." Awwww.

Allen pulls the Navion around, but he doesn't get out. It's
me who's drawn in.

The sight speaks to me. Tickles me heart.

My first car was a VW beetle, a 1968 powder-blue baby that got me
through college. As I stare at these highly decorated shells, I grin,
in memory. I lived my life in that car.

My girlfriend and I used our hairbrushes as windshield wipers during a
blizzard once. I had to wear a lap blanket to drive in cold weather
because the heater never worked and a hole in the floorboard near the
accelerator created a wind tunnel. I used a coat hanger to hold up
the exhaust pipe. My "friends" found humor in picking the bug up
and moving it around the parking lot, so when I got out of class, I'd
have to go find it.

I drove donuts in that car.

VWs never die. They evolve. I gave mine to the mechanic whose magic  kept it alive to get me through college. He spiffed it up and drove it in parades, plastered in American flags.

These five in front of me have morphed
from autos into artistic creations, each being a canvas upon which dozens
and dozens of people have painted pieces of themselves. Their
feelings. Their hearts.

I walk around each car, takes lots of pictures (see below), read the messages from
the past, touch the paint. I smile, time and time again.

Shelly Loves Lori! (but I wonder if it was Lori or Shelly whose
sentiments I read). Nathan Van was here. Jessica visited in 2003.
Someone, with a heart like mine, wrote, "The bug has finally found her
oasis." Awww.

And, my favorite (see the pic above), "I'm having the time of my life." I
am, too. This Bug Ranch is as deserted as the Motel Cafe, but it's not
as dead. It's alive because of the steady stream of visitors  leaving bits and pieces of
themselves behind.

I know it's time to go. But I'm like those visitors ahead of me. I
want to leave a bit of myself behind. So before we leave, I grab a red
Sharpie pen and I write "ME, TOO!" in response to my favorite line (after I took the picture).

Then I add: "Hug a Bug, Love, Nancy, Jake, Josh and Allen."

The Birthplace of Storms

Often our day's adventurers just happen. Like today.

On a lark, we head out of Gallup, NM, on Route 491 because, well,
because. It heads north, into Colorado. Or Utah. Or Arizona. We have
all four states at our doorstep. So, what should we do?

I google for places and hit upon a perfect solution: The Four
Corner's Monument, where you can touch, with one hand, Utah, Colorado,
New Mexico and Arizona. Cool. Let's go.

As we drive, we leave cities and suburbia behind. Far behind. For
hours we plunge deep into the high dessert landscape of the Navajo 
Nation and the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation. Fences rope off the road
from the Indian world. Their low-slung houses and roundhouses (called
hogans) infrequent the landscaoe.

At Shiprock, NM, where we pick up Route 64, there's a dollup of city
life (fast food restaurants, a daily flea market, other businesses and
lots of roaming dogs). And an ominous sky that begs us to turn back.
Fluffy clouds blot out the blues; whites and greys slide into blacks.
We ignore the warning.

We turn on 64, and notice few others travel with us. And we're driving
toward an expansive black cloud consuming the mountaintops ahead.

"Do we drive up into those mountains?" Allen sounds concerned.

I'm clueless, but say, "Of course not."

Splat. Splat.

Yes. Those are ice-laden huge raindrops coming down on our windshield. 
We turn on Route 160, and we're heading uphill. Into those mountains.

Splat. Splish. Shhh. Mixed with snow. But its 40 degrees. We're fine.

When we arrive at the monument, we find it's maintained and managed by
the Navajo Nation. And we discover only die-hard tourists venture this
far into nowhere in April. Because it's cold.

And it's on the Colorado Plateau. It's where snow and rain storms
stabilize before heading east. We didn't know that.

And that big black cloud? That's a storm stabilizing right now. So
we take the obligatory picture of us in four states (that's our shoes
in the picture) and then we're outta here.

Route 160 (remember that mountain?) is our two-lane roadway out (see
the top picture). Now and then cars pass by, but not often. We're
surrounded by lava-black mountains salted with snow. Swimming-pool
sized boulders balance on themselves at roadside.

The storm percolates, spitting sleet and rain down on us. And then the
sleep turns to snow, the sky darkens to black and we're driving
through a snowstorm the areas to our east will get tomorrow. The
temperature's dropped into the 30s and the snow is sticking.

Ugh.

Wait. Up ahead. We see the brilliant southwestern sun battling with
the storm's raging blackness. Who'll win?

We endure lightening, snow, hail, spittles of rain.

Then, yeah! The sun's victorious!

Well, we actually drive out of the darkness into the sun. We turn and
see the storm still brews behind us, but it's in our dust.

The day finally ends, and we climb into bed with our map, our GPS and
our wits. We've driven east, so as we plan our journey to a warm East
Coast beach, that southwestern storm catches up with us again. And
rocks our motor home with snow, sleet and hail. We turn out the lights.

He Lives!

National Shame

I'm surprised I feel this way. But I do.

I'm standing inside the visitor's center at the Wupatki National
Monument near Flagstaff, AZ. And feel no pride in my country. Only
shame.

In the 1920s, the government took the land I'm standing on, turned it
sideways, shook off the few native people living here, then righted
it again, as a shrine to the very people it threw out.

What I see is a wonderfully colorful edge of the Painted Desert and a
handful of pueblo remains stretching out against a most dramatic sky.
I walk to each structure, and touch one of them. Wow, I'm touching a
pueblo (the one shown above). I remove my hand. I feel like I've
trespassed on someone's home.

And my heart begins to tighten.

Why did we kick them out? Who are we? Neither of us owned this land.
They lived with it. We took it. I took something once. My mother made
me return it.

In brief, here's what happened. The U.S. government took possession of
this land in the 1920s to protect a fascinating history of native
peoples who came together here 800 or years ago ... and no one knows why.
Not yet, anyway. Research is constant and archaeologists are trying to
document what happened here, back around 1250, to cause thousands of people to just leave.

The few people living here at the time were told they could stay
until they died, as long as they didn't interfere with the government
plans. Sure enough, interference occurred and the people booted.

So, we tossed out people to study their ancestors.

OK. Not THE VERY people. The history of this place travels through
centuries, survives a volcano blast, and maybe even a few earthquakes.
We're not really sure which native people populated the place the
most. We have pueblo remains and pottery shards traceable to about 100
different peoples.

Yes, the history is fabulous.

A document online by Martha Ward Blue, a lawyer turned artist,
details the Navaho connection to the Wupatki Basin and examines the
way the land was systematically pulled out from under their feet. By
greed. National greed.

She feels a spiritual connection to this place: "Wupatki is not just a
visual experience for I often wallow in its silence, sniff and taste
the dampness of the air by the river in its spring flooding, and sink
in the cinder sand."

Follow the two links, one to the government' site and the one to download 
Blue's document, for the rest of the story.

Time Traveling in Flagstaff

"I'm next to the Buffalo Park," I tell the man who's answered the phone"

"Which way are you headed?"

"I don't know. Out of town?"

"Buffalo Park is in the middle of town ... which side is the sun on."

"My left."

"Good, keep it there, and head on down the hill. We are in the
shopping center at the light."

This telephone conversation is our roadmap to Brandy's, a Flagstaff
eatery so rich in personality and charm it's no wonder The Food
Network's "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" tapped it for a show.

It's that connection that led us here. We want a neat place to eat,
so we google "Flagstaff" and "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" just to
see if the popular TV show ever made it to town. We hit on Brandy's.

So we're eating here, ordering the same food host Guy Fieri features
on the show (Tequila Lime Chicken and Flat iron Steak), but, in
essence, we're time traveling, because the show hasn't aired yet.

Today's April 9, 2009. The show airs April 13, 2009, (10 p.m. on the
West Coast). Cool.

Our very tall, blonde-haired, Nordic-looking Hawaii-born waiter thinks
it's cool, too (he's in the pic with our desserts ...yumm .. almond
grapefruit pudding cake). So he tells the chef we've preceded the
publicity. The chef, who wears a beautiful diamond stud in one ear (I
didn't see the other one), thinks that's cool, too, so his makes a
visit to our table and we chat about TV, producers and on-air "talent."

Here's some of the chef's insider talk:
* The scene that opens each show is of Guy driving up in front of the
eatery in a scrumptious red Camaro convertible. Well, that scrumptious
red Camaro convertible actually arrives ahead of Guy. It's inside a
truck, and is rolled down a ramp in time for the shoot.
* The producers spend two days at Brandy's (16 hours the first day,
12 hours the next); Guy (he's the on-air "talent") is there about four
hours at the end.
* Sixteen hours of taping boils down to 8 minutes on air.

Very cool.

We notice the chef talks to all of the diners, not just us, in a laid-
back, long-time friend kind of way.

Very, very cool.

And we notice our waiter chats with us a lot, too, and with the other
diners, too. He's got a lot to talk about. He's lived on the East
Coast, the West Coast, Hawaii. He's also a massage therapist and a
volcanologist. His dad owns a coffee plantation on The Big Island.
"Take my card," he leafs through his wallet for the right piece of
paper. "If you want to go to Hawaii, I'll call my dad and he can find
you a place to stay."

Wow.

This is a very friendly, advant garde place, but it's not a diner,
drive-in or dive.

It's a trendy eatery inside a strip mall that attracts a steady flow
of locals because the food is inventive, moderately priced ($53 plus
tip) and the service, well, perfect. As is the conversation.

A Woman Scorned

There's always a story behind the story.

I feel all goosebumpy, standing inside the historic Lowell Observatory
on Mars Hill in Flagstaff, AZ.

Percival Lowell used this massive metal telescope in front of me to
document the changing landscape of Mars and passionately search the
night sky for other planets. The wooden dome creeks painfully as our
personal tour guide, MJ, demonstrates how it swivels to let the famous
Clarke Telescope (shown above with Allen and MJ) peer into any
portion of the sky.

I look to my left and my goosebumps intensify. Within inches of my
elbow is the very chair he sat on for years to study the heavens. It's
interesting that a man worth millions (he was one of The Lowells of
Boston) would settle for what looks like a cheap painted table chair,
and now an old, worn, cheap, painted table chair.

It makes sense, though. He was a passionate man. After investing a
sizable fortune in the observatory, he spent day and night in that
chair, looking upward, seeking out documentation of what's out there.

If the chair suited him, why replace it?

He was so devoted to the observatory that when he died, his wife had
a monument built in the shape of a mini observatory right outside his
beloved telescope.

I theorize, though, that she did it out of spite, not love.

When he died, Lowell left his wife, Constance, their mansion in Boston
and about $150,000 a year to live on. Not bad for 1916. But, the
remainder of his fortune, $2.4 million was to go to the observatory.

My theory: Boy, was Constance offended. I imagine she thought of the
observatory as her husband's mistress, a lover who stole him away day
after day, night after night. So she had him buried near the mistress
to keep him away from her. And then, she learned, the mistress would
continue to steal what Constance thought was hers, only this time it's
the money, not the man.

Back to reality: So, Constance sued. After a long battle, she lost,
but not all together. When the money was eventually released, almost
half was gone, lining the pockets of lawyers fighting for the
mistress' rights. But at least, the mistress didn't get it all.

No one employed at this historic place confirms my story of a vengeful
wife. They, of course, ARE "the mistress" and need to take her side in
the tale.

There is one Observatory employee, though, who responds to my tale
with a subtle, crooked, understanding smile.

An Angel in Disguise

We're traveling the country in a 24-foot Navion motor home, towing a Saturn Vue.

It's not always easy.

Sometimes it's impossible.

Like right now.

We stop to eat in Needles, CA, near where Snoopy's brother Spike lived and  where cartoonist Charles Schulz lived, briefly, as a child.  On a more serious note, Needles is where comedian Sam Kinison died in a car crash in 1992. And, it's been featured in a book ("Grapes of Wrath"), a song (Three Dog Night's "Never Been To Spain"), and a video game (Wasteland).

The parking lot at Denny's looks too small to accommodate us (the Navion plus the Vue).

So we drive past the entrance to the next lot at the Motel 6.

We'll fit comfortably in the big, square gravel lot behind the building. Only Allen aims for the front of the building not the rear. As he inches toward the back of the front lot, I see there's no room to turn around. And, we can't back up. We can't back up while towing the Vue. Oh no. We're stuck.

So, I figure Allen'll just stop and I'll hop out, unhook the car, back up, pull around and, voila, we're ready to eat.

But. No.

He keeps inching forward, cranking the wheel as far to the left as it will go, trying to turn around on a dime while piloting a train.  I foresee us heading straight into one of the hotel rooms after taking off a portion of the motor home's roof.

"Can I make it?" he turns to me and asks.

Is he kidding? Make it where? Into room 106? Sure! Back into the open lot? NO!

"No, you can't make it," I say, far less calmly than I feel.

"Look again," he says, as he CONTINUES TO INCH FORWARD, STRAIGHT FOR THE PLATE GLASS WINDOW!!! Is he serious?

"NO YOU CAN'T MAKE IT!" I am no longer calm.  In fact, I have one hand on the dash and the other on the roof over my head. "I'll get out and prove it."

I hop out and I see the top right corner of the motor home nearly kissing  the hotel's overhang and the motor home itself  straddling a concrete parking curb.

"YOU CANNOT MAKE IT!" I insist.

"Are you sure?"

AM I SURE????

"Look again," he says, so calmly.

I am, clearly, losing it.

From out of nowhere, a man appears. He's wearing overalls, and has odd spurts of facial hair.

"Just keep on to the left," the man and Allen connect. BOTH of them are under some grand illusion that the motel will magically bend out of the motor home's way. Well, at least it won't be MY FAULT when something comes crashing down.

I turn my back and walk away.

I wait. I hear no crash. I turn to look.

Wow.

He made it.

I am humiliated (but A LOT relieved).

Land ho!

I love adventure. Especially the kind that reopens the imaginary
worlds I left behind in childhood.

Today's like a high seas adventure, only we're on sand, in the middle
of a desert, in Twentynine Palms, CA.

As the sun glides lower in the sky, we turn off a main highway onto a side road, then off a side road onto a hard-packed sandy road with a most romantic name: The Old Chisholm Trail. (But it's isn't the REAL Old Chisholm Trail; it's just a little-used sandy/dirt road LIKE The Old Chisholm Trail.)

I notice after a while we're alone. No other vehicles, no businesses,
no houses, only sage brush, sporadic spring flowers and scrawny
mesquite shrubs. Then, I notice, the hard-packed sand's now  a
washboard (it's fun to hum along and hear my vibrato). Soon
the sand turns spongy and our slide potential heightens.

THEN,  The Old Chisholm Trail disappears  into an impassable sand dune, abruptly ending the romantic ride and begining my childhood adventure.

The only options are turning left or right in the dead center of an
uninhabited desert, where there are no roads, just lines in the
shifting sands left by other vehicles (probably ATVs, NOT 24-foot motor
homes).

We turn left; we curve right, then left, cutting through six-inches of
sand as we go. Then, as we descend and ascend across dry creek beds,  
I imagine we're  rising and falling with the waves. At times, the
washboard returns, and we rumble along as if we're crossing a motorboat's wake.  The road narrows and the sand deepens, yet still we slog
forward. Discarded household items appear, big items, such as
sleeper sofas, chairs and stoves. They line both sides of the trail,
as do dozens of books, piles of clothing and kitchen utensils. It's the stuff of many capsized families.  

As the sun slinks lower and the shadows dance, I can imagine I'm
riding shotgun, on the lookout for pirates (or banditos, cowboys, Indians and
maybe even Charles Manson and his "family"), all of whom are obviously
hiding behind every scrawny mesquite shrub, ready to relieve us of all
 our riches (our stuff) and maybe even our lives.

Reality returns and I feel the sand  getting deeper, and the road
narrower and steeper and the GPS announces we have reached our
destination, which we know is not true. There are no houses in the
middle of nowhere.

We stop, settling deeper into the sand. And wonder. Then I see, up to
our right, the outline of a sailboat.

This is no childhood fantasy or a desert induced mirage.

The aging, crumbling sailboat sitting in dry dock  in the middle of
the desert belongs to our nephew's neighbor. I remember it from
the last time we visited.

So with a mighty heave, we crest the top of our final wave and settle
easily into the calm of our nephew's paved driveway. 

I need to drop anchor.

You Go Girls!

I'm doing time at a tea with church ladies.

Ball and chain. Gray hairs. Prim and proper.

Oh, turn the page.

This tea party's in southern California. And there's more cleavage
(modest, mind you) and high heels than chin hairs and orthos. (I, by
the way, supply the only gray hair, I think.)

I've never attended a church tea party. So I found the invitation to
this one irresistible. The hostess is a friend of MY friend Nicole
(the lady at left in the photo), whose husband Carlos pastors a
bilingual church in Long Beach, CA. The only thing required of me is I
arrive in a dress (not going to happen) and a bonnet (OK, we'll dress
up Nicole's cowboy hat).

I walk in the door and the first thing I notice is a patio full of
tables and chairs with covers and bows and flower arrangements
interspersed with brightly colored cupcakes. The next thing I see is
the food: piles of sandwiches, fruit salad, confections and more.

And then, the women begin to walk in. These are beautiful women,
 and nearly all have tended well to their hair and
makeup which accents their beautiful dresses, and the hats! I see
feathers, bows and netting. They took their invitations seriously. And
it makes the whole patio even more splendid.

I no longer feel like I'm doing time at a church social. Instead, I
meet new friends, eat fabulous food and laugh and smile.

Which, come to think of it, is EXACTLY what happens at a church social.

Boys Just Want To Have Fun

Jacob no longer flits about a dog park looking for friends, tennis
balls and sticks. No. Jacob, one of my two royal standard poodles,
has discovered the underworld, an extensive and busy highway
crisscrossing inches beneath his feet.

The world of gophers.

Good grief.

We stop at the Cambria, CA, dog park for an hour or so to socialize,
to skip, to run and play. We're doing a lot of driving today and we
need to stretch, to unfurl our legs, to wiggle out of this motor home
cocoon. The park is empty, except for a grouchy woman with bright pink
lips and her also grouchy dog. Both dog and woman growl at us, so we
distance ourselves.

I busy myself picking up tennis balls, Josh (my other poodle) finds
the water dish under the shade tent, so he hangs out there and
Jacob ... well Jacob starts poking his nose down gopher holes, every
one he can find. I toss a few balls his way and he ignores them. I run
up close to him, clapping my hands and calling him to play. He zig
zags away, nose to the ground, ears perked. I notice the zig-zagging
becomes manic. Has he gone nuts?

I then see him leap into the air and dive into the ground with his
feet, scooping shovelfuls of dirt between his legs. Then, WHAM! He
slams his face, nose first, into the ground. 

No kidding. His face. He does this repeatedly: dig, dig, dig, face slam, face slam, face slam
(see the pic).

Just so you know: Every hole he digs, I fill back in. It's dog park etiquette.

Thanks to Cindy and Jerry, local poodle owners in the know, I discover
Jacob's not nuts. The zig zagging is him following the gophers as they
scamper along their little underground tunnels. He's digging to get
them.

And his face-first routine is his hopeful nature.

Oh, Jacob.

A Pound of Whose Flesh?

I should have learned my lesson. The last time I left Allen alone, he
and his brother, Bob, spent $300 on a small Netbook computer.

Today, I left Allen alone again. The bill: $1,000.

Here's what happened:

Instead of going in with me, Allen drops me off at the Riverwalk Feed
and Seed store in Petaluma, CA, because there's no place to park Otto
(our 24-foot Navion). I hop out to buy dog food.

Inside this warehouse of organic pet and farm supplies, the help wear
natural wool hats and scarves (it's California cold, about 50) and use
cotton cloths, not wasteful paper towels, to scrub the shelves.

I hurry about to find the dog food we need (Wysong), then head to the
treat aisle. That's where the prices stagger me: $12.49 for three
stick-like chewies made from a bull. What part? The gold nose ring?

The sales clerk won't tell me what part (her eyes twinkle, though),
but says doggies love them. And, yes, they take a long time to chew
them up.

I HATE spending money, but I cracked. Why not?  We've
saved a lot on this vacation, so I can splurge on the dogs. I find
smaller bull treats ($6 for two), pay my bill and leave. Feeling a bit
poorer, but satisfied.

Here's when life got very expensive.

While I was inside spending $60 on dog food and treats, Allen was
outside ripping the left front headlight off a parked car, using our
motor home as the wrench.

It's really not that funny. An on-coming car was crowding the roadway
and Allen veered too far to the right, nailing the parked car.

That parked car could have been a rusting-out Ford. Or perhaps a
Hyundai.

But, no. It was a Lexus.

That's right. Our Otto  took the lights out of a Lexus.

Thank goodness insurance will cover the luxury car's damage. But Otto
gave up enough of his own flesh to warrant a visit to the shop.
That'll cost about $1,000.

But we're OK. The doggies felt nothing. And Allen is fine.

I'll survive the sticker shock. And will NOT leave Allen alone again.

.

Almost Rubbing Elbows With The Rich And Famous

OK. A pattern has emerged. I'm on the West Coast, California,
actually, and I've had three brushes with the rich and famous.

I haven't actually connected with them. Touched or talked to them.
I've just brushed past their existence in very cosmic ways.
(Cosmic ... HA! ... Well, I'm in California.)

The first was a few days ago on a dog beach in Fort Bragg. A woman
named Kathy must have read my face, a face that must have screamed "I
NEED A GIRLFRIEND." Because she sat next to me in the sand for about
30 minutes or so just to chat. . (I'm traveling with my husband and
two male dogs; sometimes I need an estrogen injection to temper all
that testosterone.)

Here's the famous part: Kathy used to work for Fess Parker (as in Davy
Crockett from the '50s and Daniel Boone from the '60s), who now makes
wine at Epiphany Cellars and runs a hotel (well, it's called an Inn
and Spa ... more sophisticated language.)

Here's the neat, cosmic part: Fess LOVES giant stand poodles (we have
two, both traveling with us) and if we show up on a Thursday night
(with our dogs) Fess'd probably spend the evening in total
conversation with us.

Nice to know. Thank's Kathy! Probably won't happen. But, nice to know.

Why Thursdays? He does sing-alongs with guests that night. Usually.
When he's up to it. He's in his 80s now.

Our famous near connection No. 2 happened yesterday, when we visited
Bodega Bay. The restaurant we picked for lunch got our business soley
because our motor home would fit in the parking lot. Turns out Alfred
Hitchcock chose this very place for many scenes in "The Birds." Very
cool.

The restaurant is new, but it's the parking lot that saw most of the
action anyway. It was the scene of a major fire. And to think we chose
the restaurant because of that parking lot. Cosmic, I tell you!

And today, we brush up against fame again, this time at the Charles
Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa (that's us, above,
with Charlie).

Now there's famous stuff all over the place. But that's to be
expected. What's unexpected is who visited the place just hours
earlier: Jean Schulz, the late cartoonist's wife, and Charlie Rose,
who hosts one of our very favorite TV shows, "The Charlie Rose Show"
on PBS.

Star struck, I lean toward the docent who delivered that little
nugget, and say, "How long ago? Is it possible they are still
in the building?"

He shakes his head, but is clearly loving that I'm goo-goo eyed over
his news.

We finish our visit, and as we leave, I scan the grounds for a glimpse
of Charlie (Rose, not Brown). No luck. But still cool.

I'm beginning to think this rich-and-famous thing is a West coast
affectation. There're just so many of them out here that our paths
are bound to cross.

So I wonder whose cosmic dust will mingle with mine tomorrow.

It's Not About The Destination

We wake up early so we have enough time to entertain both me and the
dogs. I want to explore Bodega Bay, CA, where Hitchcock filmed "The
Birds," and then let the dogs romp all nine acres of a dog park in
Petaluma.

We do both. But it turns out the most exciting time was the drive to
get there, down California Highway 1, not a road really, but a roller
coaster out of sinc with capitalism and common sense.

The hairpins, the switchbacks, the crossovers! The ups and downs ...

The sheer cliffs, the pastural lands, the bluffs. The monster rock
islands, pounding surf, tide pools.

Transplant this place to the East Coast and there'd be a Hyatt or
Sheraton every 300 feet. And lots of lawsuits, because it's downright
unsafe.

But, this is California, so we find miles and miles of unspoiled
oceanfront, then small towns, where the restaurants have names like
Organic Catie's advertising Surf Yoga classes in the windows. Rental
properties stretch out and breath. Everything looks built 50 years
ago. Nothing is glitzy, razzle-dazzle, hot or way cool. Everything is
the Cat's Meow.

Sheep and cattle graze on what must be the most expensive real
estate in this nation. Ocean front. Pacific property.

As we leave the safety of the small towns and pastural lands, we enter
the Danger Zones. At times, our lane is 10 feet wide. That extra foot
I dearly wish we had fell off the cliff. I look out my window (lots)
and, after gasping (lots), I see a steep rocky decline plunging some
300 feet into an angry, swirling sea with teeth of ragged rocks. OK.
Allen's driving so I'll just shut my eyes (I do this a lot.).

I open them to see straight ahead it looks like our road ends, smack
into the side of a cow. A COW? Yes! There are six or so huge cows
kneeling alongside the road, unfenced, on a toupe of grass atop a
cliff. If they roll over. They die. Ravaged by the rocks. Natural
hamburger.

The road angles left, then down into a hairpin, then up again. We
rock back and forth. Gasp. Eyes close.

On down the road, we see two forest rangers on cell phones near a
billow of smoke curling through the trees. It's the start of a
California wild fire. They're calling for help. As we head on south,
fire trucks and other emergency vehicles plod past us. They cannot
zip. These hairpins and inclines and declines play havoc with them, too.

Further up the road, we see a daring rescue (click on the picture for
a closer look). Helicopter, emergency and ambulance crews gather on
one of the rocky precipices. A rescue team propels down the cliff
toward the sea with a liter in tow. We can't see what happens next,
because we drive on.

Finally, we arrive at The Tides, a restaurant in Bodega Bay. The
parking lot is the very one Hitchcock set fire to in "The Birds," and
it's also where Tippi Hedron (well, her character) rented a little boat to scoot across the
harbor with her love birds at her feet.

It's really neat to see a piece of Hollywood while in California.

And then it's on to the dog park, where we walk and walk to exercise
the dogs.

It was a nice, very nice dog park.

It's just hard for a dog park, no matter how nice,  or a restaurant, no matter how famous, to compete with Highway 1.

Photography's Two Lives: Entertainer, Reminder

We left home Jan. 3. A long time ago.

We've stayed two weeks here, a week there, four days some place else.
We've seen amazing things and met amazing people.

On Wednesday, it'll be April 1.

We've been gone a long time. And have gone a long way.

A friend of mine asked me recently to bring home plenty of pictures. I
will. I've taken many. As I go through my photo albums, I realize how
each picture fails to show what we've seen or the people we've met.
They show bits and pieces of our life on the road, but not our life.

I'm getting sentimental here. How can you photograph vastness?
Quirkiness? Sensitivity? How can a picture of the Pacific Ocean show
wildness?

In the picture above from Fort Bragg, CA, my motor home is the low, white square thing off
to the right, nudging up against the taller string of buildings.
Above the cliff. The picture shows the brilliant blue water crashing
below and the highway behind and the escarpment in front. It doesn't
show the beach to the left with tree-sized driftwood or the grassy
knoll to the right with a new Victorian-style house and community
park. It doesn't show the hiking trail snaking along a precipice
defining the edge of the Earth. I'm standing on that edge to take this
picture.

How can I show you how beautiful, peaceful, serene, windy, nippy, it
is here? Can you hear the foghorn or the sea bell? Or the waves?

Pictures are powerful. Look at the one on my husband's Web site and
you will see what I mean. To the viewer, though, my photographs
provide a mere snapshot of my world. For me, they do much more. They
remind me of my world. They tap at the door to my mind's eye, which
then fills in the circumference.

And I can see, again, what was in my world.

Breakfast In An Old West Coast Mill Town

We eat breakfast in the land of dreams. Big ones, broken ones,
unintended ones.

The Samoa Cookhouse is the unintended part of this dream trilogy. It
started life in 1893 as a lumberjack's dining hall in the mill town of
Samoa, on Humboldt Bay, just outside Eureka, CA. And even though the
mill and its lumberjacks left town about 30 years ago, the Samoa
Cookhouse stayed, and today serves people like us, tourists, and
locals who love to eat the way the lumberjacks did, at long rows of
tables with the food served in community bowls and where everyone
orders the same thing. The heavy dishes are old and the chairs
mismatched.

This morning, breakfast is biscuits and gravy, french toast, sausage
and scrambled eggs, orange juice, coffee and water. Not just one or
two, but all of them. (Everything yummy, but the gravy. Too sweet and
too salty.)

Yvonne, our waitress (above), flits about, seamlessly conquering the
demands and requests of our row of diners, then the two rows next to us.

A second waitress, Ivy, is loud with her antics. She chews gums
constantly, open-mouthed, and sings the theme to the '60s "Batman" TV
show as she piles bowl after bowl of breakfast food in front of her
guests. She toys with the male server and the cook, Roberto, a tall
large man who grimaces at her. "Well, you have to be nice to the
cook," she winks at me and cracks her gum. "If he gets mad, he rattles
off in Spanish."

And with that comment she's off. They're all busy. The Cookhouse has
served up to 15,000 people a day.

Yvonne returns with our check ($11 each) and tells us why this is the
land of dreams. The original BIG dream, she says, came back in the
beginning (1889), before the Cookhouse was even built, when a group
of businessmen (with little acumen, obviously) bought up the land as
an investment. They named it Samoa, thinking vacationers would flock
to an area with such an exotic name.

But there's a reason the town was originally called Brownsville, and
why sea captains called the watery approach through the bay the
"Graveyard of the Pacific." The sun doesn't shine very much here, and
there's a lot of fog and the currents are variable.

So with their dream of a tourist town broken, the businessmen settled
on selling the town to a mill (in 1892), which kept the name Samoa,
and attracted lumberjacks instead of tourists until the last of the
big trees was milled in the 1980s.

The unintended dream actually realizes the original BIG dream. Samoa
finally attracts tourists. Not for a vacation, but for a meal, at the
Samoa Cookhouse.

The Wild, Wet West

The West Coast has something the East Coast lost eons ago: vast expanses of wild and free coastline.

Mile after mile we tumble down from Washington to northern California, the angry, cold Pacific licking our right side and redwood forests and birch meadows hugging our left.

We see things we will never see on the East Coast.

I've never seen fog rushing and tumbling over the road like smoke from a raging fire. Until today. It's 48 degrees, and we see kids, in bathing suits, wrapped in towels, huddled around campfires on the beach. We see a herd of wild Roosevelt Elk grazing inside a pasture with two horses. We see trees so big around they look like walls. We see mountains of rock rise out of the sea then disappear into the mist.

In the Pacific Northwest, on Highway 101, we find no condos or multi-million dollar complexes pushing skyward, or angling out to the sea. We see some new development (in Oregon we see eight or nine really big houses all lined up in a row, oceanfront), but most of what we pass has been there a while, since the '50s or '60s. 

Maybe the towns want the seaside undeveloped. 

Or maybe there's no money in spiffing up a place where the sun visits less often than the rain.

A  woman I meet from Rome, NY, who now works in Coos Bay, OR, misses the East Coast and hopes to return one day. The West Coast is too wet for her. Rain is better than snow, she laments, but there's a vibrancy to the snowy East that's dampened in the West.

I see her point. I feel the difference, too. I like that it's different.

A Love So Deep ...

Over and over I tell myself that today's blog should be about the
whales.

After all, the great whale migration has begun and we are in the
middle of it. How exciting! We mingle with dozens of other whale
fanciers who don't mind the drizzle and 48 degree weather. We chat
while continuously scanning the horizon for a speck of life or a spray
of water, the blow, that shoots up nearly 12 feet in the air.

But you can read about the event online at dozens of other places.
Just Google Gray Whale Migration and you'll see what I mean.

What you can't read about anywhere is the little boy who almost lost
his life and how really great his dad was about the whole thing. It
happened fast, so there's not much to tell. But, it's a great story.
A little boy is safe and his dad is proud.

Here's what happened: Allen and I stop at an oceanside bluff in
northern Oregon to just hang out. We walk the dogs over by the cliffs
and see a man and his dog scaling some rocks (see the picture) and a
couple of kids chasing the waves back and forth through the surf (wish
I had taken their picture instead).

I joke that the kids must be northerners because it's so cold, yet
they are in shorts, that by now are quite wet.

Allen goes back to the motor home and I hang out on the cliffs. I see
one of the boys climbing back up the hill and notice he is now soaking
wet. HA! A day at the beach and it's 48 degrees.

He's struggling up the steep incline, grabbing hold of bushes and
weeds to help his progress. He then climbs over the fence and stands
near where I am, to catch his breath. I notice he's wearing one
shoe. "I lost my shoe to a wave," he said, looking down at his feet.
"I lost my glasses, too."

Now I notice he's shivering. Oh, I think he's about to cry. I watch
him hurry over to his family's van, parked next to our motor home.

I tag along, a distance behind, and see the other brother is already
in the van, along with two sisters, a dog (named Maggie) and Mom and
Dad.

I overhear the tale-end of the story: Dad is applauding his son's
bravery, his son's skill, for keeping his wits about him. It seems the
"wave" was an unexpected monster, one that knocked him off the rocks and tried to claim him for the sea. He
resisted, clung to the side of the rocks and then made it back to his family.

What I find remarkable is the dad chose to forgo a lecture on safety
to instead lift up his son as a hero. A hero who fought the sea and
won.

What a great dad. I could see the kid was still shivering, sitting in
the backseat of the van, tucked inside a blanket. He didn't need to be
slammed for being stupid.

Oh I'm sure Dad will nail him later for carelessness. But, for now,
Dad knows it's more important to love that boy, because he is alive.

Gambling On A Free Night

I'm in a casino and I detest casinos.

I don't like the atmosphere. It's full of desperate hope that goes
unmet quarter after quarter, dollar after dollar. Cigarette smoke
curls and grasps this expectation, darkening it, almost damning it. I
feel heavy with sadness as I look from machine to machine and see
futures going down the slot holes. Ca-Ching. Swirl swirl. Ca-Ching.
Swirl swirl. Ca-Ching. Swirl swirl. Another puff of smoke  wafts toward me. Envelopes my hair.

Now I'm sad and I stink. Gambling sucks. My parents called it sinful.

But I'm not in the casino to gamble. I'm in here for a good cause.
It's called boondocking. We're camping in the casino's parking lot
overnight for free. But we still have to register. Inside the casino.

We are near the Oregon Coast for the Whale Week celebration, a time
when a series of docents situate themselves at whale watching spots
along the coast and help visitors spot migrating gray whales. I've
never seen a gray whale in person. I'm excited.

So I volunteer to hop through the Spirit Mountain Casino in Grande
Ronde, OR, to register the RV for the free night of camping.

It's OK, I tell myself. I'm not gambling. I'm just registering my RV
with security.

But, the security guy tells me I have to be a casino club member to
park overnight. Membership's free, he says, and points over to what's
called the Coyote Club. It looks like a hotel registration desk. OK. I
can do this.

I run over and stand in line for membership  alongside a few
excited people cashing in their winnings. I notice the winners are few
compared to the losers. Or should I say those still trying to win.

When it's my turn at the desk, I must prove I am who I am. So I hand
over my driver's license. I watch appalled as a very nice attendant
scans my personal data into a computer which now has me on file as a
gambler at the Spirit Mountain Casino. I try to act nonchalant. I hate
gambling. I don't want to be on the list as a gambler. But I love
parking overnight for free.

It's OK. I tell myself. I am NOT gambling.

The lady returns my driver's license to me along with a beautiful
membership card of yellow, orange and deep blue with reflective gold
lettering that has my name on it and my membership number. Great. Now I'm a card-carrying gambler.

Then the attendant hops up and yells IT'S YOUR LUCKY DAY! The
computer has randomly selected me to win $5 to use in the club's
beautiful slot machines. She hands me another card telling me how to
redeem the $5 for gambling. No, she says, I can't have the $5. It's
only for gambling.

I turn to go to the security desk to register the RV and DING DING
DING. It's my lucky day again! I've been chosen, the lady tells me,
to take a FREE CHANCE toward winning $1 MILLION DOLLARS! Come this
way! She's waving her arms over her head to get my attention. Just
pull this LUCKY LEVER!

I feel like I'm reading one of those fake e-mails, or, worse yet, like
I'm walking down the midway of a seedy carnival.

I pass. No thanks, I tell her. She tilts her head in confusion.
Evidently NO ONE in a casino should give up a FREE chance at $1 million.

I duck my head, trying to be out of sight, and continue toward
security, where I sign in with my new membership card and hurry back
to Otto, getting as far away from the gambling crowd as possible.

When we are finally set up for the night, Allen, who knows none of the
above events, smiles at me and says, "Since we are at a casino, want
to play some cards?"

Where There's A Will

Allen and I live in upstate New York, less than 20 minutes from Syracuse.

Which means, the NCAA basketball game between Syracuse University and Arizona State is a big deal. We don't want to miss the game, but some things are more important. Like family.

We've driven all the way across country to see Allen's kids and grandkids and they expect us this afternoon. We can't, we just CAN'T take the time to go watch the game somewhere. And anyway, we're on the West Coast. Is the game even televised here? (We are woefully unprepared for this ...)

We're on Interstate 5 just south of Portland, OR, in our Navion when the game begins. I know I can stream TV shows online while on the road, so why not a basketball game?

I fire up my Mac and fail miserably to install all the software required by CBS to pick up the March Madness live action coverage. (I can't figure out how to do it and Allen is driving and can't help.) I can't even find a radio station  carrying the game live. OK. Maybe I'm trying to hard or too fast, but I'm eager to catch up with the game. I'm watching the score tick higher and higher on a scoreboard I found. But it's not the same. I want to know more.

Then it dons on me to head to my hometown paper's Web site for a live action feed of some kind. I retired from that paper, The Post-Standard, two years ago and Allen still writes a weekly technology column. So we know the paper is dedicated to online news reporting and to SU sports.

Voila.

I find immediately what I need. Two sportswriters, Donna Ditota and Mike Waters, are providing nearly minute-by-minute accounts of the game in update form and photographer Dennis Nett is posting stills from the game.

FANTASTIC! I read each post out loud to Allen and described Dennis' fabulous action shots. While we ride along Interstate 5, heading north. The only annoyance is I keep forgetting to update the page.

OK. I admit. It was NOT as good as being there or seeing it on TV. Or even listening to it on the radio. But we followed right along, edge of our seats, and could roar with the crowd (well, I imagine there was a crowd roaring) when SU won, 78-67.

What a game. What GREAT coverage.

So now we know if, on Friday, when SU and Oklahoma go at it, if we can't watch it on TV, we'll be there on syracuse.com. We hope to see Donna, Mike and Dennis there, too.

Tired Traveler Seeks A Beach Day

I just did the math: We've logged more than 10,000 miles this trip.

I'm tired. Justifiably.

Thomas, our GPS (a Tom-Tom) says we are 2,898 miles from home. And if
we turn around now, we will be home in 45 hours.

I'm tired.

We're nearing Portland, OR, and will be in Seattle on Sunday. We'll
spend a week there with the kids, grandkids, then head back down the
California coast. I'm looking for a secluded Pacific Ocean beach,
where the dogs can play and Allen and I can shake off some of those
10,000 miles.

Then, we'll be ready for 10,000 more.

Zuka's Physical Therapy

When I meet Zuka, a 17-month-old English Bulldog, she's sitting in a
tub of water, just like you see her doing in the picture, at a dog
park in Redding, CA. The tub is really the park's water bucket, used
by all the dogs to quench their thirst after raucous play.

But not when Zuka's using it.

It humors me to see the chunky, brick-like little dog curled around
inside the bucket, her squarish shape squished into a circular fashion.

Even more humorous: Her fierce protection of the tub and
her red ball that floats in what little water surface is left after
she wedges herself in. Several dogs stop by for a sip and get a snarl
and nip instead.

I grab my camera and splish splash, she's out, running around,
playing with the very dogs she snapped at seconds earlier.

My disappointment over the lost photo opportunity must be obvious,
because her mom hollers over: "Wait a few minutes, she'll be back in."

Sure enough, in less than five minutes, she's protecting her watery
turf again against all intruders. I snap away, then she jumps out
ready to play again.

There's a story behind these pit/tub stops. When she was 5 months old,
Zuka was diagnosed with hip dysplasia. So she's been on a restricted
diet and exercise program all her little life. The exercise includes
coming to the dog park and chasing her favorite red ball.

Her mom is convinced Zuka hops in the cool water to soothe her joint
pain. Then hops out to play again. That's why mom so confidently told
me I'd have more chances to get a good picture.

After an hour of play/physical therapy, it's time for Zuka to go home,
with her ball, and not as much pain thanks to her personal tub of water.

The Things We Do For Love

We're doing what we're doing today because I love Allen.

We take a sideways excursion from our northward journey to Seattle to
visit Cupertino, CA.

Regular people don't know Cupertino. If you do know, then you, like my
husband, breathe technology.

Cupertino nestles inside Silicon Valley, birthplace of modern
technology. Inside Cupertino sprawls Apple.

Yes, we visit Apple, but we don't stop.

We drive around and around the large, multi-building campus at
quitting time, looking for Steve Jobs and wondering if we'll ever see
anyone with gray hair. Well, we see neither.

What we see is a sea of 20-somethings (see the pic? She's playing with
her iPod), including 15 or so lined up outside the company store,
waiting to get back on their tour bus. We also see lots of Asians.
And we hear lots of languages, including English.

I fire up my Mac (I'm a little bit techie, too) and pick up 12
networks, all locked, of course. These people know computers.

Cupertino is not Everywhere USA. While I do see Target, Staples and a
few other chains (Starbucks, of course) most of the places sound  
home grown, like Lee's Sandwiches and Didams Amazing Party Store.

The place is so crowded you'd think someone inflated a new dot.com
bubble. Traffic jams up the highways for miles (quitting time,
remember?). We crawl out of town through a landscape filled with much
younger drivers in much smaller cars. We are the only motor home in the bunch, What odd ducks we must look like to these people.

I'm relieved to be rid of the congestion. Yet, I'm tickled to 
visit Apple. Something I get to do because I love my techie husband.

Now I wonder, when we get to Seattle, will we take a side trip to
Redmond?

No Question of Faith

We are somewhere in Southern California between the towns of Rosamond and Pear Blossom. The temperature  falls from 95 to 58 as we climb from desert into mountain.

A magnificent view halts our progress. It's just too beautiful to pass up. We want to capture it to take it home.

So we grab our cameras and slide out of Otto, snapping away to capture this beauty. I see deep in the valley a neat sight: cattle, grazing.
It's neat because they seem so small.

To my left, a van lugging an impossibly long open-bed trailer pulls up and out spill four giggly, wiggly children along with Mom and Dad, cameras in hand, who also see the need to capture this beauty for later.

I walk over and say to Dad: "Tell the kids if they look real hard, they can see cattle down there."

Dad says to me: "We're from Texas. That won't mean a lot to them."

The little girl, about 10, swirls over to show me how cow smart she is: "Are they longhorns?" she smiles. Then pirouettes away.

That smile is beguiling.

We all keep taking pictures because the magnificent views are breathtaking.

In between picture-taking, child-keeping, protecting and enjoying, I learn a lot about this young family. There are two adults, four kids and two cats packed inside that van. Mom and Dad are both seminary schooled and have been out of work for 10 months before landing a job at a Christian camp on the coast of Oregon.

They've put their lives in God's hands, and trust He has a purpose for them in Oregon. So everything they own is in that trailer (I see four bikes, a broken pitch fork and a plastic yellow bat; tarps cover
everything else). And they're heading north, into a world quite unlike their own.

The sun sinks steadily lower and we all know it's time to go. We exchange names, promises of prayers. And then Mom and Dad collect the kids (including a spirited tiptoeing 3-year-old) and everyone disappears back into the van. As they pull out of the lot, the sun shines on their trailer. And I snap a picture (above).

And then I think "What a magnificent view!" A family. Trusting so completely in God. I'm glad I have that picture, an image of faith.

Life In Death Valley

For four days, we live in an abyss, a dry, hot lifeless place that's
desolute, yet immensely beautiful. (In the picture, we are the first
camper on the left, with the red car in front of us.)

We're in Death Valley, CA. No electricity. No phone service. No
Internet. Lifeless. A dead zone.

We have water. In fact, water flows from underground springs
throughout the valley, accounting for the pockets of life we do
encounter.

Move away from an oasis, though, and Death Valley's lifelessness
returns.

Inhale. Not too deep. The air is saturated with dust.

Feel your skin. Leather.

Blink your eyes. Dry.

We hike with our dogs through the canyons and each step (of foot or
paw) releases a puff of borax or more dust, drying our skin even more.
Making us sneeze. The hills we climb have no dampness to hold the
soils together. The ground crumbles and gives way under each of our
steps.

The aridness, the dryness is unimaginable to a Central New Yorker,
former Southern belle, who grew up near the Kanawha River and now
lives a block form the Erie Canal.

I say this place is lifeless, yet at night the sky twinkles with life.
After dark, I see stars, shooting stars, planets, satellites, solar
systems and, last night, at least one UFO. (I didn't see it. Others did.)

And, after we tuck ourselves into bed, the coyotes come and howl and
yip, right outside our reach (scaring the patooties, I bet, off the
teens (Boy Scouts?) who pitched their tents just before dusk.)

In the morning our bath towels dry within minutes. Spilled water
evaporates in a flash.

I say this place is lifeless, but as I sit on a gravelly slope and
look down. I see a tiny yellow flower. All by itself. No bigger than a
pea. Looking at me, A single flower. I focus and see that to the
right, an even smaller white flower waves at me for attention. Oh.
Wait. The wave is not for me. It's moving because a salamander snaked
around it on its way to hide from me.

Lesson learned.

There is abundant life in Death Valley. I must first learn where it
lives, then slow down and enjoy it.

Boondocking Humor

We pull into the parking lot of Terrible's Town Casino in Pahrump, NV, and finally relax. It's nearly 1 in the morning and we are wiped. We
know Terrible's because we've boondocked here before.

Simply defined, boondocking in a motor home means spending the night
in a parking lot for free. It sounds awfully wrong, almost illegal,
obviously noisy, unsafe and downright boring.

None of which is true.

Boondocking makes all this traveling around we do in our motor home
affordable. It's legal, as long as we ask permission first, and it's
usually quiet. Most businesses that let us boondock have few customers
overnight and almost always 24-hour security. And it's not borning,
because no matter where we are in our motor home, at night we are
usually inside looking to sleep, not outside looking for fun.

Terrible's encourages boondocking with a large sign that says "Free
Parking." Lots of casinos allow boondocking ... it usually means more
business for them. (They lose with us. We don't gamble.)

As we batten the hatches on our RV, we notice there are a lot of
unoccupied motor homes in the lot. They are the big guys, You know,
the ones that look like buses.

It's amazing how many of these new guys there are. I count them: 8,
10, 12 and more. In our 24-foot Navion, we look like David among a
slew of Goliaths. Undaunted, we pull alongside one of the monsters
and wind down for the night.

In the morning, we awaken to bits and pieces of chatter outside, and I
imagine other boondockers walking up to the casinos to get an early
start on the slots.

We slowly prepare to start our day, hear more chatter outside (which
is unusual), then drive across the street for diesel.

While Allen mans the pump, I look over at Terribles and I see,
immediately, the reality of our overnight stay.

We didn't boondock in a parking lot. We slept in a store.

All those Goliaths in the lot that USED to belong to Terrible's make
up an RV Superstore. And the chit chat we heard? Customers, sales
representatives.

Oh well. No one kicked us out or arrested us for trespassing, OR, come
to think of it, showed ANY interest in buying our little David.

While Allen continues to pump, I see there's still free parking for
Terribles, only it's now next door.

We missed THAT sign.

Another Jacob Story

Jacob is my 6-year-old Giant Standard Poodle. Everything about him
delights me. As it should.

Why, just the other day, I laughed heartily when a tumbleweed tumbled
right into him. It stuck itself to his ear and foot, making him
dance, sort of like a kid with a mouse down his pant leg.

We rescued both dog and weed and went on with our walk in the wind.

"Something's wrong with Jacob's eye," Allen has said every day since
(well, we're not quite sure of the timing on this ... was it before?
After?).

Jacob's eye? I stroke his head, scratch under his chin, then raise his
face toward mine. I draw down the lower part of his lid and expose
red where white should be. Oh, I think. His eye is just a little pink.

"Something's wrong with Jacob's eye," Allen continues to say everyday.
And everyday I go through the motions of checking it out.

"Something's wrong with Jacob's eye," Allen insists loudly this morning.

I stoke his head, scratch under his chin and raise his face toward
mine. OH MY! His deep black/brown cornea keeps rolling up, back into
his head. WHAT?

We Google "Galllup, NM veterinarian" and find two. We make
appointments at both and end up seeing both (the first guy was a
little off the wall.)

I say to both vets "There's something wrong with Jacob's eye."

The first vet suspects poisoning and wants us to contact a veterinary
ophthalmologist. So we keep our second vet appointment.

We learn from both vets that Jacob's cornea is not moving. It's
his third eyelid that's raising up to cover a part of his cornea. (All
dogs and cats have a third eyelid; we often see it when the animal is
sleepy.)

Our second vet dismisses the poison theory and suspects Jacob has a
scratched cornea. Well probably. Her equipment shows big scratches,
but not little ones. So she's making an educated guess based on a
series of tests.

And, she theorizes, it could have been happening while I was laughing
at him dancing with that tumbleweed. Or anything small blowing in the
wind could have stuck in his eye, causing problems.

We don't know.

But after two days and special ointment, there should be nothing wrong
with Jacob's eye.

A Monumental Time, Thanks to Mike

I'm sitting on top of (OK near the top ... I didn't make it all the way) an escarpment in the Boca Negra part of Petroglyph National MonumenT in Albuquerque absorbing the experience. The monument (which has many parts) protects more than 25,000 rock drawings found in these volcanic cliffs on the city's western edge.

To my left (and below)  is an upscale adobe walled neighborhood. In front of me is the same. To my right is a crosshatch of roads. I hear the beep beep beep of a dump truck backing up and the machine-gun whacks of a jackhammer.

But but but. This shouldn't be.

I'm sitting on volcanic boulders more than 100,000 years old viewing rock carvings, some dating back 3,000 years (and, yes, some dating back more recently, as in graffiti).

This richly historic place feels more like a roadside attraction than a preservation of a people's way of life. The path up the mountain is partially paved. Not natural. Steps and handrails reduce the stretch of the climb.

Some of the rock carvings conveniently face the path. So which came first? The path or the rocks? Let me guess ...

The unnatural feel pushes  us back down the rocks. We want to leave. Dissatisfied. Empty. And then we meet Mike (above), born in Long Island and IN LOVE with this place. He's a former park ranger here (he hopes to be rehired soon) and visits often. Like today.

He stops our exist with his fascinating tales of how this place came to be and how today blends with yesterday. He knows the little things that bring a park to life. Those rocks that face the path? They aredead, he said, because they were moved from the housing project across the street -- over the objections of the Pueblo people. The Pueblos believe the boulders protect and contain a part of the artist's spirit. The spirit dies if man moves the boulder. Man did. So those rocks are dead. Empty.

But because we meet Mike, we discover that most of the boulders in this park vibrate with life. With Mike, we climb more rocks and find serious etchings, such as the spiral that signified the path to the underworld, the warrior (hands face down) and the praying man (hands face up).

Thanks to Mike, we  see a spaceman carved in the rock hundreds of years ago (you have to stand just so and look up) and graffiti left by "NH in 1987."

Mike points out where, in 2006, some lughead pushed a truck down the escarpment, dislodging one of the huge boulders. And those bones I see deep in the crevice? Mike knows (and this is sad) that just a few years ago a bobcat swiped an untethered domestic dog from a nearby neighborhood and dined on it here.

OK. I'll stop.

There's just so much to tell because Mike's enthusiasm for the petroglyphs and the Pueblos is infectious. We're no longer disillusioned.

Instead, we're sore: our necks from craning to see all we can see, our ankles from wobbling on the rocks and our knees from stopping our ankles from wobbling.

What a great day.

What Goes Around

When we set off on this adventure on Jan. 3, we sought the Historic Route 66 and found frustration instead (click HERE to read why).

Today, more than two months later, we get our kicks (sorry ... I couldn't resist) by happenstance.

We're cruising down I-40 in New Mexico, watching a big, beautiful sky
get even bigger, when I see, briefly, a scene so dynamic I turn to Allen and say, "Now THAT'S a picture" (see above).

So, we take the next exit to backtrack and, by golly, turn right onto Historic Route 66.

After the picture session with the cars, we reload ourselves into the Navion and don't return to I-40. Instead, we continue on down Route 66.

And we're pretty excited because we drive by the things we wanted to see on the famous road to begin with: '50s-style neon signs (darkened, of course, and broken and sad), deserted gas stations and motels (all whispering how popular they were back in the day) and lots of retro curio shops (hoping to make a dollar off tourists seeking their kicks ... oh, there I go again).

There's not much I can say about Route 66 that's not already on the Web somewhere. See more of my pictures and a map and a rundown of some of the towns we passed through (ummm if you take that link, the name of the town is BUSHland, not BRUSHland). You can read about the father of Route 66 and get a feel for the old TV show that made the road famous (and watch a few episodes).

You can even vist Del's Restaurant in Tucumcari, where we consume way too much soup and salad bar.

My biggest kick (no apology this time) isn't a click away in Cyberspace. It's meeting Bridget, our waitress, who shook the dust off the old road for me. It's the main road through town, she nods. And of course, it's hopping. It's much more vibrant than the small downtown.

It's alive and serving her well.

Bridget didn't intend to return to the town she left years ago to make
a better living in Albuquerque. But she moved back after her husband died and because her mom battles cancer and needs her help. She brought with her her 5-year-old daughter, Destiny, and they are settling in to a quieter way of life.

Destiny just started school.

So imagine that. Historic Route 66 nurtures yet another generation. By happenstance.

The Texas Camel Tale(s)

We're in Texas farm/oil country. Miles and miles of US Route 287 travel alongside cotton fields and cattle ranches. Oil pumps silently inhale their riches from beneath everyone's feet.

A hump in the distance catches my eye. Then another and another.

Camels.

I'm seeing lots of one-humped camels grazing in a field right next to ordinary Texas.

We pull over to get pictures and find a trucker has matched our interest and he, too, has pulled over. He's braver than I and is yanking up handfuls of unmowed grass growing just outside the camel's long-necked reach. As he waves the sweet greens over head, two camels crane forward and down to retrieve, ever so gently, the offering.

None of the other hundred or so in the herd pay attention to us. So I imagine these two are pets.

And, they are friendly.

So I, too, yank out handfuls of unmowed green grass as an offering to Larry and Cleo (they're such a novelty, I HAVE to give them names). Larry loves a good rough scrub along his golden mane. Cleo bats her lashes as I scratch her neck.

As I scrub and scratch, clouds of dust, dust and more dust billow larger and larger.

The trucker shrugs. The dust comes with Texas, he says.

And the camels, he says, as as much a part of Texas as the dust is.

I like the story he tells better than the one I find later on the Internet. So I'll tell you his first.

These very camels, he says, are the descendants of the American Camel Cavalry, formed before the Civil War.

I wish that were true.

It could be, but it isn't.

There WAS a camel cavalry in Texas right before the Civil War. It's a fascinating tale. Read about it HERE. These guys, though, my sweet Larry and Cleo, and the hundred or so others in the field, have a more mercenary and recent past.

Here's the less glamorous tale:

Larry, Cleo and friends descend from an Australian line brought to America in 1989 by oilman A.B. "Bob" Hudson. His holdings grew until he became the largest camel breeder in America. Petting zoos and exotic animal brokers pay thousands for their babies.

Hudson died a year ago (Feb. 21, 2008). So the future of this herd is unknown.

But today, they are still here. Along U.S. Route 287 near Witchata Falls in Iowa Park, Texas. Where they belong to the Texas landscape.

Jesus, Take The Wheel

It's about 9 p.m. and we're heading down a two-lane highway, one that
leads in and out of Dallas.

We're heading out, with Allen at the wheel.

Before we exit the Big D, we notice it's hopping tonight; it IS
Saturday after all.

Cars pack into the parking lots of homogenous restaurants (the same
ones everywhere, Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Chilis, etc). They dangle
off the sides of Highway 81 like ticky-tacky souvenirs on a charm
bracelet from anywhere.

We're just passing through, so we buy no souvenirs. For a little
while, I watch the neon fade from my rearview mirror. Soon, the city
and her excitement dissolve, so I settle back in my seat and turn to
watch the road.

There's no one ahead of us, but there is a line coming toward us. I
imagine it's a line of date-night hopefuls, heading into the Big City
for an evening of boot-scootin' fun.

The traffic is fast, about 65 MPH. And suddenly, in this fast traffic,
I see headlights coming straight for me. In my lane. Heading the wrong
way. Heading toward me. It's hard to reconcile what I am seeing.

Finally, my brain regains control and I shout: "He's in our lane!"

I can tell by Allen's calm approach to the impending disaster that he
knows this already.

He waits to avoid a collision until he can wait no more (hoping the
offending driver corrects himself). At just the moment Allen begins to
veer to the right, I know Jesus took control of the wheel of the
oncoming car. The car, aimed directly at us for a head-on at 65 mph,
swerves across our lane to the outside berm, then into the grass at
the very moment we pass.

Allen checks his rearview and sees the car slow toward a safe stop.

God and his grace spares lots of people tonight because there are lots
of cars on the road right now. Going both ways.

Imagine the deadly pile up. That didn't happen.

Flower Power

Be careful how deep you dig. Especially in a dog park.

Today we visit Petal Dog Park in Petal, Miss., outside Hattiesburg.
We're traveling with two large dogs, so it's only fair they get to
play this morning, then Allen and I can ride the Longleaf Trace bike
trail this afternoon guilt free.

At first glance, I see many above ground treasures: six big shade
trees, many benches under those trees and, up against the far fence,
an agility course.

I stroll past the equipment and that's when I see it, the THING that
captures my attention and piques my curiosity for most of the day: a
cement silo inside the park.

I walk up to it and around it. It's about 10 feet tall, and maybe 8
feet in diameter. What is it? I raise my camera to take a picture and
see, out in the field beyond the park, two more of these things, like
sentinels at intervals.

I can't help but think of the secret missile stories of my youth, when
we all talked about the silos in the middle of nowhere actually hiding
long-range missiles with nuclear warheads. Do you think?

At the end of the day, I fire up my Mac and burrow into Petal to find
out what these things are.

What I dig up has nothing to do with the silos, but it is a bit of
dirt about this little Mississippi city:

Go HERE to read one park patron's claim that the city, which owns the
park, ignores it.

Go HERE to find out about the International Checkers Hall of Fame in
Petal and the mysterious fire that wiped it out in 2007, two years
after its benefactor was jailed for money laundering.

Go HERE to find out how some Petalites want Hattiesburgers to stay home.

The stuff I find online's not all bad. I find out that Petal is named
after a little girl who died before her second birthday back in 1904.
She was Petal Polk, daughter of Irving Polk, the city's first
postmaster.

I also learn that the city was in "Ripley's Believe it or Not" twice:
Once because it's the only town in the United States called Petal; and
twice, because it has (had, before the fire) the largest checkerboard
in the world.

But still, not a word on the silos.

So I've written to the Petal Chamber of Commerce to find out what they
know.

If I get no response, I'll take it as confirmation of a conspiracy of
silence between the Pentagon and Petal.

And I'll know for sure that there are strategic weapons buried deep
beneath the Petal Dog Park.

Traveling in Parallel Universes

Riding across Interstate 10 (then I-64, then US 98, etc, aided by a GPS), I embrace the old and the new. And the experience is frustrating me today.

I'm surfing through "The New," a very crowded Cyberspace to find fun and necessary things to do while we scoot along "The Old," real
highways, to Seattle, WA, from Hobe Sound, FL.

Google Maps says it's a 60-hour journey (well, the way we plan it it's 60 hours ... we're zig-zagging to avoid mountain passes and snow.)

So we need a worthwhile break from the road now and then. That's why
I've been online ALL DAY (on my Mac, thanks to a Spring aircard) while Allen drives the Navion.

Usually I love poking around online. But today, I'm frustrated by a confluence of too much information with useless information slowing me down, clogging up the Internet.

Many, MANY websites I access lack necessary information (like addresses) or provide little useable information, then ask me to "click here" for the stuff I really need. Often, I click and land in the Land of Oblivion.

When I do access a usable site, the sterile, custodial information lacks the human touch. It's compiled by a computer from information on
a form. No emotion. No sense of good or bad. Lots about restaurants,
hotels, and other businesses. Not so much about great little museums, must-see theater, town walks worth your leather.

Oh, this information is OUT THERE. Usually on blogs or newspaper
websites low on Google's hit list. But I have to crawl through so much sludge and slime to find it that it's exhausting and frustrating. At least today it is.

SO I've decided to stop, for the day, and trade my surfboard for a travel book from AAA. Although it, too, lacks human emotion, at least I won't spill into a great abyss with one misplaced click.

Truck Stop Double Take

We pull into a Flying J Truck Stop along the east coast of Florida and
get more than a tank load of diesel. We get a hearty laugh and a
pleasant, cartoonish "Hello."

We share the lot with a blue and gold macaw sitting atop a perch
connected to a little blue scooter. He's completely at ease with cars,
trucks, motor homes and people zipping past. He crawls around his
monkey bars, preens his feathers and sounds like Olive Oyl as he
greets passers-by.

I assume he's a part of the family inside the American Eagle (LOL!)
behind him, but for the duration of our stay, he was alone,
untethered, and totally at play.

Square Pond (photo by Pam Kainer)

When we arrived at Jonathan Dickinson State Park a week or so ago, I watched five little boys play at Square Pond (which really is square). They'd run up the bank, scoop up sand, shells and dirt, then run down to the water's edge and toss it all in.

Before too long, it was the kids getting scooped up, by worried dads on the look out for alligators.

Boy. There's no need to worry today. There are no alligators.

And there is no water. A drought drank it away. And left behind a mud flat where a pond used to be.

Sad. But, wait. What do I see? Animal tracks on what used to be the bottom of the pond. Everywhere. Turning the mudflats into Disneyesque storyboards.

Over here are the tracks of several raccoons, perhaps scrambling along to make it home before sunrise. And there, see the footprints of a single stately egret? He's slowly striding across the mud in hopes of finding one more fish out of water.

A small rodent in pursuit of gnats and mosquitos leaves behind little dotted tracks that curlycue about. And look, see these tracks? They belong to a fox, who has set his sights on that small rodent.

And over here, the most grand tracks of all, are about the size of my fist. I think they belong to a cat. A big cat, not the milk-and-cookies kind. And, because this storyboard is mine, I'm going to say the tracks belong to an endangered Florida panther.

By the time I finish my own walk across the mud, I've created lots of mini-stories in my head to explain the dozens more bird and animal tracks criss-crossing the mud.

They all end the same way, with a cleansing rain returning life to the pond, and with it, little boys with hands full of sand.