Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Only in Taos
The ride felt forever, but we made good time and stopped in Santa Fe to get lunch. I continuously sang that obnoxious Newsies song. We had absolutely no idea where we were going, but we found a cute street with the oldest house in America on it. It was closed indefinitely, probly becasue it looked like it was about to collapse. Next to the oldest house was the oldest church in America. It was built by Indians under the “care” of Spanish missionaries in “devotion to God.” I have such an intense disdain for missionaries. When I was in grade school I picked Elizabeth Ann Seton to be my patron saint and I gave some cheesy speech about how she was America’s first saint and a missionary who helped the Indians. I wish I could posses my seven-year-old body and talk about the destruction of cultures by these insane zealot people who thought the key to heaven was making people act like white people. I would have been kicked out of Catholic school and all the better for that.
Anyway, we asked some locals about where to eat and they suggested Del Charros. After passing a few blocks of overpriced artisan pottery shops, we had the best cheap meal of the journey. Well maybe it’s tied with In and Out and Taco Loco in Laguna. It was a real meal though, big servings, Lauren and I split a giant quesadilla and salmon wrap with pickled cucumber salad (so, so good) for only 5 dollars each. I HIGHLY suggest this restaurant if you find yourself in Santa Fe.
An hour to Taos and we ended up getting a little lost in the Mesa. We got the call that Madison took a turn for the worse and was put down. We all cried. This affected me more than I thought it would, probably because I felt an intense empathy for Gina, I don’t know what I would do if Daphne died. I selfishly prayed Aileen would have a dog, to distract Lauren and make us all feel a little better.
We got lost again in the town looking for Aileen’s job at a health club. Finally, we saw her waving to us in the street with bright, flaming red hair and a huge smile. She embraced us so warmly, I immediately just felt safe and kind of missed my mom. We got to use the pool at the health club to let out some energy. Taos is right near a Tiwa reservation pueblo, famous for being the oldest community in the U.S. So the Indians have infiltrated the neighborhood of Taos. Or the white people infiltrated them. I don’t know. Our first encounter with Native Americans: we ended up in a hot tub with a group of Tiwas telling them about our trip and listening to them speak in their language. Everyone was so disappointed that we were leaving the next day without seeing Taos. So disappointed that they convinced us to stay another day.
We followed Aileen back to her house in the most ridiculous car I have ever seen. It was a faded blue Buick from the 70s with a broken back windshield covered in plastic tarp. The Jetta coughed and struggled through the dirt roads of the Mesa. I started a habit of patting the dashboard when I hear the car growling at me. Aileen’s house was an Adobe style cottage surrounded by sunflowers and a backyard of mountains. That night we drank beers and had delicious sandwich melts with Aileen and her husband Joel on their deck outside. Their young Rottweiler, Ursa, had a habit of running from behind and jumping onto the couch we were sitting on. This never stopped being frightening. The house was…lived in. Here is a sample of what I can remember off the top of my head:
A mini fridge painted by a customer (Aileen barters things in return for childcare)
An altar dedicated to Java, a Labrador who died recently
Pictures of hare Krishna, Buddha, various hindu gods
A giant pilates ball
A red flyer wagon
Every kind of homeopathic health food store supplemental medicine
Books on France, divination, Native Americans, fantasy novels, and computer software manuals.
An old black pipe stove
Shells, crystals, gems, and heart rocks everywhere and a full cabinet of some kind of potions.
Rugs, skins, and woven blankets on the floor and walls.
Shitloads of bugs. Of all varieties. Everywhere.
Pictures of people everywhere. She would talk about someone she cared about and be able to disappear and come back with a picture of said person immediately. Actually there were many times she would disappear for a few minutes and come back with something awesome.
Aileen was one of the greatest people I have ever met. We just could not stop talking. Her energy was infectious. She explained why we were the way we were according the color of our chakras and the position of the stars. She loved us and we loved her.
The next morning we woke up, made oatmeal and had a real cup of pressed coffee. She took a picture of us making breakfast. We took a drive down to the Rio Grande gorge and went on a private little hike down to hot springs near the river. This used to be a spot where stage coaches would drop off passengers so there were old ruins of what used to be stores. It was once used as a place of respite for weary travelers, we continued the tradition. We relaxed in nature’s hot tubs and dipped our toes in the freezing Rio Grande. On a beach nearby we did yoga in our bikinis. It would have been perfect except bugs happen to love spiritually balanced people. I understand why people keep yoga in studios. We had the place to ourselves though.
On suggestion from a local we ate at the Guadalajara Grill and toasted with Negro Modelos. I had the best Mexican meal since I was in Mexico, unfortunately it reverted my stomach back into Mexico mode and the next two days were a little rough. IT WAS WORTH IT.
The pueblo was a series of shops trying to either rip off tourists OR try to survive in the poverty inflicted on them. Either way it was 600 dollars for a bracelet. Again another Catholic Church built by Indians under the command of the Spanish. At least there was a blend of the two religions. There were places restricted to tourists because of Kivas, the place for ancient ceremonial rituals. The Tiwas may attend church on Sundays, but Kiva land is actually sacred.
In the main square we saw thousand-year-old adobe buildings rising up like a staircase. However, we were distracted by all the little jewelry and craft shops on the first level. They had ridiculous names like, Desert Moon Jewelry, or Dancing Wolf Crafts. I was immediately drawn to one above the others. A paltry shop with a plank of wood hammered into the doorway that read, “Real Indian Stuff.” We went in to discover affordable gifts and a unique character who told us about the pueblo. There is no electricity or running water and everyone used buckets to get water from a river that runs through the middle of the plaza. Aileen later told us that she attended a funeral there and drank the water, which was the most clear, pure water she had ever tasted. The Tiwa jeweler showed us pictures of his father hunting in a loincloth that were featured in an out-of-print old book compiled by a forgotten anthropologist. He told us that his father actually lived like this, but now most of the Tiwas lived in homes outside the pueblo and only returned to the village to sell crafts. He sounded bitter about this and for a minute grew a little despondent. Then he distracted himself by hitting on Lauren. He gave us some good deals. We asked him if he made all the jewelry himself to which he replied, “No, I get it from the Mexicans.” I still don’t know if he was serious or not.
We then went up to Arroyo Seco, where Julia Roberts lives. It is a four-store town that seems to have been built around a celebrity. Adorably overpriced boutiques, yoga, sushi, pottery, and artesan ice cream. Taos Cow’s blueberry ice cream was phenomenal, but added to whatever was happening in my stomach. After this we had another night at Aileen’s, this time making jewelry together. She has been inspired by her silversmith classes and was passing her knowledge to us. Her generosity was unparallel. She gave us sandwiches, grapes, chocolate, pearls, beads, heart rocks (literally rocks shaped like hearts she collects and puts everyone in her house) and a fossil. A fossil as a parting gift. Only in Taos.
4AM. We are up and out towards the Texas panhandle. The drive through the mountains was dark and scary, but it kept me wake and listening to the Smiths perfectly soundtracked the sunrise.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
THE Grand Canyon
Within an hour out of LA the passenger side window broke. Jill tried to fiddle with it and the entire thing fell through the door. Which meant we had to drive through the mountains at 7am, which is freezing cold, even in Southern California. Lauren wrapped herself up in blankets in the backseat in a little ball and slept. Then for an hour it was bearable. Then we got to Arizona and the desert and holy shit it was hot. We were on Route 66. The iconic route 66…and we needed a mechanic. Lauren and I put on our short shorts and tried to impress the men at the Route 66 Auto Repair shop with our feminine wiles, yet we were ripped off, of course being 3 girls in the middle of nowhere. However, we got good advice about where to stay in the Grand Canyone- Desert View: about 25 miles East of the main viewpoint where all the tourists, especially U.S. tourists, crowd up the trails and pay extra money to camp.
Anyone who says the Grand Canyon isn’t that impressive should leave the country. When we first saw it from the road we collectively screamed, a little from excitement, a little from fear. We saw it about 7 more times from the road before we got to the campsite, and screamed each time. At the Desert View the campground was only 12 dollars and the only people there were Italians and French tourists. There was a large stone watchtower built in 1932 to commemorate Indian masonry and art. We took the spiral staircase all the way to the top caught a sick view. The best part was down below beyond the lookout guardrail. There was an empty train without any barriers that allowed you to walk out onto ricks at the edge of the canyon. Every time we got to a point that seemed near death the trail went on a few more feet even further and so did we. At the end we dangled our feet over the edge and for the first time in my life I felt a fear of heights. I would look out to a distant cliff and realize nothing was preventing me from falling into the abyss. I held on white-knuckled and Lauren asked if I was feeling the rush. When we turned back people started to walk down the trail we were on…we started a trend. We looked up at the people still penned back behind the fence. I said, “Look at those losers behind the guardrails!” Jill replied, “We eat guardrails for breakfast.”
We opened a bottle of wine and toasted to the sunset. The wind was ridiculously strong and there were birds just soaring, riding it. They must be the extreme sports junkies of the bird kingdom. I contemplated that a lot. We spent 20 minute on our hands and knees looking for a piece of camera a good-looking, shirtless European with a fanny pack dropped. Then we went back to the site for dinner. We still had no lantern, no firewood, and our tent was getting smaller as we added people. So we used the highbeams from the Jetta, and bartered firewood for smores from a group from the Netherlands. They looked confused by them and I spend way too much time worrying about whether or not they liked them. Lauren and I walked to do dishes and ended up doing them in the dark and getting soaking wet. A nuevo-hippie with long hair and a head light approached us asking if we needed a light. And I wanted to respond: No we do not need your light or your camping equipment, I make fire with sticks and I can do things in the dark thank you very much. I am getting way to independent-minded on this trip.
I could actually see the Milky Way, that’s how ridiculous the stars were. I understood the obsession the ancients held. I just wanted to lie on my back and figure them all out, find their pattern, make sense out of it. This new appreciation would be very important when I got to Taos and met Aileen. Meanwhile, Jill wasn’t too happy about not having a big fire, or a lantern, and she was miserable in the tent, waking up continuously over the heat. Finally at 5:30AM, I just gave up and woke up to, packed the car, and we got back on the road to New Mexico.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Land of Marrissa Cooper!
The next morning I stumbled onto the deck to an omelet breakfast and Lipton tea, prepared by Lauren’s father, who we endearingly call Peanut. The deck overlooked all of Laguna Beach. I was so excited to just lay on the beach and relax and go for a run. Move my cramped, soft body. I packed my sports bra, shorts and sneaks, which I thought was standard for someone going for a run, right? No. Not in Cali. You run in your bikini. This took some convincing for me. I can be a tad conservative, clothing and body wise. Lauren actually referred me to an article in Self magazine which proved that people that wear less clothing, Californians, are happier people. So I stripped down and started to run. The first stretch all I could think about was, “thighs thighs thighs, everyone is looking at my thighs.” By the return I felt better, a little MIA on the iPod and I was all about, “Yeah I am sooooo Cali right now!” Sweet how quickly this place starts to work on the New York knots in my body and my mind.
That night we ended up in LA with Lauren’s friend Josh, who is the real Ryan Atwood (that story is for the people who come visit me), and two guys from Detroit. We went to see Josh’s friend’s band, which could spell disaster. But we took a risk and it paid of big time. Pinot is this HOT funk band with a lead singer who will control the electrodes of funk in yo’ mind. They are all jazz majors at USC. They played at the Key Club right next to the Rainbow Room and the Roxy, down the block form Whiskey-A-Go-Go. I took pictures to show my Dad. We started the party at that show and I danced my ass off.
Check em out: http://www.myspace.com/pinotfunk
After the show we got pizza at Frankie and Johnny’s then went back to hang out at a house some of the band members lived in. The house was in South Central and within 20 minutes there were sirens and a search helicopter flying overhead. I don’t know how in 24 hours Jill and I had gone from Vegas to Laguna to Sunset Blvd. to South Central LA. But it was starting to catch up with me, and the hour plus drive back to the beach was rough. Besides, I was actually nervous I was going to get shot.
The next day I woke up early to check out UC Irvine and walk around campus. It was so calm and peaceful, the architecture reminded me of Binghamton University only it was sunny and people seemed happier. So Cali. I bought a couple books at an outdoor fair and headed back for lunch and an entire day of nothing but beach lounging and playing with Madison, the most beautiful golden retriever ever. He was diagnosed with cancer in May and fought the odds for months. We had homemade pizza and watched Madmen. It was like any average day in New York only 300 times better because we were in Laguna Beach.
On Saturday I woke up at 6:40 AM to my mother calling me to wish me a happy birthday:
“Happy birthday mi amor!”
“Mom, it’s 6:40 in the morning.”
“Ay, Dios Mio! I forgot about the time!”
“It’s OK. I’m going to sleep now.”
“Oh, I’m sorry baby! OK bye.”
And that was how I started my birthday!!! It was followed by an amazing breakfast of blueberry pancakes made by Peanut. Then an amazing surprise from Michael, who delivered roses to the house! I was so happy and so suddenly filled with a desire to hug him, that I sat down hugging the cardboard box and cried. The girls took pictures of this. This was followed by a birthday oil change at the Firestone, where the mechanic told me I had to replace an axle or we would all die on the road. So I rescheduled for the next day and went back to the house to get ready for a late lunch.
The best birthday lunch ever consists of:
1. The Montage Resort where the villas are pricier than the Ritz, but the beach is public so you can pretend to be a rich hotel guest. A lot of Latino families were doing the same. We found a perfect three-seat table overlooking the cliff-framed ocean.
2. Bikinis. Eating with as little clothing as possible is awesome for when you are laughing so hard food falls out of your mouth. Instead of worrying about your dress, you can lick the guacamole off your knee with no shame.
3. Two bottles of wine split between three skinny girls.
4. Homemade guac, which I have already mentioned but it deserves another shoutout.
5. The girls. Although we did a toast to the men we left behind. ;)
I was drunk and full and I went swimming. I traveled 3000 miles without having to answer to anyone, yet for some reason this was my first time on the trip I felt super liberated simply because I was swimming on a full stomach. Ha! TAKE THAT MOM. (Sorry Mommy, I love you. I didn’t mean it.)
We got home in time for an amazing dinner Rick must have been cooking up for hours. Homemade sauce on eggplant parmesan. And a cake Gina made for me. Michael’s roses were in the middle of the table, kind of like he was there, sort of. And we sang happy birthday to Madison too and she ate some of her gourmet peanut butter doggie cake.
After dinner I would have been content to hang out and read, but Josh was insistant that I get obliterated on my birthday. Since I already was toasted from the afternoon, I figured I would take it easy. We went to a house party in Irvine, very typical beer-pong-in-the-garage kind of party. However, very different from a New York party because every guy AND girl came up to the three of us and introduced themselves and shook our hands. It was just a level of friendliness that in New York is replaced by ignoring everyone, while simultaneously checking them out. Maybe it’s more honest at home. Girls recognize girls as competition and automatically hate each other’s outfits and think their voices are annoying. But the Californians seemed pretty cool with us, one girl poured us a drink that must be some kind of SoCal special: Coors Light, Red Bull, and lime. I actually drank this. Josh insisted we went out even though the bars were closing in an hour, at 1:30. We went on a wild ride that led back to the house party because someone forgot their ID. Jill was getting frustrated, but I was having a great time just listening to all these people talk at the same time. AND at the end of the night I got to sleep in the most beautiful house I have ever been in. A Newport beach mansion OC style. It was four floors and I stayed in Josh’s sister’s room (she went to Harbor school). I could spend a lot of time describing the houses various luxuries (flat screens, Koi fish, a glass room filled floor to ceiling with wine bottles) but I can sum it all up in the Good Morning button. This is a button on the side of the bed that opens the curtains letting the sunlight in and exposing the infinity pool that looks out over the Pacific Ocean. I could only laugh at where I was because I am so freaking poor.
Bright and early on my last day in Laguna and I ended up spending the entire day at a mall waiting for my car to get fixed. I bought a winter coat on sale at Nordstrom rack and got In and Out Burger. This time I ordered a Meatless Animal Style. Just order it next time you’re in Cali. I was just covered in sauce and cheese and onions. I did however make a lot of friends in the Firestone. Probably because in the morning when we got there the first thing we did was play The Royal Tenenbaums on their TV and do yoga in the middle of the shop. We are resourceful girls. We love our yoga. An afternoon of beach relaxing, then intense packing as we tried to fit three in what could barely fit two. Like mechanical engineers or really, really good Tetrus players, we did it. Eggplant leftovers and Madmen, then a nap and wake up call at 4:30 AM. We said goodbye to Madison, who looked so sick that Lauren knew this was the last time she would see him. We all left crying with Peanut handing us a bag of bagels as if it were a talisman and giving us scrapes of whatever advice came to his head. I really felt like we were leaving behind the safety net of this amazing family. Back on the road. Conquering the rough terrain, the desert. Danger spits in our face and we wipe it off with a squeegee.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
What does not stay in Vegas.
I don’t like Vegas. I really don’t know why I was excited to get there. I was in the airport once and I didn’t like the slot machines and they didn’t have anything for me to eat, so I swore to never return. But there I was approaching the big bright lights of capitalism and greed topped with energy waste. We drove right past the strip in order to reach our destination: IN AND OUT BURGER. As a vegetarian it is questionable to why I love such a house of death, but there is something just so happy about it. Maybe it’s the hats or the yellow and red color scheme, but I love In and Out. I got fries and a special, secret menu item: a Neopolitan. Which is a milkshake of the three available flavors. Jill kicked my ass by ordering a Double Double with fries. Oh, it was good. But let us for a minute consider In and Out as a microcosm of Vegas. There are drunk people everywhere, frat guys with opened button downs and glossed-over eyes. Women with huge breasts and the smallest waists I have every seen. Teased hair and orange skin. The women actually drew their eyebrows on. As we were eating Jill and I just went back and forth saying, “Oh my god look at that person.” Skeved out, I swore, again, to never return.
The right to Laguna was only made interesting by the fact that when I stopped for gas the attendant told me to go inside and go into the men’s restroom. In the middle of the desert I assumed he wanted to kill me and sell me to the In and Out distributors. But he assured me it was ok. He said there was a waterfall urinal. He tried to reassure me by saying, “We are on You Tube. World famous.” So I went and he was right:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eel4bDXUByY
I don’t remember arriving in Laguna. I remember staying awake the whole ride just listening to Morrissey. Then being on Pacific Coast Highway 1. Then being asleep in a bed.
Colorful Colorado Part II
An apology for typos. I wait until I have driven for 5 hours and I am exhausted then attempt to write this from the passenger seat where the laptop burns my thighs and the motions make me sick.
On Rick and Vicki’s advice we landed in Fruita at sunset. Jill was driving and had a bit of difficulty getting off the highway. A few stalls in the middle of an intersection. It was enough to alert the Fruita police who followed us into the campground:
Fruita officer: I got some complaints about your driving back there.
Liz: Sorry sir. Jill here is a new stick shift driver.
Fruita officer: You can’t be driving so fast in these parts.
Liz: Dear god he actually said, “these parts.” Sorry sir, I will drive from now on here.
Jill: Oh look a bunny!
Classically Jill found herself distracted by an adorable bunny, which perhaps added to our innocence because he let us slide. We got incredibly terse directions from a snobby ranger. Some people we have met in the Midwest have been the sweetest most friendly people in the world, others give us the old shoulder and snub even a cordial hello. Jill and I debate this often and came up with a few ideas:
1. They are true locals and they resent anyone who moves to the area in order to capitalize on beauty that was once only there own.
2. They are misanthropes, who live in isolation in order to shun society. They find comfort in open fields, corn and whatnot.
3. They think we are idiots.
We set up camp near a lake in a little cove designated number 48. It came with a firepit and a picnic table/bench. We tried to race the coming night, I started setting up the tent, but couldn’t find the battery to the air mattress. Jill read the instructions to the charcoal and we were missing lighter fluid and a starter log, which are two important provisions in starting a fire. We tried to break a cigarette lighter. It exploded on Jill. We tried to light paper and ended up just watching it burn and ash over the coals. Finally we phoned a friend who gave a quick firstarting tutorial. Since Jill was sprinkled in lighter fluid she wasn’t allowed near the flame. So she gathered sticks and I looked for something to burn. I folded up a map of New York and placed it underneath a bundle of thin dry twigs and brushy looking stuff. When the flame finally got going after 15 matches I started carefully positioning with my hands each coal into some kind of pyramid. Anytime the fire died a few hard blows would get it up again. The coals finally started to get hot. I kept blowing until I felt woosy from the carbon monoxide. I even had a fire poking stick. My face was covered in soot, my clothes smelt like charcoal. But finally. Finally. The fire was hot enough for a pan of our canned baked beans and salsa. At one point I remember looking up between breathing breaks and seeing the lights to a gas station. In all this time we could have easily driven to the station, picked up some lighter fluid and returned. But I suppose it was more amusing to watch each other struggle with nature. There were moments of delious laughter (possibly from monoxide poisoning) that made it worth the trouble. We made smores by leaving the chocolate on the graham cracker during dinner to get warm then heated up the marshmallows on twigs, cheating a little by lighting notebook paper on fire. They were amazing, only the slightest aftertaste of charcoal. My tongue felt a little numb afterward.
A successful dinner. We even found the battery to the air mattress and had one of our more comfortable sleeps of the trip. For some reason, we slept with the guitar. We were up to see the sunrise on the lake by 7AM, packed up last nights disaster, shower and hit the road.
A minor problem: it was four quarters for four minutes of shower and a quarter each additional minute. Colorado has this thing with water conservation, which I fully support. But I smell like a 19th century street urchin and we have money conservation issues. So we showered together. For the sake of posterity, I could say it was a fun, experimental, soap-sudded adventure. But in reality we were clumsy messes struggling with time and temperature. I NEED SHAMPOO! GET ANOTHER QUARTER DAMNIT. I felt more like Civil War soldiers than adorable, urbane girls trying to save a couple dimes.
UTAH! Beautiful canyons and national parks await our cameras! Rick and Vicki put us on Scenic Byway 12. They said the beginning would be a little dull, but deeper into the heart of Utah, we would be blown away. Only serious RV adventurers could ever find anywhere on this road dull. It was like being on another planet. The mountains started getting weird, plateau-y and reminded me of my old Earth Science textbook. I re-learned how to drive stick shift and it was such a rush to almost crash into these mountain walls striped with every color. Every turn was something more impressive and ever twenty minutes the landscape changed. The land as an exhibitionist. I can’t not sound cheesy right now. I can’t not sound superficial so here it goes: I love America. Go screaming eagle, fly high above the mountains of freedom.
When we got to Bryce Canyon it began to pour rain. Jill and I jumped out of the car, determined to fill up on a life’s worth of hoo-doos. The rain began to get worst and at our elevation, it became a safety matter. Like idiots we ran against the crowds of tourists towards the ledge with a miniature polka-dot umbrella. Immediately a Japanese tourist ran up to us shouting, “NO! NO! Danger. Don’t use umbrella.” Anyway, I don’t remember what Bryce Canyon looks like (there was a lot of rain in my eyes) but I know it was awesome. I took a full panorama of pictures in order to piece it together later on.
There is no way we were going to camp in Zion. It was raining and miserable out. It was getting later and later. We drove through Zion, which was like Route 12 on crack. At this point in the day, however, my awe is evening out with my impatience for drivers on the road who decide to brake every time they see something awesome. I, too look at whatever this awesome thing is and almost crash. Then they have the nerve to take a bloody picture of the mountain/hoo-doo/elk/canyon/gorge/etc. We met a park ranger in Zion who was from Brooklyn. Bay Ridge. We all agreed that there is no good pizza except New York. He let us know he was a Vietnam Vet almost immediately and he almost convinced me to apply to be a park ranger. I am still considering this.
After leaving the park, we got to pet some elk, whose furry antlers make me feel weird and then stopped to buy some killer moccasins at an Indian store. Then back on the road and we decided to just screw it all and drive to Laguna. Colorado to Cali in one day. It was just a few hours to Vegas, then only another four hours to the beach. We eat four hours for breakfast.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Colorful Colorado Part 1
Now, I stayed in this house once before when I was 7 or 8 years old and saw the Burden family once for a night when I was 12. I have not seen him since. Two things gave me the courage to ask him if we could stay: 1. Of my father’s friends (a posse of ex-hippies), he was my mother’s favorite. 2. He recently friended me on Facebook. So screw anyone who says Facebook is alienating. And for a brief moment in our trip, we were part of a legitimate, functioning family. Jo-el made us spinach salad and the best quesadillas of my life at 10:30 at night. We stayed up until 1AM talking about our trip, photography, our respective families. Russel gave us some great advice on our itinerary. We learned about paragliding from his garrulous son, Nick, who has grown into this handsome adventurer since the last time I saw him when he was 2 years old. WE SLEPT IN BEDS. Blissful sheets and mattresses. I had forgotten about them. The next morning Jo-el spread out this amazing breakfast and I just felt like I wanted to stay there for another week. I soaked in the comforts of climate control and blueberry scones, and we hit the road.
Downtown Denver, or LoDo as the locals call it, is too adorable and too clean for both Jill and I to feel completely comfortable. In order to fit in we got Iced Chai Tea Lattes from Starbucks. I felt a tad authentic only because Kerouac stayed at the Windsor at 18th and Larimer, which is now a revamped condominium.
The highlight of Denver was the Buckhorn Exchange. Jill discovered this gem by watching Man v. Food on the Travel Channel. It is the oldest restaurant in Denver. It has an oak bar dating back to 1893 and behind it is Colorado’s 1st Liquor License. It was also taxidermy capitol of the world. Jill ordered slabs of buffalo meat on bread that she dipped in some kind of meat juice (it may have been blood). I ordered a salad. But it had mandarin oranges on it. Meaty mandarin oranges.
Then on I-70! Toward Dillon, near Brekenridge to the Dam Brewery where we had some DAM GOOD BEER. Extra Pale Ale, Irish Stout, Golden Brown Ale, Dam Straight Lager. In the back of the bar we saw a guy brewing. I was fooling around with my camera and decided to take a fateful close up of Jill. Behind her head appeared a pair of fingers making bunny ears. They belonged to a 56 year old man named Rick who was driving cross country with his wife, Vicki. They have been on the road for about six years, just riding around in the RV. Vicki assumed they would spend another five years on the road before they settle down. Thus, they knew every road in America and were able to draw maps on cocktail napkins and old business cards. They bought us our drinks and were perhaps sent by the god of travel to guide us through the back roads of Utah. He said we were traveling at the perfect time. The mid-to-end-of-August becasue, "All the students are goin' back to school and all the ole people haven't come out yet. You'll probably see some Japanese, but other than that the park will be all yours."
Perfect. Can't wait.
Liz: All we've been missing out on is sleep.
Vicky: You can sleep later...you can sleep when you're old.
Jill: I can sleep when I'm dead.
Wyoming
The ride to Denver almost broke Jill and I. It started when we could barely find decent directions to our destination. Then on the highway a bee flew into the car with the intention of stinging my crotch. While it was deciding which thigh to penetrate, I let go of the wheel and the pedals of the car, stood on the seat and began to scream. Jill, both calm and collected, threw our travel notebook on the vile beast and I sat on him, pulled over the car, and we survived my near brush with extreme discomfort. Our next test was preluded by a fateful question Jill asked in South Dakota, “We have a quarter tank. Should we get gas?” To which I said, “No.”
An hour later we were in Wyoming, not speaking to one another, nervously snacking, trying to ignore the fact that the gas light had been on for 20 minutes, and we had not seen a single gas station, or for that matter, sign of civilization since South Dakota. Wyoming has nothing. Nothing.
We arrived in Lusk with 7/10th of a gallon of gas and un-washable sweat stains under our armpits. I literally kissed the 1950s throw-back gas pump. Beautiful, beautiful gasoline. We entertained a fellow old-man pumper with our story. He laughed and looked a tad concerned, perhaps reflecting on a daughter of his own and how close she may have come to a stupid mistake or two in her life.
BACK ON THE ROAD. And finally in Denver…hungry because we never stopped for a meal. Just cereal and trail mix. We hit traffic and Jill felt a little insecure about stop-n-go with the clutch. So we stopped in the middle of I-25, next to Invesco stadium, put on the hazards, and jumped across each other. I took us to the southern tip of Denver and we wearily mazed the cul-de-sacs till we found Russel Burden’s house.Black Hills. South Dakota
Holy shit South Dakota is cold.
We arrived late night in the Black Hills. And set up camp. It was too late to start a fire so we made a ridiculous dinner of black beans, tuna, and salsa mized together in a Glad Tupperware container. Our can opener was absolutely useless. While I tried to naively open the can with a knife, Jill saw a couple pull into the campsite next to ours. They were from North Dakota and they had an amazing can opener. Their daughter lived in Denver (they were on their way to New York), and the woman told us that “the big city” made her nervous. Too many people. When we told her we were from New York City, she shuddered like it was some kind of Nazi prison camp. I could tell was a little defensive of the city, but after Chicago I was losing my religion. I suppose.
I fell asleep to Jill loading film into the old Brownie camera we’ve taken along with us. So far we have 3.5 extra partners on this trip:
1. The old camera, that I have compared to the senile Grandma in the backseat that occasionally contributes beautiful, and archaic wisdom.
2.The other is this pimple that has formed underneath my left eye, that has creeped into every picture, an exposition of my exhaustion. I have named the pimple Paula.
3. The bright yellow flashlight we named Blondie, the sprightly, younger partner to Brownie. We need a lantern.
4. The .5 is the nameless guitar, neither of us has played yet because we haven’t had even 5 minutes of downtime. When the guitar is played, she will graduate to a full partner in our journey.
Seven AM and we wake up to a wet tent. The KOA showers are nicer than my dorm showers. We make friends with a few bikers from the Sturgis Rally and exchange stories. No one here thinks what we are doing is crazy or weird. Their enthusiasm leads to advice, which in turn revises our ever-changing itinerary. We have a great system going.
I have always kind of had a little thing for the Wild West. I think Louis L’Amour is legitimate literature and I believe the Ox Bow Incident could replace any textbook on group psychology any day. Deadwood is the culmination of all this. OK so whatever I like the HBO series and read the cheesy historically based dime-novel-of-a-book. In addition, I loved every second of the tourist-centric gambling saloons. They are named after heroes that would have approved. Poor Jill. I talked profusely about Wild Bill and Jane Cannery and told her stories that were a mix of history, folklore, and blatant fiction. We tried on hats in an Old Time Photo shop, where we couldn’t afford the costumed photos. We stumbled upon a museum that displayed old roulette wheels, cards abaci, and a cabateour. We walked to Mount Moriah cemetery to see Wild Bill’s and Calamity Jane’s graves that abut each other. It was her dying and drunken request to be buried next to him. She died of alcoholism, she drank 2 quarts of whiskey a day. I cried.
We stupidly got on back onto the Interstate and realized we were on the wrong route to Mt. Rushmore, National Monument. We needed 385. Luckily a kind woman at a gas station gave us a route into the Black Hills Backcountry, with the adage: “There are many roads to 385. When you live in the Hills, you see them all.” That’s verbatim. So we took Vonocker Canyon Road, to another road, to a gravel road to Nemo, South Dakota. We needed to be reassured of our directions so we asked a old woman at a ranch who embodied whole-heartedly (and with her aqua-netted hair) Dolly Parton. There were “curiosities” and antiques. The highlight was an old player piano I sat at for a second to imagine myself playing in the 19th century, singing for my meals and flashing the Black Hills my derrière. And the Black Hills were so beautiful that I found myself angry that I was not a Native American. So goddamn beautiful that Jill started talking about us going half in on a ranch.
Mt. Rushmore, National Monument can only be explained through our pictures. If I find a decent Internet connection you will know what I mean. Never pay the parking fee, unless you are a first time tourist. My children will join the bikers on the side of the road, freeloading the view.
Minne-SO-ta
Monday, August 10, 2009
Chicago.
PICTURES TO COME WHEN WE GET TO DENVER.
The adrenaline rush of young girls inspired by Keroac only can last so long on the road at 2AM. At a gas station in Western Ohio I jogged around the car and confused old truck drivers in fishing hats by doing yoga. In a McDonald’s we bought our third cup of coffee and rolled our eyes at the world’s stupidest cashier who obviously didn’t understand our haste. We had our first cigarettes of the trip and screamed lyrics to old songs we listened to in High School. I started to fade about 10 minutes from the city center. When we found out Bridget lived on the North Side in Evanston, another hour on the road, the devastation induced sleep. I started to nod.
But I was in CHICAGO. I had pinstriped gangster suits and sordid history at my fingertips. The White City, the Daley Regime, HAROLD WASHINGTON, bad public housing and the country’s most beautiful architecture. Jimmy Corrigan, Sufjan Stevens, Risky Business, all that goddamn jazz. No room for sleep. Focus. Think Obama.
We made it, I don’t remember how. But I woke up on a loveseat/couch curled up into a ball. We sat down over Cheerios trying to figure out what to do next. I was a little frustrated that we only had one day and there was so much to see. Bridget accidentally got a three-day pass to Lollapalooza. Jill figured we could split a day pass and go to the concert, but it was sold out. A conversation with Abigail, Bridget’s sister sealed the deal:
Jill: Well that sucks.
Liz: What should we do?
Abigail: You could just sneak in.
Liz: To the concert?
Abigail: Yeah, a bunch of my friends hopped the fence last night. Some passed bands through the fence.
Jill: Interesting
Abigail: What I’m saying is you have options.
So we decided to sneak into Lollapalooza. But first we had a few things to take care of. Jill really needed to learn to drive my manual car. So we had our first and last lesson. She got in the driver’s seat and I explained what to do. And she did it. No stalling, no freaking out, nothing. She just threw it into first and drove. That is my girl. We got incredibly lost driving around cookie-cutter suburbia, and she stalled once on a sharp turn and that was it. That only added to our energy and we hopped on the purple line of the “L” high on life on the road.
It’s hard to keep that energy on the “L” because it is the slowest train in the world. A child’s toy compared to New York’s subway system. But we toughed it out past the million colleges and universities and got off at Addison for WRIGLEY FIELD which was …a very historic baseball stadium. We bought hats. We took pictures. We deleted the ones we looked fat in. We took more. We asked some guy filling up ice in the back of a Starbucks where the best pizza in Chicago was. He gave us directions to a bunch of places and then said, “Just go to Gino’s East. You girls will like it. Ask for the Rock N Roll McDonalds.” He was from New Jersey.
We got off at Grand and walked to Gino’s in the sweatbox that is Chicago in the summer. Deep Dish pizza is incredible and just a little disgusting. We planned to never eat out again to save money. We talked about Jim Abbott for a bit and were inspired. Then made it down to Grant Park for the concert.
The security was insane. Double fences, double guards with machetes. There was no way, NO WAY to sneak Jill in. So I put on the bracelet, walked inside to get someone to sneak her in. This is incredibly hard for me because I am shy and non-confronatational. But this was everything. We were destined to be at Lollapalooza and I needed to pull it together. I picked an unassuming guy by the fountain who had full blown herpes lips, Joe from Ireland. He complied without question and everything was fine and destiny was fulfilled.
Glasvegas was awesome. I still can’t understand what that is guy singing about even live. Lykke Li was the absolute highlight. Beautiful girl, beautiful band. Another Joe, from Australia talked to us for a while about how awesome she is and how Chicago is a stop on his way to Italy. I don’t understand how one uses Chicago as a stopping point from Australia to Italy, but I felt small and insignificant for a minute. Animal collective was trippy. Jill was not impressed. But we made friends with some drunk guys from Minnesota who are hooking Jill up with Phoenix/Passion Pit tickets in New York in September. We were walking to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs when we were distracted for about half an hour by the most amazing DJ ever- Bass Netar. He has both sick beats and hair…it was long and made it seem as though Cousin It was spinning. OH AND HE SPUN. AND WE DANCED. AND SWEAT. BY GOD DID WE SWEAT. We caught 45 minutes of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Karen O just blended in with the eccentric beauty of the skyline behind her.
We left at 10 in disbelief that we just experienced Lollapalooza for the first time…for free…by accident. A midnight tour seemed appropriate. We did Millenium Park, Navy Pier which is like Coney Island after 10 Plastic surgeries and injected with adorable children and Maclaren strollers. We had some beers and looked at big ships on Lake Erie. Then we walked all through downtown. I was amazed at the really expensive looking girls and the long lines to get in the bars. I think I saw four bacherlorette parties in a row. Seriously. No one seemed to notice us since we looked like gross hippies in sneakers and sweaters. I kind of liked it because I felt like voyeurs. Jill laughed audibly at Chicago guidos. We talked about why humans are afraid of spiders and about how happy we were to be on the road together. Then we sat on the Art Institute steps fighting our sleep and waiting for Bridget to pick us up. A young and very stoned man on a Pedicab rode up to us and kept us company for half an hour. Paul from Austin, Texas. We talked about Creationism and he told us he would take us around Austin when we get there.
Home by 2:30, in bed by 3, up and back on the road by 6. Our sleep has totaled about 7 hours in 3 days. We were in Madison, Wisconsin by 10. Everyone thinks its really cute but Madison just seemed like a little aftertaste burp after the massive chili cheese dog that was Chicago. Or like you just had Thanksgiving dinner and its dessert time and some gives you a goddamn after-dinner mint. I want my pie and I want it in Deadwood.
No stopping till Sturgis. Longest stretch of the trip. It’s supposed to be 15 hours but Jill’s driving and she wants pie too.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Rockin' in the Ghost World
In Jersey Jill's ipod died. Shit. We REFUSED to buy GPS or accept it as a gift even, because that isn't what this is about. However we were not above plugging the Macbook into stereo and rocking out to DJ Jill. She was playing some good stuff. Around this time I started to feel tired, what woke me up was a song by the Aquabats called something "Chicken." I can't remember, but it was amazing. When I have more time, I will post the music we have been rocking out too.
Pit stop in Warren, Ohio where a nice greek family in one of the most beautiful houses I have ever been in served us Avgolemono soup, which is a traditional travel soup or a soup you serve to wish someone health, or maybe just what they had that day and they wanted to make us feel special. And we did. There was chicken in it. I ate around it. I couldn't refuse something from a little Yaya who immediately kissed me upon arrival. The Greek mother gave us directions to Cleveland, an hour away, then called her husband gave us new directions, then consulted her father and gave us new directions. Her sons and daughter all contributed loudly to these directions.
We got lost. Being lost in Ohio means the towns aren't on the map and the only landmarks are corn fields and cows. Jill with 3 maps open on her lap directed us back, earning her the titles, Mapquest Jill, Jillian the Navigator, and JPS. We played classic rock to get us pumped after Jill revived her iPod from instructions texted to her from her IT tech-y friend: "Hit it on your knee."
It actually worked and DJ Jill blasted Welcome to the Jungle as the Cleveland skyline appreared over the guardrails of route 490. There have never been two New Yorkers so happy to see Cleveland ever in history. No one can contest that.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame blew our minds. Better than any amusement park, I gushed over Jim Morrison's High School Diploma, Jill flipped out over a Les Paul exhibition that featured the world's first electric guitar, a block of wood with a string. Jill teared up, I was not impressed. We walked away seeing, most importantly of all- more important than Johnny Cash's tour van or Janis Joplin's funeral invitation- THE white glove of Michael Jackson. Yes, it was sparkly.
The rest of Cleveland was so uninteresting there is no point in posting on it. It took us 20 minutes to find a street with people. And then the people failed to capture our interest. "Let's get out of here" "Yeah"
We did however get lost again, this time it was divine intervention. While looking for 90 I saw a small brown sign on a post, "A Christmas Story House and Museum."
"No f----ing way."
The leg lamp was in the window and the rotted sled was on the porch of the house on this unassuming street. It was awesome.
We ended up back on the road, following Lake Erie west. We stopped at this winery that was located in a "historic" barn. For 7 dollars I had one of the best bottles of red wine I have ever tasted, while a kind-of-sad middle aged man played Ben Harper's "Lizzie," which happens to be one of my favorite songs. Good omen. We drank and wrote postcards and mapped. This drew attention and before we knew it we were getting advice about where to go, what to do, how to do it.
"Yes we are going to California"
"90 or 80"
"Mostly 90, we are are staying kind of North."
"You should go to Missouri, I'll give you directions."
"We are kind of staying more North."
"There are lots of wineries in Missouri. I grew up there, you know"
"OK, we will consider it."
"Where are you going next."
"Chicago."
"Oh that is only 4 hours away."
"Really?"
Maybe it was the wine, or the rain that made us reconsider camping. Maybe it was an internal desire to see something that looked less like Upstate New York. Something new and different. Four hours seemed reasonable and surmountable. At 10:30 at night, after 17 hours in transit we decided to pull another 4 and drive to Chicago.
Internet on the road is harder to come by than we thought. Next time, we hope, there will be pictures.
Stay tuned for our adventures in Chi-town.
Goodbye New York!
We are barely packed...
We are missing 50% of our list....
But it is 5 am and I am leaving to go cross country right now! See you in our first stop: Warren OH.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Food-related Etymology. Every morning I delight that Merriam-Webster sends me a Word of the Day. It is educational and fights of the loneliness of an empty inbox :( Today's word: gallimaufry, which is synonymous to hodgepodge. Two words deriving from stew. Galimafree is a 16th century French recipe for an meat stew. Hotchpotch also means a jumble of things and is the big brother to hodgepodge, the aberration of a little brother who made it big in the literary world.
Hash- I hear this more as a verb, but initially it is a meat and potato dish. If you replace the ingredients with numbers, you have a hash function, which is when you turn a message into a hodgepodge of numbers.
Potpourri- translated to "rotten pot" which is the French name of a Spanish stew called olla podrida (again, "rotten pot") which is a slow cooked stew of rice, beans, and a million other ingredients.
Then I started looking to the ways people name food:
Halibut sounds like it was named after a city in Iceland or one of those weird Canadian Islands. BUT it actually comes from butte, which is a flatfish. And "holy" because it was only eaten on religious occasions. Holy butte- Halibut.
Avocado sounds like it just leaped from the mouth of a beautiful women in a colonial style kitchen in Mexico. It comes from the Nahuatl word ahuacatl which means testicle. I love avocados so much I would still name my firstborn avocado despite this revealing information.In French, la veneson translates to "game we just hunted" which I suppose was usually deer meat rather than other animals that might be stored longer because of their size, like cows.
I am convinced that the 1066 Norman Conquest civilized the English. Actually I think that is a pretty well established theory if I remember correctly back to my History of the Middle Ages class. The French nobles HATED going to barbaric England and therefore the English nobles wanted to be French, just like a 6th grade crush.
The old-school Anglo Saxon, would march into the mead-hall but down his axe and order a pig, a sheep, or an ox. Dead or alive, same word. Then suddenly nobles started ordering in French: pork (porcine), mutton (Old French- mutoun), beef (boeuf). HOWEVER...."steak" comes from an old Norse word, steik, which means "roast." Steak is an old word and shows up in some weird languages including the West Nordic language Faroese, spoken by the people of the Faroe Islands, which I didn't know existed until this post.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faroe_IslandsThe Stevie Nicks/Madonna of the Faroe Islands: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DrY2rnx1m4&feature=related
BACK TO OMELETTE: Une Amelette is the French word for the thin frying pan used to cook omelettes. Amelette comes from the Latin word lamella, which means "thin sheet or blade of metal," from what blacksmiths used to hammer out the first frying pans. Lamella is used in science to mean "thin layer of tissue" or "thin bone". The word laminate is derived from lamella. Somewhere someone is eating an omelette on a laminated dish, clueless as to their relationship.
And it is all full circle. My new personal hero is Anu Garg, a computer science graduate student turned etymologist. I have been dying to read his book. After I finish goddamn 2666. wordsmith.org to get his info and sign up for A.Word.A.Day.