Getting to Mexico

Of course, we are now in Mexico, on the Sea of Cortez, enjoying a relaxing time at a luxury resort far removed from the tourist experience of Cabo or Puerto Vallarta or Cancun. But getting here had its challenges.

When we pulled away from our RV park in Indio, we fully expected to store our RV at a facility nearby – having made arrangements back in September. Ha! Weren’t we surprised when they said their renovations weren’t finished and they couldn’t store the motorhome until January or February. We called around and didn’t find anything close, but did find a place in El Centro, CA. OK, that could work, it was on our way to the border crossing at Tecate.  Panic, followed by Relief!! When we get there, they tell us they only have one place left – one place designed for a much smaller rig, but, oh well, Lew is really good at parking this thing. Oops! Was that a mirror we just crunched on the other RV? Surprise! They found us another spot at the end and we spent time on the phone as we drove into Mexico figuring out how to pay for the damages. Luckily the other people were very nice.

And then there was the border. We’ve never driven into Mexico, but we did assume that someone would meet us at the border and check our passports. Then, we could ask them where to get the FMM we needed to drive in Mexico. No one met us. No one cared that we drove in. Before we knew it, we were out of Tecate and on our way to Ensenada (where we had hotel reservations). It was getting dark, so on we went. No FMM. No stamp. No Passport control. We felt like illegal aliens.

We spent two nights in Ensenada – relaxing, but for the constant worry that at any minute they would find us and throw us in jail. We tried getting the requisite forms, but after miles of walking from one office to another and getting the bureaucratic run-around, we gave up. Got the forms online – or, we paid for them and Lew got his, but mine never came. And, of course, there is no stamp. People have told us that no one ever checks, so we are driving very carefully and hoping we can make it back to the USA next week with no repercussions. 

The drive from Ensenada to Guerrero Negro was harrowing – mountain crossings, road construction delays, teacher protests on the road, potholes, slow trucks and fast cars, and cows on the highway.  But we made it unscathed and enjoyed the beautiful scenery along the way when we could.

From there to Loreto was shorter and quite beautiful with an amazing array of cacti and other unique desert plants – and much less frightening. It is good to be here. Glad to see friends from Anacortes, who have showed us around, and very glad to have Sandi, Dylan, Andy, and Sarah (Sandi’s Danish helpmate) join us. It’s been a relatively relaxing week at a beautiful resort – we’ve hiked, walked on the beach, read, swum in the pools, had a few margaritas, taken trip up into the mountains to visit one of the oldest missions in Baja, and generally enjoyed ourselves. Preparations are being made for Christmas – note our little Christmas Tree. We’re hoping Santa will find us in Loreto.

 The grandkids and our tiny Christmas tree.  Santa, note the tree location

 Beachfront, mountains, quiet cove -- what could be better?

Death Valley

We've long since left Death Valley and find ourselves now in Loreto, Baja Sur, Mexico - a desert by the sea - but as we look at the many mountain ranges and valleys down here, we can't help thinking about our time at Death Valley National Park earlier in December. So much of the southwest has a haunting beauty to it, with interesting rock formations and a barren-looking landscape. But there was something different about Death Valley. It is hard to articulate. Maybe it's just because the park wasn't what I expected, but, then again, what did I expect? The first word that often comes to mind is DESOLATE. And, yes, it is, in a way, but so much more. I couldn't put what I felt about this place into words, so I asked Lew to give me three words he would use to describe his experience of Death Valley. I had my own three. They were entirely different. A friend added some more. These are the words we came up with - complex, varied, dry, raw, changing, powerful, textured, and tapestry.

Death Valley National Park - the largest in the country - is so complex and varied it almost boggles the mind. Here we find towering snow-covered peaks rising over 12,000 feet from the floor of the valley, which boasts the lowest point in the western hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. The park has salt flats that are as much as 5 feet thick, the result of repeated flooding and evaporation over many thousands of years. There are tenacious plants and animals that have adapted to the hottest temperatures ever recorded, as well as mud and sand dunes turned to stone, ancient lava flows, active sand dunes, eerie eroded badlands, abandoned mines, wildflower displays in the spring, a volcano crater half a mile wide and 800 to 7,000 years old and still potentially active, and rocks of many varied shapes, sizes, colors, and type. Complex and varied, indeed. And dry.  The mountains to the west wring out all the moisture from the ocean and there's little left for the desert. Yet it is the dryness that makes the rocks so interesting. Rock layers in Death Valley comprise nearly a complete record of the earth’s past, not in neat layers like at the Grand Canyon, but jumbled out of sequence, testifying to the powerful geologic forces that recently (in geologic time) tore the land apart.

I used the word raw because Death Valley’s geologic formations are unadorned. So little vegetation grows here, you can practically see the mountains eroding; the moraines, which on other mountains are often hidden by vegetation, are stark, visible, clearly delineated, and obvious -  raw, as it were. Yes, the land is raw, but it is ever changing. The sand dunes shift in the wind, rocks fall, summer storms create flash floods that break away rocks, dig canyons, create arches, and erode away ever more mountain. It seems to happen before our eyes.

You can almost feel the powerful forces at work here, forces that pulled apart a continent, lifted up 3 mountain ranges, and sank the valleys to a depth below the sea. A visit here is truly a sensual experience, a  tapestry of color – from yellow and beige and brown and black, to reds, greens, blues, and purples: a tapestry of texture – fine sands, salts, rock, mud, and water: a tapestry of shapes – intricate patterns in the salt flats to jagged mountains, rounded dunes, balanced rocks and huge boulders to tiny pebbles. Death Valley was truly an amazing, visceral experience – topped off our last night with an incredible display of stars containing the arc of the milky way, a sight we hadn’t seen in years. It was a good reminder that we are not as important as we think we are. This is a vast universe and we are fortunate to live on such an incredible planet.We shall return.

Artist's Palate

Cathedral Rock, hike in canyon

Another colorful canyon

Overlooking the badlands. Dark is lava flow.

Salt flats

Looking over the salt flats and valley from 6,000 feet

Frustrations with RVing and Moving On

It's been almost 3 weeks since I've added to my blog - a good three weeks. Lots of family time, lots of sightseeing, lots of food, lots of fun, and lots of rest. Now we are preparing to MOVE ON, to set out once again on our 18 month journey, that unexpected, unsettled life we anticipated when we left three months ago.

Some of the "unsettling" things still plague us and I promised myself I'd write them down, share them, and then (hopefully) let them go. So here's my list of frustrations - so far! The list will undoubtedly morph in the coming months.

1. CLUTTER - anyone who knows me, knows my middle name is clutter! I just seem to accumulate piles - piles of paper, piles of books, piles of laundry, piles of...well, you get the picture. When you are living in an 11 X 33 ft motorhome (which is really one big room, a bedroom, and a bath), clutter is even more a problem. One of my biggest frustrations is what to do with the clutter. I can't hide it in

Typical view of our kitchen table, i.e. only table. 

a second bedroom and forget it exists. There's just no place to put things, things you need, but not all the time - no convenient place, that is. We have lots of space under the RV. I move things around constantly, making this chair or that couch usable for a time, but it's temporary. It's a challenge I have yet to conquer.

2. BENDING - yes, I know, bending is good for you, but when you have to bend down just to get basic necessities (pots, pans, tupperware, clothes, towels, etc), it is a big PAIN. It's a silly complaint, but an honest one. It is definitely one of the things about traveling I don't particularly like. Let's call it an aggravation that I'll have to live with!

3. REACHING - a corollary to bending. The RV is too high for a short person like me. I can't reach light switches or items on top shelves. Lew made me a "light switch stick" so I could reach up and push the button to turn lights off and on. That's a help, but it is still frustrating that I have to either get the stool or call Lew to perform simple tasks. I prefer to do the latter. Keeps him busy.

4. CONNECTIVITY - this is sometimes a serious problem, for Lew (and for me if I want to post to this blog). Wifi isn't always reliable or fast at the RV parks, and it's non-existent in National Parks. This might mean more stops at local libraries or coffee shops!

5. THE OVEN - our oven is being obstreperous. It can take 5 or 10 minutes to get it lit and we can't leave the pilot light on (once it is lit) because it is getting too much gas, so our carbon monoxide alarms are going off (not good on the ears, or the disposition). There does not seem to be any apparent way to adjust the flame, and that's a frustration for Lew. So far we've used it sparingly, but it would be nice to be able to bake or cook a roast or casserole without having to open a window or worry about the alarms.

6. DUMPING - it's not like home. Can't use as much water as you want, need to watch the tanks, need to make sure you dump every few days. It's easy in an RV park with hook-ups, but when we dry camp (no hook-ups) it can be a real problem. Or if we have electricity, but no water or sewer, we have to unhook and pack everything up like we are leaving every few days and drive to the dump station, which is usually on-site, somewhere. That's what it will be like at National Parks. So, it's another annoyance, not really a problem, but it does take some thinking ahead.

That's enough "kvetching" for now. There are other gripes having to do with TV coverage with the satellite dish, using laundromats, long boring drives, the cost of things, and not being able to be as spontaneous as we'd like (we have reservations going all the way into April already). But I'll save some of those for another time.

Instead, here's a quick run-through of some of the things we are GRATEFUL for during these weeks in Salt Lake, as chronicled in our pictures:

You've seen the other two, this is the third season we've experienced in our RV park!

Grateful for the bubble so I could play tennis 7 times

Christmas lights at Temple Square are very impressive

Part of our visit to the Golden Spike National Historic Monument

Early Christmas with family

Grateful for family

The Spiral Jetty, a unique "sculpture" of basalt rock and earth. Sometimes submerged by Salt Lake

A great hike on Desolation Trail to lookout over Salt Lake - oh well, smog!

The Jordan River Trail that ran behind the RV park so we could walk and bike on it

The Red Iguana - an icon in Salt Lake with great Mole. Close to our RV park

So, soon we'll say goodbye Salt Lake City and the good times and good memories we've had here. On Saturday we head south to St George, UT, for three days at Snow Canyon State Park, then on to Death Valley for a few days, followed by Fort Mohave, AZ with friends for a few more days. Finally, we return to California where we will store the RV for 2 1/2 weeks while we travel to Loreto, Baja Sur, Mexico, to spend Christmas with Sandi and her family. We are MOVING ON!

Finding Normalcy

We've remained in one place for two whole weeks now - and look forward to 2 1/2 more! What a relief to not have to pack everything up day after day, to keep the coffee pot and toaster plugged in, and to have the time to get to know the area where we are staying. Our life feels almost "normal" again. The stay in Salt Lake City has afforded us the opportunity to get some things done that needed doing - like a crown for the tooth Bonnie broke over a month ago, some RV repairs (a new battery terminal bolt, a new light fixture, new running lights, an oil change, and remounting a leaky toilet), new brake pads on the car, laundry, shopping, rearranging of stuff, and, of course, relaxing.

Life returning to "normal" has been good in other ways, as well. And by normal, I mean doing the same things we would do if we lived here all the time - even if we are living in a non-insulated small rectangular box on wheels. (It has its challenges, which I will address in my next post!) The best part of being here is spending time with Erin, Charlie, and Phin. We help with some transportation issues, getting Phin places when his parents are working. We go to the local UU church together - and even managed to attend the church's auction - which has been nice for a change. We missed that part of our routine. We spent an afternoon watching some World Cup Short Track Speed Skating competition, which was a lot of fun, even if we didn't know any of the participants. And most amazing of all, Erin and I attended a performance of Come From Away, a new Broadway musical set in the days following 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland, where 38 planes (that's 7000 people from all over the world) are stranded for 5 days when US air space was closed. It's about hospitality, writ LARGE, compassion, fear, friendship, and lives changed by the experience. The Canadian hosts were inspiring and both the story and the music were compelling (a must-see,if you can!). Combined with a pre-theater dinner at a nearby Vegan restaurant, it was the most perfect (belated) birthday gift any mother could ask for - a special evening with my daughter!

In the two weeks we've been here, it has turned from fall to winter (cold, no snow), and we've gone from riding bikes along the Jordan River to bundling up just to walk. But we are enjoying the sunshine and the sights. One cool thing - I found some indoor tennis courts not far from Erin's house and have signed up to participate in 1 1/2 hour workouts twice a week while I'm here. What fun it has been to hit again - although my back may disagree. (Ice and Aleve work miracles) We've appreciated taking the rapid transit into town (and not having to find parking), walking around Temple Square, attending an organ recital at the Tabernacle, and visiting the main library. Lew attended a special Veteran's Day Concert at the tabernacle which he said was outstanding. Later this week we plan to drive up to see the Golden Spike Monument and the Spiral Jetty (art in the great Salt Lake), celebrate our son-in-law's birthday, take in an afternoon performance of King Lear, and spend some time with old neighbors from Colorado. Other activities on our future agenda include Thanksgiving with Charlie's extended family, the Utah Natural History Museum, the Christmas lights extravaganza downtown, a winter farmer's market, and who knows what else?

Normalcy means lazing around in the morning, making phone calls, paying bills, reading books, taking long walks, watching TV, picking up the "house", doing laundry, and just hangin' out. I'm glad we are interspersing these longer stays with the short ones. It's all good.

Organ at Tabernacle

Charlie & Phin finishing 5K Donut Dash

Bike ride on trail near campground

Short track speed skating competition

What our campground looks like after two weeks. See last post for how it looked before!

Memories

When I was younger and had traveled out of California and then returned, I used to sing "California Here I Come" upon crossing the border, proud and excited to be "home," where the streets and sounds and sights and the people were familiar. I get a tinge of that feeling even now, when I cross into California, but I got a big dose of it last week when we entered Colorado. Indeed, I realized, I had lived in Colorado longer than I had even lived in California, and so it was like coming home, in Breckenridge, but even more so, in Colorado Springs.

I sometimes wonder why we do this to ourselves - return, year after year. Wouldn't it have been easier to make a clean break with the past? Move on? Every time we come back, it hurts - it's like an aching, for what we had, for what and who we left behind. Is it fair to our new friends, our new home, our new life to constantly remind ourselves of what we had, instead of what we have?

We felt comfortable, loved, and missed by our friends in our old church and enjoyed the services we attended there. We laughed and reminisced with neighborhood friends with whom we endured years of swim meets at the racquet club each summer...and caught up on the lives of our now-grown children, and their children!

We hiked with an old high school friend in the beautiful and serene Garden of the Gods, flashing on so many similar experiences. What a wonderful afternoon we had.


And I finally got to play some tennis with my old teammates; it felt so good and so natural and so right. We even got our teeth cleaned by our former dentist (and skiing buddy) and then topped off the week with an evening of USAFA Falcon football, complete with parachutes, flyovers, and spending time with our "cadet" who is now a Lt. Colonel and will soon be retiring from the Air Force. We spent so many Saturday afternoons cheering the team on over the years.

It was all fun, and heady, and very, very comfortable. It was so easy to slide back into old friendships, old memories, old experiences. And that's the wound - the wound that we open every time we come back. Not because it's bad, but because it is so very, very good! Leaving Colorado was so hard, although it was a joint decision made for all the right reasons - Sandi, Tom, Dylan (and eventually Andy), and my mom. Coming back is also hard. But should we stop? Should we stop connecting with old friends? Should we dim the memories we have of those 27 years? NO!


Why? Because memories and friendships are what life is all about. It's not the things, it's the people and the things we DID with those people. And just because we miss those times - those people - and want to "re-enact" them occasionally, doesn't diminish the importance of current friends and current experiences or future friends and future experiences. I believe we are all the richer for those important and meaningful connections...and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Much of this trip is about memories - remembering old ones and making new ones. We'll be seeing a lot of old friends and family along our path and we look forward to sharing stories and laughing and talking about old times. And then we'll venture out with or without them, to see new things, experience different places, always trying to live our lives to the fullest.

But for now, we are so HAPPY to be in one place - Salt Lake City - for a month, living in a really nice KOA, spending time with Erin and her family, and getting to know their city a little better.
 

P.S.
And I'm so grateful to Lew! I'm grateful he does all the driving! I'm grateful that he figured out how to get the RV started early Monday morning - after much hand wringing and gnashing of teeth. And I'm grateful that today he fixed our leaky toilet...a most disgusting job. He deserves a medal, but will have to settle for a nice lunch, a "thataboy" pat on the back, and maybe a big thank you kiss from me! And the leaky toilet and the silent engine will just be two more memories we will file away with the rest.

Reflections on "Home"

Reflections on “Home”

In 1868, a weary band of 8000+ Navajos began their long walk BACK after four years of relative captivity at Ft Sumner, NM – back to what they left behind. HOME.

It is nearly impossible to understand a culture when unless you are born into it. We outsiders can appreciate it, learn from it, and perhaps even adopt some of it for our own, but it will never be fully ours. What a treat it has been to spend last week with the Navajo people who did their best to show us, and tell us, and encourage us to understand and feel what it means to be Navajo and why Canyon de Chelly is so important to them.

To them, this is and will always be, home, no matter where they may be living. It’s the land, stark, but beautiful, combined with their sense of kinship with all things, their traditions, their stories, their music and ceremonies, and their history. 

I won’t bore you with all the details – if you want to learn more about the canyon and its people, please go online or check out a book. Instead, I will tell you what this Road Scholar program shared with us, what the Navajo people who ran the program shared with us, and how we reacted to it.

Through various lectures and experiences, we learned about the archeology of the Canyon, about Navajo creation stories and spiritual beliefs, about the clan system (every person represents 4 clans – mother, father, and two grandfathers), the Long Walk (one of many shameful episodes in U.S. history we never learned about), the World War II Code Talkers, native music and ceremonies, traditional foods, and native arts and crafts (jewelry making, silversmithing, rug weaving, pottery making). 

And, of course, we explored the Canyon itself via 2 rim drives and an exciting 4x4 jeep ride in the rain (complete with rising waters and waterfalls). Lew and I, along with another couple, had the added delight of hiking 900 feet down into the canyon itself (and back) – awesome.

It was, however, the totality of the experience that was so meaningful. The Navajo people are resilient, talented, funny, and very open. They are a culture that has “adapted” and “adopted” over the centuries – adapted to changing circumstances and adopted features of other cultures with which they’ve interacted.  After the talk on what the Navajo people had to endure on the Long Walk in 1864, I was nearly brought to tears. I kept asking myself “why”? Why are we so cruel to one another? Why don’t we listen? Why do we treat people who are different from us with such contempt, with such disregard for their humanity? And how is it, with so much pain in their past, that these people endure and many even have renewed hope for the future?

The land is hauntingly beautiful, but it no longer provides for the people as it has in the past. Drought. Invasive species. Loss of livestock. Failed policies. And yet they persist, and dream of a better future. This is home, the home of their ancestors, and this is where they will remain.

What is “home” to me? It’s not where I grew up – I no longer have familial ties there, nor do I care to go back to Los Angeles. It’s not where we raised our own family – we moved around in the Air Force, so no one place stands out as home, and the kids have scattered. It’s not where we live now, although we plan to remain there. And, of course, now that we are nomads, home is where we happen to have parked our RV for the time being.

Home to the Navajo is a visceral feeling – this is where I belong, this is where I find peace, this is where the ancestors lived. This is part of my being. I used to have that feeling when I returned to California, but not anymore. I suppose Colorado comes the closest, but in reality, it’s the mountains that call to me, that give me that feeling of peace – any mountains. Or when we're with our daughters and grandchildren, wherever that may be. That is where I feel most at “home”.

Lew’s addendum:

Two thoughts:

I was seriously impressed by the Navajo attachment/reverence surrounding family and home as defined as a place of their ancestors, their elders.  They carefully trace family and clan based on matriarchal lineage and tenaciously maintain those family ties.  The sense of “home” as a specific place, a place where my elders, my ancestors, lived and worked has made that place sacred.  I must maintain that sacredness for my family and for future generations.  Is there something for the rest of us to learn from their tenacity to these values?  Most of us were raised with the trite concept, “Home is where the heart is.”  I have no particular reverence for “home,” but Home is where my family love resides. 

 

We all learned a bit of American history in school, but we probably didn’t get the Native American version.  Nor did we receive the level of detail involved in what instigated the Navajo Long March.  We certainly weren’t taught the kinds of changes to Navajo culture that the return from the march caused.  Yes, some results were positive, but the process provides a new chapter in my understanding of man’s inhumanity to man.  But that’s a discussion for another time.