You're Invited

It's 5 o'clock*, and the door of the bath house slams behind Fynn as he emerges with wet hair and a towel slung over his shoulder. He was out working on his treehouse all afternoon, and had sap and dirt and sawdust in his hair to contend with. It's nearly time for dinner, and there are still chores to do. Eggs to gather, salad fixings to pick, and a bit of cello harmony to work out if he has a few minutes left before dinner is called.

It's the last Friday of the month, which means we're expecting a bigger crowd than usual. It's music night, and we never know how many locals will show up on foot or by car, or who will hike up the lane from the trail when they hear some picking and plucking and singing starting to waft over the mountain. I'm in the outdoor kitchen with Martha, Cedar, and a couple other folks (including a few mostly-willing teens), chopping veggies, making dressing, hard-boiling eggs, and frying up the leftover ham from yesterday. It's a salad-bar tonight, and I can pretty much count on a few regulars bringing some fresh herbs, homemade cheese, a can of beans, leftover chicken, or anything else they like to dump on a bed of greens. I'm craving lemons for my salad, but haven't had time to drive into town to get them, so it's bottled lemon juice tonight.

We've had a decent crowd this week, but it's still been quiet. Maggie's here for the week, with her young daughter, and they're staying up in the original cob cabin with Jane, who's been here since her husband died 6 months ago. She's been feeling ready to socialize again lately, and is happy to share the space now. It's only two rooms with a wee porch, but not far from the bath house and outdoor kitchen. It was our first cob structure, and has a few cracks around the window and some shrinkage along the eaves, but it's still cozy and cool in the summer.

It's June, and we're well into our latest building project, Michael's studio. He's been working out of the old barn for the last three years … when he has moment to paint or carve something other than a building detail … but we've finally knocked out the bath house/kitchen combo, the main part of our own stone/cob home (we moved out of the trailer last summer!), and three basically habitable treehouses. There are several more in various stages of construction, but the main push this summer is the studio.

There have been drawings scattered on shelves and tables and napkins for over a year now, and the pile of field stones got big enough to start laying the studio's foundation last month. The pile is large enough mostly because John stopped by on his Kubota It! tour of the U.S. a few weeks ago, and moved a bunch of the larger ones down the hill for us. It's to be a combo of stone, wood, and cob, and is set back a ways back from the main house, about a half mile up into the woods. We hope to get electric run up there soon, and plan to get a pump going from the stream to a slop sink as soon as that happens.

It's really more of a getaway than a full studio, but it will be a place to paint, sing at the top of his lungs, and do the alone-in-the-woods thing. The wood shop and slowly-evolving metal shop are going to stay in the barn. Todd introduced us to a lot of metal working tools when they came for a month last summer to check things out, and Bobby scavenged quite a bit of stuff from estate sales when he was still living in Knoxville, so the place is reasonably functional by now. We lost a fair number of tools in the first couple of years thanks to rust and forgetfulness and the occasional over-eager neophyte skil-saw user, but have slowly gotten them organized, and now that Nathan sleeps in the barn-loft and keeps track of things at days end, they're kept oiled and sharp and tuned up.

It's Douglas' turn to do the dinner call, and he's chosen yodeling as Ash is visiting and willing to help, so the two of them make enough noise to alert anyone within 200 yards that food's ready. It's 6:00 and the shadows aren't too long yet though it's beginning to cool down. Edmund and Sparrow take up their positions under the table, and Benny and Sam (the current dogs in residence) chase each other around the benches, tripping up a couple of the folks who are finding a perch, but Calvin gets them settled down in short order. It looks like about 20 are going to sit up to table, and Dave says a quick prayer before everyone digs in.

Newbies get a guest bowl and mug from the end of the serving counter, while the regulars bring their own, or pull the ones they keep here off of the shelves under the counter. Jars of forks and chopsticks sit in the middle of the 20' long table under the kitchen's big shelter/roof, as do jugs of water and a few bottles of wine. My favorite chopsticks are the ones with Kanji love notes on them that Sue makes, and brings us from Japan every fall. Some daring ones park themselves along the eating counter that takes up one long side of the space … Evan and Byron are already perched on it, and others are on a motley collection of stools that mostly came from one of Keren's game competitions earlier this summer, I don't remember the rules but most of the results are actually sitable. Douglas's entry was a folding ladder stool that's way too tall for the table, but gets used to access his tree-gym down the hill.

I'm beat, and really wanting to just find a corner and curl up with a book and my salad, but I get myself a bowl full and find a seat by Dan at the far end of the Kibitchen, as it's becoming known. It's the place where it pretty much all happens for a good eight months of the year. The cooking, the talking, the planning, the listening, the discussing, the singing, the fire-pit-chilling, the coffee swilling, the scheduling, the bible-chewing, the hey-guess-what-i-learned!-ing, the asking, the giving, the venting, the crying, the recovering, the supporting; the stuff that all takes more than one person. That takes a group, a diversity, a desire to connect, to see, to build, to learn … and to love. A community. One where you can dip a toe or a leg or your whole self, and see how much of it works for you.

Tonight, it's a whirlwind of eating and cleanup and dish-swilling in the wash and rinse buckets at the end of the counter, and then the fire pit lighting. As the last of the leftovers are put away, someone starts plucking a guitar and there's a bit of haphazard tuning. There's usually a mashup of hymns and folk and a bit of almost everything, most of it from memory though there are a few guitar chord books floating around. If someone comes who really knows their stuff (like Mike and George both did last winter), it helps keep things together. Fynn's learned to do some harmony to a few of the common songs, so Michael makes sure a couple of those get worked in somewhere.

Folks wander in and out of the firelight and the music, horseshoes clank, frisbees fly, and some disappear for walks in the woods. Hammocks, tents, and treehouses are retired to when space is needed or hearts are full. Keren and Bobby's B&B is due to open just down the road next spring, and that will give even fancier accommodations for those who want indoor plumbing and a little more TLC! There's plenty of room here though to be broken, to heal, to be alone, to be not-alone, and heart-food to nibble.

It's Friday night, it's home, and it's rich with all the things that matter.

You're invited.

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* 5 o'clock somewhere, on a Friday night about three years from now

want the long personal backstory that led to this? I just posted it (in three parts) over on my old blog InMyMiddle

Hello, America

I woke up yesterday with a bunch of thoughts gelled in my brain, and while I went about my morning routine I was writing furiously in my head. Words, at last! Then, the road called … the six-mile dirt road that follows the turns of the San Francisco River flowing past our campsite, and off we went.

We wandered past a few homes down next to the river bed, marveled at canyons and cliffs to our right, explored a couple long-abandoned stone huts and walls, tried to figure out the pattern of smashed parts and glass from a nearly-pancaked blue Beretta at the base of a stony track, and hunted for big-horn sheep. Got a glimpse of the top of the mine beyond the far side of the river too. Delightful, hot, bizarre in places, and very remote feeling.

The river flooded badly in '83, demolishing much of the town of Clifton below us, and actually is the reason there's a cheap town-run RV park at the north end of the valley (our current resting spot). The USAC of Engineers won't allow homes at the north end anymore, due to flood fears. The rest of the town is protected with giant floodgates.

Our next stop was to go see the mine a bit better … the Morenci Copper/Molybdenum Mine that's run by Freeport McMoRan and is the largest copper mine in the U.S., and one of the largest in the world. When we headed to this RV park, by the way, we knew NOTHING about Clifton/Morenci. A look at the map showing a nearby Plant City made us assume there might be industry in the vicinity.

The terraced cliffs of the mine were apparent when we pulled in last week, and we'd gotten some amazing stories the day before from an old mine-employed chemist about the history of the place, but hadn't really seen it for ourselves. We headed up Hwy 191, aiming for the spot on the little cartoonized local map that said Mine Overlook.

The map didn't indicate how far the overlook was, or that we'd have to drive underneath the giant conveyor belt system that takes the mined chunks and gradually crushes them down into pieces that can be suspended in a concentrate solution. From there they use electrowinning to make big sheets of 99.9% pure copper. This particular mine produced 902 million pounds of copper in 2015. It's big. Mind-bogglingly huge.

Hard to comprehend, even while driving past enormous sheds, pits that make huge mine trucks look like tiny Tonka toys, and terraced literal mountains of crushed stone that we realized have been built one truck-load at a time. We watched the trucks inch their way up the zig-zagged grade, back up and dump over the side to the terrace below, and then zip their way back down the road for another load. It was like watching something out of Star Wars … a planet being terraformed.

That little black blip on the top of the white ridge is a mine cart with 12' tires, about to dump its load over the edge.

It's come a very long way from the first wagon-loads of copper being pulled to Kansas City for shipping east, back in 1865 when the mine started. Hillsides of black slag speak to the old ways of smelting and refining, and the barely visible corner of the old concrete-block high school that's peeking out of the side of a growing terraced mountain helps give some idea of how much change they've done to the landscape since 1985, when the school was abandoned and they moved into a new building in town.

We've seen the Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon, and the Morenci Mine all in the last 3 months. Three things that make you feel tiny, take your breath away, and are hard to wrap your mind around.

They have a way of putting things in perspective. Long-term perspective. Life and cycles and death and time and the smidgen bit of it we get to spend on earth, and what really matters to me.

-----------------

Almost all the traveling I did as a child was either driving in a car to visit people we knew, tenting for a week near a lake somewhere, or flying to South or Central America and visiting people dad knew or had corresponded with. Poor people for the most part, living in small towns or remote villages only reachable by perching in the back of an open truck. Some were in cities, like San Salvador or Lima Peru, but we still usually stayed with friends in apartments or in a cheap local hotel.

Lima Peru in about 1976. I'm in Mom's arms.

I grew up thinking that Disney and Resorts and fancy hotels and big museums were for the folks who weren't lucky enough to go to a “real” destination where everything was upside down and backwards and dirty and sometimes scary … except the people. Ahh, the people. The warm, lovely, generous, curious, kind, simply-living folks who opened their homes and hearts and scarce pantries to us. I knew my friends didn't take vacations like that, but I didn't know anything else. I was a little spoiled.

This trip is no different, other than the fact that it's within the boundaries of my home country, the USA. It's a bit of all of it actually … camping by remote streams, visiting people we know, and some we don't. Seeking out the human interaction, the stories, the history, the wants and needs and desires and perspectives of a huge variety of people. Finding the similarities, musing on the differences. Looking for reasons for the differences, when they're hard to understand. Reveling in the connections, the humanity, the deliciousness and terror of what it means to get another day and choose how to use it.

The number of ways of living that we've seen in the last two years is astounding. Chemists who spent their life analyzing every 10th foot of a 1000' core sample and dodging the union strikers, pragmatic Navajo boiler-makers who still teach their daughters to kill and skin wild animals for food, Old Orabai Hopi mesa-dwellers whose homes perch on the remains of the previous thousand years of homes on that tiny little mesa, and trailer park dwellers who cling to that El Dorado that “rides like a living room” as their last ticket to freedom because if they get their night-seizures checked out they might lose their license.

Blake hitchhiked with us from Tuba City, Navajo Nation to Flagstaff.

House painters with unimaginable personal losses, kayak-tour snook fishermen with lime green trucks and big hats and dreams to match, struggling marriages with new babies in arms, broken families that still smile and march forward, crazy-in-love spry senior citizens, private pilots, commercial pilots, broken down bus-dwellers, friendly Harley sightseers, retired museum docents that still have the joie-de-vivre of a 6-year-old perfectly intact, and countless people who just want to help.

They'll give you food, give you a new lift jack for your trailer, give you a diamond knife sharpener for your knife-obsessed child, give you bags of groceries, give you work, give you meals, give you love, give you opportunities to love, give you their deepest heartache, give you stories, give you trust, give you keys, give you respect, give you a chance, give you a fat envelope, give you an ear, give you a set of tires, give you their heart.

These humans have been rich, poor, left-leaning, right-leaning, lying down, marching, black, brown, white, hispanic, church-goers, sun-worshippers, Christ-followers, full-hearted, bodies failing, full of optimism, full of fear, satisfied and steady, seeking and restless, building their walls, sharpening their swords. These people have been my fellow Americans, my brethren, my tribe, my loves. My chances to grow. My opportunities to understand. My shoulders to lean on. My voices to learn. My lives to touch. My people.

Hello, America

Standing in the Clearing

When I was 15 my father and I took night-walks into the woods, pausing every 20 paces, listening, seeing how close to the pond we could get without alarming the peepers into silence. Often we heard deer-munchings. Once we saw a moonlit porcupine up a tree. Always we had an ear out for the Whippoorwill on the berm of RT 538 nested in the gravel. If we did hear it, my Dad would whistle back a fair but quiet imitation. (The song of the whippoorwill occupies the lower courts of whisability.) On one such occasion, having come to a star-drenched field, the milky sky-way blazing above, my father broached the subject of my romantical sighings. “I've watched you looking at a girl...” he paused, “your whole demeanor has changed. Your eyes are soft; you look sotted with love.” He was smiling. “Are you ready to get married?” I admitted that the desire was strong. All that stood between me and marriage was the scarcity of years to my name, the lack of a willing partner, and my inability to speak in the presence of beautiful girls. Other than that, I was ready.  “And how,” his voice was still smiling, “do you propose to support a wife?”

Now this was a question dripping with subtle accusation, which I readily ascertained as a trap. My father himself was the youngest of four and was no stranger to my pressing the advantage of last-born to the avoidance of Work. Yet I considered myself a skirter, not a shirker. I met my obligations with gusto and performed my chores and duties with whole-hearted energy, but the prospect of added responsibility I met with the elusive charm that only the baby of a family can wield.

This cursory self-evaluation left me knowing I COULD work to support a wife, but something was wrong with that answer. It wasn't just that I knew my father was waiting for that response; there was something my heart was not articulating. So I remained silent under the stars, delving deeper into myself. An owl hooted from the end of the meadow. I eventually touched a finger to the feeling and opened my mouth. What came out was woefully garbled and inadequate. The rudderless hormonal ramblings of a 15-year-old. I'm sure it did very little to allay my father's misgivings. But now, after 16 years of marriage, I think I can finally put it to words, though I warn you, it may still be the wide-eyed lowing of a calf on the moor.

Bethany and I and the kids were on the Kaiser's garage roof, about 6 months into our trip, hammering shingles down on a cupola. It was around 95 degrees. It might have been a recipe for foul tempers had we not each held a hammer and nails.

The fundamental joy of pounding a nail with a hammer seizes our imagination as a toddler, becoming an icon; the quintessence of 'making something'. Bam bam BAM! And when we've grown to actually heft and strike the hammer we discover our childhood expectations of pure fun are delivered in full. Pounding a nail really IS the sweet spot of construction!

So we were all in fine spirits, sweating, building this little house on the roof peak, which 3 weeks before we'd had no idea was called a cupola. Now we knew how one was built.

I watched Bethany pound a nail. When she looked up we both grinned, and it dawned on me, this was it. This was the very thing I'd longed for at 15. To have a real live girl pouring her heart with my heart into the same project. Pouring our hearts together into whatever work there was. Into whatever people there were. A real live girl unafraid to hoist sails, sing songs, cross swords, and pound nails. RIGHT BY MY SIDE!

I stood under a sunset sky on the Kaiser's roof, spellbound by this girl with the hammer. Tears flooding my eyes. God got me good with this one. How long had I tried working to support a wife, when all along it was wiving to support a work. Not the 'behind every great man is an even greater woman' kind of work. Not MY work. Our work. A 'weaving our separate thousand dreams into one fabric of Doing and let God blow the sail' kind of work. This was the sweet spot of marriage.

As I reveled, dusk descended on the Kaiser's garden releasing a great cloud of mosquitoes. We were determined to nail the last eight shingles before it was truly dark. Our sweat hung like stratas of soup steam, perfuming the air. The mosquito cloud (like 10,000 Bugs Bunnies, floating on their fingertips, noses in the sweet-stream) ascended to the cupola and engulfed us. Have you ever swatted a mosquito biting your person with a hammer? We were dancing the Macarena at triple-speed, but the onslaught was so relentless and overwhelming our sanity was starting to suffer. We abandoned ship leaving the last few shingles for morning.

It is a fine morning waking up with hammer girl.

The Boyds

After Aran and Lexie's wedding, the Boyds said we could park at their house.  When we got there, we parked in the cul-de-sac and got unhitched. We went inside and met Bordeax the dog, and talked. 

Two or three days later, Stan offered to take us water skiing. So we went.  

We had to pull the boat out of storage so we took off the tarp and towed it to the launch. We launched and Lois was there but she had some appointment so she could only be there for part of the time. So we went on the Delta.  At first it was slow because there was a lot of parked boats. 

When we got out of the slow zone we went for awhile.  Then Stan showed us how to ski and did a test run. 

Douglas went next, he got up for about one second. 

After Douglas went, we took Lois back and dropped her off.  Then we went back out. I went next but the skis didn't fit so I kneeboarded.  I lasted for about a minute. 

I think Mom went next. I don't think she could get up so she kneeboarded.  My dad got up for about 3 minutes ...

... then I went again on the kneeboard.  I was able to stay up for about 5 minutes, until there was some sort of waterfall and it made waves and I was getting pulled into it. 

We went around a bit and looked at some houses, and started to go back. When we got back we went and towed the boat back and put the tarp back on and went back to their house.  

The next day we went to Aran and Lexie's.  When we got there we talked awhile until me and Douglas went to the park across the street. After we came back we went to sleep on the floor.  The next morning we got up.  Aran went to work and we all walked to the park.  Me and Douglas played awhile while the grownups talked.  When we got to the apartment it was time to go. 

We got back to Stan's house.  He offered to take us flying that day.  We went to the airport and Stan drove us there.  We had to wait for the plane.  Stan checked the plane. 

Everything was good.  So we waited for the runway to be clear and Stan put it into full throttle and we took off. 

We flew for awhile until we got out of range of the airport and Stan said I could fly the plane and showed me how the controls worked. 

After that we flew over the Golden Gate Bridge. 

Not long after that we started heading back. Stan did a partial dive but we couldn't do the death drop of zero gravity because my mom got sick.  

The next morning we left. 

Westward Ho! / Wrapping it all up ...

Twelve days from Indiana to San Fran, intense and packed and sometimes heart-wrenching days. Emotional ones at the very least. So much to process, so much to see … life to live, relationships to work on, kids to grow, feelings to feel.

It's funny how, from the outside, it sometimes looks like we're on a multi-year vacation. Yes there is freedom to this life, huge amounts of it, but there are many many balances to it too. Large amounts of insecurity, if you're hoping to know what's next and how your daily needs are going to be met. Great stretches of loneliness, and disconnectedness, punctuated by intense interactions and deep conversations. Bouts of hard work, followed by dearths of any known opportunities to jump in and help.

I've been reading a Louis L'Amour book to the boys for bedtime story recently, and there's a line in it that really struck me. The main character (Echo, a spitfire crack shot 16-year-old-girl outrunning some would-be thieves, of course) was planning to hitch a ride with some settlers going west in a wagon, and the boarding house owner she'd been staying with disparagingly referred to those headed west as “Movers.”

Her response …

“We were all movers at one time, Mrs O'Brien” I said. “Even you when you left Ireland.”

“I suppose so, but somehow it seems different.”

“Settled folks always look down upon the unsettled,” I said, “but somebody has to open the new lands. When they are settled in their homes, they will feel just as you do.”

We're not doing anything new, but we're doing something Other. And I often feel the Otherness of it, keenly, even though the comments made and the sentiments felt by others are not disparaging, but wistful or a bit jealous or just plain encouraging. There's often the feeling of a complete disconnect … this isn't fathomable or understandable. Or perhaps just romanticized in the same way that I intently identified with Laura Ingalls standing and watching the long lines of braves and families wending past her house on the edge of the prairie as they left a council of war … wishing she were a wee one tucked in one of those saddle bags. I so wanted the very same thing, and I think I've gotten it as much as is possible in the year 2016.

There's some Mover in most of us … that bit (tiny or huge) that wants Other, and seeks out new experiences and places. Whether it comes in armchair galloping with Louis L'Amour, Netflix soaring over some new continent, trips of a lifetime that span the globe and inspire FaceBook envy, or choosing to live for decades as an RV gypsy … we get that itch, and we do our best to scratch it however we can.

I'm afraid I've rather systematically tried to debunk the notion that this is a relaxing vacation, or anything other than Life, made mobile for now. I keep bringing up the downsides, the struggles, the hard bits, and don't tend to sing the praises as loudly as I could be. I'm interested in keeping it real, and I think I've always been more fascinated with the messy bits than the pretty bits. Life, and relationships especially, are inherently messy and anything that seems to focus too much on the happy/solved/perfect parts is highly suspect to me. We're all broken, all imperfect, all unfinished.

I find something innately invigorating in the messy stuff, and while it may hurt like mad … it's a chance to change, to grow, to see things differently, and to maybe find a new viewing point. Asking what possible good can come from it, even if it's painful? There's always some answer.

I'm also a huge believer in community, fellowship, and sharing the load when we can. Chasing the joy to be found in connecting, in being seen, and in sharing whatever is to be shared, heavy or light. The joy at the end of this trip was palpable and filling. We shared in Aran and Lexie's joy, and it fed my tired spirit in a way that brought balance to the personal relationship work that kind of dogged the last half of the trip, evening up the keel for awhile. It was delicious. We've had many chances to share sorrow and hurt too, and it's always an honor. Being trusted with someone's pain isn't easy, but it's still a real connection. It's a window I try to never close, so help me God.

I said I was wrapping it all up, and I seem to be wandering in all directions. I've written and erased about 5 different endings actually, and none seem to do the job. I started out writing a travelog and ended up getting personal again … had to balance out all those pretty pictures, right?

So … it was messy, it was beautiful, it was worth every minute.

Onward ...

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previous posts : DAY 1  / DAY 2 / DAY 3 / DAY 4 / DAY 5 / DAY 6 / DAY 7 / DAY 8 / DAY 9 / DAY 10 / DAY 11 / DAY 12 / Wedding Weekend

Westward Ho! / The Wedding Weekend

Saturday August 27 ... The Pre-Party

The bliss of Saturday morning's hot shower cannot be underestimated. Boondocking doesn't generally allow for showering, mostly because we don't travel with enough water in the tanks for it as every gallon adds almost 8 lbs to our total weight. So despite the fact that we were in a drought-stricken state, I allowed myself to stand there as long as I wanted, and it was a delight.

A quick morning trip to the thrift store (I was having serious doubts about the wisdom of platform heels) netted Michael a new tie, and I settled into the feeling that wobbly or not, I'd be wearing the shoes I already had. I've never been a heel-lover, and teetering just isn't my thing.

We took off for Golden Gate Park, where the pre-party was to be held … and as we approached the Golden Gate bridge it finally hit me that we were about to see Aran and Lexie for the first time in several years! The grin started spreading :). A last minute change in parking plans got us a lovely free street spot right in the park, and we walked over to the meadow and dove in for bear hugs.

Lexie and Aran, summer of 2008

We met Aran and Lexie back in 2008, when Michael moved to MASS MoCA for 6 months to help install a huge retrospective of Sol LeWitt's work. The boys and I stayed in the city, but went up for two months in the summer, and got to know a lot of the crew Michael had been telling me about … including these two lovelies. We stayed in as close touch as we could, but once they moved to CA, it got a bit harder to get together. This was the first time we'd seen them in at least 4 years.

Lexie and her Mom

As at any wedding … it's a relief when you know more than just the bride and groom, and we happily found a few familiar faces, as well as some lovely new ones. There were some lawn games, a food truck that came just for the occasion, and lots of fun and conversation. A great way to set the stage for the next day, taking some of the awkwardness out of meeting so many people for the first time. Maybe that's just me?

I have a lot less tolerance for new social situations than I used to, meaning I find big groups harder to deal with as I get older. My claustrophobia in packed crowds is far worse than it used to be … I could never do the Taste of Chicago on July 4th again, at least as it used to be done, with millions packed along the shore and no place to go. Makes me shiver to remember it! But I also find that I have to do a bit more mental prep for going into new situations than I used to. I don't like it, but it's where I'm at. I think a lot of the redefining of my identity in the last 10 years has added some new insecurities, but taken away a lot of others. It's different terrain now.

We helped clean up and then made our exit, comparing Golden Gate Park to Central Park as we made our way back to the truck. It was delightfully wild, and much less manicured than most of Central Park … a very welcome change.

We made our way back home over the procession of bridges that had gotten us there, gawked at San Quentin in the deepening gloom, and called it a day.

The Wedding / Sunday August 28

We went, we watched, we talked, we loved, we hugged, we took lots of crazy photo booth shots, we devoured, we listened, we met cool people, we toasted, we laughed, we danced, we dragged ourselves home, we slept.

I'll let the photos tell the wedding story here, but add in that getting to be almost 6' tall for a day was really really fun. I'd do it again in a heartbeat! I didn't take my camera for once … it just felt like too much, so all these pics are from Michael's phone.

lots more pics here

previous posts : DAY 1  / DAY 2 / DAY 3 / DAY 4 / DAY 5 / DAY 6 / DAY 7 / DAY 8 / DAY 9 / DAY 10 / DAY 11 / DAY 12

one more wrap-up post to come tomorrow ...

Westward Ho! / Day 12 ... We Made It!

Friday, August 26

The pre-party for the wedding is tomorrow! Time to suck in whatever leftover bits are still floating around, and get in gear. Tumey Hills was a beautiful spot to wake up, with light on golden hills, and whatever latent fears I had about trespassing were annulled when the Park Ranger drove past and waved. A good start to the day.

Just as we were about to pull out, Michael noticed that the two tires on the passenger side of the trailer were nearly shot, worn almost threadbare and really torn up. They hadn't been that way 2 days before, and so we concluded that heat + I5's construction zone had done them in. (In retrospect, it's likely that under-inflation played an even bigger role).

We looked up tire shops, drove very slowly and carefully to the closest one and had two new tires put on, very thankful to have enough funds to do so!

Back on the highway, we made it to Tradewinds RV Park in Vallejo by 1:30, relieved to have a place to stay for a whopping 3 nights in a row ... no breaking camp in the morning! I hadn't done bridge research on getting TO the park however, so was a bit shocked at the $20 bridge toll, thanks to having the trailer in tow.

We found our spot and got parked ... tight quarters but clean enough and just what we needed.  We emptied everything out of the back of Matilda and stowed it under the trailer or under a tarp, locking up the go-kart too. We didn't want to add to anyone's temptations when parking in the city the next two days. Did a bit of housekeeping too, got groceries, and tried to relax a bit. So very glad to be settled after 2500-ish miles!

Finally starting to think about getting a long hot shower in the morning, coming to terms with my choice of wedding outfit (vintage, borrowed, wildly colorful for me, and crazy platform heels), and getting my mind around being social and formal. The gears were shifting, though a bit creaky in the process.

previous posts : DAY 1  / DAY 2 / DAY 3 / DAY 4 / DAY 5 / DAY 6 / DAY 7 / DAY 8 / DAY 9 / DAY 10 / DAY 11