My Home is the Road

Thoughts out of season

2010-07-01T01:24:00.000-07:00

here we are at the beginning of summer, and my post belongs in late fall. Oh well, I am out of sync with the seasons...

It is the nature of dry leaves to be blown about by the wind. And it is the nature of wind to blow dry leaves about.

But occasionally, a leaf will get weary of being blown randomly around, and it will come a decision. The leaf will choose its own direction. With grim determination, the leaf defies the wind and purposes to define its own path, chart its on course, and to pursue its own destiny.

And after that happens, nothing changes, because in the end, the leaf is still a leaf, and the wind is still the wind.

Bugs in the System

2010-01-03T20:08:00.000-08:00

Michael is right (generally a safe statement in my experience). Me version 2.0 is off to a bumpy start. Some of the biggest differences in the new version: "be more real -- who I am on the outside is the same as who I am on the inside"; "be less worried about the opinions of others about me".

But I think I need to put some kind of governor on the new features. I don't want the new version to be "be an a**hole"; "make everybody hate me".

I knew that there would be friends who liked Glenn version 1.0 who would not like Glenn version 2.0, though I really couldn't speculate as to which friends those would be. I had lost a couple people on the periphery of my life a while ago, but most of my friends have decided to give the new version a chance.

Today I lost the first of the friends who really meant something to me, and I am grieving. I don't know how many more of these I will have to go through, but I know they will all hurt. I don't want it to get easier, I don't want to get numb to the pain of losing a friendship. I know that the new me will make friends with people who would not have been comfortable with the old me, but friendship isn't fungible.

It doesn't help to know that if they liked the old me and not the new one, then they were only friends with a façade, with the "good Glenn" that I tried to make the world believe I was. I suppose they must also be grieving the loss a person that they thought really existed, who turned out to just be a character in a play. Maybe it's like finding out there is no Santa Claus.

But on to happier things. I have had two magical things happen in my life. Things that only happen in story books but you wish they would happen to you. One is that I've gotten a do-over. Nobody ever really gets a do-over, you know, the one thing you wish you could do all over again, you would do it so differently. I don't know why God decided to give me a do-over, but I'm going to savor it. I hope the rest of you get a do-over, too.

And I got to time-travel into the future. I spent one day living my future, and I think my future will be good. If everything goes south and that future never comes about, I will still at least have spent a day there.

Ah, you all think I'm crazy, don't you? That's alright, Glenn version 2.0 doesn't care what people think about him. Well, maybe a little bit.

Me -- Version 2.0

2009-12-19T18:10:00.000-08:00

I am in the midst of changing almost everything. It is hard not to be self-absorbed in a process like that. So I'm self-absorbed. Probably all bloggers are self-absorbed actually or why blog... anyway...

I may go through a spell where my home is literally the road. I am in a unique position where I really could do that for a bit -- buy a camper, and live in a different town every night... might do it for a month or so. But I expect to be in Minnesota by spring and I expect to be there for a while.

Right now, I'm on the road again. Good old Williams, Arizona. Here for a week, house sitting for a friend. Lonely at the moment but that will pass.

I think the people who liked the old me will still like the new me, but I also think the new me isn't quite as likable. That's okay.

I live alone now -- a studio apartment in Tucson. I've never lived alone before, not really. I don't know if I could have handled it before but I think it is good for me now. For a spell.

Maybe I'll blog about Williams, because that could be interesting. Blogging about myself is probably not. Stay tuned.

Random and Not Terribly Optimistic Ramblings

2009-08-29T12:32:00.000-07:00

I had a saying that I used to say to myself: Pursue happiness, and you will find it elusive. Pursue goodness, and happiness will pursue you. I still kinda think it might be true, but it led me to let myself be misused a lot... and maybe now I've over-corrected. I dunno.

I am the only one living my life; I'm the only one who ever has lived my life or ever will. I don't care what patterns it matches, it's a unique experience, and you can't automatically apply generic assumptions. I imagine that your life is the same. Let's all keep that in mind.

A couple weeks ago I was riding my motorcycle to church. It was an absolutely glorious day, perfect for a motorcycle ride. I thought to myself, the weather is probably great all the way from here to Minnesota. I came this close to just riding on and on, leaving it all behind. But I turned right and headed in to church, parked the bike and went on in. The bike never started again, worn out beyond repair. I wouldn't have even made it to New Mexico.

On the front lawn, up on cement blocks, rusting

2009-08-01T23:25:00.000-07:00

Hey, look, it's my blog. It has been almost a year since my last real post.

I have not been on any road trips to speak of. One trip to L.A. and back, that's about it. I went to Minnesota in the spring, but that was by plane.

I don't really have much to say except that I don't really have much to say and that I wish I did. Also, everything looks exactly the same as it did a year ago, but actually, everything is completely different. I can't explain it yet. Maybe I will never be able to.

Recently my friend Melissa started a blog. Even more recently my friend Dylan started a blog. You should read their blogs because they have something to say. Which hopefully I will also have someday. I expect I'll do the 24 hour comic again this year, so my other blog will get a post or two. I don't know when my next road trip will be. There is nothing on the horizon. No distant sounds of revving engines. My life is greasy side up and shiny side down at the moment.

Meanwhile, in My Other Blog

2008-10-04T23:34:00.000-07:00

So this is my road-trip blog.

I also have a contest blog. For when I decide to compete in something.

I think if I decide to talk about other aspects of my life, I'll just try to fit it into one of my two blogs. I'm not really sure why I even have two blogs.

But right now, all the action is in my other blog (on account of I'm not on a road trip). So, for all you Glenn Wichman fans out there jonesin' for just a little more news on what's going on in my life, it is currently to be found at http://7dayquest.blogspot.com/

White Water (part II)

2008-08-09T07:07:00.000-07:00

Okay, athletes, you know that guy who shows up for a sport with all the coolest, latest equipment, but really has no idea what he's doing and is just a big turd out there?

Don't you hate that guy?

I hate to admit it, but in this case, I was that guy. And Ron had every reason to just treat me with disdain. Instead, he was encouraging, helpful and friendly every step of the way. We met up with two other kayakers and practiced surfing in the third pool. I just watched at first to remind myself how it is done. Ron showed me a dozen things that I was doing wrong, from how I was sitting in the kayak to how I was holding my paddle to how I was doing my eddy turns.

When we shot the rapid into pool 4 he led the way to show me the easiest line, and I did just fine. Successfully shooting a rapid is just one of the funnest things there is to do in life, and it's the reason I like whitewater, so it was great to be doing it again.

A couple pools down we ran into a dad with two kids, practicing some advanced shredding moves like these. I didn't catch this guy's name either, so let's also call him Ron. The second Ron had a Jackson Kayak like mine, and he could tell from the way my kayak was sitting in the water that I had my seat adjusted wrong, so he showed me how to move it forward. It was a tighter fit, but it gave me a lot more control and stability.

We shot several rapids successfully, some of them more than once, and I was starting to feel more confident. At some point we took a break and Ron and Ron got into a conversation about all the places they kayaked and how they compared. I had very little to add to this conversation ("I took a class once six years ago. There were rapids"), and I felt it was time for me to be heading on, since I still had a lot of driving to do.

There were two rapids between me and the end of the course. One I had shot previously and felt pretty good about, but the very last one looked pretty scary. Ron (the first Ron) encouraged me to go for it, and explained the best way to take it. He said he'd keep an eye on me. So I said my goodbyes to the Rons and shot down the next rapid just fine.

In the final pool, I edged close to the final rapid and just looked at it. I decided to skip it and just get out there. Then I changed my mind, a couple of times. It occurred to me that even though Ron was keeping an eye on me, he would be two pools away if anything went wrong.

The thought "but this is what I came here for" was the clincher, and I went for the final rapid. I was upside down under water before I had any idea what hit me. I tried and of course failed to roll back up, so I pulled the spray skirt and tried to extricate myself from the kayak. But with the new seat position, I was in much tighter and I worried for a moment that I might have trouble getting out.

I managed to free myself while still hanging on to my paddle, but the kayak got away from me in the swift current. I swam as hard as I could across the current (still clutching my paddle) to try to grab the kayak, as we passed the sign on the bank warning me to get out before the dam up ahead. The water got suddenly shallow and I banged my shins into some rocks, but I managed to grab my kayak and get to shore.

It took me a while to catch my breath, then I gathered my equipment, waved with my paddle at Ron and Ron, and trudged back up the stairs to my car.

Lessons learned? Plenty, but I'll save those for another time.

White Water

2008-08-08T07:10:00.000-07:00

Six summers ago, Caleb and I took a whitewater kayaking course in Silverthorne, Colorado. I decided this was something I wanted to do on a regular basis, though I was concerned that, at 41, I was a bit old to be starting on such an active sport.

Three years after that I finally got around to buying a whitewater kayak.

Three years after that (i.e. now), I finally got around to taking that kayak out on the white water.

I met the guy at Edge Kayak Shop a little after 10, rented a life vest (forgot to bring mine), and got some advice on what to do at the whitewater course. By 10:30 I was carrying my kayak down the long set of steps, and then up the path to the top of the course. It's a long walk when carrying a kayak. One should, of course, never kayak alone, and I had no intention of doing so. There was one other person out on the course, a boogie-boarder in the 4th pool (there are 8 pools divided by rapids).

I got myself all set up, put in at the second pool (the rapid from pool 1 looked to gnarly), got used to kayaking in a current again, took the rapid into pool 3, and immediately capsized.

I am not too good at the Eskimo Roll, which is the correct way to right a capsized kayak, but I am pretty expert at the wet exit, which is where you lean forward, release the spray skirt, remove your kayak like a pair of pants (all upside-down under water, mind you), and then swim for shore trying to hang on to both your kayak and paddle before the current takes you to the next rapid.

As I panted on the shore, a memorial cross set up nearby reminded me that people do get themselves killed by doing this wrong. And the one other guy on the course had left some time while I was under water.

So I got the water out of my kayak, and sealed myself back in, but kept myself to just the second pool (the pool is called Marley), just practicing my eddy turns, for another half hour or so, waiting to see if any other kayakers showed up. I finally gave up, and, not wanting to risk any of the other rapids, dragged my kayak out, and carried it all the way down the path and up the stairs.

I got to the top of the stairs around noon, which is apparently the time when kayakers show up at the course. A few arrived as I was getting set to leave. One of them (I never caught his name, but let's call him "Ron") asked me if I was planning to go down to the course. I told him everything I just told you.

"Oh, you should come on the course," Ron said. "I'll help you out".

The prospect of carrying the stupid kayak all the way back to the pools again was not really appealing. On the other hand, isn't that what I came here for?

Stay Tuned...

The Too Long Drive

2008-08-08T05:11:00.000-07:00

I left Bay Lake about three in the afternoon, and stopped in Minneapolis for a friend's birthday dinner, so I only made it as far as Clear Lake, Iowa on Tuesday.
On Wednesday I decided to try to get as far as I could. I drove 850 miles to Colorado Springs, much of the drive through pouring rain. My back was feeling it the next morning!

But the long drive set me up with some extra time to do one more thing I'd been hoping to do on this vacation: take my kayak out on the Pueblo, Colorado Whitewater Course.

Bay Lake

2008-08-08T04:58:00.000-07:00

After church on Sunday, Billy and I kayaked around Church Island. Billy brought two nice kayaks with him. His kayaks are lake kayaks, which mine is not, so it would have made sense for us to just use his kayaks, but I had dragged mine 1600 miles just to use it. My planned kayak trip in Minneapolis had fallen through, so gosh darn it I was going to paddle my own kayak.

It's really hard to keep up with a (keeled) lake kayak while maneuvering a (keelless) whitewater kayak. Billy got tired of waiting for me about 3/4 of the way around the island. At that point I stopped trying so hard to keep up and started enjoying the scenery. A bald eagle circled just overhead. It was the closest I've ever been to one.

My relatives own two different cabins on the lake, and I have a lot of relatives. So there always seems to be a good group of people at the lake to hang out with. Most of them like jet-skiing, tubing, water-skiing and fishing, which I like, too. But it was great to finally have someone else to kayak with. I'm going to have to plan my future lake trips to be there when Billy is there. And I'm going to have to get a lake kayak.

Each morning we kayaked from the cabin to Ruttger's (a resort across the lake), got pie and coffee there and kayaked back in time for lunch. Great fun and great exercise, and a good long time to talk and get to know each other.

My invitation to stay with Dean and Mary was extended to the whole week, as her other guests cancelled. Unfortunately, I could not spare the extra time. So I left on Tuesday afternoon. I'll post pictures later.

God Decides to Baptise us All

2008-08-03T21:53:00.000-07:00

This morning I went to the church service on Church Island. There were about 250 in attendance, including 8 from the Peterson clan.

The service happens in a small amphitheater overlooking the lake. A baby was baptized this morning, and at the very moment that the water was being sprinkled on the baby's head, a sudden downpour occurred, soaking the whole crowd.

Liking Oneself

2008-08-03T16:17:00.000-07:00

When we were done in Iowa, we dispersed in every direction. Jake went south. Ariel went east. Nate and Mallo went west. Jerry? Well, who knows. And Rob and I went north.

We got to drive together from Cedar Falls to Saint Paul, a great drive for a long talk. We spoke of many things, but one was the subject of liking oneself.

Do you like yourself?

It's a given that it is good to like yourself, and it is bad to not like yourself. And I've thought about this a bit. What do we mean when we ask the question?

We could mean: Do you admire the person that you are?

We could mean: Do you enjoy the experience of being you?

That second meaning has rarely been a problem for me. Most mornings I wake up delighted with the prospect of getting to be me for another day. The first meaning has been more problematical, and has generally been in tension with the first.

The more I am enjoying being me, the less I admire the person I am, and vice-versa. I (try to) do thing that I know are good, but I don't enjoy it, or I do things that I enjoy, but they aren't doing anybody besides me any good. The trick is to try to get these things to converge instead of conflict.

For me, the work in Iowa (and earlier in New Orleans) is where enjoying myself and admiring myself come together. There's a general consensus all the way around that what we did in Iowa was a Good Thing. It was also very fulfilling. Working together with people I enjoy, ripping walls out of houses, seeing the pile of rubble grow as we make progress, it's just a blast.

Iowa Pix

2008-08-02T15:40:00.000-07:00

The pictures are on-line.

I am on my way north to the Lake. More dispatches to come from there!

Air Conditioned -- Kitchenettes

2008-08-02T15:23:00.000-07:00

On Friday we began a project that will keep teams busy for quite some time. Our destination was the Shady Rest MOTEL (Air Conditioned! Kitchenettes! No Vacancy). Once upon a time this was a riverside resort motel. It had long since been used as a "residential hotel" -- single rooms with a kitchenette for folks who can't afford anything fancier. There are fifteen units, so fifteen different families were rendered homeless at once.

The shady rest is on the (undesirable) north bank of the river. The south bank of the river is where the business district is. The south bank got sandbags to protect it from the flood. The north bank did not. I'll let you draw your own conclusions about that. It's reasonable to say that there is a certain amount of bitterness on the part of the residents of the north bank.

We got to make the human connection this time. Phyllis owns the Shady Rest and it is her livelihood. She needs to try to get back in business as soon as possible, but the task before her is both daunting and expensive. We got to have a good talk with Phyllis and to pray with her. Then we got to work. Much of the drywall had already been removed, but there is drywall behind the cabinets, sinks stoves, etc. that is not so easy to get to, especially for someone working on their own. So we set about removing the stoves, sinks, and counters, and then chipping through the drywall behind it.

We started by spreading out and working on a number of different rooms at once, but when Steve arrived he had us shift to a different strategy. As soon as one room is finished,Phyllis will be able to start renting that room out and generating some income. So we switched to focusing all our efforts on room 1 (well, room 1 and room 3, it would be way to crowded if we were all in one room. Maybe I'll tell you later why we couldn't work on room 2).

Honestly, we were all pretty exhausted by Friday, and the work was so daunting. We tried to get a lot done, but our energy had pretty well ebbed. When we were all spent, we headed off to Cold Stone Creamery for our well-deserved reward.

Quick Update: Relief work finished

2008-08-01T20:13:00.000-07:00

I expect to have more to say about things, especially our final day working at the Shady Rest resort motel, in the near future. Meantime, I will just say that the week is now ended. Jake is now in Cedar Rapids with our friends the Wilsons, he will be headed to Chicago with them tomorrow. The rest of us spend one more night here in Cedar Falls, then we disperse to the winds. Rob and I will be together as far as Saint Paul.

Thanks Nicole for reading and commenting!

Maybe Sometimes the Thing is Just the Thing and Other Musings

2008-07-30T18:53:00.000-07:00

I still haven't figured out when is the right time to update the blog. If I write about things immediately after they happen, then I end up just disseminating dry facts -- I need some time to ruminate about events before I can communicate them with any real meaning and insight. On the other hand, if I wait too long before writing, I tend to forget important details.

Which I suppose only matters if someone is reading this.

Anyway, it is the end of day 3 (of 5) doing disaster relief in Iowa. I'm very glad I'm here and we are having a good time. The team is getting along well and we are accomplishing our tasks adequately. We are doing the same kinds of things that we did in New Orleans two years ago.

But the shear intensity of the environment that existed in New Orleans -- even a year after Katrina -- is not an issue here. At least here in Cedar Falls, for the most part the community as a whole is intact. A lot of houses were flooded, but there was warning that the river was rising. In New Orleans, at each house we worked on, we worked side-by-side with the owners, and we heard their stories, and we prayed with them. That hasn't happened here.

God had hard lessons to teach me about myself from New Orleans. I'm not sure what He has for me on this trip. The Mercy Response motto is "The Thing is not the Thing". We are there to repair houses, but that's just the surface. What goes on in the spirit is what the Thing really is. I think you have to go there to really understand.

So far on this trip, it feels like the Thing really is just the Thing. And maybe that is okay, too. Or maybe I'm just missing it this time because I'm so dense. Maybe it takes something on the level of Katrina to break through to my soul, and normal-size disasters just don't do it. It really doesn't matter, though. To the owners of those homes, it's a step on the way to recovery, whether I get anything out of it or not.

Again, maybe I'm just blogging too soon. Maybe I can't make out the big picture when I am still this close to it.

Boy, there has been a "maybe" in just about every sentence hasn't there? Anyway, as I said, I am glad I'm here and my days are happy.

Well, there you go. Add a comment or send me an email if you read this. I miss my friends back in Tucson. I'd love to hear from you.

Choosing Between Food and Big Daddy Weave

2008-07-27T18:00:00.000-07:00

Drove through a good old midwestern thunderstorm today. Also had a ButterBurger and a frozen custard for lunch. It is okay to be jealous.

Five of us are now here in Cedar Falls. Two more Tucsonans are still to arrive, and two Michiganders will round out the team. We met our fearless leader, Steve. And we met the senior pastor of the church here.

Turns out we arrived here at the church just in time for a Big Daddy Weave concert! The pastor invited us to see the concert for free, which was awfully nice of him. Unfortunately, we were all pretty hungry at this point, so we decided to go have dinner instead. We just got back from dinner and the concert is still going on. The camp for the relief team workers (i.e. us) is set up in the maintenance area of the church, just behind the stage. So I am listening to Big Daddy Weave as I write this. Pretty nice perk! They are singing "Beautiful One" right now.

Ah, the Michiganders have arrived.

Stay tuned, more to come!

Quick Update: Grand Island

2008-07-26T22:47:00.000-07:00

Not much new to tell you since all we did today was drive drive drive. We wanted to make sure tomorrow could be a relatively easy day. So, today we drove all the way from Santa Fe, NM to Grand Island, NE -- approximately 800 miles. We left around 8:15 a.m. MDT, and arrived at 12:30 a.m. CDT. We still have about 400 miles to go.

Things that Start to Matter

2008-07-25T18:34:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Santa Fe, New Mexico!

We survived day one of the road trip.

This is the first road trip I've taken where I have paid attention to the price of gas. My usual behavior has just been to drive as fast as is practical, and stop at the nearest station when I ran low on gas. I never even looked at the prices.

Now I find myself trying to stay around 70mph even in a 75 zone to conserve fuel. Heading up steep hills, I used to gun it, let the car downshift and let the tach go up to 5K. Now I'm letting the car slow down on hills. And I'm keeping my eyes open for cheap gas. I should have been doing this all along of course, but the prices have finally hit my pain point.

So, my makeshift roof rack was, I think, implemented well, but... Well, about 5 miles south of Albuquerque on Interstate 25, there was a freak gust of wind. It practically pushed the whole car of the road, and the kayak went flying off the roof! It was attached solidly -- 6 different connection points would have to fail for the kayak to fly away, but that's just what happened. This could have been an enormous disaster, but thank the Lord things turned out okay.

Jake quickly pulled over to the shoulder. The kayak had landed safely in the grassy median. I waited for a break in the traffic and ran across the interstate (first time I've ever done that!), and started to walk back towards the kayak. A guy in a pickup truck pulled into the median next to my kayak and loaded it into his truck. At first I was afraid he was going to abscond with it, but he waved at me and drove up to where I was. I showed him where Jake was pulled over, and he crossed the interstate and parked behind Jake.

We decided not to try to get the kayak reattached to the roof rack on the side of the freeway. Instead, we rearranged the luggage to stuff the kayak inside the Cruiser (yes, it can be done). I sat in back and Jake drove us the rest of the way to Santa Fe.

Here, I found a different way to attach it. I took off the makeshift roof rack altogether, and used the cargo straps to strap the kayak directly to the roof. I think this will be much more stable for the rest of the trip.

So how's my back? I feel surprisingly good, even after the concert last night and the hauling luggage and kayaks around the freeway this afternoon. Let's see how things feel in the morning!

America's Band

2008-07-24T22:08:00.000-07:00

My work is done, the Cruiser is packed, and we leave tomorrow on the morning tide. Somehow in between finishing work and leaving for Iowa we have managed to squeeze in a Beach Boys concert.

I went with a 21 year-old, a 20-year old and a 17 year-old. None of them had been born when I attended my last Beach Boys concert. But they all knew almost all the words to almost all the songs.

On stage, there was Mike and Bruce and about seven guys that I don't know who they were. Last time I saw them, Dennis was gone, but Brian, Carl, and Al were still there. But the new guys are all really good. Especially their new bass player. He has a really sweet falsetto. He sang "Don't Worry Baby" as good as it's ever been sung.

Mike is 63 now. His voice is still pretty good, but he wisely shares the lead singing pretty broadly. Every member of the band sang lead on at least two songs. I won't try to list all the songs they played. They didn't play my favorite (Heroes and Villains), which did not surprise me. They did surprise me by playing "Oh Darling," another fave but a song that was hardly a hit.

The audience was mostly pretty old -- in their 60s -- but maybe that's because the venue is a casino in Tucson. There were some young folks in the crowd, and they all knew the songs. And there were some young people in the band. In my imagination, the Beach Boys just go on forever, rolling in new young members as the old ones roll out, and keep on performing their timeless harmonies. I'll call it the Endless Summer Theory.

So, all God's blessing on the Band That Won't Go Away. And now it's time to pack up the laptop and catch some Zzzs. My next dispatch will be from the road.

Flat on My Back

2008-07-21T23:32:00.000-07:00

After the triathlon, I kinda stopped exercising. It was intriguing watching my muscles quickly atrophy. So, a couple weeks ago I figured I'd better get back in shape, so I'd be up for the physical challenge of Iowa. And, since I haven't been kayaking in a while either, I was practicing my rolls (at which I'm lousy) in the pool.

So I pushed too hard too fast. So I threw out my back seven days ago. I seem to do this to myself every couple of years. The first day or two I'm in all kinds of pain and I can't stand up straight, and then I slowly improve. I am fortunate to have a job that I can do just as well lying in bed as sitting at a desk, so at least I didn't miss any work. Today is my first day back sitting in a chair. I should be good to go by Friday.

Plan A was to get to Iowa in two 12 day drives. Given the back problems, though, probably not a great idea. So, switch to plan B. We'll leave a day earlier and do the trip in 3 8 hour drives. I decided not to commit to particular stopping places; I'm kinda thinking Santa Fe on Friday night and Somewhere-in-Western-Nebraska on Saturday, but I'm going to be flexible, go farther if we're feeling good and stop sooner if we're not.

We is me and Jake. Good to have my usual traveling partner again! But I'm going to need to do 3 long road trips with Caleb at some point to keep the dadness in balance. Meantime, I'm working like a madman right up through Thursday night, getting code written and getting everything together for the trip. Thursday night we throw in a Beach Boys concert because, hey, why not.

Seven of us Tucsonans will be in Iowa, joined by three old friends from California as well. Six of us have done this before in New Orleans. I'm feeling pretty jazzed about the whole thing.

The Music of Iowa

2008-07-12T00:10:00.000-07:00

When we went to New Orleans, we spent quite a bit of time in the SUV going from our camp to the various houses we were working on. Joan is going to kill me because I ended that sentence with a preposition. Anyway. It was a Chevy Tahoe, a big fat SUV and I don't like big fat SUVs because they are bad for the environment. But boy, it was fun to drive. But now I'm off on a tangent.

The point was, we brought music with us. Several of us burned CDs to listen to during the long periods stuck in the kind of traffic that can only be caused by 50,000 people commuting every day from Baton Rouge.

Of course one of my CDs was songs of New Orleans. It's easy to put together a collection of New Orleans songs. There is magic in the place. The city just cries out for songs to be written for it, and many musicians and poets have responded.

This time our destination is Iowa. I didn't own any Iowa music. I didn't know of any Iowa music. I wasn't really figuring on finding much, but I decided to take a look on iTunes.

There are a lot of songs about Iowa.

I sampled a bunch, and downloaded enough to fill a CD. As a matter of fact, I was able to restrict myself only to songs called Iowa. They are all big, wide, lonely beautiful, haunting songs. One is even a particularly poignant song about the Iowa river flooding.

I don't know much about Iowa, really... Stopped there a couple of times on my way someplace else... The last place Buddy Holly played before he left this earth... The place where truly deserving baseball players end up after they die...

There are folks out there with a sense of wonder about the place. I'll be there in two weeks. I'm hoping to catch it.

One Year On

2008-06-30T08:29:00.000-07:00

It's been just about a year since I left on the road trip that was the genesis of this blog.

Let's catch up on a few things.I finally put Boomer Bear in a new geocache. I got pix of him at Stanford Stadium, The Rose Bowl, and Arizona Stadium over the course of the last year. Caleb and Jake were both with me when we dropped him off. It was hard to let him go, but who knows, we may grab him again at some point.

I didn't figure I'd be taking a road trip (or traveling at all) this summer. I was experiencing an excruciating Minnesota jones. But, you never know what life will throw your way.In September of '06, Jake and I went to New Orleans to do Katrina relief work with a ministry called Mercy Response. (You don't know about this because I hadn't yet started blogging. I should tell you all about it sometime.

Sadly, a new disaster relief opportunity has surfaced in Iowa. 5,000 homes flooded in Cedar Rapids alone. So I find myself getting ready to jump back in to a week of disaster relief, during the week of July 28th. Hopefully, Jake will be able to join me again. Of course, I can't get that close to Minnesota without stopping in for a visit.

So my plan is to strap my kayak to the roof of my PT Cruiser, blasting out to Iowa in two days (12 hours Tucson to Colorado Spring, 12 hours Colorado Springs to Cedar Rapids...) a week of disaster relief then up to Minnesota for a couple days of kayaking and seeing old friends (more on that as it comes into focus). Then blast back to Tucson just as quick.

It's a little bit crazy but it just might work.

Is it just me?

2008-06-10T09:29:00.000-07:00

Are we all just basket cases
Skilled at putting on brave faces
?

The Tempest in Lost

2008-03-07T11:29:00.000-08:00

Okay, last July I pointed out the striking parallels between Lost and The Tempest. Now we find out that the island's power station is called The Tempest!!! Coincidence? I think not!

It's Okay to be Amused

2008-02-20T19:19:00.001-08:00

It's Okay to be Inspired

2008-02-03T13:18:00.000-08:00

The List

2008-01-25T19:47:00.000-08:00

My friend and co-blogger, goes by the moniker troll, recently blogged about his List. I like the term Bucket List, even though apparently the movie wasn't that great.

Quite a while ago, I created my own list of things I wanted to accomplish before I die; I still have the list, on 2 8.5x11 sheets of lined paper, 52 items. I wasn't clever enough to put a date on the list, but I'm pretty sure it was made after I was married (at least after I was engaged), and before the birth of my first son (who is now 20, so that gives you an idea).

Of course our lists are going to evolve over the years. There's a lot on that old list that I no longer have any desire to do. There are about 10 things on it that I've done so far -- I'm clearly not pacing myself well to finish before I turn 100. I say "about" 10 because some of my entries are pretty vague -- "meet someone famous", "learn to play guitar" -- whether I've done those depends on what the meaning of is is.

I'd create a different list if starting today.

For two items on the list, it's too late. Here are those items, with comments:
#11. Visit the Soviet Union (not sure why I put this on the list in the first place)
#23. Have three children (we stopped at two, so I get partial credit, right?)

Next post, I'll talk about the things on the list that I have already done, the things yet to do, and the things I don't want to do any more.

SNAP!SHOT

2007-08-24T15:41:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I've been back home for a while now. Here are some pix from the trip. I haven't added any posts about the rest of the trip because I don't know if anyone is interested. If I get some requests, I'll post about more of the trip. It was amazing.

Special: We Are All Just Fine -- Part II

2007-08-01T21:23:00.000-07:00

I am skipping ahead to today, even though there is over a week of backed up stories I still owe you. But just in case anyone is concerned...

At 6:05 pm local time today, the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi in downtown Minneapolis collapsed. Jake and I were several miles away in Champlin, watching our cousins play basketball, when the tragedy occurred. We are okay and our family in Minnesota is okay.

We are of course praying for the families of those who were not so fortunate.

24. Goal Ball

2007-07-31T10:38:00.000-07:00

I know what you are pondering. "Why did they stop in Bemidji?" you are asking yourself. Ponder no further, I will enlighten you.

We went to Bemidji to see my friend Rob. Rob is a teacher at the Arizona School for the Deaf and Blind in Tucson. Among his many talents, Rob is a goalball coach. One week out of every year, he coaches goalball in Bemidji at a camp for visually impaired students. Although we've had plenty of chances to see him at work in Tucson, for some reason we never managed to make it to a game until we got to see Rob at work in Bemidji.

We started with a tour of Bemidji State University, where the camp takes place. It's a really beautiful campus, on the shore of Lake Bemidji (they use the lake as a parking lot during the winter). Then we went to the gym to see the students play goal ball. We were there at the very end of the camp, so we were seeing the tournament that determined the camp champion goalball team. The game is fascinating, though like soccer, I think goalball would be more fun to play than to watch.

We had dinner with Rob at a lakeshore restaurant, and I also got to join Rob for breakfast Saturday morning before we headed off for a short 100-mile drive to Bay Lake.

23. The Center of North America

2007-07-29T20:04:00.000-07:00

Friday was an easy driving day -- only half the distance of the day before. It was also just about completely uneventful except for one pleasant surprise -- our route took us right past the geographical center of North America. I understand that the precision of the measurement of this location is fairly dubious, but this is where they marked it and it's probably as good a location as any.

We were in Bemidji by 2pm, and ready for our next adventure.

22. Skipping Canada

2007-07-29T19:52:00.000-07:00

Wednesday's troubles left us way behind schedule. Our plan had been to go further north and drive across a big chunk of Alberta and Saskatchewan on the trans-Canada highway, then drop back into North Dakota. To get back on track, we decided to skip Canada, and drive straight east for 630 miles to get back on track as quickly as possible. So we got ourselves onto U.S. Highway 2 and drove east. Along the way we proved that it is possible to get a speeding ticket even in Montana. We discovered that highway 2 is a popular route for bicyclists on coast-to-coast treks. We must have passed about 30 bicyclists loaded down with camping gear. They ride on the shoulder of highway 2 with cars buzzing by at 70 mph. The idea of a cross-country bike ride appeals to me, but not on the narrow shoulder of a highway! I think we should take a one-day break from the war, and use the money we save to build a nice bike lane from Maine to Washington alongside highway 2.

Anyway, we managed to get to our destination -- Minot, North Dakota -- well before nightfall, tired out from the extra long drive but happy to be back on track.

Mountain Goats in Glacier Park

2007-07-22T06:49:00.000-07:00

21. One Bad Thing

2007-07-22T06:40:00.000-07:00

--or how to save money--

I suppose that on a trip of this magnitude, it's inevitable that One Bad Thing will happen.

This was a section of the trip that I was particularly looking forward to. A couple of years ago I wrote a short story that involved a road trip through Glacier National Park. I wrote the descriptions based on maps and photographs, since I had no memory of having been through the park myself. I had been hoping ever since to have a chance to travel the same path that my protagonists did, and to see how closely the reality of the road matched my imagination of it.

Tuesday night found us in Kalispell, outside the western entrance to Glacier. Lodging near the park entrance is quite expensive, and rather than spend upwards of $150 for a hotel room, I decided to spend about $25 for a tent spot at a campground. Now, the best laid plans of mice and men are often gang aglee (or something), but these were hardly the best laid plans. As soon as I started to set up the tent, it started to rain. It would rain off and on all night. Stands to reason that our one night of camping would also be our one night of rain. We had dinner at the campground restaurant. I had a hoagie and Jake had ribs. Jake said the ribs tasted a little funny, but not too bad.

The plan for Wednesday was to drive through Glacier park in the morning, ending up at Cardston Alberta hopefully by one in the afternoon, and Swift Current Saskatchewan before nightfall. The drive from Kalispell to Cardston would echo the drive my characters took in my short story, though presumably without their mishaps.

I woke up in some amount of pain. I injured my back a couple years ago, and every now and then it flares up. Sleeping on the hard ground instead of a nice hotel bed probably didn't help.

Jake awoke feeling just awful. I mean really really awful. We thought it might have been due to the altitude, or the twisting winding driving we did the day before, but our prime suspect was the ribs. Which we saw again that morning, if you catch my drift. We couldn't leave right away anyway because we needed to give time for the sun to come up and dry out the tent. So Jake rested while I went and got coffee; then I came back and broke camp while Jake rested more in the car. Jake was still not feeling great, but he decided to try to tough it out. I didn't know if the mountain air would revive him, or if the twists and turns of Going-to-the-Sun highway would only make things worse.

It was the latter. Jake was miserable on the entire trip through Glacier. He lay there with his eyes closed and moaned while I saw some of the most magnificent scenery on this planet. Jake did manage to open his eyes momentarily to watch the big horn sheep that walked casually across the road in front of us. I did stop a couple times to snap some photos, but didn't spend anything like the time or attention that I wanted to in the park.

By the time we reached Saint Mary at the east exit of the Park -- only about 60 miles into our intended 400 mile drive -- it was clear that we were done for the day. The only thing available at the Saint Mary lodge was a 2-room cabin for a hundred and eighty bucks. So we checked in and I got Gatorade and water and Pepto for Jake. I hoped that this wouldn't last more than a day. I canceled the reservation in Swift Current, and began to strategize a plan to get the trip back on track.

20. Couer D'Alene and Steve

2007-07-22T06:39:00.000-07:00

Tuesday's drive was from Kennewick, Washington to Kalispell, Montana, with a stop for lunch in Couer D'Alene, Idaho. Couer D'Alene is the new home of my old friend Steve. Steve and I have known each other since we were in our teens. These days we only manage to get together every couple years or so; his job keeps him moving around a lot. When I planned this trip, I did not know he had moved to Idaho, so it was a happy coincidence that we were able to hook up for lunch.

An outside observer might wonder at how enduring our friendship has been -- we have almost no interests in common and our temperments, philosophies, and approach to life are wildly different. But we are always very glad to see each other, and in all these years we have never run out of things to talk about. This short visit was no exception. Steve had to get back to work and Jake and I had to get back on the road, but it was hard to make the conversation end. I am kicking myself because I meant to get a picture of us together, and totally spaced out on that.

19. Columbia Gorge

2007-07-21T14:07:00.000-07:00

Our first change of plan happened on Monday. We stayed up pretty late Sunday night watching the Tempest, and decided not to
bust out early Monday morning. So, instead of going up to Crater Lake (which Jake wasn't that keen on seeing anyway), then
cutting diagonally across Oregon, we decided to stick to the interstates, going up I-5 then across I-82, a longer but faster route.

The route took us through Eugene, home of the University of Oregon, so we finally did Boomer some good, getting a photo of him
in front of the stadium where the Ducks play.

Skirting the edge of Portland, we then paralleled the south bank of the Columbia for most of the width of Oregon. I'm not going to try to describe the beauty of the Columbia Gorge, many others have already done it better than I could and anyway we pretty much blasted through it at 70mph without taking much time to appreciate it. But we did have an early dinner at a restaurant right on the water in Hood River. I knew that the easter half of Oregon and Washington is desert, but I was surprised at how abrupt the change is. One moment we were in a rain forest, the next we might as well have been in Nevada.

At the end of the day we crossed the Columbia into Washington. We stayed Monday night in Kennewick.

18. Thought for the Day

2007-07-19T19:46:00.000-07:00

I saw the old rancher wearing the straw cowboy hat and sitting in the beat up old truck in the drive-thru at the Starbucks, waiting for his morning Latté, and I thought, is this a great country, or what?

17. Lost in the Tempest

2007-07-19T18:48:00.000-07:00

When I was explaining the plot of The Tempest to Jake I mentioned that it was kind of like Lost.
Now I realize it is a LOT like lost.
Why didn't I ever notice this before? Someone else must have commented on it by now. The parallels between The Tempest and Lost are enough to make me think that it is more than coincidence. Sure, Lost covers the actions of a lot more of the survivors than the Tempest does, but it's got seven years to tell its story. Also, Lost sticks with the point of view of the victims; Prospero is an unseen force in the background.

The ship breaks in two at the beginning, but the passengers are miraculously saved. Those from one section of the ship land on a different part of the island from the others; and each party thinks the other did not survive.

Caliban is Ben Linus
Ariel is the smoke monster
Prospero is the mysterious Jacob.
The King of Naples and the Prince of Naples are Jack's Father and Jack. (okay, that one may be a stretch...)

Of course, this doesn't account for Miranda. Unless somehow Danielle is Miranda in some weird sort of way. but I don't think so.

I never read any of the discussion groups talking about Lost, but certainly this must have come up before. I can't be the first person to notice this. And it can't just be coincidence.

Can it?

Greetings from Ashland

2007-07-16T23:11:00.000-07:00

16. Ashland

2007-07-16T21:09:00.000-07:00

Ashland is where the adventure really began on this trip -- our first foray into unexplored territory. We awoke early in Vacaville and drove north on I-5, intending to get to Ashland as early as possible to maximize our time there. We got to Ashland before 3 p.m. Our motel was run-down and it was far from the town, and we had some trouble finding it, but at least it was cheap.

Downtown Ashland is everything that you want it to be; lots of little restaurants with creekside dining, little bookstores and used clothing shops, lots of brick.

The Shakespeare Festival consists of three theatres, showing twelve plays in repertory. Each season they show three Shakespeare plays, all at the Elizabethan Theatre. We were there to see The Tempest (which I had read but never seen). We rested at the motel until 5pm, then we went into town to pick up our tickets and get dinner. The play began at 8:30. I discovered that there is something called a "preface" which is presented at 6:30. Its purpose is to give you enough background on the story that it will be easy to follow, even if you are not up on your
Elizabethan English. Unfortunately, I also discovered that you had to buy a separate ticket for that, and they were sold out, so we had to do without the preface. We had a creekside dinner at a place called Louie's, where one finds the best burgers in Ashland. I had the delicious Oregonzola Burger.

There is a green outside of the three theatres, and at 7pm they put on a free "Green Show", which was half an hour of modern dance set to medieval music. There were 8 dancers and they were quite good. They did a lot of cool athletic things; not quite at the level of Cirque to Soleil,
but really beautiful to watch.

The Elizabethan Theatre is a beautiful open-air space with large comfortable seats, and a great faux wood-and-wattle stage, which looks a lot like the stage at the Globe in London. The set for the Tempest was extremely simple -- just 8 tree trunks.

The play was wonderfully done. They made two small changes -- Ariel was played as female, and so was Antonio (changed to Antonia). I think both changes are improvements. I always imagined Ariel as female anyway. In making Antonia female they added a layer to the relationship with Sebastian, with the added implication that they are lovers as well as conspirators.

The Tempest is different from just about any other story I've seen. In most drama, the protagonist has an external conflict he or she must overcome. The Tempest is unique in that Prospero is in complete control of the situation from the opening to the final curtain. Yes, there
is a conspiracy to kill him, but the conspirators are so comically inept that the audience is never worried for a moment that Prospero is in any danger. Propero is an all-powerful magician, with magical sprites who serve him willingly and a monster who serves him unwillingly, and he has every one of his enemies in his grasp. So where does the dramatic tension come in?

The brilliance of the play is that even when the good guy holds all the cards through the whole show, the drama is still there. If you were in Prospero's position -- in complete control of enemies who deserve death -- what would you do? Would you choose Justice or Mercy?

If you ever get a chance to see a performance of The Tempest, don't pass it up!

15. Not Doing Boomer Any Good at All

2007-07-15T14:50:00.000-07:00

It is around 3pm on Sunday. We are in Ashland, Oregon. When I picked up Boomer Bear, I figured we would stop on our way north and get a picture of him in front of the Rose Bowl, and drop by Stanford during our week in Los Altos to get a pic of him in front of Stanford stadium. I have managed to do neither of these things, so Boomer right now is no better off than when he was stuck in the ammo box in Rancho Bernardo. We will be traveling near WSU tomorrow, so maybe I can get at least one Pac-10 pic. But with my track record I shouldn't make any promises.

14. On New Jobs and Old Friends

2007-07-14T11:27:00.000-07:00

Our week in Northern California is coming to a close. We could not have asked for a better week. It was great to meet all my new coworkers -- now I'll have faces to bring to mind when I hear their voices on the phone! I really like the company, the job, and the people. It is a great relief to be in tune with my job again.

More heartening still has been the time I've gotten to spend with old friends here. I blogged earlier about the tragedy of having completely lost contact with people who were important to me, but this week has reminded me how blessed I still am, with many good friends. Yeah, I lost touch with Bob. But during our week here I've gotten to spend time with Michael and Linda and Kelsey and Christopher and Greg and Elizabeth and Paige and Emily and Tucker and Helen and Caitlin and Rachel and Scott and Debbie and Matthew and Annie and Marius and Abigail and Emily and Thomas and Kipp and Dave and Angelika and Zoë. And more visits with old friends still lie ahead on our trip. I don't put enough effort into nurturing all my friendships, but few of us can manage that these days. Life sweeps us along a little to quickly. It's good to know that in spite of that, many friendships endure.

For all the great times I'm having with old friends, I'm also missing my new friends. I'll be glad to see you all again when I get back to Tucson!

13. The Legend of Boomer Bear

2007-07-07T19:50:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time there was a travel bug named Boomer Bear. He began his life on July 15th 2006, in Oklahoma. All Travel Bugs must have a goal, and Boomer's is to see as many college football stadiums as possible.

On August 1st last year, a father and son from Tucson, travelling across the nation, picked Boomer up from a travel bug hotel in Oklahoma, and took him on his first set of adventures. Boomer saw the Kansas City Chiefs practice at UWRF, then went on to see Notre Dame stadium, Knute Rockne's grave, and the college football hall of fame.

One short week later, Boomer was dropped off in a geocache outside of Nashville, TN, hoping no doubt for a rabid southern football fan to take him from stadium to stadium throughout the 2006 college football season.

But it was not to be.

Boomer waited in the Nashville cache until the first of October, when he was retrieved by a man who took him all the way to San Diego, but did not show him any football. The bear lay forgotten through the whole season. In February, he was placed in a very challenging multi-cache in the hills north of San Diego.

This was a very difficult cache, and not many cachers found it. Months went by. Finally, the bear heard the lid of the ammo can pried open, and he saw the sunlight stream in. Alas, the geocacher looked at the bear, but chose a different treasure. The lid closed again. Boomer wondered if he was doomed to spend another football season just waiting.

Meanwhile, Boomer's fate became known to the father and son who had taken him on his first adventures. Unwilling to let Boomer hibernate away another season, they set out from Tucson on July 7, 2007 to rescue him. Despite the complexity of the multi-cache's puzzles, despite the record-breaking heat wave, they persevered, found the cache, and retrieved from California the bear they had left in Tennessee.

This is a true story.

To be continued...

12. A Journey of 5,986 Miles Begins

2007-07-06T21:06:00.000-07:00

We left Tucson today, though I think the real adventure begins in a week when we leave Silicon Valley. I am feeling pretty good. In these posts so far, I've been musing on the melancholy aspects of Road Tripping; it's been a relatively melancholy period in my life. But like all of life, road trips are complicated beings, and there are plenty of great motivations for, and great things about, running down the road. I will have a lot more to say about the positive stuff in upcoming posts.

I am at my folks house in SoCal at the end of the first day, though my folks are away for the weekend. Jake and I hit the road at 7 am, grabbed a latté and a scone, and hit the road. I-10 to I-8 to I-15, stop for some geocaching, I-15 to CA-210, and here we are. In time to have dinner with my brother.

11. Imminent Departure

2007-07-04T18:04:00.000-07:00

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

It does not take long to get from "Will this vacation ever arrive?" to "how will I find time to finish packing before I have to leave?" The first leg of the trip begins in just a couple of days. Here is what the whole route looks like so far. Yesterday was my last day at the old job. Tomorrow my first full day at the new job.

And as the road trip comes into focus, I'm starting to think about what to do, where to stay, and which geocaches to try to snag. Nina is planning the final week of the trip -- from Chicago back to Tucson. My week in Silicon Valley and my week at Bay Lake are all set. That still leaves two weeks to figure out. I may not talk much here about my plans until they come to fruition.

I will be gone from Tucson for five weeks. I'll miss all my friends here; I wish I could take you all with me. The whole gang vacationed together in the spring, but I wasn't able to join. Hopefully it will happen again next year and I can be part of it.

10. We Are All Just Fine

2007-07-01T22:30:00.000-07:00

This afternoon we went to the mall to see Ratatouille (a different mall than the one featured in post #9). The movie is about food and Paris, so of course Nina has been eagerly awaiting the movie since she first caught wind of it. Ben and Heather and Jake were there as well.

We saw all but maybe the last 60 seconds, I think. Based on what was happening on screen, the movie was about to wrap up. We absolutely loved what we saw. But, just before the end a man in street close walked to the front of the theater, and said, "everyone has to leave", and opened the emergency exit. The house lights stayed off, and the movie kept playing. The man did not appear to be a policeman or a theater employee. But, we all calmly got up from our seats and shuffled out the emergency exit onto the roof of the mall, wondering if maybe there was a fire or something. The patrons of the other 19 theaters streamed out as well.

I was so proud of the whole several hundred of us. Nobody panicked. Nobody screamed or ran or jumped. Nobody knew exactly what was going on, but someone talking on a cellphone said there had been gunfire.

We were led down a stairway to find the whole mall being surrounded with yellow "Police Line" tape. Before us were a couple ambulances, a firetruck, and possibly every police car in Tucson. We made our way to our cars, and, considering everything, made it out of the mall pretty smoothly. The entire mall was evacuated.

Details are still emerging, but what we know so far is that a verbal altercation between two shoppers (possibly gang members) turned violent, one of them pulled a gun and they struggled for it. Three shots were fired, both of the fighters and one innocent bystander were wounded, apparently none seriously. The incident happened at 3 pm, the mall was reopened at 5.

A lot more excitement than I was counting on for a Sunday afternoon, but we are all just fine. Except we don't know how the movie ends.

9. Hassled by the Rent-A-Cops

2007-06-28T21:27:00.000-07:00

I have a cinnamon-colored 1966 Volkswagen Bug. Depending on how you count it, it's my 3rd or 4th bug. It is the sentimental favorite of the cars I own, though sadly it won't be the car I use for the big road trip.

My friend Shaun has a '71 bug and a '61 bug, and he is part of a bug club. I have been meaning to join it, but being part of anything at all takes a certain level of organization of which I am apparently not capable.

But Shaun reminded me they were meeting tonight -- meet at Starbucks for Frappachinos, cruise to In-N-Out for double doubles. You can't say no to that! So I find myself cruising down Broadway with seven other bug owners. We arrive en masse at the mall (the In-N-Out is in the corner of the mall parking lot), and we more-or-less simultaneously back in to eight adjacent spaces. Eight hoods smiling at the burger joint.

Mall security then shows up in force on their 10-speeds, firmly but politely informing us that car clubs are not allowed to meet in the mall parking lot; we have half an hour to get our food and get out. Some of the gang got their undies all in a bunch over this, but to me the whole gang experience would have been incomplete without being hassled by the rent-a-cops.

The manager of the In-N-Out, by contrast, was well aware that it is good karma to have a parking lot full of old VWs, and he told us to stay as long as we liked.

There are two VW gangs in Tucson. The one that allows owners of newer-than-1968-vehicles and the one that does not. And apparently, they hate each other. Apparently you can't just be part of both, though I'd kind of like to test that theory.

Maybe, through reason, compromise, and enlightenment, I could make both sides see that this hatred serves no purpose -- that deep down, we are all brothers. Maybe we could put aside all this animosity, and bring these two clubs together as one.

And we could all hate on the Honda owners.

8. My Life in a Nutshell

2007-06-24T13:46:00.000-07:00

I could be bound in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space.

Except that I have bad dreams.

Ah, my first feedback. I had a good talk with Caleb about all I've written so far. I can see now that much of my problem is reflective of a lack of faith. That's what makes Santa Cruz spooky.

Is Santa Cruz filled with ghosts or with angels? The streets of Santa Cruz can convey the poignancy of friendships that have faded away, or the hope of friendships that will never end. A shift in perspective may be all I need.

Nothing truly good is lost forever. I assert that this is true, but I don't live my life as though it is true. My brain and my soul can't seem to get on the same page.

This trip will bring me near enough to Santa Cruz. Maybe I need to make the journey over highway 17. Try to view the ghosts of Santa Cruz from the perspectve of forever, and see what they really look like.

7. Great Northern

2007-06-23T23:27:00.000-07:00

A couple more pieces fall into place. Nothing is final until it happens, but a couple of straw-man routes have been mapped out. I will be gone from Tucson for 5 weeks. I will have a companion for all my travels; for the first four weeks it will be Jake, for the last week, Nina.

I had three possible outbound routes and three possible return routes; with plenty of variations of course. Return routes are still up in the air, but headed out, Jake and I are looking at a route I am calling the Great Northern. Plenty of this territory will be new to me, and most of the rest might as well be; I know from family photos I've been that way before, but I have little in the way of memories.

And even the places that I do remember might as well be new. When I was last in Glacier National Park, it had glaciers.

6. A Little Less Fuzzy

2007-06-19T21:45:00.000-07:00

I gave notice today. My old job behind me, I will be going back to being a full-time telecommuter. It means the road trip will be a working vacation.

Which means I can work from anywhere. Just give me an internet connection and I am good to go.

Planning the trip is a game of connect the dots. I finally know where some of the dots are going to be. And I know what I'll be driving, and who will be with me. Mostly.

Sometime around July 9 I'll spend a week in Silicon Valley, getting knit in with my new cohorts. And visiting old friends, of course.

Afternoon of July 20th I need to be at MSP to pick up Jake.

From July 21-28 we'll all be at the lake.

Jake and I have the next week to ourselves, travelling around the Great Lakes States, whatever we want. August 4 we are back in St. Paul to see a concert at the Excel Center (or something).

August 5th I pick up Nina at Midway, drop Jake off at Sports Broadcasting camp, and head back toward Arizona.

Pretty much be gone for a little over a month.

Well, those are the broad strokes of it anyhow.

5. The Last Kilometer of I-Nineteen

2007-06-17T14:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I finally accomplished one of my meaningless little sub-goals. I have now driven every mile of interstate highway in the state of Arizona -- Interstates 40, 10, 8, 17 and 19. Strangely enough, for years the only missing piece was a couple dozen miles of I-19 between Green Valley and Nogales -- easily tackled with a couple spare hours any day I had decided to do it.

An aside -- the miles of I-19 are not miles, they are kilometers. I-19 was built during one of those rare moments of enthusiasm for the metric system in the U.S., so, unique among interstates, the distance signage is metric (though the speed signage remains imperial). This is one of those bits of cool road geek trivia that separates me and a few dozen wackos from all you normal people out there. Sadly, the uniqueness will not last; as signs on I-19 are replaced in the due course of time, they will be replaced with imperial values.

I want to drive all the U.S. and state highways in AZ end-to-end as well, a ridiculous goal, but I'm really well on my way. The weekend getaway to Nogales also got me a big chunk of AZ-82, as we hit Lake Patagonia on the way back, where I was able to indulge my other rarely-indulged obsession by spending a couple hours on the lake in my kayak.

We had lunch Saturday in a funky Patagonia pizza joint called Velvet Elvis. All in all, a great weekend to whet my appetite for the big road trip. If it happens. Nothing in my life seems certain at the moment.

I never got an email back from the guy who may or may not be Bob (but probably is). It's one of those frustrating mysteries because I'll never know what it means. Maybe his spam filter ate the email, or maybe he never checks that account anymore, or maybe it's a different Bob so he just ignored it. Or maybe it's him and he read it, but what is there to say after all these years?

One more thing that gets answered in the next life.

4. For the Love of John Prine

2007-05-28T11:47:00.000-07:00

If you are heading out on the highway, don't leave home without some John Prine songs as counterpoint to the rhythm of the road beneath your wheels. And if you are stuck at home for now, download some Prine into your iPod, attach the earbuds, close your eyes and hit play; your mind can be behind the wheel even if your body isn't.

John is a master of the poignant melody, of the lyric whose words don't quite make sense but whose feeling is unescapable.

I was listening to "Hello in There," which will make you think of old friends. So, like looking up an old friend, I looked up John Prine on iTunes, found a CD he made in '05, and discovered the song "Clay Pigeons," which will make you want to look up old friends.

In seemingly unrelated news, a wildfire on Catalina Island was beaten back by heroic firefighters, before it could engulf the almost-magical town of Avalon. Stay tuned, though -- nothing is unrelated.

In 1976, my very best friend was Bob. For the life of me, I can't remember how we met our how we got to be such good friends. We were 2/3 of a trio, along with Dave (who died in '78 or so when his jeep overturned).

Spring break of '76 (well, I think that's when it was), Bob & I had an adventure. We had saved up some money and decided to spend the week on Catalina Island. We got our reservations at the hotel, got our tickets for the ferry, and headed out. When we were checking in to the hotel, and they asked for ID, we were informed that it was illegal for anyone under 18 to spend the night on Catalina island without an accompanying adult. I believe Bob was 17 and I was 15 at the time. The last ferry had already left for the mainland. The hotel guy politely told us we couldn't stay there.

Bob completely freaked out. I had never seen anyone completely freak out before; it was interesting. I just figured somehow God would take care of us. Asking the hotel guy what to do, he suggested we could try a bed and breakfast a mile or so away; perhaps they would be more likely to overlook the rules. We went over to the B&B, and surprisinly enough (it was spring break after all), they had a room to spare and they didn't ask us for ID. We had a great time hanging out in Avalon, playing old nickel pinball machines, meeting other Jesus Freaks on the beach, singing, praying, watching a baptism ceremony in Avalon Harbor. The kind of week you never forget, the kind you write about.

Bob moved to Brentwood, then to Ohio for college. We wrote letters back and forth regularly, then slowly lost touch. I think he came to visit me once in Santa Cruz, my memory is fuzzy on this. It was one of those awkward things where we'd both changed in different directions and couldn't find the way to reconnect. I completely lost touch after that, and spent years never thinking once about the man.

Friendships like the one Bob and I had are a rare thing in life -- a friend so close you plan your vacations together, you write letters and travel miles and miles to make sure you stay connected. Most of my life, I haven't had a friend that close. It seems so unthinkable, that as short as life is, we still have time to forget about the people who meant the most to us.

When I was visiting Bob in Brentwood in '77 or '78 he introduced me to the music of John Prine. John is not a household name, and his music isn't played much on the radio. Most likely if not for Bob I would never have heard of the man.

But John Prine's songs will make you think of old friends. So I googled Bob, and maybe I found him. Someone with his name, a professional musician who lives in LA and went to college in Ohio. It looks like the right guy; the one picture where I can see his right hand, it looks like the ends of two fingers are missing (the definitive sign that it's my Bob). I sent him an email yesterday. I haven't heard back yet. If it is him, and if he responds, what will we have to say to each other after all these years?

For one thing, I want to thank him for introducing me to John Prine.

3. Worse than Gone Forever

2007-05-24T18:34:00.001-07:00

Remember that these posts show up latest first, so start at the bottom!

I know what you want to say to me.

Glenn, your problem is that you moved to often. For your whole life, you've never spent ten years living in the same city. If you had stayed put, you wouldn't feel so untethered now. Home would be home.

Except that you are wrong. It doesn't matter if you are moving or if you are staying put. The planet moves faster than you do.

For years, I assumed I would spend my whole life in Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz was home (more so than anyplace else before or since). But Santa Cruz -- the Santa Cruz that was my home -- is gone. It doesn't exist anymore. The Santa Cruz that was my home is the Santa Cruz where I would spend time with Scott and Daniel and Marty and Michael and Randy and Rich and Katie and Gayle and Ann and Phred and Melissa and Ricky. Look all you want, they aren't there. Before I left Santa Cruz, it left me.

But it's worse than gone. Because I can go to the place where it used to be, and what I will find there is this creepy doppelgänger of the place that was my home. It looks almost the same, but the loneliness is palpable. My chest tightens up any time I go there. If I hadn't left Santa Cruz, I would wake up with that haunted feeling every single day.

That is why it is best to keep moving. Stay a step ahead of the ghosts that are trying to haunt you until you get to your real home at last.

2. The Problem of Home

2007-05-24T16:29:00.002-07:00

My home is not the road.

I mean, I know the ultimate answer. But knowing the ultimate answer does me no good right now. Maybe in forty years. Maybe tomorrow. Not now.

My home is eternal communion with my Lord and with my brothers and sisters. When a place and time on earth feels like home, I know that the feeling is a shadow, a foretaste, of real home. We never find our way home in this life. And we never stop looking.

I know that.

I have lived in places that felt like home and I have lived in places that did not. Wander back through my memories with me. The first place I can remember feeling at home in was 1244 College Avenue, Claremont, CA. I lived there in 1967. I've driven past the bungalow recently; it still looks the same.

We lived in two different houses in Rialto when I was a kid. Neither of them felt like home. The closest I felt to home in Rialto was in my tree house, in the eucalyptus in the back yard.

In 1979 I worked at Disneyland. Just for the summer. I knew all the ins and outs. Where the break areas are. Employees-only shortcuts from Adventureland to Frontierland. The restaurants that no one knows about. Where the barbershop is. When I was working at Disneyland, I was living with Dan and Steve in an APT upstairs from a chiropracters office in Ontario, CA. It does not make any sense, but Disneyland felt like home. The APT never quite did.

The next place that felt like home was a cabin in the woods on the banks of a river in Felton, CA. I lived there with Marty, who is really home now.

Actually, my home in those days was quite large, for it encompassed all of Santa Cruz from the Aptos Twin to Farrell's Donuts. That era lasted from 1980 until 1985. That was the last place that felt like home.

No, that was the last place I lived that felt like home. I've never lived in Minnesota. I have visted several times. I remember being surprised by the feeling the moment the plane touched down at MSP on my first trip in 1990. This is home. The feeling has wafted over me on each trip since.

For five and a half years I have lived in Tucson, Arizona. I like it here; I'm happy here. For twelve years before that I lived in Silicon Valley. I was happy there also. Neither place ever felt like home.

1. The Distant Music of Revving Engines

2007-05-24T15:46:00.000-07:00

My home is the road.

Usually I begin to catch the scent of an upcoming road trip, a month or two up the line. At some point, sitting in my office, I am distracted by the distant music of revving engines.

My traveling journals began in 1982 with a trip to Toronto from my home in California. I have four books scribbled with handwriting I used to think only I could read. The entries mostly concern being somewhere else than here. Now I am a blogger, of sorts anyhow. So I'll share the journal and share the journey.

The road trip is still seven weeks away. The details aren't figured out yet. I don't know the route. The destination is familar, though. I found myself there in 1990, 1999, and 2000, a few days each time. You'll find it midway between a giant wooden lumberjack and a giant fiberglass walleye. It is a peaceful place called Bay Lake, and it is as much like home as any other place I've been.

My mind keeps getting ahead of my body. My body will spend the next seven weeks trapped in Tucson. My mind will wander through all the alternative routes that lead from Arizona to Minnesota, roads familiar and strange.