Route 10 Eastbound
Arizona
It’s a three-state day today. We left Benton Arizona at 9:30 this morning, and got onto Route 10 Eastbound. After about 100 miles of gorgeous desolation of desert, we stopped for ten minutes in Willcox for McDonald’s coffee, which tasted so much better for my having waited.
I don’t know if I will be able to go on without these incredible views. Miles and miles of desert everywhere you look, and forty miles away in every direction, mountains in cowboy-movie purple and grey and red-brown, a rustic picture frame set against a sky of Blessed Mother blue. I never thought I’d love this part of the country as much as I seem to today.
My take on the desert has always been dust, scorpions and rattlesnakes. No thanks.
But instead of eeeyew I am in aah mode. Our vocabulary has suffered from the overuse of words like: incredible, magnificent, oh my god, so beautiful, and holy cow. We're going to have to consult a thesaurus for some new descriptors.
We’ll be in New Mexico in about a half hour, and we’ll skim the Mexican border, passing the border patrol stations, where we’ll inform the officials that while we are Americanos, our dog is a Chihuahua masquerading as a Jack Russell and should therefore be deported. So far it hasn’t worked. I loved New Mexico, so we’ll have to come back one day and explore some more of it. For now, however, it's a passageway to our next layover.
In a couple of hours we’ll roll into El Paso for the night. Texas is wide, really wide, so it will take us three days to cross it. Then onto Louisiana and north.
The body shop called today and said our parts were shipped this morning from Oregon to Syracuse. This time, somebody may actually be telling the truth. We’re on our way.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
A Junkyard Tale
Benton, AZ
January 11, 2009
I’ll bet you think that by now we’re old hands at this RV stuff. I’ll bet you think that with six months of driving under our collective belt, we’re not only road-savvy; we’re the Unsers, Knievels, Pettys, Newmans of the big rig. That we glide around obstacles; we ace bridges, dirt roads and skyways; we back up, in, and out with ease, never breaking a sweat the whole time.
Okay, maybe you don’t think that. Maybe you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. Or the other fender to fall off, to be a bit more automotive about it.
Actually, we've been doing pretty well. Aside from the occasional bay door that pops open as we drive along, giving our fellow drivers apoplexy, and causing them to gesture frantically to us that something is amiss. (We pull over and close it; no biggie.)
However, and of course there was bound to be a however. Today, we made 260 miles from Phoenix to Benton, Arizona, safe and sound, thank you very much, until it was time to pull in to the campground.
Our Tom-Tom is really a wuss. He panics when we don’t follow orders. He said to turn in 300 yards, so since he’d been nice to us for three whole hours, we obeyed, even though it really didn’t look as much like a campground as it did a junkyard.
To be sure, there were some RVs there, but these rigs looked like my grandfather might have built them, and my grandmother might have said, “You’ll never get ME in that thing!” Once we were past the gate of no return, we realized: it really was a junkyard.
Okay, we’d go in one gate and out the other. No problemo. Except that the second gate was locked. Now I ask you, why lock one gate when the other is wide open?
John looked for an escape-turnaround and found none, but there was one skinny road that seemed to loop around, just behind that dilapidated old truck carcass. There was also some unidentifiable tent of metal rods that we’d have to get around, but otherwise it looked negotiable. We went for it.
Scrittttcccch. That was the right rear-view mirror as it scrunched up against the cyclone fence on the right. Crrrrunnnnch. That was the sound of the left side coming into contact with the metal teepee thingy. I got out to investigate.
Well, the mirror scratch wasn’t too bad. It probably could be polished off. I walked around the back to investigate the other side of the coach.
The teepee, as it turned out, was a tent of rods protecting some sort of underground/overground pipe. Hmmm. The coach hadn’t hurt it, but it had ripped off the cotton batting and vinyl cover on the pipe.
Which also revealed the gauge. Which showed the gas pressure. Slowly, it dawned on me: we were sitting on a gas pipe. Now what? “Don’t move!” I screamed.
John got out the sledgehammer and banged on the connectors that tied the Jeep to the RV. With each bam, I flinched. Was I about to fly skyward? And what about John? At least I was in the Jeep. On the other hand, the Jeep and I were both prisoners of the car’s gas tank, weren’t we?
John finally got me separated from the death van, and I scooted backwards and out of the way of impending shrapnel. Now all we had to do was get the RV off the gas line without incident. Or course, we were sandwiched between it and the fence, which would make maneuvering problematic.
I took charge. Running to the back of the RV, I yelled into the backup camera, “Watch me! Turn up the volume! Listen to me! Don’t do anything until I tell you it’s okay.”
What a responsibility! On the other hand, what power! What control! I was the one! I put on my metal bra, my steel tiara and my thigh-high boots. I was Wonder Woman! Only I could get us out of this! Only me! I clicked my metal bracelets together! I would do this with all the exclamation points in my arsenal!
I forgot to be worried. I forgot everything except my charge – get us out of here, whole!
(I still had another exclamation point in my bag, obviously.)
“Watch me, watch me! Are you listening? Listen to me!” I yelled. I pointed right, I pointed left, I signaled come back straight, now turn, now pull those wheels all the way to the right, now straighten up, now stop, now pull forward, now get the hell out of here.
I’m typing this, so you know I was successful. We had a couple of small scratches on the left side where we broached the gas line and almost blew ourselves up. We probably have a scratch or two on the back of the mirror, but I didn’t even bother to look after the first quick glimpse.
Why should I? I was the hero of the hour. I didn’t need to sweat the small details.
Forty yards to the left of the junkyard, we pulled in and found a lovely campground. Maybe it was my imagination, but I swear the Tom-Tom blushed.
In the reception office, the sweet lady in charge greeted us with the usual, “Welcome, how was your trip?”
“Terrific,” we said.
January 11, 2009
I’ll bet you think that by now we’re old hands at this RV stuff. I’ll bet you think that with six months of driving under our collective belt, we’re not only road-savvy; we’re the Unsers, Knievels, Pettys, Newmans of the big rig. That we glide around obstacles; we ace bridges, dirt roads and skyways; we back up, in, and out with ease, never breaking a sweat the whole time.
Okay, maybe you don’t think that. Maybe you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. Or the other fender to fall off, to be a bit more automotive about it.
Actually, we've been doing pretty well. Aside from the occasional bay door that pops open as we drive along, giving our fellow drivers apoplexy, and causing them to gesture frantically to us that something is amiss. (We pull over and close it; no biggie.)
However, and of course there was bound to be a however. Today, we made 260 miles from Phoenix to Benton, Arizona, safe and sound, thank you very much, until it was time to pull in to the campground.
Our Tom-Tom is really a wuss. He panics when we don’t follow orders. He said to turn in 300 yards, so since he’d been nice to us for three whole hours, we obeyed, even though it really didn’t look as much like a campground as it did a junkyard.
To be sure, there were some RVs there, but these rigs looked like my grandfather might have built them, and my grandmother might have said, “You’ll never get ME in that thing!” Once we were past the gate of no return, we realized: it really was a junkyard.
Okay, we’d go in one gate and out the other. No problemo. Except that the second gate was locked. Now I ask you, why lock one gate when the other is wide open?
John looked for an escape-turnaround and found none, but there was one skinny road that seemed to loop around, just behind that dilapidated old truck carcass. There was also some unidentifiable tent of metal rods that we’d have to get around, but otherwise it looked negotiable. We went for it.
Scrittttcccch. That was the right rear-view mirror as it scrunched up against the cyclone fence on the right. Crrrrunnnnch. That was the sound of the left side coming into contact with the metal teepee thingy. I got out to investigate.
Well, the mirror scratch wasn’t too bad. It probably could be polished off. I walked around the back to investigate the other side of the coach.
The teepee, as it turned out, was a tent of rods protecting some sort of underground/overground pipe. Hmmm. The coach hadn’t hurt it, but it had ripped off the cotton batting and vinyl cover on the pipe.
Which also revealed the gauge. Which showed the gas pressure. Slowly, it dawned on me: we were sitting on a gas pipe. Now what? “Don’t move!” I screamed.
John got out the sledgehammer and banged on the connectors that tied the Jeep to the RV. With each bam, I flinched. Was I about to fly skyward? And what about John? At least I was in the Jeep. On the other hand, the Jeep and I were both prisoners of the car’s gas tank, weren’t we?
John finally got me separated from the death van, and I scooted backwards and out of the way of impending shrapnel. Now all we had to do was get the RV off the gas line without incident. Or course, we were sandwiched between it and the fence, which would make maneuvering problematic.
I took charge. Running to the back of the RV, I yelled into the backup camera, “Watch me! Turn up the volume! Listen to me! Don’t do anything until I tell you it’s okay.”
What a responsibility! On the other hand, what power! What control! I was the one! I put on my metal bra, my steel tiara and my thigh-high boots. I was Wonder Woman! Only I could get us out of this! Only me! I clicked my metal bracelets together! I would do this with all the exclamation points in my arsenal!
I forgot to be worried. I forgot everything except my charge – get us out of here, whole!
(I still had another exclamation point in my bag, obviously.)
“Watch me, watch me! Are you listening? Listen to me!” I yelled. I pointed right, I pointed left, I signaled come back straight, now turn, now pull those wheels all the way to the right, now straighten up, now stop, now pull forward, now get the hell out of here.
I’m typing this, so you know I was successful. We had a couple of small scratches on the left side where we broached the gas line and almost blew ourselves up. We probably have a scratch or two on the back of the mirror, but I didn’t even bother to look after the first quick glimpse.
Why should I? I was the hero of the hour. I didn’t need to sweat the small details.
Forty yards to the left of the junkyard, we pulled in and found a lovely campground. Maybe it was my imagination, but I swear the Tom-Tom blushed.
In the reception office, the sweet lady in charge greeted us with the usual, “Welcome, how was your trip?”
“Terrific,” we said.
Friday, January 9, 2009
The Pleasure of Nothing
Ben Avery Shooting Range
Phoenix, AZ
For the past six months, whenever anyone has asked what I did in my other life, I have answered, “I’m a writer.” This gave me a present-time occupation and station in life and put to rest any notions that I might be one of the idle retired.
Not that I’ve seen many of those in my travels. I’ve seen lots of retirees, to be sure, but they’re usually on the golf course, or batting a ball around the tennis course, or shooting at clay targets, or working in stores in pleasant part-time jobs, or riding bicycles and motorcycles, or on top of their RV’s with the hose, saving the $100 it costs to have someone else wash your rig. Nobody is just sitting around.
But as my son pointed out over Christmas, my bike chain is rusted. My tennis racket is in storage. I haven’t written a thing since my Christmas blog, and then it was mostly pictures anyway. And there’s no way you’re going to find me on the roof of this rig with a hose. Put that notion out of your head right now.
So what have I been doing?
Nothing. Just being.
I’ve been reading, and driving, (and cooking and cleaning, okay, but that’s my choice, okay, it’s not but I do get hungry and you can’t eat dust). I’ve been playing Scrabble on line, and solitaire too. And I’ve been thinking about life, and the passage of time, and the death of one friend, and the stroke and heart transplant of another long-ago friend. And I’ve reconnected with another old friend, and made a new one. I’ve spent a precious two weeks with my son.
I’ve watched people dealing with the state of the economy. I’ve seen closed stores and talked with struggling business owners. I’ve seen a friend dump everything not essential out of his motor home to save on gas, and store his big car for the same reason. I’ve seen empty restaurants and deserted malls. Everywhere except in Dallas, where the oil business seems to be still profitable for most.
Still, it strikes me that we are really adept at coping. Life, at least to this observer, goes on.
I’ve also been looking at the recap of 2008 in pictures and realizing it’s mostly about war and maimed children, the economy notwithstanding. How sad. We have so much to learn.
But there is hope and joy in the things we haven’t managed to destroy with our human meddling. The mountains of the West, the majesty of the oceans on both coasts, the sight of a jackrabbit scuttling among the saguaros. Some of the funnier signs people put up by the side of the road. I thank god and the Internet recommendation for my Canon G9 camera, which has recorded many of these magic moments despite my bumbling photographic skills.
I’m going to send my nephew the pictures of the industrial cranes in Oakland that were the inspiration for some of Spielberg’s alien monsters in Star Wars. And my Christmas card next year will carry a special collage for all my friends, but that’s all I’ll say about that. And if I ever do write that book, I’ll have a visual record to jog my memory. Of course it makes John nuts when I drive with one hand and take pictures with the other, but once an opp is gone, it’s gone, I say.
And what, in all this doing-of-nothingness, do I plan for today? I think I’ll get my nails done. They’re getting a little long for typing and making the “I’m a writer” thing harder to believe. Although I have to admit, I may just answer the next query about my usefulness in the world with these words: What do I do? Nothing. I’m retired.
Now how ballsy would that be.
Betty
Phoenix, AZ
For the past six months, whenever anyone has asked what I did in my other life, I have answered, “I’m a writer.” This gave me a present-time occupation and station in life and put to rest any notions that I might be one of the idle retired.
Not that I’ve seen many of those in my travels. I’ve seen lots of retirees, to be sure, but they’re usually on the golf course, or batting a ball around the tennis course, or shooting at clay targets, or working in stores in pleasant part-time jobs, or riding bicycles and motorcycles, or on top of their RV’s with the hose, saving the $100 it costs to have someone else wash your rig. Nobody is just sitting around.
But as my son pointed out over Christmas, my bike chain is rusted. My tennis racket is in storage. I haven’t written a thing since my Christmas blog, and then it was mostly pictures anyway. And there’s no way you’re going to find me on the roof of this rig with a hose. Put that notion out of your head right now.
So what have I been doing?
Nothing. Just being.
I’ve been reading, and driving, (and cooking and cleaning, okay, but that’s my choice, okay, it’s not but I do get hungry and you can’t eat dust). I’ve been playing Scrabble on line, and solitaire too. And I’ve been thinking about life, and the passage of time, and the death of one friend, and the stroke and heart transplant of another long-ago friend. And I’ve reconnected with another old friend, and made a new one. I’ve spent a precious two weeks with my son.
I’ve watched people dealing with the state of the economy. I’ve seen closed stores and talked with struggling business owners. I’ve seen a friend dump everything not essential out of his motor home to save on gas, and store his big car for the same reason. I’ve seen empty restaurants and deserted malls. Everywhere except in Dallas, where the oil business seems to be still profitable for most.
Still, it strikes me that we are really adept at coping. Life, at least to this observer, goes on.
I’ve also been looking at the recap of 2008 in pictures and realizing it’s mostly about war and maimed children, the economy notwithstanding. How sad. We have so much to learn.
But there is hope and joy in the things we haven’t managed to destroy with our human meddling. The mountains of the West, the majesty of the oceans on both coasts, the sight of a jackrabbit scuttling among the saguaros. Some of the funnier signs people put up by the side of the road. I thank god and the Internet recommendation for my Canon G9 camera, which has recorded many of these magic moments despite my bumbling photographic skills.
I’m going to send my nephew the pictures of the industrial cranes in Oakland that were the inspiration for some of Spielberg’s alien monsters in Star Wars. And my Christmas card next year will carry a special collage for all my friends, but that’s all I’ll say about that. And if I ever do write that book, I’ll have a visual record to jog my memory. Of course it makes John nuts when I drive with one hand and take pictures with the other, but once an opp is gone, it’s gone, I say.
And what, in all this doing-of-nothingness, do I plan for today? I think I’ll get my nails done. They’re getting a little long for typing and making the “I’m a writer” thing harder to believe. Although I have to admit, I may just answer the next query about my usefulness in the world with these words: What do I do? Nothing. I’m retired.
Now how ballsy would that be.
Betty
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Christmas Day
The tree before the "schwag" got opened.
Opening presents in our PJ's. That's my orchid in the lower right corner. Big, huh.
Keith in the NY shirt Jeff gave him.
Christmas Breakfast. Keith's programming the music.
Baloo. The world's most perfect dog.
The tree post-presents.
I'm stealing these stars. Jeff got them at Sam Flax.
Kiss the cook. Keith and Tina.
John tries to solve a puzzle.
December 26 - View from the Bus
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
To Jane
Today, on what would have been Jonathan’s 38th birthday, I learned of the death of my dear friend Jane Parker Heath Donohue. She was 64, and she died June 9, a year and a half ago, and I didn’t know.
We arrived in San Francisco a couple of days ago, and planned to call Joe and Jane, and spend at least a day with them, reliving old times and old memories. But the phone number didn’t work, and I finally found her on Google. But it wasn’t the news I was prepared for.
Jane and I were writers at Young & Rubicam in the 60’s. We were the same age, and we married about the same time, and we were very much alike … and very different.
Jane was 6’2”. The tallest girl I ever knew. She was funny and smart and real and assertive and kind and clever and … tall. She was very, very tall. And she introduced me to California. She showed me San Francisco, the Russian River, Stinson Beach, Sausalito and Wine Country. Before that, living in New York, she showed me how to lob an egg out a window, but that’s a story about a much sillier time.
On one of our visits to San Francisco, she took care of Jonathan when he was just 6 months old. We hadn’t had a break in all that time, and she said go, leave him with me and have some fun. So we went out for dinner, and when we got back we learned that he had fussed intermittently for all the time we were out, because we had brought pajamas that were too small and they were uncomfortable.
But Jane handled it all, and he did get to sleep, the feet of his too-short onesie now cut off and in the garbage, and we had our night out, and she was a gem for dealing with our unhappy baby.
She introduced us to her San Francisco friends, took us to the beach, and showed us around her new town. We were enchanted.
Jane was the kind of friend you could call and start a sentence with “And so I ….” And she would laugh and get it and continue the sentence. She always knew my voice. She always got my silly sense of humor.
She kept a bucket in her shower to save water for San Francisco’s water shortage. She recycled before it was fashionable. She had dogs and cats and animals she loved unconditionally. She taught Down Syndrome kids how to swim. She was a committed volunteer for good causes. She would have campaigned for Obama.
She always worked, never took life for granted, and always had a point of view. A Vassar girl, she was generally smarter than anybody who tried to challenge her opinions. And I remember, too, that because she was tall and athletic and no pushover, she was an object of lust around the office. Interesting in a time when the dumb blonde was supposed to be the sex symbol and brains and brawn weren’t thought to be attractive. All the short guys thought she was hot.
Jane, I will miss you. You taught me to play King’s Corners, cook with Le Creuset, say f*&k when it was called for, challenge fools, drink Black Russians and try new things. Like lobbing an egg out a window and onto Fifth Avenue, just to see it explode.
And when I see you again inside the Pearly Gates, I’m sure you’ll greet me with, “And as I was saying …”
We arrived in San Francisco a couple of days ago, and planned to call Joe and Jane, and spend at least a day with them, reliving old times and old memories. But the phone number didn’t work, and I finally found her on Google. But it wasn’t the news I was prepared for.
Jane and I were writers at Young & Rubicam in the 60’s. We were the same age, and we married about the same time, and we were very much alike … and very different.
Jane was 6’2”. The tallest girl I ever knew. She was funny and smart and real and assertive and kind and clever and … tall. She was very, very tall. And she introduced me to California. She showed me San Francisco, the Russian River, Stinson Beach, Sausalito and Wine Country. Before that, living in New York, she showed me how to lob an egg out a window, but that’s a story about a much sillier time.
On one of our visits to San Francisco, she took care of Jonathan when he was just 6 months old. We hadn’t had a break in all that time, and she said go, leave him with me and have some fun. So we went out for dinner, and when we got back we learned that he had fussed intermittently for all the time we were out, because we had brought pajamas that were too small and they were uncomfortable.
But Jane handled it all, and he did get to sleep, the feet of his too-short onesie now cut off and in the garbage, and we had our night out, and she was a gem for dealing with our unhappy baby.
She introduced us to her San Francisco friends, took us to the beach, and showed us around her new town. We were enchanted.
Jane was the kind of friend you could call and start a sentence with “And so I ….” And she would laugh and get it and continue the sentence. She always knew my voice. She always got my silly sense of humor.
She kept a bucket in her shower to save water for San Francisco’s water shortage. She recycled before it was fashionable. She had dogs and cats and animals she loved unconditionally. She taught Down Syndrome kids how to swim. She was a committed volunteer for good causes. She would have campaigned for Obama.
She always worked, never took life for granted, and always had a point of view. A Vassar girl, she was generally smarter than anybody who tried to challenge her opinions. And I remember, too, that because she was tall and athletic and no pushover, she was an object of lust around the office. Interesting in a time when the dumb blonde was supposed to be the sex symbol and brains and brawn weren’t thought to be attractive. All the short guys thought she was hot.
Jane, I will miss you. You taught me to play King’s Corners, cook with Le Creuset, say f*&k when it was called for, challenge fools, drink Black Russians and try new things. Like lobbing an egg out a window and onto Fifth Avenue, just to see it explode.
And when I see you again inside the Pearly Gates, I’m sure you’ll greet me with, “And as I was saying …”
Monday, December 22, 2008
Sunday, December 21, 2008
A Jigger of Youth
Traveling in a mobile home, you tend to come into contact with other people of your particular status in life: retired, family grown, one dog, in other words, not 30. So it was a wonderful change to get to my son’s home in San Francisco and spend the day getting an infusion of youthful energy.
We arrived at 11:30, dropped off Zeus to play with Jeff’s dog Baloo, and immediately walked three blocks in the rain to Jeff’s favorite breakfast place. It was cozy, Christmassy, bustling, full of music, and young. In San Francisco, even the old people aren’t old. Women in their 70’s hang with friends in their 20’s. They go grey without second thoughts and wear jeans and sweatshirts and ponchos and hiking boots. The only person wearing makeup besides me was the waiter, and he looked prettier.
A great SF breakfast having been digested – “great” means with avocado – we took another walk in the rain, digressing a block or two to point out a couple of favorite stores, and headed back to the apartment for the tree-trimming party.
Jeff put out dip and cheeses and cookies. My son is a grownup! He hauled out the decorations, we clinked our beers, and the party was on. Jeff and his roommates Keith and Jill were there, along with a friend of Jill’s, Keith’s girlfriend Tina, their college buddy Kevin, and Stella the dog and her people pack of Pam and her husband Craig, who has worked with Jeff in three previous jobs. They are pregnant, and she told me about her plans to have a doula help her birth her baby. It’s a new world.
On the table, we put fresh candles out and lit them, setting up the Christmas cards, which I couldn’t help noticing were now about his friend’s children, a sure sign that time marches on. The tree, by the way, turned out great. And for the first time, decorating didn’t seem like work.
After the breakfast, and the cheese and the wine, and the party and the music, I was ready for my nap, but there were more activities planned. Keith, Jeff, John and I went to a new Sushi restaurant for dinner, and from there to a jazz club to see a favorite of Jeff’s. We drank port, soaked up some great riffs, yelled for the encore and went home totally satisfied. It was a long day, a happy day, a Jeff day, a Christmas day, a rainy day, a cozy day, a three-dog day, a young day.
Thanks. I needed that.
Betty
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
