| Birthday photos |
[Jun. 18th, 2005|09:51 pm] |
Photos from the birthday party.
And seeing J off at the naeroport...
B |
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| The end of the trip, but not of the blog |
[Jun. 18th, 2005|07:33 pm] |
Hello from sunny Washington, D.C.! We went to a birthday party today; that was why we were in such a hurry, recall, to get to D.C. I'll post about that party next. But first, the photos from yesterday.
We were sorry to say goodbye to Safiri and N, but we very much enjoyed seeing them in their (un)natural habitat. Also, Safiri makes a mean chocolate ice cream. (And I make a mean amaretto sour.)
On the road, a giant peach. Which inspired us to stop at a peach stand. We didn't buy any peaches, but we did split a wonderful peach ice cream. (Sense a theme?)
Otherwise, the drive was pretty long. J and I had some nice talks, but also we just drove a long way. We didn't get to my cousins' house until almost 1 am; the whole drive took about 11 hours. But we made it....
B |
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| Mmmmm....grits |
[Jun. 17th, 2005|12:55 pm] |
Yummy breakfast with Safiri, N, and N's sister-in-law Q.
B |
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| The minute I leave... |
[Jun. 17th, 2005|10:09 am] |
..the earthquakes start in California. You know, I never felt an earthquake while I was there. On the other hand, I'm not complaining too much.
We are just slowly waking up this morning after a lovely sleep. We're going to have breakfast with Safiri and N and N's brother and sister-in-law, and then get on the road for our very last day of driving.
B |
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| bullet points |
[Jun. 17th, 2005|01:40 am] |
this is the great advantage/disadvantage of pulling into port with our friends instead of in random hotels: we get so engrossed in catching up with our in-the-flesh friends that we get too tired to update our reading-audience friends. I will write a better recap of the last two days, but here are the bullet points:
Day 7:
-Oklahoma is lovely. We felt a bit sorry for it, knowing it must have a chip on its shoulder about that flashy Texas and its spotlight-hogging.
-Arkansas is the smelliest state ever. Some smells were wonderful, some mysterious. The whole hour into Little Rock smelled like cheese.
-There is a place in Arkansas called Toad Suck Park. Now you know.
-The top hits of country music seem to be dominated not by hard-luck tales of trucks and ex-wives, but by Sensitive New Age Guys crying about how much they love being Husbands and Daddies. Is all of Nashville on the payroll of the Promise Keepers?
Day 8:
-BBQ, great, Graceland, great. But DO NOT VISIT MEMPHIS WITHOUT SEEING THE CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM. We were both moved to tears.
-Graceland had shag carpeting on the ceiling.
-Atlantans drive faster than any other motorists I have ever encountered.
-Our "always eat local fast food" experiment finally failed: Krystal is disgusting. Never eat cheeseburgers there if you have any sort of choice in the matter.
More later. goodnight!
J. |
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| Photos from Day 8 |
[Jun. 17th, 2005|12:30 am] |
From our day in Memphis, and on the road. Again really sleepy. Narrative later. No, we did not get tattoos in Memphis. We just liked the storefront.
B
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| Made it to Decatur |
[Jun. 16th, 2005|11:51 pm] |
Made it safely to Decatur to see our friends Safiri and N. Hooray!
Photos from our day (in Memphis and on the road) to follow.
B |
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| Photos from Day 7 |
[Jun. 16th, 2005|08:28 am] |
The wireless I'm connected to seems not to be the official hotel wireless, but whatever. I'm not proud.
Still too groggy to write properly about yesterday, but here's a bare-bones narrative to go with the photos.
We woke up in Amarillo. I swear, it felt like we went to sleep in the west and woke up in the midwest. It was suddenly humid. I wondered how the Texans we passed would like my homemade bumper sticker:
We got to Norman around 2; it was great to see JA! We wandered around the University of Oklahoma. (I for one felt glad I was not wearing anything with "USC" on it...football is a serious undertaking at U of O, and they got whomped by USC last season.)
JA says the architecture in the first photo below is called "prairie gothic".
Then we got in the car and drove and drove across the rest of Oklahoma and all of Arkansas. We were behind a cow bus at one point:
And we ate at Sonic since it was the only thing open at 10:30 at night. Sonic is a place where you drive into a little berth and order, and they bring the food. So much for eating healthy...
Just before Memphis, Vera turned 40,000 miles. Congratulations, Vera!
This morning we are taking it a bit easy. Once we get going, it's Graceland, then Decatur.
B |
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| Memphis and quiz |
[Jun. 15th, 2005|11:32 pm] |
We made it to Memphis! Photos from today will be posted as soon as I can get them up...there is internet in this hotel but it is a bit wonky.
In the meantime, here's a quiz for those of you so inclined. On our drive to Memphis, J played six songs that mention Memphis. Can you think of six songs that mention Memphis?
B |
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| Non-attachment, and its reward |
[Jun. 15th, 2005|01:52 am] |
Today provided several exercises in non-attachment. We had to let go of our schedule, all kinds of money, our control over transportation.
The reward, as J mentioned, was a beautiful drive. From when we picked Vera up around 6:30, we drove more than three hours without stopping, with the top down, as dusk descended. I was doing the driving, in something of a blissful state. And with the Gypsy Kings on, with the fading scrubland constantly in motion, with the cool evening and the warm heater, and sharing it with J, the experience was wonderfully what it was.
We stopped for dinner and gas; dinner was at Blake's Lotsaburger, apparently "a New Mexico tradition." Imagine a dated, more relaxed In-n-Out. The linoleum, the clock, the typefaces, all several decades behind. But well-loved. And the staff, by the time we got there, was absolutely every bit as punchy as we were.
Once J took up the driving, we wondered why some of the trucks seemed to be shaky in their steering; turns out there were high crosswinds, not an epidemic of drunkenness, nor mass narcolepsy.
J requested Kris Delmhorst, which I queued up for her, and quite liked, especially "Little Wings" and "Yellow Brick Road". (Also liked Josh Ritter from the other day. Part of J's job has always been to provide me with new music, and she is definitely doing that on this trip.) Avenue Q got us the rest of the way to Amarillo. Funny thing to listen to upon crossing into Texas, of all places.
For we are in Texas now, where people say "y'all". I like it. I'm appreciating the realism of moving by car from one state to another, instead of by plane. Space equals time, more or less. Time makes you understand space better.
It was strange to watch the Weather Channel here in the hotel and remember not to look at California anymore.
B |
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| confession |
[Jun. 15th, 2005|01:11 am] |
While I absolutely did appreciate the adventure of the day, I wasn't 100% cheerful. The pit of worry in my stomach persisted despite our grand adventures on Santa Fe city buses, in wireless cafes, even through the "happy hour" massages we splurged for. But as soon as we hit the road out of town, top down, sun setting, the carefree spirit returned.
There's nothing like riding in a convertible to bring out joy and gratitude. Crossing eastern New Mexico in the dark, top down, heat on, was wonderful. Stars above, Gipsy Kings blaring out of the iPod-- one of my top five convertible memories of all time.
The others? Riding home from the Washington County fair with my sisters, driving out to Farmer's Daughter with the neighborhood kids in dad's Austin Healey, honeymoon drive up the Pacific Coast Highway with G, cruising down old Burgoyne Road with my Grandpa Francis in his brand new red Chrysler LeBaron. Yes, I keep track of these things. It's always good to count one's blessings.
Goodnight.
J. |
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| On the road again |
[Jun. 14th, 2005|05:46 pm] |
Shortly we will have the car back, and we have a new plan to go with it. The new plan: we will be driving to Amarillo, TX, tonight, and staying overnight at the beautiful Holiday Inn Amarillo (1911 I-40 E. at Ross/Osage St). We'll get up bright and early in order to drive to Norman, OK for lunch with JA. Then press on to Memphis in the afternoon, and we'll be back on track.
Whew.
B |
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| Comments |
[Jun. 14th, 2005|02:19 pm] |
By the way, we really like reading your comments! Thanks!
(If you haven't yet posted any comments, this is your engraved invitation....)
B and J. |
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| Send someone to fetch us, we're in...Santa Fe. Still. |
[Jun. 14th, 2005|01:35 pm] |
Well, we were trying to be optimistic about the car, but the problem seemed to be the water pump. You know, the pump that pumps water through the radiator, so if it fails your engine melts? That one. Melting engine=bad, m'kay?
Here is poor Vera with her hood up.
So here we are. After a morning in the auto shop waiting room with the world's nicest mechanic, Jim, who told us he once had Michael Jackson's aunt in his pants (long story), we were informed that Vera will be ready by 6 PM today, if we're lucky. Early AM tomorrow if we're not.
But really, we are pretty lucky, because if we hadn't taken the noises seriously, Vera's engine would have melted in the middle of the desert. Plus, this way, we get another little while in Santa Fe, which is a pretty neat little city. We're a little nervous about how the rest of the itinerary will shake down from here, but we have no choice but to go with the flow. So we are.
We hopped a bus back into the center of town. Here is B waiting for the bus:
Boy, was that bus ride evidence that things happen differently here. We were short on small bills for bus fare (Mechanic Jim had told us fare was 50 cents instead of a dollar each, guess he doesn't get to ride the bus very often) so we were emptying our wallets and purses (and backpacks with our just-in-case overnight clothes) onto the seats of the bus scrambling for change. The bus driver suggested that he could stop at the convenience store so we could run out and change a fiver. We didn't believe him at first. But that's what he was suggesting. The two scruffy-looking guys on the bus thought it was a good idea, and offered, "Yeah, that's how we do things here...this is the land of mañana, no one's in a hurry."
As we watched in disbelief, the bus pulled up to the next stop, and the driver motioned to B to hop out and run into the store. The bus idling, First Guy, one of our new traveling companions, said, "well, as long as we're here, can I stop in and get some groceries?" Then, Second Guy said, "I want some ice cream!" They bounded off the bus, leaving J., the driver, and everyone's bags and backpacks.
Wow.
When the bus re-boarded, First Guy and Second Guy learned our whole sob story. Not that we were sobbing. By that point we had our sense of humor back about the whole thing...plus we were enjoying the bus ride. First Guy said as much too when he had to get off the bus; said he wished he could stay on the bus longer and continue the conversation! And another older gentleman got on who also joined in the conversation. When we got downtown the driver very helpfully showed us the schedule and where to board the bus on the way back. Everyone we met said farewell with "now, good luck, you girls!" which made us feel ever the plucky movie heroines.
(Also, did we mention we got carded last night? And Jim the nice mechanic kept thinking we were in college.)
So...that brings us to here. Fortunately we have had two days' worth of recon on Santa Fe, so we made a beeline for the Atomic Cafe, for lunch and free wireless. We have our backpacks, but have elected to wait and see before scrambling for a hotel. Instead, we might put all our considerable resources to use (our wits and the internet) to find a spa to relax in. Not a bad way to be stranded, eh?
We may be more stressed as we determine how to best make up time or (sadly) which parts of our carefully-planned itinerary to cut. But for now... we're in the land of mañana, right?
B and J. |
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| Dateline June 14th, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 10:30 AM. |
[Jun. 14th, 2005|01:35 pm] |
Yep, we're still here. Sitting in the office of a very friendly
auto mechanic (Foreign Auto Service Technicians, aka "FAST", on
Agua Fria) who agreed to look at Vera on short notice. Though the
sounds (a grinding sound and a squealing sound) we heard yesterday
have not yet made a peep today, we realized we really didn't want
to break down in the middle of the Texas panhandle. So here we
sit. We have been promised it won't take long to look at (and
hopefully make only minor fixes) so we still plan to be on the
road shortly. But the delay will probably cut down on our
sightseeing en route to Oklahoma City. Still, given that the
(somesuch) National Grasslands were the most interesting prospect,
it's probably all okay.
I was going to write an update of last evening in Santa Fe, after
we got back from Taos Pueblo, but I realized B's photos probably
say it all. We strolled around the historic plaza and cute shops
in the early evening light, taking in all the Spanish-style
architecture. At first glance to our untrained eyes it was hard
to tell which buildings were authentic and which were mere
facsimiles, but it got easier the longer we looked. Original
adobe has this wonderful,uneven textural quality to it, which B
captured perfectly in the pictures. The plaza was crowded enough,
but eerily calm and quiet. We ate ice cream, window shopped, and
even made it into one of the historic churches just 10 minutes
before it closed at 6:00 PM.
That church was the Chapel of Loretto, famous for its "miracle
staircase." Repeated here for your reading pleasure is the Legend
of the Staircase, as told to us by a recorded voiceover playing on
loop as we walked around the small chapel.
The church was the chapel of a women's school founded by 4 Loretto
nuns at the behest of some Archbishop. The building was designed
as a replica of Ste. Chapelle church in Paris, and was the first
Gothic building constructed West of the Missisippi. Trouble was,
the small size of the replica meant there was no room for stairs
to the choir loft. Original Gothic cathedrals often had only
ladders for access, but since this church was a church of Modest
Women, ladders just wouldn't do. Stumped, the nuns began to pray
to St. Joseph, patron saint of carpenters. And on the last day of
their novena, a mysterious stranger showed up.
Said mysterious stranger worked for 6 months constructing a
staircase for the church, allegedly using only a hammer, a
carpenter's square, a saw, and water to bend the wood. (No nails,
evidently.) The resulting staircase was an architectural marvel,
a double spiral that twice wound 360 degrees up to the loft, with
no center support or anything else holding it up. A miracle!
Then, the stranger disappeared in the middle of the night without
demanding payment. (Though how over six months he managed not to
state his name, his origin, or discuss compensation is beyond me.)
The staircase still stands--though somewhere along the way the
sisters added a railing because climbing the darn thing was so
scary. Architects and such have studied the staircase and don't
know how it was constructed without aid of modern technology. Oh,
and they don't know where the wood came from, as it is evidently
not a species native to New Mexico.
Moral of the story: don't mess with nuns and their novenas.
So that was Santa Fe. Next update: Oklahoma City, Lord willing.
J. |
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| Day 5, part 2 |
[Jun. 14th, 2005|08:28 am] |
I don't have much to add to J's wonderful entry about yesterday,
and we need to get on the road, but here are some notes about the
language at Taos.
Our guide reported that "the language isn't written down because
it's too hard to write down." She also pronounced a word in Tewa
for our benefit, and said, "If anyone knows how to write that down
in English, let me know!" I decided that she didn't really want to
know about the International Phonetic Alphabet.
But it was neat...though she seemed like a native English speaker,
she said she only spoke Tewa before going to school. She reported
being more comfortable in "Indian" than in English, and indeed she
had some lexical access trouble in English. When talking about the
tool used to sweep out ovens she said it had a handle so that you
don't burn your feet. Since there is no way you could manage to
burn your feet, I think she meant "fingers". No native speaker
would let that one go by, I think, without correcting it. Cool,
huh? (Hmm, funny perhaps to think it's cool that someone made a
mistake...but it's just that it's a sign that someone still was
growing up speaking only Tewa pretty recently.)
And, and, and, we heard very small children talking in Tewa. The
older ones all talked in English, but the really small ones spoke
both.
Like the Cochiti Pueblo people I heard about, the Taos people,
despite not wanting to write down their language, have a language
revitalization project. Amazing.
B |
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| Day 5, part 1 |
[Jun. 14th, 2005|08:27 am] |
Today we set off early for Taos Pueblo. Our guidebook gave us an
idea for breakfast that turned out to be fabulous, the Tesuque
Village Market. There we had the best pancakes we have ever
tasted. No exaggeration. They're made with blue corn, crispy and
light, and we got them with fruit in them. Wow wow wow. My mouth
waters in retrospect.
Then up to the pueblo. Vera was making some funny noises...maybe
something is loose...but not reliably. When we stopped to have
someone look at it, she wouldn't make the noises. We're going to
stop at the VW dealer tomorrow morning.
(and here the story ends for now... dinnertime!)
B (and J.)
Okay, the Taos update was scotched before dinner because we both
decided we had some more thinking to do before we wrote about it.
The whole I-40 corridor has been a drive through Native Lands,
and, while one gets the impression that one could spend many
months here and still not understand the past or the present
experiences of the Navajo, Apache, Ute, Hopi, or Pueblo Indians,
we knew going in that there was just no way that one day was
enough time. Even with the most sincere intentions, I think we
both feel conflicted about being cultural tourists. Yet at the
same time, as someone who grew up with wholly manufactured
accounts of these people and their lives (Frontier Town, anyone?)
I knew that this might likely be as close as I would ever get.
After narrowly mistiming our visit to Acoma Pueblo yesterday due
to the Pacific/Mountain time change, visiting one of the half
dozen or so local pueblos was top on our list when we arrived in
Santa Fe. Unlike the Navajo or Apache, the various tribes of
Pueblo Indians in this region were not nomadic, so when the Bureau
of Indian Affairs (or some other incarnation of The Man)
demarcated the tribal lands, each group got to stay more or less
where they were. This resulted in greater Santa Fe containing a
patchwork of small to medium-sized reservations (pueblos), most of
which now have some sort of commerce wing attached to them
(casinos, truck stops, etc.) and most open to visitors at least
some of the time. Many Indians still live on the pueblos, and many
more maintain ancestral homes there, visiting often as one visits
extended family, for weekends and holidays and the like.
According to our guidebook, the Taos Pueblo (outside of the town
of Taos not far from the Colorado line)offered one of the best
experiences for visitors. Because we were interested in the town
of Taos anyway, the plan was to make the hour drive up there first
thing in the morning (after our yummy breakfast), tour the pueblo,
and be back to explore Santa Fe by mid-afternoon.
The plan, however, unfolded into a much more complicated and
interesting day. First, Santa Fe and Taos are actually more like
2 hours apart, despite everyone's insistence to the contrary. So
we arrived at the pueblo at about 10:45 AM. As we pulled up into
the parking area, I noticed a long-ish line at the entrance, and
closed gates. Checking the guidebook again, we learned that June
13 was a holiday at the pueblo: the Feast of San Antonio (in the
adapted form of Catholism practiced on the Pueblo), marked by
tribal dancing. Since only 5 feast days, scattered throughout the
year, were listed in the book, we thought we had stumbled on to
something wonderful, making for a crowded day at the pueblo.
But the corn dances weren't the reason for the line. As we made
our way to the entrance, a teenage tribal boy informed us that the
pueblo was not yet open. Though scheduled to open at 8 AM, a
tribe member had passed away yesterday, so all the residents were
at the funeral, and there was no one to lead the tourists around.
They expected it to open around 11-- only fifteen minutes away.
But 11:00 came and went, and no further news came. Some visitors,
who in all fairness had been waiting in line much longer than we
had, began to vocalize their frustration, and some left. It was
very difficult for me to watch a fourteen (?) year old boy deal
with grumbling white folks' complaints that a FUNERAL was
intruding on their tightly-scheduled VACATION, yet he seemed
remarkably calm even as people looked at their watches and sighed.
At 11:30, the pueblo opened, and a 20-year old college student,
Renee, began our tour. She was raised on the pueblo until the age
of eight, and grew up speaking Tewa, the native language of Taos
Pueblo. She didn't learn English until she went to school. She
also mentioned other things that were of great interest to a pair
of linguists (okay, one and a bit linguists) but I'll let B report
them. Renee gave an informative but standard issue tour--
traditional ways of cooking, of self-defense, pueblo construction,
religious beliefs. She choked up when she led us to the pueblo
cemetery, apologizing that the morning's funeral was still getting
to her. I just wanted to hug her, imagining having to let a bunch
of strangers into my family home after a funeral, let alone having
to lead them around politely.
The tour lasted about an hour-- so we were at 12:30, and the corn
dances were to begin at "1 or 2 PM" according to Renee, so we
decided to stick around. We went into the little shops open to
the public-- family-owned businesses largely selling jewelry,
pottery, and other native handcrafts. We walked across the river
bridge, strolling by the private residences not on the pueblo
tour. We struck up a few conversations, but residents seemed much
more interested in selling their wares than in chatting up us
tourists. There simply wasn't that much to do. So we watched.
And watched. (Again screwing with the white folks' schedules, the
corn dances didn't begin until at least 2:30.) Which was the most
interesting thing we could have possibly done.
Since B and I both have a social scientist bent, we were more than
content to grab a shady spot by the river (in the shadow of tall
gorgeous mountains-- no secret at all why the Taos tribe settled
in this spot before recorded history) to just listen, watch and
feel.
The emotions of the experience were so conflicting. White liberal
guilt mixed with strange feelings of envy. I don't want to gloss
over the historical indignities that brought us to this point, or
to romanticize the current lifestyle which obviously has internal
hardship as well as external cultural threats. But sitting and
watching the daily life on the pueblo reminded me of all I most
hold sacred, all I most strive for in this life: my family and
loved ones surrounding me, a beautiful natural setting, a sense of
connection to the past. Anyone who's ever listened to me whine
about how I miss my little corner of upstate NY knows how
important these things are to me. As I watched these extended
families interact I felt a sense of longing for all I'm missing in
my young urban/suburban professional existence. Happy-looking kids
and dogs ran around, casually supervised, splashing in the stream
and wandering out on the pueblo rooftops.("What if he falls?" I
couldn't help but worry about one diaper-clad two year old
wandered close to the edge of the two-story pueblo where he was
playing, even as I admired the fact that children here are
permitted to explore on their own without adults constantly
hovering and mediating every aspect of their experience.)
Eventually, the dances started. They were wonderful to watch. Yet
I was so glad that we had had a two hour intermission to just
watch, to try to absorb all that goes on in this place that isn't
a tour or a souvenir shop or a tribal dance. We ended up spending
more than four hours at Taos Pueblo. (And I have the sunburn to
prove it.)
Even here as I write this down, I fear I'm guilty of
romanticizing. But I left the pueblo not only with a sense of
what Native Americans have lost, but what we have lost, too. One
more reason I don't feel cut out for my current way of life. (B is
in on our plans to start our own commune, by the way. Have I
mentioned that upstate NY is lovely? Oh, and it's my ancestral
homeland.)
Sorry, no photos of the pueblo. It was against the rules on their
holiday. But it made us extra glad we got to get a nice long
look.
J. |
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| Hee hee |
[Jun. 13th, 2005|09:28 pm] |
We are sitting outside the interntet cafe which closed at 7pm, the bastards. Speaking of bastards, we don't have wireless in our room at Chapelle St. Casitas (hi g-fav, this is for you!), though we were promised wireless. Life's so tough. But...fortunately at the internet cafe, they don't power down their wireless at night when they are closed. So we are sitting in the car using it from only slightly afar. Aww yeah.
Anyway, we want to spend some more time thinking and writing about today, but here are some photos to tide youse over; the first one is our casita where we are staying and where they didn't @(#%%&^ give us wireless.
B and J.
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