today, the beach!

The sky was crazy, but that's fine. We all have our moments. This is Instagram processed, but the sky really did look this tinfoil color. (I have regular camera pictures to prove it, but as always those come later.)


there's a little blue here. This is facing north, the previous picture was south. It's really blown out, but that blob of white to the left of the hotel is sand, the dark splotch above is a rock/mountain/something that reaches goes right out into the water. They used to drive around it in the olden days (when the tide was out.)


This was from a part of Lincoln City called Road's End. The water was dark, but had this LIGHT coming off it anyway - maybe like a suit of armor that needs to be polished hit with a really big flashlight. (or the sun I guess if you have no flashlight poetry in your soul.)



This was the sky at around 4pm. This is a picture of the sun.

ANYWAY. Getting out of town and standing in front of the ocean was lovely as always. It always is, no matter the weather or state of the sky.


September has been my least-blogging month in years - what's up with that? I like the looks of October though, blogging wise.

battery race

I am sitting outside. There's a breeze and when I looked up just now, there was a cloud that looked like a cartoon fish skeleton. And now a giant squid. Maybe I should keep my eyes on my keyboard. Anyway - I've been such a terrible procrastinator lately I thought I'd blog race to the end of my laptop battery - because once I go inside to plug it in, I will no doubt be distracted by a million things. That's just the way of it these days.

1: See this picture over here? I read this (The Unwritten: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity) yesterday and enjoyed it very much. It seems like there's been a lot of media lately about reality v. fantasy and meta bleed-through from one to the other. This is sort of in that area, but also talks about fan culture - in this case of a very popular children's series coughcoughHarryPottercoughcough. 
Also something about an evil cabal strong arming writers to do their evil will... I've already put the second volume on hold because I want to see what happens next. Warning: this book is gross and gory in parts, but nothing so bad that it kept me up at night or anything. (I'm a delicate flower, re: horror.)

2: Wordstock is coming! Jennifer Egan will be there! I am excited!

3: OMG. The kindle/library lending thing just started, and it's AWESOME! It's been very easy to navigate so far, I only wish there were more available titles (which I assume time will take care of) and that there was a way to return a book early if I'm done with it so someone else could check it out. (each e-book is purchased by the library separately can only be checked out to one person at a time.)

The library's had e-books (and downloadable audio books) for a long long time, but the kindle association is new. I remember the look of total confusion on the face of a dude (who thought he had really found a way to rook the system) when I explained that he would have to wait just as long or longer for the new George R.R. Martin e-book as he would for the physical book. He thought that since it was electronic there was unlimited access! "It's just a file!" he said as a thousand publishers 3,000 miles away clutched their pearls without knowing why.   My first library kindle book: Dangerous Angels by Francesca Lia Block. LOVE. Lanky lizards indeed.

I'm almost in the battery red! let's see... oh, yes:

4: DURAN DURAN tonight! Woooooooo! for Miz Tara's b-day. WOOOOOOOO!

oops. now it is in the red. That is all for today's battery blog race.

make two pictures and call me in the morning

I have been a lapsed blogger since my road trip return - I've also been a terrible e-mail correspondent and so on (ha ha - my fingers slipped, so first I wrote "xo on" and then it was "zo on" like my fingers want to write this with some kind of movie-fake heavy accent to distract you from my weak excuses). If I were a  blog-doctor and forced to give a diagnosis (just so you know, the blog-doctor of my imagination wears a white coat and a stethoscope around her neck), I would say I've been taking a little mind-break and that's okay. The trip was wonderful, but I think it's taken me this long to achieve my introvert-balance again. 

One of the most fun things I've done (and am doing!) since my return has been an art challenge with Martina and my sister. We took a pledge to make one new thing a day for 100 days - so far I've been doing sketches and watercolors. We've only been doing it for 19 days so far, but it is so fun! I have no expectations of myself in this arena which is TOTALLY LIBERATING. I sit down to do my thing which might lead to wondering (like today) "how the BLEEPING BLEEP am I supposed to draw ice?" and it's fun - a challenge, not a disappointment that I don't auto-magically know how to render ice in a glass or whatever.  We post them to a circle on Google +, and then I put mine into a box and that's that.  Michaels has a new line of cheapo student art supplies which makes it even easier to say "oooh, I'll try that." (watercolor set w/ 36 colors = 4.99) 

ANYWAY - all of this is to say that I think I'll be back soon with some book reviews or at least links to awesome things because I have seen so many awesome things. 

no title (the news)

• I'm reading The Big Burn by Timothy Egan (which is excellent) while the sky here in Portland is hazy from the Dollar Lake fire up on Mt. Hood. I've read past the Theodore Roosevelt/Gifford Pinchot bromance (more on that in future) and now I've read up to the middle of this raging fire. Terrifying! I can't even imagine how horrifying it must have been to have your choices narrowed to burning to death or - if you were lucky - most likely suffocating in an abandoned mine.  Fire prevention, detection, and fighting is more sophisticated now than it was in 1910, but it's still scary business. All fire-dousing thoughts to those fighting fires all over the west this summer and fall.

• Yesterday was blackberry picking day and my arms are covered in tiny scratches. Worth it, though! My sister and I were part way down a horse trail at the Willamette Mission state park when a voice asked us if we would step out of the bramble. Weird, right? Is this a stick-up? But no! It was a woman on her horse, and the horse was freaked out because he could see our bright colored shirts and couldn't tell that we were mild mannered cheapskates picking berries on public land.  We stepped out, and he was no doubt still a little freaked because of our giant bug sunglasses and shiny bowls. The horse lady was very nice and explained that the world looks different to horses. I was not offended. The horse even aalllmost took some berries from my hand, but in the end decided that he would decline all offerings from bright shirt wearing bugeye having shiny bowl holding mild mannered cheapskates. I can't say that I blame him. (although I ate the berries he rejected because those were some good berries!)  We also picked up some hazelnuts since it's getting to be that time of year and the park has a hazelnut grove. I think those will be better in a few weeks.

• I'm trying to be organized for my painting project. Instead of my usual pell-mell slapdash of rushing out to buy supplies and starting RIGHT NOW, I'm trying to plot it out. It's more complicated since I'm going to paint the floor without taking all the furniture out. I have to paint the walls before the floors, but put up baseboard (which I need to paint to match the walls) after I paint the floor. It's turning into one of those "if a train leaving at 4pm has apples on it..." kind of math problems - when I think about it too hard I just want to lie down.  One step at a time - I don't think it will be nearly so bad once I get underway.

dahlia weekend

The Dahlia festival down in Canby has been going on all weekend - I saw it on Friday, and it was truly beautiful! These are some instagrammed pics from my ipod. I have some I took on a regular camera that I will probably post at some point, but these are more timely and handy. 

I love dahlias - they are a big burst of color at the end of the summer. 

I used this instagram filter (toaster) because it reminds me of the polaroid photos my grandpa used to send us of his garden in portland. Roses, dahlias - all seemed so exotic to me in Florida, where it was mostly too hot for the old fashioned garden flowers. 

Rows and rows and rows - acres of dahlias! More information on dahlias here.

and one more! 

reading about fires and rich dudes

I'm currently reading Timothy Egan's The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America for my non-fiction book group. It's about the huge forest fire that blazed across Montana, Idaho, and Washington in 1910 and the birth of the US Forest Service.  I'd heard that it was a good book, but I had no idea how much I would enjoy it! I'm still in the early parts where he's setting the scene. I guess I really didn't have much of an image of Teddy Roosevelt except that he was a massive extrovert who carried a big stick - I'm loving this view of him as a progressive conservationist (...who also wrestles people in his underwear).

Don't these robber barons sound strangely familiar? Except now instead of being fought on behalf of the "small man," they get enormous tax breaks? Here's a quote from a section I read this morning on my break:

John Rockefeller was perhaps the richest American who ever lived. Morgan and Weyerhaeuser were not far behind, each with a net worth roughly equal to that of Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, in contemporary dollars. Rockefeller had more than four times the wealth of Gates, his stake at just under $200 billion, when adjusted for inflation. As to Roosevelt's view of these men, he was rarely discreet. He called them "the most dangerous members of the criminal class, the malefactors of great wealth," in his best-known phrase, uttered during a sharp economic downturn. And he was more cutting when he really wanted to be dismissive.

"It tires me to talk to rich men," he said. "You expect a man of millions to be worth hearing, but as a rule, they don't know anything outside their own business." When Standard Oil donated $100,000 to Roosevelt's campaign, the president asked that it be returned. It was somewhat jarring, to say the least, that Roosevelt, from a wealthy New York family, and Pinchot, who had inherited a chateau with twenty-three fireplaces, had turned so vehemently against their class, envisioning the national forests as a way to "help the small man make a living rather than help the big man make a profit," as Pinchot said freqeuntly. But once engaged, they never looked back. 

love that bridge

I saw AgesandAges as an opening, opening act on Friday and I enjoyed their set so much! Even from far away with the crowd still arriving, even though there are a lot of band members and they had to stand in front of two other bands' equipment - they stuck in my head and I had to come home and do some internet searching right away.

Video #1  Navy Parade (escape from the Black River Bluffs) - this video gives a fine view of St. Johns (in North Portland) in the wintertime. I L-O-V-E the St. Johns bridge and you can totally see it in this video along with green jello, some sort of fraternal lodge interior, doctor's office waiting room interior, hey - that one guy looks kind of like Ryan Murphy, cafeteria interior, paper hats, squeaky vinyl banquette St. Johns bar interior, THE BRIDGE, handclaps, tambourines, la la la-ing my heart out, AgesandAges I will hold your hand even though these sort of public displays are outside my bubble of comfort.




Video #2 So So Freely - reading about this band I've seen "tent revival" mentioned more than once. It makes sense - the blended voices, the rise and fall; there's a revival rhythm there, for sure - but also the sense that we work on these problems of life together. (I haven't been to anything that would be called a revival in a lo-oong time, but it was a factor in my childhood and I just saw some old-time camp meeting tents on my road trip - I'm experiencing some reflexive nostalgia despite linking to a video called 'no nostalgia' and having no desire to go to a religious revival ever again.)



Video #3 No Nostalgia - I haven't heard the album yet (I will!) and I expect to enjoy it - but do see them live if you can.

is there something I should know?

I've decided today is Get Ready To Paint Day - I'm going to paint one wall and two parts of a different wall so they're all the same color. Then I'm gonna paint the floor! Woot! But first the boring hard parts, which is putting everything away, moving things away from the wall, etc. Because I'm me, not everything has an "away"  - sitting on a pile on top of the bookcase/table/floor is not away when it comes to paint. (I just indulged in an hilarious self-pitying heavy sigh at the thought of it.) But PAINT. I will persevere because it's gonna look awesome.


NOW IS THE TIME FOR VIDEOS!


my ipod just played this - ha ha ha!  these videos always make me laugh, but it's out of fondness for and not embarrassment at my former Duran Duran obsessed self. (Also, they made AWESOME VIDEOS and I will thumb wrestle anyone who says otherwise.) (I have double jointed thumbs - you will not win.) 


I was going to post a video for a band I saw on Friday, but I think I'll give them a separate post later today.

eureka!

I made a crucial, life-altering discovery while on the road the past couple of weeks: I can read in the car again! I used to read in the car all the time when I was a kid (those Trixie Beldens and Anne of Green Gables weren't going to read themselves), but then I got older and reading in the car became a stomach-lurching impossibility - UNTIL NOW. I think I might have cracked the code - it has to do with where my eyes are pointed. If I'm sitting normally (feet on the floor) and reading in my lap, it's no good. Sick city. If I sit with my back to one window and my legs out across the seat, it's no problem. I think it's something to do with how the eye perceives the horizon in the background or some other eyeball science thing.  Normally I love just looking out the window, but sometimes long road trips call for alternate measures.

In other news, things are weird again. This vague life-weirdness only happens every so often and weird doesn't equal bad, but I definitely feel like I'm at a shifting point of some sort. Maybe it's just post-vacation malaise.

Thursday's Drive

Thursday was a LONG DAY, but we made it back to Portland.  I've been doing an extended shamble-shuffle around today: a little laundry, some watering and clipping of plants, talking to the cats, reading a book. My greatest Friday accomplishment is mostly not driving, though.

dateline: Minnesota, but really Wyoming

I AM TIRED. I know all I've been doing is sitting and driving and sitting some more, but it is wearying business. Not to say that it isn't fun, because it is. I honestly think everyone should drive straight across at least once - you see a lot, even on the freeway. (don't even get me started on the "throughways"  - what a racket! Why don't they just shake all the money out of your pockets once and be done with it?)

But I'm tired and want to put on my pajamas and finish my book and eat one more ginger cookie. We're getting up at the crackalacka tomorrow to try to press our reverse time zone advantage, and I want at least 6 hours of sleep in a bed.  Montana is enormous, so we have to leave early. Not to mention the rest of Minnesota, South Dakota, the corner of Wyoming, etc.



So from Rochester, Minnesota on Interstate 90 heading home, I bring you Freeway, Wyoming on Interstate 80 going there. (There = New York)

Number of cops I saw in Wyoming: 0
Number of "show 'em if you got 'em" signs on the back of big trucks: 1
Number of speed limit signs I saw: I dunno, but it wasn't many
Number of devices to close the freeway entirely in inclement weather: a lot
Number of people on motorcycles: MANY! It was just before Sturgis and the turn off is somewhere in Wyoming.




More amazing rock formations. This looks like it's out of a Road Runner cartoon. I think the coyote would balance an ACME anvil on top of it. Probably dynamite somewhere.


Did you know Dwight D. Eisenhower is the father of the Interstate Highway system? You do now! They call it the "five star interstate highway" which is why he has stars around his head here. Or maybe he got hit by a falling coyote anvil. I don't know, I wasn't there.



Heading east!



Trains like crazy in Wyoming.

we have reached that point

This drive back is going to be a long slog. I mean, I think it will be fun and good times will be had, but there are a LOT OF MILES between here (just left of Cleveland) and there (just right of the Pacific ocean).

Today was a day of gravel roads, miscommunication, and allergy attacks. My sister and I thought we were going to be bugging out of NY and get as far as Chicago tonight. My mom thought we were going to drive around, see a couple more family historic sites and then head on out.  You can see how there might be some disconnect when five hours after we started for the day, we were still over 150 miles from the border of the state.

I can tell you this: I have relatives buried and living all over New York. I don't think I realized the extent of it until I traveled hither and yon to look at their graves, the churches they got married in and their farm houses and split-level basements.  More on this later. I'm going to try to read a little more of my book (Kate Atkinson's One Good Turn) before I go to sleep. It's due at the library on Thursday, not that I know for sure I'll be back by then...

In the meantime, here's a picture of Wyoming from the trip out - this was an out the window random rock formation.  Something to look forward to: on the way back we hope to see the Devil's Tower, also known as that rock everyone was obsessed with in Close Encounters. I'm excited!

water, water, everywhere

Greetings from Auburn, New York! I know it's confusing with the Welcome to Utah above, but I'm at that phase of the trip where these things happen. I fell behind because I was without internet for a few days, which was surprisingly not stressful and in fact was kind of nice.  But back to Utah and the Great Salt Lake...

This photo was from the rest area where my mom took full advantage of the volunteer working behind the counter. She asked him the best place to see the lake, and what to see on a 'just driving through' tour of the city. He provided maps and advice; we went to the lake first, and it was well worth it! (We spent so long there, we never made it to SLC proper. I wanted to see it  because my sister said the streets were wide to allow for a six horse team pulling a (wagon? buggy? carriage?) to make a full U-turn. WIDE! But after we got away from the lake itself we realized we needed to start heading east - Salt Lake City is close enough to visit another time.)



There's a 7 mile causeway to get to Antelope Island State Park. There's also a little radio station you can tune into to get basic information - did you know that one side of the lake is saltier than the other? That you can go for moonlight bicycle rides? That there is a herd of 500 bison on the island? Neither did we! This photo is of the causeway from the visitor's center.



I thought this viewfinder looked like a Jawa from Star Wars. The lake is HUGE. Miles and miles wide. You can read more about its saltiness and largeness and Jawa population here. 


The visitor's center is made out of formed concrete, which I imagine holds up to the salinity of the air better than wood or metal. The air was very salty and briny - totally provided beach hair despite being landlocked.


There are also birds EVERYWHERE. (those tiny specks out the window are birds.)


More birds! This part of the lake was estuary-stinky. The rest of it was beach-fresh.


the signs all said that things look closer than they really are across the lake. I believe them.


There's a herd of 500 bison on the island - every sign explicitly states not to get too close. I know it's wrong, but I was kind of hoping for a mini-stampede or non-lethal trampling for this guy - he got in EVERYONE'S picture in order to get a better picture for himself. If it's that important to you, maybe you should get a zoom lens.


I love the blue look of the surrounding mountains. It looks fake, doesn't it? Like a painted backdrop for an old film.



So pretty. I'd definitely go back - I'd like to try swimming in the lake. (Which is allowed! you can also camp there.)

it's a lake, but not that lake (yet)

So, best laid plans, etc. etc. I do not have all of my Salt Lake pictures up yet.  Here's a helpful and informational sign about ancient Lake Bonneville and the formation of the Great Salt Lake.

Today was a pretty lazy day spent with my Uncle in Altona, Illinois. We haven't seen him in a while, and it's always lovely to visit with him. I'm ready to get on the road, though. Tomorrow we drive forever to get to the Buffalo area, then the plan is to visit more relatives and see Niagara Falls. We'll see. A lot depends on the weather, etc. We got delayed by a night getting to Altona due to a huge lightning storm that was dumping down rain... but I digress. The point of my story is that I can't say for sure that we'll get to XY or Z tomorrow, but I do know we'll be driving a really long day.


here are a couple of pictures from the same Idaho rest area as the sign at the top.  We'd spilled out of the car and started making a beeline for the plants - some random dude asked if we were botanists. From now on, if someone asks that I'm just going to say yes as it will take less time to explain.


bee power!


if you ever wondered what Juniper Berries look like, wonder no more.

wind blade

OMG you guys - the past couple of days... More on that soon, but first - here's a blade from one of the big wind turbines - you can kind of gauge the scale against the little car next to the truck. This was taken in Oregon, but I've seen wind things in Iowa and Illinois, too.

We're in Altona, Illinois today (and part of yesterday) visiting with my uncle. Hope to have some Salt Lake (the Great, not the city) pictures up later tonight.