Well here I am yet again staring at a month since my last post. A whole lot of things have happened since this time in November when Jordi and I were still cruising down the California coast looking for another place to set up camp. We made it back up to Livermore for Thanksgiving after 5,714.4 miles of driving together. Five thousand, seven hundred and fourteen miles. I wrote it out for a stronger impact. We didn't get any speeding tickets, no flat tires, didn't get lost all that much, and we still like each other. A lot. And he's on his way to Central America for 4 months and I'm here. In Livermore. Trying to earn money for whatever I do next.
Saying goodbye to Jordi at the airport in San Francisco was tough. I got used to his constant presence for 3 months, and the prospect of spending an indeterminate length of time on different continents is a scary one. But this is how it has to be. I need to be here to work, he wants to travel, and it's good for us to spend some time apart to focus on ourselves. But as much as my rational brain understands that, there's a part of me that questions it, resents it, fights it like a teenage girl who's been grounded right before prom.
I stood there by the security line at SFO watching him through the plexiglass partition like an animal in a zoo. It's a shame people don't still travel on huge passenger steamliners like the Titanic. I feel like goodbyes must have been much more poignant and romantic back then. I'd be waving my handkerchief and gathering up my skirts so as not to trip as I fluttered along the dock to get one last look at him, tall and dashing in a three-piece suit, before he disappeared on the horizon. Instead I stood there with a couple other weirdos and watched as he removed his belt and shoes, placed them in the plastic container, and stepped somberly in his old black socks through the gray plastic gateway of airport security.
But maybe in a hundred years people will be in their spaceships daydreaming about how romantic it must have been to bid farewell to their loved ones at those primitive, non-galactic travel hubs where people still had to manually remove items of clothing for a security screening. I guess real life is never as romantic and perfectly scripted as we want it to be, and I'm sure people felt the same way a hundred years ago and that farewells at the departure of the Titanic were not as romantic as James Cameron wants us to believe.
Ultimately, the here and now is as much as we can hope for and we ought to be pretty damn glad to have even that. It's ours and the romantic thing about it is that no one else really knows what's going on in your own personal reality (not even the pierced, tattooed lady with a partially shaved head who stood next to me at the airport watching her beloved trek through the TSA line before removing his Dr. Martens).
I just hope Jordi, who I believe is in a plane somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico, is enjoying his here and now and will have good stories for me when we see each other again.
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
09 December 2009
09 November 2009
How's it been? Um...
Just kidding! But I'd be lying if I said it hasn't been hard. Two months of constant every-breathing-second togetherness with anyone is a great recipe for tension and conflict, and attempting to execute a road trip like this comes with all kinds of built-in challenges.
So yeah, it's been hard. It's been getting lost, it's been camping in the rain, ten thousand smelly bathrooms, a leaky cooler soaking the floor of the car, it's been chasing off raccoons, cramming night after night on a twin-bed sized foam pad, the ever-present stench of campfire smoke, broken flashlights, duct tape and tarps and improvised protection from the rain, it's been paying too much for poorly equipped campgrounds and bad food, going several days without a shower, more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches than a person is meant to eat in a lifetime, running out of propane before our dinner is cooked through, constant wrestling with all the stuff in the car, it's been cold and wet, it's been exhaustion and stress, it's been yelling and it's been fighting and it's been hurt feelings.
I can't deny any of those things. And many of you may wonder why even bother? Why spend time and money putting ourselves through all this crap? Why not just stay home?
I have to wonder the same things myself sometimes, but then I remind myself that it's also been pure bliss, light as air, clear as water. It's been falling asleep to the sound of the ocean or a river falling over rocks, it's been seeing things we've never seen before, it's been hiking through lush forests, cooking meals that are simple but to us they are feasts, playing and running wild like children in the sand. It's been the whole luminous world contained in our little old tent.
It's been a misty Redwood valley, rounding a corner and coming face to face with a herd of elk, it's been reading by the fire, watching the sun go down over the Pacific, counting stars on the beach, it's been the new Avett Brothers album so loud on the car stereo that any level of thought is impossible, only feeling.
It's been coloring in our route on Jordi's big map, sketching a little tent in all the many places we've slept, it's been new surprise and thrill every time we turn another bend on the Pacific Coast Highway and see the great endless ocean in the distance, it's been the windows down, the wind in my hair and the sun on my face. It's been laughing and growing stronger and figuring it out. It's been freedom. It's been ours.
We've let the mileage on the odometer run since we set off for Yosemite on September 29th, and since then it's been 3,534 miles of everything, the good and bad, the awful, the helpless, the tired, the so ready to go home, the last straw.
But hey, that's travel sometimes and that's OK. Because what it's really been is 3,534 miles of love. And we still have a couple more weeks to go.
27 October 2009
World's Largest Sponges: Free! And extra absorbant.
Friday marked our entrance back into California, back into the sun. Not to say we didn’t see blue skies our whole time in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, but it was scarce and the sun that did shine shone cold. But yesterday morning we woke up in Redwood National Park and looked up to see cracks of blue sky through the trees, walked out of the forest into bright, distinct warmth.
We were especially thankful for this sunny greeting after essentially being rained out of Canada. You see, we’re trying to travel cheaply, and that means no indulgences on the essentials. We may be willing to fork over $12 each to see the world’s largest sea cave, but when it comes to eating and sleeping in a dry place, we don’t budge. OK, I may be exaggerating, but we definitely did our best to withstand the weather (we came here to camp, and we’re gonna camp, god dammit!). Here’s how it went.
The worst of it was on Vancouver Island. This wasn’t actually part of our original itinerary, but we have a bad habit of just throwing stuff in, an few days here or there, an extra $150 for the ferries, no big deal. Our first night on the island, we camped on a densely wooded ridge overlooking the Pacific near a lovely place called Tofino. It was beautiful, and, though damp, we managed to make it out of there with no worse than a soggy box of matches. (Although, we did accidentally oversleep to be woken up by a park ranger outside our tent calling, “Good morning! I must have missed you guys on my first time through, but we’re closing the park for the season in 15 minutes, and you don’t want to be on this side of a locked gate!”)
That day we discovered that we can’t afford whale-watching excursions, but had fun exploring a vast stretch of unspoiled beach. We left after we’d had our fill of contemplating life and playing with dead sea plants, just as the real rain started. After spending a good amount of time sitting in the car watching the water pound the windshield and arguing about what to do, we finally just drove.
It rained and we drove and we drove and it rained and then we saw A BEAR! Yes, ladies and gentleman, all the wet sleeping bags in the world couldn’t put a damper on my excitement.
But it did keep raining. We found a campground near Port Alberni that hadn’t closed for the season and set up our tent as fast as we could. In we went, safe and dry…for a matter of hours anyway. It’s a 30-year-old tent that hasn’t been waterproofed in who knows how long, so you can imagine how well it managed.
When I woke up, Jordi was still unconscious as usual (I swear, if someone would let him, he would sleep into old age, wake up with a gray beard down to his ankles like…what fable is that?) and it was still raining. My hip pressed into the old, faded egg-crate foam pad my dad lent us. It was cold. I closed my eyes and hoped that it was just cold, not wet. Not wet, please please not wet. I shook Jordi awake and realized my knees were sinking slowly into the pad as though into a gigantic soaked sponge. Dirty water was seeping up to us from underneath. And cue panic.
Now, you may not think this sounds like fun, but I’ll tell you that nothing beats drowning in your own tent. What a way to start the day! Splattering ourselves in mud, we loaded the whole sopping mess into the car as quickly as possible and raced off as though trying to escape some kind of horrible monster. Flee! FLEE! We did manage to get away (though we had nowhere to go), from whatever it was, but it took days for all of our stuff to dry, and even longer to get over the emotional scarring. I just kept telling myself we saw a bear, we saw a bear, we saw a bear.
But I write this now from the coastal town of Mendocino, CA, a little place full of art, hippies and sun, and as I enjoy the organic oatmeal cookie Jordi just bought, I can hardly remember the reek of moldy foam pads and the damp slime of an eternally wet tent. After all, as Jordi’s father would say, we aren’t made of sugar. We can handle it.
We were especially thankful for this sunny greeting after essentially being rained out of Canada. You see, we’re trying to travel cheaply, and that means no indulgences on the essentials. We may be willing to fork over $12 each to see the world’s largest sea cave, but when it comes to eating and sleeping in a dry place, we don’t budge. OK, I may be exaggerating, but we definitely did our best to withstand the weather (we came here to camp, and we’re gonna camp, god dammit!). Here’s how it went.
The worst of it was on Vancouver Island. This wasn’t actually part of our original itinerary, but we have a bad habit of just throwing stuff in, an few days here or there, an extra $150 for the ferries, no big deal. Our first night on the island, we camped on a densely wooded ridge overlooking the Pacific near a lovely place called Tofino. It was beautiful, and, though damp, we managed to make it out of there with no worse than a soggy box of matches. (Although, we did accidentally oversleep to be woken up by a park ranger outside our tent calling, “Good morning! I must have missed you guys on my first time through, but we’re closing the park for the season in 15 minutes, and you don’t want to be on this side of a locked gate!”)
That day we discovered that we can’t afford whale-watching excursions, but had fun exploring a vast stretch of unspoiled beach. We left after we’d had our fill of contemplating life and playing with dead sea plants, just as the real rain started. After spending a good amount of time sitting in the car watching the water pound the windshield and arguing about what to do, we finally just drove.
It rained and we drove and we drove and it rained and then we saw A BEAR! Yes, ladies and gentleman, all the wet sleeping bags in the world couldn’t put a damper on my excitement.
But it did keep raining. We found a campground near Port Alberni that hadn’t closed for the season and set up our tent as fast as we could. In we went, safe and dry…for a matter of hours anyway. It’s a 30-year-old tent that hasn’t been waterproofed in who knows how long, so you can imagine how well it managed.
When I woke up, Jordi was still unconscious as usual (I swear, if someone would let him, he would sleep into old age, wake up with a gray beard down to his ankles like…what fable is that?) and it was still raining. My hip pressed into the old, faded egg-crate foam pad my dad lent us. It was cold. I closed my eyes and hoped that it was just cold, not wet. Not wet, please please not wet. I shook Jordi awake and realized my knees were sinking slowly into the pad as though into a gigantic soaked sponge. Dirty water was seeping up to us from underneath. And cue panic.
Now, you may not think this sounds like fun, but I’ll tell you that nothing beats drowning in your own tent. What a way to start the day! Splattering ourselves in mud, we loaded the whole sopping mess into the car as quickly as possible and raced off as though trying to escape some kind of horrible monster. Flee! FLEE! We did manage to get away (though we had nowhere to go), from whatever it was, but it took days for all of our stuff to dry, and even longer to get over the emotional scarring. I just kept telling myself we saw a bear, we saw a bear, we saw a bear.
But I write this now from the coastal town of Mendocino, CA, a little place full of art, hippies and sun, and as I enjoy the organic oatmeal cookie Jordi just bought, I can hardly remember the reek of moldy foam pads and the damp slime of an eternally wet tent. After all, as Jordi’s father would say, we aren’t made of sugar. We can handle it.
20 October 2009
Double Dutch
Unusual circumstances brought us to the town of Lynden, Washington, a place that we would have otherwise cruised right by. Jordi is applying for a graduate program conducted in English that requires him to take the TOEFL exam to prove his knowledge of the language. The only testing center that roughly coincided with our itinerary was at the Christian high school in this little town situated just south of the Canadian border. So we went.
Arriving at the campground the night before the exam, we checked in with a woman wearing a baggy pastel sweatshirt and matching scrunchy in her stringy hair. As soon as Jordi told her his last name, Scholten, she freaked out and talked us about half to death in her croaky voice. It turns out—get this—that the town of Lynden is filled with Scholtens. Filled! After discussing this fact for at least 10 minutes, she pulled out the local phone book just to make sure we understood the magnitude of the coincidence.
You see, about half the population of Lynden has Dutch heritage. That’s 50 percent. As the story goes, they came here starting in the early 20th century because the climate was similar to that of the Netherlands. It’s true. A similar climate. Wild, huh? And then they just, like, made lots of babies and turned the place into miniature Holland faster than you can count een twee drie!
And here, standing before this woman, like Hans Brinker reincarnate, was a real Scholten. Straight out of Amsterdam. I’ll tell ya, that knocked her silver skates right off. “You wouldn’t believe it!” she said, “You’ll go into town and see signs in English and Dutch!”
We’re thinking, no freaking way. Well, actually, I was thinking that. Jordi was probably thinking, echt waar?
“There are old people here who still speak real Dutch!” she went on. “And it’s not just Scholtens…” She started listing other “Dutch” names, which were either heavily Americanized or just not Dutch at all. The one I remember best, partly because she kept repeating it and partly because it’s obscene, sounded like “Coochie”. Jordi and I couldn’t for the life of us imagine what actual Dutch name she was trying to say, but I was reminded of popular mid-90s slang, and, well, female genitalia.
We couldn’t wait to get into town and see the madness for ourselves. And boy, she wasn’t lyin’. They had a public bulletin board with flyers for piano lessons and lost cats with a sign that said “Dorpsnieuws” (village news). There was the Dutch Mothers restaurant, the Dutch Bakery, the Dutch Village Inn, the Dutch Computer Repair Emporium. (OK, I made that last one up, but you get the idea.) They had a giant windmill and a mural depicting wheels of gouda, tulip fields and people in clogs. The post office said “Postkantoor” over the door with a Dutch flag and, again, tulips and clogs. It was kitschy and artificial, but damn were they proud. The only thing missing was a tribute to van Gogh and stoned tourists crowding the streets.
Jordi felt right at home. But, alas, we had to leave dear Dutch Lynden and head north to British Columbia. It's funny, though, that we were there so Jordi could prove his knowledge of English, but what we found was a little American town trying, with all its might, to prove its knowledge of all things Dutch.
They also, just to freak you out a little bit, apparently had some sort of scarecrow contest under way.
Ah! Happy October everyone.
Arriving at the campground the night before the exam, we checked in with a woman wearing a baggy pastel sweatshirt and matching scrunchy in her stringy hair. As soon as Jordi told her his last name, Scholten, she freaked out and talked us about half to death in her croaky voice. It turns out—get this—that the town of Lynden is filled with Scholtens. Filled! After discussing this fact for at least 10 minutes, she pulled out the local phone book just to make sure we understood the magnitude of the coincidence.
You see, about half the population of Lynden has Dutch heritage. That’s 50 percent. As the story goes, they came here starting in the early 20th century because the climate was similar to that of the Netherlands. It’s true. A similar climate. Wild, huh? And then they just, like, made lots of babies and turned the place into miniature Holland faster than you can count een twee drie!
And here, standing before this woman, like Hans Brinker reincarnate, was a real Scholten. Straight out of Amsterdam. I’ll tell ya, that knocked her silver skates right off. “You wouldn’t believe it!” she said, “You’ll go into town and see signs in English and Dutch!”
We’re thinking, no freaking way. Well, actually, I was thinking that. Jordi was probably thinking, echt waar?
“There are old people here who still speak real Dutch!” she went on. “And it’s not just Scholtens…” She started listing other “Dutch” names, which were either heavily Americanized or just not Dutch at all. The one I remember best, partly because she kept repeating it and partly because it’s obscene, sounded like “Coochie”. Jordi and I couldn’t for the life of us imagine what actual Dutch name she was trying to say, but I was reminded of popular mid-90s slang, and, well, female genitalia.
We couldn’t wait to get into town and see the madness for ourselves. And boy, she wasn’t lyin’. They had a public bulletin board with flyers for piano lessons and lost cats with a sign that said “Dorpsnieuws” (village news). There was the Dutch Mothers restaurant, the Dutch Bakery, the Dutch Village Inn, the Dutch Computer Repair Emporium. (OK, I made that last one up, but you get the idea.) They had a giant windmill and a mural depicting wheels of gouda, tulip fields and people in clogs. The post office said “Postkantoor” over the door with a Dutch flag and, again, tulips and clogs. It was kitschy and artificial, but damn were they proud. The only thing missing was a tribute to van Gogh and stoned tourists crowding the streets.
They also, just to freak you out a little bit, apparently had some sort of scarecrow contest under way.
06 October 2009
Meet Larry.
Checking in from Portland here, though I won't be spending time talking about our gracious hosts in this funky Southeast neighborhood, the eclectic Easter egg Victorians, the crisp first days of an Oregon autumn, the vintage stores, coffee, books or dessert bars. It's all delightful and warm and fuzzy, but the night we spent on Mount Shasta makes for a far more interesting story.
The sun was setting as we drove up the 5 on Saturday evening and as we neared our destination I insisted that Jordi take out the guidebook and select a campground. "This one's free," he said, "just exit here and follow this road to the end. It's close." Fine, I thought. Free is free and maybe it's nice. I just wanted a convenient place to camp for a quick night before we continued on to Oregon. But the road kept going, became empty, dark. It was winding slowly up the mountain. The moon, white and full, rose over the trees and glowed through the purple haze of the dim sky. Signs for 4,000 feet elevation, 5,000 feet, 6,000 feet. It got darker, we drove on.
What Jordi hadn't mentioned was that the campground, Panther Meadows, is "high on the mountain"--7,400 feet up, roughly. This mountain is the second highest volcano in the US and still considered active. When we finally found the place, there was just enough light to see the face of the only other person there, getting supplies out of the trunk of his old car. He was in his 40s, a backwoods type with a big gut and long graying curly hair. We asked him a bit about the place, it sounded fine so we unloaded and set up camp in the dark.
As we settled in, we got to talking to our lone neighbor a bit more. He was exceptionally friendly, offered us a helping hand and told us some things he knew about the mountain. He'd been camping up there for about a month so far. Though a nice guy, he was an excessive talker and seemed to disregard a certain level of social protocol. But hey, when we're eating leftover rice out of a pan with plastic spoons, who are we to judge? "Beautiful moon," I said to him as I passed, "Do you think it's full?"
"Full enough for me," he said.
So we joined him, Larry, at his fire. At first the conversation floated around topics like travel and the weather, but we all too quickly learned that Larry, dear old Larry, is a religious fanatic, racist and homophobic. A-ha! I knew there was something less than desirable about this fellow. But we were mooching off his fire atop a cold, dark mountain, and were sort of ensnared in this conversation, so we remained seated on our tree stumps.
Then, it got weird. After Larry finished warning us about gruesome death by quicksand on Oregon beaches, expressing sympathy for white supremacy, and sharing his hopes that God would send him a lonely woman to keep him warm in his tent, he said, "Now here's where I'm gonna sound crazy."
Right, because until this point he was screaming normalcy. "All my life," he went on, "I've been able to see things before they happen. See what's gonna happen to people." I closed my eyes, bracing myself, half-expecting to hear next, "And you two are gonna die tonight on this mountain, and I ain't sayin' how."
He didn't say that. But he did tell us about a telepathic encounter he had with a bear in Tahoe and about hearing the growling breath of a Yeti at the nearby Lake Siskiyou. He said Yeti attacks happen all over Mount Shasta. That they attack groups of grown men. He told us that the ghosts of Indians roam through the land, and that strange men in mysterious vans wander through campsites shining flashlights in random tents and snatching women.
"Yer gonna have bad dreams," he said.
The fire was dying and I'd heard enough. We went to bed and I lay there, stiff, unmoving and scared out of my mind. One of three things will happen tonight, I thought:
After spending most of the night in terror, either in waking or asleep, I woke up to the tiny cricks and ticks of chipmunks scrambling through the trees above us. It was morning. The sky was light. We'd survived. We emerged from the warmth of our sleeping bags into the cold, gray day. The jug of water in our tent had frozen while we slept. It was snowing. We explored the empty mountain, the still trees that seemed to greet us calmly and wisely, the frozen creek with fresh running water bubbling just below the ice.
I hated that mountain while I lay terrified in our tent, hated Jordi for having no reservations or worries about Larry, for saying he was just lonely and scared and not actually dangerous. I'm glad he was right. And I'm glad he lured me up to that mountain under false pretenses. Because it was an adventure, and it was pure and simple and beautiful.
But I probably would have rather been on that mountain with a Yeti or a ghost than with Larry.
The sun was setting as we drove up the 5 on Saturday evening and as we neared our destination I insisted that Jordi take out the guidebook and select a campground. "This one's free," he said, "just exit here and follow this road to the end. It's close." Fine, I thought. Free is free and maybe it's nice. I just wanted a convenient place to camp for a quick night before we continued on to Oregon. But the road kept going, became empty, dark. It was winding slowly up the mountain. The moon, white and full, rose over the trees and glowed through the purple haze of the dim sky. Signs for 4,000 feet elevation, 5,000 feet, 6,000 feet. It got darker, we drove on.
What Jordi hadn't mentioned was that the campground, Panther Meadows, is "high on the mountain"--7,400 feet up, roughly. This mountain is the second highest volcano in the US and still considered active. When we finally found the place, there was just enough light to see the face of the only other person there, getting supplies out of the trunk of his old car. He was in his 40s, a backwoods type with a big gut and long graying curly hair. We asked him a bit about the place, it sounded fine so we unloaded and set up camp in the dark.
As we settled in, we got to talking to our lone neighbor a bit more. He was exceptionally friendly, offered us a helping hand and told us some things he knew about the mountain. He'd been camping up there for about a month so far. Though a nice guy, he was an excessive talker and seemed to disregard a certain level of social protocol. But hey, when we're eating leftover rice out of a pan with plastic spoons, who are we to judge? "Beautiful moon," I said to him as I passed, "Do you think it's full?"
"Full enough for me," he said.
So we joined him, Larry, at his fire. At first the conversation floated around topics like travel and the weather, but we all too quickly learned that Larry, dear old Larry, is a religious fanatic, racist and homophobic. A-ha! I knew there was something less than desirable about this fellow. But we were mooching off his fire atop a cold, dark mountain, and were sort of ensnared in this conversation, so we remained seated on our tree stumps.
Then, it got weird. After Larry finished warning us about gruesome death by quicksand on Oregon beaches, expressing sympathy for white supremacy, and sharing his hopes that God would send him a lonely woman to keep him warm in his tent, he said, "Now here's where I'm gonna sound crazy."
Right, because until this point he was screaming normalcy. "All my life," he went on, "I've been able to see things before they happen. See what's gonna happen to people." I closed my eyes, bracing myself, half-expecting to hear next, "And you two are gonna die tonight on this mountain, and I ain't sayin' how."
He didn't say that. But he did tell us about a telepathic encounter he had with a bear in Tahoe and about hearing the growling breath of a Yeti at the nearby Lake Siskiyou. He said Yeti attacks happen all over Mount Shasta. That they attack groups of grown men. He told us that the ghosts of Indians roam through the land, and that strange men in mysterious vans wander through campsites shining flashlights in random tents and snatching women.
The fire was dying and I'd heard enough. We went to bed and I lay there, stiff, unmoving and scared out of my mind. One of three things will happen tonight, I thought:
- Larry will remain quietly in his tent and we will pass the night in peace.
- Larry will remain quietly in his tent but we will be attacked by a Yeti, an Indian ghost, or men in unmarked vehicles scouring the area for innocent campers.
- Larry will axe us to death in the night.
After spending most of the night in terror, either in waking or asleep, I woke up to the tiny cricks and ticks of chipmunks scrambling through the trees above us. It was morning. The sky was light. We'd survived. We emerged from the warmth of our sleeping bags into the cold, gray day. The jug of water in our tent had frozen while we slept. It was snowing. We explored the empty mountain, the still trees that seemed to greet us calmly and wisely, the frozen creek with fresh running water bubbling just below the ice.
I hated that mountain while I lay terrified in our tent, hated Jordi for having no reservations or worries about Larry, for saying he was just lonely and scared and not actually dangerous. I'm glad he was right. And I'm glad he lured me up to that mountain under false pretenses. Because it was an adventure, and it was pure and simple and beautiful.
But I probably would have rather been on that mountain with a Yeti or a ghost than with Larry.
28 September 2009
15 tank-tops may give you peace of mind, but they won't solve your problems.
Ladies and gentlemen, the road trip is officially about to begin. We spent a weekend in Lake Tahoe with my parents, and have now given ourselves one day to assemble all necessary items for 2 months on the road before heading off to Yosemite, the first stop on the itinerary.
That one day of preparation is today, and I'm sitting here staring at the Blogger logo instead of sorting laundry, organizing camping gear, working out the budget, researching routes, buying last minute gadgets, or even taking a shower.
The thing is, I hate packing. Packing for a 3-day trip can take me up to 12 solid hours, and I've never even traveled for longer than 2 weeks at a time. I've moved across the world more than once, but going somewhere to live, somewhere with drawers and cabinets and a feeling of permanence, is an entirely different thing. Jordi has lived like a turtle with his home on his back for a number of months on several different occasions. I, however, still have the tags on my big North Face backpack.
When I moved back from Amsterdam, I had a total of 5 bags--2 suitcases, 2 duffel bags, 1 backpack--and the airline charged me an extra $100 to get them all on the plane. This was after throwing out or giving away piles and piles of stuff, and I was only there for one year. In the midst of that disaster, I decided to simplify my life and just have less crap.
This road trip is my chance to prove that I can. Jordi keeps telling me I just don't need very much, but this is coming from the guy who's wardrobe consists of 6 t-shirts and 2 hoodies. I see how stress-free his packing process is, and I try to channel some of that minimalist energy, but I know I'll never be able to match his level of freedom and flexibility when it comes to material goods.
The problem, as with most things in my overly considered world, is that I can't handle the decisions. You essentially have to see into the future, predict what scenarios might possibly befall you, and make sure you're prepared. I, however, have an overactive imagination and an inhuman ability to worry about things most people don't even think about. I imagine weirdly specific and unlikely scenarios, and then somehow decide that bringing 15 tank-tops is the best way to prepare for them. Not surprisingly, all this leaves me with is a big tangle of semi-soiled spaghetti straps and more weight than I ought to be hauling around. But I continue to bring too many of everything because I just can't stand the prospect of being unprepared.
They say you should stack up everything that you want to bring, and then bring half of it. This, I may be able to do. I just wish I could also leave behind the half of my brain that is illogical, irrational, and convinces me to pack my entire summer wardrobe for a fall trip to the Pacific Northwest.
Wish me luck.
That one day of preparation is today, and I'm sitting here staring at the Blogger logo instead of sorting laundry, organizing camping gear, working out the budget, researching routes, buying last minute gadgets, or even taking a shower.
The thing is, I hate packing. Packing for a 3-day trip can take me up to 12 solid hours, and I've never even traveled for longer than 2 weeks at a time. I've moved across the world more than once, but going somewhere to live, somewhere with drawers and cabinets and a feeling of permanence, is an entirely different thing. Jordi has lived like a turtle with his home on his back for a number of months on several different occasions. I, however, still have the tags on my big North Face backpack.
When I moved back from Amsterdam, I had a total of 5 bags--2 suitcases, 2 duffel bags, 1 backpack--and the airline charged me an extra $100 to get them all on the plane. This was after throwing out or giving away piles and piles of stuff, and I was only there for one year. In the midst of that disaster, I decided to simplify my life and just have less crap.
This road trip is my chance to prove that I can. Jordi keeps telling me I just don't need very much, but this is coming from the guy who's wardrobe consists of 6 t-shirts and 2 hoodies. I see how stress-free his packing process is, and I try to channel some of that minimalist energy, but I know I'll never be able to match his level of freedom and flexibility when it comes to material goods.
The problem, as with most things in my overly considered world, is that I can't handle the decisions. You essentially have to see into the future, predict what scenarios might possibly befall you, and make sure you're prepared. I, however, have an overactive imagination and an inhuman ability to worry about things most people don't even think about. I imagine weirdly specific and unlikely scenarios, and then somehow decide that bringing 15 tank-tops is the best way to prepare for them. Not surprisingly, all this leaves me with is a big tangle of semi-soiled spaghetti straps and more weight than I ought to be hauling around. But I continue to bring too many of everything because I just can't stand the prospect of being unprepared.
They say you should stack up everything that you want to bring, and then bring half of it. This, I may be able to do. I just wish I could also leave behind the half of my brain that is illogical, irrational, and convinces me to pack my entire summer wardrobe for a fall trip to the Pacific Northwest.
Wish me luck.
18 September 2009
The Flying Dutchman
I'm writing this post for two reasons: one is to provide more details about the next few months of my life, and the other is to use that oh so clever, impossible to resist title that I'm sure has you all just tickled. It does, doesn't it? Doesn't it? I know.
Anyway, as we speak, there is a Dutchman flying over the continental USA, soon to land in San Francisco, get in a little Honda Fit, and be swept off to my home town. This mysterious individual stepped foot in our proud country for the first time but one week ago. He visited New York City and Washington D.C., and now he will visit Livermore. Glorious, typical, suburban Livermore. I am dying to know what he thinks. He's from the bold city of Amsterdam, has traveled extensively through Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Northern Africa, but I have a feeling this place will really surprise him. And cue culture shock.
I have an invested interest in this visitor for several reasons, the foremost being that he is my current beau. We're, ya know, going steady. Young love and all that sort of thing. His name is Jordi. And, to clarify, that is pronounced "Yordi" as the Dutch "j" makes a "y" sound. He often introduces himself to non-Dutch speakers as Jordi with a "j" sound, as though the real pronounciation is just so foreign and strange that our brains will blow a fuse and we won't be able to talk to him at all. Right.
When we first met and he introduced himself to me using this Englishified version of his name, I laughed and asked if it was a nickname. He said no, but thanks. I much prefer the Dutch version because it's cool and different and, to be frank, because the other version always makes me think of Geordi La Forge, the blind guy from Star Trek: The Next Generation who wore a visor over his eyes that looked like a headband.
You may also recognize him as LeVar Burton from Reading Rainbow.
My mom is a big Star Trek fan--always pining for Captain Jean-Luc Picard--and when we were kids we used to have to watch episodes with her in the evenings while we ate our ice cream. She had all the collectible ceramic plates hanging in the kitchen of our old house. There, I said it. I tell you this because I want you to know that I'm not familiar with Geordi La Forge because I am personally a fan. On that one, I'm guilty by association. But I did enjoy Reading Rainbow. Who didn't?
So, back to the matter at hand. Jordi is on his way here not only to see my roots, but also to join me on a 2-month road trip around California and other states in the West. So far, the trip is only very loosely planned, but there will be more to come on our adventures. After Mr. La Forge... I mean, Jordi... after Jordi leaves the U.S., he'll be flying to Guatemala and backpacking down there until he runs out of money or something else spurs him to go home, or somewhere else. As far as I know, that's his plan. You could say he is, in fact, like the Flying Dutchman, "a ghost ship that can never go home, doomed to sail the oceans forever." We have very different traveling styles.
This difference will account for many of our adventures, I'm sure, but I'm nothing but excited for the places we'll go and the things we'll learn from our surroundings and from each other. I mean, I can go anywhere! There are friends to know, and ways to grow...
But you don't have to take my word for it. Stay tuned.
Anyway, as we speak, there is a Dutchman flying over the continental USA, soon to land in San Francisco, get in a little Honda Fit, and be swept off to my home town. This mysterious individual stepped foot in our proud country for the first time but one week ago. He visited New York City and Washington D.C., and now he will visit Livermore. Glorious, typical, suburban Livermore. I am dying to know what he thinks. He's from the bold city of Amsterdam, has traveled extensively through Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Northern Africa, but I have a feeling this place will really surprise him. And cue culture shock.
I have an invested interest in this visitor for several reasons, the foremost being that he is my current beau. We're, ya know, going steady. Young love and all that sort of thing. His name is Jordi. And, to clarify, that is pronounced "Yordi" as the Dutch "j" makes a "y" sound. He often introduces himself to non-Dutch speakers as Jordi with a "j" sound, as though the real pronounciation is just so foreign and strange that our brains will blow a fuse and we won't be able to talk to him at all. Right.
When we first met and he introduced himself to me using this Englishified version of his name, I laughed and asked if it was a nickname. He said no, but thanks. I much prefer the Dutch version because it's cool and different and, to be frank, because the other version always makes me think of Geordi La Forge, the blind guy from Star Trek: The Next Generation who wore a visor over his eyes that looked like a headband.
So, back to the matter at hand. Jordi is on his way here not only to see my roots, but also to join me on a 2-month road trip around California and other states in the West. So far, the trip is only very loosely planned, but there will be more to come on our adventures. After Mr. La Forge... I mean, Jordi... after Jordi leaves the U.S., he'll be flying to Guatemala and backpacking down there until he runs out of money or something else spurs him to go home, or somewhere else. As far as I know, that's his plan. You could say he is, in fact, like the Flying Dutchman, "a ghost ship that can never go home, doomed to sail the oceans forever." We have very different traveling styles.
This difference will account for many of our adventures, I'm sure, but I'm nothing but excited for the places we'll go and the things we'll learn from our surroundings and from each other. I mean, I can go anywhere! There are friends to know, and ways to grow...
But you don't have to take my word for it. Stay tuned.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
