I am sitting in the Fairfax Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. I've been here for a few hours now, working on a story and applying to graduate school and e-mailing friends and listening to this gorgeous girl read a story about farm animals in the Storytime corner. I realize that it'd be creepy of me to sit with the kids, so I'm contenting myself with open ears and the occasional glance over my shoulder.
Tomorrow will be our three-week anniversary with LA. I would like to tell you that in these three weeks I have found the world's greatest job and sold my first manuscript. But that's not quite true.
I have, though, grown comfortable enough to change my Current City on Facebook. Apparently that's a pretty big deal. And I am increasingly comfortable with street names and directions, even if only in our immediate area. I've been riding my bike around a lot, which is a perfect way to get to know a city, and I think I have been running four times since we've been here. That's a post-high school record for me.
I got my very own library card last week, even if it's not officially in my name. Thanks David.
We have become regulars at a place called Millions of Milkshakes. Britton's fond of Oreo, but I can't get past the chocolate and peanut butter. Chunks of peanut butter. It's amazing.
We've been to several movies for free at the Director's Guild, which is a gift. They have a full schedule next month, so it looks like we won't be paying for very many movies. Again, thanks David.
We went to a fancy-pants party up on a hill overlooking the city, at a house that neighbors Leonardo Dicaprio, Tobey Maguire, Stan Lee, and a few of the Walmart guy's granddaughters. I thought about trying to meet one of them so I don't have to pay for graduate school, but then I realized that we would always argue about whether or not their family business is destroying America.
That party had delicious little plates of food that kept walking by, including these Swiss and bacon sliders that were greasy and wonderful.
Next Saturday is the West Hollywood Book Fair, which is apparently quite the event. A couple nights ago I went to a meeting to volunteer for it. Because I'm under fifty, I'm willing to run around a lot, and I know how to work a projector, it looks like they'll be able to put me to good use. And every bookstore in the area is represented there, which is good news as far as jobs go.
That's the direction I'm leaning in right now. If I don't catch a lucky break with a job at a magazine or a publishing company, a bookstore would be part-time perfect while I'm working on stories to submit. There's this one called Book Soup that is loads of fun, and I'm trying to get a job there for now. We'll see.
Speaking of stories to submit, I'm in the process of sending a handful out right now. Here's to hoping.
It's looking like both of LA's baseball teams will be in the playoffs come October. That would be exciting. For me, at least. I'm not sure Britton would care so much.
Britton's been trying to get in contact with people to start working soon. He finished a resume that looks really good, all professional and stuff. I'm excited for him. I think he has a lot on the way.
By the way, Britton put up the rest of our trip pictures a few days ago. These include Glacier, the Oregon coast, and the Redwoods. You can look at those here: http://www.facebook.com/juliawalkerthomas?ref=ts#/photos.php?id=502624614. The first one there is for a new photo-a-day thing he's starting, which will be fun to follow, then the three after that are the newest ones from our trip.
I finished the application process for Oregon State University's Creative Writing graduate program today. It's a pretty competitive program, but if that works out I'll be starting in about a year. In the meantime, I plan to keep learning this area, riding my bike, drinking shakes, writing, making new friends, trying to keep my eyes open in every possible sense, and maybe going for a few more runs.
For those of you who were hoping I would hate it here and move back to Florida, I apologize. This has been pretty wonderful.
So now, if you will excuse me, I plan to close my eyes and listen to Storytime Girl read about talking piglets.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Something about a stamp and a chapter
This is where I give you a nice little summary of the trip, and then I tell you everything that I learned, in three easy points that all start with the same letter.
And this is where we all laugh. Because after 8,886 miles, 34 days, 27 states, and Canada, I am too full. Too many people, too many places. Anything I write here in attempts at summary will be random and disjointed, and we’d probably be better off sticking with what I’ve already written.
So instead of an overall summary, I think I’ll share what’s on my mind right now, and then we’ll be done.
I keep thinking about the guidestones in Georgia, the size and angles and mixture of languages, and the echoing refrain to “Leave room for nature--leave room for nature.” I’ve thought about that a lot on this trip, as we’ve seen places where nature is thriving, and we’ve seen places, namely Niagara, that would do well to hear this. The guidestones set a tone for much of my thought process on this trip, and I like that. I would love to visit those again someday.
I keep thinking about all the different animals. Moose across the lake in Glacier, mountain goats on one of our hikes, seals, otters, entire herds of elk, and deer. Tons and tons of deer. Did I tell you about the night in Coos Bay? We were standing outside the house and saw some deer walking through the yard. Britton’s friend said they eat the apples that were growing there, so we grabbed a few and rolled them toward the deer. They never stopped being suspicious and jumpy, but we still got really close. Then a third deer stepped into the yard. The bigger of the first two made several really strange snorting sounds, stamped the ground, then chased the intruder out. It was crazy to watch. Such beautiful animals. Then our friend’s dog came out and scared them all away.
And lobster. Delicious, delicious lobster.
I keep thinking about the rhythms that we grew into on this trip. Packing and unpacking the car, driving, stopping, being amazed, meeting new people, reading out loud while Britton cooks, listening again and again to mewithoutYou’s newest CD. All of these things sort of fell on each other and formed a flow that offered a certain sense of familiarity, even when everything was new and we had no idea what to expect. I hope aspects of that rhythm will continue here, even after we’ve unpacked and cleaned the cars.
Speaking of continuing, that’s something that keeps making me smile. A few different times heading down the coast, I would think of the fact that our trip was almost over. And then immediately I would remember that this was not just a trip, it was a move. We’re not settling back into an old routine now, we’re starting something entirely new.
I keep thinking about the fact that the timing, a little over a month, is about right. It was long enough to remind us we were doing something big, but it wasn’t so long that we started taking it for granted. The past couple years of college were pretty intense for me, learning new things and letting my worldview and assumptions be challenged. And for Britton the past couple years have been filled with travel and newness all over the world. I feel like if we kept going, place after place after place, we would start missing out on something big. It feels good to have the brakes on for a bit, to look around this city and wonder about our involvement here.
I keep thinking about Kennedy, the drunk guy on the ferry back from Block Island, who was trying to squeeze between me and the lady to my right. He was funny, and it was entertaining to watch him and interact with him, but I feel sad for him. The comments from his friends suggested that that level of drunkenness was pretty common for him. They were used to it…he was like a mascot for them. But I wonder if they ever worry about him. I wonder if there’s ever talk of quitting or rehab or meetings or anything like that. I think about my dad and wonder if Kennedy has a family somewhere, wishing he could get sober long enough to show up for a wedding or graduation or a simple lunch.
We have seen a good deal of brokenness on this trip. I haven’t written about it before because, well…I’m not really sure why. But it’s there. We’ve seen married couples that don’t respect each other, social groups for whom drunkenness is a nightly sport, people driven by one thing or another to a sort of nameless bitterness that affects how they carry themselves and how they interact with others. We’ve seen poverty, unnecessary strife, exploitation of nature…I could go on.
But I won’t. Because from coast to coast, in cities and parks and homes and campsites, the good far outweighed the bad. We’ve seen more generosity than I could have imagined. That generosity came in the form of beds, homes, gift cards, conversation, directions, information, and food. Tons and tons of food. I have met so many new people, most of whom I may never see again, who are absolutely precious, with whom interacting has been a pleasure and an inspiration for me.
There is so much goodness. No matter what you hear on the news or in church, there is so much goodness. And beauty. If you look for it, you will see it. In stars and mountains and oceans, in busy streets and local shops, in smiles and random talks with strangers, in food and significant conversations with friends and family. Love is expressed in so many different ways by so many different people, and if you are willing to see it I guarantee that you will.
I am learning that people are at their finest when they are enjoying nature, and that if we are friendly to others then they will generally be friendly in return. I am learning that love and beauty are expressed in endlessly different ways, and that we as a nation are not nearly as divided as some would have us believe.
And I am learning that I have so much to learn. I’ve been reminded of this over and over, as stars or mountains or oceans or moons or wonderful people have made me feel terribly small. Again, in a good way. I think being reminded of our smallness can help us see and experience so much more.
So here we are, in Los Angeles. The driving has stopped for now, but hopefully the learning will continue. I’m feeling excited, about writing and the city and new friends. We went to a place called Millions of Milkshakes last night. I’m excited about that. And about the beautiful library we visited today, where I imagine I will spend many, many hours in the future.
There is so much more. I know that tomorrow, or even tonight when I’m going to bed, I will think of something else I want to add here. But I don’t think I will. I feel a sense of finality about this text and I want it to be true.
I’ll keep writing on this site. Stories, random thoughts, ideas, we’ll see. But there’s sort of a stamp on this one, turning a page or closing a chapter or something like that. Feel free to keep checking in. I’m sure I’ll write more about the trip in the future, as I remember people or specific thoughts or something worth mentioning. But if you’ve been checking in for general updates, then you can consider this the end.
I would love it if you’d stick around, though. It’ll be loads of fun.
One more time before I go: thank you so much to everyone we’ve seen on this trip. I can’t tell you how much we appreciate it, from Bradenton and Jacksonville and everywhere up to Maine, to Michigan and across to Tacoma, to Oregon and down to California, right here to David and Neil who are continuing to amaze us with generosity. And people I’ve been catching up with on here, I’ve loved the feedback and the different stories you’ve shared. Thank you all.
And love.
And this is where we all laugh. Because after 8,886 miles, 34 days, 27 states, and Canada, I am too full. Too many people, too many places. Anything I write here in attempts at summary will be random and disjointed, and we’d probably be better off sticking with what I’ve already written.
So instead of an overall summary, I think I’ll share what’s on my mind right now, and then we’ll be done.
I keep thinking about the guidestones in Georgia, the size and angles and mixture of languages, and the echoing refrain to “Leave room for nature--leave room for nature.” I’ve thought about that a lot on this trip, as we’ve seen places where nature is thriving, and we’ve seen places, namely Niagara, that would do well to hear this. The guidestones set a tone for much of my thought process on this trip, and I like that. I would love to visit those again someday.
I keep thinking about all the different animals. Moose across the lake in Glacier, mountain goats on one of our hikes, seals, otters, entire herds of elk, and deer. Tons and tons of deer. Did I tell you about the night in Coos Bay? We were standing outside the house and saw some deer walking through the yard. Britton’s friend said they eat the apples that were growing there, so we grabbed a few and rolled them toward the deer. They never stopped being suspicious and jumpy, but we still got really close. Then a third deer stepped into the yard. The bigger of the first two made several really strange snorting sounds, stamped the ground, then chased the intruder out. It was crazy to watch. Such beautiful animals. Then our friend’s dog came out and scared them all away.
And lobster. Delicious, delicious lobster.
I keep thinking about the rhythms that we grew into on this trip. Packing and unpacking the car, driving, stopping, being amazed, meeting new people, reading out loud while Britton cooks, listening again and again to mewithoutYou’s newest CD. All of these things sort of fell on each other and formed a flow that offered a certain sense of familiarity, even when everything was new and we had no idea what to expect. I hope aspects of that rhythm will continue here, even after we’ve unpacked and cleaned the cars.
Speaking of continuing, that’s something that keeps making me smile. A few different times heading down the coast, I would think of the fact that our trip was almost over. And then immediately I would remember that this was not just a trip, it was a move. We’re not settling back into an old routine now, we’re starting something entirely new.
I keep thinking about the fact that the timing, a little over a month, is about right. It was long enough to remind us we were doing something big, but it wasn’t so long that we started taking it for granted. The past couple years of college were pretty intense for me, learning new things and letting my worldview and assumptions be challenged. And for Britton the past couple years have been filled with travel and newness all over the world. I feel like if we kept going, place after place after place, we would start missing out on something big. It feels good to have the brakes on for a bit, to look around this city and wonder about our involvement here.
I keep thinking about Kennedy, the drunk guy on the ferry back from Block Island, who was trying to squeeze between me and the lady to my right. He was funny, and it was entertaining to watch him and interact with him, but I feel sad for him. The comments from his friends suggested that that level of drunkenness was pretty common for him. They were used to it…he was like a mascot for them. But I wonder if they ever worry about him. I wonder if there’s ever talk of quitting or rehab or meetings or anything like that. I think about my dad and wonder if Kennedy has a family somewhere, wishing he could get sober long enough to show up for a wedding or graduation or a simple lunch.
We have seen a good deal of brokenness on this trip. I haven’t written about it before because, well…I’m not really sure why. But it’s there. We’ve seen married couples that don’t respect each other, social groups for whom drunkenness is a nightly sport, people driven by one thing or another to a sort of nameless bitterness that affects how they carry themselves and how they interact with others. We’ve seen poverty, unnecessary strife, exploitation of nature…I could go on.
But I won’t. Because from coast to coast, in cities and parks and homes and campsites, the good far outweighed the bad. We’ve seen more generosity than I could have imagined. That generosity came in the form of beds, homes, gift cards, conversation, directions, information, and food. Tons and tons of food. I have met so many new people, most of whom I may never see again, who are absolutely precious, with whom interacting has been a pleasure and an inspiration for me.
There is so much goodness. No matter what you hear on the news or in church, there is so much goodness. And beauty. If you look for it, you will see it. In stars and mountains and oceans, in busy streets and local shops, in smiles and random talks with strangers, in food and significant conversations with friends and family. Love is expressed in so many different ways by so many different people, and if you are willing to see it I guarantee that you will.
I am learning that people are at their finest when they are enjoying nature, and that if we are friendly to others then they will generally be friendly in return. I am learning that love and beauty are expressed in endlessly different ways, and that we as a nation are not nearly as divided as some would have us believe.
And I am learning that I have so much to learn. I’ve been reminded of this over and over, as stars or mountains or oceans or moons or wonderful people have made me feel terribly small. Again, in a good way. I think being reminded of our smallness can help us see and experience so much more.
So here we are, in Los Angeles. The driving has stopped for now, but hopefully the learning will continue. I’m feeling excited, about writing and the city and new friends. We went to a place called Millions of Milkshakes last night. I’m excited about that. And about the beautiful library we visited today, where I imagine I will spend many, many hours in the future.
There is so much more. I know that tomorrow, or even tonight when I’m going to bed, I will think of something else I want to add here. But I don’t think I will. I feel a sense of finality about this text and I want it to be true.
I’ll keep writing on this site. Stories, random thoughts, ideas, we’ll see. But there’s sort of a stamp on this one, turning a page or closing a chapter or something like that. Feel free to keep checking in. I’m sure I’ll write more about the trip in the future, as I remember people or specific thoughts or something worth mentioning. But if you’ve been checking in for general updates, then you can consider this the end.
I would love it if you’d stick around, though. It’ll be loads of fun.
One more time before I go: thank you so much to everyone we’ve seen on this trip. I can’t tell you how much we appreciate it, from Bradenton and Jacksonville and everywhere up to Maine, to Michigan and across to Tacoma, to Oregon and down to California, right here to David and Neil who are continuing to amaze us with generosity. And people I’ve been catching up with on here, I’ve loved the feedback and the different stories you’ve shared. Thank you all.
And love.
Monday, September 7, 2009
All Good Things
For a while now I’ve been dreading this update, because this one ends in LA. Which means that, as far as this trip is concerned, this will be the last significant update I write. That thought brings a little sadness, but it’s a fleeting and unique sort of sadness, which I might explain later. But first we go back to Oregon.
I think I left you at the trailer in Coos Bay, so we’ll pick it up there. We had a great time: fresh apples, crazy blueberry bushes, just about the best loaf of sourdough bread ever, and beautiful cliffs on the coast. Then more of the coast. Britton and I followed the Pacific all the way down Oregon to California, and it was absolutely brilliant. We stopped at so many of the viewpoints, and each one was unique. I scribbled this while at one of those points: “I feel like Oregon’s throwing everything it has at us, willing us into staying here…And the bigness of the Pacific is getting to me now, looking out at the huge rock islands in the distance, waves crashing all over them. Each spot out here is unique. The coastline is exceedingly beautiful and endlessly creative, and there’s no way to capture this in a one day drive.”
Which is true: there is so much there, and everything is unique and new and worth visiting for a while. So Britton and I repeatedly took note of the trail that follows the entire coast, mentally adding that to our nature to-do list. Someday, maybe.
Oh and the fog. You should’ve seen the fog at parts of the beaches. It gave this brilliant sense of mystery and obscurity to everything we saw, seeming to heighten the cliffs and exaggerate the rock islands and give it all an eerie sort of movement. I loved it.
And then everything changed in California. We crossed the stateline, and almost immediately the little coast road we were on turned into a freeway, and gas jumped up fifty cents. My first impression of California wasn’t the greatest, highlighted by the fact that they were the only state that had its own border check, but that feeling went away really, really quickly.
Here’s why: first, the coast continued. Believe it or not, California has the same ocean as Oregon. And it is still beautiful. Who knew? Then there came the redwoods. Oh my goodness, I think visiting a redwood forest should be added to every single person’s list of goals or dreams or buckets or whatever you call them. The redwoods joined one of the themes of this trip, in making me feel very, very small. A good kind of small. Like it all fits together in an unexplainable sort of way.
And it’s not just the size. Sure, there’s that…if you stand at the bottom of one and walk around it, you can’t help but be amazed at how long it takes. Then you look up and realize you can’t even see the top of it. It just keeps going and going and going. But if you can somehow stop being amazed by the bigness of it all, you won’t be able to get over the silence. All of these giants standing together somehow are able to carry the most beautiful silence you can imagine. It’s a heavy, living stillness that’s full of growth and agelessness. I love it. And I love the way the trees translate sunlight. Or, often, how they don’t. Then the occasional breeze blows through. You can feel it, and you can see some movement in the leaves way up, and you think you can hear it, but then it’s gone and you wonder for a second if you really heard anything because everything is so incredibly quiet. Then a family comes running up the trail and there’s never any doubt about hearing them, so you keep going.
Oh man. Then Britton and I found a campsite in the park. It was already beautiful with all the trees and the secluded little spot for the tent, then we noticed a tree. It had fallen over and hollowed out, so we realized we didn’t need our tent because there was a giant shell of a redwood right in our campsite. And who wants a tent when you have that? So after dinner and a ranger talk about history and geology and such, then a campfire and some reading, we unfolded our sleeping bags and slept inside the tree. You should’ve seen it in the morning, when the sunlight reached inside, I could not believe how red it was. Hence the name.
We continued through the parks, following the Avenue of the Giants, which may be the most beautiful detour ever. Then we joined back up with the coast and kept driving south. By this point it was quite dark, and the road continued to wind like crazy, especially when we cut off 101 to catch the beginning of the 1. It was around this time that we hit our second deer. (The first, in case you’re a newcomer, was in Michigan.) I was driving this time too, and once again the deer ran away and my car was barely scratched. I was grateful for this, but realized that it was probably about time to stop, so we pulled into one of the viewpoints and slept in the car.
At some point that night Britton woke me up and pointed to the moon, which was hanging over the Pacific and getting ready to set. That was absolutely gorgeous.
Then San Francisco the next day. We explored the city for a bit, ate at a barbeque joint called Memphis Minnie’s, then spent several hours in a park looking toward the Golden Gate Bridge, reading and meeting people and enjoying the view and waiting for Caroline and Grahm. There was a brilliant monument to the USS San Francisco that I thoroughly enjoyed reading about, but I won’t go into that too much here. Be sure to look it up, though, if you’re interested in that sort of thing.
We went back into the city to meet up with Care and Grahm, who had taken their own trip from Florida, in Britton’s car, so we could have both cars out here. We all walked back to Memphis Minnie’s, because Britton and I had enjoyed it so much the first time, and had all sorts of fun visiting and telling stories about our respective trips. And eating barbeque.
The four of us headed down the coast a little bit after dinner, then found a place to park the cars and ran across the street to camp out on the beach. It may not have been technically legal, but if you could have seen the incredible cave we pitched the tent under, you would understand. Caves and camping and roaring oceans go really, really well together.
We did all sorts of driving the next day, until we were only a couple hours north of LA. It was great to see so much of the coast and make a list of places worth visiting again. The highlight of that day was definitely the ongoing conversation in the car with Caroline, about travel and history and family and business and nature and literature and God and beauty and children’s books, a conversation that is so much of what family and roadtrips should be. I loved it.
That night we camped out on the beach again. It was similar to the night before, minus the cave and plus a fire. Campfires and oceans are pretty wonderful together too.
And then yesterday, September 5, we woke up and drove into Los Angeles. We were coming down the coast, so David gave us directions that brought us all the way up Sunset Boulevard and into their neighborhood in Hollywood.
David and Neil have been showing us around this part of the city, with walks up some beautiful hills that look over everything, and a walk to the Hollywood Bowl last night, a trip to the airport today to drop off Care and Grahm, and a movie tonight at the Director’s Guild. We’ve taken in so much, about history and street names and neighborhoods and directions, but it’s not overwhelming in the way that I had worried about. It’s still overwhelming, but in a good way. It makes me want to stick around and get situated, because I really like it here.
We’ve seen all sorts of love and generosity on this stretch. From the time with Caroline and Grahm, and the fact that they drove out this soon so we could have both cars, to the overwhelming generosity from David and Neil. I would wish this situation on anyone I know moving to a new city: a chance to stay with two incredibly friendly people with delicious food and a seemingly endless knowledge of the area. Not to mention the patience to share that knowledge, even when we ask the name of a street five different times. This kind of generosity is overwhelming to me, in a very very good way, and I have a feeling that I will continue to be at a constant inability to express my gratitude.
But I will try, here, to do just that. So thanks to Caroline and Grahm for joining us on this last stretch and being with us here. And thank you, thank you, thank you to David and Neil. For everything. A thousand thank you’s. Oh yeah -- I think I spelled Neil’s name wrong on here before, so I apologize for that, if you’re reading. I guess I apologize even if you’re not reading. Maybe I should just tell you.
And thanks to the rest of you, who are reading. It’s been a lot of fun for me writing these and hearing feedback. At some point in the next few days I’ll write up some thoughts about the last month as a whole and post them here. But for now, Los Angeles sends its best.
And love.
I think I left you at the trailer in Coos Bay, so we’ll pick it up there. We had a great time: fresh apples, crazy blueberry bushes, just about the best loaf of sourdough bread ever, and beautiful cliffs on the coast. Then more of the coast. Britton and I followed the Pacific all the way down Oregon to California, and it was absolutely brilliant. We stopped at so many of the viewpoints, and each one was unique. I scribbled this while at one of those points: “I feel like Oregon’s throwing everything it has at us, willing us into staying here…And the bigness of the Pacific is getting to me now, looking out at the huge rock islands in the distance, waves crashing all over them. Each spot out here is unique. The coastline is exceedingly beautiful and endlessly creative, and there’s no way to capture this in a one day drive.”
Which is true: there is so much there, and everything is unique and new and worth visiting for a while. So Britton and I repeatedly took note of the trail that follows the entire coast, mentally adding that to our nature to-do list. Someday, maybe.
Oh and the fog. You should’ve seen the fog at parts of the beaches. It gave this brilliant sense of mystery and obscurity to everything we saw, seeming to heighten the cliffs and exaggerate the rock islands and give it all an eerie sort of movement. I loved it.
And then everything changed in California. We crossed the stateline, and almost immediately the little coast road we were on turned into a freeway, and gas jumped up fifty cents. My first impression of California wasn’t the greatest, highlighted by the fact that they were the only state that had its own border check, but that feeling went away really, really quickly.
Here’s why: first, the coast continued. Believe it or not, California has the same ocean as Oregon. And it is still beautiful. Who knew? Then there came the redwoods. Oh my goodness, I think visiting a redwood forest should be added to every single person’s list of goals or dreams or buckets or whatever you call them. The redwoods joined one of the themes of this trip, in making me feel very, very small. A good kind of small. Like it all fits together in an unexplainable sort of way.
And it’s not just the size. Sure, there’s that…if you stand at the bottom of one and walk around it, you can’t help but be amazed at how long it takes. Then you look up and realize you can’t even see the top of it. It just keeps going and going and going. But if you can somehow stop being amazed by the bigness of it all, you won’t be able to get over the silence. All of these giants standing together somehow are able to carry the most beautiful silence you can imagine. It’s a heavy, living stillness that’s full of growth and agelessness. I love it. And I love the way the trees translate sunlight. Or, often, how they don’t. Then the occasional breeze blows through. You can feel it, and you can see some movement in the leaves way up, and you think you can hear it, but then it’s gone and you wonder for a second if you really heard anything because everything is so incredibly quiet. Then a family comes running up the trail and there’s never any doubt about hearing them, so you keep going.
Oh man. Then Britton and I found a campsite in the park. It was already beautiful with all the trees and the secluded little spot for the tent, then we noticed a tree. It had fallen over and hollowed out, so we realized we didn’t need our tent because there was a giant shell of a redwood right in our campsite. And who wants a tent when you have that? So after dinner and a ranger talk about history and geology and such, then a campfire and some reading, we unfolded our sleeping bags and slept inside the tree. You should’ve seen it in the morning, when the sunlight reached inside, I could not believe how red it was. Hence the name.
We continued through the parks, following the Avenue of the Giants, which may be the most beautiful detour ever. Then we joined back up with the coast and kept driving south. By this point it was quite dark, and the road continued to wind like crazy, especially when we cut off 101 to catch the beginning of the 1. It was around this time that we hit our second deer. (The first, in case you’re a newcomer, was in Michigan.) I was driving this time too, and once again the deer ran away and my car was barely scratched. I was grateful for this, but realized that it was probably about time to stop, so we pulled into one of the viewpoints and slept in the car.
At some point that night Britton woke me up and pointed to the moon, which was hanging over the Pacific and getting ready to set. That was absolutely gorgeous.
Then San Francisco the next day. We explored the city for a bit, ate at a barbeque joint called Memphis Minnie’s, then spent several hours in a park looking toward the Golden Gate Bridge, reading and meeting people and enjoying the view and waiting for Caroline and Grahm. There was a brilliant monument to the USS San Francisco that I thoroughly enjoyed reading about, but I won’t go into that too much here. Be sure to look it up, though, if you’re interested in that sort of thing.
We went back into the city to meet up with Care and Grahm, who had taken their own trip from Florida, in Britton’s car, so we could have both cars out here. We all walked back to Memphis Minnie’s, because Britton and I had enjoyed it so much the first time, and had all sorts of fun visiting and telling stories about our respective trips. And eating barbeque.
The four of us headed down the coast a little bit after dinner, then found a place to park the cars and ran across the street to camp out on the beach. It may not have been technically legal, but if you could have seen the incredible cave we pitched the tent under, you would understand. Caves and camping and roaring oceans go really, really well together.
We did all sorts of driving the next day, until we were only a couple hours north of LA. It was great to see so much of the coast and make a list of places worth visiting again. The highlight of that day was definitely the ongoing conversation in the car with Caroline, about travel and history and family and business and nature and literature and God and beauty and children’s books, a conversation that is so much of what family and roadtrips should be. I loved it.
That night we camped out on the beach again. It was similar to the night before, minus the cave and plus a fire. Campfires and oceans are pretty wonderful together too.
And then yesterday, September 5, we woke up and drove into Los Angeles. We were coming down the coast, so David gave us directions that brought us all the way up Sunset Boulevard and into their neighborhood in Hollywood.
David and Neil have been showing us around this part of the city, with walks up some beautiful hills that look over everything, and a walk to the Hollywood Bowl last night, a trip to the airport today to drop off Care and Grahm, and a movie tonight at the Director’s Guild. We’ve taken in so much, about history and street names and neighborhoods and directions, but it’s not overwhelming in the way that I had worried about. It’s still overwhelming, but in a good way. It makes me want to stick around and get situated, because I really like it here.
We’ve seen all sorts of love and generosity on this stretch. From the time with Caroline and Grahm, and the fact that they drove out this soon so we could have both cars, to the overwhelming generosity from David and Neil. I would wish this situation on anyone I know moving to a new city: a chance to stay with two incredibly friendly people with delicious food and a seemingly endless knowledge of the area. Not to mention the patience to share that knowledge, even when we ask the name of a street five different times. This kind of generosity is overwhelming to me, in a very very good way, and I have a feeling that I will continue to be at a constant inability to express my gratitude.
But I will try, here, to do just that. So thanks to Caroline and Grahm for joining us on this last stretch and being with us here. And thank you, thank you, thank you to David and Neil. For everything. A thousand thank you’s. Oh yeah -- I think I spelled Neil’s name wrong on here before, so I apologize for that, if you’re reading. I guess I apologize even if you’re not reading. Maybe I should just tell you.
And thanks to the rest of you, who are reading. It’s been a lot of fun for me writing these and hearing feedback. At some point in the next few days I’ll write up some thoughts about the last month as a whole and post them here. But for now, Los Angeles sends its best.
And love.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Pictures!
Hello again. The real update's below this one, but here's some links to pictures that I keep forgetting to put up here. All of these are on Facebook, but they should be available to people without Facebook accounts. Let me know if you have any problems.
First are the ones from our camera: http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=502624614
So far there are 7 albums there, starting on the second page with "Things to take pictures at." Britton took most of these because I forget to do that and never really know where to aim it. It's interesting to note how different phases of the trip can be marked by what clothes we're wearing, as they seem to be on a several-day rotation.
Then there are the ones Julia put up: http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=502624614#/photos.php?id=82800479
Britton and I make our entrance toward the end of the Block Island album, then continue through the two GART albums. GART, I'm pretty sure, stands for Great American Road Trip. Indeed. Anyways, take a look around, let me know what you think. Feel free to send some comments to Britton and Julia, too, because they've both taken some really good pictures.
Enjoy. And love.
First are the ones from our camera: http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=502624614
So far there are 7 albums there, starting on the second page with "Things to take pictures at." Britton took most of these because I forget to do that and never really know where to aim it. It's interesting to note how different phases of the trip can be marked by what clothes we're wearing, as they seem to be on a several-day rotation.
Then there are the ones Julia put up: http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=502624614#/photos.php?id=82800479
Britton and I make our entrance toward the end of the Block Island album, then continue through the two GART albums. GART, I'm pretty sure, stands for Great American Road Trip. Indeed. Anyways, take a look around, let me know what you think. Feel free to send some comments to Britton and Julia, too, because they've both taken some really good pictures.
Enjoy. And love.
"Ocean in view! O the joy!"
You have no idea how badly I wanted to make an udder pun when I was writing about the organic farm. I couldn’t bring myself to it, but I had to tell you now. Moving on.
Britton didn’t think I said enough about our hiking day in Michigan, so I wanted to mention that again. It was a rainy day, but the heavy trees guarded us from the brunt of it, so it was cool and misty, in an incredibly green forest. That day we came to two memorable waterfalls, one of which led to some rocky shallows that were perfect for a cold swim. Terribly cold. It really was a highlight.
Everything in Michigan was a highlight. We were staying with Britton’s friend Jonathan, at Jonathan’s grandparents’ house. While there we had three of our fullest nights of sleep yet, monstrous meals that never really seemed to end, and the birth of a new addiction to Dairy Queen’s Blizzards. I think we stopped at Dairy Queen four times in the last week and a half. So thank you Jonathan. And thank you, Upper Peninsula. You were great.
From Michigan we drove down to Minneapolis to catch Rob Bell on his speaking tour. This is the guy we met at his church back in Grand Rapids. The tour is called Drops Like Stars, and it’s pretty profound--definitely good to see if you’re at all interested. I didn’t find it quite as mind-blowing as his earlier topics, but it was worth the trip for sure. Minneapolis, though, was kind of sad (except for the free burgers and shakes at Applebee’s) and we weren’t too upset to leave.
After sleeping in a Panera parking lot outside the city and waking up for some breakfast and Internet, we started one of our biggest driving days yet. We cut through the rest of Minnesota and started crossing North Dakota, which was a bear and a half. At one point we drove through Fargo. It felt like some sort of Coen pilgrimage that went vaguely unfulfilled, so we kept driving. We found a small campground/RV park in Jamestown. That was nice, we met some friendly people (two guys who gave us free firewood, one girl who may have been a dream). It was definitely for travelers rest, though, not so much of a destination.
And so the next day we continued, out of North Dakota and into Montana. It feels like a cliché to write about the sky in the big sky states, but I can’t help myself. The clouds were incredible. Even in parts of Minnesota and North Dakota, they were layered in a way that created unending depth. The top was a dome of the deepest blue, lightening on the sides until it streaked with clouds that extend well beyond forever. It absolutely overwhelmed the earth. I felt as if one of those hills might bring us to the edge of the land, with nothing but sky reaching into a cloudy, blue infinity. It brought me back to the stars in Michigan, where for just a few moments I was fully aware of my smallness.
Then the ground started making a comeback. By this point it was getting dark, but even so we could feel the endless Salt Plains giving way to the Rockies. The silhouetted mountains grew and we followed them up, up, up until we were about a mile from an entrance to Glacier National Park. We slept there on the side of the road, where it was dark and cold and even in the dark the mountains were everywhere. The next morning we drove into Glacier, using the annual pass we bought back in Maine.
Without knowing it, we had driven into a secondary entrance. While the main areas of the park were flooded with tourists and traffic, we had stumbled into one of Glacier’s best kept secrets. That day we found a campsite then hiked up a three mile ridge trail that circled around and offered views in every direction. You should’ve seen this: from the top we had the rest of Glacier to the north and the west, the Rockies continuing to the south, and the abruptly flat Salt Plains to the east. Those mountains were about the most awe-inspiring things I have ever seen. We spent a couple hours at the top, reading and napping and staring and wondering and…oh man, those mountains were ridiculous.
But I have to keep going. The next day we drove around to the main entrance to Glacier, then followed the Road to the Sun across the park. My mom biked that road, apparently. I think that’s insane. Despite the traffic and crowds, Glacier was exceedingly beautiful. The mountains were still overwhelming, and we took a hike that followed a gorgeous lake to a couple of different waterfalls that were inspiring and charming and thunderous in all the ways that good waterfalls are. We saw a few moose (mooses? meese?) across the lake. My dad’s binoculars came in handy.
We went to Ranger talks both nights in Glacier. This is when campers and visitors can go to an amphitheater to see a park ranger give a presentation. The first ranger was funny and strange and engaging and he talked about birds. He even had a little bird puppet with a can of whipped cream up its butt. I’m not telling you anymore about that, because I kind of like the way that last sentence sits there unexplained. The second ranger was nervous and soft-spoken and talked about art. Apparently when Glacier was founded about 100 years ago, the railroad used to pay artists to live in Glacier and write or paint or take pictures that they could use as promotion back east. I thought that sounded like fun. I want someone to start a new national park so they can pay me to live there and write about it.
There is a certain feel about national parks that stirs all sorts of things in me. I have an ongoing theory that people are more pleasant when they’re enjoying nature together, and that was on full display at Glacier. All these people from all over the country, and the world, saying hello while passing on the trail, stopping for a chat in the campsite, visiting with each other before the ranger talk. Everyone seemed friendly, and everyone was so happy to be there that it affected everything--especially how they interact with each other. It’s a wonderful thing.
Stay away from the hotels, though. On the second night, our campsite wasn’t offering a ranger talk, so we had to go up the road to the lodge to hear the art girl. The lodge crowd was entirely different: freshly showered, reserved, not showing much of a desire to meet new people. Stick with the camping crowd; everyone’s excited to be there and pleasant and vaguely tired and often quite dirty and terribly wonderful.
Side note: speaking of the camping crowd, some of the families we saw in Glacier reminded me so much of my family, especially my family in the late nineties when we took our RV trip out west. There were the parents who were always busy, cooking and cleaning and planning and setting up for their kids who are having the time of their lives exploring and biking and running and climbing. This made me think about my dad a lot. At one point in Glacier, I couldn’t stop; everything reminded me of him. I think it was good, though. There was sadness, but it was a full, nostalgic sort of sadness. He would have loved it there.
Oh yeah. Glacier was also home to my two favorite moon nights on this trip so far. The first night, we left the ranger talk in time to see a thin sliver rising up toward one of the mountains, hovering over the lake across from where we camped. That was incredible, watching the moon and its reflection slide up and behind the giant silhouetted peak. That lake was freezing, by the way. We had gone swimming earlier in the day and it was shocking. Painfully refreshing, maybe.
The second night we left the ranger talk by the lodge and walked down to a different lake. The moon was slightly bigger this time, and it was higher so it hung over the mountains perfectly. We rested by the lake for a bit, watching the reflections and the ripples and the shadowy mountains and the ghostly moon. Those were two nights I won’t forget for a very long time.
Okay. We left Glacier, finished Montana, cut through northern Idaho, and entered Washington. This was a surprise: Eastern Washington, much like the states preceding it, was blanketed in endless fields and farms and slight, rolling hills. Everything was brown and dry. The fields gave way to a rocky sort of desert, everything still quite brown. But then we started going up. The Cascade Mountains waited in the background, and we rose toward them, winding through rocks and cliffs and the occasional lake. Then we crested the mountains and everything changed. We had stretches of road where I could drive at 70 miles per hour for thirty minutes without once touching the accelerator, winding down, down, down as everything started turning green and wet, exactly what you’d expect out of Washington. We passed through fruit country and picked up some fresh apples and cherries, then continued toward Tacoma, a little outside Seattle.
This is worth a new paragraph. We drove to Tacoma to visit Ellie, a friend of Britton’s from YWAM. Ellie lives on a gorgeous little farm, with beautiful flowers and different types of plants and tomatoes that taste like sunshine and chickens and roosters that insist on waking you up for forty-five minutes every morning to greet the sun with them. We spent three nights there, along with Autumn and her mom. Autumn is another friend of Britton’s from YWAM that happened to be visiting at the same time. Our stay there included delicious meals, Trivial Pursuit, a beach with a lighthouse, Coraline, a glass museum, a great bookstore, and all sorts of wonderful conversation.
Then after three nights, it was time to cut south. This is significant to me because our trip is largely three-directional. First we went north, then west, and now we’re headed south--the final leg. I was a bit sad when we realized there was no more west without water, but California beckons.
We left Tacoma, spent a couple hours in Seattle, then drove to Portland. With no offense to the East Coast, Portland is without a doubt my favorite city in the country so far. We rode our bikes for a while--did you know Portland is rated the most bike-friendly city in the country?--then found a Chipotle, caught a movie, slept in a church parking lot again, and met a friend or two with some exciting future possibilities. There’s a certain feel about the city that I am absolutely in love with. If LA doesn’t work out and I’m not ready to move home, then I’ll be looking for any excuse to move to Portland.
Graduate school? I think yes.
Our second day there we rode the streetcar for a bit, read in a park, then went back to Powell’s Books. Powell’s is possibly my favorite indoor space ever, but it’s really overwhelming. They give you a map when you walk inside. I think I would need to live in Portland and visit often to really appreciate it. After that we grabbed some fish and chips with a new friend we’d met that morning. We planned to sleep in our car again that night, or possibly join one of the homeless campouts downtown, but we decided to start driving instead. We headed down past Eugene before we started getting tired, so we found a place to sleep on the side of the road.
We woke up this morning and drove out to the coast, where we picked up 101 and headed south some more, down to Coos Bay where we spent the day. Another of Britton’s YWAM friends lives here. She and her family drove us to the coast, where we climbed some rocks and watched the Pacific crash and spray and wave and dance. It’s beautiful.
That was a big moment, our first view of the Pacific. We followed a huge section of the Lewis and Clark trail through North Dakota and Montana, even up toward Portland, so today I kept thinking of that “Ocean in view! O the joy!” moment at the end of their journey. Maybe we weren’t quite frontier explorers with Indian guides or anything, but it still felt significant and fulfilling. And it was beautiful watching the waves tear across the rocks, flooding crevasses and creating little rivers, then retreating back out only to splash around and do it all over again.
We’re still in Coos Bay, writing this from the back of a little camping trailer we’re sleeping in tonight. Tomorrow we’ll keep heading down the coast, savor Oregon a little longer, then say goodbye and cross our final state line into California. Redwoods are waiting on the other side, which is exciting. Exact schedule after that point is still a little hazy, but we now have an official deadline: we have to be in LA by Saturday, because Caroline and Grahm are meeting us with Britton’s car out there then flying back on Sunday. That’s awesome of them, and it’ll be good having both our cars out there so soon.
Still not sure about the whole housing and work things. We have some awesome friends, David and Neil, who are being really generous and offering their space for a few nights until we get things going, and they’ll help us get situated in the city, but we’re definitely looking at any availabilities right now, so let me know if you hear of anything.
I think it’s time to wrap this up. I keep getting really encouraging feedback from people reading our updates, and that means the world to me. A friend from Jacksonville even told me that his family gathers around to read these, which makes me exceedingly happy. So thank you all. Especially those of you still reading this one, because I just scanned over it and realized that I’m writing a small novel.
I’m excited about using this space after the trip, when there’s not a pressure to fit so much in. I have stories and thoughts and ideas I want to write on here. And I will eventually. But for now, reading time. Then bedtime. Then some California time.
Goodnight all. Remember love.
Britton didn’t think I said enough about our hiking day in Michigan, so I wanted to mention that again. It was a rainy day, but the heavy trees guarded us from the brunt of it, so it was cool and misty, in an incredibly green forest. That day we came to two memorable waterfalls, one of which led to some rocky shallows that were perfect for a cold swim. Terribly cold. It really was a highlight.
Everything in Michigan was a highlight. We were staying with Britton’s friend Jonathan, at Jonathan’s grandparents’ house. While there we had three of our fullest nights of sleep yet, monstrous meals that never really seemed to end, and the birth of a new addiction to Dairy Queen’s Blizzards. I think we stopped at Dairy Queen four times in the last week and a half. So thank you Jonathan. And thank you, Upper Peninsula. You were great.
From Michigan we drove down to Minneapolis to catch Rob Bell on his speaking tour. This is the guy we met at his church back in Grand Rapids. The tour is called Drops Like Stars, and it’s pretty profound--definitely good to see if you’re at all interested. I didn’t find it quite as mind-blowing as his earlier topics, but it was worth the trip for sure. Minneapolis, though, was kind of sad (except for the free burgers and shakes at Applebee’s) and we weren’t too upset to leave.
After sleeping in a Panera parking lot outside the city and waking up for some breakfast and Internet, we started one of our biggest driving days yet. We cut through the rest of Minnesota and started crossing North Dakota, which was a bear and a half. At one point we drove through Fargo. It felt like some sort of Coen pilgrimage that went vaguely unfulfilled, so we kept driving. We found a small campground/RV park in Jamestown. That was nice, we met some friendly people (two guys who gave us free firewood, one girl who may have been a dream). It was definitely for travelers rest, though, not so much of a destination.
And so the next day we continued, out of North Dakota and into Montana. It feels like a cliché to write about the sky in the big sky states, but I can’t help myself. The clouds were incredible. Even in parts of Minnesota and North Dakota, they were layered in a way that created unending depth. The top was a dome of the deepest blue, lightening on the sides until it streaked with clouds that extend well beyond forever. It absolutely overwhelmed the earth. I felt as if one of those hills might bring us to the edge of the land, with nothing but sky reaching into a cloudy, blue infinity. It brought me back to the stars in Michigan, where for just a few moments I was fully aware of my smallness.
Then the ground started making a comeback. By this point it was getting dark, but even so we could feel the endless Salt Plains giving way to the Rockies. The silhouetted mountains grew and we followed them up, up, up until we were about a mile from an entrance to Glacier National Park. We slept there on the side of the road, where it was dark and cold and even in the dark the mountains were everywhere. The next morning we drove into Glacier, using the annual pass we bought back in Maine.
Without knowing it, we had driven into a secondary entrance. While the main areas of the park were flooded with tourists and traffic, we had stumbled into one of Glacier’s best kept secrets. That day we found a campsite then hiked up a three mile ridge trail that circled around and offered views in every direction. You should’ve seen this: from the top we had the rest of Glacier to the north and the west, the Rockies continuing to the south, and the abruptly flat Salt Plains to the east. Those mountains were about the most awe-inspiring things I have ever seen. We spent a couple hours at the top, reading and napping and staring and wondering and…oh man, those mountains were ridiculous.
But I have to keep going. The next day we drove around to the main entrance to Glacier, then followed the Road to the Sun across the park. My mom biked that road, apparently. I think that’s insane. Despite the traffic and crowds, Glacier was exceedingly beautiful. The mountains were still overwhelming, and we took a hike that followed a gorgeous lake to a couple of different waterfalls that were inspiring and charming and thunderous in all the ways that good waterfalls are. We saw a few moose (mooses? meese?) across the lake. My dad’s binoculars came in handy.
We went to Ranger talks both nights in Glacier. This is when campers and visitors can go to an amphitheater to see a park ranger give a presentation. The first ranger was funny and strange and engaging and he talked about birds. He even had a little bird puppet with a can of whipped cream up its butt. I’m not telling you anymore about that, because I kind of like the way that last sentence sits there unexplained. The second ranger was nervous and soft-spoken and talked about art. Apparently when Glacier was founded about 100 years ago, the railroad used to pay artists to live in Glacier and write or paint or take pictures that they could use as promotion back east. I thought that sounded like fun. I want someone to start a new national park so they can pay me to live there and write about it.
There is a certain feel about national parks that stirs all sorts of things in me. I have an ongoing theory that people are more pleasant when they’re enjoying nature together, and that was on full display at Glacier. All these people from all over the country, and the world, saying hello while passing on the trail, stopping for a chat in the campsite, visiting with each other before the ranger talk. Everyone seemed friendly, and everyone was so happy to be there that it affected everything--especially how they interact with each other. It’s a wonderful thing.
Stay away from the hotels, though. On the second night, our campsite wasn’t offering a ranger talk, so we had to go up the road to the lodge to hear the art girl. The lodge crowd was entirely different: freshly showered, reserved, not showing much of a desire to meet new people. Stick with the camping crowd; everyone’s excited to be there and pleasant and vaguely tired and often quite dirty and terribly wonderful.
Side note: speaking of the camping crowd, some of the families we saw in Glacier reminded me so much of my family, especially my family in the late nineties when we took our RV trip out west. There were the parents who were always busy, cooking and cleaning and planning and setting up for their kids who are having the time of their lives exploring and biking and running and climbing. This made me think about my dad a lot. At one point in Glacier, I couldn’t stop; everything reminded me of him. I think it was good, though. There was sadness, but it was a full, nostalgic sort of sadness. He would have loved it there.
Oh yeah. Glacier was also home to my two favorite moon nights on this trip so far. The first night, we left the ranger talk in time to see a thin sliver rising up toward one of the mountains, hovering over the lake across from where we camped. That was incredible, watching the moon and its reflection slide up and behind the giant silhouetted peak. That lake was freezing, by the way. We had gone swimming earlier in the day and it was shocking. Painfully refreshing, maybe.
The second night we left the ranger talk by the lodge and walked down to a different lake. The moon was slightly bigger this time, and it was higher so it hung over the mountains perfectly. We rested by the lake for a bit, watching the reflections and the ripples and the shadowy mountains and the ghostly moon. Those were two nights I won’t forget for a very long time.
Okay. We left Glacier, finished Montana, cut through northern Idaho, and entered Washington. This was a surprise: Eastern Washington, much like the states preceding it, was blanketed in endless fields and farms and slight, rolling hills. Everything was brown and dry. The fields gave way to a rocky sort of desert, everything still quite brown. But then we started going up. The Cascade Mountains waited in the background, and we rose toward them, winding through rocks and cliffs and the occasional lake. Then we crested the mountains and everything changed. We had stretches of road where I could drive at 70 miles per hour for thirty minutes without once touching the accelerator, winding down, down, down as everything started turning green and wet, exactly what you’d expect out of Washington. We passed through fruit country and picked up some fresh apples and cherries, then continued toward Tacoma, a little outside Seattle.
This is worth a new paragraph. We drove to Tacoma to visit Ellie, a friend of Britton’s from YWAM. Ellie lives on a gorgeous little farm, with beautiful flowers and different types of plants and tomatoes that taste like sunshine and chickens and roosters that insist on waking you up for forty-five minutes every morning to greet the sun with them. We spent three nights there, along with Autumn and her mom. Autumn is another friend of Britton’s from YWAM that happened to be visiting at the same time. Our stay there included delicious meals, Trivial Pursuit, a beach with a lighthouse, Coraline, a glass museum, a great bookstore, and all sorts of wonderful conversation.
Then after three nights, it was time to cut south. This is significant to me because our trip is largely three-directional. First we went north, then west, and now we’re headed south--the final leg. I was a bit sad when we realized there was no more west without water, but California beckons.
We left Tacoma, spent a couple hours in Seattle, then drove to Portland. With no offense to the East Coast, Portland is without a doubt my favorite city in the country so far. We rode our bikes for a while--did you know Portland is rated the most bike-friendly city in the country?--then found a Chipotle, caught a movie, slept in a church parking lot again, and met a friend or two with some exciting future possibilities. There’s a certain feel about the city that I am absolutely in love with. If LA doesn’t work out and I’m not ready to move home, then I’ll be looking for any excuse to move to Portland.
Graduate school? I think yes.
Our second day there we rode the streetcar for a bit, read in a park, then went back to Powell’s Books. Powell’s is possibly my favorite indoor space ever, but it’s really overwhelming. They give you a map when you walk inside. I think I would need to live in Portland and visit often to really appreciate it. After that we grabbed some fish and chips with a new friend we’d met that morning. We planned to sleep in our car again that night, or possibly join one of the homeless campouts downtown, but we decided to start driving instead. We headed down past Eugene before we started getting tired, so we found a place to sleep on the side of the road.
We woke up this morning and drove out to the coast, where we picked up 101 and headed south some more, down to Coos Bay where we spent the day. Another of Britton’s YWAM friends lives here. She and her family drove us to the coast, where we climbed some rocks and watched the Pacific crash and spray and wave and dance. It’s beautiful.
That was a big moment, our first view of the Pacific. We followed a huge section of the Lewis and Clark trail through North Dakota and Montana, even up toward Portland, so today I kept thinking of that “Ocean in view! O the joy!” moment at the end of their journey. Maybe we weren’t quite frontier explorers with Indian guides or anything, but it still felt significant and fulfilling. And it was beautiful watching the waves tear across the rocks, flooding crevasses and creating little rivers, then retreating back out only to splash around and do it all over again.
We’re still in Coos Bay, writing this from the back of a little camping trailer we’re sleeping in tonight. Tomorrow we’ll keep heading down the coast, savor Oregon a little longer, then say goodbye and cross our final state line into California. Redwoods are waiting on the other side, which is exciting. Exact schedule after that point is still a little hazy, but we now have an official deadline: we have to be in LA by Saturday, because Caroline and Grahm are meeting us with Britton’s car out there then flying back on Sunday. That’s awesome of them, and it’ll be good having both our cars out there so soon.
Still not sure about the whole housing and work things. We have some awesome friends, David and Neil, who are being really generous and offering their space for a few nights until we get things going, and they’ll help us get situated in the city, but we’re definitely looking at any availabilities right now, so let me know if you hear of anything.
I think it’s time to wrap this up. I keep getting really encouraging feedback from people reading our updates, and that means the world to me. A friend from Jacksonville even told me that his family gathers around to read these, which makes me exceedingly happy. So thank you all. Especially those of you still reading this one, because I just scanned over it and realized that I’m writing a small novel.
I’m excited about using this space after the trip, when there’s not a pressure to fit so much in. I have stories and thoughts and ideas I want to write on here. And I will eventually. But for now, reading time. Then bedtime. Then some California time.
Goodnight all. Remember love.
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