Things we saw

For one blog only, this is Sarah, commenting on some of Bryan's pictures so you can follow our adventures. All of these pictures are in reverse order, so enjoy our California trip backwards!

Sunset at the hot springs.
Jess & I dancing at the hot springs east of Yosemite.
Violet Green Swallow



Olmsted Point, Yosemite NP
Yosemite Falls, Ben and Taryn



Katelynn
Bridalveil Falls, Yosemite NP







Flora enjoying Yosemite.

San Francisco from Marin County
Muir Woods

Corina, our adorable treehugger, at Muir Woods.
Ben, conquering Muir Beach.

Ben, jamming to the Cranberries while driving us to San Francisco.

Jaime, continuously waving to friendly Californians.

Jess, our little noodle of love.

Are you going to San Francisco

Departure. The night. Change of drivers. Balmorhea A desert rain. Marfa. New Mexico night. Indian Jewelry. Flagstaff. The mountains. Descent to the desert. Lake Havasu. Bats in the night. Sleep. The Colorado River. The desert. We all sing. San Francisco.

When everyone finally assembles, gear is arranged, packs are hung, anticipation tears through the San Marcos humidity. A close friend comes by to wish us well. By midnight we have collected last-minute personal items from the local Wal-Mart and given the Funky Bus its inaugural fill-up.

As excitement dissipates, sleep picks off people one by one, and Jaime and I are left to subdue the endless night. I-10 looms straight and black and empty, plummeting before us in steady eternal black. Jaime tells another story - probably involving motorized vehicles, ramps, and inevitable injury – and the trance evaporates; I drive on.

Sarah takes the driving responsibility as the night begins to glow, expectant and intimate with the coming morning. When day finally breaks, we refresh ourselves in the San Solomon Springs. Water in strata of blue and deeper blue that stretches beneath our feet. It is crystalline and cool and tastes like sulfur. Ben swims down to touch the pool bottom, which appears just below my outstretched feet but is never reached. Ben becomes a tiny dot still visible through my goggles and then a sine wave of red and brown – swim trunks and skin that shimmers once again to the surface. Intermittently some sit by the springs and others bask in the sun. Sarah and I try to sleep.

Collectively we decide to visit Marfa. We are only an hour away. We drive through the Davis Mountains and rain falls in sheets around us and we move through it, sunlight still bright and the smell of rain and drops of rain coming in through the bus windows.

In Marfa most of the shops and galleries are already closed. We wander aimlessly in the heat until we find a local points us toward a nearby bar. Padre’s is cool and dark, an old building modified to indulge the Marfa perception of hip, aged stucco walls and red iron mixed with track lighting and modern art. We share a pitcher or two of cold beer and exchange stories (mostly for the purpose of extracting the epic one-liners of the previous blog).

In the night we reach New Mexico. Sleeping in the bus requires great tenacity. Six people affix themselves to a bench or the floor while one drives and one keeps the driver awake. Room is somewhat limited but Jess controls sleeping positions and the appropriate rotation so everyone can achieve maximum comfort. The sleepers jolt and bounce and seek equilibrium before finding rest. Sarah describes it as being rocked to sleep by the Rattler rollercoaster.

By morning we sleep in a gas station parking lot. Teeth brushing and face washing occur outside the bus and everyone takes part. A passerby asks if we are going to the Rainbow Gathering. The road takes us through self-proclaimed Indian country, now reduced to jewelry shops and convenient store knick-knacks. Painted billboards, one after another, announce the oncoming stores in a steady pulsing beat – 10 miles, 5 miles, 1 mile, exit now. At the Continental Divide we stop and rummage through one of these shops.

Because it is required, we proceed at a leisurely pace – the bus progresses according to its own pace so we oblige. Humphrey’s Peak, part of the San Francisco Mountains, emerges in the distance. Flagstaff sits nestled there. The mountain’s image grows until we are in its shadow. Parking at the Visitor’s Center, we scatter in and among Grand Canyon outfitters, bookstores, galleries. We are regular tourist types. We don’t mind.

Bleary-eyed and shorter on cash than when we arrived, dust covered mountains are seamlessly transmuted into dusty desert. Heat and sleeplessness help us decide to camp for the night at Lake Havasu, on the border of Arizona and California. Sarah cooks chili and battles swarms of gnats. Others set up tents and take showers. Bats lurch drunkenly from their roosts, emulating the movement of the gnats but with more intention in their crooked flight. A pair of narrowed eyes glows in the scrub as I walk past, the eyes’ possessor warily accustomed to my kind. With hot food and immobile beds, sleep comes quickly.

The dawn brings sun and the sun drives most of us to an early morning swim. The water of the Colorado is cold and clear, a marked distinction from every other desert element. We elect to move more quickly, hoping to avoid desert heat and reach sunny San Francisco. Through the Mojave heat. Through the pass and into Bakersfield. Up 99 through vineyards and farms. And we sing. We sing at the top of our lungs and wave at passing cars, like school kids hoping for attention. We sing into the night until the lights of the Bay area spread out before us, leading us swiftly over the Bay Bridge and into San Francisco.

Thunderstom warnings among the mountains

We leave in the cool of night, eight travelers headed west.


Ben: Renowned expert adventurer, master explorer

Who defrosted after a harsh winter camp
Mt. Shasta, Rainier, St. Helens, Olympus.
Who shattered unbreakable dinnerware and slayed the magnanimous
Shop Vac.
Who faced charging Bison in the first national park.
and braved the murky depths of Grand Canyon.
Who emerged unscathed from the jungles of Uxmal.
Who has bled with a lost brother.

Corina

Salmon of the San Marcos
Who peered deep into the blue abyss and was not afraid.
Her hat spans the breadth of time.
Who defeated the Francs at Normandy.
Queen of the one-wheel.
Whose coffee never burns and knows
no equal in the game of Farkle.



Jaime: Chef extraordinaire and international relations correspondent.

Who fell from his mighty steed only to rise again
both childhood bicycle and man-hewn machine could not hold him.
Whose now crooked gait inspires both fear and passion.
His knives of steel create dishes of intense wonderment.
Who fought the drunken Spaniard atop a rabid bull. And won.
Who looked straight into the Nordic sun.


Jessica: Princess of the fourth Incan Dynasty

Who rode a Humpback whale off the coast of Ecuador.
Whose gaze no man can hold
because she flinches not at the Amazon tarantula on her mighty shoulder.
Who climbed Paris' steel tower and fought her way back home.


Katelynn: Panhandler for Bus Change

Whose poetry melts the most Cool-Minted hearts.
Who bartered with the most hardened of Antiguans
and traversed Caribbean waters.
Whose dancing transcends physical boundaries.


Sarah: President of Funky Bus Operations

Whose hair is the color of blood-red sun,
her fiery spirit exceeds the expectations of a thousand dreams.
Who owns the Scrabble board of the most gifted linguists.
A descendant of the proud line of Goeths, who has
been known to Hand Jive with the best.
Who ascended the walls of Caprock Canyon despite
a broken shin.



Taryn: Sergeant of arms, master napper of kitties

Whose soccer skills have, on multiple occasions, embarrassed the English Premiere League.
Who survived the fatal intentions of a reckless car - at the age of five.
Trout rescind in fear when her fly-rod touches the water.
Who obliterates any tennis ball within her reach.
Who devours lobster.



And myself.

Who, since it's his blog, will offer no further description.

I am colorful

Sorry folks. No pictures. But here's an anecdote.

The wheels go round. Highway passes by. I sit behind the wheel and colors expand and fall, the fading sunlight making shapes and casting shadows out across the I-35 corridor. Strip malls and shopping centers, cattle grazing in seas of grass, geometrically aligned plots of farmland, rows after rows of furrowed ground, all find new hues and dimensions in hazy dusklight. We move through it.

Carried and jostled and noisily we move towards Waco. An old friend is there. Chris Buck. Always, without fail one must refer to him using both first and last name. Chris Buck. It will also suffice to repeat first and last name in rapid succession. Chris Buck Chris Buck. You can even affix a motivational slogan if you so desire. Chris Buck is capable!

This shows what good friends we are.

In the night we drink beer and catch up on old times, revisiting stories which steadily become more myth than reality and spouting new tales that will doubtless follow the same course. In the morning we pack an ice-chest and sit by Lake Waco. We soak in sun like snakes, with a necessitated urgency that our subdued exteriors repress. When the sun becomes too strong, we head for water, sometimes stopping to throw a frisbee for a few minutes but the wind refuses our efforts and we vow no further attempts until aided by either some higher power or a better frisbee.

An older man with scars on his mouth and beneath his shades and his funny hat and a limp in his slowed walk sits down with a friend at a table some ways in front of us. As evening falls, I find myself walking alone back to the bus and strike up conversation with the man with the scars. He tells me his name is Karl - with a "K" - and hands me a frisbee better adept at windy missions. He tells me he used to play frisbee before his leg got fucked up, and he tells me the whole story. I listen because he seems in need of an audience. Karl talks so fast I can only catch every third word, but I piece together a roughly hewn narrative about a motorcycle accident, a girl, the ensuing multiplicity of surgeries, rehab, and billiards. He tells me of his abstract designs - t-shirts with various text slogans and brightly colored boxes and images. One says Psycho vertically down the front with eyes and tongues and other things worked in to the text. On the back it says, I am colorful. He describes another that has 1+1 written on the front pocket. He asks if I know what it says on the back. He holds up two fingers. I wait. Peace, he says. As Sarah and Chris walk up, Karl tells me about his website, Walligator 7 (although I still can't find any trace of it on the internet). As I leave, he tells me that we should play frisbee again someday.

After goodbyes, we head down the road for home - or some semblance of home - and look forward to continued adventures ahead. Soon enough.