Chicago

Todd and I have spent the last couple of days in Chicago and today we are heading out, with a destination of Dayton, Ohio. So it'll be a long drive. It's amazing how many friends we have in the Midwest, though: Carrie and Erik, who just moved to Chicago from San Francisco, were nice enough to put us up. Janet, a Chicago native, acted as our tour guide of the city yesterday. We visited Erin and Jason in Milwaukee, in their fabulous new house (they just moved there from Boston). Today we will go to Indiana to see Greg and Cheryl, and then on to Ohio, to see Lou, Michelle, Geoff, and Melissa. Knowing so many people makes me feel a little less far from home, even though the fact that we can visit all of them means that we are far from home. A strange contradiction.

People who have lived in or near Chicago have told me what a huge city it is. I've seen it on a map and thought it looked huge. But it's not until being here that I really got it. It can take a looong time to get from one part of the city from another. It's a bit overwhelming. And even the downtown isn't as walkable as one might imagine. I keep contrasting it to Portland, Oregon in my head, which is a much smaller city in terms of population and also more compact. It seems like such an opposite kind of city.

Our visit to Chicago felt like such a whirlwind, and the city was so huge, that I don't really even know what else to say about it. Carrie and Erik live in a great neighborhood with tree-lined streets and in an amazingly huge apartment for a really reasonable rent, which reminds me how expensive the Bay Area is. So why do I miss it?

I'm getting to that point in this vacation where I think I'd like to sleep in my own bed for a change and not have to keep hauling my luggage around. I'm feeling like if someone wants to break into our car and steal some of our stuff, that would be fine with me. Hey, I'll pick things out to give them! I'm starting to want to go home. Or just know where home is. Of course, I don't know where home is, since I no longer live in home as I've known it. And my bed is in storage somewhere. And we don't have an apartment waiting for us in Boston. And I miss my friends and family. I guess this is the hard part about flying by the seat of one's pants.

Good-bye, South Dakota

We made it out of South Dakota alive, but just barely. We were almost killed last night by a horrible dinner at a place called the Fry'n Pan. Just typing that name makes me realize we should have known better, but it was 10 pm, we were starving, it was a short walk from the motel, and from the outside it looked like a Denny's. Ha! I don't think they'd seen a vegetarian before, and I had to provide education and outreach services about what a stir-fry is supposed to be like (e.g., not microwaved, previously frozen "vegetables"). Likewise, Todd had to try not to die a sugary death from the "french toast" he was served. In the end, we complained and the manager comped us the food. Or should I say "food."

This experience made me really miss the Bay Area, where I could count on lots of good veggie food, and if it wasn't available, I could effectively play the role of the indignant vegetarian ("What?? You don't have any TOFU?!"). It made me homesick for the first time since leaving. I felt so far from anywhere I belonged. And like I don't currently have a place to belong, given that I'm in between homes. And all because of the stupid pseudo-meal.

I feel better now, though. After driving all day from Sioux Falls, SD, through Minnesota, and some of Wisconsin, we are now in Madison, Wisconsin, the state capital. Madison is an oasis: Lots of veggie food, some street performers, and, of course, people selling bongs on the street near the University of Wisconsin. It's like Berkeley or Santa Cruz, but with lakes instead of the ocean or bay. Not that I'm in the market for a bong or anything (although after South Dakota....). It's the liberal atmosphere that I like. It reminds me of home. Although, in Oakland, they wouldn't be selling bongs on the street so much as the actual drugs. And maybe my crazy downstairs neighbor would be the one doing the selling. But still.

Another upside of Madison is where we're staying. We've stayed at our share of Sixes. We've also been branching out to Super 8's (The Eight). But tonight, with Priceline on our side, we are staying at the Madison Concourse Hotel. Fancy-schmancy for $45 a night, which is actually cheaper than a Six or an Eight. Thank you, Priceline, for the gourmet shampoo, soft bed, and fitness center. You don't know what it means to me.

The Devil and South Dakota

The big destination today was Devil's Tower. Remember it from Close Encounters of the Third Kind? It was the rock formation that everyone sculpted in their mashed potatoes in subconscious preparation for the alien landing. It turns out that the tower is actually the inside of an ancient volcano – the outside has been eroded by water and wind over the millennia. We took a short walk around the base of the tower and learned about how it is a Native American sacred site that people insist on climbing anyway. We saw several rock climbers scaling it as we explored. Apparently, in the ‘90s there was an impotent attempt by the Park Service to have a voluntary closure of the tower to climbers during the month of June because this is when major Native American religious ceremonies occur. Then there was a failed lawsuit to keep the voluntary closure from happening. Overall, this pseudo-ban has resulted in about three quarters of climbers heeding the closure during June, according to a park ranger. So this means that about a quarter of climbers still insist on climbing the holy site during the holiest month of the year. The climbing also requires that metal fixtures be drilled into the side of the tower and left there, in order to hold the climbers’ ropes (although, fortunately, no new drilling is allowed). This seems to me to be equivalent to defacing a church or temple, about which people rightly get into a twist. So why should this be any different? There are other rocks to climb that are not sacred sites. The park ranger joked that because it is a voluntary ban on climbing, they don’t “shoot people down or anything.” Hmm. Picking them off doesn’t seem like such a bad idea to me.

This reminded me of our previous day’s visit to the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. There was a vast graveyard for all the white soldiers who had died, but where were the Native Americans? The information provided at the monument was a whitewashed history that painted the racist land-grabbing and genocide by white settlers and Custer, etc., as a simple little conflict between Custer and the tribes. As though the battle was simply about a difference of opinion about who should live where and not about white people deciding that natives were inferior and had no rights. I had high hopes for this monument. I had thought that it might provide something rich and educational about Native American life and the struggles they endured as their land and rights were forcibly taken from them. But no. It provided a timeline of names and dates and battles, ripped from the pages of the crappiest high school history textbooks. Which further reminded me of an excellent book I just read, Lies my Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, by James Loewen. I recommend it.

Speaking of history, we also saw Mount Rushmore today. Which was okay, but not spectacular. We don’t have any great digital pictures of it because we didn’t try all that hard to photograph it. Once you’ve seen Yellowstone, faces carved into the side of a mountain just aren’t very magical. And the whole point behind the carving was to draw tourists to South Dakota. That’s all. Apparently, it was clear that in order to draw anyone to South Dakota, drastic measures, such as defacing a perfectly lovely mountain, would have to be taken.

I am not personally drawn to South Dakota, although we are in Rapid City, SD now. Tomorrow we head for Sioux Falls, which is on the other side of the state. This means a long day of driving. But we will stop at the Badlands and Wall Drug. And then we’ll be almost out of the state.

By the way, Todd posted a some of our Yellowstone pictures on his blog. Take a look.

Yellowstone

Yellowstone was amazing. Unfortunately, we can't seem to upload pictures at the moment. Must be some kind of glitch. So stay tuned. However, the best parts of my Yellowstone experience are the ones I can't put into words and that don't come out in pictures. For instance, there was the time that a bison crossed the road in front of our car at night (don't worry, we didn't hit it). He was so quiet and came so close to our stopped car. He looked over at us and went on his way. He was not as impressed with us as we were with him. But our cameras/film don't take pictures so well in low light. And who even cares? Because there is no way that a simple picture could ever capture the quiet of the night, the sound of the bison's footfall, or my feeling of wonder. And pictures and words can never do justice to seeing all the impressive mountains, steam vents, boiling pools, waterfalls, canyons, etc., that made me feel so dwarfed by nature and so amazed at what a chaotic and, at the same time, perfectly ordered place this planet is. I feel so grateful to have gotten a chance to go there. And there is no picture that can show you that.

On a side note, there was tofu at the restaurants in the park. Which gave me more reason to be amazed and thankful. Yellowstone, I love you!

Show Me Your Tetons

There is apparently some controversy about how the Grand Tetons got their name. I like the explanation that some pervy Frenchmen who were wandering through saw the pointy-tipped mountains and thought they looked like giant breasts. They probably hadn’t seen a woman in a long time, or at least one who was willing to voluntarily show them her tetons. And since then, everyone who says they are going to be sure to take lots of pictures of the Grand Tetons during their vacation is really saying that they are going to be engaging in something mildly pornographic. The part of my brain that is like that of a 13-year-old boy finds this hilarious.

Of course, we took lots of pictures of the Tetons, because they are spectacular. Unfortunately, many of our digital pictures didn’t come out as planned, so we’ll have to wait to get the film pictures developed to relive most of the splendor. However, if you look at Todd's blog, you'll see some of what we've got. We spent some time on Jenny Lake, which had a fun little boat ride. As we were getting on the boat, the person ushering us on asked, “So, where’s home?” Todd and I looked at each other, not knowing how to answer this. I told the guy it was a good question, and then he dropped the subject because he could see it was too difficult for people who seemed so stupid as to not know where they lived. This question came up previously in Sun Valley, Idaho, when the woman at the visitor’s center asked us where we were from. We took the time to explain our moving and road trip process to her, and she seemed to realize what fabulous adventurers we are. In the future, perhaps I’ll make something up, and say we are from Germany. I think that this would go over well, given that we don’t have accents. Or better yet, we can adopt really phony accents. That’ll teach ‘em to ask us questions.

Before we got to Teton National Park, however, we arrived at our jumping-off point, Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Like Sun Valley, it is known as a ski resort for rich people. We paid too much for a room that had been “decorated” in the 1970s by a drunken cowboy in a motel run by rude people. But the best part of Jackson Hole was the cowboy hats. No, I’m not talking about the cowboy hats worn by actual cowboys. I’m talking about the hats worn by the tourists who just bought them as they rolled into town because they wanted to look like locals. What they didn’t realize is that locals probably don’t wear cowboy hats with capri pants from the Gap. One can only hope that these misguided tourists, once they return home, realize their folly and never, ever wear those stupid hats again. I wanted to make a fashion police citizen’s arrest, but since I have been wearing essentially the same thing every day (like a good little budget traveler) I thought it excluded me from being able to give fashion advice.

Next, we drove north from the Tetons to Yellowstone National Park. I have wanted to come to Yellowstone since I was a child and I saw pictures of it on the National Parks calendars that my grandmother used to give my mom. I am fascinated by the drama of the bubbling, boiling earth. On Saturday, we saw the West Thumb area and its thermal pools as well as Old Faithful, which was erupting right as we got there. After the eruption, people in the crowd clapped. Were they hoping for some sort of encore? Perhaps they didn’t realize that the geyser CAN’T HEAR THEM. Yellowstone reminds me quite a bit of the thermal areas we saw in New Zealand last year. In fact, at one point when I looked through the viewfinder of my camera to take a picture of Todd in front of West Thumb Lake, I flashed back to Rotorua, NZ, which had similar bubbling thermal pools and a lake. Ahh, the memories.

Aside from seeing all the hot stuff that Yellowstone has to offer, our main objective is to see some animals. So far, we saw some deer and moose grazing at dusk in the Grand Tetons, and yesterday, we saw some elk doing the same in Yellowstone. We have also seen an assortment of squirrels and chipmunks. But we want bears, wolves, and bison. When preparing for this trip, I kept telling people that I was going to smear Todd with peanut butter to attract bears. Perhaps we could also hang a steak around his neck to attract wolves. He could stand out in a field, wearing peanut butter and steak. When the bears and wolves approach, he can run back to the car, where I’ll be sitting with a camera. Then we can definitely get some close-ups. Unfortunately, I’m not sure how we’ll attract bison. Maybe I’ll tell them that my high school mascot was a buffalo, and they’ll just want to hang out with me.

Mormons and Fox News and Spurs, Oh My!

In Idaho Falls, there are Mormons, and lots of 'em. There is a major temple in the area, and we are not that far from Salt Lake City. The temple gives tours of its visitors center, and Todd and I joked about going so he could ask questions about Mormonism (is that a word?) being the fastest growing cult. Of course, we would be asked to leave shortly thereafter. But when you look around, you can certainly see why it might be fast-growing: People have gaggles of children. Yikes. Of course, I knew that about Mormons, but seeing it on this large of a scale is a little weird. I also find it interesting that the Mormon temple is not open to the general public. Is there something to hide? It seems like most other churches are open to everyone who wants to come in.

At the Super 8, where we are staying, Fox News always appears to be on. When there is a TV in a common area, Fox News is showing. I have to fight the urge to throw things at the television.

Last night, we saw someone wearing spurs as he came out of a restaurant. That's right: spurs. I've never seen anyone wear spurs before, much less in a restaurant. I have seen people wear assless chaps before, though, so I do suppose I have some experience with western wear.

Did I mention that I don't think we're in the Bay Area anymore?

My Own Private Idaho

There is a scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom that has always haunted me. It was the one in which the flavor-of-the-month female companion of Indiana, played by Kate Capshaw, finds herself in a cave. She hears a sound – a moist, writhing sound, but it is dark, so she doesn’t know what it is. But c’mon. She should know she is only in for trouble with a sound like that. Then she finds her light and sees bugs, huge, hairy, slimy bugs on everything. Crawling over each other. They must be inches deep. They are on the walls, they are on the floor, they are on the ceiling. In fact, they are crawling on her, in her hair, her clothes. Today, in Sun Valley, Idaho, on top of Bald Mountain, I felt her pain.

It all started innocently enough: Todd and I took the chair lift up the mountain with plans for a picnic. I had begun to compose an apology letter to Idaho in my head. I had anticipated that Idaho would be a silly little diversion on our way to Yellowstone, with nothing to offer my fancy California self. That was before I discovered that downtown Boise had vegetarian food and was actually pretty cool. That was before I came to Sun Valley. Oh, Sun Valley, I can see why people flock to you from far and wide, causing you to have real estate signs that say “Sotheby’s International Real Estate.” If I were rich, I would want to have a spare home here too. And the hiking and biking trails! My letter was going to go something like that. So we went up the mountain to drink in the sunshine. But Lo! As soon as we got off the chairlift, I was under attack by every flying insect and ant in the Sun Valley area. I was swatting at myself only to find that Todd appeared to be bug-free. In fact, all the other people that I saw, including a woman wearing her bikini top instead of her shirt, appeared to be fine. There they were, all tan and smiling, frolicking in the sun, with no concern for the bugs of death. Apparently, I was wearing my invisible bug target today. The irony is that earlier in the day, Todd and I had come across our bug spray, only to put it away and not bring it up the mountain.

The picnic didn’t last long. The views were spectacular, however:

Idaho also has a whole lotta volcanic activity going on. Witness the lava fields of Craters of the Moon National Park. Due to movement of the earth’s crust, the geothermal hotspot that now lies under Yellowstone first traveled across Idaho. I’ve decided that geology is fun.

Idaho has also really made me appreciate the diversity of the Bay Area. Idaho, and Oregon, for that matter, is WHITE. All these white faces, everywhere. Until we went to the local Thai and Indian restaurants (which we did in Sun Valley and Bend, OR, respectively) and we saw families of color running the restaurants. In Sun Valley, when we went to the grocery store, there appeared to be 2 lines: One that was solely composed of white people, and the other that was for Latinos. It was totally unconscious, I think, but there it was. So, Idaho, as much as I’ve come to like some things about you, this is something you’ve got to work on.

Eastern Oregon and Idaho

Last night, we spent the night in Bend, Oregon, in the Motel 6, which lately I've been affectionately calling "The Six." The Six was a study of contradictions: On the sign outside, it advertised free wireless internet, suggesting something higher-end than your typical Motel 6 (and yes, I'm getting to know what the typical Six has to offer). But the place itself looked a little squirrelly, especially because the room numbers were written on pieces of paper and taped in the windows of the rooms. So I was expecting the inside of the room to look equally sketchy, but they weren't -- in fact, we had a minifridge and microwave, which just doesn't usually happen at The Six. But the best part of the motel was what was across the street: An adult cabaret and "Adult Superstore." On the marquis, the cabaret advertised "Wet, Wild Wednesdays." Too bad it's only Tuesday -- I'm sure I missed something spectacular. It's not like we were staying in a weird part of town; this was a main business district. In fact, when I went running this morning, I saw 2 more "adult" stores within a mile of the cabaret. Apparently, they like their porn in Bend.

After bumming around downtown Bend (which did not have any porn shops), we hit the road, pushing eastward. Eastern Oregon looks nothing like the Oregon I thought I knew (the moist, green Oregon). Eastern Oregon is ranch country. The Cascades trap the moisture and keep it to the west. But anyway, after driving all day through the middle of nowhere, we are now in Boise, ID. Who would have ever thought that I would consider Boise to NOT be the middle of nowhere? The thing it does seem to lack, at first glance, is a good tofu selection (at least at the grocery store we raided for dinner). I don't think I'm in the Bay Area anymore.

And where are we staying in Boise? That's right: The Six. Because that's how we roll.

On the Road

Back in March, I accepted a job in the Boston area. Now, after months of thinking about this cross-country move from Oakland, CA, my husband and I are actually doing it. We are taking 3 weeks to drive and see sights along our northerly route (from Oregon to Massachusetts). Up until this point in my life, I haven't been a particularly adventurous person -- for instance, I've never lived outside of California. Okay, so it is a large state. But I've never lived anywhere that wasn't a fairly short drive from where I had just been. Now, I'm moving to Boston, which is a long drive from Oakland. And we don't even have an apartment yet. As Kjerste will tell you, I like to be prepared, so this is a stretch for me. Think of all the character I'll build!

So far, we've driven through Northern California and into Central Oregon. In Redding, CA, it was 107 degrees, which caused this recent Oakland resident to wilt, sweat buckets and be generally cranky. We saw the Sundial Bridge in Redding, which is a pedestrian bridge over the Sacramento River. And true to its name, part of the bridge is a sundial. It has a very long shadow, which felt really good to stand in with that heat. Today, we went to Crater Lake, which is amazingly blue and was formed about 7,000 years ago after a volcano blew up and then collapsed in on itself. It must have been a mess then, but it's lovely now. It's amazing what 7,000 years will do.


Here's the Sundial Bridge:




And here's the fabulous Crater Lake: