Recovery TIme

It's been a long time since I updated this blog. Most of June was spent traveling 4100 miles in our van, Mobi. We left Silver City and camped in Navaholand, then went through Monument Valley north, caught hwy 95 to Capital Reef in Utah. Spectacular colors and rock formations. I'm not sure why people make such a deal of Monument Valley, because once you turn onto 95 the views are amazing.

We camped there one night and then drove a short distance to Calf Creek Campground where we stayed two nights. Beautiful. And hot. It was well over one hundred degrees, and roasting in the screen tent during the day. We took folding chairs and sat in the creek most of the day.

Then we went toward Bryce Canyon, turning north and heading west on I-50--billed as the loneliest highway. Now there is a road that lives up to its billing. We camped in a KOA, for lack of a better alternative. 

We made it to California the next day, camping in a free campground about 100 miles outside of Shasta in a lovely treed area along a river. The next day we made it to Hilt, California, our first destination. That's where Dagny's son, Lorenzo, lives and we got see the amazing young ladies his two daughters are becoming.

This trip was all about visiting kids, grandkids, and my mother, who just turned 95. That meant a few days in Hilt, then heading to Seattle. We did arrange to camp south of Portland for one night, getting together with my old music-writing pal, Frank Milan (formerly of Silver City), then the next day we got to Federal Way, where my mother lives. My brother Jim lives there and our youngest brother, Dan, and his lady Naomi, made it up the same day, so it was a reunion of sorts.

After a lovely visit, we headed to Bellevue  WA for a few days to see Dagny's daughter Selene and her two boys. Again it was great to see how they'd grown.

Then we came back. Constitutionally unable to retrace our steps, we headed down to Eastern Orego, went into Idaho and Wyoming, then into Utah. We did have to backtrack a bit, and we wound up in Moab where it was again scorching hot. At 4 am it was 77 degrees and headed above 100, so we packed up and left, getting home the next day.

We got back before the July 4th weekend started and hid out. Now, in a few days, I'm going on another road trip, this time with my friend Javaid Qazi. He'll be by here to pick me up and we'll be going to Marshall, IL, taking his wife's ashes back to her family for a ceremony there.

It's a lot of miles, and in between I've been writing. The last trip, driving a 22-foot Uhaul in convoy with two others from Portland to Silver City, gave me an idea for a short story. In particular, staying in a freeway motel in California was... inspiring, let's say. I just finished a draft of the story and will let it sit for a time, then get back to it. It's called Motel Endings, and came out with a rather Raymond Carver flavor to it, in tone, if not language.

I'm hoping all my trips will give me material for fiction. Travel is supposed to open your eyes, after all, and a writer with open eyes is handed diamonds. Usually they need a lot of polishing, but life isn't supposed to be easy.