Am I on my Trip yet?

48 hours before I left America I posted a facebook status asking what I was forgetting, then spent the next two days with my incredible family and friends. The ice cream was delicious.

About 46 hours later the packing was done, perfect or not. All the questions and preparations fell away as I said goodbye to my folks and pointed Ronda the Rental Car towards San Francisco International Airport.

Alone in the car on a dark highway, take your hands off the wheel for a moment as an offering to the gods of Chance, then take the wheel and start the trip.

Or not. When does a Trip actually start? When you leave home? When you leave the familiar? The ground? When you hear a foreign language? The furnace blast as the doors open at Augusto Sandino International Airport in Managua?

If it’s the lattermost, then the feeling of being behind the wheel didn’t last long.

My main bag is small enough to be a carry-on, so I didn't have to check any baggage and so was the first one out of the terminal. Prepping myself for the inevitable attack of the taxi drivers I stepped outside into…nothing. Heat. Dry, exhaust. Finally they found me (did I surprise them?) and I excused and debated my way out of the clutches of the “official” taxi drivers inside the airport lot to try the unofficial ones across the street. One of the official ones followed me out and bartered himself down to a fair price, then came across the street to the unofficial ones anyway, jumped in a car and pulled out at top speed. ("Did he just steal this car?")

A packed mini-bus to Leon that was actually pretty comfortable, sitting next to two old men who debated buying a quesilla long after the vendor was lost in the dust behind us, then another taxi into Leon (the bus didn’t drop me off in the walkable location the guidebook predicted of course) and I set out for the hostel I’d chosen.

I wish I could claim I was Mr. Traveler and it all goes easily, but no, I immediately got lost.

Leon is supposed to be one of the easier Nicaraguan cities to navigate (which doesn’t bode well for me) because it actually has street names, but they are 1st Northeast St, 2nd 3rd etc, which are different from 1st Northeast Road, 2nd 3rd etc, and they change from Northeast to Southeast etc with no warning. It’s enough of a grid to make you feel safe in doubling back, but turns out it’s not quite that easy. Where'd the park go?

I finally found the place, sweat soaked and thirsty, paid for my dorm bed, and went looking for food. I don’t feel like I’m really in a place until I’ve eaten and slept there. So maybe today is Nicaragua, real day 1. Let’s see how it goes…

When were the last two weeks?

No matter how many times it happens, it always amazes me how an entire week can pass so quickly. We left Mendocino on Thursday the 22nd of March and arrived a few hours later in San Francisco on Saturday the 30th, which lasted half an hour before it was April 1 and I was driving away from K’s yoga retreat, where she’ll spend the next two months while I go wander around trying not to get malaria.

Beautiful day in Berkeley

I’m not sure when it happened but I remember walking around Berkeley with an old friend, flavors of breakfast polenta and navratan korma for dinner. I remember eating sushi with my sister and brother-in-law, room for one more roll and asking the chef to make us whatever he felt like, seeing his answering smile, and thoroughly enjoying some sort of mango and raw fish dessert. I remember seeing my brother answer the door of his apartment in Bernal Heights and drinks in the bar waiting for our table.

There were the tears of welcome from my mom and the wagging tails of beagles who don’t need to understand the passage of time, and toasting my “padres” at dinner with the wine we bought in the Anderson Valley.

A brief series of impressions from a coastal town I used to live in, dinner with friends before choosing whiskey custard over black pepper cheesecake at a new organic ice creamery. Meeting another friend’s puppy before having my first proper burrito in years.

That half an hour in San Francisco managed to include a dog park with beautiful views of my original The City, seeing an old friend hit a double in his softball game, and delectable cupcakes in the home of world renowned hospitality.

Somewhere in there we stayed in our second ridiculously cozy lighthouse hostel, waking up to morning rollers off the Pacific.

But somehow that all, and the iceberg beneath it, went straight into my memory, and I spent a year driving away from a cozy house in Santa Rosa, where K will spend the next two month learning yoga, meditation, and whatever else the unique ensemble has to offer.

Luckily hospitality was not exhausted, and I spent these last few days in friendship, conversation, and a Giants game. Baseball baby! Now I’m really back in America… Leaving in three days.

I expect those three days to last 4 minutes, but in it I’ll cram a brief city reunion with K, an Easter supper with the fam, and the nauseas floating of waiting for an airplane…

See you in Nicaragua.

Mendocino for the soul

Leaving Tommy the Tripper to the winds of chance, we got back in Ronda, our little red rental car, and headed over beautiful Highway 20 towards Mendocino. We still had some road munchies from the Ashland Food Co-op (coconut chocolate goji berry squares, or some such awesomeness) but as we passed Clearlake I had to stop at The Grub Shack, whose red lettering said “Country boy American food” and there was a gigantic barbecue on the deck cooking the largest rack of beef short-ribs I’ve ever seen.
I sat and ate the most delicious hamburger I’ve had in years, listening to disappointed country lads being told the ribs smoking outside wouldn’t be ready for another few hours. Sorry K, but I’ve never been happier to be a meat-eater. Gotta go back someday for the ribs.

Driving through redwoods to the Mendocino Coast felt like entering my religion's cathedral after years of pilgrimage in heathen lands. Those trees. I don’t mean to be polemic or offensive, but I don’t understand how anyone can sit in a normal church if a forest is nearby. When you look at those giants, how can you think God lives in a little human-built box? In a world with natural beauty like that, how can anyone think The Divine gives a beautiful little rat’s ass about what hat you wear, how you pray, or who you love?


We were staying in another airbnb property, this time a palace of light wood, tall windows, and forest light. Our room was on the second floor, with high ceilings, and waking up in the morning felt like we’d slept in the world’s most comfortable treehouse.

The weather this whole trip has been perfect, sunny on walking days and raining in the forest, and our first night in Mendo we sat in the outdoor hot tub, 104 degrees F, listening to the light rain in the redwoods and feeling it dancing in exuberantly cool opposition on our faces. Tangible Beauty. Ineffably Holy. (Not a smidgeon of dogma in sight.)

We ate good food again, saw the small-town hippies walking their dreadlocks, dogs, and dogs’ dreadlocks, and strolled about the epic Mendocino Headlands on a blustery day when waves exploded into the air around us and an older couple gifted us with smiles and “you guys remind us of ourselves, 40 years ago.” The woman walked carefully with a cane, he remained close by her side out of love not obligation, and I loved them immediately.

We went for a walk in Van Damme State Park, strolling in bliss beside a clear stream, redwood drips blessing us with every step, smiling effortlessly and sincerely at any passing travelers and ferns. I thought the damp little walkers were fire bellied salamanders, but now I reckon they were Taricha granulosa granulosa, Rough-skinned Newts.

Leaving the park we crossed the street to stare in awe at the Pacific, leaping off the craggy rocks of the Northern California Coast.


I could go on for far longer than you want to read, so suffice to say, I’ve seen a lot of amazing places (I‘m looking at you Sahara, Himalaya, Pyrenees, Scottish Highlands, Caribbean…), and nothing beats the Pacific Northwest. Being there feels like home base for the soul.

Leaving was hard, especially since I was unable to see my favorite 8 and 5 year olds in the world, who live in the area, but the fact that we were headed down to the family and friends of the San Francisco Bay Area put a glowing goal over the horizon to reach for.

I love that feeling.

Shasta to Redding Trip...

After one last Portland brunch with my brother it was a beautiful few hour drive down to the ghost town of Mount Shasta after ski season ends but before hike/lake season begins. We stayed in a little cabin some guy has built in his backyard, and was clearly decorated by a single heterosexual male who spends more time camping than shopping. That is, it looked fine to me./I liked it.

We found an organic, vegan, local, gluten-free, homemade, artisan, raw, carbon-neutral, ayurvedic, probiotic, non-gmo, non-hfcs, non-pgh (I'm just making up acronyms now) cafe, where we enjoyed a tasty bowl of soup and a sandwich while watching the sedate procession of parka-clad and dreadlocked individuals drifting through to the open mic in the back room where an earnest young man was strumming an acoustic guitar and telling us about love. It was awesome. They had checkers too.

The next morning was light sticky snow, and since, given the chance, our economy-class rental car would slide like a hockey puck, we left early to drive down to Mendocino, munching on food bought the day before at the incredible Ashland Food Co-op.

Passing through Redding, I decided on a whim to pull over and see the Sundial Bridge. We found it, saw it, and halfway through crossing it heard screams of "hey!!! HEY!!!" coming out of the woods. The screams were followed by a young male, hands wrapped in an extra wool parka-thing. As he saw us and got closer he remembered what he meant was "HELP!!!" He stumbled up to us.

"I don't understand myself and I need to. I need to understand you. I don't understand you because I don't understand death!"

I stepped in front of K, eyes on his hand, hidden in his parka.

"I need the world to know, because everything is within me, and you need to understand, and I need to be free, because what I have realized..."

I've narrowed my guesses to two: 1: he has a gun in there and is about to shoot me. 2: he cut off most/all of one/both of his hand(s).

"and I cannot be free until I realize my potential, because I have been carrying too much weight!"

The hands drop, the parka drops to the ground, carrying some brightly colored spiritual self-help book with it, his hands...reach out for me, clean and weapon-free.

"Can I hug you? I need to hug you to activate my peanut butter. Because I have been denying protein my whole life!"

(Me) "Uh, not right now, thanks."

"I am Toltec. Do you know what that is?"

(Me) "Uh, yeah, it's an indigenous tribe from Mexico."

(solemnly) "Yes. The Toltec are where all humanity comes from. And it is where marijuana comes from. Do you smoke marijuana?"

"uh...not much?"

"Good. (Again, very solemnly) We should not smoke marijuana...

...we should eat it."

I can't remember everywhere the discussion went, although I remember his heartfelt conviction that he need to learn all the languages of the world in order to communicate with everyone, his certainty that he should start with Latin, and his genuine disappointment when we told him we couldn't teach him Latin.

As entertaining as it is now, he was in a fragile place, and the message to remember is: if you are going to take a psychotropic journey, take a guide. This kid should have had someone with him, because he was picking up and mirroring whatever minute signals we gave him.

So I tried to be reassuring and appreciative, and invited him to cross a bridge with us. We walked back across the Sundial Bridge.

"I know my path now, I must come with you."

"No my friend, our path today takes us many miles, and you have more to learn here. We met you for a reason, and we have accomplished it, now our paths must part."

"I need to come with you, I am frightened."

My heart was breaking for this poor wide-eyed kid, but I wasn't about to bring him 250 miles to the coast.

"You are okay, you are safe here my friend." His breathing slowed. "There, see that cafe there? That is where you must go now."

"Yes, I must go there now, there I will find friends."

God I hope he found friends there. If whatever bored teenager who was dishing up coffee that morning treated him badly... I wish that kid well. And remember, if you are going on the dream path, get a guide.

Portland

Thank you Portland. Better yet: thank you Portlanders.

It’s been a good week in the City of Roses. Enough good food to overwhelm a poor traveler’s palette, with descriptions that range from enticing to somewhat ridiculous. I keep meaning to copy some down for you, but once the plate arrives such thoughts are simmered into a balsamic reduction that leaves no aftertaste. I fear I would utterly fail a spelling test generated from these esoteric epicurean soliloquies.

But as delightful as it was to reacquaint myself with my dear old friend Brunch, it was the reunions with family and friends that lifted the week to the sublime.

As the train from Seattle slid into Portland and my reunion with my brother, I slid into giddiness. K tolerated/enjoyed my tour guide narration of Portland (non)landmarks in a variety of accents as my spirits bubbled over. My brother met us at the station and we hadn’t made it out the doors yet when the obscure movie references and decades-old inside jokes began. (K thanks you for your condolences.)

We went to the forest. My god, it had been too long. Such power and Beauty in thick forest floors, damp bark and dripping leaves. Green green GREEN!!! We walked a path cut into granite cliffside beside godly waterfalls, felt snow on our faces, saw a deer spotting us from the green abyss, and tried to stare at the Columbia River Gorge but were overwhelmed and insignificant.

We stayed with time-honored friends and their 9 month old addition to the family, saw further friends, from long ago, medium ago, and recent, all of whom are cause for gratitude. Today held a famous Croquet Social, yesterday moved K out of her comfort zone in an unprecedented manner that she dealt with like a champ, and the day before we stood in a quintessential Portland bar/venue watching improv rock & roll make horrible yet enjoyable noise.

This trip is characterized by insufficient time at every stage (see: Seattle) and though Portland is to be the longest, the week felt more like a day. At the end of it we were shocked and dismayed to find that we were not living there from now on, as we had tried to convince ourselves, nor even staying another month, as mere decency demanded. Nearly unacceptable.

I love traveling, and am addicted to the lure of new places and the sense of transition, but oh-me-oh-my, the lure of settling down with family and friends can be strong.  We’re a rather schizophrenic species, with our needs for isolation and socialization, noise and silence, stimulation and tranquility, and in that twist and pull I can find Beauty, but leaving Portland, leaving my Portlanders that is, was hard.

Sing a sea shanty with me

Onboard the ferry from Seattle to Victoria last Thursday was a little blond boy, eight or nine years old, running up and down the aisles, swinging from the armrests and chasing his brother.

About twenty years ago my family took a summer vacation to Seattle, Victoria, and Vancouver Island. I was the little blond boy, running up and down the aisles... I wonder what the me of then would have thought of the me of now. Probably just another grown-up to avoid disturbing?

Those thoughts made me smile as we sailed across birdbath-calm seas on the way up to Canada. Two excellent days later we were returning, and the birdbath was gone.

The northern part of the trip goes through the Straight of Juan de Fuca, which is open at the west end to the Pacific Ocean, and Saturday night the ocean rollers were taking advantage. The Clipper is an impressive ship, a catamaran that holds 30 knots the whole way, but it started feeling smaller and smaller as the waves got bigger and bigger.

I enjoyed the flying lift in the belly at first, watching as the faces around us on the boat got tighter and tighter, greener and greener. You could see people's bodies floating up in the air as the boat dropped into each trough between waves. The cabin crew came around with little ginger candies to calm stomachs, and reassuring smiles to calm fears.

Smiles and laughs started getting fewer as the troughs deepened, and passengers started staggering to the stern to find the restrooms. The sets got stronger, and things started falling off tables before they were quickly packed away.

We weren't sure if K gets motion sick, but about the time she thought it prudent to go linger in the vomitorium vicinity the young lass of the cabin crew stopped smiling. I watched her go over and secure the external door, brow wrinkled.

The troughs were deep enough that you could hear and feel the slap of the hull coming down out of the air to contact the waves. A second sailor (this one I swear looking like Popeye, with broad tattooed forearms) came and peered out the windows and at the horizon, looking far less than reassuring before moving back to the stern, not making eye contact with anyone.

The horizon leaped out of sight below the window, faster than it had yet, the cabin girl grabbed two handles, bent her knees and said "shit!" before we came slamming down, spray lifting over the bow and smashing along the front view windows.

I heard a groan that would have been more amusing if I was sure it hadn't come from me.

The Straight of Juan de Fuca seemed to last a looong time, but we finally made it through, and the troughs were reduced to simply stomach-dropping levels, but everyone's faces stayed a little tight until we docked in Seattle.

A good friend picked us up at the pier and I spent the rest of the evening enjoying good company and being on solid ground.

A form of The Good Life, eh.

Still a tad jet-laggy, we're living the good life today in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

We're staying in another airbnb place, this time the apartment of an excellent-sounding couple who is unfortunately in India at the moment, but their place is awesome, and superbly close to downtown. We slept in, wandered over to a brunch place for homemade granola and free-run egg scramble. Stopped by a quirky grocery store (where we continued finding out which products K has never heard of and I've forgotten, triscuits, butterfinger, jack cheese), then the rest of the day moving between the multiple vintage stores (I fell fully asleep in one of them) and the bizarrely common coffeeshops where I am exploring the range of chai lattes.

Given the modest population of Victoria and the Saanich Peninsula it sits on, I do not understand how the concise downtown area supports that kind of coffeeshop density. I don't think there is a single block in town that doesn't have at least 1.7 coffeeshops on it, of which only a few are Starbucks.

It's a rule-breaking sort of place I guess, since there are at least four bead shops and a half dozen other craft stores as well. All in all, it's my kinda town; the Religion section of the magazine rack featured monthlies called, among others: Magical Times, Faerie, and (my personal favorite) Mermaids.

With this kind of indulgent strolling, maybe it's no surprise we were asked for directions; I guess we just look comfortable.

Saturday morning stroll to the water tomorrow, then back to Seattle on the evening ferry before heading down to Portland.