Alaska or bust. I hope we don't bust.

I took Lucien to see Les Miserables his first week of summer vacation. It was my 10th time seeing the show. I'd see it again tomorrow if I could. I will never stop.

I remember my parents returning home after they first saw it in the 1980s. They raved about it, and brought home a souvenir, a Les Miz documentary called "Stage by Stage." I didn't go with them that first time but I watched the first few moments of that video and I was hooked. I was obsessed. I remember a warm feeling coursing through my body and a sense of "I now know what love feels like." Don't you dare tell me a musical can't love me back because I know it does.

I was very happy to share my favorite story with my son date.

The Loosh asked about twenty minutes before we left for the theatre, "Mom, what's the story about?" and I said, "Oh! It's a super short story written by Victor Hugo about love, redemption, compassion, rebellion, you can read it quickly before we leave!" He nodded enthusiastically and I threw my dogeared copy of the nearly 1,500-page novel at him. He looked so shocked.

READ, LUCIEN, READ LIKE YOU'VE NEVER READ BEFORE.

This was my least favorite production I've seen of Les Miz. It's become something of a soap opera up there, with most actors throwing themselves all over the place in melodramatic fashion. They were being VERY SERIOUS actors but honestly, the story speaks for itself, you don't gotta sell it so hard.

The staging has changed, too. The sets used to be minimal and understated, which added to the charm of the thing. There was a revolving stage, so when people walked somewhere "far," they really walked in the same place as the stage rotated and props passed them by. Now there is no more rotation. When Jean Valjean gets Cosette at the well and takes her off for a better life, they just kind of wander all over the stage in lazy S shapes. What the hell are you guys doing up there?

One of the most effective scenes in the musical used to utilize the rotating stage to perfection. When Enjolras is killed at the barricade and falls off the front, the barricade later turns to show him laying upside down on top of the giant red rebel flag as music swells. That scene is gone without the revolving part; now they just kind of wheel a dead Enjolras across the stage in a cart. He's still with his big red flag but... what? Where's my big crying moment? It's gone, as gone as Enjolras.

I'm not done complaining yet! Another point of contention: Marius sings "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" while limping around in the darkness instead of sitting at the bar with all the chairs and tables he's singing about. How can you sing about empty chairs at empty tables when there are zero dang chairs and zero dang tables? Sit down in the damn bar and mourn your dead friends properly, Marius.

Don't even get me started on how audiences have changed. I swear half the audience was late so had to be seated at the first scene break, about fifteen minutes after the show began. Then there were just streams of people walking in carrying wine cups, and chatting, and blocking our view entirely for the next ten minutes of the show. Lucien didn't even get to see Fantine become a prostitute properly.

I'll distract myself from my crabby old lady Les Miz mutterings by showing before and nearly-after pictures of our master bathroom project. It's still not 100% finished but I sure like looking at it. It brings a little circa-1900 character to the space at last, and is even better than I'd envisioned.

Before:

we had no bathroom.

Almost After:

we very nearly have a gorgeous bathroom.

So gorgeous, we have decided to do all our entertaining from now on

in our bathroom. 

With the bathroom project nearly finished, our six years of Banister Abbey renovations are almost kinda complete. There is still a long list of small things to do but this, aside from the landscaping, which we hope to get to someday, is our last major undertaking in bringing this pretty old dame of a house back to life. Banister Abbey has been a labor of love. There is so much love. But as is involved in most labors, there has also been a shit ton of pain.

Summer is going well. There have been many water gun fights and buckets of water dumped on each other on the hot days --

And lemonade stands --

brilliant idea to offer the lemonade for free

but "except" donations.

They made a killing.

And kids running wild in the streets of Seattle --

And my beautiful sister, who is showcasing her art in her very first solo show in West Seattle. Her talent is astounding and I'm so happy she's getting the recognition she deserves.

That's Coco in front of "her" painting with Cecil the lion.

And finally, a fun event at the grocery store. Coco came with me to load up on the essentials for our big road trip. In the checkout lane, Coco loudly announced to the checker, "My mom and dad have a drinking problem." And I froze, and the checker froze, and we looked at each other, then both looked down at the items I was buying. There wasn't even any alcohol. So.... what's happening right now.

I said, "Umm, what?" and Coco said, throwing her arms into the air in exasperation, "You guys drink, like, twelve bubbly waters A DAY." True enough, I had five cases of La Croix on the belt and they're not likely to last a week. I've never loved a beverage so much in my life. It has actually replaced coffee as my morning drink of choice, it's that serious of a relationship.

Then the checker laughed and I laughed and the checker said, "Oooh boy, it got real awkward there for a second." Yes, yes it did. Coco can't come to the grocery store with me anymore.

I gotta go, it's crunch time, we're leaving for Alaska in t-minus not many hours. We'll be gone a long time, just shy of a month. Imagine the insanely long posts I'm going to write when I return! I'm really gonna write this trip into the ground, I can feel it.

Our journey to the Great North involves a stop in Watson Lake, in the Yukon. Watson Lake is known for its "Sign Post Forest," a labyrinth of almost 80,000 signs brought from the hometowns of people making the trek up the Alaska Highway. We have our sign ready. We will leave our mark at Watson Lake, as nearly 80,000 people have apparently done before us.

I hope it's the best road trip of our lives,
and I hope they put Les Miz back the way it used to be.
MJ

Storing fat for Alaska

This good girl doesn't know

we're fixin' to leave her for three-and-a-half weeks.

I'm eating, sleeping and breathing Alaska to plan our upcoming road trip. So much to know to plot the route and plan the itinerary, so many internet searches like, "Is such-and-such a road safe to drive in an RV or is it another Tiller Trail?" There are also novels to read to get into the spirit of the place, tour companies to contact, and purchases to make such as bear spray and warm lined rain boots and mosquito nets that cover your whole head. Do you know how many ways there are to die up there?? Hundreds!

The kids are using my intense road trip focus against me. I found Lucien eating a secret bag of potato chips in the TV room this past week. He looked guilty for a second but thought fast and said, "I'm storing fat for Alaska." I took the chips away and said, "You know there is plenty of food in Alaska..." but he followed me out of the room saying, "No! We're gonna have to craft our own bows and arrows to shoot deer, and do you know how to cut down a tree yet? We're also gonna have to fish, lay traps, and forage for berries!"

He was on a roll then. He entertains himself thoroughly when he thinks he's onto a juicy joke. (apple, meet tree...)

".... but we'll have Coco taste the berries first, obviously, to make sure they're not poisonous!" I gave him a severe "Mom look" after that comment and he said, "She's the youngest, Mom, if anyone's gotta die out there in the nothingness of our summer vacation, it's gotta be her. And if anyone's gonna live, it's going to be me, because of the chips!"

Lucien is now, at this very moment, musing aloud we may have to resort to cannibalism. I guess anything less than that will be considered a smashing success of a trip.

I took the Winnie B into the RV shop to fix everything that needs fixing. There's always a lot on such a complicated vehicle but as of now, all seems to be in good working order. I pretty much told the guy, "We're driving to Alaska, just replace everything with new things." I'm being extra cautious because I can't imagine much worse of a disappointment than suffering RV failure in the middle of the Yukon.

Good luck, us.

(Good girl still doesn't know...)

In these few weeks remaining before we drive off towards the Arctic Circle, we are caught up in the whirlwind of end-of-school-year chaos. The performances, presentation nights, carnivals, etc. are really stacking up but we're knocking them down one by one with rapidly fatiguing fists.

Lucien's big end-of-year Humanities project involved an in-depth report on biodiversity's role in healthy ecosystems, a subject for which he organically feels much passion so it was a natural choice. As part of his project, he had to take an "action step." For his action step, he decided to print up flyers and educate the public by handing them out and starting conversations one-on-one and in small groups. His original plan was to do that at the beach on a sunny day but we're a little tired here at the end of the school year so instead it took place at a friend's party the day before the project was due. Our closest friends were all there, and had been drinking beer and eating tacos for hours.

I had to document the action step to include in his PowerPoint presentation. I told this group of friends to look natural, as if Lucien was educating them about the alarming rate of loss of species at that very second and it was the first they'd heard of it.

Nailed it. 

Totally natural.

(I love this photo, and you bet we used it.)

I volunteered to work a couple booths at Coco's school carnival this past weekend. First shift was at the Fish Pond game, where Coco acted as assistant by sitting hidden behind the screen and attaching toys to the end of the fishing pole whenever some little tyke tossed his line over the side. The prizes were mostly very small so came grouped together in Ziploc grab bags. Coco didn't understand the entire bag was the prize and instead opened all the bags and began attaching teeny tiny toys one at a time.

You should have seen that four-year-old carnival enthusiast's face when he handed me his ticket, threw his line over the booth, and received a mini doll shoe the size of his pinkie nail. His eyes were big sad adorable question marks when he looked up at me and I said, "Oh hell no, not on my watch," threw his line back over the side and whispered around the corner to Coco, "Give him the whole bag, give him the whole bag, for the love of God!!" The volunteer working next door at the "Dig in the Hay" game had a good laugh about that one.

Not sure what she's laughing at, that volunteer had her own questionable game going on. The "Dig in the Hay" game is usually a big pile of hay kids dig through until they find a prize. But this year, to the confusion of many, there was no hay, only a small inflatable pool filled with plastic balls. The "Dig in the Hay" sign still stood boldly behind the pool, which left many scratching their heads. I guess carnival organizers didn't feel compelled to rename "Dig in the Hay" to "Dig in the Balls" and who can blame them for that.

I worked the ticket booth second shift with two of my favorite friends. We thought it would be fun to do it together because we could chat and catch up during lulls. That's a laugh of an idea; there are no lulls at school carnival ticket booths. The ticket booth is mayhem with people swarming you constantly waving fistfuls of money and asking questions like, "why can't I use this food ticket to play games?" As you tried to explain the intricacy of the school's ticketing system, some errant wanderer would inevitably walk up and order a cotton candy. I'd be like, "Does it look like I got cotton candy back here, buddy?" while punching furiously at iPad buttons because I was three reported ticket sales behind.

I'm still around for a bit but for the record, I'm hoping to post some short blog updates during our weeks of driving through the mountainous abyss of the great North. Not surprisingly, I hear there's not a whole lot of WiFi nor cell phone service in Northern British Columbia and the Yukon. We may have better luck once in Alaska, but by then we may have eaten each other so there may not be much to post about.

If the grizzlies don't get ya, the other grizzlies will.
MJ

The Parks have personalities -- Part Two

In the National Parks-are-a-family metaphor I'm cheerfully beating to death, Capitol Reef National Park in Utah is the happy, lovable, affable youngest child. (I am in no way influenced by the fact I'm a youngest child when deciding which traits youngest children embody.)

Actually, maybe Capitol Reef is more like your favorite cheerful stoner uncle, the one who dropped out of college to travel the world, surf, play in a band, and now lives in a self-built tiny home in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo mountains.  Everyone in the family chuckles with deep affection when Capitol Reef arrives wearing flip flops in winter, guitar slung over his back, and announces he's late because he was handing out free hugs in front of the 7-Eleven down the street.

Capitol Reef (as a park, I'm now ditching the uncle bit) is laid back, casual, not crowded at all.  It's not just about gorgeous scenery and interesting geology, it's all about the people, man.  Native Americans hammered petroglyphs high into the red cliffs and then, much much later, the first permanent settlers wandered into the area and decided to set up camp.

They were certain they'd found a slice of heaven. I agree with them on that, so much so I've developed a new life aspiration -- I want to be a settler.

I manhandled the Winnie B all over the Western United States
so I could certainly drive that

There were only about ten families who lived in the area at any given time, though granted they were Mormon so those were probably really big families. I wonder if living in such a small community made dating easier?  Since there were only about a dozen or so young people from whom to choose a partner, it seems it would take a lot of bellyaching out of the thing.  It would be less, "I don't feel he truly understands my inner being" and more, "Well, I guess I'll take Ephraim over there, he doesn't look too bad and he plays a nice fiddle."

Some of the pioneer homes still exist, the one-room school house still stands and a charming old barn still houses horses -- the two there now are named Mud and Egg and they help the rangers with backcountry rescue, which we thankfully did not need.  The many orchards the settlers planted are still bearing fruit over one hundred years later. You can pick all you want for a buck per pound.

the schoolhouse

The orchard next to the campsite was heavy with apricots.  Fallen apricots littered the ground so your feet made a squish squish sound as you walked through.  Red-orange juice squirted all over your ankles and up your legs.  By the time you finished, it looked like you had trampled many small animals to death.  Small, round, delicious, fruity animals.

Just beyond the orchard was Gifford House, one of the settler homes that has been turned into a shop that sells bread, pies, and cinnamon rolls the way the pioneers used to make them.  I may have sent the kids over there with a fistful of dollars a few times so hello, extra body weight, welcome to me.

It's OK, I'll need the extra weight to weather the harsh winters as a future settler, and will no doubt work it off come harvest time.  Until then, I await Ephraim's return from the North.  Dude's been gone for two months, he better return with chocolate.

Hearts were heavy as we left Capitol Reef.  It was a slice of heaven indeed.  Hey, we were wondering, can you live in a national park?  We may try.  We'll be the ones rustling in the bushes next to the cinnamon roll place.

Coco now smells like apricots all the time. It was an unexpected souvenir. She is a living breathing Strawberry Shortcake doll thanks to the apricot guts permanently encrusted between the textured ridges of her sandal soles.

The next park was Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado.  Black Canyon needs to chill the hell out.  Black Canyon is that person at the party in the corner wearing all black, talking about meaningless life and occasionally whispering Marilyn Manson lyrics to themselves while staring at a spot somewhere just over your head.

This thing exists only to scare people.  Black Canyon is a slit in the earth, a hole so deep with sheer charcoal gray cliff walls, you cannot see the bottom at many of the viewpoints. The silence is eerie though every once in awhile you catch the sound of the river rushing through the bottom of it, the river that continues to shape it today.  We do not need a deeper scarier Black Canyon so knock it off, river.

I went to Black Canyon as a younger person with my family and don't remember feeling afraid.  I thought it was cool.  But this time, my heart stopped a half dozen times, usually when I saw Coco climb on the first rung of the bolted steel railing around the viewpoint to "get a better look."  I may have yelled at her a bit too harshly because Alex claims my eyes bugged out of my head.

Alex wasn't much help, either.  The darkness and sheerness of the canyon rattled him as much as it mesmerized him.  He's not a phobia kind of guy but as we perched on one seemingly fragile overlook, Alex began half-yelling, "OH my God, is this thing shaking?  Is it shaking?  I think I feel it shaking" so we grabbed the kids by the backs of their shirts and hauled them back to safety as they said, "Guys? What are you doing?"

What are we doing?  We're saving your lives, suckers!

We used to be fearless.  Now we're parents.  

I guess we were all a little on edge at Black Canyon.  When we first entered the park, the ranger gave us a flyer warning of aggressive deer near our campsite.  Many baby deer had recently been born so the mamas were, much like us, startling easy and not keeping their cool.  We hear you, deer mamas, Black Canyon is a tough place to have kids.

Lucien took the deer warning to heart.  Probably too much.  We explained to him it just meant not to approach deer, to give them a ton of space because they were feeling a little defensive.  But each time Lucien glimpsed one (and there were many in the area) he yelled, "You guys, run, RUN, get inside, it's a deer, it's a deer!" in such a panic you'd think he'd spotted a hungry grizzly bear barreling towards the Winnie B.  

We did see some bighorn sheep on the side of the canyon walls, which was pretty cool, but overall Black Canyon is not a park I care to revisit anytime soon.  Black Canyon is intense. That park has got to chill.  Someone spark that park a doobie or slip it a Valium.  It's too dark, brooding, silent and it has killer deer.

The drive from Black Canyon to our next destination -- my mom and dad's house, I'm comin' home, mama -- was through many hills.  Hills are hard on an RV.  Hills are also hard on any cars stuck behind an RV.

I grit my teeth as cars pile up behind me. This is why RV owners wave at each other on the road.  We are each others people, must stick together and support each other as we piss off cars by going 30mph on a 55mph road.  We'd go faster if we could, I swear.

Alex and I have taken to quacking at RVs coming the opposite direction because RVs often resemble a mama duck with a string of impatient ducklings trailing along behind her.

I've got a third and final installation of the neverending road trip tale. I hope I write it someday because it involves my extended family throwing water balloons at each other.  But for now, we're off on another vacation, this one to a country where I don't speak the language and will be often alone with our kids because Alex is going for work and we're tagging along.  I'm sure everything will be fine and if it's not "fine," I hope it's at least funny.

We're going to end this with Coco being awesome

in a place I'm hellbent on settling even though it's already settled.

Don't ever give up on your dreams.

Quack quack,
MJ

The parks have personalities -- Part One

We're back from Road Trip 2016 and much to Alex's relief, I did not bring home another dog this year.

This is where I go when I've done something bad

 They can't see me here ha ha ha.

Life post-road trip is a bit dull.  I've returned to sweeping up dog hair twice a day, to paying bills, to getting the kids where they need to be, to fearing the garbage disposal. That last one has been my truth for years. I wince every time I hit the switch for the disposal, brace myself for the sound of crusher blades on silver heirloom spoon or whatever else has had the misfortune of falling down there.

Sometimes I stick my hand down in before turning it on to make sure nothing lies in its bowels. Those are tense moments. I cringe, convinced the blades are about to spring to life by themselves and pulverize my hand.  Alex has observed my disposal song and dance many times and often comments on my contorted facial expressions; he has rightfully observed the appliance appears to cause me great anguish.

Here's Lucien as Donald Trump.

Can't unsee that.

We left on our road trip the morning after Lucien's guitar camp performance. Lucien brought down the house with a Justin Bieber parody he wrote about Justin Bieber being in love with a potato.

There was a five-year-old boy named Ziggy also enrolled in summer guitar camp.  Ziggy enjoyed doing his own thing; he liked to wander off stage suddenly or stop playing his guitar in the middle of a song to have a good look at the ceiling for a few minutes.

Ziggy did a solo.  He stood center stage, stared at the floor and played the same chord softly and repeatedly for twenty seconds or so.  He stopped mid strum and walked off to do whatever. The camp director jumped onstage and said, "And that was Ziggy performing a tribute to the great state of Ohio!"

My sister, Auntie Raba, attended the recital, too.  Upon the conclusion of Ziggy's tribute to the great state of Ohio, Raba and I were hopelessly overcome by the giggles. We laughed as silently as we could, tried so hard to stop but could not get our shit together.  The giggles got worse every time Ziggy moseyed up the aisle past our seats, hands in his pockets, as camp counselors fruitlessly called for him up on stage. I couldn't look at Raba for the rest of the recital for fear of snorting aloud.

We kissed our menagerie of animals goodbye early the next morning and hopped into the Winnebago. The road trip plan was ambitious this year: nine states, eight national parks and over 4000 miles to travel in 16 days.  It didn't start out so jam packed.  The problem with planning these trips is there is too much to do in the areas we're visiting.  I think, "Well, if we're already there, we should go see THAT and then if we're near there we should see THAT and do THAT and then of course THAT THAT THAT THAT."

Our itinerary grows more and more dense and soon allows only a handful of minutes at each place. Then Alex is over my shoulder giving me the stinkeye and telling me my plans are "not very relaxing."  

I never know where to stop, likely because I long to never stop at all.

We did not tire of national parks even after eight of them back-to-back.  It was the opposite. They were fascinating and only grew more so.  Each one had its own flavor, its own personality.  The vibes were different, the visitors different, the landscapes and light and colors different.  Most of them were so wild and surreal, it didn't feel like visiting eight different national parks; it was more like visiting eight different planets.

We take national parks very seriously

Lassen Volcanic National Park in Northern California was our first stop.  Lassen is beautiful but not in a jaw-dropping kind of way.  It has interesting geology (four different types of volcanoes in one place, sweet) but doesn't blow your mind. It's a lesser Yellowstone with some active geothermal features on a much smaller scale. It has an edge but stops short of being scary.

Me and Ms. Cokes hanging in front of a bubbling mudpot.

If all the national parks were a family, Lassen is the stereotypical eldest child.  It's responsible, solid, dependable, does what it's supposed to do without being flashy. It's a straight-A student, a class president, is likable but doesn't push boundaries. You'll walk away wishing Lassen would let loose just a tad, show you some crazy, dance on a table sometime.

We were at Lassen over the Fourth of July holiday weekend so were far from alone.  It was crowded with people darting everywhere and parking spots parked several cars deep. We couldn't pull over at most of the popular viewpoints so had to settle for the B-and-C list viewpoints.  Instead of an impressive cascading waterfall, we pondered a large rock.

Driving a motorhome is a bit like being a turtle.  Your house is on your back.  It's convenient to have your dental floss at the ready when you need it (and you never forget your sunscreen or bug spray) but it's also cumbersome to carry everything you have around with you.  You're big, bulky, not very agile.  If there's no room for you at the park viewpoints, well, there's no room.  You're a house and can't exactly squeeze in.

We did nudge a few people aside to visit this slushy lake

Lucien bullshitted his way to junior ranger status at Lassen.  The junior ranger programs at the national parks are on point; kids collect a booklet at the visitor center and complete the park-related activities inside.  They learn about conservation and recycling and how to act responsibly around wildlife. They then turn the booklet back in, answer a few questions posed by a ranger and raise their right hands to pledge to take care of the national parks and remain curious about the natural world. They receive a plastic badge and a handshake for their efforts.

Lucien, however, found a way around the system, as I fear Lucien will always do.  He half-assed his Lassen badge.  When the ranger asked, "What are two things you learned at our roadside exhibits?" Lucien responded, "I saw two deer."  Alex and I glanced at each other -- not only was seeing two deer not in any way related to Lassen's roadside exhibits, but as far as we knew he hadn't even seen two deer at all.

I'm watching you, kid.
Don't lie to the national parks.
We take the national parks very seriously.

After Lassen, we drove straight into the middle of Nevada.  Our route took us across the state on Highway 50, which is known as "the loneliest road in America."  It's an appropriate label.  We didn't see anyone in either direction for well over 200 miles.

For me, it was heaven, a road to myself and scenery on all sides. For Al, it was nerve wracking and he got antsy.  That's the difference between an introvert and an extrovert on a roadtrip; when it gets remote, the introvert goes warm and cozy but the extrovert worries there's no one to talk to.

She shares my intense love of being in the middle of Nevada while wearing hilarious glasses.

I mentioned in my last post my apprehension about having Alex along this year. The kids and I have a well established routine on these trips and I was concerned Al was going to unknowingly cramp my style.  My worrying was for naught.  My Al was a perfect traveling companion, a co-pilot to my pilot, a cheerful lunch-maker and podcast-finder as I stepped on the gas and covered major ground.

The only annoying part was he kept saying somberly, "MJ, I feel we're at a crossroads...." every single time our rural highway intersected another rural highway.  It was funny the first time but got old fast.

The second park was Great Basin National Park in middle-of-nowhere Nevada.  If we're still sticking with the family metaphor, Great Basin is the middle child with a hefty case of middle child syndrome. Every ranger with whom we chatted mentioned (with a sniff) that Great Basin is the least visited park in the U.S. national park system.  Great Basin is trying to get noticed but its placement in the world is making it hard.

Our park campsite was dotted with prickly plants and strange bugs.  Lucien shoved Coco ahead of him as they set about exploring the tall brush around the campground.  I hollered, "Lucien, stop making your little sister go ahead of you all the time!" and he responded, "Well, in my defense, if someone's gonna fall on a cactus, it's gonna be her."

Al wanted to eat dinner in the tiny town at the park's entrance that night.  He was insanely curious about it. Who lived in a town three blocks long, with no other towns around for a hundred miles?

We first stopped at the "grocery store" to stock up.  There were only three aisles in the grocery store so it was a quick trip, made even quicker by Alex continually whispering in my ear, "She scares me" about the woman standing behind the checkout counter. The woman never said a word to us but watched us the entire time with charcoal-rimmed eyes.

The restaurant across the street was called The Electrolux and featured several vintage Electrolux vacuum cleaners hanging from the ceiling.  It was a cute place, quirky but warm and brightly colored. A gruff older man welcomed us, seated us, handed us menus.  He took our drink order.  I wanted a beer so he handed me a bottle opener and directed me to a fridge in the back to choose and open my own.  I really liked that, made me feel at home.

Alex ordered a cocktail so the man walked behind the bar and made him a drink.  I jokingly said to Al, "Is this guy gonna make our food, too?" just before he took our order, walked into the kitchen and began cracking open cans.  Yes, he made our food, too.  And it was awful.

Bad food aside, we liked him so much.  His no nonsense, no apologies, no frills self was refreshing in its honesty.  The guy is just doing his thing all alone in the middle of nowhere in his vacuum cleaner restaurant.

Great Basin National Park is certified by the Dark Sky Association.  There's no light from civilization to interfere so the stars are brilliant come nighttime. It's mind blowing how many there are up there, who knew?

We attended the Great Basin astronomy program after dinner where we viewed powerful things through telescopes the size of Lucien's body.  The astronomers showed us Jupiter and its four moons, Saturn and its rings, the M13 star cluster, and the something-something nebula (it was very very late by then so the details got fuzzy) imploding on itself or whatever.

When we returned to camp after astronomy, we laid on the picnic table at our campsite and stared up into the sky.  We saw a handful of shooting stars. which made Coco squeeze me and say, "I saw my first shooting star here, Mom!  I'm never, ever gonna forget that!!"

I smiled and thought, "Girl, you're six years old.  It's very likely you're going to forget it, and soon, but I love your optimism."

The Lehman Cave tour is the star attraction of Great Basin and worth every minute and every dollar, even if you're a semi-basketcase claustrophobe like me.  Trust it, you'll be so entranced by the caves you'll forget you're stuck under the ground in a suffocating hellhole with no obvious escape route.

You're a weirdo, Great Basin, but we like you.

Our third park was Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah.  If Lassen is the oldest child being solid and dependable and Great Basin is the middle child with an inferiority complex, Bryce Canyon is their snobby popular neighbor -- male or female, it doesn't matter, it just knows it's better than you.

Bryce Canyon is more stunning than you can imagine but it knows it's more stunning than you can imagine.  Its admirers are numerous; there are people hanging all over it despite its $30 entrance fee, one of the highest in the national park system.  Posted warnings about full parking and overflow lots and crowded trails are in your face before you've even passed the entrance.

Bryce Canyon doesn't have to work hard for its visitors. Its importance is unquestioned, its beauty unparalleled.  It's impeccably maintained.  Everyone wants to be enveloped by its particular brand of special and hugged by its hoodoos.

Bryce Canyon, you preening snobby gorgeous bitch.

The hike we did was nearly four miles.  It's the longest hike Coco and The Loosh have ever done yet there was no complaining.  That's the magic of Bryce.  When even a six-year-old says, "Daaaamn, this place is amazeballs," you know you've found a natural winner.

Even if you are far from the only one who knows it.

I've got three parks down out of eight.  Well shit.  I thought this would be one post but I can't do that to anyone tenacious enough to still be reading.  I had no idea I had this much to say.  But I guess I can be quite wordy.

Oldest sibling and middle sibling and snobby neighbor down.
Other characters to follow.
MJ

It's the most wonderful time of the year

We're off.  We are leaving our menagerie to our good friends and trusty pet/housesitters (good luck with Natani, guys, and sorry) and hitting the road.

she is up to no good
and has recently decided carpet is the same thing as grass
so an appropriate place to pee.
We have agreed to disagree on that one.

Alex is coming along on the Mother/Children Road Trip this year. I think he feels the need to keep an eye on me, make sure I don't bring home another dog.  I wonder if he's going to cramp my style.  He better not demand I find a Starbucks in the middle of the Tetons like he did a few years ago.  If he pulls that crap, I am making that man walk home. I SAID GOOD DAY, SIR.

The trip is long and winding through the Western U.S. as always, only this time I will have a co-pilot who is going to make progress challenging with his requests to stop every twenty minutes to "just have a look around." He is the king of turning a 12-hour drive into a 24-hour drive.

Forgive my Alex anxiety.  Alex is my life partner, my companion on the journey, and I love him.  But since I've usually done this trip with just the kids, and we have a well established system and agreed upon ways of doing things (such as taking puppies out of deserts) I'm a bit wary.  I keep saying things like, "You understand we wake up every morning before sunrise because our favorite rides happen at sunrise, yeah?" and he responds, "OK, just as long as we can sleep in!" I don't think he's hearing me.

The road trip is my baby and, sadly, Alex is not its daddy.

In other news, the school year finally ended.  Welcome to the End of School Year Paper Explosion --

I don't like the day the teachers tell the kids to clean out their desks and take it all home to mom. Trust it, mom doesn't want it.  That recycle bin is looking awfully lonely in that classroom corner, though.

There's a giant Dora doll in the picture.  Lucien's class had pajama day during the last week of school and were told they could bring in their favorite stuffie to complete the look.  Lucien doesn't have a favorite stuffie anymore so instead dug through Coco's toys to find "something funny."  He chose giant Dora and carried her under his arm all day at school.  He got the laughs he was looking for.

In scary news, Dora had an accident later that day when she apparently fell down the stairs while home alone.  I found her like this.  She's going to be OK, thankfully I got there in the nick of time.

So we'll be gone for awhile.  Maybe I'll update this blog along the way.  I hope so.  Road Trips are always such interesting things -- and now I'll have the added excitement of fighting with Alex over the radio knobs.

Apologies for this brief post.  I wish I had more time to spend on it but that RV isn't going to clean and pack itself.  I would have paid a bazillion more dollars for one that did.

Good luck with all our crazy animals, friends.
MJ

Renounce your foreign princes

Our summer was nearly neverending because our teachers went on strike.  They were on strike for good reasons and we supported them -- go teachers, get 'er done, we love you, etc. etc. -- but what was coming out of my lips did not necessarily match what was happening in my head.  My head was more "please school now please school now please school."

After an extra week of summer, the strike was settled.  My kids are now happily back in the classroom and I feel like revisiting some significant summer happenings.  Don't worry, I'm finished talking about the road trip. The dog story was the climax of that tale.

Speaking of Natani, let's play a game.  It's called "Find the Dog" --

She truly believes I cannot see her under there.

She goes there when she's done something awful, which is often.

She is wide-eyed and surprised when I "find" her.

She thinks I am a Magic Lady.

The kids took more swim lessons over the summer, which was exciting because I got unexpected beer --

The best part of this photo is not the beer

It's the yellow frog pool float in the background

screaming its silent panicked frog scream

Our swim teacher holds swim lessons in private backyard pools all over the city.  There aren't many private pools in Seattle so you usually end up in the backyard of a very wealthy person. This particular wealthy person was the first we've encountered to offer beer to the parents.  In his world, swim lesson time = party time.

In other big news, Alex is now an American citizen. 

Rejoice, Americans, he's all ours.

The U.S. Naturalization ceremony is solemn and emotional because there are newly naturalized Americans crying all over the place.  Many people fight hard to get here and stay here. To them, the day they become a United States citizen is the culmination of a long-pursued dream.  It's beautiful to witness.

But to our family, it's more a technicality than a life-changing event. Alex has lived and worked here legally for over 15 years.  The official American status wasn't going to change much in our daily lives.  Plus Alex is Canadian, which is already like being American only less aggressive.

Our more relaxed approach to citizenship allowed us to sit back and embrace the humor of the event. Alex raised his eyebrows at me when part of the pledge asked the new Americans to renounce their allegiance to "foreign princes."  We also made the newbies promise to take up arms and fight for their new country if necessary.  I enjoyed picturing the 92-year old Ukrainian woman, who could not stand without the help of an aide, holding a machine gun.  Maybe she can at least toss a grenade or two.

U.S.A.!  U.S.A.!

That's Alex, second row back near the column,

pissing off Canadian Princes by renouncing them

We had an AMERICA! themed dinner celebration that night with some friends.  They brought Alex American-themed presents like a pair of American flag flip-flops and a six-pack of Bud Light.  We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, made mac-n-cheese, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, potato salad, apple pie.  I even suspended fruit in jello -- that's being a true American -- and sent everyone home with a Hostess Ding Dong party favor.

Welcome to my country, Alex.  Our food is not healthy but our hearts are full of love.

Alex and I spent a weekend solo in Portland for the MusicFest Northwest music festival.  Portland is lovable in a pretentious hipster kind of way. One young woman brought a bag of knitting to The Helio Sequence show and knit through the entire set.  Another woman seated next to me at the Beirut show wore a prairie style dress complete with casually askew tied bonnet.

One woman stopped me as I walked past to tell me she loved the fabric of my shorts.  I said "thanks" and she said, "Did you make them?" I replied "Nope, I can't sew, I bought them" and immediately lost her respect.  Her mouth turned down a little and she turned away from me without another word. Only in Portland is the default -- and the preferable -- that you made your clothes instead of buying them.

The next time someone told me they loved my shorts (they are unarguably amazing shorts with a teal and orange Birds of Paradise pattern) I didn't wait for her to ask, just immediately said I made them.  The woman brightened and said, "Well yeah, sure, right on."  I'm a fast learner, you see.

I also told them I wove my own hat

out of vegan straw

on a loom used by my great grandmother

who was gluten-free before it was cool

and was a fan of that one band before they went mainstream

I convinced Alex to stand in front of the stage for over an hour to secure a front row position for The Tallest Man on Earth.  It was Alex's first time in "The Front" at a music festival and he soon discovered how tense it can be as people jockeyed and jostled into position.  People were so nasty standing in front of that stage, I'm starting to think the "making-your-own-clothes" and coy Laura Ingalls get-ups are brilliant covers for how brutal those Portland people truly are.

Alex, despite his claustrophobia and general disinterest in music festivals, was a trooper.  He held his ground and we threw elbows together, beating rabid Portlanders back until The Tallest Man on Earth took the stage.  We were so close to him we could look straight up his nose.  He played the best set of the weekend so it was worth the hassle and general snottiness of our fellow concert goers.

Speaking of rabid and out of control people, our annual "last hurrah of summer " weekend happened again on Guemes Island with the usual suspects.  We were 20 people in all, tents pitched on the beachfront lawn of a friend's property, refrigerator stocked, coolers full.  We were all set for relaxation and easy living. Nature, however, had other plans.

Our annual hike up Mount Guemes began nicely enough.  We saw the dark clouds approaching when we reached the top -- word on the island was a windstorm was headed our way -- so began our descent very soon after our ascent.

that sky looks all kinds of pissed off

Almost immediately, the trees towering above began swaying like drunkards on a dance floor.  The sounds of creaking wood and breaking branches from a hundred feet up are not welcome when you're on a heavily forested trail, trust it.

I was hustling down the trail with Seattle Mom and Seattle Mom 2 when we heard a loud *crack* overhead.  Seattle Mom and I took a leap backwards, Seattle Mom 2 a leap forwards just in time -- a large branch from way up yonder crashed onto the path between us.  We stood in shocked silence for a beat until Seattle Mom yelled "Let's get the f*ck out of here" and we began to run.

Our group had spread out on the mile-long path on the way down.  No one knew for certain where their kids were, or where anyone was for that matter.  We just yelled through the forest to MOVE IT, PEOPLE, MOVE IT and hoped like hell everyone hustled.  The relief was palpable when the last kid, the last Dad, the last Mom tumbled out of the forest onto the road below.  We were still in danger but at least we were in danger all huddled together in one big wide-eyed group.

We funneled everyone into cars and took off for our cabin.  We didn't make it more than a couple hundred feet before we encountered a giant tree down across the road.  We then gunned our caravan of cars in the opposite direction and sh*t -- another tree down, this time lying on what appeared to be a power line.

It's interesting to see how people you love respond in a crisis.  Some get anxious and frantic, some get quiet and focused, some get deer-in-the-headlights, some rock themselves quietly in corners and talk to themselves, some get pissed off, some decide it's hilarious and an opportunity to party (I'm looking at you there, Seattle Dad).

No matter our instinctive reactions, we all pulled our sh*t together enough to convince the kids "everything's fine! So fun and exciting!" and eventually made it around the downed tree on the power line (some locals coming from the other direction threw rocks at it, touched it, licked it, whatever their machismo directed them to do to determine there was no power, then nudged the tree slightly out of the way with their pick-up truck) only to get stuck farther down the road by yet another big downed tree.

We surrendered and decided to park on the road near the water -- no trees, for the love of god, no trees -- to wait for help to arrive.  It was a relief to be away from those wildly swaying death bombs but only slightly more relaxing to be fully exposed to the windstorm.  It rocked our cars hard; I passed the time trying to guess which friend would tip over first.

I'm betting on you, Seattle Dad

One Mom stayed back at camp that morning because she wasn't feeling well.  She wanted a nice quiet leisurely morning, a hot shower, a nap in an attempt to cure herself of her ills. WELL TOO BAD, SEATTLE MOM.

We instead got text after text from her saying our tents had collapsed and were blowing down the beach and she was trying her best to keep them in the area by throwing lawn chairs on top of them. The situation was dire and she was in need of backup.  We explained the tree situation, told her to do her best, that we understood if she couldn't save everything, and mentally prepared ourselves for the loss of all our stuff.

She sent this photo and said, "Guys, this is happening right now!"

And we were like, "that is actually kind of hilarious."

Eventually the island emergency crews arrived with chainsaws and bulldozers and got to work on the trees.  Our tents were no longer where we left them when we got back to camp but they hadn't wandered too far away. Our family's tent had blown into a thorny bush. The resulting bent poles and giant holes ripped in the sides rendered it useless forevermore but at least we were reunited with the stuff inside.  We thought we'd lost you forever, favorite camping lantern.

The brutal winds continued for hours. We dragged the remains of the tents into the garage.

(Fun fact: Al, Lucien, Coco and I slept on top of all that stuff in the garage that night.  

There was nowhere else for us to go.)

Then we sat on the back porch of the cottage, drank margaritas, hugged each other and watched a speedboat anchored offshore capsize.  You can't take your eyes off a capsizing boat, it's pathetic yet majestic as it tips bow-up, then slides slowly down into the water.

The winds eventually died down.  The sunset was amazing.  We were happy to be together.

All 20 concur; this was not our most relaxing weekend together.  

But it was perhaps one of the more memorable. 

We'll see you next year, Guemes Island.  

Please don't pull that crap again.

I forgot to mention something earlier about Alex's swearing-in naturalization ceremony day.  Coco went to a Jump Start program for Kindergarten that morning so couldn't attend the ceremony with us. Alex kissed her goodbye as she headed out the door and said, "Good luck at Jump Start, Coco" and she replied, solemnly, both hands on his shoulders, "Good luck being American, Daddy".

Speaking of which...
I'm sorry I ate one of your American Flag flip-flops, Human Dad.

I'm glad you can't see me.

OH MY GOSH, SHE FOUND ME AGAIN HOW DOES SHE DO IT

Neverending summer has finally ended,
MJ