With Melanie in Santa Fe

Sitting in this beautiful adobe house, in the kitchen with sunlight pouring in through the skylight, surrounded by the inner sounds of her life and colors.

Santa Fe emerged like a little lagoon of light at the end of a sea of darkness as we drove into it from Mesa Verde, Colorado last night. We drove to La Posada where Melanie and Nacha were playing the most gorgeous music and singing Spanish songs that I did not need to understand the words of as I felt the love in them. A deep, secret, uninhibited love, that reflected the dark luxurious red of the room they performed in surrounded by the passionate paint of the artist whose work adorned the wall.

Lying in bed looking up at the beams and waves of the ceiling I allowed my mind's eye to flicker over the memories of the past few days. I saw Laguna Niguel and the house we stayed in - a house filled with the distinct sound of the four women who live there - who have lived in that house growing it since 41 years ago as they kept coming together 30 years ago and then 14 years back, bringing their own resins of energy to hold that family as it emerged into what it is today.

Disneyland saw me as a child, a child who was born 48 years ago and waited patiently for this jumping excitement of that day. The rides, the color, the crowds and the magickal possibility of a world joined together in fun. A place where a woman stood in the waiting lines celebrating her 70th birthday with her daughter and hundreds and thousands of other people whose sole objective for that day was to wear Mickey ears and walk or ride from one adventure to another screaming thrilling adventure. The most touching 'thing' that will hopefully be there for generations together - the statue of Walt Disney hand in hand with Mickey Mouse.

From the razzledazzle of Disneyland, the World of Color to the Joshua Tree lined road to Palm Springs. I liked it! The desert is beautiful. I liked Nancy's house - straight lines, gravel yard with low trees and cactii and a welcome for us, even though she herself was not there. I sat for hours in the morning under the tree, watching a humming bird and his friends come to inspect me and fly away to the rest of their day.

Back to Laguna Niguel and then a day in Hollywood and the Warner Brothers studio. What fun! Hotdogs at Pink's, hoping to see 'stars'. And then the walk of fame, or whatever that street outside the Grauman's theatre is called. Tiny little handprints in the cement belonging to Shirley Temple. Fred Astaire, WArren Beatty and many many other names - just for a moment letting all the stories and magazines and movies come together into a little imprint in a block of cement on a sidewalk, energized by the millions who have thronged there over the decades keeping the songs, the romance and the thrill of stardom spreading, spreading, alive.

An evening of reiki - going into the center.

And then, just as I recallled the majestic silence of the Grand Canyon my eyes closed and I slept in the world's most comfortable bed, watched over by the stars and the moon, sung to by creatures of the night.

Quick Morning Post

Since Palm Springs:
Hollywood - Warner Bros Studios, Pinks Chilli dogs
Quick drive throughs of Las Vegas ($1.99 shrimp cocktail) and Hoover Dam
Flagstaff, AZ - Grand Canyon, Sedona
This morning from Gallup, New Mexico, to Mesa Verde and on to Santa Fe.

More tonight -- yeah, right.

Since Muir Woods

San Jose
Nipomo
Laguna Niguel
Anaheim - DISNEYLAND
Palm Springs

This is where we are tonight. Palm Springs. A beautiful, surreal desert town, surrounded by mountains.

More later tonight

Love

Forest and Foggy 'Frisco

The people of this city claim the fog. They own it and wear it like an heirloom handed down the generations. So yesterday was a foggy day. Both Carol and I were delighted that we had first-hand experience of this phenomenon that we had only heard of. It hadn’t happened to us, because you see, we are the Bringers of Unusually Good Weather wherever we go. Wyoming was fabulously warm – a relative term – and gloriously sunny for our adventures at Yellowstone. Chicago was comfortable and non-windy. San Fransisco has had a heat wave while we’ve been here. So, yes, we were delighted to be part of the usual and everyday.

As planned we arrived at the Muir Woods National Monument. This is the Frisco home of the Coast Redwood trees. These are trees that have lived in my memory and imagination ever since I was a little girl. Having read about them in various vicarious experience offering magazines, seen pictures and created my own stories around and in them, I had planned this US trip also around the Sequoia tree and its habitat.

Happy that we didn’t have to drive very far to find them, we reached. Our favorite road Sir Francis Drake Boulevard led us to the winding Sequoia Valley Road, laced and scallop edged with fog and rain. The luck of the travelers brought us a parking space just perfect. We found our bright yellow and red raincoats. Lined pockets with few dollars – this was a cheaper entrance fee! We went in.

All words then failed.

If you google redwood trees and sequoia you will learn facts and figures, see pictures and be awestruck by the fact that some trees are wide enough to have tunnels carved in their trunk. You may be impressed by their height – the tallest in the world is 480 feet. The tallest here was 269 feet. You may hear some distant resonance as you understand that they are as primeval and primordial as your dinosaurs and the rocks that stood through all ages.

However, none of the above had any meaning when I stood there in the silence of the forest. Listening to volunteer ranger Marvin tell us about these woods I saw a whole new world. For one, here was a volunteer who has been part of the woods’ story because of the love that he has for them. This large canyon of these endangered trees was bought by a man who had money and the heart for them and was presented to the US government so that they could be protected by the government from the developers and the choppers of wood. Watching the trees and the crowd of people there – old people, young people, families, children, teenagers – water dripping on knees where raincoats end, large umbrellas enhanching the plip plip plop of the rain, runners, hikers – so many people out on a foggy rainy morning out in the woods. Smelling the warm live fragrance as the rain stirred an aromatic vapor soup of bay, fir, oak and sequoia. Black tail deer munching on the understory of the forest and on the boardwalk, marching, ambling, the feet of a society that cares to feast on this offering – the redwood forest, its silence, its beauty and majesty that may live because the little boy, who came on a Sunday outing with his father to the woods, will carry this memory somewhere in his heart and will return to it – return to this lung of the world, with its protective ribcage of redwoods that live up to the promise of the tree that half its life is standing and half its life is when it falls and fosters the ecosystem from its reclining, retired position - So, that boy will return here, perhaps in times of stress or in times of joy and will touch that place of wholeness and oneness with earth, water, sound, light and the fiery abundance of life that shoots up and forth.

With love and gratitude.

Serendipity

It was one of those days. An absolutely beautiful day to walk through the majestic Redwoods at Muir Woods. So beautiful that a steady line of cars preceeded and followed us into the already full parking areas. After deciding we'd never be able to park, we turned around and headed to Sonoma and Napa Valley. When we found ourselves in another long, single lane of traffic heading to Napa, I remembered and related the following to Komal.

"It was a rare moment of absolute freedom in my youth. Having up and left my now ex-fiance in Florida, I was on the road alone and approaching Nashville, TN, the world capital of country western music, where I intended to spend the night and get out ASAP in the morning. Strangely, the fast lane that I was in started to slow and soon became a long, slow line of cars. I was apprehensive about finding a hotel room before dark, but instead of switching lanes I thought 'they must know something that I don't', and stayed in line. After about 10 minutes, we all turned into a large parking area where men with whistles were quickly directing cars to the next available space. I parked and, following everyone else's lead, jumped out of my car, locked it and sprinted to the new line that had formed to the side of the parking lot. I still had no idea what was going on, but was caught up in happy anticipation of something. The excitement increased when a beaming woman magnanimously bestowed upon me a single Entrance Ticket with a seat number. My fellow line-standers were unable to contain their joy, so I whooped and hollered with the best of them. We were soon led to an auditorium where I took my seat and waited until the lights dimmed and we were all welcomed to the June taping of the Johnny Cash Christmas show. I have no memory of where I spent the night so it must have been uneventful, but I'll never forget the lesson that following the flow, overriding the rational (I don't know where to stay tonight, I'm all alone and I don't even like CW music) can lead to joyful experiences."

Komal and I pondered the parallels and decided that we were definitely open and flowing with the best as we crawled along at 15 mph. We set Pocohontas to the address of a winery about 14 miles past Napa so that we'd get a good look at wine country, bought a hot sandwich to share and drove until the traffic in front and behind had all peeled away and we were driving alone toward Frog's Leap Winery which had offered free tous everyday on their website. This day, however, a sign said: Private Event. Please come back tomorrow for tours. As we prepared to turn around, two young men ran out in front of our car and waved us toward the drive. "It's Frogtoberfest! Please join us!" We parked where directed and quickly ate the by now cold sandwich. Then we followed the signs and were ushered to our free hats and pins, free beer steins and on through to the open bar, smorgasbord, wine-tasting, 3 man polka band and lots of jolly folks in equally silly green hats. Our host greeted us personally and asked us to keep quiet the fact that we'd gotten in free while everyone else had paid $65 to attend the day's festivities. He said he'd decided to throw it open to the public just 5 minutes before we drove up to use up the extra mugs and beer.

 Serendipity? Going with the flow? Open to the Universe? Grateful to be part of Life? All of the above.

 

Don't be so quick to give up.



Beer Barrel Polka and More!





What'd they put in that hard cider?



Frog's Leap. 100% Organic. 100% Delicious. 100% Abundance.





One Day Only. Today.



Frogtoberfest Food and Fun

The Road to San Francisco

Having reached the West Coast, I ask myself: "Is this the point? To 'reach' somewhere?" Of course not. What then? A 'point reached' is as good a time as any to ask myself if I've been awake, conscious, aware every step/mile along the way. Of course not.

Another question: Have I been connecting with people, with all the reflections of myself that I meet on this journey? Doing better there. I've been moved time and again by the kindness, generosity and warmth of old friends, new friends, folks on the street and in shops, by cats and dogs and caterpillars. With small gestures and large, inviting me to smile with them, worship with them, revel in the beauty of the trees, ocean, geysers with them -- everyone seems to be inviting me into life. 

With much gratitude, I accept.

I always knew I was the center of the world!

We have driven 5239 miles and some today. Sitting on South Beach at Point Reyes, the west most point of California, the place where Sir Francis Drake landed sometime in the late 1500s. At Point Reyes, there is a sign that says that the sands are mobile. They keep moving, changing and shape shifting the land. That may be so but I think the ocean would have been the same wild, deep green whitening into yellow and falling into the arms of a blue of the darkest depth of an eye. I met that ocean with a sense of awe and respect. As I sensed the honor of being here, haflway or full way across the world I sensed the ocean being honored by my presence.

Apart from that silent and somewhat poetically dramatic encounter the other aspect was that the salt and cold of the water were like a thousand knives piercing my freshly shaved legs. I know, I know... I almost didn't write that bit down but then I thought this is no time for half truths!

So there we were, somewhat ripped to the core of our beings by the experience of being in the Tenderloin of San Fransisco and then the contrasting hurried, glazed-look ripple of humanity that we walked past in downtown San Fransisco. I tend to write long long sentences. To avoid getting lost let me start this one again - so there we were, somewhat ripped.... seeking the soothing of the Pacific, driving from the chi chi San Anselmo, to the hippie haven Fairfax, through Tamalpais - the Sleeping Lady Mountain - National Park, toward the water. Sinous roads lined with what we think were redwoods and gently contoured hills looking like old skin with soft down, took us and we passed Historic Ranches M to D and reached South beach.

This was it. It was as if all my days were leading me to this moment of meeting the end or the beginning of the world. Like a child who expects all the water to fall over the edge, I walked into it - and out and waited. In the waiting I quieted and sat and watched the 5 gulls flying in a single line formation up and down as if that was their assignment for the day - to fly the line of the cresting wave, hide behind it, appear and turnaround to fly in the other direction in the same formation. All the while the ocean roared and laughed and sang and talked to me and to the one or tgwo fishermen waiting for it to settle into a line throwable roll. Didn't happen. I could have sat there the whole day maybe the rest of my life - who knows. Maybe I have begun again, today, another journey having completed the previous one and shed it like a skin, offered it to the ocean.

The scenic route is the story of my life - so there we were, on Hwy 1 - the non description for the Coastal Pacific Highway that runs from Oregan all the way down through California, and suddenly without fanfare and drumroll there it was, the Pacific Ocean all over again, better than in the movies, better than in the books and better than what I could ask for! A road, designed for my pleasure along the side of the mountain, coasting up and down and all the way strolling with the ocean. Like lovers who will not let go of each other, but will play, hide, run and roll, cavort and flirt with rock and weed and all the mystery of life and their connection, the highway and the water swayed and danced as Sweet Chariot (we have named our car) took us to Donna's house.

Sanitized Community Park

Just after completing the last blog, I decided to take off my shoes and walk in the sun on that sanitized, soft and welcoming lawn around the neat playground, basketball court and perfectly molded plastic picnic tables. On my way back to my shoes and socks under the tree where I'd earlier napped, I saw something that stopped me in my tracks. The striped snake had the same reaction and sat up to watch me as I backed carefully away, grateful that I hadn't taken one more step.

The moral of the story? Wear hiking boots in Wyoming? Sleep in hotels? Nah. Just gratitude. We'll be careful, but it's really out of our hands...

Vastness

October 4, Sheridan, Wyoming

The phrase ‘God’s own country’ keeps drifting through my mind as we drive. Vast sky, vast plains, vast forests – this vastness is part of what I associate with God. God created the vastness and we divided it up. Nations, countries, states, counties, towns, communities, neighborhoods, families, houses, rooms…

Tonight we take refuge from this vastness in a sanitized, grassy community park with carefully spaced shade trees, a playground and well-tended lawn. It’s free and we’re allowed to pitch our tent here while we wait for the parts for our car to arrive and be installed tomorrow morning. Last night was the ‘height’ of our camping experience (3 nights and counting). Driving the last 20 miles on a ladder-backed gravel road from Devil’s Tower, we found most campsites closed for the season until we arrived at the Rocky End area of the Keyhole State Park. No water, electricity or sign of other campers, but no bar across the road either. We pitched our tent on a pebbly outcrop on the shore of the reservoir and heard only the fish or turtles splashing, the wind blowing the tent and maybe 4-legged visitors to the nearby bank getting a drink of the clear water. I say ‘maybe’ because neither of us was willing to get up to investigate the sounds.

For two days we’d been driving through the South Dakota plains, Badlands and Black Hills. Exclaiming, taking photo ops, soaking in the vast (there’s that word again) beauty during the day, we spent 2 nights getting our camping ‘feet’. The first night turned cold fast and we froze. The second night we successfully found an empty cabin with lights and heating. Joy and bliss. Yesterday we splurged on a queen sized inflatable bed with an electric pump to get us off the cold ground and learned a few useful things about sleeping on it last night.

So are we ready for Yellowstone? Well, the lady at the Wyoming information center doesn’t recommend it. Unpredictable weather including rain and snow (!), most camping areas closed for the winter, and so on. 

Today can be seen as a setback on the way or a respite from the vastness while we take some alone time here after a leisurely picnic lunch. I needed some time to examine a few selves that had been occupying my body. As always, a page opened at random from Rumi served up the wisdom I needed. “When something goes wrong, accuse yourself first.” And then, “Half-heartedness doesn’t reach into majesty. You set out to find God, but then you keep stopping for long periods at mean-spirited roadhouses.” Here I am on the journey of my lifetime with my beloved fellow traveler. Why should I let any annoyed, impatient or irritated self hijack me? Half of me exclaims over the vast beauty while the other half fumes inside. What a waste of gas! We calculate our expenses and our mileage but all this is meaningless if I’m being half-hearted in my experience of my own life. I am a self-proclaimed ‘joy carrier’. There is no other day for it. 

Today

4^th October 2010

SHERIDAN, WYOMING

Today,

Sitting in Starbucks

Connected to the world

Coffee, Mockingbird, www,

A friend, daylight, air conditioning.

I could be anywhere in the world

In Starbucks

No, that was not a poem, just a different format. Like today. We arrived here at Sheridan with the agenda of getting ‘the sound’ checked out. Our car has been making strange and loud sounds that I would have loved to ignore and pretend that it did not matter, but the better sense supported by that of my friend Carol and we got it checked out!

Seems we need to get some brake lining work done and since we have about 7000 odd miles to go, it’s a good idea to get it done. So we have found a camping site – free, in the Washington Community Park that has swings and Goose Creek flows through it. It also has snakes – Carol almost stepped on one in the grass as it reared it’s indignant and seeking head at Carol and then serpented its way into the creek.

I am ready to pitch, without pegs, our tent in the basketball court or in the swing stand, even though kids pee in it (that’s Carol’s brilliant argument in favor of grass with snakes and not swing sand!)

Sheridan is in Wyoming. The term, I don’t know whether it exists or we invented it – The Great Plains of Wyoming – is true and appropriate. There are First National Monuments - The Devil's Tower, and the First National Park and Kelsey, the First Dinosaur Lady - the first Triceratops to be discovered. She hangs so sweetly in the Wyoming Welcome Visitor's Center as soon as you enter Wyoming on I 90 West. And ofcourse Yellowstone, where we are headed. But all through the huge wide open spaces - oh mi god - not in my wildest imagination could I have seen something like this - the sky seems minimized sometimes.

I have had a beautiful day - two hours by myself. Alone time daily is something that we had planned for in our original program for this entire trip, but today is the first time that we actioned it. I am happy that the brake-work gave us this time and space to do what we have wished for. I am happy I asked for it.

Love and gratitude to everyone who is following us, reading us and everyone who has helped me to make this trip come true.

Places we have been, places we have seen

2 October, 2010 – Catching Up at Custer, South Dakota

CHICAGO – once used to stink of rotting onions!

From Glen Ellyn to Chicago in the Metra Rail. The sights, the wonder and the beauty of Chicago Downtown. Traveling in the ‘L’ – the elevated – for most part – metro-rail or subway as I knew it, catching the buses – I wondered at the movement of life in this part of the world. Going to work and coming back home has a different quality – different from that back home in Delhi/India. The two commuter systems that I experienced were spaces and moments to catch up and allow breath and life to re enter the frenetic-paced individual who uses these travel services. People drink their morning coffees and their evening and night coffees. Sometimes, surreptitiously their Draft Lites. Tupperwares of yoghurt and salad come out and are delicately consumed clean by the time the train reaches the second stop. Crossword puzzles, daily news, fiction, the latest about celebrities and ofcourse laptops of work. Sleep. Most people in the Metra Rail have lives in the train. Friends meet and catch up on gossip.

Carol and Komal too were there. The first morning we sat on the top deck of the Metra and ooh-ed and aah-ed the lovely streets of Oak Park as we passed them, remembered Cyrus and Aban as we passed Elmhurst, ogled the quarry, the downtown condos, the water left over from the rain. Disembarked at the Ogilvie Center and walked on the streets of C H I C A G O. It is a city that I have dreamt of seeing even more than New York. I did not know what to expect. The only architectural reference point that I had came from a movie – what else! – and the names came from years of reading about Chicago and answering multi million trivia quizzes. Yes, I looked for each one of them. Some of them I met by the end of the next day and some of them are waiting to be destroyed or discovered.

Chicago has been a beautiful ambulatory discovery. Millenium Park, Chicago Yacht Club, Navy Pier, Michigan Ave, Magnificent Mile, Oak Street Beach, Water Tower, Water Tower Place, Southside, the Aquarium, Arlington at the Science and Industry Museum, Hyde Park, China Town, all the Universities, Grant Park. We walked and we walked and we walked. Talking about the city, about associated memories and about the joy of discovering this incredible city – which was surprisingly non busy for Monday and Tuesday.

Absolutely stunning was the Oriental Theater on Randolph/Street Ave, where we saw the Broadway musical Billy Elliot. The show itself was spectacular, but the theater was stupendous.

I feel extremely grateful that I saw it that I was there.

Oh, by the way, the name Chicago came from the Native American name that I know I am right now not pronouncing correct – Chicogua – it means stinking of rotting onions, because of the sweet onions that used to grow here and they obviously had quite an odor as they rotted!

That little nugget of information came from the docent of the Architectural Boat Ride – and that my friends was fantastic.

CHIPPEWA FALLS, WISCONSIN

Somewhere along the way between Chicago and Custer National Park, we found ourselves at Chippewa Falls at the Hancock’s. This was the last point of family, not to mention home living. And it was a fitting finale! In the love and caring of Aunt Jean and Uncle Dave and the absolutely gorgeous house on Wissota Lake I was ready to stop and stay right there. Idyllic day – we saw the furniture making plant, had lunch at Applebee’s, and saw the tiny tiny little towns of Eau Clair and Chippewa Falls. I actually remembered reading in 10^th grade Geography, about the lumber industry in Chippewa Falls, that has been around for centuries. The expanses of space and the neatness of row, yard, lane and house was all the more stunning in the backdrop of the wildness of the changing colors of the trees and shrubs.

And then – canoe-ing. It was absolutely mindblowingly – Peaceful. Once I accepted that the worst that could happen is that we would spill, and the Loch Ness Monster or the waiting crocodile would come and grab me and take me under to his lair for supper and afters, I was fine. I allowed myself to enjoy the thrill of being on water. On this ultra deep blue water, surrounded by water, and all of that rimmed by the oranges and flame and green of vegetation, houses and ducks and geese – I was fine! It’s a great life.

We paddled to the island, across the lake. Walked on the beach there. Cooked up a storm of pirate and ‘I could’ stories and paddled back again.

MINA LAKE, MINNESOTA – Camping: An Ode To Those Who Told Us So!

‘Twas the evening of the sunshiny lake.

The trees did sway as the wind she blew.

Two of the Intrepid Tribe on cross country drive

At Mina, with stuff and joy they did arrive.

And the lake did ripple as the wind she blew.

From the Discovery pulling out camping stuff

Wrapped in winter coats, pulling out stuff

Neither noticed the blowing wind and the setting sun

Sleeping bags, tent pegs, tarp and such

Wrapped in shiny fake brightness they pulled out stuff.

Sated with propane fired hotdogs and Chocovine

They did settle – did I say settle? – down to sleep.

Cold butts, freezing toes, slippery sleep bags

In their heads voices of warning, of soft beds left behind

They did not settle, but they slept.

Came the morning and all the moaning.

“Head cold runnin’”, “strange creatures howlin’”

“Fingers are a frozen and breakin’”

Cheerful conversation through un-pegging-n-tarpin’

Yes, they were making “never again” noises.

But the sun did shine on the colors again

Breathing in the wind and moving again

Teeth unclean and faces unwashed

They bought more stuff to camp next stop.

Breathing in the wind and moving again.

Thank you Manna, Rahul, Shalini, Aunt Jeannie and Uncle Flip, Rohan, Anjali, Alok, Barb, Dave, Aunt Jean and Uncle Dave Hancock for all the gear, advice, information, food and the “Are you sure?”, “Camping in this weather??!!!!”, “Go ahead and do it!!!”, “Camping! Hee hee hee! You’re joking! Right?”

Love