Outrunning THOR and Road Trip!

Cannon Beach sunset at  Haystack Rock

Hello everyone - me again.... rambling on about what is turning into an epic road trip with my shoebox-size Honda FIT, named Hissy (as in - "she threw a hissy fit") named because my friend Karla-of-the-U-Haul-trip challenged me to name it and that seemed to fit, no pun intended.  The day before I left, this achingly beautiful sunset reminded me to get back home before I'd even left.  But I have two homes and one of them is Austin,  where I sit now in the family room of a good friend with Cyrus, The Wonder Dog lounging in front of the fire. During Spring Break - I will be the surrogate mom to Cyrus, aka Pig, and his cat, a big, orange tabby named Travis.  Cyrus is a sweetie - but he plays with food - any food - any place - any time.  It will be an interesting week.

Cyrus got a little bored...

The idea for this 6000+ mile trip started with the idea to come back to Texas to teach my 9-hour "Arrange Your Listing for Success," course as well as a half day class on Elder moves based on my book, Moving Your Aging Parents.  Both are being offered by Austin Board of Realtors and since I've missed teaching, I'm really looking forward to it after a three-year hiatus. However, I have realized upon my return that much of what had been an extensive vocabulary has been left somewhere on the African plains, since it was unusable for the two-and-a-half years in Africa. Perfectly respectable words were lost, having been shoved out by not-so-respectable epithets essential for emotional  survival there, but unfortunately inappropriate for pedagogy.  Other returned PC volunteers have lamented this condition, reduced as we were to speaking Uganglish.  (The Ugandans were no-doubt equally frustrated in trying to communicate with Muzungus.)   Am hoping my mental thesaurus will be resurrected when I start teaching and that it will again supply something interesting and at least moderately appropriate.

Arches National Park

Anyway, back to the road trip. The reasonable thing would be to fly - right?   As I remembered the spectacular scenery I would miss by flying across Oregon, Utah and New Mexico, a different idea began to bloom.  It was that idea that caused me to load Hissy-Fit with boxes of memorabilia and the huge-metal-Texas-star-that-has-no-room-in-the-cottage, to take to Travis some 3000 miles away.  Hard to do that even on Southwest Airlines, my favorite. Yes, the trip kept growing. I figured: once I'm in Texas it's only two days to Florida and then only two more days back to Arkansas and then.. and then.... and then.....   twelve states and fifteen sets of friends (not counting those in Austin) along the way and I'll be back in Cannon beach.  Well - I'm not in a U-Haul.

Snow begins

That being the plan meant I first had to outrun the winter storm known as Thor, whose ill-mannered trounce across the US coincided with my departure.  Instead of a leisurely drive through the canyon lands of Utah I drove like a bat-out-of-hell just in front of the snow-line (not adequately captured in the picture to the right). It caught up with me soon after Arches National Park and I drove through blizzard conditions until New Mexico, where I stopped to visit with a Peace Corps friend. A nostalgic trip to Santa Fe with its pinon-scented air took me back to road trips with the kids and a trek with friends  when a mysteriously thwarted vision quest in Ghost Canyon/Taos had us scrambling for the car at midnight. Lots of good memories there.  No vision quest this time, but wish there had been time and good weather to make it to Taos!  Another road trip?

Full moon over the Hill Country

Driving 13 hours from Albuquerque through the flat lands of west Texas erased any traces of the romance of  a road trip until a huge orange full-moon graced a clear, cold sky and led me through the hill-country the rest of the way into Austin.

So here I am getting my fill of Mexican food and Texas BBQ until March 31st at which point I'll re-load the Hissie-Fit and drive through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and north Florida. I can't wait to see Travis in his domain.  There will be no cave-diving...  though a canoe ride along some of those rivers  or a swim swim with the manatees would be fabulous!

Travis in his favorite place

After Florida - a trek up Eureka, Arkansas to attend a UFO conference!   Yes... a UFO conference.  The kids and I have shared a sequence of conscious experiences and mine continue.  As was their habit, the kids recorded their experiences in artwork and it  is also making the trip with me.  

From Arkansas, I'll drop down to see "my mother's people" as they say in Louisiana and head back through Austin on the way west again taking the southern route through Arizona and all the way up the  California coast until I find my way back to Cannon Beach. I have friends to visit every 8 - 10 hours along the way so it'll be great fun - if you don't count driving in Los Angeles.

Who was it who said: "Go West old woman ...."?  No?  Oooooh yeah - that was "Go West young man.."  Oh well - one wouldn't let gender or age get in the way.

Updates to follow for anyone still reading ;-)