Border crossing

After 2500 miles...Mexico

Marfa Texas - roadside art, Prada

Self portrait

Pancho Villa restrauant

Texas Cactus

Texas cactus -- taken as we pass by

Countdown

Snakessekans

Tomorrow I take Delicata over to Mike's house. She's staying with him while we're gone. At the moment I'm feeling pretty detached from my life here but I did put out a big spread in the bird park today.

Puj is ready to go. Swami is ready to go. He loves Mexico. I am not ready to go. I won't get to sleep until 2 and will be up at 6. No matter. We leave Monday. It's a long drive.


Hawk dining on a pigeon in Reno today.


All this reminds me of one of my favorite poems by Apollinaire

Come to the edge, he said.
"We are afraid", they said.
Come to the edge, he said.
"We are afraid", they said.
They came.
He pushed them.
They flew.

The wind and the wall

Some of the graffiti in Oaxaca is wonderful. This is a photo I took on our last trip south. I've got better versions of this collage but I just don't have the energy to hunt for them tonight.

The second line of the poem is the toast my brother made one wintery Seattle night over a candle lit spaghetti dinner we cooked. We sat down to eat with my three children and, raising his wine glass, he turned to my daughter and said, "Tell them about us". That was a long time ago. Funny how life twists and turns. These days my daughter doesn't speak to me and my oldest son and I have been estranged for years. I can't even begin to describe how painful this is.

I'm leaving for Mexico in just over a week. There's so much yet to do. And more than can never be undone. And so much more that will be left undone forever.

Mexico

I don't want to jinx the plans, but we're scheduled to leave for Mexico on October 1st for six weeks. I have to start planning and packing and that means first I come here and grumble. I dread packing for these trips. There's not a lot of room in the jeep to start with and I only get a small section for my necessities, all which must be stuffed into the tiny area behind the passenger seat. The rest of the available space is crammed with camping gear, tools and there's a small area for Don Jefe's things. He travels light and I travel heavy and never hear the end of it. Anyway, the trip is looming so I'm creaking into gear. This time we're headed for the Yucatan to poke around some newly discovered Mayan ruins. Of course it will be wonderful but I resist everything. Don Jefe considers it his personal mission to channel me in the new direction and that is when the fun begins.

Got gas? Got a hundy?

I took this photo in LA a couple of weeks ago. I posted it then as part of an article about the La Brea Tar Pits but I think it's worthy of it's own space. Put it in the Future Nostalgia category.

This particular station was not in the Brentwood area or the Beverly Hills district. It was in a regular neighborhood, as in "previews of coming distractions". Break em in gently, I suppose. While everyone's still discussing the rumor it's already a fact. We'll be happy to buy gas for three dollars a gallon when we see it's on its way to four.

This photo is actually part of the memorabilia of the Bush administration. It's a nostalgic look at cheaper gas, when the nasty elixir was still under $5 a gallon. Don't think that can happen? I just filled up my "fuel efficient" car yesterday and it cost me nearly $30. It used to cost me $10. Before Bush & Co. took over. I can't imagine what people are paying to fill up their ridiculous SUVs. Four, five hundy a month?

I hear Toyota can't keep up with the demand for Prius, their hybrid gas/electric car. We saw several of them when we were in LA. I hear they are particularity desirable because they are hackable. With a few tweaks they can be turned into a fully electric vehicle. Sweet.

Tar pits, past and future now

There actually aren't tar pits on Wilshire Blvd. They are called tar pits, the La Brea Tar Pits, but in fact they are asphalt pits or "seeps". Tar is a man-made commercial by-product. Asphalt is a naturally formed substance.



There are asphalt pits bubbling up along Wilshire Blvd. It's pretty amazing, especially among the office buildings and self absorbed hubbub of downtown LA. The pits contain millions of bones from creatures and plant skeletons from the last Ice Age and the asphalt itself is the gooey remains of ancient sea life that flourished when the Los Angeles Basin was still submerged in the sea.


A sad scene that plays out on this exact spot to this very day.



In geologic time we are currently 65 million years into the Cenozoic Era but the asphalt didn't start sucking in its victims until a mere 40,000 years ago. I didn't know all this until today when we visited the La Brea Tar Pits but it helps put things in perspective, especially with so many fundamentalist wanks doing everything they can to usher in their pet version of the End Times.

The La Brea excavation site is well worth a visit. Definitely put visiting them on your short list.

Unfortunately, it appears that we are its most current victims.

LA, tar pits and all

We're back from LA after dashing down there over the weekend. I knew we were going just not when. Lee needed to pick up the bass but he wanted to get a room through Priceline. In the summer the hotels are inclined to wait until the last minute to make them available. Anyway, we made a trip out of it and had a great time. We walked the beach for miles, visited tar pits filled with fossils from the last Ice Age, hiked in the mountains, caught a street filming of a movie, ate dinner in an Indian grocery store, saw some really interesting work by artist Tim Hawkinson, and a few floor sweepings by Rembrandt all without ever leaving the city limits. I took lots of photos (naturally) but it's 1 am so that will have to wait until later.

Photofile update, Mexico journal

I just added a third page to my Mexico file. These are all photos I took on our travels there last year. So far I've only posted three pages but you might find them interesting. I'm in the rears with this project so more to come. In fact, I have to get busy. We're planning to go back there this fall then I'll really be behind. It starts here.

French Fry Fellowship

I just reinstalled Hello so here's a test photo. It's from the recent French Fry party I threw in Seattle. Bill Gates, eat your heart out.

Seattle seagull and bride's party

I was in Seattle last week for the Wonder Women All-Girl (except for my brother) Welcome Party to welcome the lovely Anita into our family. She is my youngest son John's bride. They had a hasty wedding last spring when his company was called up for Iraq. As of yet, he hasn't gone. So that I don't get heady, I keep in mind that things could change in a second but so far, so good. The "real" wedding is planned for this July. It's all very exciting.

I arrived a day early so I went straight from the airport to my brother's office on Puget Sound. That's him showing me his latest project. He's a bio-mathematician and oceanographer. The next day, before the humans arrived, I threw a seagull French fry and photo party on the waterfront. I bought an order of fries at Ivar's, set my camera on continuous shoot, went out on the pier and waited. Seagulls hang out there all day waiting for handouts. One bird in particular set her sites on me and settled right in. I fed her fries with one hand while photographing her with the other. When Lee saw the photos, he thought I should make her my avatar. He said she exactly resembles me. Perhaps he has a point.





That's my daughter Asia on the left and my "new" daughter Anita on the right. I'm a lucky and very grateful person.

Slow motion adventures

One morning, we drove to a tiny village



on Mexico's west coast. Just behind us


a mother pig and her baby came sauntering down the hill.


It was a good day for a walk, a little snooze


and some exploring


but not too much.

Zacatacas, MX

hostel

view of the street

along the street

Humming bird in Oaxaca

This picture will eventually be included in my photofiles with other ones I took in Mexico last spring but tonight I'm just experimenting with Picasa2. Wow! Does it ever make things easy. I highly recommend you try it, if you haven't already.

Ghosttown Holiday

If you celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope you had a nice day. My daughter came home for the holiday. She wasn't feeling well when she arrived but cheerfully took all the herbal tea, vitamin C and aspirin I put before her. She's a great sport. On Tuesday, feeling a bit better, the three of us loaded into the Jeep for a little adventure. We visited Bodie, a ghosttown a few hours south of here.

(click on photos to enlarge)

Under the weather but ready to go.
Bodie is an eerie intersection with the past. Take, for example, the school house.

Within its one dusty classroom, desks, books, papers and belongings still sit as though the children stepped outside for recess one day and just never returned.

At the undertaker's, coffins still wait for people who have long since died.


Bodie's streets, hotel, general store,




saloons,


homes,


and firehouse,


all await people and events that faded away long ago.

Lee doesn't like taking the same road both ways so we went home the back way, following a creek through the mountains and desert. It's a risky thing to do in November, but we live to tell the tale. It was great fun. On Thursday, we had a scrumptious, vegetarian feast and she left today. :(

But in three weeks we'll get together again for Christmas in Las Vegas! Woo-hoo!