Tuesday: making some rounds, quick in a hurry

I visited people I love. Shirley and Fred are kinda like my chosen grandparents. When I was little, I stayed with them while my parents went on hiking trips. Shirley taught me how to knit, and spoiled me rotten. Fred taught me about sarcasm. I LOVE them, and it has been way too long since we spent any facetime together. I saw old photographs, including the quite spectacular specimen above, and was reminded of some of the expressions I heard as a child (the politically-correct term for sunburn, "red as an Indian," and phrase to indicate sudden movement, "quick in a hurry"... that just sounds like rushing, doesn't it?).

Then it was on to Dover, NH, to visit my dear old friend and college roommate Brian, and his fiance Jaynie, in their gorgeous old colonial house. I hadn't met Jayne yet, and I absolutely adore this girl. She made me feel so welcome and loved and comfortable! Kevin came over, too, and we drove to dinner in his Volvo and talked about yuppiness and off-the-grid living. I miss those Massholes, I really do! Wishing I could see them, and their crusty-sweet goodness, every day of my life. Alas, one fun night with beer and laughing and barbecue, will have to fill me up for now.

Sunday: Sleepy in Montpelier

Leaving the Valley was bittersweet: bitter because it meant saying a real goodbye to my BFF Amanda, after reconnecting in our sisterly way. Bitter because it also meant saying goodbye to the whole crew, and to the dear sweet valley, and to the everyone-in-the-same-place-at-once-ness that likely won't happen until someone else gets married.

But sweet, too: sweet because I got to visit Bethany (look how purty she is, at the shack up on the hill) and little Siiri (who isn't so little anymore, as it turns out). Sweet because we went to get maple creemees at the sugar shack in East Montpelier, and sweet because I got a big long nap in the afternoon before we headed to Joel's birthday party, which was also, of course, pretty sweet.
It was a quickie visit Montpelier-way, but restful and chill, which is exactly what I needed after the weekend of debauchery and T-Rexing. Thanks, Miss B, for putting me up and chatting it up. Miss you already.

Saturday: People got Married!

Saturday morning: Hangovers for everyone at Big Buck. Coffee at the roasters. Farmers’ Market in the village. Saw the Tan Man, who charges $6 for a pint of raspberries these days. I gritted my teeth and paid up like a good little city girl. Ran into so-and-so and so-and-so. Avoided so-and-so and so-and-so.

Went for a swim at Bobbin Mill with the boys. Matty dubbed the afternoon "The Last Temptation of Herilhy," and we jumped into that chilly water and felt all good and clear. Amanda and I, crashing the bachelor party. Chris saying, "this is my kind of bachelor party," as he sat in the cold river with a Trout River Ale in his hand.
Then, the wedding. The WEDDING! (I'll be posting pictures soon.) The nicest, most perfect wedding in the history of the world, maybe. Truly, it was really really nice. Outdoors, behind the pond at Millbrook, under the lovely little Octagon, short, sweet ceremony, the rain held off just until the vows, and when it came it seemed just right, as if maybe, when Chris and Emily declared their love and devotion to one another, the world just needed to touch them a little bit... to touch all of us, reminding us that we were really there in that important moment. Chris and Emily were both beautiful, so glowy and ready and right.

Thom and Joan put on a feast, of course, and Emily’s brother and Barry gave good toasts before the Starline Rhythm Boys knocked out a couple of real good sets. Good friends and food and dancing and booze and a pretty tent and fancy clothes barefoot in the grass on a Vermont summer night with humid air and peepers in the pond and so much love all around was almost enough to bust my heart all open right there, but I contained it and soon it was over, over in just the right amount of soon-ness, and we all went back to the Big Buck again, with a woozy kind of loviness hanging in the air.

Friday: Valley, Wedding stuff, and the Big Buck

On Friday, Amanda came into town and we had breakfast at Khatouna’s with our old friend Stacy. Stacy and Amanda were roommates way back, and lived in that cutie pie apartment just over the covered bridge in Waitsfield. We ate Khatouna’s good food (that woman makes anything taste better than anyone else can), and gossiped about what people are up to. Before we knew it, it was two o’clock.

Hot and sticky, Amanda and I dashed down to the river for a swim before heading over to the Big Buck Lodge, to score ourselves a bedroom in our weekend digs. The Buck is Jesse’s weekend ski-house, and is well-appointed in the way of the weekend warrior. The only "big buck" appears as a tattery, taxidermed doe’s head screwed to the wall above the stairwell, old-fashioned tele-skis and boots are screwed to other walls, and six bunkrooms can sleep somewhere around twenty people. We scored the next-to-the-bathroom bedroom and waited for other folks to roll in, before accidentally crashing Chris and Emily’s wedding rehearsal. Sorry, y'all!

Then it was off to Flatbread for our favorite vittles and wine. The experience at American Flatbread is rivaled by none… only open on Friday and Saturday nights, the old barn and woodfired oven produce some of the very yummiest food around. There’s always a long wait, so we sit by the fire outside and drink wine and talk to strangers who become friends. Still the same folks tending to the inside, samesame, goodsame. A little on the tipsy side, after our vino and dinner, we headed back to Millbrook for cocktail hour and mingling. Cory and Annie, Philibuster, Matt Reilly, Shippee and JoAnne, and all of Chris’ siblings were there in full force, and by the time we got there the first keg was already tapped. No worries, there was more to be had. This was not a weekend for want of beer.

We played awhile there, under the tent at Millbrook, before heading over to the Hyde Away for another round. Oh, Hyde Away, you are still the same and I love you. Sean was tending bar there, still there, samesame. Nice to see him. When I found him tending bar the next night at the wedding, there it was again, samesame, littlevalley.

After the Hyde Away, a dark walk up the dirt road and back to the Big Buck, where two refrigerators of Magic Hat and Long Trail and Otter Creek awaited us. Talk turned to the old story of the T-Rex, Chris’ infamous dance of yore, topic of many years’ worth of making-fun-of-Chris Herlihy. T-Rex chatter went on awhile, and a debate ensued about where the photo evidence of this particular form of movement had gone. (Burned by Chris Herlihy, I think.) General consensus was that there would most certainly be some T-Rexing taking place on the dancefloor at the wedding.

I shared a room with Amanda and Matty, and when we went to bed we giggled and talked awhile before drifting off. "T-Rex!" I heard Matty say after awhile, "That is funny."

And that is what Matt Reilly talks about in his sleep, as he drifts off, dreaming of Chris Herlihy. Almost beats the original T-Rex story.

oh, i love my old valley.

Back in the valley again. The dear, dear Mad River Valley, home of youthful adventure and debauchery and learning and the good old days. The Valley is still the same. People are still driving around in the same pickup trucks with the same canoes on top (canoes this time of year, instead of skis). Everyone looks pretty much the same, but a few years older. "I heard you were in town," they say when I run into them, after I've been in town for less than an hour.

Rural Vermont living is great in this way, it is so so wonderful. And it's also terrible, because privacy ain't real easy to come by.

I ran into my old friend Jacob at the post office, and he is beautiful and doing well, building canoes and kayaks and healthier than I've ever seen him. He is vibrant and and happy and clear, his hair is incredibly lovely (go with your bad self, Jacob!), and we talked about those good old days, how we weren't so clear back then, and how great it is to know clarity and inner peace. I got rundown on old crew, J-Ham's baby, Chris' housebuying plans, etc. People growed up. "Kevin is still Kevin," Jacob told me. Good thing, since that boy is a sizzler.

Found out about a party on Sunday in Montpelier, for Joel's birthday, where I'll likely run into anyone I haven't happened upon already, and where I'll get my play on with some of the old cats. It's funny, as I was driving into town today, I felt a little bit lost. Wondering what I'd do, if I'd feel lonely, if I'd find enough stuff to occupy me during the non-wedding stuff time. But lickety-split, as is always the case in the Valley, I've got some good mellow plans, and the lovefest is on.

Went river swimming in the Mad, to cool off from the sticky day that I would never complain about, because these days are so rare around these parts. Nice and cool and clean, got the travel stink off.

Staying the night with Khatouna, my second mama, who is also lovely and vibrant and clear these days. With wine and chocolate, we can talk a whole night away until sunrise, and we have lots to catch up about.

Remember what I said a few days ago about not being an easterner anymore? I think I was mistaken. Still got it, can't shake it. So happy to be here. So so so content right now. Except for one thing. I need groceries, and all the stores closed at six. That's the valley, still the same.

with my pops

dad making popovers

garden and barn

I’ve spent the last few days at my father’s house, running errands and spending time with my Pops. Coming home is hard (I think a lot of people feel this way, a kind of retroactive childhood ensuing as we visit our parents). My father is getting old. He’s eighty-one, and he’s lived in the same huge house for almost fifty years. I noticed the backyard hasn’t been mowed, and the garden is weedier than I’ve known it to be. The house is getting to be too much.

At dinner the night I got here, my dad told me he’s thinking of selling the place. He’s got some plans brewing, and although this stuff is hard to talk about, and hard to think about, and hard to do, I feel some relief that the elephant is being spoken of. Nothing too urgent, no swift maneuvers: "I’ve still got enough wood for two winters in the shed." My dad is a DIY-er, in the truest sense of the word, and still, with his bad eyesight and compromised balance and slowing-down-ness, chops his own wood, bakes his own bread (with grain he grinds himself), and makes strawberry-rhubarb pie with homegrown goods.

We’ve had a nice couple of days. I’ve gotten caught up on some errands, cleaned the car, done laundry, and spent many hours finishing up Chris and Emily’s wedding present. That feels good. We went to farmers’ market, on walks to the post office, and on little drives here and there. On Tuesday we went to see the Big Apple Circus, a longstanding summertime ritual for Dad and me, out on the Fullerton Farm. (Thankfully, this time, unlike one unpleasant circus experience while I was in college, I wasn't tripping.) Yesterday we rode up to Farm-Way in Bradford. For those of you who didn’t grow up in rural New England, the nuances of what it means to visit Farm-Way might be lost on you, but I’ll do my best. Farm-Way is the place you go to if you need a hose, any sort of gardening tool, grain for your cattle, work boots, Carhartts, or attachments for the milking machines. You also go to Farm-Way if you want Patagonia clothes, Dansko clogs, or good camping equiptment (a la REI). Sort of a one-stop shop for yuppies and farmers alike, way up to Bradford. ("Up to," around here, is used to denote anyplace upriver, or up a hill, or north. Sometimes, it means somewhere down a hill, or south, or downriver. It’s really pronounced "up tuh" and as long as you pronounce it right, nobody gives flack.) Anyway, around here, yuppies and farmers have a strange sort of symbiotic relationship, and if you want to understand it better, you have to live here, or at least take a trip to Farm-Way.

Anyhoo. I had a nice time at my dad’s house, I found a couple of big boxes of books I’d forgotten all about, poetry mostly, and all my Kerouac (nice timing!) so that’s pretty exciting. I’m on my way up and out just now, though, stopped in Hanover at the Dirt Cowboy Café for a coffee and wifi connection. Trying to update Flickr, I should be almost there. Ready to have onward motion again, I’m driving to Montpelier to meet miss Bethany for some lunch or somethin’, then on to the valley this afternoon, where I’ve got some massage work waiting for me, I think. I definitely have friends waiting for me there, and that makes me real happy. Old friends, good times, good snuggles and love.

More soon, maybe. I’m getting less and less inclined toward blogging/ emails/ phone calls the further into my trip I’m getting. If I haven’t returned your call, you’re not alone. Spotty reception and busy and feeling free and oaty don’t bode well for phonecalls. But I feel the love in your messages, and I’ll be back on the radar in another few days, once I’m done with valley and boston and NYC (hee haw!).
Xs and os. e

all the way home.

I am sitting on the bottom bunk in the bedroom in the old stone house where my Dad lives, the first of many bedrooms I’ve called my own. I am pretty sleepy. Amanda and I pulled into the Upper Valley this morning, after a long haul drive yesterday from Ohio to upstate New York and one last night of camping together.

We had a good run, Amanda and I. When I dropped her off today at her brother’s house, just a few miles from my Dad’s, we both felt bittersweet: it’s been a fun trip together, but we both were ready to get off the road and to have some quiet time alone. Of course, when I drove away from her, my excitement at the alone time I’d been lacking quickly faded away, and I felt a little bit lonely.

One of the things about traveling is that it’s not easy. Vacations are sometimes easy, but this really isn’t a vacation. It’s travel, it’s work of sorts, it’s a practice, it’s an inner journey as well as an outer one. Driving across this big wide land of ours, with silent hours to contemplate the shit that just doesn’t get mucked through at home, with all of home’s distractions, is no small task.

For me, possibly the most difficult element of this eastward odyssey has been really feeling, in a temporal and visual and tactile manner, how very far I am from New England. As we drove, I felt homesick, but it was a strange sort of homesickness because I wasn’t sure exactly where it was I was homesick for. This is a big, wide, lovely land, folks, and it took us nine days to drive across it. I feel settled in Portland, and happy, and rooted, and comfortable there. I feel at home there. But when the land begins to change in New York State, when the hills start rounding soft and small and blue, looking all fat this time of year, when we get out of the car and smell the grass and it is familiar in some old place deep inside of us, when we cross into Vermont and pass Killington on Route 4, and come down the mountain into Woodstock and see the barns we saw when we were small, I feel at home here, too.

It’s a little confusing, to be honest.

Anyway, Chicago was cool. Huge. We walked around and got kicked out of a public park because Vesta was with us. Then Vesta took a poo on the park, and I didn’t have a baggie, only a tiny piece of cellophane wrapper in my purse. So I picked up the poo all careful-like, but the cellophane was so small it would have appeared to any passing pedestrian that Miss Emily was carrying a log of shit in her bare hands! Unfortunately, this was quite a busy sidewalk, and the nearest trash receptacle was quite a distance away, so many Chicagoans are under the impression that I am a bare-handed shit-carrier.

We found, thanks to Roadfood, a spectacular drive-in lunch place called Superdawg, where we ate red-hots with relish and mustard, fries, and vanilla milkshakes, served to us while we sat in our car. I felt very American as I enjoyed this rite, if a bit of a lardass. After our Superdawgs, we drove onward through the rest of Chicago (did I mention Chicago is a BIG city?), and into Indiana.

Indiana was mostly a blur, because at this point we were on the get-back-to-VT mission. But one noteworthy interlude, with a noteworthy character, demands mention. With no imminent rest areas and full bladders, we got off the highway and found a KFC at which to relieve ourselves. While leaving the single-stalled bathroom –together, I should add, but only due to extenuating circumstances—we must have caught the attention of the aforementioned "noteworthy character." Naïve to this, we returned to our vehicle and were puttering around, getting a soda out of the cooler, whatever.

"Holy Shit!" the noteworthy character screams as he walks toward our car, "Hooooly SHIT!" He is talking to his wife, who is sitting in their older, boatlike Cadillac, smoking a cigarette, with curlers in her hair. "These people are from Ore-gone."
Then the noteworthy character engaged us in some chatter about holyshithowlongdidittakeyoutodrivehere, and so forth. Then the noteworthy character got into his boat and began to leave, as I put Vesta on her leash and began walking her in KFC’s greenery.
"If my wife weren’t here," he yelled out the window, "I’d ask you to put me on a leash!"
I feigned a smile.
"But don’t worry," he added, "That’s just a fantasy!"
Indeed.
So that was Indiana.

We camped that night in a town called Milan, doesn’t that sound swanky? It’s in Ohio. We stayed at the Milan Travel Center. The very sweet boy at the counter said dogs aren’t usually allowed in the tent area (see pic), because people don’t pick up after their dogs’ "mess." I told him about the cellophane incident in Chicago and said that if that doesn’t prove I clean up after my dog, I don’t know what will. We got the site, of course.

While at the Milan Travel Center, we met an old man and his dog. The dog had purple barrettes in her hair. The dog’s name is Jolie Le Fille. And if you speak french, you’ll know why this is funny.

The rest of our trip was pretty uneventful. We talked a lot, and last night camped at the Glimmer Glass Lake in Cooperstown, NY. We made one of those delicious, only-think-of-this-if-you’re-camping meals, and drank the second bottle of champagne from Becca and Eric, and then we went to bed early.

On homeward, we stopped quickly at the VT border before busting out the rest of the trip back to the Upper Valley.

My Dad's house is a great pitstop, chance to get laundry done, car cleaned up, rested, and fed. I met Amanda and her brother Marcus for a drink at Jesse's after work, and met his fiance Erin! I haven't seen Marcus in years and he is all grown up now, with a lovely wife-to-be. So nice to see them.

Then it was home to a delicious dinner with my pops, and some hard talks about aging and the future. Still simmering on that stuff, more on that later. I love you all!

big-hugginess

You’ll have to forgive these lengthy posts: we aren’t often in a position to find a wi-fi connection, and are more interested in experiencing the goods of where we ARE than in seeking out internet cafes, so there you have it: long posts.

As I write this, it’s Saturday. We’re headed east on the 90, passing the town of Beloit, Wisconsin. This morning we’re driving into Chicago, with plans to walk around downtown along the lake, keep our eyes open for Oprah Winfrey, and get some lunch before busting out the rest of the trip eastward. (Amanda and I have both seen our share of Indiana/Ohio/New York highways, and we’re ready to get off the road for awhile.)

We woke up on Thursday in Mitchell, South Dakota, home of the Corn Palace! The pamphlet we found in the motel lobby promised that the Corn Palace would be "A-Maize-ing!" Indeed, it’s true. I love that place. The corn murals change every year, and this year happens to be a tribute to rodeo. Everyone knows the rodeo is my favorite guilty pleasure, so I was pretty stoked on the a-maize-ing coincidence. The palace, on the morning we were there, was still a work-in-progress, so we got to watch men in cowboy hats and cowboy boots stapling bundles of wheat on the sides of the building. I got a bumper sticker and some postcards in the gifte shoppe, and sampled some popcorn from the vendor lady. (The sign next to the popcorn was a stern "Only take one sample," so I needed to choose wisely. When I asked her why one particular sample was a shade of aqua green, she replied, "it has a marshmallow base." Oh.)

After taking in all the a-maizement we could handle, we walked around the town of Mitchell, got some coffee at the local java place, and did some window shopping along the main street. Storefronts included KQRN (very cute), the local radio station, a taxidermist shop, a costume rental place, and various other necessities. Beautiful old signs on the jewelry shop and drug store. While we were walking there, I got a wild hair and for the first time in a long while, felt the itch to do something real impractical, like move to Mitchell and work at the popcorn stand. (I have had these ideas once in a while, ever since childhood. The same inner wiring that had me proclaim, when I was six, that when I grew up I wanted to be a migrant worker.)

Anyway, suffice it to say that we loved Mitchell, Amanda and I both.

The rest of Thursday we spent driving across what little was left of South Dakota, and Minnesota, stopping for lunch in a cutie-pie town called Luverne. We talked a lot about the friendliness of the people, and how we really like the midwest and also, how we don’t quite understand it. The family values, the big-hug generosity and warmth, the tolerant churchiness of the people we encountered, the landscape and architecture and pace of living are just different from anyplace else either of us has lived. Which, between the two of us, is pretty much every other part of this country. What I do understand is that I love the big-hugginess of the midwest, and I want more of that in my life, wherever that life takes me. I want to bring the big-hugginess with me, and I want to find it in places I didn’t notice it before. If that’s what I take from the midwest, that’s worth this whole trip.

We camped that night at a fully gorgeous state park called Big River Bluffs, on the far eastern side of Minnesota, up on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River. The weather had cooled off plenty, and that felt great after our hades-beginnings. We drank wine and played scrabble and met some folks with some very loud little dachshunds whose yappiness Vesta found rather dull. They recognized me as an Oregonian-influenced person via my Beavers sweatshirt (thank you, Grant! It’s the only warm thing I brought on this trip.)

On Friday morning, a little hike along a ridge for some views, and then back into the car for the day’s journey. We crossed into Wisconsin and took a small road along the river from La Crosse to Prairie le Chien (pronounced "sheen," like Charlie), and then across a county road into Madison. This was a lovely jaunt and got us thinking up questions about the history of the settlement/ exploration of the US that made us wish we’d paid better attention in grammar school, instead of passing notes to each other and making fun of our French teacher (that poor woman, Amanda and I were terrible!)

Another thought struck me as we went over the great Mississippi: I am not an easterner anymore. When I was young, out on my first big westward adventure, I crossed the Mississippi in St. Louis and felt very much that the river was the gateway to the west. And this trip, I felt a sort of opposite orientation for the first time. And that thought led to other thoughts that are still percolating, and that I’m sure I’ll explore later on during this month, thoughts that have to do with place, and time, and the question of what it means to feel settled somewhere, or in oneself

I met a rancher while we were pulled off at a roadside farmstand, and he was so proud of this beautiful place he lives. "Long way from home," he said, and grinned wide when I told him how beautiful we found his land. "Yup, most people call this land ‘fly-over’ land, nobody much wants to drive through it." He was clearly tickled that we weren’t most people, and made some friendly chatter before sending us on our way.

In Madison we found a big street sidewalk sale going on, and wandered from the capital down into the University area, people watching and getting some sun. Vesta got a lot of attention: "Winn-Dixie!" people were calling out. Or, "Mom, look! That doggie looks like the doggie in the movie!" After deciding that Madison is probably pretty cool, but we hadn’t found the real cool stuff, and deciding that it would be an okay place to go to grad school, we hit the road again and found a motel for the night (all the campgrounds filled up, unfortunately, for the weekend.)

Now we’re in Chicago, so I’m signing off. Stay tuned for the next installment, I'll include a saga of Vesta's brush with the law in the windy city. Much love, folks.

Montana. Wyoming. South Dakota.

Our last morning in Bozeman went slow as honey, and just as sweet. We walked around downtown and found a good camping-skirt, the Roadfood book we’ve been coveting, and made some friends here and there. I talked to Amy, who was happy to hear that we’re in "Mantana." Man-tana, indeed. Nice boots, boys. Nice sideburns. We like it here.

We closed up Chris and Emily’s house, filled up on ice and groceries, got some ice cream before meeting up with the 90 again. Icy treats were welcome respite from the Hades-style heat we’ve encountered during most of our roadtime thus far. Amanda has the lyrics to "Highway to Hell" stuck in her head, and said we might as well be on it: "it’s hot enough for us to be headed to hell," she said this morning as the thermometer rose above 90.

Rolling across Montana is like taking the train to eye-candyville. I’m not just talking about the boys, either. The hills roll along and shift and change: green, brown, parched-wheat; soft, round, craggy, small, tall; bare, tree-lined, rocky, cow-speckled. As the landscape shifts to quiet plains east of Billings, something inside of me quiets down a little, too. We say "cows" when we pass them, and Vesta stirs from her special homemade perch to growl and lunge at the window. She’s a funny girl, that Vesta.

We stopped for some gas at the Kum-n-Go.

Met some folks from Jersey at a rest stop someplace.

Ate pesto, cheese, and tomato sandwiches for dinner.

Amanda made up a new name for my friend Todd Zeranski in New York (sorry about the phone tag, Toddler, we’ll connect soon, I promise): T-Zer. Amanda says that’s your rap name, bro.

Making up I-tunes playlists, singing aloud. Snugging a little scruffy mutt. Watching with attention the ways our inner landscapes mirror the outer ones. Forgetting all about Hades as we roll up all sticky-like to the site of the battle at Little Big Horn. We didn’t go in, though. I guess Custer had a thing about dogs.


Instead, we drove through the Crow and Northern Cheyenne reservations on the 213. Beautiful, clean, quiet land. Tidy prefab homes. Again the question, what would it be like?
We drove till late, through hundreds of miles of not-much-in-the-way-of-human-life-ness. Suddenly there appeared a strange fenced happening to the side of the road, and we saw, out there in the middle of noplace in the corner of eastern Wyoming, several missles lined up, ready for launch. Soon after, we passed a stash of Halliburton plants, mining for Bentonite… coincidence? we thought not.

Eventually we stopped for the night in Sturgis, South Dakota. Because we are biker chicks. Because we were exhausted. Because we wanted to get biker chick tank tops in the morning, after a restful sleep. We asked some locals for a good camping spot, and a sweet gentleman with a wad of chaw in his lip told us about a great place on national forest land. "Go this way," he said, pointing to the right-ish, "then take a dirt road that way for four miles, then go this way about two miles. You can’t miss it." Those country directions turned out great, and soon we found ourselves unloading our gear at the Black Bear Lake Campground, watching heat lightning off in the distance.

We dove into those tents so, so ready to relish a good night’s sleep. And we slept great, just wonderfully, until the thunderstorm-of-the-year rolled on in over the Black Hills and across the plain where we’d set up camp. My tent was flapping and shaking, the sky was cracking open, and before I had a chance to orient myself to this new reality, I heard Amanda outside in the din. "Em Gilbert! I need the car keys. My tent is going crazy in the wind and I cannot sleep."

Vesta and I joined her in the Element awhile, waiting out most of the storm and laughing as we watched Amanda’s tent undulating as the wind ripped through it. I went back to the puddle that was my tent, and zonked out till morning, while poor Amanda got gnawed by mosquitoes in the back of the rig and then crawled back into her tent early in the morning. See the aftermath:

Today we were up and at ‘em Sturgis-style, did some shopping at the swanky t-shirt tents around town, drove to Rapid City and down to pay some quick respects to our forefathers at Mt. Rushmore. Then, hit Wall Drug before exploring those lovely Badlands. South Dakota is so full of gems, I could easily and happily spend a week exploring all of those activities advertised on billboards along I-90. The billboards implore us to "discover" various ghost towns, reptile petting zoos, creeks with gold to mine, strange little museums, buffalo burgers, saddle stores, etc.
We’re road-sticky and our clothes are dirty, and thinking a bed might feel real good tonight, so we’ve lined up a room at Motel 6 in Mitchell. Motel 6 likes dogs, so we like Motel 6. It’ll be great to shower, get a real dinner (even if that means chain-style), and wake up in the same town as Corn Palace. Sounds like heaven.
xoxo.

For The Love of Four Eyes

Day 2. Bozeman, MT.

Summer road trip in full swing. Little anxieties about leaving usual-life rolled themselves off my back yesterday as we drove eastward on I-84 through Oregon, north to Spokane, and east again on the 90 into Idaho. Windows open, hot wind on our faces. By the time we settled ourselves in at the Bumblebee campground in the Coeur D’Alene National Forest, I might as well have been gone a week.

Before we left, people kept asking us what our plans were, and the only honest answer we could give them was that we didn’t have any plans. East. East was the plan, and we’re following that plan pretty nicely. We’re aiming for about 400 miles a day, give or take. Talking about what we want to do next along the way, making sidetrips and stops as our whims implore. An easy way to loll across this beautiful land of ours.

We’ve been entertaining ourselves in the Emily-and-Amanda way. The you-really-had-to-be-there way. We won’t bore you with too many goofy details, suffice it to say we’re happily passing the time in the following ways:

*giggling at the names of strange little towns, and debating proper pronunciation of said town names. Wondering aloud, elements of egocentricity and naïve curiosity in equal measure, what do people DO in these towns, anyway?

*laughing endlessly at various amusing billboards and bumper-stickers. (Favorite billboard so far? "The Testicle Festival" outside of Anaconda, Montana. Pictured on the sign is a cartoon bull holding it's legs together.)

*making up ryming songs for Vesta, involving words like Vespucci, Susan Lucci, Hoochie, Vestini, Lambourghini, Fettuccini, and laughing our booties off.

*changing song lyrics to suit our funnybones (katchafire's "for the love of 'Fari" has become "for the love of four-eyes.")

*Reminiscing about the time when… (if you’re an old friend of ours, we’ve talked about something funny you did once.)

*Playing scrabble while swatting mosquitos while drinking champagne (one of the treasures in Becca and Eric’s going away care-package) while eating a keebler elves’ cookie.

We didn’t have cellphone reception last night and it felt like freedom. (But also, I miss you guys, you should call me.)

Today we woke up early (very early, thanks to Vesta’s 4:45 wakeup camping schedule), and lounged around the campground with our coffee a little while before heading out to cross the top of the Idaho panhandle and head into Montana. We’d been talking about finding some hotsprings, but it’s darn hot here, so we bagged that idea. Instead, into Missoula for a walk around town and bookstore stop (looking for Road Food, ain’t found it yet).

Outside the post office, we met a sweet local boy (he caught me taking photos of his beautiful fixie and beamed with pride) who gave us insider scoop and directions to a nice swimming hole along the Blackfoot River. A refreshing little dip before lunch made us happy and ready for the next leg to Bozeman. Along our drive, we encountered port-o-potties IN the highway, fallen from their truck. Coulda been real nasty. We also picked up a tumbling little hitchhiker:

Chris and Emily, the folks whose wedding spurned this adventure in the first place, have an empty apartment sitting in Bozeman, so we called at the last minute and finagled a stopover. I visited them last summer, so remembered the co-op only three blocks away… Amanda and I hurried over there for a six-pack asap, met another travelling fellow (who was headed from Seattle to New Brunswick), and headed back to Chris and Emily’s for a quick beer-pounding session. Chris and Emily called to give us directions to some hot springs an hour away (near Yellowstone), local taverns, bookstores, and dog park. We got some burgers at the Montana Aleworks and now we’re full, and real tired, and headed to bed.

Day 3. Bozeman

I awoke early again, so Vesta and I let Miss Amanda sleep while we walked to the Co-op for a cup of coffee (good coffee, says the Portlander), then wandered to the dog park where we met a nice lady and her big dog and spotted many magpies. I think magpies are so cute! The lady with the dog said magpies are "rats with wings." Maybe that lady wasn’t so nice, after all.

We’re planning to do some shopping this morning, pick up some stuff we’ve forgotten (butter, trash bags), and I would like to get a pair of loose summer pants or a skirt, cause it’s hotter than Hades and we’re heading into the flat middle. We’ll get a late start today, and we’re fine with that. We like Bozeman and want to explore it more, this town filled with rugged men and their big dogs.

leaving portland

We still don't have a route planned, but we're heading out of Pdx in about an hour. Heading east. Stopping at some hotsprings in Idaho, most likely, for the night. Yesterday was busy with last minute preparations, like getting sno-cones at the Mississippi Street fair with Josh and Michelle.
Brett Superstar reminded us that West Coast and East Coast equals "WE."

We're feeling the bi-coastal love right now, folks. On the way outta here, after a stop at the dogpark and a cup of coffee. We love you, pdx. Smell ya later.

preparations

We're spending the day getting some loose ends tied up before we hit the road on Sunday... lookin' at good old Rand McNally and planning a route, talking about hotsprings, sharing our clothes like sisters, getting loads of cash from the bank because travelers' checks are for grandmas, hitting up AAA for camping guides, and packing important items up such as corkscrews, toilet paper, and a frying pan.

We're taking it easy since I'm still recovering from satan's illness, but I actually think I'm on the mend.

Plans for the next couple of days include a walk to the Mississippi Summer Sidewalk thingy. Also on the agenda, a visit with our old friend Josh, who was a neighbor of ours back in the undergraduate days at UVM, and who I ran into at First Thursday a couple of months ago. He's got a PhD now, and has grown up a lot since the days when he owned that divey basement bar in Burlington called The Last Chance. Aah, the Chance, site of bygone latenight drunken escapades that we would probably not want to remember, even if we could. Amanda flew in to PDX last night. Look how excited Miss Vesta was to see her autie, ears back in I-Love-you mode!
Our first leg of the journey, up Columbia Boulevard.

Packing up the camping box!

getting closer!

Miss Amanda just called and got me thinking about the big trip! She'll be flying in from the east coast on Thursday (less than a week!) and then our planning will begin in earnest. There was a thought to start out the trip with a stint working the Oregon Country Fair, but that's not happening and it's for the best. We wouldn't be in top form for a 3K drive after three days of eggroll-rolling, all-night hallucinogenic romps, and hippie-fest mosquito-swatting anyhow, no matter how much fun we would've had. Instead, we'll get cozy in my house, pack the ride, buy a new cooler, and lay out the atlas on the kitchen table, fueled by coffee and wine and cookies and girl-giggles. I can't wait to see my Amanda-sister!

We've had input here and there, and new agenda-items include a stop at the world's largest ball of twine (how could a knitter resist), a cherry on a spoon, Niagara Falls (we'll ride over them in a barrel and tell you all about it). Aaron Draplin suggested taking Highway 20 for a good portion of the trip ("slow and mean," he reports), and sent a link to a website filled with gems: roadside america. Check out Aaron's blog, it's tight and worth a daily visit.

More to come, more to come.