where am i?

Dude. Sometimes life throws shitty curveballs.

I am in Portland.

This morning I woke up in Boise and realized this: Boise is a small town posing as a big city. Whereas, Portland is a big city posing as a small town. The latter works better for me, as it turns out.

Ready as I'd ever be to head westward one more day, I started the car and the engine light came on. So V and I spent three hours exploring the underbelly of Nampa, Idaho, while the Honda dealer performed "diagnostic tests," determined nothing was wrong, turned the light off, and hit me with a $160 bill.

In Nampa, we walked around. A lot. Went thrift shopping, and met an old woman named Rickie, who turned out to be the fairy godmother of Nampa. She invited me to spend the night if things with the car turned out to be overnighter-style bad.

Once we were rolling again, lots of mixed-emotion stuff came up for me about returning to PDX. I was real head-y, trying to synthesize all of these rich experiences I've had along the way, making myself nuts. So I turned off the Nick Cave, my friends, and things started looking up!

Lovely, spare eastern Oregon: I love you. Stopped quickie at the Pendleton Woolen Mill to ogle blankies.

Thought about my wishiest wish for forever-ever:

I wish my friends were like crumbs on a tabletop (stick with me, kids, it can be a fancy tabletop, ok?)

I wish my friends were like crumbs on a tabletop and that I could brush them all together in my palm. And then, instead of dusting them off my palm into the trash, I would do something nice with them, like fertilize my garden. Or something like that.

Gee, that metaphor really bites.

What I mean to say is this: you scattered people, all over this country, I have mad, mad love for you. I want you to be with me always, and I suppose that you are. If one's friends are a reflection of oneself, then I daresay that I am truly, truly the shit! Ya'll make me feel all soft and gooey.

I felt kind of numb getting off at the Lloyd Center exit and driving up 9th Avenue.

What was more numbing was coming back to the Hideout. The garden hadn't been watered, and many of my plants had died. When I went indoors, the numb turned to shock when I discovered the condition of the interior. I had a housesitter, a friend who had asked me if she could use my place as her "spiritual retreat" while I was away, in exchange for watering the plants. But something very bad has happened inside of this person, and the result of this inner chaos was that my house and many belongings had been trashed. I could go into details but those would embarass me and they would embarass you and your jaw would drop and maybe you would even cry, like I did.

So, like, welcome home, Emily.

I spent the next several hours cleaning and untangling the disaster.

I want to pretend like this last part never happened. I want to tell you that I drove up to my pretty house and it was just as sweet as I've always left it. I want to not write about it because it's still throbbing and because I wonder if I should tell about it while it is still raw. I want to not write about it because I don't want this thing to be the thing that capped off my whole amazing trip of fabulosity. I want to not write about it because in some way, I feel I need to protect the person who violated my space and my things.

But I am writing about it, because it is part of the story and because it is true.

It's only a part of the story, though.

The whole story, the big story, is something more. And right now the whole story feels like everything at once.

Make Amends With Yourself

Left Park City this morning with an open agenda, and quickly decided to aim for Boise, a city I've long held romantic notions for, even though I've never seen it. Before I left, I stopped for fair-trade coffee at the Java Cow and met a local boy with a wonderful t-shirt that read "make amends with yourself." All day, this has been my mantra, and it's a good thing to ponder on the road.

Rolled north through Utah and across Idaho on the 84, loving the stark beauty of this part of the planet. Outside of a town called Bliss, (Bliss!), a faded old train was parked along the highway, and some wonderful grafitti artist had painted the words "dear world" on the side of one of the cars. Mmm.

Also in Bliss, I found another cellphone. I am, it turns out, a cellphone do-gooder, and called around to make sure this one finds its way home, too.

Soon I was in Boise, all primed up to stay in some neato roadside motel. I found something that seemed to fit the bill, cute and weird and special, so I went in to get a room. The clerk quoted me a rate and we haggled a bit and settled on this: non-smoking room, no extra fee for the dog girl. But when it was time to pay, he tried to shaft me and re-neg our deal, so I politely left. Probably for the best, since I suspected he was doodling his wee-wee under his desk while he was talking to me. I got out of there stat, whispering the Serenity Prayer, and fell back on my trusty old standby, Motel 6. The room next to mine has a giant barbie head smiling out the window, and a birdcage with a yellow canary inside.

Showered off the road-funk, drank a beer (is it okay to drink beer and employ the Serenity Prayer?), and waited for the heat of the day to mellow out before exploring Boise. In the parking lot, I spied a bumper sticker I know well... my friend Chris from Portland created these little beasts a while back... and suddenly found myself a new friend named Rebecca, an English professor from Atlanta who's traveling back to Georgia after a spell at the Tryon Farm in PDX.

We decided to explore Boise together, checked out the wonderful Boise Co-op, and hiked up the butte in Camel Back Park for a view of the city. Dumb luck had us at the summit right at sunset. Well-exercised and hungry, we went on to explore the Hyde Park district and found a great pizza joint where we ate pizza on the patio, and chatted like old pals all the while. Lucky, lucky!

Tomorrow is Portland Day, better rest up.

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.