Not Stopping Now...What We Do and Why We Do It

The Visible Woman...ponders.

Pondering is that meandering kind of lazy thinking that can either give us great insights or put us in a muddle.

I was just reviewing entries in my real daily effort (with help from FFP and sometimes others): Austin, Texas Daily Photo. Because tomorrow we will display our favorite picture of 2013, as laid on in the strictures of the City Daily Photo And then I remembered that I have a busy day ahead and I haven't done an entry in this space. Which I have done for each of the prior thirty days to honor a Holidailies commitment. And it's December 31st!

Anyway...busy day. I have tennis in an hour. I'm up and dressed for it, having my coffee and getting ready to punch in an electronic reservation for tennis for Thursday at the strike of 8AM. I need to do the above review and put up a favorite from 2013 for that blog tomorrow. We have tickets for the little theater around the corner (Violet Crown) for seeing "American Hustle" at 1PM. After tennis I'd like to go to the post office and send my passport renewal stuff to the processing center priority mail. I probably have to get gas. I haven't bought gas in so long I don't remember when, but it's getting quite low. Then at 6PM we have a reservation for an early, special dinner for New Year's Eve. After which we will relax safely in our condo while people revel and fireworks explode.

So here are the things I'm pondering. What do the pictures we take and cull from the virtual stack say about us? What happens to the strangers inadvertently captured there? And what, if any, are the benefits of nostalgia? (Just sort of kidding on that last one.)

So...to have a picture for today I chose one from the small archive I have put in the cloud for saving.

This is FFP in 2005 on a very ambitious road trip we took. He has since lost weight. We drove all the way to Southern Maine with some stops. On the way home we spent two nights in Buffalo in order to visit Niagara Falls. He'd never been and I'd never been to the American side. He's standing next to the roar on the American side (I think).

For some reason I framed this picture to show a stranger, a dark-haired man crouching on the other side of the rail. I'm pretty sure he's shooting a picture but this seems dangerous. I think he might be Asian. We all walked away from the falls. And then, what? For us...we know that we moved to downtown. And we lost three more parents. And we weathered a health scare for Forrest. And we just keep getting older. The man in the red, white and blue jacket? How about him? I will never know.

I don't know why I framed the picture to include the stranger. But I'm betting he was just a bit of visual composition to me. Like the mist, the railing, my husband and the building looming (on the Canadian side?) across the way. I wonder: what the pictures the stranger took look like?

Looking back, fondly. Not nostalgia really. Not wanting to be there at that stage. Just wanting to think a bit about how it was to be there. For us. And for a stranger.

I Dreamed of Travel

The Visible Woman...travels.

When I retired (it's been over eleven years ago now) I thought I'd do a lot more traveling. At first FFP was still working, but my dad was up for some road trips to Dallas and Colorado to see relatives. I could slip in a trip with friends as a single. Which has its advantages in some ways. Beginning in 2004, FFP made time for more trips and made his first foray to France. We've only been back once since and only to Paris.

The parents and their aging needs made us wonder about trips to Europe for a while. We developed a habit of going to New York in June and then, the last three years, also in December. We began, at some point, to go to Portland, OR and a few other spots in the Northwest every August. In 2005 we drove to the Northeast and in 2010 we drove to the Northwest. In 2006 we drove to Santa Fe and Phoenix. We've made driving trips to New Orleans the last two springs. We made a trip to the north coast above Boston and the Hamptons in July 2012. I also squeezed in a trip that summer to see my relatives in Colorado. Last summer I had a trip to Maine to assist my aunt in taking my uncle's remains back to his home.

We downsized and moved to a simple downtown condo in 2008. That made it easier to leave town. As did not getting a new dog when our Chalow had to be put down in 2007.

My dad died in 2010 and FFP's parents both died in 2011. That might have freed us a little for travel. Of course, FFP had a health scare in 2010 and while that's behind us now we still visit Houston twice a year for a trip to MD Anderson.

Somehow we travel a lot and yet not enough. I hear friends talk about cruises and safaris and trips to Italy and trips to places like South America where I have never ever been. Some friends went to Berlin in October, a place I've been multiple times, most times meeting up with these friends. I was eager to show FFP Berlin. But I couldn't make it work.

We don't have any trips planned for 2014. We have some mentally penciled in. My passport expires in October so I think I'll renew it now and hope that I do get to go to some place outside the U.S. this year.

The Packing List Revelations

I'm getting ready to go on another trip. Not counting staycations (I think we did one of those, traveling about two miles and staying in a hotel for two nights) I have been on five trips this year and I'm heading out for another this week. Los Angeles, New Orleans (with a stop in Houston), Manhattan, the North Shore above Boston plus the Hamptons, Denver suburbs to visit family and now, this week, Portland, OR and environs. When I retired I thought it would be wonderful to travel without worrying about work. (In 2000, I went to Geneva, several places in Australia and Las Vegas for work in a short space of time. Probably made several other trips that year.)

I'm eager for this getaway to Oregon, a regular trip for us in August and one I look forward to all year long.

But another part of me is tired of pulling out the packing list and checking things off and organizing it all. Again.

The packing list.
At some point before that busy working 2000 year I decided to make a master packing list as a WORD document. The idea was that I'd copy it for each trip, edit it to eliminate things I wouldn't need for a trip, add special items and then check things off as I packed. As my life and the world evolved, of course, some things were added to or eliminated from the master list. The master list no longer calls out a PDA and spare stylus but does introduce the possibility of taking along a laptop, an iPod, an IPad and and iPhone or other cell. I've dropped off pantyhose and feminine sanitary supplies from the list. I no longer take a spare watch because, after all, doesn't every gadget tell time?

A few things are still on the list but get eliminated from the list almost every time: formal wear, robe (if the hotel doesn't have one, too bad), hair dryer (I try not to use one now and hotels usually have them). I almost never take our iPod either but sometimes it's a good thing to do.

A Downsizing Every Time
Most of us have too much stuff. But packing, particularly for a trip involving airlines, will focus one on what is really needed. If you can live on what's in that suitcase for a week or ten days, what do you really need?  I always sort of test myself out on whether I actually use everything I take. Of course, one gets a pass on emergency supplies. I always hope I don't need bandaids, Advil, stomach remedies, my tiny umbrella, spare credit cards and photo ID (kept separately from wallet), cough drops, stuff like that. But it's good to get home with almost all your under things and other clothing having been worn. If you took a book, you ought to have read it. My current dodge is to have reading material on the iPad and then to read one of the books FFP takes along. We always, always seem to visit a bookstore. And buy something. We buy papers along the way. We are never without something to read. But at home, of course, it's much worse with unread books, papers and magazines always threatening to topple from every surface.

If you have to carry it, you'll have less!

Always Take the Time-Tested
It's OK to take something new on a trip, I guess. (I'm bought a new carryon for this trip. And, yes, my packing list lists all the possible 'containers' that I might take.) But for clothes and shoes I like to take things I've comfortably worn at home. Walking shoes need to have at least fifty miles on them, preferably with some five mile stretches. Dress shoes need to have gone a few miles, too.

Money, Ticket, ID, Prescriptions
I don't take prescriptions. FFP does. The theory is that if you have money (and credit cards), your ID, tickets and prescription drugs that you can buy anything else. It's a reasonable theory, but FFP can't buy some things off the rack and it is tough for me to find clothes. Short sleeve shirts, polos, underwear, maybe shoes (but see above) could be replaced.

These days you'd be kind of lost without your smart phone. Or an iPad or something. Or both. But still, there are essentials and there are other things. We go on the plane wearing sturdy walkers, a decent shirt, nice jeans and a black blazer. Dress shoes are in the carryon (although FFP has come up with sturdy walkers that  also pass muster as dress shoes). I usually pack my dress shoes, a few under things and socks, a change of pants and shirt, prescription drugs, electronics and chargers, emergency stuff and tiny light umbrellas and lightweight anoraks in carry ons. We check one bag with more clothing, toiletries with liquids and sharps and such. I close the main compartment with a cable tie, cut off the end and place my trusty Swiss Army knife in the front pocket. If the inspectors (or thieves) open it, I'll know (unless they very carefully duplicate my cable tie color and trim). And if they steal the knife, I'll buy another. But I always have scissors, openers, etc. if my checked bag arrives.

Will You Remember What You Wore?
If the shoes hurt or you were cold or too warm, you might remember. If someone takes a photo of you, you might remember. I guess if you felt really out of place, then it might stick with you. But mostly if you were pretty comfortable, it's not what you remember about a trip. If someone takes a picture of me on a trip, I'm likely to be wearing...a black blazer!

A Trip to Regret
I am almost burned out from the traveling this year. The security lines, airline snafus, packing. But I have been trying for weeks to think of a trip I really regretted taking. Oh, there have been times I didn't mind leaving a place...to get home or go somewhere else. But later I never remember wishing I hadn't been there. I always saw something new, learned something new (sometimes about packing) or met some interesting person. So I'll keep on printing my list, packing and going.

Road Trip

In some ways the road trip we took, lasting a couple of days shy of two weeks and covering about 4500 miles, was essentially pointless. We had only two goals beyond the trip itself: (1) see some friends in Las Vegas and check out a hotel there that we had a free suite in for two nights; and (2) spend some time in the Portland, OR and Oregon coast area with some dear friends as we often do in August. We could have flown to these two destinations, burning three or four days on airplanes. Instead we spent about six and a half days on the road and spent three nights in Vegas and five nights in our Portland area destination.

The idea took hold, though. Once we decided to spend those days in those places and travel between them, I had a couple of long sessions with Internet TrikTiks from AAA, some scouring of hotel WEB sites, some conferring with friends on dates and plans, and the trip was afoot. Or acar, specifically, via our 2007 4 cylinder Honda Accord with new tires and a fresh maintenance run.

Getting away isn't easy these days. We arranged for people to give our elderly parents a hand, but then my dad ended up in the hospital for a couple of days after an antibiotic he was given sent his sodium perilously low. I almost thought we'd have to cancel. But we kept planning. I put together two notebooks, Outbound and Homebound with detailed driving instructions and hotel confirmations. I got new paper maps from AAA. I made lists, lists, lists.

There is something about the road running out under you, transferring you magically across the changing landscapes, listening to books on CD, nibbling road snacks, talking, laughing at what you see that concentrates your attention and gives you some perspective. I am energized most by the reality of people, what they wear, where they live, where they shop; by the signs, trash and animals (dead and alive and just promised by crossing signs) along the way. This is the same detail I find interesting in my walks around my own neighborhood but the details really stack up when you cover thousands of miles of the U.S.

So we do get to go on this lark of a trip. The car is all nicely organized. A bag with hiking boots, hiking socks, jackets and sweatshirts stuffed way in the back of the trunk for the Oregon coast. Small bags to take inside one night stand hotels. A bag with books on CD, an emergency first aid kit and a portfolio of DVDs. A small suitcase with some extra clothes. A laptop and its accouterments in a separate bag. Atop this in the trunk two hanging bags with extra shirts, slacks and a blazer each.

In the back seat, a small soft-sided cooler with a few drinks and a little cheese for first day. Also, two pillows; a canvas sack with plastic utensils, wipes and napkins; a canvas sack with peanut butter crackers, cereal bars, plain almonds, beef jerky; a backpack for each of us with gadgets and books. In the front a slim organizer for maps, directions, hotel confirmations, pens, receipts and two commuter cups full of fresh coffee. We are off around five in the morning. Our goal is to achieve escape velocity west out of Texas on our way to Las Vegas.

Las Cruces, NM is not a garden spot but it was a convenient place to lay over. We did our usual marvel at the 80 MPH speed limts on IH10 in W. Texas and the giant windmills turning ponderously on the bluffs in stretches of nothing. We ate at a restaurant specializing in New Mexican wine. In fact, I think, an actual extension of one or more New Mexican winery. The food and wine were forgettable. Our goal was to sleep and be off in the morning very early to make it all the way to Las Vegas. We had gone 618 miles. We needed to go 742 to get to Las Vegas.

Traveling is so different now than it used to be. Once there was no Internet mapping. No iPhone to pop out to help navigate. In fact, I remember road trips before air conditioning and seat belts. And certainly before cup holders, pay the pump, cell phones, singing shoulders (that rough pavement that wakes you up as you run off the road) and books on CD (or tape). Indeed before CDs and cassette tapes. And certainly before XM radio which the Accord also has. These things have changed travel as have more reliable radial tires. We saw few disabled vehicles.

I thought the car would become disorganized straight away, but the organization held up pretty well for the entire trip. Of course, I moved things around every time we stopped. The cooler only had cold packs when we had a frig with a freezer in the room which we did at most of the small Comfort Inns and such. Trash accumulated and was discarded, drinks were rearranged in the four cup holders in the front.

That second day on the way to Vegas was very scenic. From stately Saguaro cacti to mountains and amazing rock formations and rock-bordered lakes on the Colorado. I've traversed some of this before, of course. But it never gets old for me. I really liked Texas Canyon near Benson, AZ. I'm sure I'd been through there before, but I forgotten the majesty of the giant very rounded rock formations. I actually enjoy seeing the crumpled shells of old abandoned buildings and the various people at the stops. It's a long drive, though, and we arrive in Las Vegas pretty weary. We find the Wynn Encore and valet park, taking most of our stuff inside. We will stay here three nights. There are long check-in lines, but we finally get to a lovely suite. A sitting area, a perfect desk with power and Internet, a flat screen that twirls around between the sitting area and the area with the king-size bed. Lovely bedding, an iPod dock, a giant bathroom with a shower and a tub, two sinks, etc. This is no Comfort Inn.

Lest I devolve into a minute-by-minute (or day-by-day) account where I'm trying to convey some of the moments that make the trip worthwhile, I'll just briefly recap the rest of the trip. Spent three nights in Vegas. Ate several fabulous meals (one lunch with the aforementioned friends) and had lots of good eats and drinks. Slept, shopped, viewed a couple of the fabulous fake environments. Did not risk one cent gambling. Then we drove to Boise, Idaho. And then on to Vancouver, Washington across the Columbia from Portland, Oregon. We had a nice lunch on the Columbia, dinner in Portland and took off around noon the next day with our friends to spend a couple of nights on the Oregon Coast (Cape Meares). Then back to Vancouver. We made our pilgrimage to Powell's City of Books and added a new must-do to Portland shopping: Everyday Music down the street from Powell's. We attended an Oregon wine tasting, had a super fab meal where we got to see a very dear friend I've known since Junior High. Our Portland-area friends made every minute of these three days fantastic by knowing places to go, cooking for us and enjoying music and movies with us. Then we spent three days driving the couple of thousand miles home. I used to keep much more detailed records of the activities and not just in tweets and facebook photo uploads. Start here for such a recount of a 2005 trip. Sometimes I wish I kept the details of my life like that now, but it is just so much work.

Was it worth it? Did we see anything like the Eiffel Tower (real not Vegas one) or even the Grand Canyon (which was, after all, right there in Arizona)? Could it be said to be restful what with going from hotel to hotel and doing all that driving? To those who see the very real problem of making sense of this 'vacation' I can only offer the following bits of narrative and flashes of images which make it all worthwhile for me.

• Sitting down with our friends in Vegas, listening to the narrative of how they live in the Vegas suburb of Henderson, sharing stories and seeing how they are handling their retirement.
• Enjoying the wonderful suite in Vegas, having good simple steak as well as delicacies like lamb's tongue and sweetbreads and marveling at the over-the-top ostentation, but still getting a feeling of escape when watching the lights recede as we plunged into the lonely desert to make our way north on the loneliest highway in America.
• Wondering why all the road kill seemed so dry and dessicated as if it had been a long time since anything fresh was felled. Also, wondering at how trucks can throw all that rubber that I mistake for roadkill. Laughing as the silhouettes on the game crossing signs got more and more exotic with bigger and bigger racks with the passing miles on Highway 93 in Nevada aka the aforementioned 'loneliest highway in America.' Along said highway, by the way, we found the people very friendly and the restrooms rather clean. Highlight of our animal spotting was a walk to feed goats pinned near the Oregon coast and seeing a tiny pig survive a run across the road in Texico, NM. (This is the first live pig in the road on my life list. I have seen a dead one.)
• Wondering why every other customer in a combo convenience store/gas station/Domino's pizza joint was American Indian. Then realizing we were driving on a reservation.
• Loving the feeling of crossing the map, turning the pages in the book of directions, recalling past experiences in some of the places. Also: I can now say I've been in Idaho and Utah. I don't think I'd ever crossed those state lines before.
• Seeing the same franchises in place after place and knowing that it is really possible to mostly avoid them. An exception to this is occasionally made, of course. FFP finds a particular concoction of a freshly-made Subway sandwich good for filling his stomach. I started to laugh as he searched for Subway outlets, particularly before 9AM but he often found them. We also stopped at one McDonald's to fill a cup with coffee and use the bathrooms. We filled up at more local places on our one-night stands: brew pubs in Boise and Salt Lake and the Owl Diner in Albuquerque, for example. We were asked by one of the owners of our Austin Ruth's Chris if we tried the one in Vegas. But, no, only 'our' Ruth's Chris will do. We look for something different on the road and our affection for that particular Ruth's Chris is not transferable, generally.
• Speaking of dining: we did some of the 'fine' variety. Sure, Austin has a wonderful dining scene. But I swear Portland never ceases to make me sit up and take notice. This trip we tried out Wildwood, Metrovino and Davis Street Tavern. All stunning. Add to that the amazing cooking of our friend Tina and eating some fine food in Vegas and we had that element we demand from vacation: fine, fresh and adventurous food. From roasting freshly-bought oysters on a fire to eating offal in Vegas, I'll remember the food and the fun.
  
• Speaking of filling coffee cups. Taking along our Nissan stainless 12 oz. commuter cups allowed me to have a steady stream of surprisingly good coffee provided at prices ranging from free (yes, free) to a little over a buck. That McDonald's filled the cup for thirty-five cents. And no. No, Starbucks. Not one. Of course, many of these spots were chain convenience stores associated with gas stations but they all had a whiff of the local entrepreneur about them.
  
• Speaking of gas stations. We stopped at several Sinclairs with the good old green Sinclair dinosaur. This surprised me because this brand was subsumed in Texas in the '70's I think, by Atlantic Richfield. Which became part of BP decades later, of course. I guess I didn't know the cute dinosaur survived anywhere, and it was one of those little details I enjoyed.
• Reading. Honestly, I took along several books and some old newspaper sections and didn't read much of them. But I did enjoy papers we bought or got along the way and I did enjoy the books we listened to on CD. We caught up with the Swedish novel "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." Even better relative to the passing landscape and the highway system, we listened to "Lolita" which besides being a telling investigation of pedophilia is a paean to driving the U.S. highway system with its motels and tourist sites in the '50's. We also listened to a book about the Panama Canal which was a constant reminder of how hard it was to cross the continent even in the early 20th century. Funny while driving in air-conditioned luxury at around 70MPH even on 'lesser' roads.
• Speaking of driving again, I find the long drives, supported by planning routes and sleep stops like a giant game. We try to observe the speed limits exactly, minimize wrong turns and long stops. Each caffeine-fueled mile feels like victory even when the scenery isn't the best.
• A walk on the beach. The beautiful Pacific. Sunset. A three or four mile walk. Ah. Of course, my mother-in-law didn't know why we needed to go to the west coast when we've 'already been to the east coast.' And, of course, we'd already walked on that Cape Meares beach, too. My mom-in-law has not seen the ocean to my knowledge nor left the state of Texas. She probably doesn't know that the Idaho license plate says something about Potatoes. I'm just saying. What's important in this world?
• People, people, people. Great to see friends along the way. But also great to see strangers. The couple reading books about beavers in Powell's City of Books coffee shop. She had a T-Shirt that said 'No religion. No flag. No fear.' The truck drivers and other travelers. Was a little upset with the guy dragging three trailers and having trouble holding the lane when I passed him and he was reading a book. But, yeah, all those people, doing their things. Including hundreds at the Tillamook Cheese factory. I didn't see the attraction, but I did enjoy seeing the tourists there. And wondering...why? Although there were free cheese cubes. And a cafe and ice cream shop and gift shop.
  

Yeah, I loved our trip. I think it puts me more in touch with the greater U.S. where almost twenty percent of people live in manufactured homes and where some of the clerks ringing up those coffee fill-ups may not stray far from the little town you are going through as fast as you can. I wouldn't want to only do that mindless driving, staying in Quality Inns and Comfort Suites, some of which look like they've fought a battle. But mixed in with fine dining, beautiful scenery, wonderful visits with friends, it worked for me. Missed a small crisis for my dad or, rather, got in on the tail end of it, but the caregivers managed it. So it goes. See you in the rear view mirror.