Our Big Trip Week 1- June 13 to June 21

Trip-Minus 2 days (Friday, June 13):

Today I am sore because yesterday I helped the movers lug my 800ish pound piano up the 40-odd stairs at the front of our place. They didn’t like me much after that, until I told them it was Beth’s piano. We had a lot of stuff to pack. It’s amazing how much stuff we still have, even after getting rid of a lot of things. Beth has been busy getting ready for our trip also by getting a trim and color . Plato, our 12 year old husky/lab, is also anxious about the trip, though she doesn’t really know it’s coming. She only knows that every time she looks around, something else is missing. So she’s been pretty clingy lately. By clingy I mean glued to either Beth's or my leg. But she has been getting ready, too . I love this picture. Plato obviously enjoys baths a great deal. We have handled moving rather well. I have one tidbit of advice for anyone who is planning to move: make things easy and kill yourself instead. We went through a couple of late nights of packing and packing until 1am, at which point we were tired and sore and hungry and grouchy. To our credit, though, we acknowledged that spending that much time with anyone in such a situation would be difficult, and decided it would be okay if we were grumpy with one another during the process. And grumpy we were. Fortunately, we went to dinner this evening at our landlords’ place, and Mike, Joanna and their kids Max and Esme and dog Book (whose birthday we celebrated) made for wonderful company and we forgot all about our muscles, sore from moving, and our egos, sore from discussing what to keep and what to get rid of.

Trip-Minus 1 day (Saturday, June 14):

Today was one of those days where you realize there is more to do than you realized and no matter how much you do nothing gets done. I got more sore and tired and cranky due to packing and lugging box after box after box of Beth's belongings and Beth unwound by going out and having a massage. True story. Umesh and Avani Patel hosted a delicious dinner attended by us and Umesh and Radha Shelat. We had a great evening and discussed at length renaissance man Umesh P.’s extensive cooking, camping, gardening, interior decorating and sculpting skills.

BIG TRIP DEPARTURE DAY- SUNDAY, JUNE 15, 2003!:

Today, the exciting day that marked the beginning of Our Big Trip, our huge adventure, our journey into the unknown, was one of the worst days of our marriage. We just kept lugging stuff up to the curb, and cleaning out what was left behind and it never stopped. I also gave up trying to pack the van neatly and just started shoving stuff in it, cramming as hard as I could. Anyone who is envious of us should ask us what the month before we left have been like. We finally got on our way at around 6 pm. We were heading out to Livermore, which is only an hour from San Francisco and a half hour from the dealership where we bought the van. Tomorrow we’re going to go back to the dealership to get an oil change and a bit of a primer about how some of the features of our van work. Our van, since you asked, is a 2002 VW Eurovan with everything. Fridge, range, small wardrobe, sink and it sleeps four. Okay, it would sleep four very uncomfortably, and since we have so much stuff packed in it it really wouldn’t sleep four. Anyway, VW is no longer shipping these to the US, and we’ve already had an offer to buy ours at the end of our journey. Yes, becoming familiar with our vehicle is the sort of thing we may have thought about doing before taking off on a 6-month trek. But we have just been so incredibly busy the last few months. Some may call this poor planning, but we like to call it living on the wild side. Anyway, we got to our campground after dark, opened up the van and went to sleep. It is quite nice to have a vehicle with a built in sleeping area, but we were used to our California king mattress (84”x72”, were unable to sell before leaving ane left on the curb), and there is probably only 60% as much mattress space in the van. In addition, the sleeping compartment up top is for people to be in horizontally only. So if you try to turn over or if you have to get down and someone else is up there with you, things can get cramped. We are going to start a yoga system based on the contortions we have to go through to get in and out of bed called nottooroomi yoga. Look for our first video in a store near you next year.

Trip day 2- Monday, June 16:

After waking up, I had a conniption about all of the stuff in the van. Beth has historically been a rather heavy packer, and she lived up to her reputation when preparing for Our Big Trip. Tired of having to become oddly angular every time I wanted to move, I threw a fit. Beth claims, though I'm certain she was mistaken, that I referred to her as being a virus, in that she spreads to occupy every open inch. we took everything out of the van and repacked it so that we could all fit in the van without your humble narrator going insane. That took a couple of hours. We then spent most of our day at the VW dealership in Walnut Creek. We got a lesson in some of the vital workings of our van and an oil change. The "quick n' easy" oil change took about 3 ½ hours. The mechanics realized, as our van stood 8 feet above the floor, that our vehicle was too heavy for their lift – which went on strike before our van made it back to the ground. This took hours to remedy. So by the time we headed back to our campground in Livermore it was rush hour. Then the road we needed to take was closed off for some reason. After driving the 10 miles from Walnut Creek, which took about 2 hours, we again got back after dark. We fired up our propane range to boil some water and discovered that there was air in the system that was causing the flame to burn very poorly- so poorly, in fact, that even after about 2 hours, the 1 ½ quarts of water that was on top of said flame was merely tepid. So we had a sourdough roll and butter and called it a night. We decided to sleep in the tent tonight to get ourselves and Plato used to it.

Trip Day 3- Tuesday, June 17

I woke up and lit the propane stove and it worked fine. Apparently by leaving it on for so long last night we had purged the air out of the system. So I had the most delicious bowl of instant oatmeal I have ever had. Beth and Plato got up and we packed up and hit the road. We were aiming for Lassen National Park. Instead of making the whole trip, we decided to stop in Oroville, about 2/3 of the way there. The campground was really nice- next to the Oroville Lake. We arrived at around 3. I went for a bike ride, Beth started reading “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold (I’ll be sure to get her review for you) and Plato went wading in the lake. We then made our spaghetti (which was good but some bread and butter accompaniment would have been nice), built a campfire, relaxed and went to bed. This was the first day that we really felt like we were on vacation, and it was quite enjoyable.

Day 4- Wednesday, June 18:

We had a pow wow and decided to chill out for today. We had been really busy up until we left and had done a lot of driving/packing/rearranging every day of our trip thus far, so we decided to stay put in Oroville. I went into town and rustled up some traditional camping food (Pizza Hut) for lunch and Beth continued her book, which she claims is fantastic. We then went swimming in Oroville Lake, which was quite refreshing. I was still sunburned at the back of my neck from a couple days ago, so I had to wear a bandanna. I looked like the star of “The Paleface Lone Ranger Goes Swimming.” We then got back to our campsite and I cooked tinfoil potatoes (punch holes in potato, wrap in tinfoil, pitch in coals), tinfoil mushrooms and butter, and I cooked a London Broil over the fire. I got all the food at this place called Food Maxx. It is the greatest supermarket in the world. Literally everything was half price. Of course, that’s half of San Francisco prices. Anyhow, we made s’mores for dessert, which was fun because you have to cook each marshmallow separately, so you have a lot of time to just relax and watch the fire, which was just what we needed. Beth, by the way, is a grade-A marshmallow tostier (like a saucier, but for toasting). Her marshmallows all came out golden brown and scrumptious looking. She didn’t set a-one on fire. I would put her up against anyone from any of those famous marshmallow toasting schools. My marshmallows, on the other hand, looked like flaming pieces of an asteroid. I offered one to Plato and she sniffed it and ate a rock instead. After we finished toasting our marshmallows, we each made a wish and tossed our toasting sticks into the fire, now part of our camping tradition. We may change our plans as far as national parks until we drop Plato off up the road a little, because she is not allowed on any of the trails and we won’t leave her in the car for an entire day, no matter how cool our car is.

Day 5- Thursday, June 19:

We packed up in the morning and headed up towards Oregon. On our way, we passed by Mt. Shasta, which we had visited previously, so it wasn’t part of our plans. When we realized there was still snow on it, however, I wanted to go. Plato is half husky, after all. So we rode up to the end of the road. We then frolicked on the snowy fields that make up the base of the mountain, me in my shorts and flip-flops . I then rode my bicycle down the trail that leads to the top. 11 miles, one pedal push. That was fun. After that, we made our way up to Crater Lake National Park, which has a fascinating history but doesn’t get the press that Yellowstone and Yosemite do because of its remoteness. We got there at around 7:30pm, still in our shorts and sandals, and were greeted by signs (noticed only because of our keen natural observation skills) that the park we were hoping to camp in was still closed because of heavier than usual snows. These signs included a large chain across the entrance to the campground and a large sign that read "CLOSED." We decided to check out the sights anyway, which led us to the top of what is left of Mt. Mazama. Crater Lake was created by a volcanic explosion so huge that after it blew up, the mountain collapsed. The result is the deepest lake in the U.S., and a really high perimeter that encircles it. We ate dinner at the Watchman Cafe, at 7,000 feet, at the top of Crater Lake. Since the campground was closed, we inquired with our waiter where else we could stay, and he suggested that we just camp out in the restaurant parking lot. So we did. It was very chilly, but we were guaranteed to get a first-class view of the sunrise the following morning.

Day 6- Friday, June 20:

When we woke up at 5:30 to see the sunrise we found ourselves in the midst of some pea soup-style fog, which, of course, obliterated our view of the sunrise over Crater Lake. After a breakfast in the van, we went for a drive around the rim of the lake. The only trail down to the lake proper was still snowed in. And we quickly learned that it wasn’t thawing anytime soon . But we could still travel around the rim, and we had a great time doing that and stopping and gazing for a few hours. Afterwards, we drove to the Eugene, Oregon area and set up camp in an RV park nearby. It was really quiet and secluded and we had a great night’s sleep after toasting some more marshmallows.

Day 7- Saturday, June 21:

We headed into Eugene, OR to explore the town and wound up spending most of our time at something called “The Saturday Market,” which is the oldest weekly open-air crafts festival in the United States. Since 1970, it has occurred every Saturday April through November, with food, vendors, food, music, food and food. There are some serious hippies here. I mean, I’ve seen San Francisco hippies, New England hippies and generic hippies, but these hippies were pretty darn hip. We’re gonna crash in a hotel in Eugene tonight (our first hotel stay since we left SF) so we can be somewhat refreshed for church tomorrow.

Bonus Coverage:

BUMPER STICKER OF THE WEEK: