Starting Saturday, Kyle and I will be embarking on our cross-country vacation. It’s planned to last from September 15-October 3. Here is the basic route again:

We will be visiting the following states:

• California
• Nevada
• Arizona
• New Mexico
• Texas
• Louisiana
• Mississippi
• Tennessee
• Kentucky
• Missouri
• Kansas
• Colorado
• Utah

So, lots of driving coming up. To entertain ourselves, we set up a system that will allow us to be completely wired as long as we have cell coverage. This includes Internet access via Kyle’s ENDO wireless internet card and phone-calling ability via a blackberry and calling card. I will also be blogging and taking pictures with my new camera.

But we aren’t stopping there with the gadgets. No! We will also have:

• Our laptops (of course)
• A GPS system borrowed from Paul, along with an atlas, compass, highway stops book to keep us from getting lost
• An Archos media player filled with movies, music, and books on tape.
• A cooler that plugs into your cigarette adapter to keep food cold, which will save us money on lunches and diet soda.
• My knitting, which is kind of the opposite of a gadget, but I feel inclined to mention it anyway.

We’re taking our 2004 Honda Civic, which is currently getting 44 mpg on the freeway. The entire trip should cost less in gas than two airline fares, and we don’t have to deal with airport bs.

Another aspect of this trip is that there isn’t a solid plan. I know where we are going and we do have hotel reservations for certain cities like New Orleans and Las Vegas, but much of this is unplanned. We’re going where the wind blows us! (Don’t worry, we have camping gear so that if the wind gets us stuck, we can set up a tent.)

I may hate this trip. I might be bored and dirty and stressed from not having a decent bed to sleep in. On the other hand, it may be a grandiose adventure to rival Kerouac’s On The Road (which, coincidentally, just celebrated its 50th anniversary).

In either case, you should be able to follow along. Keep coming back to read about and see pictures of this rascally country of ours–or at least part of it.

In between all the things I am doing right now, I managed to harvest my garden. It was a little disappointing this year–stunted tomatoes, bolting radishes, weird problems with the zucchini, etc.–but there is still more food from it than I know what to do with.

Yesterday, Kyle and I signed papers on a house. Today we are officially in escrow. In 30 days, we will most likely (80% chance?) be home owners.

The house is almost 1,300 sf with a two-car garage. It is not an adorable Victorian, but it is three bedrooms, 1.5 baths. There’s room for my office, a guest room, a dining room, and an entire garage for Kyle to make into his computer paradise. There’s also a huge yard with room for a patio, lawn, English-garden, veggie garden, fruit trees, and even a grape arbor or greenhouse. There’s even the perfect place for a secret bookshelf that opens up for a doorway ala Clue.

The house is, as my dad said, the perfect fixer-upper. Nothing is wrong with it, it just needs cosmetic work–new floors, paint, appliances. All weekend I have been thinking about things like tile and paint colors and the kind of wood I like. Turns out I have few opinions on these subjects, and thinking about it all is a tad overwhelming.

Actually, buying a house is overwhelming. I’m very excited, but I’m also very anxious. I even ended up with a sore stomach yesterday because of this emotional roller coaster. Overall, though, I’m thrilled that I’m getting to do this. I feel very blessed. After all, most people our age aren’t able to buy a house here because it’s so expensive–The only reason we can do it is because of the down housing market.

So today I feel like a grown up. Apparently, I am one of those people who talks about mortgages and different kinds of flooring now. This isn’t me, is it? So weird…

You know how it is… You are going on vacation in a little over a week. You have four articles to write before then. Your parents are visiting this weekend so they can look at the house you are planning to bid on. You have to plan a route and make hotel reservations still, not to mention pack. Your writing group is coming over tonight, so you have to clean the house. There’s laundry to do and ants in the kitchen. The cat has to go to the vet. If you don’t do something with all those tomatoes from your garden soon, they will go bad. There are fun social things going on around you, and it’s hard to say no to all of them, so you only say no to some of them and make your schedule more insane. And you have to make progress on your novel/pitches too–you can’t ignore them just because of ants and laundry and vacations. You feel the need, for the first time ever in your life, to schedule things. You wish you had one of those schedule calendars, even though you have never used them before, even when people gave them to you for Christmas presents. You worry this means you are finally, really, forever-and-ever-amen, a grown up.

Oh yeah, and don’t even think of updating your blog. You simply do not have the time.

I just got back from a picnic on a hillside overlooking the ocean near Jenner. It was perfect weather, lovely company, and delicious food. There was also a wooly bear caterpillar which apparently turns into an Isabella Tiger Moth. I was excited because I hadn’t seen one of those caterpillars since I was a little kid.

It was weekend of views. Aside from spending an afternoon looking at the ocean, I went to the Sierra Mountains and visited my parents. We took a drive up the pass and I tried out the camera, which continues to amaze me. Setting actually makes a difference! It’s so fast! Details come out! I mean, you can count these pine needles:

Some other pictures:

This fisherman caught a trout a few minutes later

The road with the mountains in the background

Colorful foliage

Castle rock and clouds