Dear Marcia,

I had to do some work today, which is never fun on vacation. I conducted the most frustrating interview ever in the back of a car with my cell phone cramping my neck, a dying computer, and people listening to everything I said. I was angry for awhile after that. But then we went to the Thomas Edison museum, which was fascinating. He really is the father of today’s world.

Apparently, Edison lived in Louisville for two years before he became a famous inventor. He worked at a local telegraph office but was fired for spilling acid, which ate through two floors of the building. I would like to read Thomas Edison’s journals now. [Ed note. Actually, I don’t know if those are in print. I guess I’ll settle for a biography.]

After that we went shopping. I like all the old gorgeous buildings that are for sale in Louisville for cheap. Kyle and I want to buy a cathedral, just because. Wouldn’t it be awesome to own a cathedral?

~ Joy

Dear Marcia,

We took a dinner cruise down the Ohio River with Kyle’s mom last night. It was fun. We ate fried chicken and watched the sun set on the water.

The only thing about the cruise is all these Southern men dank Coors Lite and turned into stereotypes! At one point, I was taking a picture and one drunkenly shouted, “Hey honey, you gonna take myyyyy picture?” I said no and walked away and he said, “WELL I GUESS NOT–HEEEE-yuck heeeyuck heeyuck.” Then later one tried to romance me by discussing how lovely Louisville is by starlight. He was 60-something. I decided to make Kyle go everywhere with me for the rest of the cruise.

~ Joy

Dear Marcia,

Now we are in Lexington for the conference. It starts tomorrow. We drove here from Louisville and stopped in Frankfort for lunch. There were lots of rolling fields with thoroughbred horses in them.

We ended up taking a wrong turn and came upon an abandoned bourbon distillery. It was like something out a fairytale with torn down buildings and vines covering all the factory doors and a tractor sitting there in the middle of it all like someone had just walked away from it.

Then a deer walked by and stared at me.

I wonder why that place was like that?

~ Joy

Two weeks ago, Kyle and I went to Kentucky to visit relatives and for me to attend the Woman’s Writer of Kentucky Conference. Instead of re-writing the entire trip, I decided to just paste up my (edited) e-mails to Marcia, which pretty much sum up the trip. Here they are along with pictures:

Dear Marcia,

Today we went to a cave in Indiana. It was discovered by Squire Boone, Daniel Boone’s brother. He had a mill there, which we took some time looking at. I saw a goat and a cat that were friends:

And a guy with a confederate flag license plate. [Ed note. People I know from Kentucky would like me to point out to you that this guy was from Indiana.]

Inside the cave, I saw stalactites and stalagmites for the first time. I had never been in a wet cave before. It is amazing and beautiful.

(Its estimated these will touch in 250 years)

At one point, the guide shone a light at a crevice and a bat flew out and almost hit my head! Then it veered up and flew over me into another part of the cave. It was just like in the movies.

(A rock in the cave that looks like a bat.)

I also saw a cave crawdad. It only lives in the cave and as such, it is white and blind.

After that we went shopping and soooo many things are cheap here it is hard not to buy everything that is even slightly cool. I bought two mood rings and a glow-in-the dark bat teeshirt and some glass beads and a book and other stuff.

Tomorrow we are going to go to the Thomas Edison museum and then on a dinner cruise around the Ohio River. We also might go to some Kentucky antique stores and also, did you know Muhammad Ali lived here? He has a museum. Go figure. On Wednesday, we’re seeing Kyle’s friend Jeremy. On Thursday, we’re going to Lexington for the writer’s conference. For a trip I wasn’t all that excited about, it’s going pretty well so far.

~ Joy

(Kentucky butterfly)

The next day, I was really sore from the hike and sleeping on the ground. We drove to a cinder cone that formed in the 1700s. It was by something called the Fantastic Lava Flows, and they were indeed fantastic—piles and piles of black volcanic rocks that looked like someone had pushed them there with a bulldozer. I saw this little creature. I don’t know what it is. At first I thought it was a baby chipmunk, but it doesn’t look like it. Some sort of chipmunk-colored mouse?

We started down the path to hike the cinder cone. Problem was, it was covered with this ground volcanic ash, so it was like hiking on sand. The two-mile hike quickly started to seem a like more to my tired muscles and sore back. I was trying to be tough and suck it up, but I am not tough or good at sucking it up.

Then the cinder cone came into view.

It looked like a giant pyramid. You could see the tiny people on the top. I thought, I do not want to climb that. As we approached, I realized that there was a steep, sandy path going right up the side of the cone.

I let Justin, Stephanie, and Kyle climb to the top and I went back to a lake and edited sort stories. Apparently there was a huge crater and pretty views at the top. Here are the pictures Kyle took:

View.

Crater.

Three kinds of terrain.

Another view

As amazing as that is, I was glad I didn’t push myself to go on the rest of that hike. If I hadn’t been so sore, I would have done it, but as it was, I was happier editing short stories. After all, look what that hike did to Justin and Stephanie:

Purple lakes. Boiling puddles. Black pyramid-like cinder cones. Sound like crazy land? No! This is what I saw on my camping trip to Lassen Volcanic National Park a couple of weekends ago, which I went on with Kyle, Justin, and Stephanie. (Justin and Stephanie have already written about the trip here, here, and here.)

Although I had heard about this park all my life–my sixth grade class went there for a class trip (I didn’t go)–I didn’t know that Mount Lassen is an active volcano. As such, it’s a geological wonderland full of weird and cool sights to see. The first day, we hiked up Bumpass Hell, a place full of all the things described in the first paragraph: boiling mud pits, exhalation of steam, bleached landscapes, etc.

The park warns you not to step off the path because you could easily die or lose a limb. That’s what happened to Bumpass, the fellow who originally owned part of the park–he stepped into a mud puddle boiling at 240 degrees and lost his leg. The knowledge of this added a life-and-death component to the hike that was pretty cool.

So cool, in fact, that we decided to hike on to a cold boiling lake. Doesn’t that sound awesome? A lake that boils, but is still cold? It is not awesome, in fact. It is a mud puddle that bubbles somewhat. Luckily, it was beside a real lake that was just lovely, although perhaps not worth the extra four-mile hike to get there and back. Well, nothing is perfect, I suppose.

Pictures:

Picture of the park with a big rock

Bumpass Hell with a random guy in the shot

Close-up of the steam. It smelled like rotten eggs. The smell didn’t actually bother me unless I happened to be in the middle of one of the steam blasts. Then it was kind of like being farted on.

Purple mud–apparently it is purple because of pyrite bubbling to the surface.

At the end of the trail was this bright blue puddle of water that I thought was pretty.

Speaking of puddle, here is the boiling “lake.”

Luckily it was by a real lake, so it wasn’t a total loss.

Last week, Marcia and I went on a road trip to the place where I grew up: Humboldt County, California. We stayed at Trinidad Bed and Breakfast in Trinidad. We had an entire apartment to ourselves with a kitchen and a full wall of windows looking out on the bay and lighthouse. In the morning, they brought us breakfast to eat in front of the windows.

Problem was, it was raining. In August! I was prepared for fog, but rain? Anyway, we made the best of it and went out to dinner and talked and watched people and then the next day we went hiking in Trinidad and then the Humboldt Redwood Forest and looked up at a the tallest tree in the world. Marcia said I grew up in the Ewok forest. That is what I’m telling people now.

I had not seen Humboldt with adult eyes before. There are lots of things I could say about that, but I would rather post pictures, so I will say a few quick things:

a. Arcata is almost exactly the same. I could take Marcia into a store I hung out in over a decade ago and not only did it look the same, they had the same items on the shelf. It was weird.

b. All the things I criticized the place for as a teenage were totally spot on.

c. However, I didn’t appreciate the good things about Humboldt. Aside from the stunning beauty–which I recognized—it is a unique place. The people are specific to the area. Yes, they are mostly liberal hippie-types, but specific liberal hippie types. It is its own place with its own identity, and that is a good thing.

d. Throughout high school I moaned about the lack of good bookstores not realizing how absolutely kick ass Tin Can Mailman is. I found five obscure books I’ve been wanting for awhile and I thought I had to buy off the Internet. And they were good editions. And used. And cheap! I was happy.

Pictures:

View through one of the windows of the lighthouse and bay

Specific hippie types

Beach on Trinidad hike

Wild huckleberries. During the hike, I also pointed out thimble berries, Oregon grapes, wild strawberries, blackberries, and salal berry plants. I explained how as a kid, foxes would eat the salal berries–which don’t taste good–and then leave purple feces on our deck.

Purple fox feces. Ah, nature.

Ahhh

hhh

Nature…

There are lots of cool plants up there. Marcia observed that unlike Sonoma County, there are more varieties in shades of green in Humboldt, which makes everything lusher in some ways. It also give the forest a more dramatic atmosphere.

Because what plant could be more dramatic than this one, the tallest tree in the world? (Or one of them anyway…I get confused which is which.)

I am over Las Vegas now. I don’t need to return again … ever. I probably will go back because it’s the kind of place you end up having to visit periodically. And that’s okay. I don’t hate Las Vegas. I am just over it.

A few other thoughts:

1. Someone needs to tell Las Vegas that it is not a world-class city like New York or Paris and therefore shouldn’t charge prices like it is. Pricing I ran into: $3 coffee, $2.50 soda, $30-$50 entrees, $15 cocktails, $30 per person cover charges for clubs. I admit I don’t know how to work the Vegas system, so I guess I’m one of the suckers who support all the people who do know how to work the system. Yes, I am bitter about this.

2. We ate food. The best meal we had was at Table 10 in the Palazzo. I had a lamb dish that was surprisingly good.

3. I ate the lamb dish while sitting on the restaurant’s “terrace.” Which was in a mall. The view:

4. Waiters in Las Vegas are pushy. They want you to know your drink order right away. If you don’t know, they pressure you to know. And if you still don’t know, they go away for 30 seconds and come back and expect you to know. Then they want you to leave as soon as you are done with your meal. I think that when you are paying between $30-$50 for an entrée, you should be able to sit there for as long as you want.

5. I wanted to go on a gondola ride, but when I realized it was right off the strip and everyone stares at you while you do it, I decided to take a (blurry) picture instead:

6. This trip forced me to finally get a cell phone. For some of my friends, this should be exciting news. Now when people take out their cell phones and start fiddling them in the middle of a conversation, I can do the same thing.

7. Casinos are fun to walk through. When I wasn’t eating, that’s generally what I was doing: walking through casinos and taking pictures of people. My camera did surprisingly well in low light.

8. Here is a picture of a strip seen through some bushes:

9. The trip home was delayed for an hour because there was fog in San Francisco. I don’t even know what to say about that.

10. Sorry this post is so negative. It’s what Las Vegas does to me. Here is what it does to other people:

(Taken at the gate in the Las Vegas airport.)

Thoughts on Las Vegas so far:

1. This is the best place for people watching, ever. You simply don’t see people like this anywhere else. People like… the 50-something beanpole and his Asian wife, she wearing a beaded Sears pantsuit and he wearing an oversized orange-and-blue paisley suit jacket, dancing ala Studio 54 to a live band. Or the old mob boss in his black dress shirt and his cold, much-injured wife in a 60s mod dress, dancing in careful arthritic steps to same band. Seriously awesome.

2. Star Trek Bar. Yes! I tasted blue beer and talked to a Klingon. Proof:

3. I am seeing far fewer people on drugs/women that are obviously prostitutes this time. What up, Las Vegas? Losing your edge?

4. The weather is… nice. It has been in the high 70s the whole time. I cannot tell you how relieved I am about that.

5. Skyline:

6. Fancy French food in Las Vegas seems like a good idea (in context), but it turns out it isn’t that great. It’s not awful, but the little details are messed up–the appetizer it too acidic or the frites have been left sitting under a hot light too long–and the waitress explains what escargot and steak tartare is to you. Why is this town starting to be known for its food, again?

7. Bellagio Fountains, not without charm:

8. Gambling continues to be a mystery to me. I spent $2 on slot machines and won ten cents. Winning money is confusing. The machine makes noises and then you get a ticket for ten cents that you have to go redeem somewhere. Also, everyone who gambles is sad. Walking through some of those casinos is like walking through a funeral. Aren’t these people supposed to be enjoying this?

9. Ceiling at the Bellagio:

10. Drunk bicycling: A Las Vegas pastime?

I am still over Las Vegas, but since Kyle’s work is sending him out there for a week to fix servers, I figured I would tag along. Ah, the beauties of being self-employed.

I am not sure about being in a desert for a week, let alone in Las Vegas for a week. Las Vegas is a weekend trip, not a week-long trip. However, this time I’m going to do some of the odder Las Vegas stuff. Did you know there is a pinball museum? And I hear there is a Star Trek bar that everyone should check out. The art museum is supposed to be pretty decent too. Vacation! A possibly depressing vacation, yes, but who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth?

If you have any suggestions for what to do in Las Vegas besides gamble (not interesting to me) and drink, I’d be delighted to hear it.

On Saturday, I went to San Francisco with Marcia and watched her purchase art and furniture. You can read about our day on her blog.

On Sunday, it was unbelievably gorgeous, so Kyle and I decided to take a trip through Marin and check out the town of Bolinas. I had heard a lot about Bolinas–how it is filled with colorful characters, how you have to drive through country roads to get to it, and how the locals hate tourists and remove signposts to keep outsiders from finding their town.

It was indeed hard to find. It took over an hour to get there, although it’s not far from Petaluma. It was a gorgeous drive; we wound through springtime hills, past quaint towns, flowering trees, and cows. Finally, we ended up passing the fork that goes off to Bolinas and went to Stinson Beach instead. The sign to Bolinas was indeed missing.

And when I got to Stinson Beach, I understood why the locals removed the sign. It was full of horrible people! Well, maybe not horrible. But the kind of people who buy $700 bathing suits and work out in gyms and treat every situation as a personal fashion show and meat market. I was surprised to see them out in Marin with their surf boards and their artfully shredded designer beach wear, standing in line in the the overpriced gourmet grocery store with their plastic tubs of tuna-and-olive salads and Naked juice. Needless-to-say, we didn’t stay long in Stinson Beach.

(As I was standing outside waiting for Kyle to use the restroom, I noticed this odd situation. This woman was hugging her … daughter? … while talking on the phone while her son looked on behind them. They stood like this for something like 7 minutes. It was strange because a. they didn’t move and b. the woman on the phone was so disconnected from the hug she was giving. I don’t quite know what to make of it.)

Bolinas, once we found it, was quite charming. It wasn’t what I expected. The town wound down a road and was full of beach houses, book stores, and hotels. It didn’t have a lot more than that. Maybe it was the beautiful day, or all the flowering plants everywhere, but it started to remind me of Santa Cruz with the surfers and hippies walking around. It didn’t feel like Marin at all.

We ended up walking around downtown and then sitting on the beach people watching. I had originally hoped to watch nature in Bolinas, but there were too many people around for that. So I watched the array of surfers, rich people, college students, children, dogs, hippies, and eccentric locals instead. On the way home, we stopped at the Marin Cheese Factory and tasted cheese and watched a child drag a stick in a pond. It was a good day.

Woman and baby

“Vote for Bolinas
Socially Acknowledged
Nature loving Town

Because
To like to drink the
water out of the lakes
to like to eat the blueberries
to like the bears is
Not hatred to hotels
and Motorboats
Dakar
Temporary and Way
to save life skunks
and foxes (airplanes
to go over the ocean)
and to make it
BEAUTIFUL

– Measure G Ballot Initiative
passed Nov. 4, 2003″

??

Couple and their poodles

Kyle and I were agreeing that it is a waste of money to buy a child a wet suit. Then, right as I was snapping this photo, the child in the middle said, “Hey Marie, do you want to go body surfing later?”

My new desktop

Bolinas Lagoon, with the tide almost completely out. Clams were spitting water into the air like tiny geysers.

Can you see the dog?

This weekend, I went snow-shoeing in Yosemite. It was the first time I have:

Gone camping in a national park

Stayed in a cabin covered with canvas

Done any sort of winter sport

Seen people ski

Snow-shoed

Snow-shoed on an expert trail

Eaten hot dogs in the snow

I had been to Yosemite a lot, but never with friends, and never to stay the night before. The park is much less crowded in winter and just as gorgeous.

El Capitan

The first day, we drove up to the park, found our cabin, and looked around Yosemite. By the Ansel Adams Gallery, a herd of deer were eating leaves in the snow.

We stayed in a heated tent/cabin–a wooden cabin frame covered with canvas. Yosemite at night is nearly as impressive as it is in the daytime. The snow glows in the moonlight, making for dramatic views even in the dark.

Sun setting on Half Dome.

The next day, we went snow-shoeing. As mentioned before, I had never done anything in the snow. In fact, I’ve only been in snow a handful of times in my entire life.

LtoR: Marcia, me, Kyle, Stephanie, Justin

We hiked up to Dewey Point, a 7-8 mile round-trip. At first, snow-shoeing was a lot of fun. It was surreal to see all the landscape covered with snow and to know we were walking on top of bushes. We didn’t see any wildlife–except for a spider–but we saw lots of cross-country skiers, all of whom looked exhausted to me.

Kyle jumping off a rock in his snow-shoes

Unfortunately, the trail we ended up on was somehow an expert level, which was a lot for the first time snow-shoeing. Turns out going up steep hills in show shoes is hard. On top of that, we were in a hurry because we wanted to make sure to get to the top of Dewey Point and back in time to return our snow shoes. I had a hard time keeping up with everyone.

However, at the top of the hill, we had hot dogs in the snow. Justin cooked them on his camping stove, which is a nifty little gadget. Having a hot dog picnic cheered me up.

Justin cooking the hotdogs

Dewey Point is alarmingly high up and there is nothing to prevent you from falling to your death. Kyle was very concerned I would fall, but I thought it was all completely awesome.

A shot of the drop–I believe that circle in the middle is a meadow covered with snow.

On the way back, we took an easier trail, which was a relief for me. Still, this was one of the hardest hikes I’ve ever done. It felt like we did 15 miles instead of 8 miles. Despite this, I’m really glad we went. Thanks to Justin and Stephanie for arranging it all.

Kyle and me at the top of Dewey Point