BethanyRambling

Road signs

I received the best Road Carma sign from above yesterday. Two, actually, if you count the wonderful phone call from Greta. I also found a potato chip shaped like a happy face. Perfectly round, with even eyes and a smiley shaped crack. That's gotta be a good sign.

I left the Bay Area two days ago now. Leaving via the east bay, I could just make out the Golden Gate Bridge poking its head out of the fog, and I spent the next hour on the road thinking about all the things I really, really love about San Francisco. There's kinda a lot.

Since then, I've been daydreaming about Montana. I almost couldn't sleep that first night out, my head was so filled of plans. It's ridiculous, since I don't even know what the place looks like yet, but I just know it is going to be perfect, and it's just up there waiting for me.

I am always telling myself to slow down, enjoy what I'm doing, but it's really, really hard this time! There's a big, perfect place, in a small, perfect town just up there waiting for me, so what the hell am I doing down here? I blasted out 12 hours on the interstate yesterday, and now I'm just 6 hours away, in Seattle, doing my best to slow down. I'm visiting a friend who moved up here a year ago, and as great as it is to see him, I'm itching to move again.

He's just tempted me with Snoqualamie Falls, featured in Twin Peaks, only 20 minutes away. And Bainbridge Island. Okay, maybe just one more night. Montana will still be there tomorrow. Ooo, is that like, "I'll be right back"? Am I tempting fate? If so... actually, I would love to see what the hell could wipe Montana off the map in one day. Bring it on. Montana will still be there tomorrow.

Add-on: Perhaps I should actually tell you what I am doing. I am going to Montana for the winter, to write, knit, paint, and basically be as artsy and cold as I can for a while. Through providence and a wonderful woman, I have a big house to caretake, and space enough to do whatever I please. Life is good.

And a few more...

Wigwams on Route 66

In the Precious Moments Chapel

On a petrified log

Montezuma's Well, deep and old

The walls of Graceland

The Geographic Center of the US

There's been lots of big cows and bulls on the trip, but this one was definitely the angriest.

I went down to the park yesterday to pass out water for my sister's marathon training. I'm sore now, just from watching them go. Her team's fund now is $20 bucks higher, just from me hanging out in the park for a couple hours. Rock on.

Still a little tired and hungover. So I think I'm done for today.

I left my heart...

I restrained myself from drunken posting last night, but now everything I was thinking last night has evaporated. Still, it was probably a good choice. Drunken musings are never as interesting as the drunk thinks they are.

I spent yesterday afternoon painting miniatures for my new Warhammer army. Tomb Kings. Little freaky skeletons, in pink, of course. For some reason, I decided this was the perfect time to start a new hobby. Because I'm not geeky enough already, and I don't have enough expensive habits. Yeah. I'm blaming it all on my friend Kara. Actually, I can blame it all on her husband, since he got her hooked. Jerk.

Afterwards, I headed to another friends' house for dinner and wine. It's so nice to be back in my city. I always forget how fabulous it is. Not only is it full of memories and people I love, it's aesthetically the most stunning city. Okay, New York comes close, but nothing beats my San Francisco.

I made balls all day. Skein after skein of delicious angora, wool, and alpaca are now sitting in nice little center pull balls, in a big big bag, ready and waiting for Montana. Sigh. Still haven't knit a stitch. I'm leading up to it.

Okay, pictures!

Playing with my new camera and wax fangs.

Movie Manor, drive-in motel in Colorado

Chocolate Man, at Chocolate World, in Hershey, PA

Seneca Falls

Niagara Falls

In case you're wondering, Stripes is doing a little pee-pee dance. I got to the falls right at sunset. I had busted it out in order to get there before dark, which meant foregoing bathroom stops. Try admiring tons and tons of rushing water when you are close to exploding. Just try it.

Krishna's Palace, in some very rural state. Don't recall just where.

The footstep of the Angel Gabriel (story here)

I think that's about all for today. I have some more pictures, but I need to load them still.

Yay!

Pictures! I have pictures! Of course you don't get to actually see them. Sorry.

I picked up a buttload of pictures yesterday, but I have no idea how to upload them into this computer. So I'm waiting until Sunday, when I'm at Rach's familiar and comfy computer. So pictures soon. I promise.

Let's see, what to write, what to write... Yeah, it's no good. I've stopped moving, there's no more road ahead of me, I have nothing left to say. Poop.

Someone mentioned the appeal of local haunts. I feel like I've done nothing but sit in my home and watch movies. That's not interesting.

Actually, I've been to The Great American Melodrama twice. That's my friend Marqui right in that top picture! She was the lead in the show last night, which was fabulous, but the really important thing was the fact that she had the vamp number in the vaudeville revue.

Perhaps some of you don't understand the importance of this. This is the pinnacle of a theatrical career in these parts. The actress playing the vamp number was always... revered by us little highschool theatrical society heads. That was it! The top. The vamp sang, danced, and teased her way into everyones dreams, aspirations, and fantasies.

Of course it's not the top of Marqui's career. She's already been on a nation-wide tour, and she's heading back to LA at some point for even more, but in my eyes, she can't beat this. She's the bee's knees.

Mom and I have already done our traditional walk in the dunes, and donuts on the beach.

Hah! I'm watching Mamet's "State and Main", and the dumped fiancee just said, "She didn't even finish knitting me the sweater." Once you know what to listen for, knitting references are everywhere! Even something like the sweater curse, which I had never heard a whisper of until wandering onto this strange knit blogdom. Mamet rocks.

Anyway, a nice walk through the dunes at Oso Flaco, followed by lunch at the best steakhouse in Guadalupe. There were many, many animal heads on the wall, none of which particularly bothered me, except for the three deer that had their heads craned in order to keep a beady eye on me and my meal. I leaned back a little nervously, and hit my head on the horseshoe being used as a curtain tie. The curtains, of course, were tanned hides. The plates were circled with old branding symbols. I can't believe I'd never been there before.

There's an expedition currently seeking funds to uncover the buried city of DeMille, the set that was abandoned in the dunes after "The Ten Commandments" was filmed there. That's only one of the many cities that lay under drifts, covered and uncovered as the sands shift. I used to dream about coming over a dune and finding a lost resort, recently emerged. Doesn't seem like as much fun if you have to dig it up yourself, but still cool.

I spent a few days up north, with a delightful little, well, big actually, puppy named Chunk. She was a sweetie, despite needing constant attention, and loving to play king of the mountain every time you tried to sit down. The house was amazing, a huge place nestled in the Oakland hills. Very nice.

Still haven't done much of any knitting. I got about 3 more rows done on my tank top, and I keep touching my stash every day, but that's about it. Actually, I'm craving it right now. What the heck am I doing writing? Adios.

Digital Camera

*This just landed in my sister's email box, sent on 0612. That's a LONG time for a message to be out rambling......*

I really need a digital camera. I don't think that often, seeing as how I am in love with my SLR, but every once in a while, it sure would be nice. Not just for the instant gratification, although that is a nice thing as well.

I came around a corner on an Ohio interstate, and there was the most amazing scene in front of me, straight out of an apocalyptic movie. The interstate stretched out in front of me, black, wet and empty, since it had been raining all day. On either side, there were steep hills of pure greenness threatening to overtake the road. At the end of the road there was a giant crumbling tower, disappearing abrubtly into the clouds hundreds of feet up. Looking closer, I could see that the tower was actually made of several smokestacks of varying length in a slightly uneven row.

It was perfect. Except for the one car in front of me, and the bright green roadsign. Of course, as I got closer, I saw that the sign read "EMPIRE CORP LIMIT", so really, I suppose it could stay. A digital camera would have made it so easy to tweak that scene into a fabulously hellish image. Sigh. I still love my camera, anyway.

Later that day I passed a town that smelled entirely of mothballs.

Days ago, in Lockawanna, NY, I drove through a dirty, industrial area with smoke pouring from factories, that smelled just like warm cinnamon and sugar.

I got a round NOW poster at the march in Washington. I put Velcro on it and stuck it to the ceiling above my bed. It falls down every day, and every night I put it back up. That seems somehow fitting to me, so I keep it like that.

Today seems to be my day for random unrelated bits.

I like rivers. If I don't have plans, I always find myself following the curve of a river.

My bouncing monkey in a fez chipped his ear on Buddy Jesus' elbow.

I saw the Golden Palace in New Vrindaban today. It was... impressive. Gold. And really, quite a... palace. I'm not even sure what they worship there. I didn't stick around to find out.

Man, thought I was a little more evil than this.

I do have 66647 words in my site, though. Still, Nathania is much more evil than me. (Thanks for the link!)

Ha! I did Rachael's too, and she's only 23% evil.

Just begging...

I woke up this morning after a strange dream that combined Colonial House with the Sopranos and American Gods, and my first thought was, shoot, gotta go blog this. So ignore my teary final entry from yesterday; it's all bullshit. I like blogging.

I think I was trying to hedge my bets. I knew I wanted to continue blogging, because this is a fun way to keep writing (and get such sweet compliments - you all rock!), but I still have this niggling fear that when I stop moving, I'll stop being interesting. Fear of inertia. Fear of sedentary... sedent... shoot, how do you make that into a noun? Oh well.

Anyway, I think I wanted to keep on writing, but I wanted to trick myself into feeling that it was unplanned, so that it would flow as easily as it has on the road. We'll see if it works. And if not, there's back roads everywhere. As long as I have a vehicle of some sort, I can kick start my inspiration.

So, about that dream... Actually, now it's gone, and I don't care anyway, so I'll just leave it at that.

Home Dirt

Who would think that nasty brown hills and scrubby brushland could cause such joy? I know I'm not coming home for good, but that didn't seem to matter. I know I have flown home a couple of times, but this time it was different.

I left Nevada super early, trying to beat the heat, and it actually worked. I had a nice cool drive, and it was not even noon yet when I took to the back roads through the Sierra. I chose one that I had always avoided in the past, since every map I've ever seen shows it as a partial dirt road. It turned out to be perfect. Slow, steep, windey, and empty, but there was a semblance of pavement the whole way.

Just after I passed the last thing they called a town, it started to smell like home. There's a kind of sweet vegetation smell, mixed with dirt. Did you know that dirt smells different everywhere you go? You never notice it until you come home, and then you go, yeah, that's my dirt. That dirt can be found nowhere else. Momma always knew this; in New Zealand, you could catch her inhaling deeply every once in a while when we passed a churned up field near Methven.

Some people would argue that California is not the west. Actually, many people have. When I mentioned that coming into Oklahoma and Texas, the "west", felt like coming home, many people looked at me like I had sprouted antennas. "But you live in California," they said. "CALIFORNIA," in case I didn't get it the first time.

California may be on the verge of being taken over by housing developments and shopping malls, but it isn't final yet, and it is still the farthest west state. Near my hometown, they still ride horses to school. You can't get up your driveway if you don't have 4-wheel drive. And normally-dry creekbeds make getting to town interesting after a rain. It's going to be a lotta years before they have a Denny's in New Cuyama, I think. Everyone still gathers for lunch at the Buckhorn, and they look a mite surprised to see someone unfamiliar at the counter.

Driving in through this was a perfect way to end my trip. Gradually, things felt more and more like home. I always wondered why early settlers stopped midway. Why settle for Kansas, when California was waiting? For that matter, why settle for the Cuyama Valley, when the ocean was just over the next set of mountains? Maybe they found home. Maybe they came to a place where the brown hills just smelled right.

Me, of course, I kept going. Only the ocean stopped me. And it won't stop me for long.

I'm home now, which I guess sorta means this blog is at an end. Kinda. In a way. Of course, in just a few more weeks I'll be heading north for Montana, where I will be spending the winter. I have visions of much knitting, but an even better image of me in a ratty old smoking jacket, pecking away at a manual typewriter, as the snow piles up around the country house. True, the house is actually in a small town, I think, and I don't even own a manual typewriter that works, but isn't it a perfect little picture?

Besides that, I missed Wyoming and northern Colorado almost completely. I think I'll have to do little trips down from Montana. So check in, every once in a while. I may be having another adventure quite soon.