riverECHO

The last few days in the San Francisco area have given me such a warm and satisfied feeling. I won’t get too mushy or emotional, but it was great to spend some really good quality time with so many people right before leaving for an indefinite amount of time. Unfortunately, BJ is trying to wrap up so much at work before we head out of the country that he probably feels much differently about the last few days than I do. I have already decreased the number of hours I will be working for Jed while we are away and relished in it greatly this week. While I was out and about visiting friends and family, BJ was holed up in my mom’s spare bedroom working and meeting with people over skype.

My mom and stepdad, Steve, threw us a small going away party on Tuesday night and it was a pleasure to spend time with a group of family and friends that mean so much to me . . . my mom and dad, Steve, Fran, Katie, Michele, Merrik, Shannon and Jimmy. Our last night was spent with Shalyn and Randall in the city. We stayed up much later than we all normally do, drinking wine that they still have left over from their wedding. It felt like way to short of a visit with them. I think Shalyn and I could spend a week straight together and still have stuff to catch up on. My dad and Fran are picking us up in a couple of hours to head to lunch and then on to the airport.

I am not sure it has fully hit me yet but I am generally excited about the days that lay ahead. I have spent so much time with my family and friends out in California this year, more time than usual, and I fear that I will be pretty family-sick while we are gone. But there is an easy solution to this. Everyone that I love will have to come visit us! Please let us know when you will be arriving.

We just spent the last 48 hours in Phoenix visiting my grandparents, specifically my step dad Steve’s parents, who, since my mom and Steve married when I was 8 years old, have treated me and loved me as if I was always their grandchild. A typical visit to Phoenix takes place over the Christmas holidays so this was a treat to spend time with Papa Joe and Grandma Dollie alone. We had no agenda and I don’t think we’ve ever just sat and chatted with them for as long as we did this time.

• We found out a lot about Papa Joe’s service in the navy. He spent about two years on a little island just north of Papua New Guinea called Manus during 1944 and 1945.
• They found out why we were traveling in the first place and why we enjoyed not knowing exactly where we were going to rest our heads the first night that we arrived.

The big outing for the weekend was visiting a new Asian market called Mekong and believe me, we will remember this experience forever. From the outside it looked like a regular supermarket just with and Asian influence. But as we entered the store, Papa Joe quickly ushered us to the meats and fish museum, I mean section. We gawked in amazement at the selection that was presented before us. Quickly passing by the typical display of steaks, ground beef, and brisket, we came to a quick stop at the poultry. First the whole chicken: head, long droopy neck and all. Then just the chicken feet. Then the cow stomach lining, heart, liver, and, of course, the cow uterus. Mmmmm. Behind the displays and displays of fish, including a purple and red parrot fish, were tanks of live crab, lobster, catfish and tilapia. I wanted to order a live fish just to see how they would package it. Would they put it in a plastic baggie with water like you get a goldfish at a fair? Luckily I didn’t have to find out on my own and someone else came along and ordered two tilapia. With a net in hand, the “fish man” reached into the tank and caught two. He waited for the approval of the woman ordering the two fish before throwing them on the floor. They didn’t flip and squirm long as he quickly whacked each one over the head with a large rubber mallet. Quick and painless, right? We explored the store a little more, finding frogs, pork blood, and dade – a larva like creature that apparently is served best over rice. We quickly agreed that if we lived nearby, we would frequent the store for some interesting kitchen experiments.

Other than a few dinner outings to China Town Buffet and Marie Calendars, the rest of the weekend was spent at home with Grandma and Grandpa, either reading, talking, eating, or watching their favorite Sunday morning CBS special. It was a great visit.

I have a feeling that we may be asking ourselves that a few times as we head on out on this little exploration.  But, honestly, I’m not 100% sure how it snuck up on us.  Today, we left our home, our friends and my family to head out into the larger world for an indefinite period of time.  I feel good…I feel sad…and I’m extremely excited.  The dream I’ve had swirling in the back of my head – is morphing into reality!

We have had this planned for over a year now.  And, although we have been preparing and organizing every bit of our lives over the past few months, we still ran out of time.

Now, we didn’t run out of time in getting ourselves in order.  We starting with purging all of the excess in our lives…we sold it all…and a few of you out there got some screaming deals!  We then started to acquire new minimized items that would fit the lifestyle we will be living – and also fit into a single backpack each (yes, that includes my office).  It was then on to finances and insurance. Its amazing the amount of research you can put into somethine like this.  From best international rates on credit cards, to atm fees, to health insurance options and on and on.

In fact, we ended up tackling items that weren’t even on the radar a few months ago.  Refinance the house – sure, we had a few weeks left, why not?  Hire a new employee to work alongside myself at Vertical Media – that’ll be quick and easy, right?  In any case, it all came together after some long hours and some amazing “get ‘er done” skills from Lisa.  We wouldn’t be ready if it wasn’t for her!

However, we still ran out of time to take in what we both wanted to before we left…Family and Friends.  Although we were able to “see” almost everyone, each and every one of our visits was way too short and I can’t help but feel slightly empty on our departure.  Yes, one of the greatest things we will miss is the little creature that has joined our lives for the past two years as he has no way to visit us…Good-bye Salsa.  And although we have been living with my mom for the past 6 months, I don’t even feel like we actually said good-bye (but we will see you in March to celebrate your birthday!).

It is likely that I’m feeling this a bit more than Lisa tonight as we are currently headed to Phoenix (on the plane now with complimentary beers!) to spend the next two nights with her Grandparents.  It is then off to San Francisco on Sunday night where we will stay with Lisa’s mother and step-father until Thursday with a going away bbq on Tuesday.  Again though, it will be short, and we will be on that plane in only 6 short days!

The world awaits and my emotions are currently like the sea we are soon to cross.  Troughs of sadness for those we just left, a building anticipation for what is over the next horizon, and pure excitement for every moment we are about to create.

We spent last weekend, our last weekend in Jackson before leaving for New Zealand, just outside of Nashville, Tennessee. My brother, Jeff, who turned 46 this year, got married for the first time. Elke, my now sister-in-law has two kids, Bridget – 11 and Lex – 8, from a previous marriage.  They are the sweetest kids and my brother is doing a great job at being a new dad.

Their wedding was small, but perfect. They got married in a church camp NaCoMe just outside of Franklin, where they currently live. When Jeff and Elke originally went to look at the location, Jeff had a large pavilion in mind for the ceremony. As Elke was looking around the property she found a small chapel, built in 1988 but looks to have been built a hundred years ago, back in a tree grove and away from the rest of the buildings. It sat 20 of us tightly. The chapel had two doors, one opened toward the camp to watch Elke walk down the “isle” and the other opened toward the never ending forest behind the chapel. Whether they did it knowingly or not, they picked a wonderful time of year to get married. The trees were in their peak stages of fall transformation. We couldn’t get over how beautiful it was.

They focused the ceremony on the union of a family instead of a union of a couple. Elke’s two kids were her best man and her maid of honor. After exchanging rings, Elke and Jeff then placed a necklace on each kid symbolizing the union of their family.

The guests included my dad, Fran, my Uncle Chuck and Aunt Alice, their kids Steve and Leigh, and of course many others. But it was a pleasure reconnecting with my dad’s side of the family, whom I haven’t seen for many years and whom BJ has never met. My aunt and uncle live in West End, North Carolina and most of my memories of spending time with them at their house are from christmas’ when my mom and dad were still married.

Although it was a quick visit – 36 hours – in Nashville, I don’t get to see my brother often and it was so wonderful sharing the weekend with him and his new family.

How did I forgot to include this short story in the last blog about our eventful drive down to Taos? Jean quickly reminded me after reading it that I left out one of the funniest parts of the day. It wasn’t so funny at the time. We pulled into the only gas station between Laramie and Cheyenne in a small town called Buford. The signs posted 85: $3.25/gallon — “not to bad,” I thought. I jumped out of the car into the piercing rain and chilling wind, claiming “I’ve got this one,” and BJ headed in to the bathroom as Jean took the dogs on a short walk. I finished fueling, jumped back in the car, and my head immediately started to spin. Not from nausea, but from stupidity. A few four letter words began escaping my mouth as I studied the pump (from left to right and expensive to cheap: diesel-$4.29, 89-$3.79, 87-$3.69, E-85-$3.19) for more clues about what “E-85″ truly was. BJ returned and I quickly asked him if he knew what the E stood for in E-85 . . . “Economy, right? Because it’s the cheapest one?” I said. He didn’t seem to know either but quickly busted out his data phone to get some real answers. Then Jean hopped in the car and saw my distraught did-I-just-ruin-the-car and are-we-ever-going-to-make-it-to-Taos-now face. None of us had any answers, but we agreed on one thing–I better go in and fess up to the clerk before we start driving and blow up on our way to Cheyenne. BJ joined me in telling the clerk “Um, I think I may have just put the wrong type of gas in my car.” She smiled, as did one of the customers in the store, and both assured us, in a tone that was much less demeaning than I expected or deserved, “Nah, don’t worry, just fill up with regular gas next time. It’ll just affect your gas mileage a little bit.” We laughed as we walked back to the car in the now pouring rain, shared our story with Jean, and got on the road. No harm done but lesson learned.

BJ, Jean, her two dogs Barkley and Scooter, and I loaded the car and began our drive to Taos, NM at 5:30am on Saturday morning. We had over 14 hours to drive and we wanted to arrive to our rental Airstream Trailer (more on that later) with enough time to enjoy a good soak in the hot tub. But just south of Jackson as the sun began to rise behind the cloudy skies, it began to snow and the number of cars that were already off the road started to increase as we headed further south. We quickly realized that our 14 hour drive may take longer than expected. BJ and I took turns fighting the wind and rain that was at our back for the entire drive until we hit a monsoon and lightning in El Raton in northern New Mexico at around 8pm and decided to get a hotel room for the night. We didn’t realize we had turned off at the Taos exit because all the highway signs had been blown down and as Jean put it, “those are bad signs,” no pun intended. So we called it a night and found a clean hotel room in Raton for the night.

After our fix of cable tv, continental breakfast, and weak coffee, we loaded the doggies and pointed the car west to Taos, just a short 2 hour drive. Taos greeted us with cloudy but warm skies, more galleries than we could count, and many small pot-holed side streets that made us feel like we were truely in Mexico. We followed our directions out of town and down a long dirt road to arrive at, by far, the quaintest accommodation in Taos–our very own Airstream trailer, complete with patio, grill, hot tub, and of course, the World Wide Web. It’s cozy with the 5 of us, but we’re excited to call it home for the week. We lunched in town at an Italian restaurant (I know, I know, we were looking for chile rellenos), and then quickly came back home to relax and read our stack of New Mexico travel guides. We have a small list of must-sees this week like the Taos Pueblo, the High Road to Santa Fe, eating lots of chile rellenos, and, most importantly, RELAXING at our house in Taos.

Salsa finds a new hang out:

My sister Shalyn and her now husband, Randall, got married this weekend in Healdsburg, California, in the heart of wine country. They had been dating for 10 years after meeting in their freshman dorm at Stanford. Shalyn took what she called “Jewish 101″ last year and had a mikvah this summer, which allowed for a Jewish wedding. Traditional in some ways (breaking of the glass, blessings, signing of the ketubah, the chuppah) and very non-traditional in others (basically everything that happened once the ceremony ended and the party began), their wedding was absolutely beautiful and a ton of fun.Three days of events kept us busy, excited, full of tears, and drunk on champagne.

It was fun from the get-go. I arrived with Shalyn on Wednesday night to Healdsburg where we prepared Welcome bags, had massages, had pedicures (yes, I had a pedicure), eat a ton of food, drank a lot of wine, and enjoyed some quality sister time – I loved having her all to myself. Looking back I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard, cried so hard, was so incredibly embarrassed or was so exstatically happy in such a small time amount of time.

It was moments like these that I will never forget: Serenading Randall with all of the bridesmaids to our own version of Madonna’s “True Blue”; balling my eyes out during Sheila’s, Randall’s mother, speech on Sunday night and continuing to cry every time someone said “shalyn” or “randall”; Shalyn telling me she thought my eyes were really pretty after I was crying cause they are really red and really green – uh, yeah right; dancing at the wedding with BJ, my dad and Fran (both 73 years old), all the bridesmaids, Shalyn and Randall, and her 7 year old cousin “Emma”; meeting up with my sexy boyfriend at each event after not seeing him all day; and finally, realizing how much I love my older sister and her husband Randall!!

Here is a list of live music that we have seen in the past 11 days (in order):

Driggs, ID Music on Main
Thursday, August 14th
Chuck Prophet

Jackson Hole Music Festival
Sunday, August 17th
The Avett Brothers, The Miller Sisters, Robert Randolph and His Family Band, Ben Harper & and Innocent Criminals, The Black Crowes

Driggs, ID Music on Main
Thursday, August 21st
Jackie Greene

Outside Lands Festival – San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park
Sunday, August 24th
ALO – Animal Liberation Orchestra, The Mother Hips, Bon Iver, Andrew Bird, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Widespread Panic, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Los Amigos Invisibles, Wilco, Jack Johnson

There is really too much to cover here in the text.  But, to sum it up, we woke up this morning on the North end of the Ruby Mountains in Nevada.  After grabbing some much needed coffee, we pointed ‘er West and found ourselves in Truckee, California by Noon at Tal’s house.  We promptly jumped into his new find, a GT Dart ragtop and ran into town for some more coffee and lunch at Wild Cherries (we always end up there at least once when we are in town).

Then it was back to Tal’s house so that he and Lisa could get on the same page of his business as she will be helping him out as it grows.  While they were digging deep into the business, I was looking up airport information for flying into Black Rock Airport (otherwise known as the Burning Man Airstrip) for our late afternoon outing.

Tal fired up the Skyhawk and flew us about 1 hour North (as the Skyhawk flies) of Truckee above Burning Man.  The event has not yet started, but there were signs of big things to come for the week ahead.  We touched down on the desert floor and learned a bit about soft landing and takeoffs.  Of course, the highlight might have been the last few minutes in the sky as we landed in Truckee.  I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Oh yeah…and one more thing…I guess we need to add flight instructions to the list of things to do in life!