Helmets and Jesus

You know – years back, when I first heard about states with no helmet laws, I thought to myself, “Wow. That’s stupid.” But you know, after this trip, and having gone through A LOT of states that leave the decision up to you, I guess I can see that it’s a bit of a “keep your laws off my body” issue. I still think it’s stupid. Personally, I can make the decision that I do not feel comfortable riding without a helmet and would like to have at least a CHANCE of surviving an accident. But if you want to feel the wind on your face whilst getting pelted by bugs and get a sunburn on your head and leave yourself little to no chance of surviving an accident, I guess that should be your personal choice. I don’t know. I’ve been trying to come up with something that it’s akin to…like seat belt laws? And I think I’m in favor of those. They seem to be fairly straightforward. Or no driving while talking on a cell phone? I know some states have passed that one – you can only talk on a phone with a hands free device. I am SO pro that. But personal freedom is important. And in terms of cell phones, it’s often someone else you are going to hurt for being an asshole on your phone, whereas the only person you are hurting is you if you decide to go sans helmet. Now I don’t know what to think. Huh.

Another helmet thought. When you ride for such long periods of time, you have an incredible amount of thinking time with yourself. It’s just you in there with you in that helmet. Some people do get those two way microphone things, but dave and I utilized a lot of smacking type sign language that worked moderately well… Plus, it’s kinda neat to have that solitude. I found out that I could keep myself pretty damn occupied. Did a lot of singing. Found out that I still remember the words to a lot of musicals. Who knew? Also spent a lot of time talking out loud to myself in stupid accents… and trying to talk to myself in German. We also used headphones quite a bit and listened to NPR when it was available and interesting… as well as a lot of country music. God – I really enjoy that Brad Paisley ‘Ticks’ song. Didn’t hear a lot of Dixie Chicks. I guess they really are still blacklisted from a lot stations. Grrrr. Also listened to some terrifying 24 Hour all god all the time stations. And there are A LOT of them! There are an awful lot of people who think that an awful lot of other people are going to hell. There are also WAY too many Christian rock stations. They kept making me think of that South Park episode where Cartman fronts his own Christian rock band… the lyrics were astoundingly similar…. “Oh Jesus…I wanna feel you Jesus…deep down Jesus…”

the return...

So we are back!

It is a rather bittersweet feeling. Nice to be back in your own bed…and your own shower… and yet, the incredible freedom that we had for a month was undeniably intoxicating. How many times in your life do you get to get up in the morning and think “where should I go? and what should I do today?” And actually REALLY have the choice. And then imagine getting to do that for 4 weeks straight! Pretty special.

I hate how quickly the sheen from vacation starts to fall off your body and your consciousness… and how the real world and your real life start to enter the picture like a jackhammer… it’s my first day back at work today and it’s actually not TOO bad…fairly quiet…helps to have it quiet when you have a million e-mails to wade through. it’s just crazy to me how quickly you can fall back into patterns… and with the snap of your fingers, it’s like you never really left.

I was telling a co-worker today that I wish I could bottle this ‘just back from vacation’ feeling and keep it in a drawer to whip out whenever I really need it down the line. Wouldn’t that be nice? Hey - having a shitty day? Just whip out your bottle of sweet memories from glacier national park and suddenly you are basking in the smell of cedar and feeling the cool alpine breeze. That would be awesome. Ah well. Someone will invent it someday.

I’ll put up some more pics soon. I just have to find the energy. And the time. :)

San Francisco is a really dirty city. And the homeless population is really out of control. These were things I knew before I left, but they smack you in the face in a whole different way after being away for a month. It’s strange. I forgot just how many streets smell like urine. I forgot just how defensively I had to ride on my bike because no one – car or pedestrian – sees you or pays you any heed. I forgot how tight lipped and tight faced and intense and self obsessed people seem in a city. There are a lot of places in the world where people walk around with an amazing degree of open-ness. It’s lovely, really. I miss it. I miss the assumption that your fellow man is good and maybe even interesting, and better yet, maybe kinda cool. I feel like my shoulders had become a bit more relaxed and pushed back and in the city I feel like you have to carry yourself a lot more rigidly and closed off.

Yeah…

This morning, during the first bike commute of my return, some young whippersnapper in baggy pants who looked like he was once in the backstreet boys jumped off a curb and yelled ‘Boo!’ inches away from me and my face. Before I knew what was happening, I hear this growling tiger escape from me and without a beat respond, “oh that’s really funny, you motherfucking asshole.” I never even looked back. I guess he didn’t have a gun. Oops. Tee hee.

But as a strange antidote to that, some tall, gawky asian man stopped me about 15 feet from the entrance to PwC as I was coming back from my lunch break and looked very shy as he stuttered out, “excuse miss, um, could I perhaps take you to lunch sometime?” I told him that I was sorry, but I was taken and he said some very nice thing about my beauty, which was stunning to me as I was still red and puffy from aerobics class and my straggly wet hair had never been brushed after my gym shower. But whatever, to each his/her own.

Dave wants to move to Portland. It really is a pretty great city. I’m not actually sure how serious he is…

sinks and suds

you know, it's kinda odd... after a month of using bathrooms all over the U.S. and Canada, you start to realize that there are so many types of faucets and so many different ways to dispense soap.... there are lots of automatic, touchless varieties now. as well as levers and buttons and things to pull and things to press... i've found that sometimes I'll hold my hands under the faucet assuming that it's going to turn on automatically. wrong. and then I'll try to pull something on the soap dispenser to then finally realize that it's automatic. duh. and i've actually grown to enjoy the warm air hand dryers. they are, of course, better for the environment, but not great when you are in a hurry. well, I've had a lot of practice now... and have found a generally good technique, that while not FAST per se, is still better than having all that paper refuse all over the floor (as invariably seems to happen....)

saw the spud in portland

yay! got to hang with my little bro in portland - and even though we descended upon him with no notice, he was able to get the next day off to spend with us. we ate lots of great food....organic...local... he was even able to set us up with bikes to ride around the city (which was so nice since we've been off our own bikes for a month) and we rode them to the gigantic bouldering gym there. such a bike friendly city. such a vegetarian friendly city. and we even had perfect weather. :) good times.

oh, i'm sorry, it was actually 103 degrees

yeah - we found out later that it was actually somewhere between 103 and 105 degrees on the day mentioned earlier. uh right. whatever. today, once we got out of glacier, it felt that hot again. we just checked into a KOA in Spokane, WA (we blew across Idaho in about one hour - very pretty...in the north anyway...) and at 8:30pm it was still 89 degrees. this shit is unacceptable. therefore in the spirit of unacceptable, i will now uncover some of the less glorious events during a cross country motorcycle road trip:

1) I have a raging case of athlete's foot on the big toe and pinkie toe of my left foot. nice.

2) The bathroom at the Glacier campgound had a moth problem. they were EVERYwhere. on the sink faucet, all over the walls...the floors...the lights, in the toilets. one landed in my hair when I was doing my girl preening type things on the first night. however, she was one of the most beautiful moths i've ever seen and she was staring straight up at me with a surprisingly adorable moth face. so I let her stay and when I went to wash my face, she flew away.

3) Just out of East Grand Forks, MN we followed Business Route 2 into town so that we could find food. Ok. fine. we eat and get back on the road, cross the river into Grand Forks, ND and after a few blocks end up in desert and the road is just gone. we go a little farther. yeah....this is wrong. so we go to turn around and do some retracing when a lone car pulls up with it's windows down and I shout to the woman inside. she's nice enough to get out and tell us where to go. we just have to head down the road we turned around in and we'll smack right into Hwy 2. ok. great. so i move to do something and my ipod falls off and drops down just as dave pulls forward. i let out a screech in the now sweltering heat because I think he's just driven over mr. green (my ipod). I scare the shit out of dave, who stops and i jump off the bike. it turns out that it had fallen down and become stuck down between where the tire and the side bag starts. i end up having to pry it loose with a bungee cord and hook. ridiculous. it falls to the dusty ground and seems fairly unharmed. just dirty. ok. so i get back on the bike and we start down the road. the GRAVEL road. if you know anything about bikes, you know that gravel is BAD NEWS. always. sometimes cars and trucks have created nice little tire tracks for you that have less gravel on them. no such luck here. sheer gravel for the length and breadth. i'd say it was the scariest half mile of our trip. steering is really difficult in gravel. dave was holding on for dear life, but still the handlebars started to freak out seemingly uncontrollably at one point and oh dear god, i thought we were going down. thank god, dave kept it up and straight and we finally made it, but it took a year or two off my life. the surprise trotting of the mule deer took another, so i better stop having these things happen or i'll never have a chance to get old. and i'm excited for my hair to turn silver someday.

4) the $45 motel had bedbugs. and they seemed to only like me.

5) i was bitten by a very mean spider during the night in my aunt's cabin.

6) being rendered mute during our time in quebec was so hard on me, i had more than one meltdown. although i did also get my period during that time. oh - and that's fun while camping too...

7) interesting things get inside your tent, no matter how careful you are.... dave just had to take care of a corn pincher (aka earwig) about two seconds ago. ick. they are nasty looking.

8) and yes sarita - good point...i've been eating a lot of eggs and salads. it wasn't so bad for me on the east coast or even canada...but there must be precious few vegetarians in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana.

and don't even get me started about how much time it takes to pack, get gas, pee, eat...anything that requires dissassembling anything on the bike....whew.

hungry horse, montana

we just spent an absolutely wonderful 2 1/2 days in Glacier National Park in Montana. no cell phone or internet access. just camping and trees and hiking and moose and mule deer and grizzlies (who were in such abundance in the area near our campground, they had closed off almost all the hiking trails due to 'grizzly activity') and glaciers and wildflowers and mountain goats and marmots and cedars and lakes and rivers and waterfalls and gorges and so many good very good things. so pleasing. it has been determined that yesterday was my official birthday for this year since we went on a 10 and a half mile hike with a kick-ass elevation gain that took us almost 6 hours. it was awesome. in the first third of the hike we had just taken a break to eat some trail mix and suddenly there was a huge bull mule deer trotting down the path straight at us. it shocked the crap out of us so much, we tore off behind some trees thinking it might be a moose or elk. we were wrong, but he was still big and really, really beautiful and hung around for a bit before he finally took off further down the path. he had velvet on his antlers. they were amazing.

the first day we went on a quick hike in the early evening and saw a mama moose out in a lake taking a bath, while her two little babies watched from shore. she was watching us as much as we were watching her.

we only saw one grizzly and it was pretty far away, but still rather magnificent. :)

the hike we went on was so freaking incredible. the terrain was so varied and crossed so many different elevations that there was just constantly something new to oogle or sigh at or just stand in freaking awe and amazement thinking, 'we are so lucky to be on this amazing planet that holds so much majesty.' and then you look at the glaciers that are barely holding on to their glacier status and you think, 'for such a lucky bunch of motherfuckers, why do we have to destroy everything we touch?' but that's a topic for another time.

yeah. glacier needs to go on all of y'all's lists.

:)

yeah.

100 degrees sucks and other random thoughts

ok. we are currently in chester, montana in a hotel that cost less than
$45 dollars for a night. it has a clean bed and a working shower so i think we scored. :) today it was 100 degrees across most of montana. i'm sorry, but that is bullshit. and the gusts of winds that come flying across the prairies are, um, rather unsettling on a motorcycle. especially when you are already dying in the 100 degree heat in your stupid thick, BLACK, body protection. but anyway....we rode 500 miles today...from Minot, North Dakota to Chester, Montana. we wanted to stop in a town an hour back, but the state fair is happening as well as some all state little league excitement and hoowee ALL the hotels/motels/skanktels were all completely booked...so we ended up here. literally in the middle of nowhere and somehow, someone has an unsecured wireless internet connection available. amazing. our motel looks out at a grain elevator. they have a lot of those in montana. and the trains still run here.

so instead of a picture journey, which I just don't have the energy for after today, let's just explore random thoughts.

1. Walmart really does seem to be killing small to mid town america. it's one thing to read about it or watch pbs, but it's quite something else to actually see it in action, state by state by state. even ithaca, ny has a walmart now! but it hasn't ruined the character there. yet. some towns look like the old main streets are ghost towns now till you get to the strip where the walmart is...where you will usually also find the DQ, the Pizza Hut, the Hardees, the Country Kitchen, the Wendy's and the Subway. it's really something....we want to look into it more when we get back....see if the phenomenon is real...but it seems to be...it's sad.

2. the sky is REALLY big out here.

3. north dakota has a surprising pretty license plate. who knew? i had never seen one before.

4. the fargo accent is for real.

5. the south park guys don't even go far enough with their canadian accent 'aboot' mockery. it's even MORE amazing in real life.

6. bikers really do stick together. there is this incredible instant comraderie that you have with other bikers. almost everyone puts out their arm when you drive past one another as a show of greeting. and every biker we've met, from the awesome woman Ky from monterey that we camped next to last night in ND (and went to Pizza Hut with)... to Kirk Anderson, the town undertaker in renfrew, ontario, who we met at the county bluegrass festival and who just totally set us up with excellent info, great stories and good alternate routes... to Mr. Right who we met somewhere in canada who came from outside of Pittsburgh and who totally looked like the quintessential rough harley man, but by the end of our brief chat, offered to put us up if we ever went through his hometown, to the scores and scores of older couples and random people we've met in restaurants, outside gas stations, etc. who wanted a friendly word and generally to offer some excellent advice from past experience...all these bikers were totally and monumentally different, yet you somehow feel like part of this huge family network. it's amazing. you feel like you have something in common with the vietnam vet and the conservative christian and even the french canadians and well, all of them. it's really incredible and has maybe been one of my favorite parts of this trip. this blending of humanity...so much that you can look past 'these colors don't run' stickers on bikes, because the person you are talking to is totally real and awesome and isn't judging you in anyway except that you are a fellow biker and therefore you are part of the pack. amazing. in such a fragmented and polarized time...it's really amazing.

7. We saw Harry Potter in Devil's Lake, ND. it was so great to be in air-conditioning. young potter is growing into quite the handsome lad. it cost us $9.50. for both of us.

8. did i mention that 100 degrees is unacceptable?

9. michigan is WAY prettier than I thought it would be and Minnesota is less pretty than i thought it would be.

10. minnesota has the most evil mosquitoes in the world.

11. i have broken my no-kill vow. many mosquitoes have died by my hand on this trip. not nearly enough. but many....

12. i've been eating ice cream every day because i deserve it. two days ago, i did an experiment in Minnesota. we needed to get going, so I got a vanilla chocolate twist put into a cup and tried eating it on the back of the motorcycle. it worked better than expected. i made it 1/2 way through, but it was melting faster than I could slurp it down... but all in all it was more successful than expected...

13. you eat a lot of breakfast options on the road when you are a vegetarian. cause you can always have pancakes, omelets, french toasts, etc. even when everything else on the menu is meat.

14. a dead porcupine i saw in michigan made me sad. they are really cute.

15. the word of god is very popular. very.

16. hey - "don't meth up your life!"

17. i still remember most of the words to evita. it's amazing the things you start to do with HOURS of time with just you and your mind....

goodnight!

you say you want more?

well, maybe you didn't, but if any of y'all are interested, dave has uploaded favorite photos from our trip thus far up on his website. just go here: http://merple.com/photos.shtml

he's caught up to montreal, which i haven't even been able to do on this blog, so there's some fun stuff in there.

oh, and by the way, i forgot to report - in montreal i got the news - I am in the show with trapezes at the magic. :) i am very excited, but it doesn't really sink in when you are on vacation, so maybe it will once I get back and have to jump right into rehearsals! if you don't know what I'm talking about go here.

okey dokey. we're about to hit the road again. they are calling for some more rain, so perhaps it will have to be my birthday tomorrow. :)

not-really-my-birthday birthday day

so technically i turn 33 today. happy bastille day to you all!

however, today we met the worst weather of our whole trip thus far... and most of the day ended up being us soaking wet, stuck in rainshowers. so we've decided that it doesn't count. my real birthday will maybe be tomorrow. unless it rains all day again. then - maybe it will be monday. we'll just have to see. kinda like this trip....it's all rather up in the air. even b'days.

we are staying in our first hotel tonight and thankfully they have wireless internet. it's been harder to find up here in canada, so you may not hear from me for a few days once again.... did you know our dollar is about even with the canadian dollar? oh yeah. it is. dave and I have AMAZING timing.

everyone is so freakin nice in ontario. it's pretty awesome. two thumbs up for ontario. well, except for this rain, but it seems like it's hard to bypass it on the east coast right now. it's just thunderstorming everywhere!

i won't go into our reflections on quebec just yet. suffice to say, we are DONE with french.

anyway. let's get up to date with pictures and our travels so far. from the post below, i am sure that we've all gained a lot of pot-making wisdom. that was back on july 5th. after we left dad and ellie, we went to my friend sexy's house (carrie nelson). she recently acquired the house up the road from her parents. it looks amazing. it's like 4 bedrooms or something and has an in-ground pool. niiiiiiice. she's living there with an old school chum of mine: lisa walker. these are two of my oldest friends. i've known them since about 1st or 2nd grade when we were all in brownies together. :)

we spent the night at mom's and the next morning said goodbye. my mom is allowed to share the house with two special girls. this is puddy (aka pudster, stubster):



and this is missy - she has lyme disease AGAIN, so she was a bit limpy during this visit... :( but she's a trooper:



from mom's we drove south to glenside, PA, where, as you already know, we saw the AMD in her original habitat. and we have pictures to prove it:

in the living room:



the laundry chute:



her old bedroom clutching an old tennis award proudly:



and, oh yeah, chillin by the pool. i'm the one with the towel wrapped around my head as my fair little skin can not tolerate this sunshine crap.



so we end up having such a great time with AMD, we just stay over. next morning she kicks us out since her own flight is leaving back to SF that day and we hit the road. we get out of PA, fly through New Jersey and head into New York. We get off the NY Thruway and head up the east side of the hudson. it was breathtaking. we stopped in Hyde Park and did the tour of FDR's home:





good stuff. lots of woodchucks on the grounds. FDR mandated that they be left alone.

from there we spent the night at a Campground in Woodstock, NY. ate one of the best veggie meals I've ever had and even got a chance to check the internet:



next day, we headed up into the adirondacks. if you've never been, you should add them to the list. we stopped in schroon lake, NY for lunch and a nice hike:





i had actually been there with my family many years back. ran my first 5K there. strange.

from schroon lake, we headed on back roads to vermont. the landscape opened up into beautiful farmland and pastures and the rain held off, so all was good. we made it to burlington that evening and fell immediately in love. we ended up staying 2 days. and that's where we'll start next time.

:)

oh - and thank you to everyone who called! :) so nice to hear friendly voices on a wet, miserable day! so - we are dealing with .79 cent a minute cell phone charges in canada right now, so i will catch up with you all in a few days when we are back in the states.

canada's pretty nice, eh? and so is pottery, eh?

we're so totally in ontario now, eh? huntsville, ontario to be precise. but that's not what we're going to talk about today.

so....back when we were still in PA, my dad gave me a pottery lesson. first he showed us how he makes his amazing jugs. at this point he is pulling the jug up:



tricksy tools helping to make things pretty:



once finished, he is proud:



now it is my turn. first I learn to center the clay. it is freaking hard. Agent J (the dog) tries to help:



then we use dad's homemade contraption to start the hole in the middle:



then i learn to pull the pot up:





oh no - catastrophe!



well, jugs are kinda hard, i guess this will just be a bowl:



but dad, how do I put a nifty lip on the edge?



ta da!



some banks and things that dad is working on:

Montreal

they make us pay for internet at this KOA, so I must be quick.... we have changed our minds yet again and are not going to Nova Scotia as 'planned'... instead we came north from burlington on this breathtaking highway - state highway 2 I believe - just incredible...it wound through all these small towns over several islands in the middle of lake champlain. i give it 5 out of 5 stars. we made it to montreal yesterday. had dinner. spoke french (well...kinda) ah oui oui! oh la la! more later...we are hungry!!!!!!

thunderbooms!

hello from burlington, vt!!! i'll do another photo journal soon, but we haven't found internet access in awhile. so basically right now we are about to go see 'sicko' in order to hide from the INCREDIBLE thunderstorms that are presently ripping in and out of burlington. they are pretty amazing. :)

a story in pictures

ok. let's do a little catching up - day two we were still in alma, ny - dave's hometown. we went into wellsville, ny to meet dave's old friend aaron and his wife valerie for lunch. they came back home with us and we all set the tissu up in the front tree. lessons were given. fun was had:



someone's escaped pet bunny comes visiting most days:




Day three after much eating with dave's dad, we head to ithaca, ny. in ithaca we camp at Treman Park, which happens to have one of the coolest of the ithaca waterfalls. we did a hike to the falls:



more treman:




our time in ithaca was excellent, but too short - had exceptional pizza and woodchuck cider (yum!) at the Nines, got a nighttime walking tour of cornell.... next morning went on the treman hike, checked out the ithaca commons and then headed to aunt murna and uncle tom's cabin in ilion, ny:



ok. day four - after much food and drink, we head out the next morning. first stop is two towns over - little falls, ny. mr tart boulders along the erie canal:




we drive all the way to PA to my mom's house. blueberry waffles rule. so does homemade ziti. Day Five is the 4th of July. there is a BBQ to be had - family, plus two of my oldest friends Carrie Nelson and Lisa Walker. we were all in brownies together. Mom hosts BBQ. it rained. a lot. corn and grilled things were yummy. and we set up the tissu in mom's backyard:




yay - tree tissu!




dave learns tissu in mom's backyard!




Day Six - we head over to dad's house, grab some lunch and go to the house I grew up in down on the river. dave with the riding cock (down at my old house):




this is the scary spider infested outhouse in my old house's backyard:



we go back up to dad's house and get a pottery lesson - but that will have to be for next time....

ok. that's all for now! night night. tomorrow morning we head north!

we're going to see the AMD!

we're about to blast off from Mom's down to Glenside, PA to see the AMD!

quick check in...

hello! haven't been around the internet for a few days and got to mom's and hers was down. however, dave just fixed it all by himself. :) but we're just about to head out to spend the day with my dad, so I just wanted to say that we're alive. We made it from Alma to Ithaca and from Ithaca to Ilion and from Ilion to my parents in Pennsylvania. Some time very soon we need to decide where we are going on our trip. ok. more soon i hope....