Sandy's Results, According To The Glores

Whew. Sandy has officially welcomed us to Pennsylvania, or perhaps exactly the opposite. We have been hunkered down in a very wet Pittsburgh while Sandy tried her best to destroy the lower part of Manhattan island. We had a great day, with 4.5 hours of fun at the Children's Museum (awesome art options!) and dinner with my cousins. The rain was light, the winds mostly non-existent.

But then we started trying to figure out what we do next. We haven't been able to get in touch with anyone at the new park, but know that the park itself is closed at least until Thursday. The vacation rental house we were planning to stay in for the next ten days doesn't have power and doesn't expect to have to have power restored for 7-10 days. Ooops. There are 19 road closures in our new county, including the main road in sections. Not so good either.

Our decision? We're going to move closer to our new home, but not quite there. Officials are asking people to stay off the roads except for emergency travel, for one thing. And for another, we're assuming that no hotel will take new guests if they don't have power and that any hotel in the immediate area that does have power is probably full of storm refugees.

So we're going as far as Scranton tomorrow. They have power, there are only minor road closures, and we found a hotel with a lot of vacancies. Also with a true one bedroom suite with a door between the bedroom and the rest of the suite just in case we end up staying there for several days while power is restored to everything closer to where we'll be living.

Ah, Sandy, you really know how to make people feel welcome in their new home! We could have done without this particular welcome mat.

Life Is Exhausting

I had this misconception that driving across the country instead of flying would minimize our experience of jet lag. But our driving schedule (and socializing schedule, to be honest) has meant that we haven't been able to take advantage of the gradual time change and keep Darcy's bedtime at a normal hour. And so, having crossed into Eastern Daylight Time earlier today, it was a struggle to get her to sleep by 10:15. Hopefully, we can start to fix this problem in Pittsburgh. It now looks like we may be there three nights, as all park employees are being told to ride out the storm at home rather than at work. We'll get updates about power outages, downed trees, and flooding and make that decision on Tuesday morning, I think.

And that's my extremely exciting blog post for the day. We had a great time in St Louis. Saw many, but not all of the folks we'd hoped to catch up with and some, but not all of the places we wanted to show Darcy. Pictures tomorrow unless somehow Pittsburgh is without power!

My Network Administrator Prevented Blogging

You know how your computer sometimes gives you an error message that ends, "If this problem persists, contact your network administrator." My network administrator is Michael. When we get to a new hotel, he's the one who figures out how to connect us to their padlocked wi-fi. If there's a problem, he takes care of it.

But last night, he failed me for the very first time and couldn't get me internet access in our friends' home. So you all went blog postless and almost did tonight as well. Luckily (?) for you, Hurricane Sandy is disrupting our travel plans, so I had to have access to cancel a couple hotel reservations and make new ones to keep us out of the storm for a couple days. We'll reassess depending on how widespread the power outages are on Wednesday.

We are having a great time in St Louis. Good friends, good food, almost no driving, and beautiful places to hang out. What could be better? 

That's all I have tonight. Hope those of you reading on the eastern seaboard are prepared for whatever ends up coming your way. Stay safe. We're hoping to get to western PA before the storm really arrives and then stay put through the worst of the driving conditions. I'll keep you posted unless all of PA loses power!

Getting Closer To St Louis

So, of course, part of me is excited about living in Pennsylvania, near my folks and other family, a lot of old friends both from high school, college, general life, and Ashokan, and near the big, wicked city that I do love (in moderate doses). But another part of me is sad to have left Crescent City friends and California family. While talking with a Crescent City friend today, I realized that I'm dealing with this by not thinking as much as I should about house-hunting in Pennsylvania and other details that indicate the permanency of this sojourn across the country. Right now, I can close my mind and think of this as a really great vacation. After all, we stopped at a Lewis and Clarke interpretation site this morning and we're staying in a cool old hotel on the Missouri River tonight.

And tomorrow, we'll arrive in St Louis where we can show Darcy our old house and school and favorite places. That is the most vacation-y part of the trip, and we will stop driving east for 48 hours of old friends in our old city. With any luck, the time with old friends will remind me that leaving  a place with great people doesn't mean that the great people leave your life. It just means that they're a little further away.

There's an anthropological term for people who aren't biologically related to you, but play the role of family in your life: fictive kin. I have gathered fictive kin wherever I've gone in my life and it makes for a richer, more meaningful existence. And just as my uncle isn't any less my uncle if he's on the other side of the country, neither do the ties of fictive kinship lessen with distance. 

It's a good thing to keep in mind during transitions.

Arches!

We crossed another time zone today. We have been out of our house for eight nights. Driving 350-400 miles a day since then. We're tired. And so, I am especially grateful for the amazing natural beauty of Arches National Park, which needs no captioning:

Hickison Petroglyphs

As mentioned yesterday, one of our stretch breaks along the "Loneliest Highway in America" was at the Hickison Petroglyph site. I had read about it as one of the few possible stops during that drive and it couldn't have come at a better time. We were all ready to get out of the car. There were beautiful views and beautiful lichen (if you didn't already know, I'm a huge fan of lichen and I know I've posted lichen pictures on this blog before, but I can't find them):

In this picture, as you can see, I've combined the view and the lichen...clever, huh?

If I was more ambitious, I'd get the pictures from today off the camera and show you all the mind-blowingly beautiful scenery in and around Arches National Park. But my child is asleep, my husband is well on his way to asleep, and I'd like to get there, too. Tonight, we are all sleeping in Denver, after a lovely visit with our friend Gretel for dinner. Last time we saw Gretel, she had her lovely dog Tule with her and they got a mention in this blog post about Darcy and animals (Gretel, there is a picture of Tule).

Tomorrow, we drive the rest of the way across Colorado and much of the way across Nebraska. It's been a lot of driving and I have to say that I am looking forward to TWO NIGHTS in the same place. Two more long days and one very short day of driving left until we hit St Louis and stay put for 48 hours!

Moab!

We made it safely to Moab while it was still light yesterday, but the internet was so slow last night that I skipped posting. This is a cheat: I am post-blogging for yesterday.

Top photo: Darcy and Salmon with the kokanee at the stream bank viewing windows. Most of the kokanee in this stretch of stream were spawned out and dead, unfortunately, but we saw plenty of live ones in the stream. Bottom photo: Darcy and Michael on top of the scenic viewpoint at Hickison Petroglyphs off Route 50, the loneliest road in America.

Honeymoon Nostalgia

Here's the thing: We're driving across the country. Our stuff is in a million different bags. We try to stay organized, but the emphasis is definitely on the TRY. So I managed to bring the card reader for the camera but not the cable in from the car. In other words, no NEW photos tonight. Lucky for you, today was in part about a little nostalgia visit to Lake Tahoe, where Michael and I went for our honeymoon almost exactly seven years ago and I had Michael put a couple pics of that on the desktop for me a couple days ago.

As a theme for our honeymoon photos, we took the salmon Michael gave me from Katmai with us and posed him in many pictures. The same salmon came with us this time and recreated a number of them, but due to the lack of cable, you only get to see the originals:

This is the time of year that the kokanee salmon (miniature sockeyes descended from sockeye introduced to Lake Tahoe in the 1940s) spawn in Taylor Creek. The forest service has a great streambed viewing area, but today, we had much better views of the kokanee from above than below.

From Lake Tahoe, we drove the "Loneliest Highway in America" (Route 50) almost all the way across Nevada. We're in Ely, NV, for the night, with Great Basin National Park on tap for a morning visit, followed by a drive to Moab, UT, the base for visiting Arches National Park. Saw lots of great stuff today -- so sorry I can't share the photos!

Michael's Day

The shortest route between Crescent City and Pennsylvania goes through southern Oregon to meet up with Interstate 80 at Winnemucca, NV. That is not the way we are going because Michael has some issues with leaving California without seeing the Sierra Nevada mountains (I know there's some redundancy in that phrase; just want to be clear). So we dipped south along I-5 and then across to Lake Tahoe where the granite peaks are naked and the air is crisp and scented by Ponderosa pines.

To make the day truly Michael's, we stopped in Chico to visit the Sierra Nevada Taproom so Michael could inhale the smell of cooking grains, try several different beers, and we could all eat a delicious, but crazy-big meal. He peered through windows into rooms full of hops, saw lots of copper kettles and pipes, and bought a couple new beer glasses. You'd think I didn't just give him a new pint glass a few weeks ago.

Unfortunately, we arrived in Lake Tahoe too late to do much except enjoy the heated pool, eat some leftovers for dinner, and hop into bed. But we have big plans for tomorrow. Darcy thinks it's hilarious that we can walk to Nevada, so we'll do that. Then we have big plans to see the kokanee salmon before heading out after lunch.

No photos tonight -- sorry about that! I could have given you a picture of the perfectly-poured pint of beer Michael enjoyed at lunch, but I decided not to.

Darcy Jo Love

Our girl is an amazing person. We are her parents, so we would believe that no matter what. One of the things that has constantly amazed and touched me deeply is that so many other people believe that, too, and are quick to tell us and show her. She is truly loved by a measurable percentage of Crescent City's population. I say this not to brag about my girl (although I'm not adverse to doing so). I say this because I am overwhelmed by the outpouring of love showered on our Darcy Jo in the past weeks.

Michael said lovely words at our last dinner with friends on Thursday night. He claimed that he understands why people want to be friends with me, but is often surprised that people are genuinely and equally fond of him and his company. I think both of us could say that about Darcy. I sometimes think that our family is welcomed into society because everyone loves Darcy. We are merely her transportation staff.

Darcy's last day of school just confirms this view for me. After a wonderful evening with a dozen or so close friends and a night spent in the home of the ever-generous, gracious, and much-beloved Leonard-Rhodes clan (our house was empty), Darcy did early-morning yoga with our hostess and we all ate huckleberry pancakes (one last gift from our garden/yard). Then off to school, somewhat coincidentally in the same outfit that started this school year:

Her teachers and class showered her with gifts (which I have to find proper stowage for in the trunk this morning) and hugs. Our good friends at Vita Cucina shared their own daughter's birthday glory by providing cupcakes to the whole Cohort A that were for both B's birthday and Darcy's departure. More gifts followed from her after-school contingent, who has posed for a group picture earlier in the week that was framed and gifted yesterday.

Darcy's fans (well, one fan anyway) even met us at the school when we went to pick her up to be sure he could say a proper good-bye:

We have extended our fictive-kin family while in Crescent City: there is no doubt about that. Darcy will forever have extra honorary aunts, uncles, and siblings on the North Coast.

One of her friends went the extra mile, however. The beautiful elder Miss W was sporting a homemade shirt expressing her sentiment for the day:

And this proves my point. We all got bone-crushing hugs from Miss W. I personally got four, all of them long-lasting. But only Darcy Jo got the t-shirt.

Oh, how we will miss you, our Crescent City friends. Never doubt that. You will be welcome in our home always, no matter what national park is outside our doorstep at the time.

Step One

It's a small step, but we have said our farewells to friends and places in Crescent City. Our stuff is on a moving truck (or in our car in Oregon or our pickup in Wyoming). We are in Ashland with a zonked-out Darcy and two parents very close to joining her in dreamland.

Some highlights of the day:

Watching the truck drive away from the house

Eating a last lunch from Vita Cucina

Being surrounded by good wishes from good people

Seeing Darcy Jo showered by gifts and hugs and love from her school mates

Going to the Medford Trader Joe's on its Grand Opening: that's right -- they opened the day we are leaving

A last drive along Crescent City's beautiful coast

One more drive through the redwoods on Howland Hill Road

Almost three years ago to the day (I think we arrived on October 18th and we've left on the 19th) that we first came here, we repeated some of our first stops. It has been a tremendous three years and this place has shaped who our child will be in many ways.

Tomorrow: Lake Tahoe and the kokanee salmon!

Random Photo and MOVERS

Random picture again. This of Darcy (wearing the shiny crown in front row) receiving her Student of the Month award last year. I'm pretty sure I gave the text, but you'll have to comb through the archives yourself if you want to see what her teacher said about her.

The movers come in a little over an hour. We're close to ready, but not quite there yet. Despite their original plan to pack today and load tomorrow, the driver called last night to say that he wants to try to do both today. I am SO on board with that sentiment. I hope it happens. There are supposed to be four people coming (maybe five if the driver helps?). When we left Alaska, two people packed and loaded everything we owned in less than five hours. I think there's a good shot it will be done today.

There Is No Extra Time Left

So it's just a picture so you know that moving hasn't killed me yet. One of the legacies of our sojourn in Del Norte is a bigger network of community gardens. I even worked yesterday to improve their future before the door hits us on the way out:

Time Speeds Up

We are down to days now.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, everything that's going in our pickup has to be in it. Uniforms, bike, a few kitchen things, my gift box of spice mixes, box of files, golf clubs, gas cans, propane tank, extra Darcy comfort items, heavy winter gear...all destined to travel by Tacoma. We're handing it over to a friend who will drive it partway across the country for us because driving two vehicles 3200 miles and trying to meet up for meals, hikes, and stretch breaks just doesn't sound like fun. We'll meet up with friend, truck, and stuff somewhere near the Ohio border and drive just the last day or two separately.

Thursday morning, anything that the movers aren't packing either has to be out of the house or labeled very, very clearly as DO NOT MOVE because our experience tells us that anything not nailed down will be packed. Quickly and efficiently packed, with no time to notice that one thing we'd planned to carry with us disappearing into a box.

Friday, we will leave. We are not ambitious about that afternoon of driving. Darcy will go to school, but probably not the after-school program. The plan is to stay in Ashland, OR, just 2.5 hours away.

It's crunch time. Here are a few random pictures for you to enjoy.

 Darcy and her friend K at the end of Camp Tall Trees Girl Scout camp.

A beautiful late-June day in Del Norte. Rock slide in pouring rain at False Klamath Cove.

Darcy and T at Big Dune.

View from a fire tower near Willow Creek.

Rangers point. (At Ballard Locks.)

Library envy in Eugene, OR, after a successful banh mi hunt.

The Cake

Several months ago, Darcy mentioned that she wanted her birthday cake to look like a sea star. I figured that should be doable. I had thought about farming out the task to our local fabulous cake-maker, but she was unavailable, so I went in search of a star-shaped pan. That didn't work out. Nobody wanted to sell me one and I couldn't find anyone who owned one to lend out. I did find a silicon pan that makes six small star-shaped cakes. So I decided that the plan had to become a tide pool seascape.

Let me digress for a moment. There is a blog called Cake Wrecks that pokes fun at professionally-made cakes for various crimes. Like terrible mis-spellings or bizarre themes ("Sorry I peed in your bed" anyone?). Some of the cakes are very seriously disturbing, so if you like cake and don't want to have to bleach your eyeballs in order to enjoy your next piece, just take my word for it and skip the blog.

In between having all the elements for my cake complete, but before starting to put them together, a friend happened to post a link to a Cake Wrecks post. Suddenly, I had some fear that I was about to create a Cake Wreck. While the cake didn't turn out exactly how I'd pictured it, it was not a wreck.

Here's the main cake. It's a brownie cake with blue water frosting and an ochre sea star gracing the top. I should have taken a picture once the candles went in. About five or six months ago, we saw some really cool shark candles at a toy store. Hoping that Darcy's obsession with the sea would last this long, we slid some onto the counter while she wasn't watching. Surprisingly enough, the small ones mostly asked for pieces from the other cake:

Again, the cakes are brownies frosted with cream cheese frosting and the "sand" was three kinds of crushed cookies to get the mix of colors and textures just right. One of the party guests came back for seconds of sand, so I think it was a hit.

In Which I Hold An OCTOPUS!!

Yes. You read that right. I held an itty-bitty, adorable OCTOPUS:

I've been watching the tides for the last couple weeks, hoping for a good opportunity for one last round of tide pooling before we leave our gorgeous North Coast. Today, there was a minus tide (meaning that the low tide is below the average low water line) at a reasonable hour (5:35 pm). Often, minus tides are at unreasonable hours like three in the morning. I love to stalk the tide pool creatures, but not by flashlight in the middle of the night. It seems rude.

So we went. Darcy left a birthday party before it was over and we arrived at Point St. George about an hour before the full low and started seeing sea stars and giant green anemones almost immediately. We were already having a good time when I saw something shiny move in some gravelly sand just in front of me. I stooped to get a closer look and saw that it was an OCTOPUS. I'm just a little excited about this. I got to hold an OCTOPUS.

I put my finger near it and it grabbed right on. We had a ziplock bag with us to watch things close up, so we got some water and put the octopus in it for a minute or two before returning it to a tide pool. Once it let go of the bag and swam off, we could see the puffs of sand from the water it shoots out to propel itself. It was unbelievably adorable. Since we didn't get a great picture, here's a picture of what I think I held, a baby Giant Pacific Octopus.

When John and Stef visiting us a little while ago (read about their North Coast adventures here), Darcy convinced them to try going tide pooling even though it was almost high tide. They played along and didn't get to see much. Here are some pictures of what they should have gotten to see:

Top photo has ochre stars and giant green anemones, among other things, on an isolated rock and pool teeming with life. The bottom photo is a rock half-covered with aggregating anemones. They're closed up and a bit sand-covered, but amazing. Here's another view:

The shore birds were in abundance, too. We saw gulls, some small plovers, pelicans, oyster catchers, and another that we haven't positively identified yet. It was wonderful. Here's Darcy with the leather sea star (she learned at marine camp that if you sniff their underside, it smells like garlic, so she always checks them out):

And then another isolated rock. We had a wonderful time. Beautiful low tide, wonderful creatures, a good view of Point St. George lighthouse, and, because it can't be said enough, I held an octopus.

Oops! It Was A Busy (And Long) Day

As I was falling asleep around 1 am last night/this morning, I thought, "Aargh! I didn't bl...zzzzzz." I was tired. By 8 o'clock yesterday morning, I already had a cake in the oven, beans cooking on the stove, birthday goodie bags had their last items added, and Darcy had had breakfast. The rest of the day was about like that. I made a seascape cake (pictures to follow in today's real blog post), finished the beans, fried tofu, made a pan of enchiladas for the end-of-soccer-season party, went to the farmers market, cleaned out all glass-enclosed foods from our cupboards as grown up party favors, and washed a lot of dishes.

It was all worth it. We had a wonderful five-hour early birthday party for Darcy/good-bye party with friends. The children bounced themselves silly, there was Glee karaoke, cake, lots of food, lots of laughter, very thoughtful gifts, and so much more.

And then, I headed north to hear a friend's band playing. I had a not-so-great drink, chatted with a LOT of friends, and then drove home at midnight through thick fog. That wasn't so fun. A long, long day, but worth every minute.

Darcy Says Farewell To Aquariums (Aquaria?)

Darcy had a day off school today and we took advantage of the only free weekday she has left on the North Coast. After a few about-town errands, we headed south for one more visit to HSU's Marine Lab in Trinidad. This is where Darcy did her week of ocean day camp this summer. The weather wasn't wonderful, but we had a good time seeing all her old friends, including Elvira the wolf eel, and walking out to see Trinidad beach.

Then we headed to Arcata. Darcy started acting very strangely at lunch and I eventually realized that she must have a loose tooth, based on the fact that she was trying to take bites out of a bagel with her molars. She wouldn't let me see her face and there were tears, so our trip to Arcata ended up being very basic. Lunch at Los Bagels; ice cream at Arcata Scoop (where Darcy had my normal favorite, lemon poppyseed, and I had an utterly delicious, new-to-me flavor, vanilla almond rose); and a trip to a kitchen store for a few cake-making supplies. On the way home, Darcy fell asleep. Her sleep-breathing always makes ME sleepy, so I stopped in the Big Tree parking lot and snoozed for 20 minutes myself. Very nice.

We stopped at Michael's office to bring him to his truck. While visiting with Nate, Darcy put her hand up to her mouth, spit something out, and handed me a tooth. Second lost tooth -- there's a real gap in that lower jaw.

After a few more in-town errands, we headed to Ocean World, our local aquarium. A few weeks ago, Darcy started making a mental list of things we need to do before we leave. The first two things that made the list: eat at Good Harvest and go to Ocean World. We took care of the first one earlier in the week and Ocean World was on the afternoon agenda thanks to an inside tip from our friend Kyle, who gets mad props for his role in this story.

Ocean World is a lovely, but small, aquarium and we've been many (MANY) times. Darcy has probably been at least a dozen times, probably closer to 20. It doesn't totally lose its thrill because Cora, their young sea lion, almost always knows new tricks and it's been fun seeing her grow up. She's four now and we saw her for the first time very shortly after we moved here three years ago. But I thought it might be nice if there was something more to this visit and Kyle had mentioned that he works there in the summer. I asked him if they ever offer a behind the scenes tour. The answer was no, but he said that a few days a week, they feed the critters after the last tour and will let people stay for that.

And so we found ourselves joining the 4:30ish tour at Ocean World. We stopped by the tide pool petting area; saw the sharks, fish, and rays; pet the sharks; and went outside to see the seals and sea lion perform:

And when Cora was done showing off her tricks, we stayed behind. Back downstairs we went, waiting to see the fish poured into the tanks and the feeding frenzy begin:

It was a perfect last visit to Ocean World. Many thanks to Kyle for the inside tip and the staff at Ocean World who made it all possible. On tap for tomorrow: last soccer game, end-of-season soccer party, and an early birthday party for Darcy. And maybe a trip to Brookings for some live music at a bar. And cake making. And other cooking.

Dinner (And Early Birthday Party Planning)

Tonight, as a belated anniversary celebration, Michael and I went to the Historic Requa Inn for dinner. We enjoyed a four course meal of mostly-local delights that included a little wild rice dumpling to start and an almond/brown butter cake with blackberry juice to finish. In between there were some beautiful beets with flash-fried fennel tops, potatoes mashed with olive oil, roasted mushrooms, and other deliciousness. Thanks to chefs Paul and Thomas for a wonderful meal!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Darcy was with a once-in-a-blue moon babysitter, Beth. We're just two days away from an early birthday party for Darcy and she is starting to fixate on it. Before we went to dinner, Darcy insisted that we put together the goodie bags. Then she made a guest list complete with symbolic codes for how likely she thought it was that each of those people would come to the party. When we got home from dinner, Beth said that Darcy had expressed some serious concerns about how her cake would get made. Perhaps I am running out of time, she worried. She also made an excellent list of how she views the party events:

Be warned, children, there are apparently two outdoor lectures as part of this party! 

Apropos of nothing, I'll end with a picture of Darcy at the Chocolate Exhibit we caught at Turtle Bay Museum in Redding a few weeks ago:

The Murals Of Crescent City

Bad blogger! Without the pressure of the actual NaBloPoMo behind me, I managed to skip yesterday's post. It was a long day and the move is so fast approaching at this point, that the stress is building a bit. But I'm trying to make up for it today with a few highlights of our beautiful murals. 

Crescent City is very lucky to have an active mural society that creates at least one new mural in town every year. (You can see more murals at that link, by the way.) Some of them are painted and others are made of tiles in a stained-glass style. It's pretty awesome, in such a small town, to have such a wealth of gorgeous murals in public spaces all over town. 

Our municipal pool has several murals. Two beautiful tile murals outside:

I love the detail in these pictures, especially the reflections of the boats in the water. Just to give you a sense of the size of these murals, here's a picture of the enormous building they grace:

Inside, the pool is also decorated with two more tile murals in the lobby and one enormous painted mural alongside the pool:

That's our beautiful lighthouse in detail. It's getting too late at night to try to stitch pictures together to give you a single view of the massive pool mural, so here it is in a few pieces:

I took all these while Darcy was taking her swimming lesson. She really loves them and is so close to passing her first level. Luckily, our pool is close to downtown, so even with only a half-hour lesson to work with, I also walked over to one of my favorite painted murals in town. The mural society occasionally does a mural-in-a-day project (which blows my mind). The artist creates the piece and (I think) sketches it on the wall before bringing in volunteers to paint under supervision to get it done in a day. This amazes me, especially when they create something like this:

This commemorates the 1964 tsunami that destroyed most of downtown Crescent City. Just above the small plaque on the right lower corner is a line that marks the high water line on this building. Just below the plaque are the painted names of the volunteers who helped create the mural.