I think it was Gary Snyder who said (something like) the best thing you can ever do is stay in one place for a long time.

I have been thinking for a couple of years about why I like to move around so much. I’m reading 13 Moons. Here is something connected loosely to the idea of movement and change. (I will tell you that there is more to the excerpt (which I left out) that focuses on death and condemns the rift from the past some):

In the old days…little changed during your span of time birth to death. Individual people, of course, came and went, but that’s the unfortunate transitroy nature of people. The physical world surrounding you, though, remained about the same from start to finsish….The landscape was what it was throughout one’s brief life. animals the same…..Food was food. Clothes remained clothes….All that you had learned in childhood remained largely in effect lifelong. When you got old and approached death, it was not an unrecognizable world you left, for we had not yet learned to break it apart. Back then, about all that changed during your time on earth was that a few big trees had fallen and many new trees had grown in their places. Trunk diameter, really, was all that was in question.

…Does overwhelming change, the annihilation of all you know, create an intensity of memory that would not have existed otherwise? (411-412)

So lots of thoughts are on my minds. I am really into this constant traveling. Why? I do know I feel the rift each time I leave a set of friends, family, specific places? Are they sweeter for the brief interludes? Am I enjoying escaping from all of the negative energy I spend focusing on the downspiraling of the world while at home in Phoenix.

Obviouslly, I love connecting to family and friends. I love the places we go to. I love the way I calm down and open up. But at the same time I am wondering about how it feels like such a great need to keep moving…

We stayed on Keuka Lake for 7 days with Patti, Jamie, Lucas and Cody. Swimming in fresh, deep, clean water every day. I swam farther and farther; I swam the farthest I have since I was 15. We did Yoga every night, led by Jamie, with poses from the kids, on the pier.

It is the perfect life. And I have it inside.

we camped for 11 nights after leaving Kris’s Aunt Neenie’s in Freemont California

we stayed at Mendocino Lake outside of Ukiah.

We went to Russian Gulch State Park next, a walk from the beach on the Coast just North of Mendocino. When we showed up we realized we were in the shade. It was cold, so we spent time in other sites in the sun. Near the water spigot, were four flat topped poles that were great for placing dishes on after washing. There were some in our camp too; they came in handy. Behind our tent were trees branching out big time that the kids played on. The big draw here, though, was the tide pools on the beach. After one exploration, the people who had camped next to us left us a vase of wild flowers on our table. People are good on the road.

When we were at Lake Mendocino there was a big lightning storm that seemed to span this part of California. A woman we met in Mendocino said that she saw lightning balls hit the ocean and bounce off it. This was the first time she saw Ball lightning since she was a child in Florida. We went to explore a redwood grove that day and saw 3-4 fires in the hills near (in the distance) where we were.  We found out on our fifth night camping that the fires also hit Eastern California. We saw 10 or more Nevada Forestry Services fire trucks driving west. Then in the camp we stopped at there was plenty of smoke. The other campers their, lake fishers, said the smoke was hellish that day. Our emergency plan (Kris) was to leave when the fire fighters came to camp and told us to evacuate. I woke up in the middle of the night to pee…the moon was so red. Eerie. Beautiful. In the morning the skys were more clear, we could see some blue. We neglected to take a picture of this camp.

We found Angel Lake which was not on our map in the Ruby Mountains of Nevada. Wow. So beautiful. The campground host was the best we met. Cecil. An ex-ranch worker. He still had that work in his bones. And lots of stories. He knew a lot about the land around the camp too. We saw wild turkeys. He said they were brought in from New Mexico. There were several clutches started. One had about 13 turkeys which bodes well for the plan to introduce turkey hunting in the future. Those Toms, though, according to Cecil can be feisty. Keep away from their slapping wings.

We heard Cicadas in the trees. Come sunset, we hear the clicking of the aspen leaves.

We went into Salt Lake City and stayed on Antelope Island. Nothing lives in the Salt Lake accept brine flies, brine shrimp and maybe one other thing. The bugs were a plenty but did not really bother us. The reflection of the sun in the lake is one thing that will stay with me. It was such a discrete band of red, as if there was a read silk line several feet wide unfurled on the water’s surface. The salt in the air was remarkable. Or rather in my mouth. Everything seemed salty. And the wind.

This is Yellow Pines Camp in Wyoming. We we heading for a recreational area in the Medicine Bow area when we saw a sign for this place. Once again we found our selves glad we had warm clothes and appreciating a fire. There was plenty of wood fall around, but a lot of it was green. I went for a walk with Gobi across a beautiful wildflower meadow to a pond and found some older, bigger wood. When you are camping, you have few concerns on your mind: food, walk, see, tent. And you can enjoy every one. We have been doing that. All other cares drop away.

In Nebraska we stopped at a state park that was a sticks throw from the interstate. Lots of green green grass. Because another park was closed due to flooding this one was crowded. We were placed in overflow camping in a field near a pavilion of picnic tables. This place had lightning bugs and we gave an empty jar to the kids after poking holes in the metal lid for them to catch lightning bugs.

In Iowa, we stopped at a place that was off the highway. On the way there, a sign said Route 1 closed at Salon. That was the town we were turning at to get to the campground. From what I hear in Salon from a lady at a coffee shop, it seems that the campground lake, Lake Macbride, had experienced some flooding too. We almost had the campground to ourselves. This camp had a playground that the kids enjoyed night and day. The sticks were wet and the log I found was green but we cooked over a fire. As with several campgrounds I found an electric outlet (for the soda machine) to recharge out camera batteries. This campground was called Non Modern because it had no water in the bathrooms (i.e. primitive). We hear frogs, saw turtles and heard and saw jumping fish. Ah!

The last place we stayed before reaching the East Coast: a state park in Ohio.

It feels so right to be traveling, like we are always traveling but happen to stop for 10 months in Phoenix. It is like we are a part of a migration pattern, too.

Tonight I went to feed Gobi and found that in the bag of dog food we had brought for her was the scoop we used at home to take her food out. What can I tell you about the delight of finding the familiar, the connection to Phoenix life, while enjoying life on the road? It helps remove any hint of discombulation caused by constant motion.

We have traveled to visit with Jamie and Patti most of Oona’s life. I think Oona may have mastered this piece of playground equipment in the past, but she was proud to show me she could do it this time. I have taken photos of her attempting in the past. Somehow seeing her get it today linked all the past trips like they were all leading up to this one. That is part of the beauty of traveling on a migratory route, you see time accumlate in descrete bits over the years because you visit the same places but see the difference in your self or, in this case, your daughter.

The three cousins love each other. Lucas said he wished we (and especially Dilly and Hetta, I think) lived with him.

This is a pretty stress free departure for us. Kris is finishing up an art piece. I am finishing up repainting part of the trim on our house. Oona is playing at Saragrace’s. Dilly and Hetta, they are playing around the house. Yet we are leaving tomorrow.

Part of it for me is that our family and two other families went on a 3 day camping trip last weekend. We went to a place between Sedona and Flag that let the kids run free and wild and us some too.

I’m reading Richard Preston’s Wild Trees. He says, “TIme has a different quality in a forest, a different kind of flow. Time moves in circles, and events are linked, even if its not obvious that they are linked. Events in a forest occur with precision in the flow of tree time, like the motions of an endless dance” (12). Though he is talking about the interconnection of systems, I feel some of what he is saying when I watch the kids and the dogs wonder, play, explore, examine, risk, notice, enjoy. I also felt it some as I noticed the wind and wind changes and when the birds came and went.

Time is definitely more full for me when I am on the road. This trip put in the traveling mindset before we left.

It is so easy to grow your own food. Last fall, Jeff Cochran visited us and talked about how easy it would be to put a garlic row in our front yard. We dug up the ruellia and the Bermuda grass. We followed Jeff’s advice on getting a real pitchfork. We turned the soil over and over then stuck in about 100 of Jeff’s garlic cloves. Green stalks came up then things slowed down until spring. We weeded several times using the tines on the pitchfork to unroot the grass that was sprouting up. We waited until the tops dried up some and started to fall over, around May 1. Then we dug up the garlic and put it on the back porch, out of the sun, to dry up for a while.

Last night, before we left I canned the garlic. http://www.gourmetgarlicgardens.com/pickle.htm. I did not follow the directions the first time, I filled the liquid up to the top, I neglected to leave 1/2in headspace, so I had to recan the garlic. http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/foods/348-594/348-594.html “Boiling Water Bath Canning.” I am ready to grow twice as much garlic next year.

That earth, that lawn, it was always there ready to grow food. I want to grow more food.