We took I-5 the whole way home. I-5 is by far the most boring road in the country. I would know. There is nothing on that drive but farm after farm and then you get to Cowschwitz. Thousands of cows waiting to be turned into yummy steaks and hamburger. Gross. Yum. Gross. Yum. I can't decide, but am hungry.

We drove all the way to Oakland and decided to stop for dinner at my favorite Laotian restaurant (What ocean? Laotian.)Champa Garden

And then I drove home and stroked Peanut for a good long while.
Now I need to figure out what I'm going to do with my life. Wish me luck.

written by  JRadhirsch on October 7, 2008 from Oakland, United States
from the travel blog: The Great American Road Trip
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We woke up this morning on route 66. My iphone has a bug when it comes to some pictures sometimes screws them up and makes them unusable, but sometimes it does this:

Anyhoo,

We drove through the Colorado and Mojave Deserts on our way to Joshua Tree National Park. Crossing the California State line was fun. I was home, but not really. Northern, Southern and Central California really are different states in mindset, but as I learned on this trip, each state has its different areas and the lines drawn between municipalities are arbitrary. We love to draw the lines for political and monetary reasons, but the lines get really blurry psychologically. We'll fight to the death to defend them, but it seems so silly.

Joshua Tree is an alien landscape. The "trees" blur the lines between tree and plant. Joshua Trees are Yuccas. A Yucca is not a tree, but a Joshua Tree is.

In a weird bit of irony, the camp site we chose turned out to be the same site that Heather and I camped in 8 years ago while on our Honeymoon. I didn't realize it at the time, but hiking around the area suddenly brought on the type of Deja Vu that isn't imaginary. What's the significance of that do you think? I choose too see it positively. Heather and I had 12 years of joy and this was one of those joyous places. Maybe the universe wants to give me a second shot at life long happiness. So far so good.

Here's a ring shot. I couldn't get it to focus, but its at least a visual.

written by  JRadhirsch on October 6, 2008 from Twentynine Palms, United States
from the travel blog: The Great American Road Trip
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We're in love. It's true.

We shipped out of Albuquerque unclear of our destination for the day, but very clear about the destination for our lives.

I tried unsuccessfully to find a Couch Surfing host in Flagstaff, AZ, so we drove until we didn't. Catching a highway sign somewhere in New Mexico for an Ice Cave called Fire and Ice, we pulled off and drove 20 Miles down a scenic road to a family run attraction at the base of a volcano.

We drove through New Mexico, into Arizona, and passed Flagstaff to a Route 66 town called Seligman for the night in a nice motel.

written by  JRadhirsch on October 5, 2008 from Seligman, United States
from the travel blog: The Great American Road Trip
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Well, the big day was here at last. What? You didn't know there was a big day? Well, there was, but it was a secret. Two and a half years ago I met this wonderful woman who introduced herself as Sparkle Bottom. I said "I bet you are" I learned quickly that her name was also Justine Smith and she is that too. I was wearing an electric orange fun fur coat, a Fox eared hat, bright orange glasses and ice skates. She was wearing a hot pink psychedelic spandex jumpsuit and was lacing up thigh high white pvc boots. I was also on a date with someone else. We shared a few compliments and realized that we had exchanged emails on tribe.net a few weeks before about an event that I was helping organize. I excused myself as I didn't want to be rude to my date and she found that charming.
A few days later we were chatting online and soon she was on her way down to San Francisco on a regular basis to visit with me. She was just getting out of a long term relationship, graduating from UC Davis and looking forward to moving to San Francisco having reinvented herself as a responsibly hedonistic landscape architect. I helped her move into her apartment, though she wound up staying there rarely and instead slept at my apartment in Oakland, would drive with me into the city every morning and gal around town until it was time for me to drive home.
She eventually moved to Oakland, though not to my apartment and she saw very little of her Oakland apartment as well. She and I officially moved in together in October of last year and have been living an idyllic life ever since.

Justine and I share a passion for passions. She's a geek about plants and living things. I'm a geek about a rotating list of too many things to list here. We feed off of each other's fascinations on a daily basis. She laughs at my jokes no matter how old they get and I love it when she gets crafty.

I am madly in love with this woman. How is it that I have had the great fortune to have had two great loves in my life and that they loved me back with the same force and vigor? My relationship with Justine benefits from having learned valuable lessons from my relationship with Heather. I no longer need someone else to validate me(though it is nice). I no longer need to fix someone else(though I love her). She and I can walk through life as partners, side by side, sharing in each other's passions and sorrows.

About a month and a half ago I got word that my divorce was final. I picked up the phone, called my mother and got the ball rolling on asking Justine to marry me. I then called her parents to ask for their daughter's hand in marriage. They were giddy and excited. The plan that eventually developed was to have my mother and sister fly out to Albuquerque (where her parents live) under the guise that they were there for the International Balloon Fiesta, one of Justine's favorite events. While I was in New York, Sandy Mionis, a very dear friend of my mothers, somewhat of an aunt to me and a jeweler selected a handful of antique engagement rings for me to look at. It was a tough process as I wanted something simple and antique looking, but kept coming back to this deco star burst ring which was so radiant that I couldn't pass it up. Sandy had my grandmother's engagement diamond set in it 24 hours later and my mother wore it on her hand on the plane ride to New Mexico.

This morning we all got up around 5 am and dragged ourselves to a parking lot where we boarded a school bus that took us to the fairgrounds where 700 hot air balloons were rolling out and beginning to inflate with air. There is nothing quite like standing in a field with 100,000 other people all weaving their way through miles of multi colored fabric with the sun rising, teams of balloonists preparing their hundred foot tall envelopes of propane fueled air. There were balloons in various stages of ascent all morning long. Long rows of them, 30 or more side by side- some rows beginning life as flapping fabric filling up with cold air from large industrial sized fans, their baskets laying on their side, other rows billowing mounds of ever expanding kaleidoscopes of color. They crowd each other as they grow a hundred feet tall, breathing to life as plumes of fire are shot up deep inside of them until they reach that balance point of air pressure. They float off the ground slightly as the team makes final preparations and then in a cheer each one goes up and up and up, filling the sky with rainbows, castles, stars, Darth Vader helmets, advertising slogans, and cartoon characters. It's intense. For three hours they continue to fill up, lift off and then join in the grand march of hundreds of others down the canyon, getting smaller as they get further away only to be replaced with dozens of other balloons seconds later.

At the peak of the fiesta, at its most intense, I turned to Justine and said "Isn't this Amazing?" looking away at some new balloon getting ready to lift off, she replied "Yeah!" I said "I have something that will make it even more amazing" and pulled out the ring box. She looked at me somewhat puzzled, caught a glimpse of the ring as I said "Will you marry me?" Completely overwhelmed (which is her favorite thing to be,) tears welling up, she mouthed yes. We laughed and cried, our families cried and laughed all crowding into each other creating a moment of intimacy amongst a throng of sensory overload.

The rest of the Balloon fiesta was a blur, but it didn't matter. We were in love and excited for our future. I don't remember much of the rest of the day. We went for breakfast, went home, passed out, woke up later that afternoon, shared a champagne toast, eat some steak, tried to go see the night balloon event, though it was canceled due to rain, watched All of Me, and fell asleep, all giddy and ebullient.

Here, look at these pictures.

Today was a bit o the lazy side as it was more about the getting to know yous than anything else, however we did manage to get in some good local food and quality local artist shopping. When my folks and sister were here 14 years ago they developed a taste for Sopapillas, a fried sweet dough that you serve hot and fill with honey. We looked up on the iphone the best place to go and drove to Garcia's kitchen for some authenic New Mexican food.

Across the street was a wholesale Navajo artisan shop which sparkled, shined and ran away with our money. We each bought something special and played dress up yet again, only this time nearly everyone bought something to adorn themselves or others. They also had a series of Navajo dolls and I took a fancy to a series of the them called Watermelon Clowns. Here's a close up of one of the faces. the rest of the photos I took of them came out too blurry to use here. I need to do more research into the significance of them.

We leave early tomorrow morning (5am!) to catch the a shuttle over to the Balloon Fiesta. I can't wait. In more than one way ;) Some of you know why, the rest will hopefully find out tomorrow. Stay tuned. It should be exciting.

written by  JRadhirsch on October 3, 2008 from Albuquerque, United States
from the travel blog: The Great American Road Trip
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We stayed with a really awesome Couch Surfing host named Carl in his house just outside of Amarillo. Carl grew up in the pan handle of Texas and loves to take road trips like the one we are on. We did what we seem to do will every couch surfer we stay with- swap stories. He tipped us off to Palo Duro Canyon, the second largest Canyon in the US, second only to the Grand Canyon which we hit in the morning. Carl has a really sweet Pug mutt named Buddy and Justine and him got some serious bonding in.

We got to Albuquerque and were greeted by Justine's parents whom I adore and love learning from. We had dinner, petted their cat Blacky Browny and then drove to the Airport to pick up my mother and sister. The introductions went very well as assumed and then we all retired for the night.

written by  JRadhirsch on October 2, 2008 from Amarillo, United States
from the travel blog: The Great American Road Trip
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Okay, back to my trip. The one involving my car, Justine and the road.

Oklahoma City looks so so pretty goes the song Take a Trip on Route 66 and it really is a pretty city. Tired of pounds of pork laced in tangy smoky sauce and the fat stewed vegetables that accompany it, we opted instead for Sushi for lunch. In Oklahoma of all places. The trusted knowledge box found us a great place to satisfy our raw fish craving and we were well satisfied. We then took a dime tour through Oklahoma City and found their botanical garden called the crystal bridge which is an I.M. Pei designed tube shaped building that hovers over a man made river side park

After the museum we drove around Little Rock a bit looking for aplace to eat and settled on The Flying Fish, a southern fried fish place with any number of combinations of catfish, shrimps, oysters, mussels or hush puppies deep fried in cornmeal batter.

We also visited the Clinton museum store which was next door and bought a few choice items.

Hopping back in the car we drove through the state of Arkansas and stopped for the night in Ten Killer State Park just past he Oklahoma border.

Graceland Self Portrait

Elvis Lives!

Graceland is everything you would hope it would be. I'm sort of blogged out at the moment, but I'll say that it's big, gaudy, fabulous, ridiculous, sweet, sincere, and surprisingly authentic. Here are a few shots I took.

Jungle Room

Jungle Room

Blue Rainbow

Lisa Marie

PB&B

Aztec

Interstate BBQ

We hopped back in our car and sped our way towards the famous Peabody hotel in downtown Memphis.

Peabody Hotel

Peabody Hotel Duck

We got back to Matt's place and set about updating our blogs and looking for lodging for the next few days. Tomorrow we head to Oklahoma through Little Rock, Arkansas and are looking for a cabin in a state park to stay in. Following that we will be staying in Amarillo, TX and then on to Justine's parents hours in Albuquerque. The gas shortage seems to have passed and we never got close to running out. Amen. Here's a picture taken moments ago of Eva, the cat at Matt's apartment enjoying the taste of BBQ on my beard.

Eva enjoying BBQ

We took more small roads into Memphis playing Elvis songs all the way, but starting out with Paul Simon's Graceland. I actually cried as I passed signs headed for Memphis. When Heather and I drove cross country a decade ago, the one place on her list that she REALLY wanted to see was Graceland. I convinced her that it was too far out of the way and never went. Now I'm headed to the home of Elvis without her and I feel guilty about it, but really excited all the same. We met up with our couchsurfing host Matt in Memphis and even though he had only lived in town for a month, gave us a great tour.We went for ribs at Central BBQ which features a dry rub instead of a wet rub which had been the norm up until that point

Denture Ice Cubes