bumble bee crown king

bell rock, sedona, az

2009-01-25T19:08:00.003-07:00

ferocious animal on red rock:

wind blown explorers:

self portrait - can't stop.

Michael and Julie:

red rocks:

herbal gurgle comes to flagstaf III

2009-01-25T18:52:00.004-07:00

curly hair.....

can't. stop. playing. dice.

a man and his dog.
amy in the snow.

red mountain. in black and white.

Re-cap: new years eve

2009-01-23T21:45:00.002-07:00

Addy can't help herself these days, she just loves to get dressed up:

Happy happy after Sharon's amazing dinner:

Sam and Julia (Addy goes in, trying to steal Julia's hat):

Sharon and Joanna, flag's #1 love birds:

re-cap: christmas in flagstaff

2009-01-23T21:37:00.005-07:00

Meghan Gilbert suits up to play in the snow:

Christmas dice games:

Princess Addy is worn out from all the festivities:

Opening presents:

And a sweet sweet breakfast:

We really are so good together

Welcome back

2009-01-19T10:35:00.001-07:00

to the new and improved bumblebeecrownking. Our 2009 resolution is to be better about showing bits and pieces from our *highly* engaging lives.

enjoy.

2009-01-19T10:29:00.002-07:00

A trip to Sedona with Kelly, Liz and Jake to escape the snow and slush of Flagstaff.

And then back into the snow to play with the dog and snowshoe our hearts out.

2009-01-19T10:14:00.000-07:00

Meghan graduated! And Ginger came to visit!

Addy decided to get festive for the occasion:

and Rose dressed up like Michigan with a mitten:

2009-01-19T09:50:00.000-07:00

A birthday hike (from back in November) down in Sedona:

Redrocks are a nice break from the snow and slush in Flagstaff......

2008-10-14T18:21:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we went on a walk with Julie, Michael and their dogs, Sometimes and Marley to Hart prairie (one of our favorite camping spots)

(this hill doesn't look that big, but it is, real real big)

(meg enjoying the view at the top of the huge hill)

(meg and julie planning the layout for our armageddon shelter)

(michael whistling a tune)

********

A few weeks ago Eric, Liz, Meg, Addy and I went up the mountain
to watch the sunset:

(that's the huge mountain that liz and i climbed - see below)

(Addy got a little cold from swimming in the pond - really she loved it)

(beautiful aspens)

*******

Yesterday Liz and decided to hike the tallest mountain in AZ, Humphrey's. It was a long day, and very chilly on top (12,633 ft), but we did it and had a great time.

(at the saddle)

(at the saddle looking up towards the 2nd tallest mountain, if only that's what we were climbing....)

(we made it to the top and huddled down to enjoy the view for a few minutes)

2008-07-27T21:40:00.001-07:00

lower 9th ward levee tour:

2008-07-27T21:29:00.000-07:00

emily and matt tie the knot in nola, and a whole lotta us have a fantastic time celebrating with them:

2008-07-27T21:10:00.000-07:00

still catching up on our trip back east.....

gigi, miriam and micah wading in the water on a hot hot day in mebane:

henry and larkin at chapman house in greensboro:
catawba falls hike outside of black mountain, nc:

alice and dudley at the miniature golf course in asheville:
amy, meg and a shaken scotty p at the cave in carrboro:

2008-06-25T19:25:00.000-07:00

Wedding Work Camp 2008:

2008-06-20T15:05:00.000-07:00

the 32nd annual softball festival/guilford reunion

dudley is crowned fashion pope for his many amazing frivolous outfits:

pete and debbie chillin':

gabe and gigi cracking themselves up:

we looked for a missing wedding ring that fell off somewhere around 1st base (it was found)...

we recovered from the night before...

we enjoyed the sun and company....

we enjoyed one of dudley's many outfit changes, frivolity at its best...

we did did funny dances and generally had a fabulous time....

2008-06-20T14:51:00.000-07:00

River Farm Reunion with the McDowells.....

2008-05-14T19:37:00.000-07:00

5:00 am this morning, someone was having a hard time getting out of bed and getting on the road....do you see her feet?
Luckily, we found a friendly T-Rex in Holbrook who was willing to babysit the sleepyhead while we got some breakfast.

We made it to Elk City Oklahoma tonight without running into any tornadoes. Tomorrow - Memphis!

2008-05-13T09:59:00.000-07:00

May 13, 2008, Flagstaff, AZ: We wake up to slushy snow falling out of the sky. It's freezing.

Tomorrow we hit the road (I40 east that is) back to the southeast for a month of weddings, festivities, reunions, and nice cold beverages. Boy are we ready for some warmer weather and southern hospitality.

Hope everyone is enjoying more typical spring weather....

2008-03-18T14:30:00.000-07:00

The 'ol bachelor party in the outer banks of north carolina: variations on the theme drinking, fishing, physical abuse, or as Neil so eloquently put it: "Its my fucking party!"

I basically loved every minute of it. A common question: how was it being the only girl? My general response has been "well, we drank, played football and basketball, ate lots of meat, broke things, discussed burning down some beach houses, and passed out." Perhaps I am not the best girl to answer the question, or maybe I mean my party would have looked awfully similar...

2008-03-03T20:52:00.000-07:00

this saturday spring teased us a bit on gen's birthday. we celebrated with mimosas and a game or two of washers in the street in front of our house.

2008-03-03T20:51:00.000-07:00

sugaree has a new vantage point

2008-03-03T20:45:00.000-07:00

more photos from the herbalgurgle visit - some pool on a snowy friday in flagstaff and a desert hike next to a muddy creek....

2008-02-22T17:18:00.000-07:00

theherbalgurggle meets bumblebeecrownking
in the snow storm that is flagstaff...

2008-01-07T15:30:00.000-07:00

2nd big snow storm of the year came this weekend and we decided to try out snow shoeing...it involved putting our special snow outfits on, piling 8 people + 2 dogs into a vw van and heading out up the mountain. it was great fun tromping through the deep deep snow. addy's ears got cold, but luckily she had her sweet fleece to keep the rest of her warm.

2008-01-07T15:23:00.000-07:00

new years long weekend - my long lost best friend from 7th & 8th grade came to visit. we went on a freezing walk in sedona and played 32,000 hands of rummy 500. it was a good time.

2007-12-27T20:48:00.000-07:00

River Farm Weekend:
~ lots of good walking and finding trees to climb over and under
~ exploring the barn and finding a deer left over from a viking party
~ Frankie took us to a sink hole where a creek pops up in the middle of nowhere (it goes underground a couple of miles away
and goes under a ridge and a river before it comes back to the surface)
~ Casper found another tree to climb into
~ more walking along the river and searching for treasures
~ we found a treasure of an old car in the woods and the boys had to pose by it
Our weekend at the farm also included lots of sitting by the woodstove and making and eating delicious food with good friends - I can't wait to go back....

2007-12-10T18:17:00.000-07:00

our weekend started with a friday evening neighborhood gathering at the our house - complete with the paper bag game and a stellar dance party and progressed into a cozy weekend of snow (it's still snowing now) with lots of fires in the woodstove and cuddling on the couch with addy and her bff sugaree.

i must say, this north carolina girl is currently loving wintertime. we'll see how i feel about it come march....

2007-11-25T20:54:00.000-07:00

nc time:
got to meet casper - my parents' new dog
flew into bright bright leaves
granddaddy sweet talked us into planting 2000 onion plants in the snow
moose stew at the family reunion
hikes in the woods
visiting with wonderful friends
overall a fabulous thanksgiving....

2007-11-25T20:46:00.000-07:00

back tracking a bit: november 7th
meg turned 25
presents were opened
chocolate pudding pie was eaten
apples to apples was played
and way too much fun was had with the camera....

2007-11-04T20:50:00.000-07:00

November weather in Flagstaff has been lovely lately...warm days with blue skies that are perfect for tossing the nerf with julia in the street. and evenings cool enough for a fire in the wood stove...

2007-10-28T16:29:00.000-07:00

to celebrate getting the staples out - addy's had a sweet weekend. yesterday she and her friend fly went to a halloween party at the bark park.

and today she got to go swimming at the pond....

2007-10-22T20:21:00.000-07:00

Laceration repair = $85.00
IV Catheter fluids with surgery = $40.12
Lampshade collar = $11.40
A whole lot of other medications and procedures = $315.00

Getting a dirty look from one wrinkled dog = priceless

2007-10-15T19:48:00.000-07:00

it's the time of year when you want to just curl up in all of the puddles of sun that you can find, especially with your best friend on your favorite red blanket.

2007-10-07T09:25:00.000-07:00

Tour de fat 2006:
8,000 folks in Wheeler Park, drinking
187 kegs of fat tire beer in 6 hours....

2007 looked like it was going to beat all of 2006's records.
the bike ride around town with costumes and music was the best part.

2007-10-01T20:22:00.000-07:00

Fall has come to Flagstaff and we are trying to take advantage of the warm days that our left. The following pictures are: One of Meg, Ada Mae and my favorite walks up on the mesa (where on another day Addy decided to chase a deer for 45 minutes...) And then a couple of pics from a hike that Liz, Gen and I did a couple of weekends ago. We hiked up to 9600 ft. and apparently the higher altitudes gave me a lazy/sleepy eye....

2007-09-16T19:07:00.001-07:00

Monsoon season was officially over on the 13th, but that didn't stop the amazing rains we've been getting this afternoon. As I was driving home from working at La Joya Festival this afternoon, I saw a rainbow that went over all of downtown - pretty amazing. The rain slacked off for a bit right before it got dark and I went on a walk around the block and took some photos of the beginning of fall. Only a few of the trees in our neighborhood are starting to change to yellow - but they look amazing in that gold thunderstorm light. As I write this, it's pouring again, big thunder booms and all. I am soaking it up, hoping I will remember what puddles smell like during the dry months...

2007-09-16T18:49:00.000-07:00

415 West Dale Avenue is now complete. All household members (and regular visitors) accounted for. Gen and Liz have arrived and are settling in, madly looking for employment and testing the beers at Flagstaff's brew pubs. We continue to love the urban trail that runs right by our house. Ada Mae is especially fond of the pond (and the ducks that live on it) that's a 2 minute walk north of us. We've been taking advantage of the late summer weather and spending lots of time on our back porch. If Gen doesn't find a real job soon, she may open a salon out back to earn some cash.
Another frequent household member is Sugaree, Ada Mae's new best friend and neighbor. Shug (as she is affectionately called) is a sweet 6 month old pup who has a nasty case of mange mites (don't worry, they aren't contagious) which causes her fur to fall out and gives her the look of a wise old man dog.

As always, visitors are welcome and encouraged.

2007-08-11T13:01:00.000-07:00

there are now three dogs living in our communal backyard. ada mae is the "big sister" to sugaree (not pictured) and mancha (pictured biting ada mae's jowls). they are a happy little pack of funny looking spotted animals.

2007-08-11T12:55:00.000-07:00

more hiking photos...tucker and i climbed up kendrick mountain on the last saturday he was here. we saw some beautiful flowers and one teeny tiny lizard (about the size of my thumb nail).

2007-08-10T15:21:00.000-07:00

and then we came back from vermont and my little brother and gen and eric arrived. and we went on a hike, enjoying arizona in all her green-monsoon season glory.

2007-08-09T07:11:00.000-07:00

we went to vermont to soak up good family, good friends, humidity, swimming holes and bonfires...

2007-07-01T15:48:00.000-07:00

So, it's been awhile.
We moved.
Addy turned one.
Rose turned twenty six.
Genna came to vist.
And somewhere in there the camera broke (it saves pictures in aproximately 4x6 pixels - hence the crappy looking pictures)

2007-05-21T07:37:00.000-07:00

looking for water in arizona...finding rivers, yellow columbines, and thrift store skirts....

2007-05-16T21:27:00.000-07:00

Ginger is visiting - a good excuse to really go out and explore where we live. On Sunday we went to Hart Prarie (our new favorite spot), the dogs swam in a cow pond, we ate lunch in the Aspen grove - and then it was nap time.

A good day.

2007-05-11T07:21:00.000-07:00

ada mae still thinks she is a very small dog.

2007-05-11T07:16:00.000-07:00

enjoying the spring weather out at hart praire -
sophie helps build a fire,
aspen grove,
aspen grove in the sky,
kelsey and sophie take a walk..

2007-05-02T10:51:00.000-07:00

god send easter

and we will lace the
jungle on
and step out
brilliant as birds
against the concrete country
feathers waving as we
dance towards jesus
sun reflecting mango
and apple as we
glory in our skin.

-lucille clifton

loving these words and the feeling they evoke these days.
hope springtime is treating you all well in your respective corners of the world.

2007-04-29T14:57:00.000-07:00

We've been spending some quality time with one of our favorite neighbors lately - Sophie, the smartest 2 year old around. One night she and Meg and Addy were enjoying some quality book reading on the bed...

The weather in Flagstaff has been all over the place - blazing hot one minute and then back to snowing. Above are a couple of pics of Meg and I are we got caught walking/running home with snow blowing up our noses (on two separate occasions). Luckily for us, springtime seems to have actually settled in for good these days and we are enjoying the clear skies and warm sun.

complete with dinorsaurs...

2007-04-29T14:22:00.000-07:00

Visitors from Boulder....

Amy and Neil came to visit a few weeks ago and we had a fabulous time:

* sitting in the front yard listening to the best radio station ever while keeping our eyes peeled for any wild fires in the neighborhood (one afternoon we looked up to see a fence in our next door neighbor's yard on fire, with flames reaching at least 8 feet in the air. luckily the neighbors were home and had access to a hose and they put it out, but not before we called the fire department and got fully involved in the situation).

* walking the dogs.

* going to see the big ditch.

* and watching a red sox game on easter at a local bar.

*

2007-04-22T14:56:00.000-07:00

so, um, yeah - i got a new computer.

so far i don't know anything about it.
except that it has this super amazing photo booth program that offers endless hours of
entertainment,
procrastination,
and way too many self protraits.

get ready people.
this is only the beginning.
really.
i think this is the beginning of a major addiction.

2007-03-25T15:30:00.000-07:00

On Saturday the 24th, we dove into the Flagstaff activist scene, and attended an anti-war protest to mark the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq.

I have included some pictures of notable signs and faces.

Overall, it was good to have the opportunity to express a collective voice against the occupation, but we only marched around the block once - so it felt hard to gain momentum. In fact, it felt kind of silly cause the "march" lasted ten minutes, but I guess we Americans, at least my generation anyways, are still learning how to use our voice, you know - practice that thing called democracy. So while I hope there is no "next time," if there is, maybe we'll go around the block twice...

By the way: it is "national frozen food month." Just in case you harbored any doubts about our flourishing culture, rest assured - those in power are really thinking.

2007-03-24T15:19:00.000-07:00

This might be the most amazing place I have ever been in my life. It's a slot canyon outside of Page, AZ in the middle of the desert. When it rains 20 miles away this can flood and fill the whole thing up.

It was kinda like being inside a Georgia O'Keefe painting...

blurry meg in wonder....

2007-03-24T15:10:00.000-07:00

driving north - out of the mountains and into the dry lands....

Dudley exploring a culvert.

Dudley exploring the little Colorado River Canyon.
(can you see him?)

Dudley with a concrete bucket at the Lake Powell Dam.

2007-03-24T15:01:00.000-07:00

So we've been a bit on the slack side of things in blog land. sorry. Last month we took a trip to visit our dear friends Amy and Neil in Boulder, CO. Somehow the only pic that we seem to have is of Meg and Neil playing some sort of highly challenging card game. Apparently when you haven't seen each other in a year, it doesn't take much to be entertained....

Ada Mae and Fisher = true love

2007-01-13T11:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday and last night we got our first real snow storm of the year (7 inches so far...). This morning we woke up to icicles hanging from the roof...

...and icicles in our bedroom! (which addy later ate).

The dogs and I romping in the snow. (Meghan says she has already spent 90% of her life in the snow and has no desire to partake).

Looking down our street...

2007-01-13T11:38:00.000-07:00

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Flagstaff. (all we do here is drink mimosas and smoke candy cigarettes).

Our lovely little tree.

Christmas morning we took the dogs on a hike to a canyon outside of town. It was pretty icy once we got down into the canyon and we almost slid to our deaths (sorta) several times.

Rose has gone to the bathroom and I have taken over the blog - the rocks in this picture are crazy. It looked like a dinosaur had laid a bunch of eggs all over the side of the hill. This is also a view of the canyon we hiked down into and a popular climbing spot for Flagstaffers (?).

Fisher and Ada mae blazing the canyon trail.

2007-01-13T11:17:00.001-07:00

This is my family. I will not comment on whether we are happier then we look.

Kelly(8) in the front
Will(19), Jack(13), Scott(21).

Christmas is still fun because Kelly still believes - it gets the rest of us out of bed anyways.

Jack receiving a gigantic container of M&M's, Kelly's pink horse that found its way into practically every picture I took.

2007-01-13T11:04:00.000-07:00

We went back to North Carolina for Thanksgiving with the Wilson family in Black Mountain - even though it was late winter, everything seemed so green....

A bunch of us went with Granddaddy to visit the community garden where he spends much of his time year round.

Here he shows Uncle Peter, Lauren, Emily and Ruby how the hoop beds keep the greens warm through the winter.

More hoop bed greens....

A weeding demonstration...

And then we went and climbed Look Out Mtn.

2006-12-16T19:35:00.000-07:00

(ada mae and i walking by an arizona "lake" (aka mud puddle).

16.december.2006

it’s saturday evening and it’s fixin’ to snow. the sky is heavy with anticipation: white and low.

it’s just me and dogs tonight. meg is in vermont and kari and loren are on their way home from florida. the pups are all cuddled into one oddly shaped fur continent – happy and sleepy after a long walk and dinner. i have holiday cards scattered around me, rubber cement and red paper warming up this living room. i cleaned my little home-centered-cancer heart out today and i am basking in the fruits of it – no fisher hair on the couches, i mopped the muddy paw prints off the kitchen floor, i even gave little ada mae a bath - she is all fresh and dewy, curled up between the old boy dogs.

tonight is the first night that i’ve been alone in awhile. and being alone in this concrete block house feels like home. that’s nice. real nice. i feel proud of this cozy content feeling that is surrounding me. we moved out here to arizona at the end of july and it’s already 6 days ‘til winter. i can’t believe that i’ve survived this long on this thin dry air. i haven’t stopped feeling breathless when i look up at the mountains though….they truly are holy. even if everything crumbled around us out here (which it hasn't) – i would be grateful for the chance to live at the feet of the san francisco peaks.

yesterday i spent my day down in phoenix – a desert city. 5 million people aren’t supposed to live in the middle of sand and cacti. (what are they drinking?) as we drove down into the thick of it at 6 in the morning, we could see the dirty weight of the smog over the valley – it’s been a high pollution week – the elderly and the young aren’t supposed to spend too much time outside. driving through the exhaust on the freeways, all my muscles turned into knotted ropes of nervous – there is no southern hospitality on these highways. we got to see a fiery sunrise on the way down though - it looked like the rocks were on fire.

on my way home, after dropping meg of at the airport, i saw 12 shooting stars. the stars out here are so bright, so deep, it’s distracting. i kept seeing skid marks veering off the road and i couldn’t help but think they probably wrecked because of the stars. i felt like i would - if i even tired to glance at the dark night sky full of it’s milky way. so i just followed the yellow line home from the 1,000 foot valley floor to the 7,000 foot mountain highlands.

and now the dogs and i are in hibernation mode. tomorrow we will play in the snow (if it comes) and i will cook soup and bake bread.

lots of love and warm blankets.

rose

2006-12-11T18:33:00.000-07:00

More Canyon photos. In my defense the sun was shining in my face.

2006-12-11T18:24:00.000-07:00

On Friday, Rose, Gen, Gen's co-worker Joy, Jasmine, and I went to the Grand Canyon. Mostly, we all imagined what it would have been like to stumble upon the canyon back in the day; before the National Geographic IMAX theatre and the Grand Canyon "village." We also talked a lot about mortality, vertigo, and how you could just jump off into the depths...

2006-11-08T19:23:00.000-07:00

Loving my evenings with the dogs....

On most evenings when I get home from work I am greated by a mass of tail wagging furry joy. Fisher and Darwin have been a wonderful welcoming committee since we arrived in Flagstaff. They are our buddies. They love us and they are happy when we get home. And this makes a big difference when you are brand-spankin' new in a place. On nights when Meg has class, I would take the boys on a run on the trails behind our neighborhood, climbing over and under fences and racing each other through fields of sunflowers (I know this sounds
ridiculous, but there really were fields of sundflowers until it got cold...). On nights when Meg didn't have class, all four of us would go on walks on the trails. A good way to end a day spent in an office or writing papers.

And now we have the puppy and her sweet wrinkled eyes. Our walk schedule has shifted a bit. I get up early so I have time to take her on a walk before I go to work and if no one else is at home, I come home for lunch to take Addy on another walk. Tonight when I got home, all three of the dogs were ready to go, so I tried the 3 dog walk.... It was comical. We were a mass of tangled leashes trying to make our way down the street. Coordinating pit stops was impossible. When we passed another dog who wanted to be friends, I thought someone might get strangled, but we all made it to the woods in our respective pieces. I let the older dogs off their leashes so they could run and wear themselves out a bit. The sun was going down and the horizon was bright red through the Ponderosa Pines. Amazing. We all ran home in the dark and arrived happy and panting. Now all 3 pooches are asleep at my feet. This is a good life.

2006-11-04T12:56:00.000-07:00

AdaMae/Atlas

Last week we drove up to the ski mtn to watch the sunset...

rose bundled up with the sunset....

more puppy shots....

fisher was a butterfly for halloween.
very dignified.

2006-11-04T12:22:00.000-07:00

these pictures are somewhat backwards....
meg and i at the top of the mountain/hill we climbed.

fisher, very worn out, after the climb to the top.

woods outside of Flagstaff on our way to hike up a mountain....

where is the lizard?

rose regulating the wild west.

view on our hike up the mountain...

rose and fisher walking up the mountain (hill).

2006-11-04T11:52:00.000-07:00

It's Saturday morning and Loren (roommate) and I and the dogs are pooching in the living room listening to npr. I was looking back at what we've put up on the blog so far and realizing that we don't have any pictures of our house up...so here are some from our living room and kitchen. We're hoping to paint sometime soon and brighten up the white walls a bit, maybe when Meg, the painter of the house, is on winter break from school....

The big news in our lives is that we have a new puppy! Last weekend we visited the shelther and fell in love with a little pup who was found on
the rez with her sister. She is the funniest looking dog I've ever seen. Supposedly she is a
great dane/shar-pei mix. She has the ears and long legs of a great dane and a couple of shar-pei wrinkles thrown in for good measure, but most folks seem to think she looks like a hyena/dingo/egyptian dog. She is a sweet heart though, a regular cuddle bucket. Fisher and Darwin aren't quite sure how they feel about her yet though, especially Fisher, who at 97 lbs, still considers himself the baby of the household. We got them all kong bones today though to try to disapate the canine jealousy.... We'll try to get pictures of little Atlas/Ada Mae = "Addy" up in the next couple of days.

My work has been keeping me pretty busy the past few weeks. We put on a conference for our child care providers in Navajo and Apache Counties and have been doing outreach presentations all over northern Arizona. Last week I rented a mini-van and checked out a bunch of books-on-tape from the library and procceeded to drive about 1,400 miles throughout the week. It's a lot of driving, but pretty amazing to get out and about and explore small towns around Flagstaff. Once you get out of the mountains, down to 4,000 feet, it's mostly flat scrub-land, not quite desert, but full of sage brush and bone-dry creek beds. I've seen quite
a few cayotes, a bunch of deer, and a handfull of flattened snakes on the road. It's stark. It's empty. It's big sky. It's beautiful and a lonely sort of way. It almost gives me vertigo, or almost an opposite of clastrophobia, compared to the closeness of the big San Francisco peaks around Flagstaff.

2006-10-25T17:38:00.000-07:00

these photos are from a hike i (rose) took on labor day. it was only about 3 miles to the top, but it took me 2 hours and i felt like i was going to fall off the mountain. i was (and am) still getting used to the altitude and it was a 2,800 ft climb. cold and windy on the top.

lots of pretty flowers

this is a random picture of fisher (on the left) and darwin out in our front yard with all the house plants.

the view from almost at the top, when the scrub switched to aspens.

2006-08-26T22:21:00.000-07:00

Liberally, this our backyard. If you walk three block east from our house you happen upon part of the urban trail system in Flagstaff.
There are trails all over the city. We had a great walk on Saturday afternoon. Can you think of three reasons not to visit?

It is sad when trees die, but they are so beautiful in their past age.

2006-08-26T22:12:00.000-07:00

In no particular order- these are pictures from the highway, Sedona, below where the fires were, a river we visited, and the sunset from ole interstate 40 just yesterday. It is beautiful here. Right now Rose is making a collage, Kari fell asleep on the couch, and I feel so content.

2006-08-26T22:08:00.000-07:00

When you have no friends you must be creative. We decide to play cards with hats and dark glasses. I wish a great story came out of this but it didn't. Rose won. She is very good at Rummy.

2006-08-26T22:00:00.000-07:00

DOGS! Darwin is the Cattledog and brains of the operation. Fisher is part lab/St. Bernard. I love Fisher. He is big, hairy, and hungry. In the picture above, Fisher eventually pushed Darwin off the entire backseat- he was left to curl up on the floor behind Rose's seat.

This is me and the boys hanging out front of our house.

2006-08-14T10:40:00.000-07:00

There were these two crows that guarded the entry way to a path where one could explore the petrified wood. You could reach down and grab a handful of shattered pieces of wood, and small crystal like pieces. I wanted to stuff them into my pocket to fufill a childhood pursuit- I used to take a hammer out into my gravel driveway and split open the gravel looking for crystals. This was a hopeless endeavor, and ultimately I settled for a rock tumbler, which banished me to the basement (as one can imagine the sound of rocks banging around for hours). I put it all back.

Above is a bridge that was discovered here in the 1800's. At this spot there was a silence, a stillness that I have never experienced in my entire life. It felt soundproof. Then a family in an R.V. and a motorcycle pulled up. But for a moment...

2006-08-14T10:27:00.000-07:00

Ahh...the beloved Budge parked at the Arizona welcome center. Who better to mark the first pictures of Arizona then the GMC? Below is our detour through the National Petrified Forest. An amazing park, and possibly the closest any of us will come to an experience akin to visiting another planet. I am pretty sure we saw a brontosaurus.

2006-08-14T10:14:00.000-07:00

Above and below are images from the stretch of I-40 West through New Mexico. Rose had reminded me that the land before us had been a part of Mexico much longer then a part of the United States. God knows I love context.

2006-08-13T20:11:00.000-07:00

Above and below are images of the grand Blue Swallow Motel; short listed in the book "1001 Places to See Before You Die," and thus dutifully crossed of my list. The rest of Tucumcari, NM remains somewhat unknown to us, although the woman working at the Circle K (beer) was quite friendly. The owner of the Motel was a talkative fellow. He worked many years for Shell Oil (for the money) and then bought this place. We met a mother-daughter duo from Kentucky. They shared their supreme pizza with us, and I tried some famous Ginger Ale from their neck of the woods. Mostly, we just sat on a wooden swing and wrote postcards.

2006-08-05T17:19:00.000-07:00

Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain

And the budget tow dolly is still having some problems
and the heat index is 110!

so yes my friends. after we waited for 4 hours by the side of the road in arkansas, a nice mechanic came and changed our tire and tried to fix the lights...but alas, they were beyond repair, we needed a new fender. we continued on into oklahoma and managed to work out a plan with the budget folks to pull off the highway in oklahoma city to get our tail light fixed.

oklahoma roadside attractions

we arrived in oklahoma city around lunch time, found the truck repair shop in one of the seedier parts of town, took the corolla off the dolly and headed to lunch with the promise that they would call within an hour when the dolly's lights were all fixed. we explored oklahoma city's "bricktown" and had some sandwiches. as we finished our lunch, we got a call beckoning us back to the budget truck. when we arrive we find mike the mechanic muttering and working on the lights. we join mike for a roadside suana and sweat off all the ice water we had downed during lunch.

mike is an entertaining fellow though, described himself as "the buzzard you never want to see, waiting for you by the side of the road." he got the dolly in tip-top shape though and gave us a crash course in dolly maintaince.

meghan hiding in the little stip of shade that the budget provided,
hoping we wouldn't be stuck in oklahoma city forever and ever....

mike the buzzard mechanic gets us back on the highway - headed towards texas
and new mexico where we would sleep for the night.

a water tower in the desolation that is the texas pan handle

leading up to this humongous cross there were probably 20 billboards
advertising it as the biggest cross in the world. we snapped this one from the highway, deciding not to pull off to the "cross museum."

another sort of giant structure seen frequently from the texas highway,
this one possibly a bit more environmentally useful...

it was hot and bright in this big state. lots of washed out cow farms.

the colors were returning a bit as we neared the texas/new mexico state line

2006-08-05T14:20:00.000-07:00

the open road .....
finally, we get on 40, headed west. after a few hold ups with ye old tow dolly in durham, pittsboro, and some excellent dudley repairs in asheville, we take to the highway - confident that our caravan is in good shape, ready to get to arizona.

the storm clouds brewing in tn....it poured down rain
our second day of driving. If I might add: the man is definitely building bombs of some sort in TN. We had to take a detour off 40 through The Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Hmm...lots of fencing, no tresspassing signs, weird road symbols. Of course I could not take photos to document this for fear immediate "shock and awe" retaliatation. They have a website, and claim to work on "Big-Time Nano-technology." Funded by the Dept of Energy no less.

a lake with old dead trees in it....

meg with elvis at the memphis welcome center. I think Elvis looks a little suggestive is this photo, don't you? Something about his hips, meg on the other hand looks positively virgin.

and then things got a bit more complicated...we pulled off onto an overlook to enjoy a nice view of a lake in western arkansas and we noticed the tow dolly was having some troubles:

the roads were so bumpy that we couldn't tell the difference, but all the tread had come off the tire....and in the process blown off the fender and shredded all the wires going to the tail light. rose gets on the phone with budget roadside assistance and waits on hold for a good 40 minutes until someone ginally gets on the line and informs her that it will be atleast 1-2 hours before they can get in touch with a local mechanic, and who knows how long after that before they make it to our lovely overlook.
Below is Lewis. He popped around the corner of the Budget with two bottles of water. He scared the shit out of me. Mostly because I could not see him coming and then because I thought he was going fit the stereotype of a "trucker," and thus force me to pray for his immediate departure from the lovely roadside pull off, or worse the entire planet. Turns out he was pretty cool. Lewis told stories of "the life." He came out of retirement to keep on truckin, excuse the pun, and to get out the house. Lewis is from Memphis, which prompted me to mention that I might like to live there (so far this had been the most promising city I had seen along the way), to which he replied "oh no you do not want to live there." I couldn't ignore such a come on, "what don't you like about it?" "Blacks." and that was that. Lewis had laid it out for me. I just sat there looking at the ground, a concise statement, leaving the air between us bloated. He continued on with trucker stories, and then it was "time to move on." Meet Lewis:
Above and below: budget home movies. Rosie and I decided we could watch DVD's in the sweltering heat. The theater served white cheddar cheese-its and all natural sodas. This is American Middle Class life at its most inventive. The saddest part is that many other folks, who had pulled off to see the lake and looming nuclear power plant, seemed to believe we were just relaxing; that watching dvds in the back of a budget rental truck was something people from NC might just do.

2006-08-05T12:28:00.000-07:00

getting ready to leave north carolina...

going away party in our backyard

enjoying the usa vs. japan game at the durham
bulls stadium with heather, melissa, and miriam

micah and miriam resting after a long hot day of packing.....

meg and annie with a well-loaded truck