Dogs Steal Yarn

Buried under boxes

Please excuse the blog silence while we dig out from under all these moving boxes. Back soon, I promise.

We’ve been here in Portland for just five days, and already specifics of our road trip—where we were and when, etc—are starting to get hazy. We were on the road for two weeks, but it seems much longer. We shed Brooklyn and our old lives and routines as we went, and by the time we arrived in Portland, we’d forgotten how to be still. It’s strange now to wake up in the morning and not pack the car and hit the road. Strange not to get in the car with the goal of traveling a certain number of miles that day. Strange not to scan the roadside for motels when we get tired.

Last I reported in, we’d left Billy’s brother’s house in Austin and were headed the hell out of Texas. (Apologies to any Texans out there. I don’t like heat or direct sunlight, so….yeah. Not so much into Texas.) It took forever to get out of Texas. I thought it would never let us go. As Billy’s brother said, “Texas is no joke.” Seriously. Ridiculous how big that state is. Miles and miles and miles and miles (and miles) of it, and it mostly looks the same. Though by the time we reached Amarillo we were rewarded for our patience by the landscape we Easterners expect from the southwest. Sagebrush, tumbleweeds, dry rugged hills. (By the way, what’s the difference between a gulley and a gulch?)

Wichita Falls, TX

What we saw of New Mexico was great, but we only saw a very small part of it as we cut across the northeast corner to get to Colorado.

New Mexico did provide the only photo-worthy rest stop sign of the trip:

Once we left Texas (again, it’s all a matter of taste. No offense, dear Texans) each state we passed through was more beautiful than the next. First we oohed and ahhed over New Mexico, and then we gasped at the beauty of Colorado.

But then Wyoming went and kicked Colorado’s ass. I’m sorry…but it did. It really did. Wyoming…oh how I loved Wyoming. The best part of Wyoming was the approach to the Rockies and then first passing through, when you drive a curvy narrow road into the mountains with the rock shouldering up all around you, and a river winding through it. Of course we passed through at dusk, so no photos of that. Just memories. We slept in Thermopolis, WY, that night. (Great pancakes at the Thermopolis Cafe, but no wifi to be found, which is how the road dispatches started to get away from me.)

We camped one night in Yellowstone, and then did some light baby-friendly walking to check out the geysers before heading out again that afternoon.

We’ll definitely return to Yellowstone and next time we’ll stay longer. We were anxious to get to Portland this time, and didn’t really have warm enough clothes for comfortable camping at that altitude, so we cut it short.

And next was Idaho. Surprisingly lovely Idaho. We stopped for the night in Burley, Idaho, and expected that to be our second-to-last hotel before reaching our new home. The next morning we set out and made good time, and when we crossed the border into Oregon, we realized there was no way we could stop just a hundred miles or so short of Portland, so we decided to make a big push for home. It was our longest driving day of the trip. We set out at 11 am, and got to the new house in Portland at 11pm. It was worth it, because the next morning we woke up at home.

Total miles traveled: 4333
Total time: 14 days
Learned: how hard it is to take a decent photo from a moving car. Sorry for the lack of evidence of how gorgeous this huge country is
Ate: More scrambled eggs and pancakes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner than strictly necessary
Friendliest people: found in Virginia and Tennessee. Absolutely delightful. Everyone was so kind and welcoming
Best accent: Tennessee. We should all speak with Tennessee accents. The world would be a better place. Or at least sound better.
Strangest stop: Memphis, TX. We thought we'd stumbled across a ghost town, but then there was one guy with his feet up on a desk at a bail bonds place. And then we found three people (and some spectacularly bad coffee) at the Sonic Burgers attached to a gas station on the way out of town.
Thumper's new favorite toy: his collection of motel key cards

We're here!

...but we won't have internet at home until Thursday and settling into a new city with a baby means I can't really lounge around a cafe soaking up the free wifi. So here I am stealing five minutes in a cafe, grabbing just a wee bit of wifi to say hi to you. I'll be back Thursday, Qwest dsl allowing, and I'll bring you up to date on the post-Texas leg of the road trip and our new house and how much we love Portland, etc etc etc.

Until then...

Stealth Knitting Revealed!

So now you know what I'd been keeping from you with all that stealth knitting a few months back. I hope you like it! It was absolute hell not telling you about it. Or telling you about the two photo shoots, wearing a sweater in 90 degree heat. Or the saintly patience of photographer Melissa.

I'm posting this quickly from Cody, Wyoming. We're about to head into Yellowstone for some camping. More posts from the road, including bringing you up to date from Austin, through New Mexico and Colorado, and on into Wyoming, in a few days. (Wyoming...oh my god is this place gorgeous...)

Yellowstone awaits. Talk to you in a few days.

Day 5: 322 miles

Texarkana, TX to Austin, TX

Day five brought us to Billy’s brother’s house in Austin. The drive from Texarkana to Austin was marked by at least 20 Monarch butterflies crashing into the windshield. Kind of traumatic, driving along and hitting butterflies. I don’t much like to drive as it is. I especially dislike it when it involves killing butterflies at 75 mph.

On the upside, we arrived somewhere and stayed put for a while. Family was visited with. Vegetables were eaten. It was nice to get off the road for a while.

Day 6: 0 miles.

Rest day in Austin. We made an attempt to see the million bats fly out from under the Congress Ave bridge. Alas, the bats decided to take the night off. We waited two hours on that bridge and no bat swarm. We did get to see the sunset, though.

Day 7: 67 miles X 2

Day trip to San Antonio. David met us for lunch. (Yay David! So great to see him again, and to get some quality non-Rhinebeckish visiting in.)

Billy once again tried to prove his theory that he looks good in all hats.

Thumper also looks good in all hats.

Day 8: 187 miles
Austin to Fort Worth

But first! Lunch with my beloved Anina! We met up with Anina and her husband David (different David) for lunch, and then hit the road again.

There was rain on the way, quickly followed by a huge double rainbow, so big I couldn’t get both ends into the frame. I don’t think I’ve ever before been in a place with a big enough sky that I saw both ends of the rainbow at one time.

I also realized that my River Run sock is suffering from a mismatch of pattern and yarn. (Seems to be a recurring theme here of late.) The pattern wants either a solid yarn or a more subtly variegated yarn. These stripes aren’t working for it.

On the other hand, how great are those stripes? Clearly the stripes want just a plain stockinette sock to show them off. Vesper Yarn in the algae colorway. This will be frogged and reknit in stockinette and I’ll find a more suitable yarn for Wendy’s pattern. For now, I'll finish up the second mama tiger sock and cast on for the Loksins.

We made it a short day, since we didn’t leave until 3pm. Just a quick drive to Fort Worth, and an evening of steamed veggies from a pretty decent Chinese place. We’re gearing up for another big push, starting tomorrow. Northwest! We’re finally headed northwest!

(by the way)

If you're thinking of moving to or within Portland, I have to say...the realtor we worked with is truly fantastic. He spent so much time over the past six or so months, helping us with the house search. Went above and beyond over and over again. I can't recommend him more highly:

Jonathan Hurliman
jhurliman@windermere.com
Windermere C&CRGI
1610 SE Bybee Blvd
Portland, OR 97202
ph: 503-497-2954

Day 4: 316 miles

Memphis, TN to Texarkana, TX

Arkansas started out with the best peaches we’d ever eaten, bought at a road-side stand, followed by miles and miles of flat farmland.

The grass got drier and scrubby and the dirt turned to red clay. Gone was the lushness of Virginia, the rolling hills of Tennessee.

We ran into a really bad rain storm as we crossed Arkansas. The pounding, no-visibility kind of rain.

We took it slow and took plenty of breaks and made it fine. Later we learned there’d been a tornado. Very glad to not have seen/experienced that.

For lunch we stopped in Carlisle, Arkansas, pop 2000. We ate at Nick’s Bar B Q and Catfish and had our best meal yet.

I was tired of being hungry and ordered a grilled cheese sandwich. I don’t know if it was just that I was starving, but it was the best damn sandwich. Made on thick buttery garlic bread. Washed it down with sweet tea. I’m a total sweet tea convert. I also had fried okra and stole some of Billy’s fries. (So far Thumper is showing no adverse reactions to the sandwich, so I guess he can now handle a small amount of cheese in my diet. I’m not going to take that as license to start eating dairy again, except in a pinch. I suspect if I had more than the two slices or so that went into that sandwich, it might be a different story.) Thumper liked the fried okra quite a bit, but was way more enthusiastic about the fries, unfortunately. We're going to have to do some serious vegetable eating when we settle in Portland, to break this kid of his road food habit.

We drove through Hope and saw Bill Clinton's first home, but we didn't go in. I've got a certain affection (nostalgia?) for Clinton, but not a whole lot of interest in seeing a staged museum recreation of what his boyhood home looked like when he lived there. That doesn't tell me anything about him. The town told me something. The house told me something. I didn't need to see the inside. Far more compelling, more real to me, was an apparently recently burned out house on a nearby corner, the family's belongings still all strewn about. I wish I could have stayed there a bit, looked at the things that had been left behind. But there was no respectful way to do that, so we moved on and got back on the interstate.

We reached Texarkana in the late afternoon and considered taking a break and then trying to reach Dallas, but decided against it. We were tired and the rain had made for a long day. We checked into a shabby little motel, got some Chinese food (ah! Sweet sweet broccoli!) and crashed out.

Day Three: 487 miles

Kingsport to Memphis, TN

First off, some business from the Day Two post. Here's the deal re: the tattoo on my leg. And yes, I slipped up a bit and posted Thumper's real name. I was tired. Very tired. And it was bound to happen eventually, as I certainly don't call him Thumper in the real world. It's all fixed now. Thank you for all who let me know I'd slipped!

Now...on to the road update. Day Three was a big driving day, pushing ahead on the interstate to get as many miles behind us as Thumper and Diego would allow. We stopped for lunch and a walk in Nashville and spotted this trailer in the parking lot where we left the car. I'd love to know the story behind it:

Anyone know?

Walking down Broadway, which seems to be like the St Marks Place of Nashville with tourist traps aplenty, we met a little freckled guy with the strangest head shape. Tiny head and a point face...he looked just like a praying mantis. He correctly identified Diego as an Italian Greyhound (which is happening on a regular basis in the South. In New York very few people ever seemed to know what he was.). He was a nice enough guy, with a thick Southern accent. We asked him where we should get lunch and he said, "Oh, I'm not from around here. I'm from Europe." Yeah you are, dude. "Ahm frum Yurp," he said, actually.

Right after the guy from Yurp, we came across a muscley dude with a handlebar mustache and biker tats, sitting behind a folding table with a sign offering tarot readings. As we were walking past he called out, "Is that an Italian Greyhound or a Whippet?" (You folks really know your dogs down here, don't you?) He, too, had a Southern accent. We got to talking to him and when he found out we were from Brooklyn, he said, "No way! I'm from Brooklyn too!" And boom. The accent changed. Out came the Brooklyn accent. But the things he was saying about New York just didn't sound right. So I mentioned Astoria (Queens) in passing, as if it were in Brooklyn and he went along with it. So no, not really from Brooklyn. And probably also didn't sit on his roof in New Orleans for three days after Katrina like he claimed he did. Whatever. It was amusing and we didn't fall for his schtick or get our cards read.

And we found a passable lunch place on our own, and then walked around just a bit more and then headed back to the car for more driving driving driving. We reached Memphis after nine and had a dinner of almond butter and jelly sandwiches, because we couldn't find anything else edible near the hotel and couldn't bear the thought of getting back into the car. At least we had an okay lunch in Nashville that involved actual vegetables. We'll eat better when we reach Austin and Billy's brother's house. For now, the baby is eating best of the three of us because he can always nurse.

Initially I had been looking forward to taking time to explore both Nashville and Memphis, and to go to Graceland. But the reality is, we don't have time to see everything along the way. Especially since the delayed closings meant we hit the road a week later than planned, we had to sit down and think about where we want to spend our extra time and where we can just drive through. Spending time with Billy's family in Austin and camping once we get back up north won out over walking through cities, cool as they may be. Also, Graceland in particular seemed like something that would be more fun in the future when there won't be a toddler to wrangle. Now, there'd be all this cool looking stuff and he wouldn't be allowed to touch any of it.

So...I do feel like we missed out on Tennessee a bit, even though we passed through all of it.

And another cute carseat photo, just for the hell of it.

ETA: Forgot to mention the part where I got a call from home saying my SIL had had the baby (A healthy girl!) and I just sat and bawled at a rest stop picnic table because I wanted to be there with them. It's going to be hard, being so far from my family.

Day Two: 300 miles

New Market, VA to Kingsport, TN

Day two was more traveling than the mileage reflects. We took the scenic route for a good part of the way—Skyline Drive along the Appalachian Trail. Slow going—30 to 40 mph—but it was absolutely beautiful.

Diego is fairly happy traveling in his Sherpa.

He curls up and sleeps between rest stops, and we stop frequently to let him and Thumper stretch their legs. This trip might have been easier before the baby started walking, but luckily we aren’t in a rush. We’re taking our time (as the mileage reflects) to give him the chance to run (okay…toddle really fast) and explore as often as he needs. That has us stopping every two hours or so for at least a half hour. We’re getting a great tour of the rest stops of the south. I have to say…they’re rather nice. Lots of clean grassy areas, picnic benches, clean rest rooms. We expected to want to get off the highway and into the small towns for our breaks, but we’re finding these grassy rest stops are better suited to toddlers and dogs than the towns are. The last time we tried to take a break off the interstate left us changing a diaper in a scrabbly little patch of grass in a gas station parking lot in southwest Virginia, just up a sloping drive that led to a ramshackle little church and group of houses and a sign about brethren somethingorother and maybe I’m just being a paranoid northeastern Jew but it didn’t look very welcoming down there, if you know what I mean. We’re getting off the road for meals but not for blowing off baby and dog steam.

As for meals…road food isn’t ideal for vegetarians who can’t eat dairy. It’s a good thing the baby and I eat eggs or we’d be very hungry indeed. Lots of scrambled eggs on this trip. Food aside, some of our best experiences so far have been when we’ve stopped to eat. We hit a Waffle House on this leg of the trip at an off hour and it was empty. The waitresses doted on the baby and gave him a little yellow football to take with him. They were both moms and encouraged us to let him wander around. An old guy named Lee chatted with Thumper and called him “one tough hombre.” And the coffee was good. As were the eggs and grits. Ah, Waffle House… They didn’t even mind the plaintive little doggie sounds coming from the Sherpa bag until I shared my toast with Diego.

Everyone loves Diego. We even met another Italian greyhound at a rest stop and they had a little impromptu play date.

I finished the first tiger sock, but didn’t get much more knitting done after that, because Thumper didn’t nap as much as he did on Day one, which meant most of my time was spent keeping the kid amused.

We were trying to reach Knoxville before stopping, but the baby let us know he’d had enough by the time we crossed the border into Tennessee. And so Kingsport* it was. There was a Bible open to the Book of Job when we got into the room. At least it was the old testament. Baby, I don't think we're in Brooklyn anymore.

Vegetable side dishes from Perkins for dinner, and then sleep.

*According to the hotel desk clerk, Kingsport is where they make the plastic for diet Coke bottles.

Dispatches from the road: Day One, 297 miles

Well, we did it. We closed on the Brooklyn house on Thursday and on the new house in Portland on Friday. We were all set to hit the road on Saturday, but then Friday night my SIL (my brother’s wife), 37 weeks pregnant, was having pretty regular contractions. We decided to stay another night, thinking we might get to meet the new baby. (She’s scheduled for a c-section so they don’t want her to go into active labor.) In fact, I was completely convinced she was going to have the baby that night. I was sure all the delays with the closing had only been to allow us to be there when the baby was born.

Nope.

The contractions slowed and they sent her home. We’ll have to meet the baby when we come back east for the winter holidays.

It’s just as well we had already decided to stay because on Saturday I woke up with the existential flu. That is, I had a fever and body aches and chills and a sore throat and took an unprecedented four-hour nap, but all those symptoms disappeared fairly quickly after talking to Billy about how overwhelming this whole Changing Our Entire Life thing feels, and how hard it is to leave my wonderful family behind. It’s even harder leaving them now, when we’ve just spent ten great days at my mom’s house, hanging out with her and my brother and his family, watching Thumper play with his 2-year-old cousin, who he clearly idolizes already… I think I was also crashing after the insane real estate marathon I’d run. Not such a coincidence that my meltdown came the day after it all ended.

But anyway. All’s well now. We’re on the road, having a blast so far. Except for Diego. He isn’t loving it. But he’s doing okay. (Oh, yeah. PS: Oscar isn’t in the car with us. The delay of our closings meant the timing of our trip wouldn’t work for the owner of the pecan orchard. So he’s living with Melissa and her boy for a little while and then will be escorted to the pecan orchard by them. Because the pecan orchard belongs to Melissa’s brother. So basically we owe eternal gratitude and many many other good things to Melissa and her family.)

Billy did all the driving on Day One:

I would have been doing all the navigating:

but we got a GPS system. We figure if we’re driving cross-country with a toddler, we really should have something that can quickly tell us how to get to the nearest hospital.

So I did all the sock-knitting instead. Here’s where the sock (Mama sock number one for the family tiger socks) was at as we left my mother’s house in New Jersey:

I had started the toe decreases by the time we pulled into the hotel parking lot in New Market, Virginia, our first overnight stop.

We took a few breaks here and there to let the baby and the dog stretch their legs. Mostly we stopped at rest stops with grassy areas, but our very very first stop was at a diner in Aberdeen, Maryland. It was one of those old chrome trailer dealies with the Formica tables. Excellent home fries.

The owner (Greek) asked where we were coming from. When we said, “Brooklyn,” he said, “Oh! I think there are a lot of Greeks there.” So I guess that meant it was a fine place to be coming from.

We want to spend some time on the blue highways, but Day One was mostly the big interstates. We passed by Baltimore. At least, I think it was Baltimore. (Sutton, if you squint, does that look like Baltimore in the distance?)

The Shenandoah Valley is beautiful, even from the interstate. I didn’t manage to take any decent photos of it from the moving car. I’m hoping to get some better ones on the way out. We’re going to take the scenic route, at least for a while. Next we’re headed for Tennessee! Nashville! Memphis! Hell, yes, we’re going to Graceland. But the wireless connection in this hotel room is from hunger, so you probably won’t be reading this until we’ve already been there.

Day one wasn’t a big photo day. It was more of a hit the road and figure out how to do this with a baby and a dog day. From now, on, though. Photos. Lots of them. Next time, Graceland, baby.

And until then…I leave you with a creepy gravestone from an old church in New Market, VA: