Let it snow

I’ve never compared snow to love, but I guess there’s a first time for everything.

An inch of the white stuff powders our lives today like confectioners’ sugar through a sifter. The former transgressions—if one can call them that—of strewn garbage from passersby in our neighborhood, the dog’s “gifts” deposited in the back yard, and the need for a second raking of leaves are smoothed over in a single sheet of precipitation. Pure, beautiful, flawless.

… show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.

I might forgive, but memories linger. What about the one who trashes my blog (and me) on social media even though he’s never met me? What about the person close to me who needles me whenever she can? What about the one whose insecurities shake up my attitude when it’s peaceful around me—or maybe because it’s peaceful around me?

What about those?

Many people are easy to love. But what about the ones who chuck their garbage into our lives, leave their droppings in our back yard, and abandon their leaves—again!—on our property after we’ve swept them away?

Is love enough to cover them?

My love is like a dusting of snow. But love with a capital L can do it, and I’m going to look up, waiting for it to fall all over our world and cover everything, including me.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Colors

I roll to a stop at a traffic light on Lake Street. While I wait, my mind flits a thousand miles away to things that don’t matter—and won’t matter—even tomorrow.

On my left, a woman, holding a sign, stands on the sun-soaked median. The driver of the car in front of me lowers his window and extends a hand to her. A tattoo sleeve decorates his arm; man-made beauty sprawled on God’s skin. And I smile at the gift he gives her too. Maybe it’s just a few coins, but a grin explodes her features, blasting away the darkness around her.

At once, gratefulness and regret needle me. I’m happy I don’t wear monochromatic lenses; the Asian woman squeezes the black man’s hand, and I get to watch the scene in color. But I’m disappointed I didn’t capture the fragile exchange on camera to keep as a reminder for the days when I forget.

That evening, my neighbor sends me a private message. “I have something for you. It was my grandma’s, but it looks like you. I want you to have it.”

She hauls a cardboard box across the alley to my house and unloads its contents onto my dining room table. Delighted, I clap at the sight of it all. She knows me well. A collection of ceramic bowls. Pretty, like her, and in different colors—like the two of us. I feel that familiar pain in my chest that only gets better when I hug her.

The stoplight and the dining room table. The wide range of beauty I see humbles me, and it doesn’t end here. Even heaven needs different colors to be perfect.

After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Your dream (your responses)

Last week I asked you readers about your biggest dreams in life. A big thank you to those who wrote back to share their stories. Here they are…

*****

My dream? I never had dreams as a child and into much of my adulthood. All I could do was survive the bad choices of others. My only dreams in those days were really found in books. I vicariously dreamed through characters on paper. Away from books, I had to keep my wits about me in a war not of my choice. 

My life was not that of a budding princess looking out over her kingdom and the kingdoms beyond. That is... until I met the Dream Giver. 

Although I met Him when I was seventeen, it took many, many years to understand that having a dream was even possible... or good. Very long story short, over 40 years of traveling with the Dream Giver, I have come to understand dreams are possible no matter what. Maybe you never had a dream, saw multiple deaths of dreams, or laid down dreams and buried them, only to see them spring from the soil again—I have experienced all of that in my 60 plus years of life.  

And yet, in all this, I have learned to walk at pace with the Dream Giver, not racing ahead or lagging behind. I keep in lockstep with Him, although some days He has to redirect or carry me. I do finally have dreams—quite a few actually—but the best thing of all is in my journey. It is the Dream Giver who fills my heart; the dreams are the overflow of an abundant heart.

Betsy, Brooklyn Park, Minnesota

*****

The Dream began in elementary school when I played “school” with neighborhood kids on the outside steps of our house on 25 ½ Street in Minneapolis. We used the steps to indicate grade levels in school and advanced by throwing a little pebble from step to step. If only moving from one grade to the next higher one was that simple! 

That game planted the idea in my mind that not only did I love learning, I wanted to be a teacher. And so the Dream began. 

Experiences in elementary, junior high, and high school reinforced my desire to teach someday, but the Dream was blurry. When college coursework filled the majority of my waking hours, future fulfilment of my Dream seemed light years away. Though hazy, the Dream began to take a different shape—a desire to teach in a college. 

Then life raced ahead through college graduation, marriage, and my first teaching job in the local high school. But my next career took precedence over teaching, and my Dream moved further away. Soon life became richer and more fulfilling than I could have imagined with the birth of each child. And I was content, even willing, to let the Dream go. 

But one day, my husband Phil remembered my Dream when he noticed an ad in the local paper for an adjunct instructor for a night class at the local college. He urged me to apply, and I did. And the Dream began to emerge out of the shadows of homemaking and child-rearing. Following years of graduate classes which led to the prerequisite degree, the Dream became reality, and I was hired to teach fulltime in a college, the Dream fulfilled.  

Avis, Newfolden, Minnesota

*****

My dream is to watch people go for the supernatural by presenting spiritual challenges in the form of a Christian novel. 

Hank, Homestead, Florida

*****

And the rest of my story…

In February of this year, Jim Rubart, one of my favorite authors who happens to be my friend too, sent me an email, inviting me to his academy for writers. He knew I would benefit from it, he said.

I didn’t tell him how I was worn down by the writing, how I had a love-hate relationship with the process, how I was ready to drown the Dream. I didn’t want to scare him off. But maybe the truth—instead of excuses—was important.

“I’m struggling in the what-on-earth-am-I-doing phase of my writing,” I wrote back to him. And maybe I expected he would release me to my floundering.

“Then it’s exactly what you need,” he said.

I enrolled in his academy for October 10-14, 2019.

“This is my last thing,” I told myself and others.

After this, no more conferences or workshops; I was done spending money on excellent advice that got me nowhere. After this, no more longing flung out onto the waters; I was tired of hauling empty nets back into the boat. After this, no more livelihood slated for the future; I was ready for something solid set in the present.

But sometimes life preservers look different from what we think.

Sometimes they look like intimate settings for eight students in a rented house in Seattle. Sometimes they look like four intense days of learning more about marketing and social media, discovering our identities and brands, and working one-on-one with someone who can tailor a plan for our writing futures.

And sometimes they look like hope.

(This wasn’t an ad for my friend Jim’s academy, but since you’re curious now, click here for the link. It’s life-changing.)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Your dream

Today I want to hear about you.

What’s the biggest dream of your life? Are you still holding onto it? Did you make it a reality?

Or did you let it go?

Write a note about your big dream, and send it to me here (or if you’re a subscriber, simply hit reply to this email.)

Dreams are fragile things, so I will publish your writing (along with your name and location) in next week’s blog installment ONLY if you’ve given me permission. (If you wish to share it with me only, please know I read and respond to every message and will keep your dream safe.)

I’ll get us started…

In 2011, the Dream Giver dropped The Dream into my life: the desire to be a published writer. And it made sense because maybe I had something to say and the knack for saying it too.

I clutched The Dream to my chest and wrote. Soon, though, I let it float away from me. It was hard work in lonely waters, and I had other tuggings on my life—different jobs—to keep me busy and pay me now.

But like a nighttime dream too profound to dissolve, The Dream resurfaced in 2014. I did the right things to accomplish it, and I checked items off the to-do lists of those in the industry: join a writing group, attend one or two writing conferences a year, read books on the craft, listen to authors’ podcasts, write a weekly blog, promote myself on social media to gain followers, and submit proposals and manuscripts to agents and acquisitions editors when requested.

People say the route to publication takes an average of ten years. They say it’s sometimes discouraging. And they say when it’s done right, the way swirls with rejections because any writer who’s worth anything gets lots of those. I got a handful of rejections, full of kind words. I filed them in my “Encouragement” folder for the difficult days. And I kept on.

But what threatened to drown The Dream was the nothingness. In spite of all my best efforts for years, nothing really happened.

Early in 2019, I was this close to putting The Dream out of its misery. I watched it dog paddle, and it exhausted me. I could let the waters close in over it, and who would notice? Maybe no one would see it thrashing for its life before it stilled for good.

But on the horizon, there it was: a life preserver for The Dream—and for me too, if I’m honest—because our dreams aren’t in this alone.

And the Dream Giver doesn’t make mistakes.

Tune in next week for the rest of the story.

Now tell me your dream, friend. I’d be honored to hear it.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The drawing

“We’re going to draw the four seasons of the year,” Mrs. Young, my first grade teacher, said.

She plucked a piece of chalk from the tray and drew two lines on the board, one intersecting the other. This made four quadrants, and she snapped her pointer stick on each, assigning the seasons. On the top left, she wrote S P R I N G. Summer made its appearance in the top right. Then came fall in the bottom left and winter in the bottom right.

Mrs. Young distributed pieces of paper, her posture erect. A polyester dress in shades of brown and a tan cardigan hung from her thin frame. Her shoes, chocolate brown patent leather, were slip-ons with a square heel. All of it was neat—and exacting.

When I got my paper, I dragged a pencil across it, making a vertical line, then crossed it with a horizontal one, imitating my teacher’s example. I would label it later. I positioned my 24-pack of Crayolas nearby but would save the coloring until my pencil drawings were done.

I gazed at Mrs. Young, now pacing the room. Contrary to her name, she was old. Fifty years old. How was she still alive and teaching? She had turned fifty weeks earlier and had written the digits on the chalkboard for us in writing so precise it was indiscernible to me from the font in my math book.

I jerked my thoughts back to my task. A few students around me had completed one season and were already onto the next. Yikes. If Mrs. Young saw me daydreaming, I might get in trouble. And she was no stranger to tugging a kid’s ear when the occasion called for it.

I sketched a tree in the top left square of my paper. I set to work drawing leaves on the ground. More skittered in a breeze that was stripping the tree of its foliage. A pumpkin squatted under the tree; a rake leaned against its trunk. I would fill in the leaves with shades of brown and gold when I was done with all the seasons, but for now, on to the next.

In the top right corner of my paper I drew a snowman. But there better be a kid by it, if this were to be as realistic as I envisioned. I created a boy. The wind in my picture blew, ruffling the scarf at his neck. I smiled. It was genius, this picture, if I could say so myself. Mrs. Young had asked for a simple drawing of every season, but I was a true artist and would give her a beautiful, intricate rendering of each.

I glanced around me. Several students already worked on picture four. I was behind—way behind. I moved on to the lower left. I shaped baby birds and fresh leaves on new branches and could almost smell the damp earth as I applied the final touches. In the bottom right came my favorite season of all. The sun shone on the boy, now wearing shorts. Sunglasses would complete his—

Oh no.

In the distraction of my creative bliss, I had messed up. It was supposed to be spring in the top left square, followed by summer in the top right. I had started with fall, then winter. My mouth went dry, and my hands moistened, the two body parts swapping jobs. What now? I snapped my attention again to the students around me. They were finishing their pictures, and I needed to start over. Would Mrs. Young be angry? Would she punish me? How could I survive this mistake?

My heart banged in its cage; my face ignited. I had only one solution. I turned over my pencil—pink rubber tip down—and went to work on my Rembrandt, erasing my creation.

The student next to me, apparently telepathic, leaned into my space and tapped a finger on my masterpiece. “Or you could just put the names of the seasons in the different boxes to match your pictures.”

Light doesn’t usually have a sound, but I heard the bulb in my head ping. She was brilliant. I could leave my pretty pictures where they were and just apply the labels to each where they sat on the paper. So what if the top left box was fall? If I labeled it F A L L, it would still be correct, wouldn’t it? Even though mine would be different from all the other students’ papers, it would still be right.

Back in first grade, I didn’t know what “thinking outside the box” meant, but with a classmate’s help that day, I practiced it. Today I’m almost as old as Mrs. Young was back then, and yet here I am, often fretting about how my picture looks different from the others’.

Be a little wild today. Make your picture stand out. And if you want to plunk fall into that top left box, so be it.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Hidden

My busyness has blocked my view lately, and I needed this reminder from myself, written in 2017. What have you seen lately?

*****

I drew my living room curtains open on almost three-thousand mornings without seeing it. Husband had a knack for identifying makes and models of vehicles, describing clothing down to the types of fabric, and naming obscure colors, but he had missed it too. Not even our girls had noted it, and at the time, they caught everything: the heaves in the sidewalk, the dogs at each house on the block, and the gardener at Ms. G’s who spritzed the soil with fertilizer and the air with his swears.

But one summer day, Husband saw it.

“What—?” he said, squinting out the front window at something across the street.

And for the first time, I saw it too.

He hustled out the door, and I followed. The lot kitty-corner from us was no longer empty. A narrow path led to a tiny blue house withdrawn to the back of the lot, as if too timid to join the other homes up near the sidewalk. A behemoth oak and bushes concealed the small structure. I had noticed the tree and the lawn in the past, but the house? Never.

An older man stood on the lot’s grassy expanse. He whistled to his unleashed golden retriever, and the dog bounded toward him. We made our way over.

Husband introduced himself, then me. “How long have you lived here?”

“Twenty-seven years,” said the man, motioning for the dog to sit.

We chatted with our new-to-us neighbor like it was the most natural thing in the world, as if his house hadn’t materialized—like Brigadoon from the mist—into our consciousness that morning.

“That was weird,” I said to Husband when we returned home.

“I know. All this time here, and I never saw that house.”

How many other things had we never seen in our neighborhood? Where did I place my attention, my perception, my focus? For years I had strolled by the little blue house but had never seen it—or the man who lived there. So, what about the other people around me?

I had often looked at the man and woman who screamed at each other in the street at the end of the block, but I had never seen them.

A woman—thin like a blade of prairie grass—walked by our house each morning, a backpack-clad child tethering her to the earth. I was aware of her, but I had never seen her.

What if I sharpened my gaze to the life around me instead of simply looking at it? What if my attention followed slim paths back to secret houses and city sidewalks into hidden lives?

What if we all really saw?

 *Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The obituary

Today I’m writing Husband’s obituary.

He sits across the living room from me—still breathing—and slurps from a cup of coffee as he tells me the events of his life. No pressing reason why we need to get it written today when his expiration date is a fuzzy question mark off in the distance. Or maybe that fuzzy question mark makes today the perfect day to tackle the job.

From the point when I became a dot on Husband’s timeline, I learned facts about him. Many of his earlier details, however, are blurry and out of order in my mind. So, as he talks, I type up the noteworthy parts—parts the masses expect to read regarding the deceased when the time comes.

My hands come off the keyboard, though, when Husband relays the pure gold, the stories too entertaining and earthy and precious to make the back of the funeral bulletin:

He mowed lawns for money at eight years old—before he was tall enough to reach the handle on the mower.  

Before he hit double-digits, he got caught for shoplifting a box of Hot Tamales.

On his paper route at age ten, a dog bullied him daily from behind a gate. One day, the animal popped the gate open, knocked Husband down, and stood on his chest, snarling, for what felt like thirty minutes.

On a mission trip at twenty-two, while he was driving a van of college students around in Brazil, a truck ran him off the road.  

Before we started dating, he came to a fundraiser where I was selling popcorn balls. He asked how much they cost. “A buck a one,” I said, and my face reddened at my fumbled words. And that was the moment he fell in love with me.  

But these—and other stories—don’t make it in.

Husband recounts the last of the history we need for his death document, and I finish typing it up and save it. While it’s bland and outlines only what he’s done—not who he is—it would please the kind of funeral director who likes to check the boxes. Because when someone dies, our culture prefers the table of contents to the book.

I reread the record of my man’s life up until now; it’s satisfactory. But we’ll keep the warm, living, and amusing tales to ourselves to enjoy today while he’s sitting across the living room from me, drinking his coffee.

Because those stories are too good for the obituary.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Happy fifth birthday, My Blonde Life!

This past week, my blog celebrated a milestone birthday!

Here’s what I wrote in the card:

Dear My Blonde Life,

Happy birthday! It’s hard to believe I’ve been tending to you every week since you came into the world five years ago. And since then, you’ve grown! I remember when you were just a few little installments; now you’re a big 260 posts.

Sometimes I’m too tired, too sick, or too uninspired to meet your needs. Thanks for being patient with me. You’ve made me better—better at commitment, consistency, and creativity. And when we spend time together, I enjoy you.

Here’s a cookie to celebrate your big day! (Okay, it’s a three-day-old treat and a step down from the cakes of yesteryear, but hey! It’s been busy around here.)

Love,

Your mom/writer/friend

 *Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Travel stories: the epic family roadtrip (part 7)

Nothing anchoring me to terra firma—or my sanity—anymore, I sailed through the air.

While a sea of humanity washed by eleven stories below, waves of nausea crashed into me. My molars hurt from clenching them, but if I kept my mouth shut, maybe I wouldn’t vomit. Just as I had mustered the courage to make this jump, I would wrangle the determination to keep my stomach’s contents to myself. I could only imagine the surprise of anyone on the ground if I wasn’t successful.

I breathed through my nose and gripped the straps on my chest until I felt my fingernails sink into my palms. How much longer?

A minute—maybe ninety seconds?—and the landing platform materialized. When I got there, would they catch me like they did at the end of the camp’s zipline? No one had told us what would happen at the end of this ride, though. I preferred to see my family again before seeing Jesus, but what choice did I really have?

I hit the platform with a force that jerked me thirty feet back into the air. What now? I hung, suspended for some moments above Fremont Street, until someone reeled me in like a dying fish too scared to thrash anymore.

Once on the solid footing of the platform, I scrambled away from the edge. An employee unlatched me from my tether, and my legs wobbled. I could finally cast a side-glance at Husband.

“So how was it?” he said, looking refreshed from his ride, hair blown back in handsome waves.

I pinched my lips together and shook my head.

“Why do you keep doing this when you’re terrified?” No irritation laced his question—only curiosity.

“No clue.” But it wouldn’t happen again.

We took the stairs down, me fumbling for the railing, my steadiness not having returned yet. But my stomach was calming.

“Let’s look at our pictures,” Husband said, handing our photo retrieval info to the people behind the desk who looked like it would be their extreme pleasure to sell us pictures—at a crippling cost—of petrified me. “Aw, man.” Amusement sparkled in his eyes. “These are great.”

And there I was, caught on film, all round eyes and flared nostrils, my mouth a grim line while I clung to my ropes. Lovely. “I’m gonna pass on a pic of my trip through Hades.”

Minutes later, our three girls disembarked, smiling from the thrill of the late-night ride.

“How was it for you, Mom?”

I pasted on a plastic smile and nodded.

We checked out of our Vegas hotel and drove out to the desert to absorb a little culture. Along with other tourists, we strolled among Ugo Rondinone’s Seven Magic Mountains, a brightly-painted art installation of boulder totems, some as tall as thirty-five feet. On our way back to the car, a sign warned us that “Venomous snakes may be present. Please stay on designated path.” We were happy to comply.

Bound for Utah, we kept our car time short and sweet, ending in Springdale, a town nestled immediately outside the boundaries of Zion National Park. We frolicked in the warm outdoor pool with the other hotel guests while the jagged, brick-red mountains looked on, pleased to host us.

“You might want some better shoes for hiking,” Husband said, eyeballing my flip-flops at breakfast the next morning. He scooped scrambled eggs onto his plate.

I filled my coffee cup. “I’ll throw on tennis shoes, but we’re not doing anything too strenuous, are we?”

He leaned in, lowering his voice. “Check out that guy.”

A trim man in his late-sixties—sinewy leg muscles exposed below cargo shorts—loaded his plate with food until I thought the stack of pancakes might topple.

I gave a nod of appreciation. He was probably a beast on the mountain. “Impressive.”

Then the guy piled sausage patties on another plate already laden with fruit.

“That’s the kind of hiker who views food strictly as fuel.” Husband added a biscuit with gravy to his tray. “A little more advanced than us.”

We ate our food on the terrace, and I surveyed the guests around us, all avid hikers, from the looks of it. Everyone—decked out in special clothing and boots, wearing hats or visors, their water bottles at the ready—was silent while they tucked into their breakfasts.

“Have we gotten in over our heads?” I whispered, the denim skirt I wore feeling like a bad choice.

Husband read my mind. “You might want to rethink the skirt and put on some shorts.”

No cars were allowed in Zion National Park, so we parked and rode shuttles in, and they transported us throughout the area. Our bus driver’s sing-songy voice lilted through a mic and back to our seats as she highlighted the attractions to come.

“Up ahead is Angels Landing,” she said, “but it’s only for you advanced ones. See those hikers at the top of that mountain?” She pointed through the bus window. I squinted. Sure enough, specks inched along the distant summit. “It’s 5,785-feet high up there, and in parts, as narrow as twenty-eight inches wide with one-thousand foot drops on either side.” She sounded like an elementary school teacher who hoped to cover her annoyance with a cheery veneer. “There’s only a single chain to hold onto up there, so share it with your fellow hikers!”

Why, for the love of all things vacation, must people endanger their lives for fun? Or maybe the better question: Why must my family expect me to literally rise to every thrilling occasion? I hoped they didn’t have any expectations about this particular hiking challenge, but if they did, I had already prepared my two-letter response.

Still upbeat, our driver said something about the number of deaths linked with Angels Landing, but I tuned her out in favor of listening to the earth’s beauty around me. Magnificent rock exploded in deep reds and pointed skyward; my breath caught.

No one said another word about Angels Landing—probably named such because it would take heaven’s finest to save a person if that person took one false step—and we finished our time at Zion on novice hikes that showcased the majesty of the national park. One thing was certain: I didn’t need to stand on top of a mountain to fall in love with the grandeur around me.

The next day, “Beethoven’s 5 Secrets,” by The Piano Guys (and others), billowed from our car’s speakers as we entered Moab, Utah, a few miles from the giant red rock formations of Arches National Park. We accessed the park by car, but stopped at different points to amble around the natural sandstone arches, balanced rocks, and soaring pinnacles. Up until then, I had held Joshua Tree as my favorite, but the red-rock wonderland of Arches pulled my loyalty off-kilter. Maybe this one was the best of all.

The Zion and Arches National Parks were the natural wonder punctuation marks on our epic family roadtrip—and just what our hearts needed—but even in the presence of their shocking beauty, we wanted more. In the Honda again, we craned our necks and fixed our eyes on the horizon looking for it—looking for home. And we sped through the remaining states to get there.

Finally in Minnesota again, we tallied our souvenirs:

21 days

7,032.2 miles

6 national parks

13 states

1,308 songs

5 satisfied travelers

And many more good things to number, if one had enough paper for it.

In my own bed again that night, I thought of the truth of Ibn Battuta’s quote: “Traveling: it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.”

And so it has.

*****

Thank you for sharing the road with us! Enjoy the rest of the playlist which includes the following states (click on each for the link):

California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Nebraska

(You can find the playlist for the first eight states at the end of the entry here.)

Zion National Park, Utah

Arches National Park, Utah

More Arches…

This stone formation at Arches is called “The Three Gossips.”

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Travel stories: the epic family roadtrip (part 6)

“It’s hotter than a gypsy on fried chicken night,” Dicka said as we stopped at the visitor center in Death Valley’s aptly named Furnace Creek. The temperature read 109 degrees, so if that was warmer than the nomadic folk got, the kid wasn’t wrong.

Back in the car again, we spotted sand dunes, salt flats, and craters that tricked me into thinking we might be on another planet. Although otherworldly, we were definitely on planet Earth, navigating through a valley that covered 3,000 square miles—the hottest, driest, and lowest point in North America. As we curved through Artist’s Palette, the colors dazzled us. Metals had oxidized the clay of the mountainside, creating reds, yellows, greens, blues, and purples so vibrant it seemed humans had interfered with cans of spray paint.

Husband’s phone rang, his mother’s name popping up on the screen.

“We’re heading through Death Valley right now, but we shall fear no evil, because God is with us,” he told her, “and we’ve got ice water.”

As we exited the national park, he filled her in on our car adventures, and I sighed. What a relief our tire’s patch job held in the extreme heat, and our other vehicle troubles were miles behind us too.

Passing through the Mojave Desert yet again, Husband pointed the car toward our next destination, Las Vegas. But it wasn’t long before I caught him squinting at the car’s dash lights.

“What?” I said, a niggling worry growing.

He fiddled with a button. “What does the little wrench symbol mean?”

Whenever vehicle indicator lights appear, panic sweeps my memory clean. And this time was no exception. What did that symbol mean again? Dread raced up my spine, and my fingers fluttered—faster than my heart—through the pages of the Honda’s owner manual. But all was well; we were just due for a service appointment—or to have that little notification light turned off. Either way, the desert wouldn’t claim us today.

We entered Las Vegas under a cloak of darkness, a requirement if one were to truly capture the essence of the famous Nevada destination. Who imagines Sin City bathed in the light of day anyway?  

From our hotel, we caught an Uber to Fremont Street, in the heart of the downtown’s casino corridor, excited to view the city from the air. Strolling along the electrified streets to find the SlotZilla Zipline, Dicka’s eyes flashed like the strobes around us. Wonder danced across her features.

“I wanna have my bachelorette party here.”

Just what a mother wants to hear. I groaned. “Say it isn’t so.”

But shock value is fun on a family trip, especially when one is fifteen and hopefully far from marriage.

We arrived at the SlotZilla, a zipline boasting a height of eleven stories and a length of five city blocks. I remembered my fear of heights, of course, but I had done fine year after year flying on the Screamin’ Eagle Zipline across a ravine speckled with trees in rural Minnesota on our family camp weekends. So, how would this be different?

SlotZilla’s young employees suited us up with all the lines and carabiners that would save our lives, should it come to it. I assessed their ages—and their casual strap-tightening ways. Were they old enough to feel empathy for strangers—i.e., value other people’s lives? How often did someone get fired for cutting corners in this job? But each worry that surfaced I punched back down with memories of my successful ziplining past. This flight overlooking the famous street would be nothing. As easy as Sunday morning—and the Screamin’ Eagle.

We waited in 90-degree heat for over an hour with countless others in an open-air building that was no more than a massive scaffolding system eleven stories above ground. Our jump time was 11:00 p.m. and we would fly in groups over Fremont Street while an eighties rock n’ roll cover band serenaded us.

Husband and I were somehow grouped with two strangers, while our girls were together several jumps behind us. Soon, we were at the front of the line. Like cattle, the four of us were herded into our individual stalls. When our metal grates opened again, we scrambled into prone positions on our respective vinyl mattresses, an employee hooking up the straps on our backs to lines from above. We’d be zooming Superman-style through the late-night air.

And that’s when the queasiness kicked in.

“You okay?” Husband mouthed to me from his mattress one compartment over. The crowds and music were blaring, my fears deafening. What had I done, agreeing to this?

“I might throw up,” I mouthed back.

A pity look. “Don’t do that.”

Our mattresses lowered then, separating from our bodies, while we dangled in the air, suspended by cables.

“When you get to the edge, use your hands to push off,” some young pup who worked there yelled, like this was supposed to be fun. “Ready?”

No. One-hundred times no.

“We’re leaving together,” the rock band’s rendition of Europe’s song blasted, “But still it’s farewell, and maybe we’ll come back to earth, who can tell?”

Who can tell? The lyrics of “The Final Countdown” weren’t making this better. “I guess there is no one to blame, we’re leaving the ground—” The metal doors in front of us, like garage doors, once blocking out the view of Fremont Street and the partying hordes far below, opened, and a mechanical system propelled us forward. “Will things ever be the same again?” The edge loomed just ahead. Here it came. “It’s the final countdown.”

Ready or not…

*****

Come back next week for the final installment of the story (for sure this time. I promise.) I’ll also include the rest of the links to our epic trip playlist.

But at least it felt like 111.

There’s our little family-mobile in Death Valley.

Oh, the electricity bills in Las Vegas!

And oh, what fun I’m having preparing for the Slotzilla.

Gratuitous snack pic from a gas station in Bakersfield, California. No, we didn’t.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Travel stories: the epic family roadtrip (part 5)

Husband signaled left into the Courtyard San Luis Obispo where we would stay for the night.

Before the turn, though, I saw it; off in the distance—no more than a half mile away—I spied a beacon of light shining on a business. Could it be? Yes, a Honda dealership stood by the highway, ready to save us. “The Hallelujah Chorus” played in my head. Husband maneuvered the car into a parking spot at the hotel, grinding us to a halt.

The next morning, Sunset Honda on Los Osos Valley Road rescued us. While running a brisk business, they still agreed to take care of our vehicle’s needs. All we had ahead of us for the day was the grueling work of sunning by the pool and splashing in its warm waters while we waited for the folks at the dealership to do their magic.

Hours later, the phone rang.

“Your car’s done,” the service advisor on the other end of the line said.

Husband and I walked to the dealership to retrieve our ride. We waited for the paperwork.

“You know how Scripture says to be kind to the stranger sojourning in a foreign land?” I whispered to him.

“Yeah?” he said.

I tapped on the little name plate by the computer. “Seems Erik here at Sunset Honda took notes.”

Erik returned to us with a stack of papers for us to keep as a memento. “We replaced the back brake pads, rotors, and calipers. You should be good now.”

We got back on the road, only behind by seven hours and thirteen-hundred dollars. Off to San Francisco…

We chased down our headlights to the home of the Golden Gate Bridge. We ate dinner at one of the few original seafood restaurants on Fisherman’s Wharf, Sabella and La Torre. And the next day we requested a lift to Dumpling Time, a dim sum restaurant in the Design District. Our cab driver hadn’t heard of the place and doled out a warning.

“If there are only five people in the restaurant, don’t eat there,” he said. “That’s my rule of thumb.”

When he dropped us off, though, the place was bustling, the wait substantial enough that we guessed we were in for a treat. And we were.

Later, we found more souvenir stickers for our car topper, rode a cable car around town, and oohed and aahed at the sea lions slabbed out on Pier 39, rooting extra hard for the lazy one who couldn’t hoist himself up on the dock, much as he tried.

We hoofed it to the Haight-Ashbury area, but before picking our way through the vintage clothing shops, we stopped for some refreshments. I reviewed the drink menu:

“Summer of Love IPA: We chose to go with flavors that fondly remind us of a beautiful hippie’s armpit on Haight Street circa ’67. Need convincing? Think dank and musty with essential oils of pithy grapefruit and burning pine and sage. Make sense now? Drink up and we’re sure you’ll agree.”

I showed the description to Husband, two thoughts zipping through my mind: 1. I would definitely order the homemade kombucha now, and 2. where could I snag a writing job like that?

Far too soon for us, we said goodbye to the sourdough, goodbye to that big bridge, and goodbye to the Painted Ladies, a famous and colorful row of Victorian houses across from Alamo Square.

Goodbye, City by the Bay.

After a night in Visalia, California, near Fresno, we drove through farm country. We identified groves of trees bearing oranges, peaches, and walnuts, but were stumped by the crops that sort of looked like corn. We rolled through the tiny town of Lemon Cove, population 308, and who would ever notice such a small place? Except that it reminded me why I preferred a roadtrip to a plane ride. Big hubs didn’t usually offer charming roadside fruit stands in the shape of big oranges.

At our next stop in the Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks, I hopped out of the car. But something embedded in our front tire caught my eye: a large nail.

“Wonderful,” I said, pointing out the intruder to Husband. “Just great.”

“We’ll get it patched,” he said with as much emotion as if I had declared my water bottle empty.

We had more important things like big trees to look at now, and soon came the reminder that hikes were usually longer than their signs indicated. We went on a hunt to see “The world’s biggest tree stump” (or similar pronouncement), only to retrace our steps after more than thirty minutes of following the trail to find it with no success.

The first rain of our epic roadtrip sprinkled us as we appreciated the General Grant tree, the largest giant sequoia in Kings Canyon. And the skies drenched us as we hustled with other tourists to admire the General Sherman tree, the world’s largest, if measured by volume, in Sequoia National Park.

After meeting General Sherman, we drove out of the parking lot, and a sound I hoped to never hear again met my ears. A scraping noise—from the back end of the car. Husband heard it too and I knew it, because he gave me that look.

“Sometimes the brakes sound a little rough after it’s been raining,” I said, hoping what I said was true.

I shelved my dread. As much as I wanted to worry, what was the point? We had giant trees to love and hug and photograph. We tooled along the switchbacks in Sequoia National Park while Joni Mitchell sang to us.

“California, I’m coming home

I’m going to see the folks I dig

I’ll even kiss a sunset pig

California, I’m coming home.”

We shifted our plans and spent a second night in Visalia, foregoing Yosemite in favor of buying some peace of mind at yet another Honda dealership.

“The brakes are fine, but the backing plate was rusted out,” Husband reported back later after his date with the car. “They just took it off altogether. They wouldn’t touch the nail, but I found a place that removed it. Those guys didn’t have a lot of confidence in the patch job, though.”

The next day, our sightseeing would take us to Death Valley in the northern Mojave Desert, one of the hottest places in the world, along with deserts in the Middle East.

I grimaced.

We would tootle along in a place that still held the record—at 134 degrees—for the highest air temperature ever recorded at the surface of Earth. But what of our car?

Well, here was hoping our tire wouldn’t blow.

*****

Still want some more traveling adventures? Come back next week for what may or may not be the finale.

The Painted Ladies, San Francisco

Our discovery at Kings Canyon.

What the sign says.

Tree huggers.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Travel stories: the epic family roadtrip (part 4)

Every mountain I saw as we cruised along the 105 into Los Angeles looked like the one that wore the Hollywood sign. Excitement zipped through me as I perused our list of things to come in the City of Angels.

“Could we add fish pedicures to our list?” Dicka said.

“I don’t know about that.” I envisioned the strange spa treatment, tiny fish nibbling the dead skin off my kid’s feet. Husband had heard of it too.

“They use baby piranhas they have to flick off before they draw blood,” he said with a straight face.

I jumped in. “You have to sign a waiver in case it goes too far.”

Dicka didn’t seem as amused as we were with the fish jokes. Our conversation, as eclectic as our playlist, bounced through more topics.

Husband pointed at a car one lane over. “The guy driving that Lexus is drinking wine—in an actual wine glass.”

Soon, we neared our destination and spotted our lovely hotel. We pulled into the circular drive of the Marina Del Rey Marriott on Venice Beach, and into a valet situation, our Honda Pilot looking like it had been “rode hard and put up wet,” as the expression goes. I held my head high, pretending we belonged there, while Husband checked in. He came out again, and in front of all the fancy people—some valet attendants and numerous guests—he climbed up to open our luggage topper, blasted with souvenir stickers from hither and yon, and tossed duffle bags down to the girls who caught them and loaded them onto a cart, squishing my pride under our baggage in the process.

We wasted zero time diving into our list of activities. The ocean called to us, and we answered. We rented skates from a hut on the beach; Husband, Flicka, and Dicka chose rollerblades while Ricka and I opted for roller skates. The short distance from the rental place to get onto the main path was treacherous.

Cracks in the cement, sand on the walk, people cutting in front of us... Forget the steep cliff lookouts, maybe this was how I would die. Husband must have read the panic in my eyes.

“Only one hour, and we’ll get off these death traps,” he said.

But as the path smoothed, so did our skating skills, and the hour zoomed by us almost as fast as the talented locals did. At last we wrestled off our skates and returned them. Out in a square, people performed various acts for spare change.

“Everything in the Bible is future,” a guy in a leopard-print loincloth shouted to passersby, a cobra writhing around his neck.

We walked on, browsing beach shops and counting all the off-leash dogs who were breathing ocean air and living their best lives alongside their humans. We ate sushi at a place near the Santa Monica Pier, and the girls later glimpsed the ocean at dusk from the rollercoaster’s dazzling heights.

But heights don’t last forever, so we came back down to earth to do what mortals do, since our dirty laundry was taking over our bags and the sticker inside the vehicle was nudging us to change the oil already.

In clean clothes and a happier Honda the next day, we drove to Studio City to snap pictures of the Brady Bunch house. A fence obscured much of our view, and nearby houses crowded the famous home. Wasn’t the property more spacious on TV—more magical? My memories of the beloved fictitious family’s dwelling said yes. But here we were, parked in front of the iconic place, hemmed in by other homes with no Alice to greet us and no Bobby to zing a football over the fence and narrowly miss our car.

We drove on to Hollywood Boulevard, captured photos of two-dimensional stars shining up from the sidewalk we strode on, and there was the Hollywood sign on Mount Lee in the distance. We asked a stranger to take some pictures of us, the word “Hollywood” visible in the background of our photos if a person squinted hard enough.

It was time for a snack, so we rolled along Sunset Boulevard to Chateau Mormont, a restaurant where famous directors and producers brunched. We parked on a narrow, twisting road behind the swanky West Hollywood establishment, and good thing, because valets stood poised to serve us, and it was better if they didn’t have to look upon our family-mobile, tatted up with stickers from every last place. Would our casual attire suffice, though?

We were seated right away, and we gazed around us, but refrained from gawking or getting the giggles over absolutely nothing, which is highly tempting when you’re supposed to behave.

“I sure hope our credit card isn’t flagged for unusual activity here,” I whispered to Husband. “It’s used to places like Aldi and Target, so—”

The server came up just then, delivering special versions of chicken fingers and calamari to our table. We savored the deliciousness, soaked in the atmosphere we weren’t allowed to photograph, and returned to the car hungry for more.

We grabbed a few slices at Dough, a pizza restaurant on Sunset Strip where Sean Lennon had once eaten, a sign on the wall was happy to tell us. The place sat a stone’s throw from the Viper Room where River Phoenix collapsed on the sidewalk and died of a drug overdose in 1993. On our drive back to the hotel, we made a pass through Rodeo Drive just to say we had and slept our last night in Los Angeles.

The next morning, a Sunday, we pulled into the parking lot of the Belasco Theater, and a “Welcome Home” sign told us we belonged. We found seats in the old theater, home to Hillsong LA, one of many Hillsong churches throughout the world. My soul had thrilled to Hillsong’s original music for years, and now here we were, ready to worship with our west coast brothers and sisters whom we hadn’t met. We sat among them, the visit reigniting our hearts.

“People

Come together

Strange as neighbors

Our blood is one.

Children

Of generations

Of every nation

Of kingdom come.”

We drove along a cliff-hugging ribbon of road they call the Pacific Coast Highway. The storied scenic route took us to brunch at Marmalade Café in Malibu. And we must have made a good choice, because we spied an actor there, finishing his meal with friends.

“Was that Ethan Hawke?” I asked the hostess later on our way out.

“Yeah,” she said like it was nothing, “he eats here most Sundays.”

We ventured on, making a stop in Santa Barbara—the American Riviera, as they call it—to drink in the Spanish colonial heritage evident in the Mediterranean-style white stucco of the buildings downtown. Meandering bougainvillea sprawled across red-tiled rooftops, and Ricka decided making a life there wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Returning to the car for the last leg of our day’s journey, I marveled at the perfection of the day—no, of the days—we had enjoyed together so far. The vehicle was acting nicely, and so were the rest of us. What could go wrong now? Probably nothing. We were over halfway through the trip, the car approaching the four-thousand-mile mark, and all was well.

With Husband behind the wheel, more hours on the highway flitted away from us. Dusk gave way to darkness as we headed up the coast to San Luis Obispo, our stop for the night. My eyelids fluttered shut.

As we came to a stop at a red light within the city limits, a grinding noise came from the back end of the car. Uh-oh. I jerked awake, switching my eyelids open. What was that?

No one wants to hear that particular sound coming from their car, especially so many miles from home. My hopes—and stomach—plummeted. But maybe it was nothing.

The light turned green, and Husband pressed on the gas. I flicked my gaze at him. His mouth formed a grim line. Another stoplight. We slowed again, but with each tap of the brakes, the sound of metal grating against metal jarred my world, rattling our travel plans. It was a Sunday night—too late for a mechanic—and our hotel was still several miles away.

Now what?

*****

Come back next week for the next installment of the story.

The Brady Bunch house. But no Carol to greet us. Boo.

Hollywood Boulevard

If you squint hard enough, you can see the Hollywood sign behind us in that mountain.

The Pacific Coast Highway

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Travel stories: the epic family roadtrip (part 3)

Through the car’s speakers, R. Carlos Nakai’s mournful cedar flute in “Song for the Morning Star” pierced my heart as we pulled into the Grand Canyon’s South Rim lookout point.

The girls, noshing on cactus candy and green apple scorpion suckers, jumped out of the back seat and strode to the canyon’s edge for a look.

Standing with the family and staring into the vastness, I nodded, releasing a sigh. “That’s a big hole.”

What else could one say? The grandeur was richer than words, more striking than the pictures we’d capture to remind ourselves of our encounter with the Divine.

Over lunch, Husband mentioned a sightseeing possibility. “I was thinking we could make a stop in Oatman today.”

“What’s there?” I wrinkled my nose, the desire to get to Palm Springs thrumming inside me. “Is it worth the time?”

He shrugged. “Look it up and see what you think.”

I skimmed an article about the town, and the writer had me at “kitschy Arizona ghost town, inconveniently located on Route 66” and “if you’re not careful, the feral burros will steal your ice cream cone.”  

“We have to go,” I said.

Husband navigated twisting mountain roads all the way to our destination. Burros sauntered down the main street of Oatman, slowing our entrance. Clearly, they owned the place. We parked, and the animals, greedy for attention and treats, headed over to meet us. The girls scrambled from the car to pet them, and even before our visit began, I knew I needed a t-shirt to commemorate it.

We bought bags of hay pellets at a shop, and while the girls ingratiated themselves with the town’s wildlife, I stepped into the old Oatman Hotel where Clark Gable and Carole Lombard had stayed for a night on their honeymoon. I climbed the creaky steps to their private quarters on the second floor, now on display for the public, and breathed in the musty surroundings, their suite small and humble—a stark contrast to their opulent Hollywood marriage.

I headed back outside toward Dicka who was petting a foal under a nearby tree. A lady rolled up in her car next to my girl and lowered her window.

“Don’t give the baby hay,” she said. “His mama still feeds him.”

I joined Dicka in the shade. Someone had affixed a post-it note to the animal’s forehead: “Don’t feed me! I’m still nursing.”

“They’re serious about this,” I said, petting the little one too. “That’s good.”

We browsed the shops’ trinkets and ate ice cream we kept away from the burros. Our hay pellets spent, we waved goodbye to the old mining town with its furry wanderers and their vigilant caretakers, and pointed the Honda toward Palm Springs.

We stopped at a gas station at Vidal Junction at the intersection of 95 and 62 to fill our tank with $4.79/gallon gas. The place struck me as a last-chance stop, so I loaded up on gallons of water. Back on the road, the car gobbled up the miles, the route forlorn and the Mojave Desert desolate. No other vehicles shared the road with us for miles in either direction, and I shivered despite the 111-degree heat.

What if our air conditioning went out? What if we broke down? Could we get a cell phone signal out here? And if so, how long until AAA could locate us?

I tried to shake off my worries and shift to more positive thoughts. “So, how many bodies are buried out here, do you think?”

“Probably a ton,” Husband said. 

I squinted at the brave, sparse plants poking through the desert’s sun-baked soil. “That’s what I figured.”

My first name means “palm tree,” and an intense love for the tropical plants was woven into my DNA from the beginning. The tall ones, a hospitable species, lined up in formation to welcome us into Palm Springs, and I knew right then our two nights in the southern California city would only make me crave more. But two would have to do.

We trekked out to Joshua Tree National Park where two desert ecosystems collide. My mind played U2’s 1987 album—“I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”—but there I found it as I gazed at the twisted, bristled Joshua trees, their shape reminding me of something Theodor Geisel, the illustrator for Dr. Seuss’ books, might have sketched, and a quick Google search showed me I wasn’t the only one who thought so.

We waited out the sun—and won—choosing our seating among the massive rocks for the star show Husband had read all about. Our “chairs” warmed us in the darkening, cooling desert. I leaned back against Husband’s chest, and we soaked in the night. The darkness could’ve eaten me whole, and I would’ve been okay with it.

The stars might have dazzled us if the full moon hadn’t outshone them. Still, the beauty muted our speech, quieting us.

A lizard darted away. Crickets chattered. A breeze grazed our bare legs. My heart swelled.

I love you too, I heard on the wind.

Before leaving Palm Springs the next morning, I needed a taste of Old Hollywood to go with my latté. I led the family on a drive-by tour of actors’ homes, which would’ve been called stalking if the famous homeowners were still alive.

I rattled off each address to Husband, Dicka looked up the star connected with it and read aloud a summary of his or her life, and when we found the place, I took a photo. I checked Sammy Davis Jr., Elvis, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Marilyn Monroe, Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, and Frank Sinatra off my list—all the homes within a few miles of each other. Some of the houses had been tended to better than others, but all of them were pretty and surprisingly normal, owned now by probably normal people too.

As we departed the Sonoran Desert city, a pang of something I couldn’t name flitted through my chest. I tucked away my list of names. All gone now. 

On to the City of Angels…

*****

Tune in next week for the fourth installment of the story! It’s just starting to get good…

The burros of Oatman, Arizona

While I was buying him treats, this one was staring at me through the shop window.

Joshua Tree National Park, California

Waiting for the sun to set at Joshua Tree National Park

Marilyn Monroe’s place, 1326 Rose Avenue, Palm Springs, California

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Travel stories: the epic family roadtrip (part 2)

It wouldn’t be a family trip if I didn’t think I was going to die at least once.

But this was no rafting excursion like the one we took in Quebec in 2015 where I emerged from the rapids, gagging water in front of our tour guide, the fear of drowning still pulsing through my veins. No, Sedona Pines Resort in Sedona, Arizona, coddled us. Could the safe, secluded life in our timeshare last forever? Mini-golf, free laundry facilities, a glorious swimming pool, and a main office brimming with all the free movies or games we could wish to borrow told me yes. But we couldn’t stay in our cabins with that majestic red rock singing to us beyond the windows. So, we pulled on our hiking attire and set out, choosing a jaunt to Devil’s Bridge, the largest natural sandstone arch in the Sedona area.

The trek was 1.8 miles roundtrip and easy, one source said; it wouldn’t leave you breathless, but the views would. We parked at the trailhead and walked in.

Forty-five minutes into our hike, I turned to Husband. “We must be getting closer.”

A few hikers returning from the top greeted us with nods. “You’re almost there.”

We saw the sign then, designating that spot as the beginning of the 1.8 miles. And so we carried on, climbing the well-traveled path. Soon it brought us out onto a clearing of flat rocks for our first real view. Hikers speckled the area, their gazes trained on the vistas beyond. I looked where they were looking, and my stomach plummeted.

As a child I had tormented my dad on family trips, running up to rocky precipices and faking like I would jump. Dad would huff out an “Uff da!” and look away. One time he was brave enough to collapse onto his belly, low-crawl to the edge of a cliff for a peek, and drag himself back to safety. Somewhere along the way, I had become him.

“You go on ahead,” I said, waving off the family. They could climb up on their own to see the prince of darkness’ platform, or whatever it was called. I would sit, avoid death, and steady my breathing.

Husband returned from the summit with a photo of Dicka on the five-foot wide “bridge”—no guard rails or fences to keep her on it—and I snapped my focus away. If I had only known the little she was standing on…

I hiked back down the mountain with my family, leaving my queasiness behind on that rock.

The Gin Blossoms’ “Follow You Down” played on our daytrip to Sierra Vista, our home from 1998-2002, reminding me I had done just that back in the day when Husband’s job called him to the Mexican border.

We pulled up in front of the Sierra Vista Community Hospital to show Flicka and Ricka where they were born, but the memorable spot was gone, replaced by Cochise College. I took a picture of our desert babies in front of it anyway—for me. Then we drove to the house we had brought our swaddled bundles home to, but it was a blank brick box. Hadn’t there been some cacti in the front back then, or some color from something? I clicked a picture of the girls on the street in front of the old place anyway, hoping my memories remained stronger than the truth. And we moved on.

The skies above Tombstone, Arizona, were cloudless azure that day—just like I imagine they were on the day of the Gunfight at O.K. Corral. We parked near the main street, trading the car’s air conditioning for the dusty heat of the infamous town, strolling through the streets as we described the 1880s skirmish to the girls.

“Never heard of it,” Ricka said.

My jaw slackened. “How is that possible?”

I ran a Google search on my phone, listing off all the players in the historical event, hoping to trigger something in the girls’ minds. Although not a participant in the gunfight, the name of another Old West outlaw popped up on my screen.

“Billy the Kid is trending today,” I said.

Husband laughed. “Why?”

“It’s his birthday.”

We celebrated with ice cream while we admired the world’s largest rose tree, a 134-year-old beauty that spanned 8,000 square feet, and near it, I spied a man eating a rolled-up piece of flatbread.

I pointed out the familiar-looking food to the girls, an uncanny likeness to a treat they knew. “Do you see that?”

Ricka chuckled. “Lefse.”

I told the man what it looked like to us Minnesotans, describing the Norwegian confection to him.

He smiled. “They make these tortillas over there.” He nodded to a place down the street. “The stuff you buy in the store is garbage.”

We cruised on to the old copper mining town of Bisbee, then rolled along to Douglas, to the wall at the Mexican border where years earlier a younger Husband had sat for long shifts behind the wheel of a government Chevy Tahoe, red dust from the desert staining his olive-green uniform.

The hospital and the house from our past as we knew them may have disappeared, but the view outside our car windows—and Meat Puppets’ lyrics streaming through the vehicle—told me my memories of the border were sharp.

“They may seem rearranged

In the backwater swirling, there is

Something that’ll never change.”

Sedona Pines Resort in our rearview mirror, we drove to Horseshoe Bend, an incised meander of the Colorado River, near Page, Arizona.

“You better bring plenty of water,” the lady at the attraction’s entrance said. “You’ll be walking for thirty minutes.”

We climbed out of the car, and along with the multitudes, trudged the distance in 102-degree heat, first up a stretch of sandy hill, then down a beachy path that curled toward the lookout spot. A horseshoe-shaped body of water glistened a thousand feet below us. I respected the edge, scanning the scene once before turning to drink in the sight of the visitors. Oh, to identify all those languages…

The world followed us to our hotel that night in Page where we all splashed together in the hottest swimming pool of my life, apparently built more for community than cooling. I dove under and resurfaced. Swedish words floated on the breeze. I swam to the deep end. A sentence in French bobbed by me. I dog-paddled in a circle. Chinese dotted the air, punctuated with a laugh.

World peace might be a ways off, but in this pool we’d all be okay.

*****

Come back next week for the third installment of the story.

A unit at Sedona Pines Resort

Horseshoe Bend, Page, Arizona

Life on the road with hula lady

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Travel stories: the epic family roadtrip (part 1)

These days, everything is epic—people’s skills, fair rides, skydiving, meals. I once even heard a lamp described as epic.

The word is tossed around like a tin can headed for the recycling bin. But when Husband, Flicka, Ricka, Dicka, and I climbed into the old Honda Pilot on July 10, 2019, I imagined our driving to California and back in twenty-one days might satisfy the true definition of the word: long, grand, and maybe even heroic. Hopefully not too heroic.

Luggage stowed in our roof carrier, we stuck a hula lady air freshener on the dash for a festive touch. The party could start now. So, with a turn of the car key at 6:00 a.m., our adventure roared to life. To make the journey sweeter, the girls had gathered 1,308 songs into a playlist to match the states we’d cover, and they explained the criteria for the music: each song must have the state mentioned in its lyrics OR the band/artist performing it must either be from the state or have a significant tie to it.

The first song, “Unsatisfied” by the Minnesota band, The Replacements, drifted from our speakers, and I hoped the title wouldn’t become our trip’s anthem. As we rolled along our first mile, I scanned some other song titles, spying Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.”

I turned to the playlist ladies. “You know we’re not going to Alabama.”

“Yeah,” Dicka said, “but Steve Gaines who joined the band in 1976 was from Oklahoma, and we’re driving through there.”

In a blink, Iowa came and went with the crooning of the Everly Brothers. After our first night in Joplin, Missouri, we got on the road, and the local wildlife caught our attention. Loose dogs sniffed along the highway and creeping turtles crossed our path. Outside of Wentworth, we saw a dead opossum and our first deceased armadillo, its guts spilling from its shell.

“Can’t you get leprosy from armadillos?” Husband said.

I almost spit out my coffee. “What?”

“Remember that episode of Royal Pains where the guy got sick from his armadillo belt?”

We crossed the next state border to Anne Murray’s “I can see Arkansas,” but I couldn’t get the sticky song of Shindig Society’s “Oh, Arkansas” out of my head as we wandered around Christ of the Ozarks and Thorncrown Chapel. The girls decided Eureka Springs was a vacation destination with its colorful Victorian-style cottages and winding up-and-down streets and walkways. But we still had miles to go and states to traverse—like Oklahoma and Texas—before we could sleep.

“The sky just seems bigger here,” Flicka said as we blew through the Lone Star State at dusk.

Rick Pickren’s “O Fair New Mexico” floated through the air as we covered yet another state line in two days. We rested our heads at a hotel in Tucumcari. As I climbed into bed, I remembered seventeen years earlier—the last time we slept in New Mexico—dreaming for our two girls who were only two years and six months old at the time, their lives sewn into ours in every way. Not like now at ages nineteen, seventeen, and fifteen. Over time, life had taught our three girls to think their own thoughts. And in their beds nearby, they snoozed away, enough trips around the sun to dream their own dreams too.

When one says it’s hot in the Southwest, someone inevitably chimes in with the dry heat comment. The third day of our trip, we entered Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park, which straddles Interstate 40, east of Flagstaff. We drove through the park’s ninety-three degree dry heat, stopping for photo shoots among the large deposits of petrified wood and highly-eroded, colorful badlands. We inhaled views of the Painted Desert—strips of lavender running alongside bands of red in the rock—to take with us as we put more miles behind the Honda.

We ended our day at our timeshare in Sedona, Arizona, the brilliant red-rock buttes hemming us in to a place we didn’t want to let go.

Maybe we would stay…

*****

Come back next week for the second installment of the story. In the meantime, enjoy our family’s music playlist which covers the first eight states (click on each for the link):

Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona

Flicka (in Missouri) capturing photos of her biggest obsession: cows

Christ of the Ozarks, Arkansas

An old gas station somewhere on Route 66

Husband and Dicka in the Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.