Petrified Forest; WTF Fliers in NM

The plan was to drive to the Petrified Forest, get out and do some hikes with the Boy on his own feet---just to tucker him out---and then get back into the car and keep going. If we could make it past Albuquerque, we'd be in good shape for a short drive into Amarillo and on to the Farm.

We found a couple of short hikes on the maps, and headed out from Scottsdale. Corrie drove a diagonal north-by-east through what started out as rocky mountains but what slowly turned into pine forest. It was beautiful and serene, and reminded us of our own little slice of mountain town heaven way up north in California.

216 million years prior, the area had an earlier type of pine tree, one that lived on the shores of creeks and rivers frequented by many kinds of reptilian fauna. Early dinosaurs were fluttering around the feet of the more established critters, so it was a ways back, before dinosaurs came to power.

Sometimes these pine trees would fall, and occasionally they would make it into the river. There the branches and bark would get washed away. Soon the silt would build up and completely submerge the great tree trunks. Over the course of a few million years, minerals would slowly seep into the logs, replacing each cell of the tree with minerals. The mineralization process is slow, obviously, but in the end, the result is spectacular.

Eventually the creeks go dry. Millions more years go by. Erosion begins to beat the sand and silt away, and soon enough these great trunks get exposed. The silt upon which they sit is uneven, and because of the weight of these mineral deposits, the trunks crack on pretty clean lines. Quartz and silica do that---wood doesn't.

They look so cool, feel so cool, and are heavier than I ever imagined. Holy cow, they're heavy.

We started on the first tiny hike---where we took those pictures---and had Cassius walking around. Eventually he was far more enamored with the steps that had been sculpted out of concrete and left for tourists than with anything else, and soon had to call it a day.

We were also starting to lose the sun:

I drove out of the park, and a few hours later we stopped for dinner. I took the following picture of our little potato man: fries in his mouth, two in his left hand, and he's searching for more:

Corrie took over driving after here, and we sailed into Santa Rosa before hitting the sack. At breakfast the next day, before going to a park to run the Boy around a little before a short (two hour) drive into Texas, I stopped by one of those displays that has all the fliers for the cool touristy shit that's offered within a hundred miles of whichever place it is. A font very similar to one from my childhood called to me with words that seemed in juxtaposition:

This whole thing is too weird and probably should get its own...yeah, you know what? Meow Wolf will get its own post later. Santa Fe...weird shit is going on in Santa Fe...

Day Zero; Scottsdale; Great Grandparents

The driving post summed up the end of the driving pretty well, but the beginning was pretty chill, if a stuffed freeway all travelling 80 miles an hour can be chill. After a long week, or, rather, a long few weeks of little sleep and research paper writing, I was running on fumes for the last hour into Blythe. My eyelids were fighting me.

Cass had been asleep for the majority of the drive when we switched, but he was quiet and smiley when I took my spot next to him in the back seat. I might've said something silly, but immediately after put my head onto one of our pillows against the window and was done. When I came to, and what felt like just a few minutes had passed, I could see that we had already left I-10 for Phoenix's outer loop, AZ 101, and were on our way for the hotel, the one my mom puts people up n when they visit and arrive too late for normal people. It was nearly 3 am local time, our trip taking from 8 to 2, Friday night into Saturday morning (Arizona is an hour ahead of California this time of year).

Saturday we got to see my Grandma Lorraine and her new elder care facility. She's close enough to walk to a bookstore! She had books for Cassius! She seemed to be getting along okay, and was sure excited to see Cass. He's so much bigger than the last time we were out and she got to see him, which I believe that was last October for Grandpa Tom's memorial.

Anyway, she paid us one of the best compliments we ever heard: she said our boy has "such good manners." What toddler has good manners? Way to impress you 90+ year old Great Grandma, Boy!

The next day we hung out with my mom and went to the Train Park. Cass got to run around and play, which was necessary for the next day's needs: in the car for long stretches:

The picture above is from a miniature southwest style prison and sundries market, which was kinda cool.

Below, grandma loved "riding" the merry-go-round with the Boy:

And eventually I couldn't help myself with an artsy shot of Corrie and Cassius at their facsimile of a grand station house:

Maybe that's not what it was, but I never found out its true purpose, so that's what it was in my memory.

The next day we left for the Petrified Forrest, a national park, and Corrie drove through a part of Arizona I easily forget since I'm usually driving from LA to Phoenix.

Thanksgiving Trip: Some Driving Numbers and Thoughts

After returning home, and trying to settle down before going back to work, I started to crunch some driving numbers, with the help of Google Maps. The numbers of hours are a little off, since we drive a little faster than their algorithm alots, but the mileage seemed decent enough.

Last week I typed up here about the email I got from a boss about resting nicely, and I'd been wanting to respond to that email for days before getting back to work and seeing the other recipients. I never did, but one thought running through my head was like: I hope you all had a relaxing time that didn't involve strapping a toddler into a car-seat for forty hours.

That forty hours always seemed like a guesstimate, like twenty there and twenty back. We made the drive to Austin for Grandma June in something like 20 hours, but it turned out to be more like 22 because we gave up the hours. Austin is further than the Harrison Farm in Clarendon, but it's more of a straight shot across I-10, and then up. Amarillo and the Farm is on/off I-40, further north.

Anyway, I started the drive in Long Beach and went all the way to Blythe when Corrie took over; she finished the first night's drive at the hotel in Scottsdale. The next leg was her driving from Scottsdale to the Petrified Forrest in northern Arizona. I left from there and drove the leg to dinner that night in Grants, NM. She finished off that long travel day heading into Santa Rosa, NM, east of Albuquerque. The next morning I took the last quick leg from Santa Rosa into Amarillo for lunch, and Corrie drove us that last hour out to the Farm.

On the way home Corrie drove out of Clarendon all the way to Santa Rosa, and I took over from there and went the next 200 miles to Grants, where I sat in the car and read an email as she ran and got the key. The next day I drove the first leg, Grants to Flagstaff, Corrie drove from Flagstaff to Needles, in California, and I drove the rest of the way home, Needles into Barstow and down into the Southland.

My only Texas drive was that first hour from NM to Amarillo, and Corrie's only California drive was Blythe to the AZ border, and later the AZ border to Needles, a combined 20 miles. Weird when we put it together like that.

So, crunching the numbers got a little unwieldy. Observe:

According to Google Maps, the trek there was 1130 miles and the trek home was 1140 miles, give or take on both, and the time was around 35 hours. Corrie drove more getting there and I drove more getting back. I drove LA both times. It was neat to drive I-40; here is a reasonable two-lane freeway without much traffic. Cruise control works well, and with a 75 mph speed limit, the cruising is genuine.

When I took over in Needles, it was dark already but early, and a little later when I-40 ends in Barstow and you merge onto I-15, I realized that we'd just made it back to "LA."

Barstow is 55 miles north of San Bernardino, which itself is 70 miles away from us in Long Beach, but whereas I-40 is the direct opposite of nearly every drive I've ever made up or down I-5, switching over to the 15 was essentially being in LA again.

Freeway Inventory: Coming home I tried to take roads I don't know very well...like the 15 to the 60 or the 91 and over to the 710 I know quite well; I know what that drive is. Sometimes shitty, sometimes cool, and this was a Saturday night. Instead I left the 15 early for the 210 west into Claremont and Laverne, heading along the base of the mountains towards Pasadena. From there I took the 605 south, all the way into Long Beach, on the east side of town, and surface streets home.

I-605 is a funny highway. Not quite as fugly as our own "home" freeway, the 710, it lacks something nearly every freeway has around these parts: a destination marking that is the de facto name of the freeway.

Consider:

• I-710: Long Beach Freeway
• I-405: San Diego Freeway
• I-10: (in LA area) the Santa Monica Freeway
• I-5: Golden State Freeway
• CA 91: Artesia Freeway
• CA 22: Garden Grove Freeway
• I-210/CA 210: Foothill Freeway
• I-110: Harbor Freeway
• CA 90: Marina Freeway
• CA 57: Costa Mesa Freeway

Generally the names are the remnants of the old scheme that was done away with in the sixties for the current numbering scheme, and the names generally had to do with final destinations. I've noticed that neither the 105 nor the 605 have any kind of destination naming scheme entry, and for the entirety of southbound 605, every sign just said "THRU SOUTH".

Tangents aside, the Boy did quite well in the car for nearly an entire work week, only really freaking out the last hour or two, as I sped home. The last jaunt on 605 I had no more fucks to give, beyond making sure my wife and baby were going to remain living, and maneuvered through traffic (dense at 8:30 on a Saturday night) like Norm and I were headed to downtown Sac in my Datsun.

Apples! Again!

Last year I wrote about the varieties of apples we were getting, and you can read about here. This may turn into an annual thing.

This year as I was unloading the farm box, I noticed a yellowish apple with brown speckles, something you may see on a dusty tree living on a dusty ranch-type road. It had a sticker:

Ashmead's Kernel? I know kernels from linear algebra, but how do these words even make sense together? I had never heard of such a thing. I peeled the sticker off and took a big bite.

YES. An all-caps single word answer to the initial experience of the Ashmead's Kernel. The body was crisp, the meat tangy and sweet, with a tart ending that left you both thirsty and quenched. My my my, such a drab facade hiding such a wonderful thing.

The Ashemad's Kernel was first recorded in the UK back in the early 1700s, and is one of the very few British varieties that thrive in the US as well.

This year we haven't had the 18 separate varieties over two months like last year, but there have been a whole slew of new apples that, again, I had never ever heard of. For example:

The Northern Spy was developed in the 1840s near Rochester, NY. Our specimen was good, tart and sweet, but less transcendental that the Ashmead's Kernel, but the nearly mushy flesh may have played into that.

Another heretofore unknown to me apple variety:

The White Winter Pearmain. This apple was too mushy to get a full idea of how good it could be. The pearmain apple is from the UK originally, but this yellow one was only slightly more interesting than the yellow delicious you can find in supermarkets.

We also got a bag of the tiny and awesome Crimson Golds that we used to saute on a smoking pan with brandy and maple syrup for a pork garnish:

This year we also got a pair of Pink Pearls, but the pictures didn't come out so well. the cool thing with them is that the flesh has a pink band between the skin and the white flesh around the core. The flavor was as close to sweet tarts I've found in the apple world.

Also, I lined up one box's apple contents up like last year for a photo shoot. In this one particular box, we got seven different varieties with two each. The Arkansas Black's this year have been great, as have the Mutsu and the Calville Blancs.

Those Calville Blancs have been crisp and juicy, so I've been able to place the flavor, which last year it was tough because they were so mushy. Their flavor resembles lychees, which was a pleasant surprise. With each week the Ashmead's Kernels lose a bit of their incredible-ness, a reality I try to ignore.

APPLES!

Having Returned

At work we are associated with an improvement network, and I've been learning about improvement science. Previously I wasn't aware that there was such a thing.

A group email updating some information about upcoming events from a boss ended with: "I trust you are all resting nicely." I read it huddled in the car with a sleeping toddler as Corrie was checking into our night's stop that evening in Grants, a tiny mountain town in central New Mexico. It was after midnight and a blistering wind made the 34 degree night painfully frigid, at least for us beach denizens. We were on our way back to California.

"...resting nicely." I nodded to the email as it rested on the steering wheel.

I have a series of posts about Cassius's first trip to the Harrison Farm in Clarendon, TX, an hour south-east of Amarillo in the panhandle region of that enormous state.

It was magical. There was tractor riding, hornet battles, coyote howls in the darkness, and some pistol shooting. We got to the Petrified Forrest and later, Flagstaff. Cass even had a nice dinner with his Great Grandma Lorraine before we left Arizona for points east.

It was a great time, and one that will look better as time goes on and we begin to forget that we strapped our toddler into a car-seat for almost 40 hours, a full-time job's week worth of work.

But first I have at least one other post I have to get to before the Farm posts get going.

Urban Pumpkin Patches and the Petting Zoo

Somehow this year we missed our trip to Riley Farms for their U-pick for pumpkins and apples. I mean, sheesh, how'd we missed this? We were planning it for months, but when Corrie called to get some information she learned the apple harvest was over and the pumpkins were nearly done. Whoops, I guess.

We did get back over to Pa's Pumpkin Patch, our outskirts-of-town-urban pumpkin patch that parent drag their toddlers to every year:

They also had a petting zoo, where we subjected our Boy to sheep, goats...

...and chickens...

...among other critters.

Later on Corrie and Cass rode their tiny train as we introduced him to kettle corn:

As the season changes over we're beginning to see the holidays through the eyes of a person experiencing it for the first time. Last year Cass was here, but "experiencing" was limited at best. Even now, it's limited, but he has loads of fun doing these novel things.

Like Halloween. Our Boy missed Halloween this year, but mostly because he was sick. But also: we don't really live in a Trick-or-Treat area; he doesn't know what candy is; he doesn't really know what costumes are, and only has the mummy/chef outfit grandma sent him:

So, we're left with the for-the-parents pumpkin patches on the outskirts of town...

Did you see where I put that boat?

Apparently "abandoned on a random stretch of Eubank Ave" was the correct answer:

I drive on this stretch of Eubank everyday, and last Friday someone was there hammering away on the backside where a propeller might have been.

Strange scenes from the Southland...