Sarah Wynde's Blog, page 35
February 25, 2019
Arcata weather
I was warned that Arcata, the town where I’m planning on spending the next few months, was a chilly, gray, foggy sorta place. I’m not sure any level of warning would actually have prepared me, though. In defense of my weather shock, my weather app keeps sending me warnings. Severe Weather Advisory! Area Flood Watch! Flooding rain will cause hazardous travel. Hard Freeze Warning in effect. Etc. Nine warnings over the past few days, which I think probably means that this weather is not normal, despite the cold gray reputation.
As a result, my new favorite possession is my eggplant coat, which S refers to as my “puffy.” I call it an eggplant coat because I think it makes me look like a plump eggplant, but you know what? That is just fine. I am perfectly willing to look like a plump eggplant. I’ve become so attached to this coat that I start to feel anxious when it’s out of my sight.
Yesterday, I ventured out of the van exactly twice, both times to walk Zelda, both times in the pouring rain, because it really wasn’t possible to just wait for the rain to stop. Or rather I did wait for the rain to stop and finally gave up. Fortunately, I quite like hanging out in my tiny home listening to the rain. Poor Z does not like the way I’ve been walking her, though, because I’ve been carrying her from the van to the street and back again. She thinks it’s undignified and wiggles to get down, but I think muddy dog footprints all over my beds can only happen once in a while, not twice a day, many days in a row.
In more fun news, S took me roller-skating on Saturday night. I’ve never really been a roller-skater, although I ice-skated some as a kid. I wobbled a lot and never got so comfortable that it felt like flying, the way it looked for some skaters, but I had fun. The best part was watching the other skaters, though. Roller skaters tend to crouch and lean forward, but there were a couple people skating who were probably originally ice skaters: they had great posture and a totally different way of moving. If the roller skaters looked like they were flying, the ice skaters (on roller skates) looked like they were floating. I don’t know which I’d rather do, float or fly, but it did make me want to try ice-skating again.
On the writing front, I’ve been flailing. I joined a FB group for writers of Humboldt County, hoping I might find some real-world writing partners here, to help keep me accountable and maybe meet up with me at a cafe now and again to help my motivation. I didn’t go to their Sunday meeting, though, because it was pouring. Maybe next week. Meanwhile, I added a new note to my white board: Trust the reader. I think part of why I’m flailing in Fen is that I feel like I need to explain things that you will have forgotten and remind you of things that have already gone by and anytime a writer has to “explain”, a story is stuck. Maybe Fen 2 is going to have to start with a note that says “reread the previous book” but one of my other white board notes says, “skip the boring parts, the reader will thank you,” and I am going to try very hard this week to follow that advice. Last week, I was stuck in a boring part and got nowhere, so this week I’m just going to glide right over it. Or try, anyway. I might fall flat on my face. But if I do, I will get up, dust myself off, and think about Badonald’s for later. Or maybe a nap.
[image error]Before the rain began, we had one quick trip to the beach. Z would have stayed and played, but it was COLD! We saw the ocean, took a picture, then headed back to the warmth of the car.
February 19, 2019
Liberty Glen Campground
I have spent so long struggling to post my time-lapse sunrise that even though the quality loses everything I wanted to share, I’m still posting it. If you watch it very closely, in the bottom right corner, you might get a chance to see the sun sparkling on the water drops that covered the tree. In the moment, it was crazily magically beautiful. On the time-lapse… well, you can’t really see it. Maybe if you watch it in a very dark room, you might get a glimpse. Mostly, though, you’ll have to use your imagination and trust me that it really was gorgeous!
So! Moving on… I left Half Moon Bay on Friday morning and literally prayed on the drive into the city to find a parking place. Literally. Out loud. I apologized to the universe for asking for favors — I have a pretty strict policy of only praying in gratitude and appreciation and to ask for blessings for other people — but I was envisioning driving around and around in Serenity, finding only parking spots that would require parallel parking in tiny spaces. Instead, there was an open parking space — not parallel! — directly in front of my favorite dim sum bakery from decades ago. Yes, it felt like a miracle. A really nice minor miracle. I envisioned my guardian angel patting themself on the back in that pleasure and delight that you get when you find someone the perfect gift.
I parked… and then I did not go in for dim sum. I watched people going in and out, most of them taking packages of deliciousness to go… and I thought about how miserably sick gluten makes me. And then I thought about how much I love shrimp dumplings and pork siu mai. And then I thought about the sore throat and the aches and pains and the feeling of having so little energy that even standing up is an effort… And eventually my friend S arrived and we went down the street to Burma Superstar, currently the #8 restaurant in San Francisco according to Trip Advisor, and ate delicious gluten-free tea leaf salad and braised pork with coconut rice. I’m pretty sure that means I am never going to willingly eat gluten again. I don’t know how many times I’ve said that San Francisco dim sum would be the place/food that I would pay the price for, but apparently it’s not. Fortunately, lunch was delicious.
While we were eating, it hailed! I took a video but I’m not even going to make an attempt to post it, but here’s a picture from the window, including a little girl picking up pieces. Hail must be pretty amazing if you’re a San Francisco kid.
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After lunch, S and I went to Golden Gate Park and took Zelda for a good walk, and then I dropped S off sorta close to the de Young Museum and headed north across the Golden Gate Bridge. I did debate going to the Museum myself, but I wanted to get to my campground before dark and I didn’t want to get caught in traffic.
That was a really good call. The campground would have freaked me out after dark. It was remarkably isolated, considering it was in Sonoma. No cell service, no electricity, and a steep and winding road in lousy condition to narrow, hilly campsites. Also mostly deserted. On Friday afternoon, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to stay.
But it was gorgeous.
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[image error]Come on, Mom. Let’s explore!
Zelda had no such doubts. She was bouncy and excited, loving the weather — cold and sunny — and the smells. So we stayed through Sunday morning, with a mostly very quiet Saturday. I could have run the generator to give myself some electricity (I did manage to get it working again) if I’d wanted to use my computer or cook anything complicated, but instead I read books and ate leftovers. I wasn’t as tired as I’d been on my quiet day in Half Moon Bay, but it was nice to have a day where I didn’t have driving goals.
On Sunday, I headed off reasonably early, and finally finished my long drive. I arrived in Arcata around 3, pulled into S’s driveway and got comfortable. My journey lasted seventeen days, and over 3000 miles. Some parking lots, some driveways, some campgrounds — and I ought to count them up, but I spent a long time trying to get that video to work and I’m ready to move on to other things! But it was a good trip. I’ve driven across the country four times now, with timetables ranging from four days (not solo) to about eight weeks. Seventeen days was probably a little too fast — I’m really ready to not drive again and I was pretty tired by the end — but I think I managed a good balance of driving days and restful days.
Still, I’m glad to be here. Yesterday S didn’t have work, because of the holiday, so we did laundry, ate a big breakfast of bacon and eggs, went to the beach with the dogs (briefly, because it was cold!), and had pumpkin soup and salad for dinner. It was a lovely beginning to my lengthy visit. Today, I’m hoping to put on my yoga clothes and wander down the street to the nearest yoga studio — a five minute walk away — and go to my first yoga practice in over a year. But first, breakfast.
[image error]Edited to add: I can’t believe I forgot to include this rainbow. It felt like a beautiful welcome to California!
February 14, 2019
Half Moon Bay State Beach
It’s very hard to take a picture of a mud puddle. At least one that demonstrates its depth and size without just looking like a dirty spot in the ground.
[image error]There is no way for Zelda to avoid this mud puddle when leaving the van. She doesn’t mind — she’s perfectly happy to wade in the water. But muddy dog + small van = sad dog mom.
Also, I am so tired that it took me three tries to spell the word “puddle.” I nearly went into that space where it stopped feeling like a real word. Puddle? Pubble? Pebble? What’s that thing called again?
Yeah, I’m guessing this is not going to be the most coherent blog post ever. But I’m currently at Half Moon Bay State Beach, which is a lovely — also, currently, extremely muddy — campground just south of San Francisco.
[image error]Not an impressionist painting, just a misty morning. It was rainbow weather, although I didn’t actually see any rainbows.
By about 2PM on Tuesday, Serenity’s tires were back in place and I was back on the road. I managed to get to Tehachapi in time to meet Carol (hi, Carol!) for dinner at Blue Ginger Pho, just one day late. Pho was just what I needed, because I was thoroughly cold-ish by then, tissues constantly in hand. I spent the night parked on Carol’s street and headed out early the next morning.
Wednesday was a grueling day. I had campground reservations that I’d paid for, so for the first time my schedule wasn’t flexible: I needed to reach Half Moon Bay by 5PM. I also needed to refill the propane. I’d filled it just a few days earlier, in Albuquerque, but it takes a fair amount of propane to keep a metal box warm when it’s 2 degrees outside and I didn’t want to chance needing it. And I needed to get the tires rechecked, to make sure the lug nuts weren’t working their way loose again. I also wanted to go to the grocery store. I managed all of it, except for the grocery store.
But when I woke up this morning, I proved completely unable to talk myself into doing anything else. Instead of going to the grocery store, I ate oatmeal for breakfast, lunch, and maybe for dinner, too. (I’ve got other options, but I’ve also got more oatmeal, and I haven’t had dinner yet.) Half Moon Bay is a charming town, lots of cute shops, just five minutes away. I did not explore it. My favorite sushi restaurant in the entire world is an hour down the coast, a beautiful drive. I did not go there. Instead, I hung out in the van, admired the sea gulls, and tried to keep Zelda out of the mud puddles on our brief walks.
Tomorrow, I’m going to briefly go into San Francisco. When I started planning this journey, I wanted to take a couple days and play in the city. But the closer I got, the more I stumbled over the reality of traveling with a large van and a small dog. Like every city, San Francisco has terrible parking. Once, when I was pregnant, I drove around my apartment for an hour trying to park and then gave up and drove to my brother’s house and spent the night there, because he had a driveway. So the sensible thing to do would be to leave the van outside the city and travel into the city on public transit. Except what would I do with Zelda? I’m not going to leave her alone in the van for that long. So I’m going to give San Francisco a try, but I’m not going to stress myself out dealing with city hassles.
[image error]A view from the van window. That’s ocean back there, but Z isn’t allowed on the beach.
Then one more weekend on the road, but by Monday — I hope! — I will be settling down in Arcata, ready to get back to writing the sequel to A Lonely Magic again. I tried today, even managed to pull off a few words, but I currently can’t spell puddle, so it’s not exactly gone well. But a previously written snippet made me laugh…
Fen sighed. “I wish I could turn into a bird.”
An owl would be perfect. Silent flight, good night vision. She could glide away on spooky owl wings. No one would hear her or see her. She’d just be gone.
“Why would you wish to do that?” Elfie asked, sounding puzzled. “Transformation is always fatal. The magic cannot sustain cellular life through the process of re-shaping and re-forming. If you became a bird, you would be a dead bird. This seems ill-advised.”
Fen’s lips twitched. Elfie, so literal.
A Precarious Balance
February 11, 2019
The wheels on the bus go round and round…
The van started making a weird noise while I was driving yesterday, so I did what all grown-ups do when their vehicles start making weird noises: I called my dad.
He said, “That sounds like a tire problem, probably a loose lug nut. Get off the highway.”
At various points in the last few days of driving, I have been very much in the middle of big deserts and extended mountain ranges: Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and finally into California, and so my protest was automatic. “But I’m in the middle of nowhere.”
Even as we spoke, though, I saw the signs for an exit up ahead. Said exit wasn’t just an exit, it had an AutoZone immediately off the ramp. Yay! A place to buy a tool to tighten the loose lug nut. I drove into the parking lot, got out and looked at my wheel.
Hmm. “Loose” applied but only to the lug nuts that were left. Two of them were missing.
Inside the store, I chatted with the nice guy, who came out and took a look at the van and said, “You’ve been driving on that? Don’t do that anymore.”
He went back inside, talked to his manager, and sent me across the street to the Shell station. The nice guy at the Shell station said, “Whoa. That’s not good. You might have a real problem.” He jacked the van up, took the tire off, looked at the remaining lug nuts and said, “You were about five miles from disaster. And I mean a real disaster.”
Fortunately, the nice thing about being five miles from disaster is that you’re still pretty far away from actual disaster. As a result, though, I am now hanging out in an RV park in Needles, California, waiting to find out how much new wheel studs are going to cost me and when they’ll be able to get here.*
I don’t mind too much. I’m a little disappointed that I’m not on my way to Tehachapi, where I was going to introduce Carol to Vietnamese food (one of my personal favorites) tonight, but the park I’m staying at (Needles Marina RV Park) is the kind of resort park that I don’t usually stay at, with full hook-ups, laundry facilities, even a swimming pool. I will probably not be swimming, given that it was 41 degrees outside this morning, but I am going to take the chance to do some laundry and clean out the tanks.
I also will probably spend at least a little time trying to get the generator working. I haven’t been able to turn it on since Texas. I blamed both the elevation and the cold initially, but yesterday morning, neither of those things applied, and I still couldn’t get it working. I’m hoping that the problem then was that the battery was charging and pulling too much energy from the generator. (You usually want to let the generator run for a couple of minutes before letting things start drawing power from it.)
So, yeah, the technical difficulties of van life definitely reared their heads this weekend. So it goes. It’s impossible to feel anything other than really lucky, though, when I consider how much worse my yesterday might have been. There are youtube videos of people driving on the highway when their tires fly off — I’m guessing most of them don’t end well.
I also appear to have a cold: I thought it was allergies in Texas, was sure it was allergies in Albuquerque, but now… well, yeah, it’s a cold. Interestingly, a cold is so much less sick than a gluten-reaction that I’ve had trouble deciding that I was really sick. Congested, yes. Sore throat, yes. But until I added a cough this morning, I just wasn’t feeling the level of misery that would have deserved to be called “sick.” Even now, I’m not miserable. I just don’t feel well. I’m just as glad not to be driving, though.
Before I move on to the more useful parts of my day, however — a quick summary of the past few. I left Texas on Thursday and spent a long day on the road, winding up at Kyla’s house in the mountains that night. There was snow! Zelda liked it, I think. But there were probably also a lot of great smells around, because she was busy, busy, busy — heading off in all sorts of random directions. I was freezing, but she would have happily stayed outside for hours.
On Friday, Kyla and I enjoyed an art project. We took three of my photographs, and printed them out on canvas, then stapled them to pieces of wood. They’re hanging in the van now, and I love them. (Picture posted on instagram, so in the sidebar of the blog, if you want to see.)
Instead of returning to Kyla’s place in the mountains that night, though, I headed farther west, trying to get another hour or two of driving in. I spent the night in a Walmart parking lot outside of Gallup. Not my favorite ever parking lot, but it was cold and that was when I discovered that the generator wasn’t working. Friday was another long driving day. I’d intended to stay near Flagstaff, but when I got there, comfortably early, it was freezing cold and gray, with mounds of snow piled high on the corners of parking lots. I was so unenthusiastic. I might go back someday — it looks like an interesting place — but not in February.
So I kept driving, planning on continuing until I hit 50 degree weather. Fortunately, that happened sooner rather than later, and I spent Friday night and most of Saturday morning at Cerbat Foothills Recreation Area, my first (I think) Bureau of Land Management site. I was a little mystified when I got there — I’d pictured a road into the desert with visible spots where people would/could camp on the sides of the road. Instead, it was basically an unpaved parking lot with a low fence around it. I didn’t know whether to take a parking spot or to drive off the road into the scrub, but since I was only planning on spending the one night there, I just parked.
The sunrise was amazing. Walking the dog was terrific. It felt like I was out in nature, having an adventure, venturing into the unknown. I took dozens of photographs, and if I had more time, I would be sorting through them right now to find the best one. But I’d rather do laundry.
[image error]Little tiny white dot in the sky is a star. Many more of them were visible, but it’s hard to take photos of the stars.
Funny unrelated note: on Saturday night, I was tired after a long, largely uncomfortable day. I’d had a couple of restless nights, including one that was very much sweaty and miserable, between congestion and trying to keep comfortable in ever-changing temperatures. I looked at my bed and thought how much I wished I had clean sheets. And then I looked at the other bed and thought, um, self? It felt so lovely to crawl into the driver’s side bed with its clean sheets that night, and so absurd that I’d never really maximized my clean sheet potential before by using both beds. For the last two nights, I’ve slept in the driver’s side bed, which I’ve only ever done when I’ve had a tall guest in the van. Turns out, it’s perfectly nice. And the clean sheets felt like a luxury!
*I got new tires right before I left Florida. Apparently, you should check the tightness of the lug nuts after driving 1000 miles, which I never knew. I think I’m going to have to get myself the right kind of wrench for the job, though, because it would certainly have been useful to have about a thousand miles ago, well worth the space it would take up in the van.
February 7, 2019
Palo Duro Canyon State Park, Canyon, Texas
I am sitting at the bottom of a canyon in Texas and it is cold. For the first time, the van really couldn’t keep up with the chill during the night. That was mostly my fault — there are a bunch of heat conservation tips to living in a van that boil down “cover windows” and “block off unused areas.” Basically, the van stays warmer when I curtain off the cab, close the bathroom doors, and put the shades down and the window covers up. Not complicated. I didn’t do it, though, because hello, canyon. Beautiful isolated rocky cliffs, incredible dark starry night, and the only light that which came from all the myriad ridiculous little lights that shine in the van all night long. Well, and off in the distance, lights to the bathroom.
From the van, I can see one lone tent camper, and I would feel sorry for them, except my friend P goes camping in snow, and at least there’s no snow here. I’m assuming those campers were prepared for the weather.
Speaking of weather, that’s why I’m in a canyon in Texas. (Did you know there were canyons in Texas? Total surprise to me. Not as implausible as discovering, say, a waterfall in Texas, but surprising nonetheless.) I was headed toward New Mexico and making great time, when I checked in with Kyla, who I’m hoping to visit. She mentioned the dreaded word, “snow.”
I am not doing snow. When I first moved into Serenity, I thought it might be fun to experience snow again, but it’s not. I don’t like snow. In fact, if you’ve read all my books, you probably know that because I’ve mentioned it more than once. My characters seldom like snow either! So I’m not going to places where the snow is or is likely to be, and for a couple days that included Kyla’s part of New Mexico. I could have gone on to Albuquerque and met up with her there, but it was raining in Albuquerque and I am not in such a hurry that I need to drive in the rain.
So I took a snow day and paused in Palo Duro Canyon, south of Amarillo, for a couple of nights. (The actual town name is Canyon, Texas, which I like, because it’s so very descriptive. Yep, that’s where we are. In a canyon.) On the first night, I was in the Hackberry Campground. I think the ranger gave me the site because it was reasonably close to the entrance of the park, within very easy walking distance to the bathrooms. Efficient, in other words. And it was certainly nice, with lots of short trees, which in the summer, when its hot, would probably be lovely, and a fun winding path up to the outside theater.
But on my snow day, I went exploring. I drove miles into the canyon, down to the river (lots of flash flood warning signs at the bridges), and took a look at a the campground at the very end of the road. And then I went all the way back up to the front and asked if I could switch sites. Then I came back to my new site and took a hundred photographs, none of which turned out particularly interesting. I think the light was too bright, actually — everything from the camera looks flat and bland. But here’s the view from the van window, taken with the iPhone.
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And here’s my favorite photo from the last few days, also taken with the iPhone. It was at a rest stop on the highway, headed west.
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Today’s plan: New Mexico.
February 4, 2019
Beaver Dam Campground, Kisatchie National Forest
I had grand plans for Sunday: I was going to get ALL the things done. Writing and email and updating files, cleaning the van, cooking for the whole week ahead.
Funny thing, spending two solid days driving does not motivate one to get ALL the things done. It motivates one to pick things up and then set them down again, that sort of helplessly fluttery, “can’t keep track of what I was doing for more than ten seconds” mode.
I was helped in my useless state by having it be a grey day in a mostly deserted national forest. All around me were barren trees and dead leaves. Beautiful nature, but beautiful in a bleak way. Beautiful in a “nice day for warm beverages and soup” sort of way.
[image error]Beautiful in a dead brown debris sort of way.
But let me backtrack. I left Florida on Friday morning, not crazily early but reasonably early. I intended a long driving day, but I’d had a mostly sleepless night of anticipation. I have no idea why I was so wound up about leaving, but I was. When I was trying to fall asleep, it was as if I needed to wake up early to catch the last helicopter out of the city before the invading army arrived. Win one for the anxious brain.
But the mindful brain got the last laugh: instead of stressing the next day, I forced myself to relax. I took my time, ate a good lunch, let Zelda enjoy the rest stops to her heart’s content. Well, almost. I’m pretty sure Z would spend forever in a rest stop if I let her. It’s got to be like an art museum for dogs. Or maybe a theme park. So many interesting smells! So much to sniff! I did eventually make her get back in the van, but first I let her check out far more of the trees than I usually do.
Eventually, we wound up at a Cracker Barrel outside of Mobile, Alabama. I’d hoped to make it into Mississippi — Hattiesburg at the very least — but it was not to be. Still, it was the nicest parking lot I’ve ever stayed in. Quiet, dark, peaceful.
But I noticed before I closed the blinds that the camper next to me — an old one, from 1982, as I learned the next day — had its parking lights on. I wondered whether they were leaving, then thought nothing more about it.
Until the next morning, when George and I puzzled out how to jumpstart his camper together. We were on the verge of giving up when I pulled up a youtube video on my phone and we learned that we had it right, we just needed to be patient. I ate my breakfast sitting in Serenity’s driver’s seat with the engine on, and George’s camper finally rumbled back to life.
I think George and I were almost equally satisfied when his camper was finally running: him, because hey, he was no longer stuck in a parking lot, and me because it is so very satisfying to be able to be helpful. Well, and also a little bit because he wasn’t a serial killer, lying about his dead battery in order to hit me over the head and murder me horribly. I never really thought he was, but… well, yeah. Anxious brain did not get the win on that one.
So my Saturday started off well and it continued well. The driving was… driving. Not much to say about it. Sometimes I admired the scenery; sometimes I developed complicated speeches to convince people of the rightness of my political philosophies; sometimes I contemplated systems to quickly determine whether a number is prime or not; sometimes I worked on stories (although never the one I meant to be working on); sometimes I got in the zone and just drove. Around 3 or so, I started considering whether I should pay for a campground for the night or whether I should just push on for another few hours, find a parking lot, and look for a campground for the next day. As is probably obvious from the title of this post, I went for the former.
Something about knowing I’m going to be driving 3100 miles in the next two weeks, though, makes me very reluctant to take lengthy detours. I’d been looking at an Army Corps of Engineers campground, because I like the ACOE campgrounds usually, but when it came down to it, I didn’t want to drive as far away from the highway as it would have required. Round trip, I believe it would have added 52 miles to my journey. Not a huge number, but approximately 1.67% added to my drive. (Along with the political arguments, I spent an inordinate amount of time on my drive calculating gas costs, mileage, and whether cruise control was economically prohibitive. Answer: Yes, although not if my entire drive was taking place in Mississippi and Alabama where gas prices are crazily low.)
Anyway, all that to explain why I wound up in this national forest. I would have liked to go to the Turtle Slide Campground, because what a great name, but it was tents only, and hike-in, so I’m at the campground with electricity instead. The price is right, though — $15 for a site with water and electricity. I think it was $10 for the tent sites. I haven’t seen much of the campground — combination of a gray day and Zelda being very disinclined to go for a walk this morning — but the sites are nice and spacious, with fire pits and picnic tables. Mine has a bit of a water view.
And at night, there are no lights at all. The darkness is impressively dark. I could wish for clearer skies, because the stars might be amazing, but the darkness is kind of amazing on its own. Most campgrounds are actually not that dark, because of all the ambient people light — lights on campers, lights on bathrooms, sometimes even streetlights in the campground. Not this one. Across the water, one lone light is shining, but it doesn’t even make a dent in the blackness. It makes me look forward to getting out west and camping in the desert, so I can see the serious nighttime sky.
And it’s good that I’m looking forward to it, because off I go. Tonight, Texas and a stop at HEB to buy some spice gum drops!
February 1, 2019
Best of January 2019
Three driveways and one familiar state park, with a total travel radius of maybe 40 or 50 miles at best. Not exactly the most adventurous month of my journey. And, in fact, a lot of the month was taken up with the mundane: doctor, dentist, vet, van maintenance, taxes, paperwork… the usual minutiae of life, packed into a hectic few weeks.
But the highlights included games with C and company; Animal Kingdom with my aunt and uncle; multiple meals with relatives; and most especially, the book party celebrating Cici.
Also, some incredibly good meals. It’s a good thing my New Year’s resolutions had nothing to do with losing weight, because January would have been deadly. Grilled pork chops; baked salmon; chicken with a coffee rub; shrimp skewers; chicken with chick peas and orange zest; home-made spaghetti sauce on gluten-free pasta; fantastic chili… plus, of course, all my usual quinoa bowls topped with sous vide protein and Greek yogurt salad dressings. I know I’m not even remembering some of the meals that were delicious in their moments.
The win for the best meal of the month goes to the double pork carnitas tacos, though. Actually, no, I’m going to give the win to breakfast the morning after the double pork carnitas tacos, which was corn tortillas topped with carnitas, a fried egg and a tomatillo salsa. I so wish I could be eating it again. Right now in fact, because at the moment, I’m sitting in a parking lot, in the dark, somewhere near Mobile, Alabama, thinking about my month, and it’s that meal that makes me wistful as I say good-bye to January 2019 and Florida. Time to go find some dinner!
January 30, 2019
Not a photography blog
Today was my last Florida adventure: a day at Animal Kingdom with my aunt and uncle. The weather was on the chilly side but the company was excellent. I still didn’t manage to go on the Avatar ride, aka the world’s best ride, but the animal walks were terrific. And I remembered to bring my camera!
I took 240 pictures. Lots of them are truly terrible. Blurry, bad light, shadowed, all the problems one can imagine photos having these photos have.
A reasonable number of them could be turned into good photographs with some cropping, maybe a few photo enhancements. Tweak the white balance, that kind of thing. Tug on a few sliders, maybe apply a filter or two… But I don’t want to post dozens of photographs to my blog. A few are nice, a multitude would be overkill.
So I decided (with one exception) to only post photos that are exactly as I took them: no cropping, no editing, no changing, just the moment the camera captured. Well, almost exactly — in order to keep the file sizes small, I had to downgrade the quality and size. The real images are clearer and bigger.
Today’s favorite photos:
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Apparently, I like pictures of eyes.
And the one exception — cropped because if I posted the original in a form small enough to easily upload to the web, the adorable baby elephant would look an awful lot like a lump of rock.
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January 28, 2019
Lazy rain day
Yesterday was a torrential rain day. I never got out of my pajamas and I spent far too much time playing Candy Crush (for the first time in years).
At about 6PM, I thought, “I have wasted my day! I should…” and then I stopped myself. A decade ago, I could easily have taken a rainy Sunday as a chance to do nothing much. To watch some television, putter around the house, play some video games, maybe read a book. At 6PM, I might have felt guilty enough about my laziness to throw a load of laundry in the washer, but I might not have, too.
Somehow life in a van and, I suppose, self-employment makes me feel like I have to do things every day. All the things. I have to run errands and write words and go for good walks and check social media and answer email and read books and work on becoming a better meditator/photographer/cover designer/inspiration of the day…
But yesterday was just a lazy day. It was chilly and wet and the van was cozy and it was nice to be snuggled under the covers with Zelda on my feet. And I have no regrets. As I look at my week ahead — a busy week, which I expect to end in some other state, maybe Texas by next Monday? — I’m glad that I appreciated my rainy day as an opportunity to do nothing.
And now, to do all the things…
[image error]This peacock was hanging out on the playground down the street. I love Florida.
January 25, 2019
On Photography
I was explaining my specific issues with my current camera to my dad, who responded with, “That really doesn’t make sense. Did you look it up?”
Umm… well, no, I hadn’t. I’d played with the menus on the camera, I’d pressed all the buttons, I’d explored everything I thought I could explore, but I hadn’t actually asked my specific questions of the internet. Turns out that the Nikon CoolPix software has three lists of Menu options, not just two. In my defense, the second list offers only one option, Firmware, followed by a bunch of blank space — who would assume that there was another list beyond that one?
But discovering that I could turn off the sound and the auto-focus (which I think is what causes the delay that always loses the shot) made me resolve to experiment with my current camera and learn more about photography before considering buying a new one.
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I’m finding it a little bit of a frustrating process, though. The camera feels like a mysterious black box over which I have no control. I take ten shots and hope one of them will be interesting. The above flower existed on the camera as red blur, red blur, red blur, red blur, red blur, fuzzy flower, fuzzy flower, fuzzy flower and then — aha! Actual flower. Still not quite in focus, though, but at least an interesting picture. The oranges are blobs of color in six shots and then almost right.
And I want to find a web site that will teach me what I’m doing, but I don’t want to immerse myself in photography. I don’t want a blog that sends me 35 posts a week on the latest and greatest, I just want a steady drip of basic information. I’m definitely going to have to keep hunting for that, because I’m sure it’s out there somewhere.
[image error]
The basic strategy of “take lots of photos,” though, is probably a good one. I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to take a picture that captures the feel of Spanish moss on trees over the past two years — hundreds, maybe? They never come out right. But the above, which was actually intended as a picture of the moon, almost gets it. If only I knew how I did it. 
