The Marathon

Thu, 2 Jul 2009 10:33:31 -0700

26.2 miles is far. Think about this. The entire length of Manhattan is only about 13 miles. Ever consider walking from Wall Street to Yankee Stadium? Didn’t think so. But that’s only about 11 miles.

The distance between the Seattle Space Needle and the SeaTac Airport is less than 15 miles, between our old house in Scripps Ranch and the San Diego Airport is 17 miles. I’d never consider getting to either of those places on my own power.
 But Dan and I ran that distance--and more--on Saturday. I have to say, it was pretty fun. Anyone can do it--if you train faithfully for nine months. During all that training time, I had the Seattle race in mind. As I ran along the streets in Oklahoma and Arkansas and Alabama, I often wondered what it would be like on race day. I imagined that, since the marathon was the culmination of our trip, I’d be running along remembering all the wonderful places we’d trained. Many of the tunes I run to have acquired secondary meanings: one reminds me of running in the Florida heat, another reminds me of the Katrina-ravaged Biloxi beach, still another takes me back to Tennessee. I was sort of looking forward to a 26.2-mile inside-the-brain slideshow of the fifty states.

But I never had time for all that reminiscing. The race started and there I was, running with the crowd. Among the thousands of others, fascinated that so many other people were as crazy as we were to attempt this feat.

So much for the music jogging all those memories. I turned off my tunes to listen to the bands rocking along the road, then forgot to turn my iPod back on again.

We ran along Lake Washington--Dan pointed in the air and said, “Look! Look!” I didn’t see it, but there was a bald eagle in a nearby tree. I missed the eagle because I was looking at a four-year-old kid on the side of the road who’d pulled his pants off. All kinds of sights on this run.

Soon the course took us along the I-90 floating bridge and we had a spectacular view of Mount Rainier. Then into the tunnel, back out again, and bingo! We were in the big city with skyscrapers all around us. Low and behold, in the sky, cruising around the construction cranes was another bald eagle.

Then we headed along the waterfront, past the ferries that we’ll probably be taking a lot once we get jobs, and down to Quest Field, where the Seahawks play. Our welcome home party consisted of Dan’s brother and partner, our kids, and our friend Thomas who flew up from San Diego to run in the marathon--and beat us by an hour. It felt great to see them and cross the finish line at the exact same moment as Dan.

So, despite my intentions, this was no run down memory lane. The marathon made its own, new memories. And that, I guess, is just how the final event in our 50-states trip should be.

Marathon Training

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:54:16 -0700

In many ways, this trip has been a marathon. You know, a year on the road, a visit to every state, a family confined in a RV. Definitely an endurance test.

But the literal marathon--the 26.2 mile kind--was also a huge part of our trip. Back in September, Dan met a guy in an RV park in New Jersey. He and his wife live full time in their RV, traveling around the country, running marathons. I’m not sure what exactly that guy said to Dan, but after that, Dan vowed to run a marathon. He noticed the Rock N Roll Marathon would be held in Seattle at the very end of our trip. So a plan was hatched.

It was his plan, not mine. I never had any marathon ambitions. “Three miles in a row is all any human should run,” I said. But after a while, I started running with him in the morning. More than anything, it was a way of balancing out those BBQ ribs, deep dish pizzas and frozen custards we sampled in the name of “tasting local culture.”

I just followed Dan, and my endurance rose. First I broke the 6-mile wall. Then, in Jacksonville, we ran a half-marathon. After that, running didn’t really get easier, but it started becoming part of our USA experience. And those runs offered some of our most memorable moments.

I ran alongside dolphins jumping out of waves in South Carolina. A ran under paratroopers jumping out of planes in Georgia. I ran on the levee in New Orleans (and almost got eaten alive by stray dogs). I ran by saguaro cacti in Arizona. I ran on the shores of the Snake River in Idaho.

Did I sweat and moan as I did those runs? Probably. But now I don’t remember one bit of that. All I remember is the the incredible sense of place, amazing experience of nature.

I am a different person today because I (with Dan beside me of course) ran 18 miles up the side of Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii (Hello? Running up a volcano? I still can’t believe I did it ). In Colorado, I made Dan take a picture of me at the end of our run because I just had to see what I looked like after running six miles in 30-mile-per-hour winds at 8000 elevation.

Those are memories I will always cherish. They are things I never thought I would do--never thought I could do--but I did them and they were amazing.

And so, last Saturday, we finally got to Seattle and the Rock N Roll Marathon. The literal and figurative end of the road.

An Alaskan Scene

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 12:39:32 -0700

Alaska is the Last Frontier and for us, the last state. We flew from Seattle to Ketchikan to save the time and expense of driving (or ferrying) the RV 1000-plus miles. When we touched down, we hefted our luggage down a ramp and onto a waiting ferry.

“No bridge?” I looked across the Narrows. It was a short expanse from the island where the planes landed to town.

“Funding got cut,” said someone.

Recession hits everywhere, I thought. Then I learned the road slated to span the Narrows was the infamous Bridge To Nowhere. Call me what you will, but I don’t think that bridge would have gone nowhere. It would have gone to the airport.

We were expecting clouds, annual rainfall exceeds 160 inches in Ketchikan, but we were greeted with a week of gorgeous weather. Every day, Dan and the boys rose early, jumped in a boat and went fishing with Bruce, a fourth generation Alaskan. I stayed around the hotel room and read. I read three books and the three manuscripts—it was a luxury to sit around all day with nothing to do but read. I wasn’t a complete hermit, though. Every day I took long walks and here’s what I saw:

Tourists from huge cruise ships
A pod of orcas
A mink
A whole bunch of bald eagles
Lots of totem poles

OK, I admit a bullet list is skimpy. “Seems as if you are looking forward to your next transition,” wrote one regular reader of this blog, “you didn't seem to be viewing everything with the freshest [eyes] that you started with.”

There’s probably a lot of truth in that. But right now, I don’t feel jaded per se… it’s more like like saturated. What can I say about the people, places and things in Alaska compared to the people, places and things in Oklahoma, Idaho, or Biloxi, Mississippi? The people are independent like in Oklahoma. The places are woodsy like in Idaho. The things are dumpy like in Biloxi. After taking it all in for a whole year, and there’s almost too much to think about, too much to write. That makes it hard to write anything.

So I’ll mark our trip to Alaska with a vignette from the café where I stopped for a bite one afternoon. Our hotel’s van driver directed me to the place where locals go. I took a stool at the lunch counter. Soon after I ordered my halibut and chips, a twenty-something woman in a pair of cutoff jeans and an extra small red tank top sat down one stool away. Her black hair was parted in the middle and was plaited into braids. She reminded me of a combination of Betty Boop and Daisy Duke.

“It’s my birthday today, it’s my birthday today,” she said to anyone and everyone. “Hey, it’s my birthday.”

A guy from one of the tables came over invited her for a drink later. The fact that she started talking into her cell phone in the middle of his request gave me the impression that she wasn’t too interested. The man also got the picture and soon left. The birthday girl began planning her birthday party with the counter waitress. It was clear they socialized frequently. I wondered about that friendship: compared to the birthday girl, the counter waitress couldn’t have been more opposite. She was forty-something with mousy hair and an earthy solidness. “Charades is fun after people start drinking,” the waitress suggested.

An elderly woman came in and sat on the stool between me and the birthday girl. She was short, grizzled, and had the voice of a rock grinder. That was probably due to the Camels that she kept lighting up, one after the other. This woman was in her 70’s at least, maybe 80’s. Like the waitress, it was evident that she hung out with the birthday girl regularly. She joined in on the party planning as if she’d been there all along.

Instead of charades, the birthday girl said, she’d rather get a poster of a hunk and play some sort of pin-the-tail game. I didn’t get exactly what they’d be pinning, or where, but it was clearly x-rated. “You’ll need something for the guys,” added the waitress.

“How about pin the hooters on the hottie?” said the eighty year old.

“Perfect!” said the birthday girl, spinning around on her stool.

So I leave you with this impression of Alaska: Three women from three generations hanging out at a lunch counter planning a naughty birthday bash. Just another day on the last frontier.

Now It’s Your Turn

Thu, 4 Jun 2009 05:37:27 -0700

OK, Bacon Across America fans, we have one more state to go. Next week it’s Alaska, state Number 50. I’m a little stunned that we actually made it (just about).

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, I have a favor to ask. I want know who you are. And I want to know which entry was your favorite. Just click ADD A COMMENT below or email me using the “Email Me” button at the bottom of our home page.

Bacon Across America will only have a few more blog entries, but I’m thinking about starting a new blog called Bacon Builds A House, the next big adventure in our lives. Stay tuned... and thanks for reading.

State Loyalty

Sat, 30 May 2009 06:42:06 -0700

“One big transition,” I should have been saying all along. That should have been my answer when I was asked, hundreds of times, why we took this trip. Last June, Dan transitioned out of the Navy. The kids were transitioning from dependence into self-reliance. And most of all, we were transitioning from from California to Washington. “We’re just making the move from our old state to our new one--by way of the forty-eight others.”

We’re almost at the finish line now and our new home state literally rises on the horizon. I’m looking forward to being a Washingtonian. But what does that mean? Is there any state loyalty out there anymore? I’m thinking about what we learned in Gettysburg (or maybe Antitum or Harper’s Ferry or Washington DC...). On the eve of the Civil War, Abe Lincoln asked Robert E. Lee, already considered the country’s best general, to lead his army. After thinking about it, Lee said, “I’m a Virginian first, and an American second.” Would anyone say that today?

Definitely not in our old state of California. San Francisco and San Diego are as kindred as silicon and sand dunes, Los Angeles is concerned with only itself, and the farmers of the central valley may as well be Oklahomans for all the coast-dwellers care.

One state does have loyalty. Texas. When we went to a rodeo in San Antonio, people clapped politely when a guy rode out on a pony holding the US flag. But they went berserk with cheers when the next rider came into the ring with the Texas flag. They love their state. And why not? Texas was a nation unto itself before it choose to join the Union.

One other state can make that claim. Hawaii. Hawaii was not only its own nation, it had a king and queen and everything. When we were on the Big Island, birthplace of mighty Kamehameha, we learned about his rule and customs. I couldn’t help but compare it to the court of Louis XIV in France. But would Hawaiians today make a big to-do about their royal history? Nah, they’re too laid back for that.

More than state loyalty, Americans feel regional loyalty. “I’m a Southerner,” “a Midwesterner, “a New Englander,” people claim. Those labels lilt easily off the tongue--much more easily than nicknames for individual states. Ever hear someone claim to be an Illinoisan? Is it a Michigonian or Michigander? A Wyomingite or Wyominger? A Delawite or Delawarian?

I tried to find out what you call a Utah resident and found that the Utah State Government says it is Utahn. Huh? And what about people from Maine? People in Massachusetts (Massachoosoids?) where I grew up always called them Maniacs, but I think that was probably in jest.

If we use our own language as a guide, I’d say for most of us, it doesn’t really matter what state we live in. Still, I’m looking forward to being a Washingtonian. Sure people gripe about the rain. How ironic was it when the Coloradan, during a snowstorm in March, criticized the weather in Seattle. “At least it doesn’t snow there in March,” I wanted to answer. It’s not like all those other states have perfect weather. Oh yeah, I guess San Diego does. Is it too late to rethink this transition thing?

Wake Up Call

Mon, 25 May 2009 07:59:17 -0700

I woke up this morning to the sound of a man who’d been stabbed. ARRRRRG—AOOOOW. Some hoodlum must have come up to the side of his tent with a very large knife and gashed him right through the fabric while he was sleeping.

AROOOOW. He must be a large man, judging from his low, pained bellows. I imagined him stumbling out of his tent, clutching his abdomen, spewing red blood all over the campground.

OOOOHHH—ARRR. It was early, but I knew I had to get out of bed. Do something. Help him.

AHHHRRGH—MOO. Moo? Wait a minute, men don’t say “moo.”

Then it occurred to me. I shook myself fully awake. Our campground was completely full for the Memorial Day weekend. We were jammed in next to trailers and pop-up tents, fire rings, igloo coolers, and barbeque grills. But the place was alongside a field in Idaho--and it must be awfully close to a barn.

MOOOOO.

The bovine wailed louder. I rolled over and put the pillow over my head. Thank goodness I hadn’t gotten up. It would have been pretty embarrassing, calling 911 to report a cow.

Truck Stops

Sun, 24 May 2009 11:39:51 -0700

You really can’t fill a 100-gallon diesel tank in a regular BP or Exxon. So you have to pull into places with names like Flying J, Love’s, and Travel America. They’re truck stops. If you’ve driven a regular car all your life, a truck stop can be a pretty intimidating place.

When you first roll in, you usually have to pass row after row of parked trucks, jammed together like sardines. You can’t help wonder what kind of acrobatic finesse those drivers possess in order to squeeze their mega-ton rigs so neatly into such small slots. Then when you see one of the truckers himself (or herself as the case may be) hobble down from the driver’s seat all thoughts of “acrobatic” and “finesse” fly instantly from your mind. Those truckers, as a whole, are the flabbiest, sloppiest, limping-est group I have ever seen. I think there’s a law that you have to be at least six-foot-four to become a trucker—six-foot-four in all directions.

So we roll past the snugged-in-tight trucks and into the pumping area. Diesel pumps at truck stops are like regular gas stations on steroids: hulking dispensers fitted with oil-blackened pipes, a corrugated metal roof overhead and slick black puddles of mystery liquid underfoot. Unlike your friendly neighborhood Mobil, you can’t just put a credit card in the slot and pump away. Real truckers don’t use money. Their companies have accounts set up and the billing is all done by purchase order. So if you’re in an RV, you have to go into the shop, hand over your credit card, and the attendant turns on the pump, holding your plastic as collateral.

Since the beginning of the trip, I’ve always been the one to go into the shop. Dan does the pumping. As greasy and stinky as it is to pour 75-or-so gallons into the side of an RV, I think that’s the easier job. Because standing there pumping gas, you don’t have to interact with anyone. Venturing into the truck stop shop, on the other hand, who knows who you’ll run into.

The store area in most truck stops offer all the amenities a long-distance trucker needs: a greasy diner, bathrooms (with reservable shower stalls) and the biggest selection of junk food, fountain drinks and books on CD you’ve ever seen. They always have that burnt-coffee-and-overcooked-corndog smell. And there’s always a line of truckers waiting to buy a bag of pork rinds, a can of Red Bull, and a double pack of Sno-Balls. The truckers look at me like they’ve never seen a real live female before, or at least a female who didn’t smoke a carton of Winstons and eat a box of Krispy Kremes every day. The women behind the counter, who usually have a carton of Winstons and box of Krispy Kremes by their sides, are always nice to me, the way a jail warden is friendly to a small kitten who has wandered inadvertently into the penitentiary grounds.

The kids, of course, have a different perspective on the truck stop shops. They don’t notice the leering truckers. They’re blinded by the dazzling kitsch. Walls of magnets with ridiculous sayings on them (“Elvis is my copilot.”) Racks of every bad DVD ever made—just $5.99! T-shirts with sayings even more ridiculous than the magnets’ (“I’m not bald, it’s a solar panel for a love machine.”) Bobble heads in every shape and size (cows, dogs, football players, birds, Jesus.) Smokeless cigarettes, Harley Davidson belt buckles, Legends of Nascar commemorative plaques. Wooden eagle carvings, electric fly swatters, barrel sized 195-ounce travel mugs. To the kids, a truck stop is a wonderland of fascinating objects.

When we started this trip, we thought it would be educational for the boys to stand out at the pumps with Dan recording the gallons, the price and the mileage. We imagined they would track the numbers, make bar charts, or do something mathematically important with the data. But after a while the excitement wore off. The didn’t really care how many gallons we put in, how far it was since the last fill up, or how much it cost. They started begging us to come in to the store. And, the strict homeschool parents that we are, we started letting them.

The boys and I look around the shop for ten minutes or so, giving Dan time to fill the tank with diesel. When I estimate he’s just about done, I top off his travel mug with half French Roast and half decaf and get back in line to run the credit card. The lady behind the counter, who I notice has one gold tooth and one missing tooth, asks, “Wanna’ buy a Snickers bar? We’re running a two for a dollar special.” I politely decline. Every truck stop between Georgia and Idaho is running that same special.

“If I sell this whole box during my shift, I get a five-dollar bonus,” she adds.

“I’m sure lots of people will take you up on the offer,” I say, just trying to be agreeable.

“Yeah,” she admits, “I usually sell three boxes before noon.”

Cattle Drive

Sat, 23 May 2009 08:34:31 -0700

We were moving our RV from Wyoming to Idaho when we noticed the traffic slowing up ahead. What was it? Cows. In the road. They weren’t just a bunch of milkers that wandered past their fence. It was a herd of beef cows on a cattle drive.

The cows were large and small, young and old, black and tan. A half dozen cowboys rode alongside on horseback all looking the part in denim, vests, ten gallon hats.

In that area, the highway ran along a narrow valley with steep hills on either side. So everyone who wanted to pass that way—cattle and big rigs alike—all had to use the same thoroughfare.

One mama cow and her baby wanted to cross the road from the right to the left—right in front of our RV. What do you do? In these parts, I’m pretty sure cows have right of way.

All I knew about cattle herding I learned when Arthur did a homeschool report on cowboys. “Before winter, they set their cattle free,” wrote Art, “Next spring, they round up all of their cattle.” I guess that’s what we were witnessing.

Arthur’s report was about the cowboys of the 1880’s. Who knew cattle was still handled that way? I went back and read his paper, wondering how many aspects of the cowboy trade remained the same.

Surely the cowboys didn’t act as the horses’ doctors as they did a 130 years ago. And these days, they probably filled their bellies in fast food joints not chuck wagons. I read on. “Once they get to town,” Arthur reported, “The cowboys get paid. Then they blow it all at the bar and casino.” Hmm, maybe out in the Wild West, some things never change.

The Bacon Effect

Thu, 21 May 2009 08:56:36 -0700

I don’t know when it started, maybe it’s always existed, but was first given a name by our friend Beth S. in Memphis. “The Bacon Effect” she called it—the uncanny way out-of-the-ordinary fun spontaneously happens to the Bacon family.

Like the way we show up at a campground in Kansas City—and there’s a BBQ cook-off going on. And the way Henry gets picked to get zipped up in the Space Lab bed at the Houston Space Center. And the way we become part of the street performances while walking along the waterfront in Key West.

One afternoon in Iowa, we had nothing to do, so we headed to Council Bluffs where we heard they have black squirrels. We are fans of black squirrels because there’s a family of them near our house in Birch Bay. Of course when we get to the center of town, there’s a carnival. The boys take a ride on the free, miniature Union Pacific Railway and I start chatting with an employee of the local museum. She insists we take part in the community portrait. “But we’re not from Council Bluffs,” I warn. “You are today,” she said. So now we’re part of this incredible documentation of everyday people in 2009.

Beth S. named the Bacon Effect the night we went to the Memphis Redbirds baseball game. She mentioned she knew the organist. “That’s totally cool,” we cheered. She was moved to call her friend via cell, and he invited us to the press box in the ninth inning. When we headed up there, the Redbirds were woefully behind. But that ninth inning was a blast—the team loaded the bases, scored a whole bunch of runs, and gave us all a chance to see the organist, announcers, TV crew, and scoreboard staff in action for a good long time.

“Does this always happen to you?” Beth S. asked as we all laughed, posing for photos up in the press booth. The four of us nodded. Almost everywhere we’ve gone this year, we found fun. Or fun found us. We’re not sure which, but it’s been a blast.

Starry Skies

Wed, 20 May 2009 19:06:37 -0700

It’s been said so often it’s now a cliché. “When I look up and see the stars, it makes me realize my insignificance.” That’s how we all feel on warm nights, sitting by the campfire, looking up into the sky, right? Wrong. I didn’t feel that way at all last night. We were camped out by the shores of Lake Ogallala in Nebraska, about as close as you can get to the geographical center of the United States. No big cities were anywhere nearby to leak light into the atmosphere, so looking up, I saw millions of stars. And the sense of being tiny or inconsequential didn’t enter my mind. Instead, a strong sense of independence and strength came upon me.

I’m trying to sort out the reasons why.

It’s not that I personally felt independent and strong. The sensation clearly wasn’t directed at myself, but on behalf of all the people who live out in places so far away from cities that they see skies like this every night, full of glittering stars. Remote places like this are miles from all the things we city folk take for granted: weekly garbage pickups, fast firefighter response, gourmet grocery stores... Even schools and hospitals take a good part of the day to reach.

Out in what is unfairly called “the middle of nowhere, “if something happens, you can’t just assume someone is going to come help. You have to take care of it yourself. You have to be independent. You have to be strong. When I looked up at that deep black, star-dotted sky, I realized that remote areas are not, as some think, full of people who can’t make it in the big city. They’re full of people resourceful and self-sufficient enough not to need the big city.

I’ve always lived in highly populated communities with governments and businesses that offer services for every issue ever known. Looking at the stars last night, became acutely aware that all those city services have, in a lot of ways, made me dependent and weak. I remember how scared I was a few years back when a mouse got into our San Diego house. I freaked out. I couldn’t deal. I called an exterminator. Now let’s say someone living out here finds a mouse—or raccoon or a bear for that matter—in their house. Would they call Truly Nolan? No, they’d handle it themselves.

For those of us who live in highly populated places, almost every aspect of existence has been turned into a service that someone else performs or advises us on. I think that makes us less well-rounded, less able, and more dependent than we otherwise could be. For example, if my fence blows over in a storm. What would I do? Probably call a fence builder. Or if the property bordered a city street, I’d call the city—they’d send someone over to fix it. But if I lived way out here who would I call? No one. I’d just go out there and fix the fence myself.

Need some exercise? Us city folk go to a gym or hire a personal trainer. What do the people living out here under the stars do? They don’t need exercise. They’re getting fit just keeping things going.

I know urbanites (you may be one of them) who pay people to walk their dogs, mow their lawns, tutor their kids, paint their nails, clean up their clutter… the list goes on and on. Sure, it contributes to the economy and frees us up to do other things, but to what end? What “other things” are there when you think about it? It’s like we’re hiring out the business of life. And worse than that—when we hire out everything, we start believing we can’t do anything. Convenience makes us dependent. Dependency reduces our self-esteem. Low self esteem, well, you know where this is going.

So looking up at the stars, instead of feeling my own insignificance, I felt admiration for the people in rural communities who look up every night and see no neon signs, no street lights, no klieg rays announcing a new shopping center… no nothing but a big, wide, empty universe. And they know that if they need help, all they’ve got to rely on is their own courage.