count down to lift off

The launch sequence was initiated some time ago and since then we have been locked into a steady march toward an inevitable next chapter. I can't tell if this is more like walking off a cliff or activating our jet packs and waving goodbye, but yesterday I crossed a threshold. It was my last day working at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as an art preparator. Yes, that's an odd word and most people outside of art museums have never heard of such a thing. It just means that I was part of the group of people who move the art from here to there (and often back again) and put it on the walls. These folks are too often asked to do the impossible in too little time under absurd conditions, and yet things almost always work out and the exhibition opens on time.

I was at LACMA for just shy of six and a half years and I was supervisor of one of the installation groups for about four of those years. In that time I was witness to some truly crazy things. Large institutions tend to turn reality upside-down and backwards and LACMA is no exception. Oh, the many moments I was left shaking my head in bewilderment at some bizarre conflagration of head butting egos and I can't count the times that I was asked (in less specific terms) to levitate an artwork that had to be hung on a wall or mounted in a case but couldn't be touched due to its extraordinary fragility. As an encyclopedic museum, LACMA asked me to participate in installing everything from very heavy things made of rock (yes, marble is just rock no mater how you slice it) to strings of brightly colored plastic bowls and cups (for Happy, Happy pictured above) and then move on to arrange stacks of decorative plates that used to be someone's dinnerware. The job was often frustrating and stressful but looking back from the threshold where we stand it was often amusing and occasionally fun as well.

And now I get to the thing that made me get up at 2am to write this... Yesterday was my last day, and while most of the folks that I worked closely with at LACMA knew for more than a month that I was soon leaving, in my last week the swell of appreciation for my efforts was a little overwhelming. I guess I tend to be self-deprecating and usually figure that I'm just a big clod, but everyone's kindness and appreciation made me think I did alright. While working at LACMA I had lots of mornings when I just didn't want to get out of bed to face another finicky textile that had to hang just so or to figure out how to pack a really old piece of glassware that is just flaking away with every breath.

In particular, the last day of well-wishing and slaps on the back nearly drove me to get all misty eyed. Most folks had some knowledge of the trip that mrs. a go-go and I have planned and as a parting gift they passed the hat (actually a cookie tin that I will have to make into a cookie tin dulcimer or banjo when we're done roaming) and made a whopping contribution to the gas fund. The gift should carry us through at least 2,500 miles of our long drive. I can not thank every one enough for their kind words and a swell send off, and I hope most of these folks have a chance to read this.

It's time to cross the threshold, and we're going come hell or high water. Thank you to everyone who has made us feel a little less crazy for wanting to do this.

Portland! day one, gettin' there is half the fun

Aack! Things have been so busy, and I have neglected so many of our previous travels, but here's the beginning of one of my favorites. Late in 2008 we trekked to Portland, Oregon. A place we hope to visit again on the west coast leg of the Big Trip.

On our first visit to Portland we met with lots of swell people, some for the first time in person. Certainly, for this trip, gettin' there was half the fun. We took our time meandering up the California coast sticking mostly to highway 101, and our official starting point was San Luis Obispo. After spending the night with family we struck out northbound driving the long coastal valley past some of the richest agricultural land anywhere. The vineyards turned to vegetables and near Salinas, to endless rows of those giant edible thistles, artichokes. Naturally, we had to have a jump with the world's largest artichoke in Castroville. We were some distance from the acres of garlic near Gilroy but the onions still managed to perfume our path.
After a failed experiment with baking tiny cakes in orange peels on the car engine (they just didn't bake through... gotta stick to things that can be steamed over an hour or two or maybe tiny oranges) we had a quick road side lunch at In-N-Out (and NOT Margie's where the burgers were $10 and the service nonexistent). Then it was on to Santa Cruz to visit with St. Blaize and Neville, some of our favorite people. We had tea and a snack of fresh little tomatoes. This was our second visit to Santa Cruz and we feel at home there. It's near the top of our list of possible places to live for the next phase of our lives.St. Blaize and Neville took us on a tour of the neighborhood and community garden. Sigh... I hope we are not so broke after our trip that we can't search for a good place to land (are there any available near you Blaize?).

After our brief visit it was time to head further north. The fog rolled in and gave us a taste of the wet we'd be in for most of the trip.

We arrived in Burlingame by sundown, just it time to visit the Pez Museum before the proprietor closed up shop for the night. The variety is overwhelming, and includes vintage Pez vending machines featuring an illustrated Pez lady with lusty eyes and full lips. She seemed to suggest much more than freash breath, "Doppel PEZ fur 2 PEZ-BOX fullungen!" Our eyes glazed over all the candy colored kitsch and we realized we were starving. The proprietor had an excellent suggestion where to find a hot dinner in the neighborhood. Just around the corner they were serving up hot bowls of Vietnamese Pho. Our fondness for this dish is a subject I think I have well covered in previous posts. Maybe it was our hungry state or maybe it was the dreary cold weather, either way, that soup still sticks in the noggin as one of the best bowls we've had.

Back on the road we lost our way among the confusing one-way streets of San Francisco. Getting lost in the center of San Francisco at night in the middle of a street protest with nowhere to park and read the map, is not unlike Alice falling down the rabbit hole. With some dead reckoning and persistence we found our way across the Golden Gate. After a short stop on the north side of the bridge for some long exposure photos and humorous view of the cats and raccoons that hung around all buddy buddy, we picked a plain little motel in Petaluma for a night's rest. We passed out early knowing we had many miles of coast redwood forest to look forward to in the morning.

sand in my shoes and moderate sun

The a-go-gos love the beach, but we are not the sort to lay in the sun. We say, "good morning," to the ocean when we find ourselves there at dawn. We'll have breakfast on the cold damp beach and watch tiny crabs to kick the loose sand out their front doors. Early morning or not we don't linger when the sun is too bright. Overcast cool days are the ones to spend watching the waves.

For a Venice Beach ride we'll arrive when early-bird joggers and dedicated surfers are our only company, while the people who spent the night in their cars are still asleep. With so few people out we don't get the usual comments about our screwy lookin' bike helmets. Our ancestors come from the land that the sun forgot and we must work hard to maintain our pallor. We're usually home taking a nap by the time the sun worshipers are out. It's much easier to feel like you're the only one who knows about a place when there is no one else there. Arriving really early or going on cloudy, cool days makes the beach a new discovery. Sometimes the tide has been high enough overnight that yours are the first footprints. Cool days when the other primates don't want to be on the beach is when all the critters come out. Cormorants dive for fish close to shore and the kill deer stroll the lines of froth and sea weed.

Even when we visited friends in Maui for our honeymoon, we couldn't be bothered to sun bathe. I would be up early for a walk in the mornings, or we'd sit on the beach to wait for the sun to take its evening bath.
The sand makes for some fine jump pictures, and an early nap on a sand padded quilt is just that much better when you don't have to worry about sun burn. Sand dribble castles can stretch their ramparts across the beach when your construction efforts are not in the path of of the cell phone zombies and courting couples.

we jump in pretty places

and sometimes, not so pretty...

Taking interesting pictures while on the road isn't necessarily too difficult. Sometimes the view just presents itself and you snap, snap. snap away. If you head over to flickr and type in say...Mono Lake. You will suddenly find yourself faced with thousands of photos...forty-three plus to be exact(ish). Photo after photo of sunsets and sunrises behind those fabulous tufas. Since everyone else seems to have taken the very same (even better) picture, we a-go-gos jump.

Our first big jump was on the day we "eloped". We now do that same jump every year on our anniversary. Though, knowing that we're leaving L.A., I guess we'll have to find a new jumping spot...with fountain.

After that...I became a bit of a jumping fiend. Making poor Mr.a-go-go jump most everywhere. It's fun, it's different, it's a little bit tiring but it always makes for a great picture.

We've jumped in the Valley of Fire.

Death Valley.

Bodie.

In front of Circus Circus.

We've jumped together...

alone...

and with friends (some of whom we had just met)...

So, what say you. Will you jump with us?

lovely Lassen part three, King's Creek

After our hike to Bumpass Hell the day cleared and warmed up. We were treated to views of snow dusted Lassen Peak for the rest of the morning but the warm day took the frosting away by noon. The most popular features of Lassen Volcanic National Park are the volcano, thermal vents, and hot spring fed lakes, but there are wide meadows with meandering streams and varied forest landscapes resulting from past volcanic activity. From the winding park road we looked down through the sparse forest near the peak to see Upper Meadow and the King’s Creek area. The emerald patch was very inviting so we decided to have our second hike of the day on the creek.We stopped for lunch on the bank and some North American Dippers kept us company. They are entertaining small blue-grey birds that wade and dive into streams to catch food. They use their wings to swim under water too. Perched by the creek side they do a bouncing dance that is the origin of their name. For encroaching on their space the Dippers scolded us with a few bobs and sharp “zeets” then carried on searching for their own lunch.

mrs. a-go-go felt a mild cold coming on so we decided that we had had enough hiking for the day. We spent the afternoon exploring what we could from the road including the Devastated Area to the northeast of the peak. Lassen is at the southern end of the Cascades and has had its share of recent volcanic activity. The last major eruption was in 1915 and it was this eruption and pyroclastic flow that created the Devastated Area. The forest here has a different character due to its young age. The contrast is starkly visible in a patch of old forest that was shielded from the blast by dormant Crescent Crater on the flank of Lassen Peak. Strewn across the Devastated Area are sore thumb boulders laying where the eruption dropped them in 1915. The most fascinating are the puzzle stones. These black rocks are split into three dimensional jigsaw pieces that remain interlocked. Ejected from the volcano a puzzle stone’s surface cooled quickly while the center remained hot, and the outer shell split into wild shapes as it shrank. Near the road side we passed Hot Rock. B.F. Loomis traveling through the area in 1915 noted that this large boulder was still too hot to touch days after the eruption.

As our day was ending we decided to start for home and not stay another night. Many of the sights would require a hike we knew we wouldn’t have the energy, so the rest of Lassen would have to wait for another trip. On our way back to the south entrance we stopped for a snack in a clearing by the side of the road. There we had our once-in-a-lifetime sighting. The swinging arms, furry mane, and, “I’m getting outa here,” gait were a dead giveaway even from forty yards away.