We're Here!

We're here!

After a very fun cross-country drive, we're safely ensconced in our new apartment in San Francisco.

(Actually, we've been here for almost a month, but it's been so busy that we haven't had time to finish this post until now.)

Our arrival in California was so satisfying! First impression: can't believe we're actually here! Our new neighborhood is so cute! (Second impression: it's raining and a bit chilly! And our apartment isn't very well insulated! And our place is totally empty with tons of boxes to unpack!)

Since then, we've unpacked the basic necessities, gone shopping for food and furniture, and acquired internet access, so we have the basics to live. We haven't really had time to do anything fun yet- still just trying to get settled.

And as a quick aside, it's funny how much San Francisco can seem like a parody of San Francisco:
-the community newspaper is full of ads from medical marijuana dispensaries suggesting that their in-house medical exam is very likely to qualify you for a cannabis prescription ('Get Legal! Don't pay if you don't pass!')
-a nearby beauty salon clarifies that 'Yes, we do manzilians!' (it took me a few seconds to figure out what that was, then I wished I hadn't.)

Finally, our ambitious plans to post daily updates from our cross-country drive were quickly scuttled by the reality, that west of Chicago, the 3G coverage gets very sparse. So without further ado, here is the retro-diary of our trip:

Day 1:

8:20am: we're off!
We're relieved to have gotten underway on-time; every aspect of packing has taken us longer than we expected, so even though it seemed like the only thing remaining to do on the last morning before leaving was to put our bags and boxes in the car and start driving, it was still a relief that nothing unexpected came up to put us behind schedule on Day 1.

The weather is lovely. The familiar forests that line the highways of Massachusetts blend seamlessly with the similar terrain in CT and NY. By the time we get to  central Pennsylvania the occasional stretches of flat farmland are beginning to foreshadow the vast Midwest lying ahead of us.

All along the way the autumn foliage feels like New England showing off its finery one last time. Other perks of traveling in autumn instead of summer: pleasantly cool temperatures, and delightfully uncrowded roads.

PK bought herself an iPad for the trip- the first time either of us has had a portable internet-accessing device. We're both thoroughly mesmerized by the Google Maps that indicate our position with a little blue dot THAT MOVES ACROSS THE MAP IN REAL TIME! It seems like magic.

The iPad-comes up big when we're looking for a spot to eat lunch in Scranton, PA. A few moments with the internet and presto, we've found a lovely picnic spot overlooking the river in the Nay Aug Gorge. Thanks, technology! (I apologize for all the mean things I've said about you in the past.)

We spend the night in Pittsburgh, which is an unexpected highlight of the trip. Pittsburgh feels like a city with a very tangible sense of its industrial past. Maybe at times this is a burden,  but to us it felt like character. We loved the old brick homes  and neat residential neighborhoods nestled between the hills, and the university district where  Pitt and Carnegie Mellon stand in close proximity.

Summary of Day 1 (for those who like figures): 563 miles in 8.5 hours of driving. (This feels like a comfortable quantity of driving- each of us doing a roughly 4 hour shift, not counting stops.) States traversed: MA, CT, NY, PA.

Day 2:

Shortly after leaving Pittburgh we're unambiguously in the Midwest. The landscape is suddenly flat flat flat, with an enormous blue sky above us. An occasional picturesque farmhouse with a red barn surrounded by fields has PK fumbling for her camera.

The Midwest

We have lunch overlooking a lake tucked into the woods of Pakogon park in Indiana (thank you iPad, again).
In Chicago we stay in the suburb of Oak park, a neighborhood where Frank Lloyd Wright built several gorgeous houses, which we admire on our way into the city for dinner.  We attempt to eat at Frontera Grill (flagship restaurant of celebrity chef Rick Bayless), but unsurprisingly, the 2 hour wait (at 5:45pm!) has us retreating to his informal taqueria around the corner (Xoco). We have some incredible tortas for dinner, and churros with chocolate sauce for dessert, then stroll through Chicago's vibrant downtown and Millenium Park.   We both agree that we could live here, just as we'd felt about Pittsburgh (something about being in transition seems to make both of us feel like we're hunting for a place to nest, like Mr. and Mrs. Mallard). Today's stats: 481 miles. PA, OH, IN, IL.

Day 3:

The midwest continues- we get a little bit of topography in Wisconsin, but not much scenery. My butt is getting sore. After chattering nonstop for the first two days, we spend Day 3 listening to podcast after podcast on the iPad: This American Life, Fresh Air, The Moth, Praire Home Companion, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me... they help the miles go by just a little faster, and soon we're in Minneapolis, where we admire the outdoor sculpture garden and have a great dinner.



Day 4:

More butt soreness. Driving through South Dakota, the scenery doesn't change much. We have lunch in a rest area, overlooking nothing- the only option for hundreds of miles.
We're excited to camp tonight! I feel braindead after so many days in the car. Camping focuses the mind on the essentials- find shelter, stay warm, get food.
We arrive in Badlands National Park in the evening, with its spectacular formations of eroded earth and rock. Also, prairie dogs, coyote, big horn sheep, and bison.  PK takes hundreds of photos of all the critters, while I lie awake that night worrying about getting trampled by sleepwalking bison. We wake up untrampled, but with an enormous bison grazing contentedly next to our tent when we stumble out of it the next morning. Easy, big fella! We watch it out of the corner of our eye as we eat our cereal, but it never looks up from its apparently delicious grass.

Day 5:

It's chilly out here on the prairie- last night dipped into the 20s. We spend the morning trying to distract ourselves from yet another dull driving day by joking about the amazingly plentiful billboards, which either advertise Wall Drug, or hint darkly that failure to stop for gas at next exit could lead you to run dry in the barren, gas station-less wilderness beyond! (There turns out to be gas at every exit.) It's thin fodder for entertainment, but it's all we've got.

Thus our excitement when we finally see the mountains looming in western Wyoming. We feel rejuvenated at the ending of the Midwestern monotony, and the beginning of the adventure/hiking/scenic portion of trip- a tangible feeling of progress after so many days of painfully similar scenery.

Soon we're on the outskirts of Yellowstone, driving through canyons whose sheer cliffs  loom over the narrow strip of trees and vegetation that huddle next to the river.
We stay in the only campground that is open this late in the season, trying to ignore the many signs warning us about grizzly bears. We're relieved when a group of hunters with dogs and horses arrive and take up residence a few campsites away. Even so, we pitch our tent right next to the car, and leave the doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition, in case we need to make a hasty get-away.

Day 6:

Yellowstone! It's beautiful. And yet... the name itself is so evocative, so larger-than-life, that it's hard not to be slightly disappointed when you finally get there. Yes, that is a lovely view... but I was expecting the most lovely view of my entire life!

What Yellowstone does have is tons of geothermal activity, with bubbling mud flats that billow steam into the wintry air. And lots of animals, especially bison. The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone is spectacular, with steep walls of pink and red rock layers, and huge waterfalls.The landscape is impressively varied, with some parts very dry, with sculptural red rock formations, while other parts are forested and alpine. And we have it mostly to ourselves! A few other cars are around, but we can tell from the enormous, empty parking lots that in the summer it must be a zoo. Especially with cars frequently stopping for views or to take pictures of animals, the narrow roads must turn into parking lots when the traffic is bumper to bumper.

Even though we'd been told by multiple sources that the bears in Yellowstone are generally not a problem, we're spooked by a blow-hard ranger whose dire warnings about bear danger sends us on a long and fruitless quest to buy some bear-spray. All the stores are sold out, and at each one we're reassured that it's completely unnecessary. Thus when we finally set out on our hike, several hours behind schedule, we're simultaneously irritated to have wasted all that time, but still slightly apprehensive to be out in the forest without the spray. It's amazing how so many bushes and tree stumps can look like exactly like a crouching, hungry bear when you're in the right mindset.

We hike in about 10 miles, and camp on the shore of Heart Lake. PK makes a big fire, and we happily see no bears, and only one other person (from afar). The moon is full, and though an rainstorm blows through during the night, by morning the sun is out and quickly melts the frost on the ground.

Day 7:

We leave our packs and scurry up to the top of Mt. Sheridan for some great views of the lakes and surrounding mountains. It's 3500 ft. to the summit, then we hike back down, collect our packs, and hike out 9 miles to the car. The last few miles are marked by tiredness, sore muscles, and ample complaining. We camp at Lewis lake, go to bed early, and sleep well.

Tonight PK keeps a glass biosphere in the sleeping bag with her to keep it warm. It contained 4 brine shrimp when she received it as a going away gift from her lab, but there's been some attrition during the trip, since the shrimp apparently didn't like spending the past few nights in an unheated car with temperatures dipping below freezing. After the first cold night, all 4 shrimp were floating bottom up, but after a day of being cradled in our laps and sitting in the sun, two of them have miraculously woken up. Given the tenacity of the two shrimp that had apparently come back from the dead (or at least the deep freeze), she's determined to get the two remaining shrimp safely to Cali, even if it means using her own body heat to keep them warm through the night.

Day 8:

We wake up early and drive down the road to Grand Teton National Park, which is spectacular in exactly the jaw-droppingly scenic way that Yellowstone wasn't. We do a day hike on the Cascade Canyon trail, which has incredible views of crystal-clear Jenny Lake on the first part, followed by vistas of spiky, snowy mountain peaks as we stroll through a canyon densely wooded with yellow aspens, next to a stream. During summer it's apparently extremely crowded, but there are few people now, since the park is mainly closed. This ends up being slightly annoying when we're unable to find anyplace to get water from a tap, and have to fill our water bottles from the river and iodine them.

Afterwards we drive to a campground in Victor, Idaho, which has showers! The first since Minneapolis, and it feels amazing. It's chilly again overnight, with temperatures in the low 20s.

Day 9:

Now that the adventure portion of the trip is over, we're consumed by the desire to get to California, with nothing in our way except a quite large and mostly flat expanse of Idaho and (mostly) Nevada. We leap out of bed before sunrise (even earlier than the next-door rooster, which starts crowing as we're packing up our tent). South-eastern Idaho is rugged and beautiful, and we zig-zag our way along the Snake River. The rising sun casts a lovely golden light on the aspens and mist rising out of the valley. We note that the road signs which would say 'Wildlife crossing' in the Northeast are labelled 'Game crossing' in Idaho.

We gobble up the miles, single-minded in our purpose. In Nevada the highway is straight and flat with a speed limit of 70, so we set the cruise-control at 80 and fly down the road. We'd planned to stay at a campsite midway through the state, but by 1pm we've already left it far behind. We've got places to be! We finally stop that evening to camp just north of Lake Tahoe, in the Sierra Nevadas, just over the border into California.

Day 10:

We're out of bed with the sun, and hurry to get back on the road. We're in California! I pinched myself as we crossed the border yesterday- our new life beginning! The sun is shining as we pull into our new neighborhood. We take a reconnaissance stroll, including a cup of coffee at Farley's, and gourmet lunch at Plow. Reality hits when we arrive in our empty apartment, whose toilet immediately clogs and overflows (the house is over 100 years old). We grimly begin opening the first boxes from our enormous pile. Things brighten up after we find our radio and tune it to the local NPR station (KQED). The familiar sounds of NPR are soothing, and remind us that soon our new place will feel like a home.