We drove up to Bryce canyon today. We saw lots of things, including many rocks and trees and a blizzard. Above, you see the clouds carrying a lot of snow, rolling in over a stunning landscape. Below, that's me standing in the snow, a few hours later as we prepared to leave.
More later.
[this is a "back-post" written 2009-11-29]
It was a few days early, but I was feeling very thankful last night. I had dinner with Jeffrey, his parents Randy and Barb and their daughters (his half-sisters). What's my relation to them? It's complicated: Jeffrey is my stepson, by my marriage to Michelle. So Randy was Michelle's first husband, before she and I got married, and Barb is his second wife. And although we're as different as people can be, we have a certain family-like relationship, that came about in the wake of Michelle's death.
I feel very thankful that after Michelle died, Randy and Barb stepped up so completely to provide a healthy and relatively stress-free home for Jeffrey, as that was a very hard time for him. Of course, when Michelle and I were together, she had very little positive to say about Randy and Barb, and their relationship as "exes," with arguments over things like visitation for Jeffrey, etc., were fraught. This is typical of such relationships, of course. The fact that when Michelle died, everyone involved (barring, perhaps, Michelle's parents) were able to set aside those earlier acrimonies and do what was "right" for Jeffrey has always struck me as a minor miracle of human interaction. And as such, I'm very thankful.
We met for dinner at an Italian restaurant in Maple Grove that the girls (Jeffrey's sisters, Ashley and Tiffany) like. I best recall them as around 3 or 4 years old, but now they're 10 and 11. After dinner, we made a little parade driving in the rain and fog back up to Albertville, where they live currently, and spent some time just hanging out. The girls, especially Tiffany, asked me, spontaneously, to write their names in Korean. This was the first time I'd interacted with American kids who seemed genuinely interested in Korean culture, and as an unrepentant language geek, I was pleased to try to sound out their names and write them in the Korean alphabet, Hangeul.
The girls were fascinated, and soon had me writing the names of everyone in the room, then their friends and teachers, on scraps of paper. Tiffany's face lit up as she suddenly realized the phonetic principles behind the Hangeul writing system, and with no timidity, she began trying to "guess" how to write various names she could think of. I was stunned and amazed -- you always hear Koreans (and rarely, Westerners) talking about the simplicity of the Korean writing system, but watching a midwestern 10 year old grasp all its essential principles in under 30 minutes in a casual exchange was amazing.
Finally, I taught them a few simple phrase, such as 고맙습니다 (go-map-seum-ni-da = thank you), and Tiffany did a perfect-looking Korean-style bow and uttered it repeatedly. The whole experience felt like a charming reversal of my normal role and job in Korea, but it was additionally pleasing because Americans normally are so uninterested in foreign languages and cultures, yet here was this unassuming midwestern kid, with whom I have a "relative-type" connection (how else to explain it?) showing true interest and excitement for Korean.
Well, anyway, that was my Tuesday evening out on the prairie in the northwestern suburbs of Minneapolis.
Here's a picture of the clan -- Randy, Barb, Jeffrey, Ashley, Tiffany:
Here's a picture of Tiffany, and you can see quite clearly she's writing her teacher's name, Miller, sounded out in Korean letters (밀러):
Tammy in 1976, exactly as I remember her:
The Red River Valley is the about the flatest place that I know of. Parts of California (like around Sacramento) are just as flat, but the mountains are always visible in the distance. Likewise, I remember southern Louisiana being very flat, but the plethora of canals and small bodies of water, on the one hand, and the trees and dikes, on the hand, make it seem less flat somehow.
The Agassiz plain of northwestern Minnesota, eastern North Dakota, and south central Manitoba is just plain ol' flat. And to me, it's spectacularly beautiful in a weird, expansive, desolate sort of way. More beautiful than the rugged Pacific coast or the mountains or desert. But very hard to capture on film.
I crossed the border into Canada, today. Barely.
I spent two hours being intensively interviewed by a Canadian border official. It turned out that they had decided I was an "immigration risk." Yes, that was the term used.
I was meticulously honest about my life. I prefer to operate that way, with officialdom. But I could offer "no fixed US address," I had a passport full exotic stamps, no "proof of current employment," a truck full of "junk" (things I've been carrying around with me to sort through along with some books I collected in Arcata), and, probably most alarmingly, a bumper sticker reading "migration is a human right" (yes, I really believe this, and I've written about it before in my blog).
The potentially offending sentiment:
I really didn't think about these things. I've entered Canada so many times, in life, and they've almost always hassled me about one thing or another (always very politely, as that's the Canadian way), but in the past it was always because they were worried about drugs or some kind of customs-related thing. Or who knows.
In fact, I've probably crossed at the I-29/MB75 crossing at least six times. And I've done my recent travels in Asia and to Australia last year utterly effortlessly, when it came to border crossings. Japan to Korea by boat was easier than England to France -- they asked me no questions, despite the fact that I'd prepared a complicated explanation for returning as a tourist only 10 days after the expiration of my work visa, which I was worried would raise alarm bells.
Well, so... anyway. The Canadians didn't want me to immigrate. The man was very nice, but very firm, and I was deferential and scrupulously honest. He wrote it all down -- I'm thinking of going back and offering him a job as my ghost writer for my autobiography, because he really got quite detailed. "You have to see it from my point of view," he said, and I nodded sagely.
I offered to go online and show them receipts from my storage unit in Minneapolis, the ticket back to Korea that I'd recently paid for, this blog, even, where they could spend time reading about my vacillations about future plans over the past year or so, but could clearly discover that immigrating to Canada was NOT one of the many options I'd been contemplating.
But they strongly resisted the idea that I lived my life "online," and they couldn't seem to understand that I didn't carry paper copies of these things. I finally sighed, and said, "well, I guess it's not that important to visit my friend in Winnipeg, it was a kind of spontaneous, impulsive decision, anyway. How about I just turn around and go back into the US?"
The friendly Canadian went off to have a "little meeting" with some of his coworkers, or supervisor, or something. Or maybe he googled me -- that's what I would have done, maybe. To try to check me out.
I sat and pondered what would end up happening if I turned around and then had to pass through US border controls. The US people are always hard-asses anyway, and much less polite than the Canadians, and I began to visualize trying to explain to them that the Canadians had rejected me. That would, of course, set off alarm bells with the Americans. I started developing a little scenario where I lived out some weeks or months in my little truck, parked in the no-man's land between the Canadian and US border control stations on the Manitoba / North Dakota border, because neither country would let me in.
And then the big, burly, boy-scout-freckled Canadian waved me over and said, very seriously, "we've decided we trust you. I'm giving you a one month visa." And he stamped my passport. And then proceeded to try to convince to stay more than just one night in Winnipeg, which is what I'd told him my plans were, because, after all, he said, "there's a lot of fun things to do in Winnipeg." Really. He said this.
And then, like a latter-day Colombo (70's TV police drama), he held up a finger and said, "Just one more question."
I smiled, "Sure, anything."
"Why was it, again, that you said you had all this stuff in your truck?"
Here we go again, I thought. I began to give, with more detail than before, the story of how I had landed at Minneapolis, and preliminary to driving to California, I had collected some boxes of stuff to "sort through" on my travels. He said OK, but nodded sceptically.
I shook his hand, went back out to my truck, and drove away from the setting prairie sun, toward Winnipeg.
My friend Gerry said that, on the contrary, it wasn't the bumper sticker that freaked them out; it was the laundry basket! "People don't travel with laundry baskets. Only people who are moving carry laundry baskets." Hmm... is this a Canadian proverb?
When I take long road trips, I often return to fantasies of my youth of becoming a truck driver. I used to imagine "finishing my PhD" and then, rather than going off into academia, instead going out and becoming a truck driver. I liked to imagine hanging the little degree in its frame like professors and professionals do in their offices, but hanging it up in the little sleeper cabin attached to my big rig. Really! I thought like this, sometimes, right through college. As much as I've always enjoyed road-tripping, truck driving always seemed like something that would make a good career for me.
Well, I never finished the PhD. And I never became a truck driver, unless you want to count some months a primary tow truck driver for my support battalion on Korea in 1991, and some cross-Korea convoys we participated in during weeks-long field exercises, from Geumchon north of Seoul over to Wonju and down to Daegu. Yes, I was one of those US GI trucks cruising on the Korean backroads dodging "kimchi wagons," way back when.
But driving across the country as I have been, I return sometimes to those truck driver fantasies. That's a job that, if all else fell apart, I could manage, I'm certain.
Drive, drive, drive.
Montana is a very long state, to drive through. I think I-90 is about 700 miles.
It's especially long under wintery highway conditions. Toward the end of my day, in the early evening dark, I was going 25-35 mph through blowing snow over very icy interstate eastward from Bozeman.
I saw overturned trucks, jackknifed trailers, cars in ditches. So I stayed slow. And as much as I generally find driving about as close to a meditative state as I can attain, driving through that can be kind of stressful. I'm tired.
Here are two pictures from earlier in the day.
A freeway rest area:
A stop at a "ranch exit" (i.e. there's no town at the freeway exit) around sunset:
Juli and Keith's neighbors have a bunch of animals, including a llama, a very friendly horse, some cows and chickens. I went on a walk earlier today and visited them. Here're llama and horse, saying hello.
After doing so much, traveling, keeping so busy... I kind of came to a stop, today. Resting at Juli & Keith's house here on the Oregon hillside, kind of having a lazy day. I did however make a small, important step. I sent off the email confirming my intention to return to Korea today. So that kind of represents a commitment.
Here's a picture from Patrick's Point, a few miles north of Arcata, taken in late afternoon on Tuesday:
Arcata is a small town. I took about 5 long walks through and around the town during my 3 day visit there. Yesterday afternoon, I walked down to where my middle school was, in SunnyBrae. Then I walked up Shirley Blvd (a very steep winding hill) to Fickle Hill Road and back down to the house. I went into Redwood Park (which is the name of Arcata's city park, about 2 blocks up the hill from the house where I grew up). Here is a picture from a path inside the park:
"A deep and sincere heart has no unreachable place." I had bought a small textile wall hanging with the Korean phrase on it, at a "temple shop" near a Buddhist temple in Seoul. I had that one, and several others. I presented this one to my friends Peggy and Latif who live in my former home in Arcata. They are generous and kind, and the saying suits them very well.
Here is the "A Street House," where I lived my first 18 years (with a few short periods away from it, in Eureka, Oklahoma City, summers in Washington or Idaho, etc.):
This is the same house, from a slightly different angle, in 1965 (with my dad's Model A Ford parked in front):
Here is the back yard, looking from the Kitchen window. That's the "pump house" that functions as a kind of detached, outdoor bedroom. It was my bedroom during my high school years:
This is the same old pumphouse, in 1967:
This is Peggy's smiling buddha, under the cherry tree that was just a tiny sapling when I was a kid.
I took a long walk in the rain around Arcata. I walked over to the high school, where I attended. It looked almost the same. Hmm... it's a beautiful town, but I think it was a good thing for me that I moved away.
Here is Humboldt State University's "University Annex" building. But in 1965, it was the Trinity Hospital, and this is the building I was born in.
This is Arcata High School, which I attended 1979~83. It basically looks exactly the same as when I was there: California-classic-high-school-as-prison architecture, with its outdoor hallways and grim, utilitarian exterior.
This is the view up 11th street from its foot near Janes Road, looking up. At the top of the hill, that's Redwood Park, and my house is a few blocks below the top of the hill.
In the 1930's and early 40's, the northern counties of California and southwestern counties of Oregon launched a secession effort aimed at creating a new state, which was to be called the state of Jefferson. It was one of the most successful "new state carved from existing states" movements of the 20th century, but got derailed by WWII.
Even now, however, the region as some distinctive features. The high incidence (relative to most of the west) of rural poverty means that it has often be attached with the sobriquet "Kentucky-by-the-sea", for example -- at least that was something I heard sometimes, growing up.
Anyway, I was born and grew up in Humboldt County, which is, historically, part of this never-to-be State of Jefferson. And I was in Roseburg, near its putative northern border.
I stayed the night with my aunt Janet and uncle Bob, who live outside of Eugene. I saw a lot of relatives at my aunt Freda's memorial service, some of whom I literally hadn't seen since I was a child.
Today, I drove back down across the Oregon border and back into Humboldt, to spend a few days in my hometown, in my home "house." The house isn't owned by my mother anymore, but a very close friend of ours, Peggy, bought it, so I can "visit" and stay in the house, although it's been remodeled and changed a lot over the years, it still has the feel of home. Peggy was one of my babysitters when I was an infant, and she was also, later, my 6th grade teacher. She's like a godmother to me, in many ways. She has been very important in my life.
I went on a hike in the morning with my aunt Janet, my dad and their cousin Larry. Here is the view from Janet and Bob's driveway in Pleasant Hill, OR, looking at some very relaxed-looking neighbor cows.
Below is a picture of Larry, Janet and my dad, stopping to talk about something near the top of the hill.
Is it possible to love a highway?
I certainly harbor a special feeling toward US Route 101. I was born 3 blocks from it, and grew up 4 blocks from it, and have lived more than half my life within a few miles of it.
When I left San Luis Obispo on Friday night, I knew I'd have to drive all night to get to Roseburg, OR, on time, so I figured I might as well go up 101 (which takes a few extra hours due to its not being freeway the whole way as compared to Interstate 5) the whole way, just for sentimental reasons.
It was strange, especially from downtown San Francisco on northward through Marin, Sonoma and Mendocino into Humboldt counties, because although I was driving in the middle of the night, I've been up and down that highway so many times I was able to visualize the scenery along the way effortlessly. Kinesthetic memory on the curves is almost eerie, too.
Anyway, I got to Arcata and stopped at the beach for a few hours. I watched it get light (the sun was behind thick clouds) and then went on to Oregon.
Some who know me really well know that Ragged Point, California holds a special place in my personal biography / cosmology. It was the place where, in November, 1998, I reached my lowest point. And where I then took a decision to take an ethical responsibility for my own life and my own being, once and for all. A sort of atheist epiphany, where I realized I truly was alone in the universe, but that wasn't as bad as it seemed like. "Born-again atheist"? Sounds funny.
It's where I got the name "raggedsign" from, that you see applied to my online identity here and there. The sign at Ragged Point... like Saul, on the road to Damascus, but all there was to be seen was his own soul laid bare.
It's not always been smooth road, since then. I've not always done perfectly with the goal I set for myself that night. The first months and years after were exceptionally difficult, and Michelle's suicide in 2000 was another low that felt like an inversion, in so many ways, of Ragged Point.
Anyway, part of my traveling, in general, is about seeing new places. But part is about revisiting, paying a sort of homage to, old places. Important places. Re-integrating all the disparate places that patchwork together to form the narrative of my selfhood.
This trip back from Korea, all this driving around, as been especially like that. It's almost only that.
So today, I'm returning to Ragged Point. It's up the road a ways from San Simeon, on the central California coast. I'll probably sit and gaze at the ocean for a long time.
Later, I'm having lunch with Wendy, my stepmother (well, ex-stepmother, technically, but still a very important person in my life and one of my most important role-models, growing up). She lives in San Luis Obispo, currently.
Overnight, up to tomorrow, I'm driving to Roseburg, Oregon. My aunt Freda passed away while I was in Alaska, and I've decided to go to her memorial service, there. It will give me a chance to see relatives I haven't seen much of. And I'll be re-integrating the length of California, along the way.
I took the picture below right at the county line between San Luis Obispo and Monterey counties, a few miles north of Ragged Point on Highway 1. The ocean that you can see is at least 500 feet straight down that cliff under the tree.
The name of the island where Ketchikan is located is Revillagigedo. There are actually a lot of Spanish names attached to geographic features in Southeast Alaska -- something to do with Spanish explorers making the navigation maps later used by Russian and English and American colonists.
It's a cool name, though the locals mutilate the correct Spanish pronuniciation -- but who am I to criticize the mutilation of correct pronunciation?
Here are some pictures I took in Ketchikan, over the weekend.
["back-post": composed 2009-11-01, posted 2009-11-02]
Driving down to the south coast of the island:
The end of the road, at about mile 15. This is about as far from downtown Ketchikan as you can get, using a car:
A great view of downtown Ketchikan from the north end of town (where the "mall" is) (note the disconcerting presence of strange bluish coloration in sky due to absence of normal cloud cover):
Looking straight out from the seawall at my hotel:
Similar view, after the clouds shifted, revealing an unfamiliar but naturally-occurring thermonuclear phenomenon suspended 95 million miles in space above the planet:
Wow, nice. It lasted almost an hour. Then it rained again:
Tug boats, congregating:
Along the main drag, Tongass Ave:
The way in and out -- the Alaska Marina Highway ferry Columbia docked:
The strange case where the northbound traffic uses a tunnel, and the southbound traffic goes around the hill -- but they're not even a block apart:
A Ketchikan streetscape
The pale pink skyscraper of downtown Ketchikan, AK:
The town's famous "Creek Street":
A fishing boat, heading out southward:
Here's what you can see if you stand at the shoreline of Arthur's property, looking west down the Saint Nicholas Fiord toward Craig (sort of off to the left). That's Sunnyhay Mountain with some fresh snow sticking up in the clouds.
I went on a drive today, just to go exploring. During all my time here, back in 98, I didn't do much exploring beyond Craig and Klawock (which are the island's "twin city" metropolis, with something around 2000 inhabitants, combined).
So I drove up to Coffman Cove, which is where the ferries from Petersburg and Wrangell stop, then I went down a 40 mile dirt road along the east coast of the island to Thorne Bay, thence back to Klawock. A big circle.
Driving on these old forest service logging roads is all about dodging potholes. I made a video of the drive along the Port Saint Nicholas Road from Arthur's place into Craig. It's 8 miles, but takes 25 minutes, dodging potholes all the way. I'll post it, when I get some bandwidth.
Today, about halfway between Coffman Cove and Thorne Bay, I saw a downed tree across the road [see pic at right]. Someone had used to a chainsaw to carve a path exactly pickup-truck-sized through the branches and under the main trunk of the tree. I took a picture.
OK, more later.
Catch as catch-can -- I always, always wanted to say that stupid pun. So there.
Here's a photo taken from my hotel window. Ketchikan is, of course, quite beautiful.
