Mumblings and Musings…

My husband and I car-camped at Organ Pipe National Monument in southern Arizona over the holidays. It was a beautiful place! We stopped there on our drive from California to Texas(see below post).

I am a big fan of car-camping. You get the benefits of camping with some comforts of home. We bring a cooler loaded up with fun foods. I don’t know what it is….but, sleeping outdoors gives you an appetite and a poignant appreciation for food. In some miniscule way, camping puts you in touch with your hunter/gatherer ancestry…food feels like a scarce and valuable resource.

So, Organ Pipe is nearest to Ajo, Arizona. It is full of giant Organ Pipe cactus and red rock canyons. We were the only occupants of a large canyon campsite about three miles down a dirt road. The earth was finely ground red gravel and scrub brush, the canyon walls rose up sharply into the sky and we were surrounded by an army of cacti. They were everywhere…huge and almost evenly spaced apart. Each one had a unique shape and we had fun trying to describe what individual ones looked like. They were also handy surfaces for storing our libations!

We watched an incredible sunset, cooked our dinner, and made a fire.Then read our books in the tent. There was a small creek nearby and so we had the lulling sound of water to aid our slumber. The night would have been perfect if I didn’t have to sleep with a husband and a dog in my tent that snore in unison!

I was lucky enough to travel through a lot of California and the Southwest for three weeks this Christmas…but, I was crazy enough to do all of it in a car. My husband is in graduate school and had a month off for the holidays. We had only two places that we had to be over the holidays…back in Texas to visit family and Santa Fe, New Mexico to see old friends. So, my husband and I loaded up our Honda CR-V(aka “Nelly”) with camping gear, Christmas presents, and our sharpei/hound mutt, Hollis, and hit the road.

There is nothing quite like seeing your country from the road. You have a sense of size, space, and topography that is impossible to see from an airplane. I love driving into the night…listening to an audiobook, or playing music and just staring out into the changing scenery. On this trip we listened to two great audiobooks: “Assault on Reason” by Al Gore and “Born Standing Up” by Steve Martin.

Here was our itinerary:

-Leave Palo Alto and drive to Santa Cruz to stay with friend
-Drive down Hwy 1, stopping in Big Sur, Cayucos(to pick up brisket from a local farm that sells to us at our farmer’s market), and Santa Barbara
-Stay with friend in Los Angelos and enjoy the lovely local traffic
-Stay with brother in San Diego(go to Chargers game)
-Drive to Organ Pipe National Monument in southern Arizona…camp-out among the giant(pokey) saguarro cactus
-Drive to natural hot springs on border of Arizona and New Mexico…camp-out(froze my tukus off!)
-Drive to Marfa, Texas and stay at Thunderbird Lodge (so surreal)
-Drive to Medina, Texas and stay at a ranch
-Arrive in Austin and stay for several days with family
-Drive to Dallas and spend Christmas with more family
-Drive to Santa Fe, New Mexico and spend week with friends….brrrrrr! glug, glug, glug, brrrr!
-Drive from Santa Fe to Needles, California (about 9 hours)-stay at flea bag motel and get indigestion from bad chinese food
-Drive from Needles back to Palo Alto…to be greeted by torrential rain

Whew! That makes me tired just listing it! Lots of driving, but, a wonderful trip. It will be a long time before I have the time to do that sort of driving/traveling again. Did I mention how much we had to spend on gas!

I am not usually a big fan of "tours" while I travel...never the one to get the audio guide at a museum or have someone lead me around ancient ruins...I prefer to read the guidebook or use my imagination. ... [Continue reading this entry]

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Every time I drive down HWY 1 through Big Sur, I am overcome with the urge to jump out of my car, run into the forest, and take up residence in a yurt...nestled among the redwoods and perched atop the ... [Continue reading this entry]