Category: USA

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Grand Canyon

I woke up this morning with no way to hold my body that didn’t hurt. Hiking from the rim of the Grand Canyon to the Colorado River at the bottom and back in one day is not easy. The National Park Service warns you. Their brochures and webpages threaten dire consequences for those foolish enough to make the attempt. Men between the ages of 18 and 40 are the target audience for the campaign. Members of this benighted crowd, evidently high on testosterone and overconfident of their strength, try to do too much. The ads say that most of the people the rangers rescue are young men, and they curse the day and hold their manhood cheap whenever anyone speaks of it. Since I passed the upper limit of the group more than eight years ago, I wasn’t worried, but I have to admit it was a tough trip.

The biggest challenge is the heat. It was 117 degrees on the canyon floor. The sun fixes its blank and pitiless gaze on the canyon from about 5:30 am until 7:00 pm and heats up the rocks so that they radiate heat like a rotisserie grill. During most of the day there is almost no shade anywhere. You literally cannot drink enough water to prevent dehydration if you move around in the sun between about 10 and 3:00, since your body can absorb only a liter of water an hour and you can easily sweat out two liters. If I ever do this again, it will not be in the middle of summer. The payoff is truly breathtaking scenery. The pictures I included do not do it justice. No pictures I have ever seen can capture the true majesty, but I do suggest you consult a site that features taken by professionals with more skill and better equipment.

I went down with my brother in law Alex Sandoval and one of his neighbors named Bob. Bob is an eagle scout who had experience walking up and down the canyon. Although he was only about sixteen years old, the kid was our guide. Both Alex and Bob are young, in excellent condition and are indigenous to this hot, dry climate. I was outclassed. As the kid ranged effortlessly ahead, I kept on thinking, for reasons I can’t explain, of Yoda and said to myself, “Wonder whether you this good will look when you my age are.” It didn’t make me feel any better when he complimented me on being so old and still able to walk relatively well – not in exactly those words of course, but it is like complimenting an old lady by telling her that she must have been very good looking when she was younger.

We started down the South Kaibab trail at 5:30 when the temperature was still pleasant. It only took us about 3 ½ hours to get to the bottom. The kid set a grueling pace. We passed many people along the trail. Some carried what looked like ski poles. It was a good idea, takes some pressure off the knees and generally improves balance. I have included pictures from the trip down. There were many breathtaking views, but my pictures insufficient to express them. At the bottom there is not much to do except lay in the cool streams. This pleasure is not to be underestimated, but you can only do it so long, especially because the sun is high and hot. We finally hunkered down in a shelter probably build by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. The CCC boys did a good job. We stayed there, protected from the worst of the sun until about 3:00. Then we started up the hill on the Bright Angel trail.

Bright Angel is very beautiful but I would have enjoyed it more if it had not been so hot. If it is 117 in the shade, the ranger told us that is probably 130 in the sun. The hot rocks actually destroyed my shoes. They were old and I would have thought it was just their age, but Alex’s shoes also came apart and the ranger told us that part of her shoe gave out. Anyway, the bottom came off my right shoe. I had to put a sock over it to keep shoe and sole together. This expedient worked until almost the end of the hike. It is a very tough hike. The Grand Canyon is like a reverse mountain – first you go down and only then – when you are tired out – you do up. Bright Angel follows a little stream much of the time. We dunked ourselves on several occasions to stay cool. About halfway up the hill, you come to “Indian Garden,” an oasis of cottonwood trees. It is very pleasant and there is drinkable water. We got there about 5:00 and for the first time the walls of the canyon shaded out the sun in many places. I would have liked to stay in this little paradise, but it was still 4 ½ miles to the top with an elevation gain of more than 3000 feet. The last three miles were the hardest. Up and up, more up and up again. My enthusiasm was waning, but I kept on putting one foot in front of the other. It was a perdition highway with about fifty lost souls slogging up the hill at the end of their day. Of course, I felt more virtuous than most, since we had hiked all the way down and back. Most day-trippers hike down to Indian Gardens and back only. Logs designed to limit erosion on the trail are placed just a little too far apart to allow you to step from one to another. Between are potholes, so you are always stepping up and down and unable to get a decent rhythm. My shoe fell apart just before I got to the rim. The flapping of my shoe attracted attention and made it harder to walk. Finally, I just cut the bottom clean off and walked on the foam.

Well, it is a tough job but somebody has to do it. I would not have made it if it had not been for Alex. He made sure we brought enough water and salty snacks, and he understood that we had to rest as well as walk. Yesterday at about 7:00 I would have paid a thousand dollars for someone to drive me to the top and I promised myself I would never get into a situation like that again. Now sitting in air-conditioned comfort, I now look forward to my next hike.

  • My foot over the canyon before going in.
  • That old buzzard knows that he can wait. I didn’t think it was nice of the ugly thing to wait for me to desiccate and die like a dog on the rocks below. The ranger said that they were California condors (buzzard is a politically incorrect term). The California condor is an endangered species. These particular ones were introduced into the canyon a couple of years ago. They are now well established, but still not breeding.
  • This is us the morning of the hike, before we were dried out.
  • My colleagues have already walked ahead of me. It is hard to see them along this trail, but I have circled them in red.
  • This is a nice vista. The colors are much better than the picture.
  • Our first look at the Colorado River far below
  • Everything that comes in and out of the canyon comes on mules. The perspective is bad on this picture. The mules are about 100 meters below me on the vertical axis. The picture makes it look like they are just far away horizontally.
  • Brook at the bottom of the canyon. It was cool and fresh.
  • The blue hoods are kept wet all the time. They really help keep your head and neck cool. Alex and my shoes are giving out as you can see from the picture. We have bandaged them. In the background is the Colorado River that created the canyon.
  • We spent a couple of hours hunkered down in a cool shelter. Only lizards and snakes can move around in the noonday sun. Soon after this picture was taken, a lizard crawled across Alex’s head. The CCC or the WPA probably built the shelter during the great depression. Thank God for those guys. They built to last. That was the golden age of parks and forests. I like the idea that parks are for people, but that facilities should be simple and Spartan.
  • Looking back halfway up the hill
  • This is Indian Garden, a desert oasis still 4 ½ miles and 3000 vertical feet from the rim.
  • Not much energy left in me. It doesn’t look like I am walking up hill on the picture and it is not the steepest part, but look at how the landscape drops off behind.
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Tombstone Territory

Went to Tombstone today. It was hot and sunny, although the sky was not completely clear because of the forest fires nearby.

Tombstone was founded to take advantage of rich silver deposits nearby. It was the classic boomtown that grew rapidly, burned almost the ground twice and was rebuilt each time. Of course it is most famous for the gunfighters, especially Wyatt Earp, his brothers & Doc Holiday and their fight with the Clantons. I have been interested in Wyatt Earp since I was a little kid and saw the Wyatt Earp television series. The series debuted on Tuesday evenings the year I was born, but survives in reruns even today. When I heard the song – Wyatt Earp – brave, courageous and bold, I though it was brave, contagious and old. I saw several of the movies. My favorite is “Tombstone” with Kirk Russell as Wyatt, Sam Eliot at Virgil Earp and Val Kilmer as Doc. Their rendition of the gunfight at OK Corral seems the most like the real thing, although eyewitness testimony varied. The other movies killed people at the corral who were not even there. For example, in “Gunfight at OK Corral” starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, Doc Holiday Killed Johnny Ringo, who was not even present at the fight. “My Darling Clementine” with Henry Fonda was no where near accurate, but had the redeeming characteristic of being innocent. “Wyatt Earp” with Kevin Kosner sucked so much it does not even merit comment. The whole thing was over in about 30 seconds in reality, so accounts varied. I was surprised how small the OK Corral was in real life. The actual fight did not even take place in the corral. Recent CSI style forensic investigation indicates that the whole bloody business was a misunderstanding. Probably Doc Holiday cocked his shotgun, which set everyone else off.

We saw the usual attractions, including a reenactment of the gunfight at OK Corral, the Birdcage Theatre and Boot Hill. The Birdcage was the place where the cowboys pursued their three hobbies: gambling, rye whiskey and wild-wild women. The gambling rooms have all the charms of a teenager’s basement rec-room, which is pretty much what they were like.

The reenactors did a decent job. I felt sorry for them in their black coats in the hot sun. I think they were all members of the NRA. One of them set his gun on the ground and yelled, “kill”. It did not go off and he said, “See guns don’t kill; people kill.” People killed a lot of each other in Tombstone, if you can believe the markers on the streets and in the graveyard of Boot Hill.

Boot Hill is really depressing. The dry, bleak loneliness of the place gives you an idea of what it might be like being dead, and maybe going to hell. The graves are more than 100 years old, but they still have their piles of stones. There is no grass here to do the work of covering the sins of the past and soften the landscape. The graves just bake in the sun forever, or until the next ice age, which is got to be a long time from now. It is also such a small graveyard. I have been to Arlington many times. Sometimes I make a point of walking through it on the way to the State Department. It is calm and pleasant. The dead lay there with some dignity. Boot Hill is just land of the dead, like you might see in an episode of the Twilight Zone – a dry hell of a place to spend an eternity. You expect the dead might want to get up and leave.

Tomorrow on to the Grand Canyon. I expect it to be a hard walk – uphill at least half the time.

  • This is Tombstone today. Dirt streets are gone and cars have replaced horses.
  • Reenactment of the gunfight at OK Corral. It was hot for us and hotter for the poor guys in the black coats.
  • John and the Earps. The little guy is Doc Holiday. They don’t look like the guys in the pictures or in the movies. I don’t think they are the real Earps or Doc Holiday.
  • Another thing that is much bigger in the movies
  • Inside the Birdcage with an idealized picture of what it should have looked like in the Birdcage.
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The Road to Tuscon

We drove south to Tucson today. Highway 10 just south of Phoenix crosses what must be one of the most barren stretches on the face of the earth. A picture taken from the car window is below. But all of a sudden you come to irrigated pecan orchards. This is a productive agricultural area. The soil is fertile and when water is applied things grow well. There is the added advantage of weed control. To get rid of weeds, all you have to do is not provide water and everything is wiped clean so you can start again. Arizona is also a big producer of corn, cotton and watermelons, among other things.

We stopped in a small city called Casa Grande and ate at Taco Bell – the boys’ favorite restaurant. I took a picture from the parking lot. If Clint Eastwood was to make a class b western in the 21st century it would be set in a place like Casa Grande. The funny thing is that there are all kinds of stores and facilities here in the middle of nowhere.

Just before Tucson, we set out for “Old Tucson”. It is an old movie site used in many of the western movies we all know and love. On the way, the desert is beautiful. Pictures are included. The terrain is very steep and the pictures don’t do it justice. We climbed to a little stone shelter. Out of the sun, it is cool. Actually it is still 100 degrees, but the breeze is nice. Old Tucson looks familiar because I have seen it so often. Many John Wayne movies, “Gunfight at Ok Corral”, “Tombstone”, episodes of “Bonanza” & “The Big Valley” and many others were made here. Unfortunately, much of the set burned down in 1997.

Near old Tucson is the desert museum, which is sort of a park and botanical garden. The desert is still strange to me. I can appreciate it, but I don’t think I would ever learn to love the treeless landscape. It reminds me of a giant construction site, piles of dirt and rocks laying all over the place. All the plants live precariously. At least that what it looks like to me. And many of the plants look like giant houseplants. The big ones are the kinds you find in offices and hospital waiting rooms. I saw various lizards scampering around, but no snakes. The absence of snakes does not upset me. The rattlesnakes are bad enough, but at least they sometimes warn you by rattling their tails. There is a little, fortunately rare, snake called the Arizona Coral Snake. It is a two stepper. It bites you; you take two steps and you die. It looks just like a non-poisonous “milk snake”, except its stripes are different. They both have red, black and yellow stripes, but the sequence is different. The rhyme goes, “Red touches yellow, you’re a dead fellow; red touches black, you’re all right jack.” I think it is better to avoid all snakes like that rather than count the color rings after being struck by one.

The only mammals were some wild pigs sleeping under a stone bridge. I smelled them before I saw them. They are pigs after all. The only unpleasant part of the visit was the “true cave” experience. They have a dark cave you can crawl though. I bumped my head on the stalactites, tripped over the Stalagmites and generally felt claustrophobic. Big guys like me are not meant for cave dwelling. Fortunately, it was a short visit. My digital camera helped. I took flash pictures and then could consult the lighted panel. Saved by technology.

We got to Tucson in the late afternoon. It is a very pleasant city, with clean, wide streets and some nice landscaping. It is still a desert city, but there is a lot more green and nature seems kinder here than in Phoenix. The elevation is higher and it is cooler. Even when the temperature is hot, the thin air feels cooler. I like it here. We are staying at Towne Suites. They are nice for the family because we have two bedrooms and a sofa bed.

Near the Tucson are “sky islands” – mountains with high enough elevations to support forests. These islands extend south way into the Sierra Madre in Mexico. You can literally walk from the Sonora Desert to the climatic equivalent of Hudson Bay as you walk up the slopes. They call them sky islands because they are like islands of forest is a sea of desert. It is an apt comparison. The nicest part is the “montane” about halfway up the hills, which is mostly ponderosa pine. Unfortunately, it has been a dry year and the area is suffering forest fires. We can see some of the smoke from the road. It was coming up a notch in the mountains.

  • It is amazing how much nothing there is along the road just outside Phoenix.
  • With a little water, the same bleak landscape is green with pecan trees. Lets see, before we have dirt, sagebrush and rattlesnakes. After, trees that provide edible nuts. In this case, I think humans have improved on nature.
  • Chrissy and Mariza at a desert stop over.
  • Espen on the desert hill.
  • This is my artistic picture of the parking lot, taken from a little stone shelter.
  • This is the road to old Tucson.
  • Street scene from Old Tucson
  • This is one of the most filmed mountains in the world. According to the guide, it has been in scores of westerns. I will have to watch for it next time I watch a gunfight movie.
  • Posters of some of the many movies filmed at Old Tucson
  • Desert. I think they call this a Joshua Tree.
  • I don’t like caves. They are gloomy and fetid, and they are always underground.
  • Another thing I could do without are poisonous snakes. The only time I have actually seen a poisonous snake was in the Shenandoah in Virginia. It was stretched across the hiking trail. I threw a couple of rocks at it and it slithered off.
  • Wild pigs

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July 4

Independence Day is hot. The temperature is expected to reach 112 degrees today. It was already 87 by 7:00 in the morning. Fires and disasters dominate the news. Some of them are not that serious, but they make good pictures for the television news. The most interesting was the explosion of a truck carrying fireworks. There is a serious forest/brush fire near Tucson. It has already burned some homes and recreational sites. Fire has become a bigger menace in the West as people move into rural areas and lawsuits and regulations prevent the thinning of forests. In the natural scheme of things, some types of forests are programmed to burn every once in a while. That is cold comfort to the guy who just built a new house in the path of the fire and most of the fires burning now are not natural. We are going to Tucson next week. I suppose that the fires will still be burning, but I don’t think it will interfere with our plans. There is a lot of empty space around here. Hundreds of hectares can burn in the mountains and you don’t see any sign of it except a little haze.

We bought our car today – a new mini van. It is much like our previous van, although a different color. When you have five people in your family, you really do need to own a van. I don’t car much about cars in general and could never understand why people get so excited about them. If the car gets you where you want to go safely, inexpensively and in reasonable comfort, it is good. I would not bother to cross the street to look at a fancy sport car and would not want to own. Obviously mine is the minority view. Many people define themselves by the cars they drive. I have noticed that some of the dumpiest houses have fine cars parked outside and for the price of some of these cars (including insurance and upkeep) you could attend a four-year college in most states. I guess that does say a lot about the owners; a fool and his money are soon parted. I respect the point of view of my brother in law Ray, who still drives a Toyota that he bought when Ronald Reagan (or maybe Jimmy Carter) was in the White House and before my children were born. Of course he can’t park his vehicle too close to a junkyard for fear of it being mistaken from scrap metal and being brought inside by one of those big magnets. There are also practical problems. Old cars have maintenance problems and generate a lot more air pollution than newer models (a new SUV makes less pollution than an old Volkswagen), but the lack of presumption in he shows by owning a car like that is refreshing.

We went to see the fireworks in Chandler, which is close to Phoenix. They went on for a long time. We did not get close enough to see the show at the park, but we could hear the music as the fireworks went off. July 4th is much less an event here than it is in Washington. I don’t think that could come as a big surprise.

Espen introducing the younger kids to the joys of video games.
Chrissy and her sister Lisa in front of our new car.
Typical car for the area.

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Phoenix Day 2

Pictures of the early morning roads.

This is the road to nowhere in particular. It ends about 100 meters out of this picture.

If you want to do anything outside, you have to do it early in the morning. One of the advantages of jet lag is that you can’t sleep very late. I went running today at 5:30. It was hot, but not too bad, like a warm afternoon most other places I have lived. A lot of people were out running, walking and biking. In fact, I have never seen so many people exercising outside a park or health club designed for joggers or bikers. I suppose they are all concentrated at this time. They know that they have only a short window of opportunity. You can count on a sunny, rain free day every day during this time of the year, but by about 7:00 it gets too hot to do anything strenuous. You just have to adjust. In northern climates, you can’t do much in the winter because it is too cold. You just assume that you will stay in the house a lot from December through March because the weather is cold and miserable. The same is true in the desert; only it applies to summer heat. Nobody goes out during the middle of the day unless they have to. In that respect it has an advantage over the cold places. During January in Wisconsin or Poland there is no time of the day when it is warm enough to go out comfortably.

The area outside the cultivation has a harsh beauty.

It is also true that the dry heat of the desert is easier to live with than the humid heat we often get in Virginia. I am not saying its not hot – 105 degrees in the shade is hot no matter what the humidity – but if you don’t move around it is not too uncomfortable and if you swim it is actually very cool as the evaporation is rapid. Below are some pictures of the early morning Phoenix streets. They are very wide and ready for a lot more cars than use them most of the time, although there are traffic jams in the downtown during rush hour. People drive a lot farther here. The city is spread out and most people will happily drive for 45 minutes or an hour to get to a restaurant of movie theater.

Alex contemplating the landscape. He is less than enthusiastic about waking up for the morning run.
I like this house. It takes a lot of work to have such nice plants here.
Kids playing in the pool at Dianne & Ray’s house. If you have a pool, the heat is not so bad. Even 105 degree weather feels cool when you get a little wet. The very low humidity means the water evaporates quickly cooling the skin. You can shiver and feel cold. The water in the pool is always warm and tastes a little salty.

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Phoenix Day 1

Arrived in Phoenix yesterday. It is hot here even at night. When we arrived it was 105 degrees. Today it got to 110 degrees. The sky is perfectly clear and everything is dry. Arizona, at least the Valley of the Sun, where Phoenix sits, is a different world. We will be in Phoenix for the next couple of days. Then we are going down to Tucson and Tombstone.

Alex and Lisa, Chrissy’s sister and brother in law, are putting us up. They have a nice Phoenix style house. The boys are sleeping in the living room. We have an upstairs place.

Nothing much lives in the desert without the help of irrigation and few people lived here before the invention of air conditioning. Phoenix is comfortable only because of 20th Century technologies. The temperatures are a lot like those in Iraq. Alex& Lisa have done a wonderful job of landscaping. Last time we were here the yard was nothing but rocks and dirt. Now there are trees and desert plants. There is a short moss-like grass. It is very green and has to be watered every day or two. Below are some pictures from today.

Above is Alex & Lisa’s back yard. It took a lot of work to make it this nice. The tree is a palo verde. It has very small leaves, but the trunk remains green all year and allows photosynthesis.

Above is the neighbor’s yard. This is what it looks like when you do nothing. Unlike in more humid climates, the grass doesn’t cover the sins of the landscaper. This guy’s idea of landscaping is evidently to leave the dirt and rocks and put on a layer of dog shit. (those are the specks you see in the picture)

Saguaro cactus grow only in the Sonora Desert in Northern Mexico and Arizona. Phoenix is on the northern edge. It takes many years fro the Saguaro to grow “arms”. They are protected species and are registered. This one in Alex’s yard was given to him by a lady he worked for. It would be worth about $2000.00 if he had to buy it.

In the distance is what the landscape looks like without irrigation. The hills are pretty and pretty dry.

No matter where they are, the kids engage in the usual recreation – video games. Note the determined expression on the boys’ faces as they overcome the threat to the universe.

Alex made a nice playground for his two kids, Christiana and Roman.

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Chicago

We have a five-hour wait in O’Hare, then on to Phoenix. O’Hare is a busy, but fairly comfortable place to wait. My favorite airport in the entire world is Orlando, which is actually a pleasure to visit. Reagan National is also nice these days. This one is not bad.

Wisconsin was interesting, although not surprising. We didn’t stray far from Lacrosse, although we did drive up to Chrissy’s parents and her sister in Blair Wisconsin. Wisconsin is really a pretty place, its green fields interspersed in greener forests of oak, basswood and white pine. Water in lakes and rivers is clean, mostly. Wherever you look, nature is returning, taking over old farmsteads. Cities are also expanding, also taking over old farmsteads. Soon this particular part of Wisconsin will resemble Loudon County – forest and exurbs. I am looking forward to looking out the window as we fly to Arizona. I hope it stays light long enough for me to see the mountains.

Alex wants the computer to play his video game. I suppose I will give it to him. It is 3:00 on June 30, 2003.

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Lacrosse

Western Wisconsin is nice enough – clean and pleasant. There is almost no crime. People don’t lock their cars. They even leave the keys on the dashboard sometimes, and they leave valuable things such as bikes unlocked in their back yards. Although I bet the local people would tell me their particular harrowing crime stories, you can’t be too afraid to walk around in a town where barking dogs and aggressive littering are reported on the police section of the local newspaper. I ran for about a half hour through north Lacrosse. I have never actually set foot in that particular neighborhood, but I have been there before. This type of human geography extends from New England to the Pacific Ocean. Adjust for regional variations in vegetation and you could easily find this in Buffalo or Boise, Sioux Fall or Spokane. Norman Rockwell could set up shop here. Millions of Americans still live his lifestyle.

So what’s not to like? I don’t like the houses, and the yards, especially the yards. Houses are small and there is almost no landscaping around them. Thanks to fertilizers, weed killing chemicals, and power mowers, the grass is neat, but people don’t seem fond of trees or big bushes, at least not near their houses. There are lots of trees on the streets – maples, ash, hackberry and linden – but not many on property people take care of themselves. That is a contrast with the East where trees sprout from even small spaces. Around here, people would complaint that shade interfere with the grass; roots clog drain and trees drop leaves in the rain gutters. I know this compulsive neatness that loses sight of goals. My father wanted grass ½ inch high and neat, although we rarely achieved it. (He was too lazy and I didn’t care about a neat lawn . . . and I was lazy too.) Strip mall & gas station owners spread little stones over the landscaping. It is neat and requires no care, but it is unattractive and predictable. I would rather have the confusion and profusion of growing plants, even ones that were not well maintained or volunteer to occupy that patch of ground. Most people call the latter variety weeds. They are better than the little rocks or the chemically induced grass.

I would not want to live here, but I understand why so many do. The Lacrosse area is growing rapidly. I might complain about the houses, but it looks like most people can afford to own one, at least in cooperation with their mortgage company. Prices are remarkable low, by Northern Virginia standards. This place has become a paradise for hunters and fishermen. The forests and fields near town teem with wildlife as farm fields revert to nature and create habitat. Fish are jumping in the lakes and the Black River across from my hotel is full of small boats. There have not been so many deer here for more than a century. Wild turkeys, which were rare in this area even 200 years ago, are common. They like the old farm fields. Eagles nest along the Mississippi. God’s Country.

This is Middle America. The citizens of Lacrosse work hard, teach their kids decent values and send them off to the local university, or maybe to the University of Minnesota at Winona not too far up the river. “The Lacrosse Tribune” carries stories of local boys serving in Iraq. Many houses fly the American flag. Most people love the USA. SUVs & pickup trucks fill the wide and well-maintained streets and most people drive near the speed limit, unlike drivers in my Polish experience. Wisconsin is a nice place to visit and a wonderful place for a lot of people to live, just not for me. It is my native state, but I can’t go home again permanently.

The boys and I are staying at the Roadstar Inn, since it would be too hard for Chrissy’s mother if we descended on her small house. It is an inexpensive 1970s type hotel, near fast food places and the Mississippi River. We are about to head out to the free “continental breakfast”. The weather is warm (about 70) and humid. It rained last night. It is 7:15 am on June 28, 2003.