Whatever happened to the blog, part 2.

I guess the blog should be re-titled. Something like “Untethered: A Year or Two on the Back Roads.” For reasons that seemed obvious at the time, but which seem curiously hard to explain in retrospect, we’ve extended the adventure. We’ll return home, not now, but in May 2018. The blogging is getting a little ragged at this point, but I guess there will be further posts. Maybe I’ll just post every so often for the rest of my life. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?

When last we posted, we had just left our rig in the capable hands of Carl and Neal of Carl’s Auto Air in East Missoula. They were in the process of finishing up repairs to bring the rig back to near brand new condition, we hoped.

We left at a time when there were several wildfires raging in the forests ringing Missoula. We were headed to Sun Valley, Idaho to visit our friend Judith and to view the eclipse. The fastest route to Sun Valley from Missoula was closed due to nearby fires, so we embarked on a circuitous route through eastern Idaho, eventually turning West toward Sun Valley in our new (to us) Subaru Outback.

We purchased our Subaru in Montana at an RV dealer where our purpose was to purchase a can of chemicals for our RV sewage system. Next thing we knew, we had bought a can of chemicals and a car that had just been traded in for an RV.  Anyway, we like it.

We arrived at Judith’s after eight hours of driving, and settled into her beautiful house and slept in a real bed. 

Judith’s house in Hailey, near Sun Valley

The stables.

Sun Valley officials had been up in arms for days before the eclipse. Ketchum (adjacent to the Sun Valley resort and ski runs) was preparing for an invasion of up to 65,000 people on August 21. Sun Valley is a popular, busy summer destination anyway, and at the “totality” epicenter of the eclipse, it was certain to be overrun by additional visitors.

Visiting Judith was so terrific. She had taken seriously the dire warnings of enormous crowds and gridlock, and had stocked up they way they used to do for backyard bomb shelters in the 1950’s.  We had brought with us a dozen eggs from Neal and Cheryl’s chickens. The first time I opened Judith’s refrigerator I saw that she had stocked up with four dozen eggs. We were all set for eggs.

On eclipse day we overslept a little, and we didn’t really have a plan. We drove toward Ketchum, and to our surprise, traffic wasn’t very heavy. We’d been told that chair lift tickets to the top of Bald Mountain were long since sold out, and people were scalping them for $500 each. We decided to try anyway. As we approached the lodge where tickets are sold, we were approached by a guy. “Anyone need two tickets?” We braced ourselves for the price. He was selling them for not much more than they cost on a normal day, so we snapped them up.

At the top of the mountain it wasn’t exactly chaotic, but there were lots of people there, and there were good spirits and a buzz of anticipation. We texted with all our family members, and heard about where they were watching the eclipse.

It turns out that an iPhone isn’t the ideal instrument for photographing the actual eclipse of the sun, but we were able to capture some of the spirit of the event anyway.

The lift ride was long, slow, and beautiful. Bald Mountain rises to 9300 feet.

As the moon took its first small bite out of the sun…..

We donned our eclipse glasses.

Some of our fellow viewers went all out.

 

As totality approached, about a dozen hang gliders took the plunge.

Then we were all in the dark……

….and the horizon glowed.

The glory of it all.

All in all it was a cool experience. I even bought the commemorative t-shirt.

Sun Valley is quite a place. We had only bargained for the event of the eclipse itself as the week’s attraction, but we soon discovered that the eclipse was only the beginning. We had some great dinners, both at home at Judith’s and at several excellent restaurants. And then there was the ballet!

“Ballet Sun Valley” was a two evening festival featuring a mixed repertory program and a world premiere ballet. Dancers were principals and soloists from the American Ballet Theatre, the New York City Ballet, The Royal Ballet, the San Franciso Ballet, and the Royal Danish Ballet. Featured performers included Misty Copeland and Maria Kochetkova. I’m not a ballet aficionado, but I was overwhelmed. These folks are world class athletes who perform with incredible strength and grace.

The festival was the brainstorm of Isabella Boylston, a principal dancer in the American Ballet Theatre who grew up in Ketchum/Sun Valley, in a trailer park(!) She’s a wonderful dancer, and obviously really popular with the worldwide cast (all friends of hers), whom she managed to assemble for the festival.

Misty Copeland

Maria Kochetkova

Isabella Boylston

We had a choice of $500 seats inside or $25 seats on the lawn. Guess where we sat?

One of the repertory performances featured Misty Copeland and Marcelo Gomes, both principals in ABT (filmed a mile away with my iPhone).

The next day we managed to fit in a rink-side lunch at Sun Valley Resort to see rehearsals for the ice dancing show.

That same day, we did a little shopping in town. At one point I was waiting at the register in a store. I looked over, and standing next to me was Mariel Hemingway, wearing no makeup, sporting a ratty old t-shirt and some ratty old Levi shorts, and looking gorgeous. I was aware that there’s a code of conduct in Ketchum/Hailey/Sun Valley: Don’t approach celebrities. Don’t ask for autographs or selfies. Don’t say “I loved you in ‘Manhattan’ forty years ago.” So all I could do was whisper to Kate, “Mariel Hemingway at eleven o’clock.” Nevertheless, I was impressed. Since then I’ve told several family members of Gen X and the millennials about my thrill. The response? A polite “Who’s Mariel Hemingway?”

From Sun Valley we traveled to Boise for a short visit with Kate’s nephew Nick Canrinus and family. It was our second visit to them since our Odyssey began. We had a good “slice of life” visit, catching up on developments since we stopped by in October 2016 (for emergency repairs on the rig by Nick, among other things). This time the rig was in pretty good shape, and Nick was able to relax with the rest of us.

Kate, Clementine (C.C.) and Cisco the dog did some light reading.

 

     Ossian beat the pants off me in a game of chess.

Kate and Nick.

 

Jocelyn at work on her very successful online magazine, “Wedding Chicks……”

…..for which Ossian’s modeling talents sometimes come into play.

Leaving Boise, we made a brief stop in Missoula to pick up the rig from Carl’s Auto A/C. Alas, the perfect fix of the A/C still eludes us, and we’re now thinking that when the hot weather returns we may replace the air conditioning unit, shroud and all.

From Boise we moved on to Portland for Labor Day weekend to see Sam and family for the first time since way back last Thanksgiving. We drove by way of Coeur D’Alene. We only caught a glimpse, but it was beautiful, and we’ll try to work in a longer stay sometime before we get off the road.

Our stay in Portland, though brief, was peripatetic in the well-established tradition of visits to the Portland Anderson family. Sam and Marisa moved to a beautiful new home early this year, and this was our first time to see it. No sooner did we arrive than we were recruited to participate as audience for “Portland AM Northwest,” the local Today Show-like TV show. Any group that can rustle up at least twenty people to comprise the audience gets to publicize its group fundraiser. Kellen and Maya’s school was signed up, but fell a little short of twenty, so Kate and I filled in. If was a pretty good show, and we had fun.

Kate in the Green Room.

 

Portland AM Northwest.

Great clapping!

Next we were off to see Cirque de Soleil with seven eight-year-olds, to celebrate Maya’s birthday.

But that wasn’t enough. Birthday/slumber party with seven eight-year-olds.

                Obligatory birthday cake video in the dark.

But THAT wasn’t enough. For Labor Day, Sam and I purchased the world’s heaviest four-by-eight sheets of plywood, carried them to the back yard with major bloodshed involved, and fashioned an elegant cover for the sandbox. Just in time for – believe it – the Labor Day backyard barbecue for sixty people.

Sandbox fully disguised.

 

Sam the party chef.

 

Kellen looking cute. 

Sawyer looking even cuter.

Marisa, cutest of them all.

Swinging in the front yard.

From Portland we stopped to visit granddaughter Aaliyah at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. Just a brief lunch visit. She seems to be having a wonderful time as a college student.

I guess I haven’t adequately made the point that this was the summer the western U.S. was on fire. Missoula is set in a vast basin surrounded by mountains prone to wildfires every year, but this year they started early and lasted long. We were surrounded by smoke virtually every day for the almost two months we stayed.

Sarah found a solution.

Then the day after we arrived in Portland the Columbia Gorge ignited; the Labor Day barbecue was a smokier-than-expected affair, with ashes falling like snow at times. Driving south from Portland we had very poor visibility and at times nearly unbreathable air.

Ashland, where we visited friends Nancy and Bert, sometimes looked like a hospital ward.

Usually when we visit Ashland we like to go for walks and hikes, but this trip we stuck to the indoor activities – eating and drinking.

We landed in the Bay Area in early September. Friend Judith (different Judith from Sun Valley Judith) valiantly volunteered her driveway as our campsite for the duration, but first we had to bushwhack our way in. Nobody can quite appreciate just how tall an eleven foot van is until they see it with their own eyes. 

Kate, whacking bushes.

We returned to our Bay Area home stomping grounds in order to run the gauntlet of annual doctor checkups and procedures (procedures which shall not be named here, in order to preserve the good taste and delicacy of the blog). 

We seem to be in good health for 73-year-olds, which isn't saying much. A torn meniscus has slowed me down, and has kept us in the Bay Area longer than we had intended at this point in the trip. 

Limping around the driveway campsite.

The knee didn't get any better for quite a while, so I made an appointment with my orthopedist, thinking slippery slope, MRI, knee replacement, etc. He told me to get up and walk, and to come back in ten years to talk about a knee replacement, but only if by then I had to walk like Quasimodo. That's what I like about my orthopedist. My knee still hurts a little, but I'm up to walking three or four miles a day now.

While staying in Judith’s driveway, we got to have dinner with her kids Tyler and Carianne, and baby Carter.

And of course we were able to spend some time with Laura and Mia, whom we hadn’t seen in person in almost ten months.

We joined our dinner club for a typically effete Palo Alto picnic,

and barbecued some burgers with our friend Billy and his son Ryan.

I snuck away one weekend in late September to L.A. to see the horse races at Santa Anita with my high school friends Jim and Jack. 

We won, of course. We always win. Real experts in the horseflesh.

During October we lingered in the Bay Area, and scored a couple of house sitting gigs.

Kate and our friend Cheryl celebrated happy hour at the home of our other friends Kelly and John, while K & J were away in Canada. When the cat’s away…….

As November approaches, we’re about to hit the road again. We've traveled over 24.000 miles now, but I've temporarily lost our trip map. (I'm pretty sure I know where it is, but it's not where we are). We’ll return to Sun Valley for more house sitting and dog sitting in late October, and then to Portland to team up with Sarah in an attempt to tame our grandchildren while their parents travel to NYC.

Maybe there will be more blogging.......