R.I.P. Uncle Trip

It has been just over a year since we returned from our grand adventure. We’ve run out of, “last year this week we were. . .”

As our memories soften around the edges, even the grimmest days are starting to take on a glow of nostalgia. The worst experiences do make the best stories, you know. “Remember when Griffin took the car hostage and locked us all out, or that night in Rome when he tried to call 911 on papa?” (told to general hilarity all around, not grim faces). “How about the time Owen walked off the wall and the ambulance came. Or that night we spent under the loudspeaker in the Abu Dhabi airport. . .”

You never know when the stories are going to come out, or what’s going to bring them on. It’s often dinnertime. The dinner table may be the closest thing we have to a psychiatrist couch. Maybe that’s because one of our favorite trip topics is food, and all the crazy meals we had. We did eat pretty well.

But whatever the story may be about, it usually leads to another, and then to another. Our travel has turned dinnertime into a sort of Toastmasters gathering. Eventually the storytelling winds down. Everyone gets quiet. I look over at Anna and notice the tears in her eyes. It’s hard to tell because I’m usually misty myself.

We really miss our trip. It’s almost as if our trip has become a favorite uncle or grandma who died a little too early, leaving us with cupboards and cupboards of treasured memories, but a big empty space too. I’ve started thinking about our adventure as dear departed uncle Trip.

We’ve tried to resuscitate uncle Trip on a few occasions, using travel planning like a defibrillator. He does come alive occasionally, or at least his ghost visits. He came back to life during our recent trip to NYC and Boston. Screaming at each other during a 4-hour car trip from Boston to New York, and negotiating another hostage incident following one-too-many museum visits, he was a little too much alive. I remembered all those little things about Uncle Trip that used to really bug me.

Maybe I couldn’t live with Uncle Trip forever. But I sure wish he’d come and visit a little more often.

Home

We were away from home long enough that when we returned a few days ago I drove right past my own street. I had to wonder if my subconscious was telling me it wasn't time to return yet. But my kids screaming at me from the backseat were telling me it was.

One of the strangest things about being away for so long, aside from forgetting the way to my house, is how much closer it has brought us to home. We have actually become tighter with our friends, more connected with our families and more committed to our community as a result of being away. It's true that distance makes the heart grow fonder, and I suppose all those miles helped us to look a little more attractive to everyone else. But these things became more precious more because of contrast and comparison than proximity.

We had the exceptional opportunity to see some of the most magnificent sights on the planet. We completely dunked ourselves in the places, scenery, history, culture, food and adventures that make those fancy travel magazines and brochures so sexy. And while every one of them fed our desire to explore and experience even more, none of them left us wishing we could call any other place home.

So being home has been that much sweeter. Reunions with our friends have been that much more joyful. Walks into town for a coffee or an ice cream have been that much more pleasant. Rides in the hills that much more satisfying. And our return home that much more celebratory.

After nearly a year, four continents, a dozen countries and more than 40 lodgings, I'm not sure we accomplished everything we set out to do. But there are a few things I'm very certain about. First, we have given our children some very important life skills. They can now eat whatever is put in front of them, sleep wherever they happen to find themselves and poop wherever they have to. Second, we have an even longer list of places we want to visit than before we left. And third, we are very glad to be home.

Pioneer Highway

There were just over 1,300 miles to drive from Denver to San Anselmo as we nosed the car onto Interstate 70. We planned to cross all but the last couple hundred over two days. The Rockies, vast Western deserts, the Sierra Nevada mountains and truck stop food stood in our way like menacing bouncers blocking our path.

Driving 85 mph past one of those historical markers indicating where yet another intrepid pioneer gave up the ghost, I wondered aloud what pushed those settlers across such awful expanses. Getting no response, I asked the kids to ponder walking across that desert and over those mountains making maybe 10 miles a day when we were covering the same distance every seven or eight minutes in air conditioned comfort.

Griffin said, "Wow (short pause) Can I have another raspberry licorice?" Owen kept his nose in his book. Isabel continued to kick my seat.

Answering my own question, I thought it must have been home, or the hope for a better home, that drove them to undertake such a terrible journey. After all, that was what was driving us along. And it wasn't like we didn't have our own hardships to endure along the way. Two straight days of peanut butter sandwiches and one bad Mexican meal. Five bellies full of refried beans in one car. You'd think we would have seen that one coming.

But considering we spent 24 hours together in the confines of a Honda Pilot during those two days, we all weathered it pretty well. There was that spell early in the drive near Glenwood Springs, CO, when Anna made me walk for a while. But I knew she couldn't stay mad at me for more than a few miles. We were on our way home and everybody seemed happy about it.

Colorado's Got Cash

Apparently Colorado has got cash. In California we have a $19 billion budget deficit. We're laying off teachers and police officers in Oakland where your chance of getting shot is just a little lower than your chance of graduating high school. New York is only about $9 billion in the hole. They're talking about taxing kids' soda pop. As a matter of fact, 46 of our 50 states have a deficit to figure out. Colorado is supposed to be on that list. But Colorado is flush. Here's how I know.

We spent the last week in Indianapolis. Like a faithful horse, our car remained in a long term parking lot in Denver. Well to call it Denver isn't too accurate since the Denver airport is actually somewhere near the Kansas border. We left our car out there in the loneliest corner of the most distant lot. When we finally made it back to our car, about two hours after landing (I'm not joking, to get from the gate to our car required a long walk, four stops on a train, two escalators, crossing five busy lanes of traffic, a bus ride and another long walk. About the only thing we didn't have to do was ford a raging river).

Well I meant to get to this in the last paragraph but I got carried away. I knew Colorado was flush the moment I saw the ticket on our horse, I mean car, out there on the prairie. Some police officer with not much better to do had to first of all find our car. As I've described, not easy. Then he had to notice the registration on our California plates was less then 30 days expired. Then he had to fail to notice the temporary registration in the window since we just bought the car. Then he had to write us a ticket, fold it precisely, this was not haphazard folding, and place it carefully in the door just by the handle.

More evidence. We had to call five different phone numbers to figure out how to dispute the ticket. And every one of those phone numbers was answered by a human. Come on, who has enough money to pay human beings to answer phones anymore! Even Warren Buffet has an automated attendant for crying out loud.

So while some overqualified accountant with a bunch of audited data may think Colorado has money troubles, I know better.

Back to Indy. We had a really great time meeting the newest member of the clan, Elsie. We also visited the Eiteljorg Native American Museum, spent an afternoon at the excellent Indianapolis Zoo, made a trip to Cincinnati to see the Reds manage three runs with two outs in the bottom of the 9th, swam and tubed a day away at the lake and enjoyed visits with much of the Simmons crew.

Purpose

 

We set out this year to spend time together as a family -- 24 hours a day for 365 days, give or take a few. That is a lot of time. And while time together is good, time without purpose can be like a big pot of oatmeal. It's just a bunch of sticky goo with an occasional lump, and not very satisfying. But add a little milk, or maybe even cream, and some brown sugar, now you've got a satisfying meal.


Purpose, we have discovered, can be the difference between a really good day and a not so good day. Examples: "Let's go to the Eiteljorg Museum today and learn how the Native Americans here wove their blankets and made their pots", or "Let's go visit aunt Kate and baby Elsie today to see how we can help."

Counter examples: "What are we doing today?" "I don't know." "Mom, Griffin squished me!" "Isabel stole my Lego!"

That's why I'm so proud of our parents. (You'll see how this fits together in a minute.) Our parents, Anna's and mine, are mostly retired now. Being mostly retired can be tough. You spend so many years working only to wake up one day with lots of time on your hands, and not so much purpose anymore. We worried our parents might get tired of all that oatmeal. We shouldn't have because they've found very purposeful ways to use their abundant time, energy and talent.

Jim, Anna's dad, is starting Hearts and Hands in Indianapolis. Like Habitat for Humanity on a very local scale, they are revitalizing neighborhoods one house at a time by purchasing and renovating homes then providing them affordably to deserving homeowners. Have a look at this short video on their first project.

Anna's mom, Linda, the perpetual gardener, is her block's coordinator for Adopt-A-Block. She leads her neighbors to keep their block clean and beautiful. She's also using her strong back working on the Hearts and Hands homes.

Meanwhile, my mom and dad, Brenda and Bob, have found a way to combine their traveling jones with their experience as educators. They're working with Hope4Kids International. They combine service projects with trips to exotic locations. Most recently they were working in Peru.

My other dad, Mel, and his wife, Sally, have chucked convention and live most of the time on the road in their motorhome. They also keep in touch with kids they are sponsoring in other countries.

One of our best purposes this year, it turns out, has been getting to know our retired parents better. We have traveled with them in some of our favorite places like Scotland, England, Italy and South Africa. And we've enjoyed time in their home habitats as well, watching proudly as they carry on very purpose-filled and happy lives.

Boys Biking Boulder -- Briefly

Some fun video of the boys on their bikes in Boulder. Just CLICK.

And photos.

Terrifying

The only thing more terrifying than doing something terrifying is watching your kids do something terrifying. That is truly terrifying.

Actually it doesn't even have to be all that terrifying a thing to be terrifying when your kids are doing it. The first time our kids pulled themselves up onto their feet when they were babies, all I could see was the dent the coffee table was going to make in their head when they took that inevitable spill.

And it just gets worse from there -- crossing the street, climbing the playground slide, learning to ride the bike, playing the first piano recital, and climbing 1,000 feet of nearly vertical rock.

The climbing bug sat idle in me since about the time Owen was born, like a dormant cicada waiting for that mysterious signal, or dried up frog eggs waiting for the rain, or sea monkeys waiting for the secret ingredient. In the case of the sleeping climbing bug apparently all it needed was one of my kids to ask, "Pop, can we go climb?" The answer came without hesitation, "What do you want to climb?"

Owen picked a good one. The Flatirons have lorded over us every time we have come to visit Boulder and stayed right at their feet in Chautauqua Park. We decided we'd climb the First Flatiron, the tallest of them all. Just over 1,000 feet of climbing. (That's it just over my right shoulder in the photo below.)

Part of the fun of climbing is the scary feeling you get when you're up really high standing on something the size of your health insurance card. And of course the whew-isn't-it-great-we-didn't-die relief you get when your feet are back on solid ground again. I hadn't counted on the get-down-from-there-before-you-kill-yourself terror I would experience as I watched Owen climb. And that was during the hike up to the base of the rock.

Well Owen coaxed me through my fear, and we had a great climb together. We celebrated with some ice cream later. Hopefully we'll keep climbing together. It will be good preparation for the really terrifying stuff that still lies ahead, like first dates and drivers licenses.

Back to Civilization

Getting ready to crawl into my sleeping bag two nights ago, I took off my socks. I looked down at my feet. They had to be my feet, they were attached to my ankles. But it was hard to recognize them. I'll spare you most of the details, but their color wasn't natural. They perfectly matched the dark soil of our campsite. I decided I had better put the dirty socks back on before getting into my bag. They were only three days old.

Except for a few nights here and there in motels and with friends, we had been camping for a month. It showed. We had given up on combing Isabel's hair, and she was the clean one. The boys, dusty and dustier let's call them, had become one with nature. Sort of like Rambo when he buried himself in the river bank except the boys also had last night's s'mores clinging to the front of their shirts. It was easier to let the dirt simply collect and fall off than to try and keep them clean.

We had just one more night to go before we were due to leave the mountains and the dirt to visit Anna's sister, Jill. We were driving up the Arkansas River Valley in Southern Colorado. The road ahead ran straight as the line we were going to make to the first showers we saw. It disappeared in a vanishing point at the foot of yet another spectacular 14,000 foot peak. But above that peak some menacing thunder clouds were billowing.

I'm pretty sure I broke first. "You think Jill will mind if we show up a night early?"

"Those storm clouds do look pretty ugly," Anna replied.

"Showers!" we shouted.

"Cousins!" the kids all shouted together.

Hello civilization.

Gift

There was a whimsical painting of two giraffes that Isabel and I liked right away. The price tag said $4,400. A little further along was the collection of rock/paper/scissors sculptures. Small, medium or large were all four-figure prices. On the other side of the road was a big collection of kinetic sculpture that included a massive pink pig with a nodding head and a big scene of Indians on horseback chasing cowboys. Each of the figures would swing to life if you moved the pendulum. There were no price tags. Not sure what that means but I'm sure it wasn't cheap.


It didn't matter. We were just strolling up Canyon Road, Santa Fe's fabled gallery row, and fantasizing about what we might like to buy if suddenly we were endowed with an art budget.

At the very top of the hill we stopped at a perfect oasis, a tea shop with a shady patio, for big glasses of iced tea. Next door was what could only be described as the Sanford and Son junk yard if only Fred Sanford had been born in Santa Fe rather than Watts. A dusty assorment of every conceivable kitschy cowboy collectable surrounded an old wood and adobe house. Inside, a man with dyed red hair and an old cowboy hat wearing no shoes and a tattered t-shirt appeared to be at work. Anna strode in to see what this was all about.

It was part studio, part workshop and part bachelor dive. There was art hung carelessly about, lots of easels and paint tubes, an acoustic guitar and a huge grand piano standing in the middle of the room. The piano seemed to be the project for the day. Restoring it, not playing it.

I'm not sure we were meant to be there, but the man seemed glad to have us. Anna admired the artwork on the walls. There was a beautiful study of Aspen trees, a huge painting of a dahlia and a Southwest landscape that caught her eye. She asked the price for the landscape. The man didn't hesitate. He pulled it from the wall and handed it to Anna. He said, "it's a gift." He added, "please just donate some money to the hungry people back where you live."

Now this doesn't happen every day, someone handing you a nice work of art like that. It presented something of a dilemna. Art with a price tag is easy to reconcile. Do you like it? Can you afford it? Then buy it. But a gift creates a very different obligation. Did he really mean it? Was this some kind of a game? Did he expect us to just come up with our own price like one of those pay-what-you-can-afford fundraisers?

So we hemmed and hawed, ummed and welled, and groped around for what to do. He made it really simple and really clear. He took the painting, wrapped it up for us and taped it shut. Then repeated his simple request to please just donate some money.

Not the way business is typically done on Canyon Road, but it made everyone happy. We will find a special place in our house for that painting, and give some money to hungry people where we live. But we'll also smile every time we look at that picture remembering Santa Fe, the man with the red hair and that it takes only money to buy something but it takes heart to give a gift.

[Something of a rennaisance man, our new friend is a talented musician as well as an artist. Check out his youtube channel, beatinthepocket, to see him perform.]

Sticky Pueblos

I know you're thinking the whole Santa Fe pueblo thing was over years ago after a couple Ralph Lauren fashion shows and Robert Redford Sundance catalogues. But I'm here to tell you it's hanging on. Just have a look:

Here is the Pueblo McDonalds.

Which is right next to the Pueblo IHOP.

And the Pueblo KFC.

Across the street is the Pueblo Squeaky Clean car wash.

And here is the Pueblo Best Western where we are staying.

Which is next door is the Pueblo Pawn City pawn shop. They apparently sell guns.

It's more fitting for some businesses than others. Nearby is the Pueblo Schlotsky's deli (didn't know the Puebloans went in for pastrami) and the Pueblo Panda Express (or take-out Chinese).

If you're thinking about building something in Santa Fe, you better think Pueblo.