To Further Illustrate My Point...

(Post by Tracy)

On Monday we had to take the car in to get a few things checked out.

Employee at the L.A. Ford dealership: "You talk like you're from New York. Are you from New York?"

Me: "Uh, no, Chicago."

Him: "Yeah, there you go. Same thing!"

The kicker: He is from New York, and he just told me that New York and Chicago are the same thing.

(Back East!)

I'm from East of Here.

(Post by Tracy)

To people in Los Angeles, even though I am only from Milwaukee/Chicago (which I was taught in 4th grade is in the Midwest region), I am from "Back East." And it's not that I'm from "Out East," or even "East of Here," I am from "Back East," as if everyone here was originally there.

The first time someone asked me this, "You're from Back East, aren't you?" I was confused. I stumbled over my words, saying something like, "Well, no, I mean yeah, I guess, well, I'm from Milwaukee," and they said, "Yeah, Back East."

So the next trip I take to somewhere on the East Coast, when I'm in conversation with a stranger, I look forward to answering their question, "So where are you visiting from?"
I'll say, "Oh, well, I live in Los Angeles now, but I'm originally from Back East."
"Oh, really?" they'll say, suddenly more interested. "Where?"
And I'll reply with pride, "Milwaukee," and I look forward to the look on their face.

Our Trip in Pictures

Leaving Home...

St. Louis, Missouri

Driving through Kansas

Boulder, Colorado

Denver, Colorado
Georgetown, Colorado
Edwards, Colorado
Driving through the Rocky Mountains
Colorado National Monument

Arches National Park, Utah

Grand Canyon, Arizona

Sedona, Arizona

Driving through Arizona

Palm Desert, California

...and Home!

A Funny Thing Happened...

(Post by Tracy)

A funny thing happened on the way to school this week. Even though I leave the house at 6:45 am, there's always plenty of other people out on the road with me during our sunrise drive on the 101. So it didn't surprise me when I followed the same car from the highway off my exit and onto one of the main roads that leads me to school. I was noticing that the young-ish woman who was driving the black sedan seemed distracted, looking back and forth from the road to something in her front seat or near her center console, but she was managing to still drive safely enough.

We exited the highway and merged into traffic on the 6-lane surface road before coming to a stop at a stoplight. Even on the surface roads, traffic was pretty heavy, so we weren't leaving too much space for the Holy Ghost between us and the car in front of us. The lady in the sedan stopped pretty close to the decent-sized SUV in front of her, and there were 2 or 3 more cars in front of the SUV at the stop light.

While the lady in the sedan continued to look around for whatever was distracting her in her car, she must have subconsciously let her foot believe that the light had turned green. Still looking down, she picked her foot up off the gas and inched up just enough to bump the SUV in front of her. In the same instant that her bumper banged into the back bumper in front of her, her head flew upwards, and she and her car froze. I could tell from what little I could see of her face in her rear-view mirror, as well as her body language, that she was stunned. Oh crap, I imagined her thinking, what the Hell do I do now?

We sat there for a few more seconds, which I imagine felt like a small eternity to the lady in the sedan. Her hands did not move from the steering wheel, and her eyes did not leave the car in front of her. I didn't blame her for doing nothing, as there wasn't much she really could do at the time - all the lanes were blocked, and there wasn't a place to pull over. Getting out of the car right there would have caused a major headache for all of us behind her.

Then the coolest thing happened.

The light turned green. The cars in the front of the lane started to resume motion. The SUV slowly began to drive forward, and the driver of the SUV raised their hand to wave at the lady driver in the sedan. The SUV drove on, the slight wave dismissing the whole issue.

Still kind of in shock, the driver of the sedan just barely allowed her right hand to leave the steering wheel long enough to give a sort of half-wave-reply, and she also drove on.

I thought about it for a little while, wondering if I would have reacted the way the SUV driver did; I probably wouldn't have. I would have pulled over, at least to see if there was any damage. But then again, we were at a complete stop, the sedan probably only moved 6 inches before hitting the SUV, and she couldn't have hit the SUV any harder than when someone bumps your car parallel parking. The mature and forgiving response from the SUV driver was such a refreshing way to start the day. It no doubt kept a lot of people from being late to work, and maybe it will lead at least the driver of the sedan and myself to be more calm during a typical road rage-inducing situation.

That's our City of Angels for you.

Update on the California Life

Update! If you scroll down to the bottom of our blog, there is now a place to put in your email address ("subscribe via email") so that you will get email updates when we update the blog! This is different than becoming a "follower," which just shows who likes the blog. Go ahead and do both!

(Post by Tracy)

Big News. We have been living in California for 6 weeks. Why is this Big News? Because I have officially broken my standing record of how long I have been away from home. Until now, the longest I have ever gone without visiting the ol' Chaput Homestead in Deerfield was 6 weeks, and that record was set during my brief stint abroad in Lyon, France. Perhaps to some it is surprising that I've never been away longer than that, but then remember that I have never (until now) lived more than 2 hours (110 miles) from the only house I grew up in.

So what has been going on in the last 6 weeks? Well...

Mom and Dad stayed with us this weekend. (Mark and Brigette's beautiful and fun wedding was last weekend in Phoenix. Mom and Dad stayed the week in Arizona and then came to see us before heading back to the Midwest.) And we had a great weekend:

- Ate at The Counter - Mom and Dad's favorite LA eatery
- Visited "The Autry" - "Cowboy Museum"
- Went to Mass at another new LA Catholic church
- Ate at Carousel - tasty Middle Eastern Cuisine
- Saw a sketch comedy show at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre
- Shopped at the Studio City Farmers Market
- Played with puppies up for adoption in the park, barely leaving without a new family member
- Made 2 impromptu visits to some Studio City open houses, accidentally checking out the same house as Corbin Bernsen and his wife Amanda Pays
- Had a home-cooked dinner and played some gin rummy (Tom and Mom beat me and Dad)

I am looking forward to their next (not-yet-scheduled) visit!

To catch up, here are some of the other highlights of the last 6 months of California life in a nutshell:

- The DMVs here are awful. It took 3 days visiting the DMV (multiple locations) to get our stuff organized.
- The pizza here is great. We have found our favorite take-out place, and the first time I ordered my favorite pizza (pepperoni, pineapple, black olive), the lady on the phone thought it was "cute."
- I splurged and took the Honda to a hand-wash car wash since there's no rain or snow in sight.
- I also splurged for my first California mani/pedi and ran into two of my new co-workers while at the nail salon.
- While I was missing terribly the best season to be in Milwaukee or at Legend Lake, Tom and I were lucky to be able to spend plenty of hours at the beach in Malibu.
- Although it also tore me up to miss the last weekend of the summer at the lake and miss the Shawano County fair for the second year in a row, Tom and I had a great weekend with family in Phoenix to celebrate Mark and Brigette's wedding. The wedding and reception were beautiful, and I really enjoyed the mini-vacation with some of my family.
- The drive out of the LA area on the Friday of Labor Day weekend was the longest, slowest strand of city traffic in my recent memory, replacing the (awfully long and slow) drive between Hammond, IN and Milwaukee, WI on a Friday evening. It took 3 hours to go 50 miles. Previous Hammond to Milwaukee record: about 3 hours to go 115 miles.
- Overall, this traffic does not faze me. My commute is about the same distance and time as it was between Milwaukee and Elm Grove. With that said, people here do not seem to understand what I am saying when I tell them I don't mind the traffic here because "I am from Chicago."

By the way, school is going great. Being an internet-savvy teacher, I know it's best leave out specifics while blogging. So suffice it to say that things are great at work - great coworkers, great work environment, great students. Block scheduling is kind of a different world, but I think I like it. (It's hard not to like a schedule that lets you leave at 1:15 a couple Fridays each month.)

There you go - an entry without much focus but that covered a lot of ground. Also, Tom and I have heard some really nice comments from y'all about the blog. Thanks for checking in on us! Next post: a re-cap of our trip in pictures! Oh, and we'll tell you about how we became buddies with Martin Sheen.

P.S. Thanks again to Mom and Dad for visiting. Come back soon!

Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.

(Post by Tracy)

FYI, both http://www.tom-tracy.com and http://www.tracy-tom.com (our old wedding websites) should now direct you to this blog. Yippee!

So, it's Tuesday, which means we have officially been here on our own for a whole week. Mom and Dad left last Monday, and Erika and Michelle left the Wednesday before that. It was so, so great having them with us on this trip. Can't express that enough.

We've also been lucky to spend a lot of time with Tom's California family since we've gotten here - his grandma, Uncle Andy and Aunt Cassy, and two cousins, Alden and Anna. We're really excited, too, to have my cousin Mark and his fiancée Brigette to get together with. It's so nice to have people nearby, especially when everything is so new.

Tom and I are doing pretty well and loving the apartment (even with its thin walls and the person upstairs who seems to rearrange his furniture nightly). It's roomy (ok, compared to our Milwaukee apartment,) and homey and so close to being “done”! Those of you who know us well will not be surprised that it took us an entire afternoon to unpack our books and arrange them on the bookshelves, but it feels really good to have that put together, alphabetically of course, and arranged by genre.

There is one thing I've been less-than-excited about. It just kind of dawned on me the other day, the fact that California has earthquakes.

Tom and I had been wanting to buy a map of LA, so we went over to Barnes and Noble. While I looked at maps, not finding exactly what I wanted, Tom started reading something aloud from the book he was browsing, and he was reading an account of the Northridge earthquake that happened near where we live, in the early 1990’s.

Now, I will be the first to admit that I am an anxious person, and for most of my life I've had a respectful fear of tornados. I think my grad-school roommates could best attest to this from the time I made them pull chairs into the windowless, first-floor hallway of our former-convent home and sit with me for a few hours while a storm passed. Then when I moved to Milwaukee, I signed up for severe weather alert text messages (from both the Weather Channel and WTMJ) and also promptly tuned my weather radio to the appropriate frequency. There were many nights when a storm would roll through, making my phone beep every 15-30 seconds to let me know that, yes, there was a severe storm rolling through.

So until our recent trip to Barnes and Noble, I was breathing easy about the lack of tornados in California, especially when the Weather Channel told me that "a Tornado Watch had been issued for Milwaukee WI" last Friday and I was here. I suppose the relief that I had been feeling about being away from possible tornados had distracted me from considering the other natural disasters.

And then Tom started reading to me about the Northridge earthquake…

And then I picked up a California guidebook about earthquakes...

And after about 3 minutes of reading, I was ready to buy my plane ticket home…

I forced myself to put the book down and waited in agony for Tom to be ready to leave the bookstore; I reasoned that if I was going to die in an earthquake, I would hate for it to be from millions of books falling on me at Barnes and Noble.

We've talked to numerous people about earthquakes since then, and we've been gathering the important information necessary to try to be prepared. Our major furniture is bolted to the wall. We have museum putty to hold down glass vases. I've been reading up on what to do before, during and after an earthquake (during an earthquake: Drop, Cover, and Hold on). Under heavy desks or tables is a good place to be. I do plan to gather some emergency kits, and I'm following the other useful advice on FEMA’s website as well.

We got on the topic of earthquakes with the Trader Joe's cashier that day after leaving Barnes and Noble. He told us about the app he has on his phone that tells him whenever there is an earthquake, how strong it was and where it was. It sounded interesting, but I decided that for now, it's probably better for me to just keep hearing when Jefferson County, Racine County or Milwaukee County has a severe thunderstorm alert or flash flood warning instead.

The Day We Bought a Refrigerator

(Post by Tracy)

We all made it safely to California, and on Monday, Tom and I set out with our gang to find a refrigerator.

Back when we came to California to find apartments in June, we almost skipped visiting a few because the listings said, “Need to supply your own refrigerator.” People around here might be used to that, but it seemed strange to us Milwaukeeans that an apartment would come sans fridge. We’ve asked a few people why it is that California (or at least Los Angeles) seems to do that, and no one has a real answer. Perhaps it’s a weird question to them. I wouldn’t have an answer if someone asked me, “Why is it that in Milwaukee all the apartments are already equipped with a fridge?” So anyway, we needed to get a fridge.

Although less essential, we also decided to buy some sort of bed for our second bedroom. So on Monday, we started out on a refrigerator and bed hunt.

We decided the best option would be a day bed with a trundle bed hidden underneath. After doing our online research, we had a list of stores to check out for this and a fridge.

We found the ideal bed frame at one mattress store, but we decided to shop around a little more for the actual mattresses, plus we still needed to find that refrigerator.

We spent the afternoon flipping back and forth from fridge to mattress mode, visiting half a dozen stores in total. While we had found the bed frame, we weren't having such luck with the refrigerator. Finally, while in refrigerator mode at one store, we got a tip on a cheaper place to shop by eavesdropping on the conversation between a salesperson and an upset customer.

Back in bed mode, we eventually found ourselves at another mattress store. Somewhat exhausted already, even though it was only around 5pm, Dad and Michelle decided to wait in the car while Tom, Mom and I went in to check it out. Tom left them the keys so they wouldn’t overheat in the afternoon sun, and we went in.

The store was surprisingly big inside, and it looked even bigger than it was due to the head to floor mirrors placed randomly throughout the showroom. After being inside this mattress house of illusions for about 10 minutes, we were eventually approached by a young salesman. We told him we were looking for mattresses to fit a trundle and day bed, and he pointed us towards some cheap mattresses.

It seemed like we might find what we were looking for, so I took a second to send Dad a text message. He and Michelle joined us inside.

The salesman seemed friendly enough and was willing to help us look. Then when I asked about the return policy, he barked out, “None.”
Confused, I asked, “You don’t have a return policy?”
“No. No stores ever have take a return on a mattress.”
I informed him that this was not true. “I bought a mattress last year that had a 30-day return policy.”
“Did you return it?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“See? They wouldn’t take it if you had tried. No store ever would. If they do, that means they’re either selling used mattresses or they’re going to put themselves out of business.”
“I have a new mattress at home that has a 3-month return policy,” Michelle piped up from a Temperpedic mattress on the other side of the showroom.
“Have you returned it?” he demanded.
“No,” she said.
“See? They wouldn’t take it.”
“So, are you telling me that they are lying then?” I asked him, starting to get irritated.
He shrugged. “I’ve been in this business for ten years, and I’m telling you, no store would ever take back a mattress.”
Luckily, before this elevated to a full-on argument, my dad cut in and said, “Well this isn’t going anywhere, so let’s decide on a mattress.” I put my sunglasses back on (my adult way of pouting) and kept looking at the mattresses.

We decided on two, bought them, and arranged to pick them up at the warehouse. He flipped back and forth between telling us that he thought the warehouse closed at 8... or 9... or 8... or 9... After handing us the receipt (with a handwritten and underlined “All sales are final” note), we left.

In the parking lot, we waited for Tom to unlock the car door. Then I noticed that Tom was pointing into the car. I followed where his finger was pointing and saw the car key sitting on the driver’s seat inside the locked car.
We all stood there a little stunned, not really knowing what to do, for a couple of minutes. Then we all started our own plans of action.

I realized I had a spare key in the new apartment, which wasn’t very far away, so I called 411 to get the number of a cab company. I used the number, called for a cab, and was told that they only serviced Orange County. I asked that cab company for a number to use in L.A. County and tried again. That worked out, and a cab was on its way.

Meanwhile, Mom was on the phone calling AAA. She was told that someone would be out to unlock the door for us within the next 30 minutes. They were on their way.

Also meanwhile, Dad had gone back into the mattress store. He and the salesman came back out, and the salesman started looking through his own trunk, apparently for a coat hanger or similar device. Not finding anything that would work, the salesman walked swiftly towards the dumpster in the parking lot, surprising Michelle and myself with his newfound urgency to help us. Again finding nothing, he came back to our car with his hand outstretched, holding out his own car key. “Take my car,” he said.

I didn’t quite understand what he was offering. Take his car in place of mine? My mom said, “He’s offering to let us take his car to the apartment to get the extra key.”

“Really, take it, please,” he insisted. I politely refused, bewildered by the offer. “Then at least wait inside in the air conditioning. What better place to be laid up than in a mattress store?” Who was this guy?

We followed him back inside, and as Tom started filling cups of water for everyone from the water cooler, the salesman left the store again. He said something to Dad and then walked off down the street. Dad informed us that "the Chinese food store down the block apparently owes him a favor, so he went there to get a coat hanger."

We couldn't believe that he left us alone in his wide open mattress maze, and when we saw a lady pull into the parking lot and park her car, Mom jumped up for the chance to play Mattress Saleswoman. Before she had to play the role, our salesman reappeared, sure enough, with a hanger in tow. He and Dad went to work unmangling the hanger to use as a tool.

Luckily we only had to wait about another minute before the locksmith arrived, beating the taxi. I called and canceled the cab. The salesman retreated back into the store. We went out to watch as the locksmith opened the car door, and we were ready to go.

I went back inside to thank the salesman for his efforts, and told him, “Thanks very much. We really appreciate all your help.”

“Sure, no problem,” he said, without looking up from his computer.

Getting over the whole weird situation, we finished our afternoon of shopping, found a decent refrigerator at Lowe’s that will be delivered tomorrow, and then sent Tom and Dad to the warehouse to pick up the mattresses.

Waiting at the apartment with Michelle and Mom, my phone rang at 8:05. It was Tom, calling to tell us that the warehouse was closed. Tom said that he had called the warehouse to make sure that they were there. He got the answering machine, so he called our mattress salesman to inquire. “Oh, no, they definitely close at 8:00,” he told Tom.

Oh, the refrigerator is nice, by the way. It’s white, 18.2 cubic feet. The first major appliance that Tom and I have bought together. Plus it comes with a built-in warranty, 365 days long.

You Be the Judge

(By Tom)

As is true of most national parks, Arches National Park can be a striking symbol of American pride, with its giant, sweeping arches and vast landscape. It is only appropriate that during our visit, we saw people partaking in two of our country’s favorite national pastimes: doing stupid things without thinking, and unsympathetically judging those who have gotten themselves into trouble.

Tracy and I were walking in front of the “Turret” arch when I noticed two older women opposite the arch, sitting in the shade and scowling at the sky. Wondering why a beautiful natural rock formation would cause them to make such faces, I followed their angry gazes to the top of the arch’s right spire, where I saw the source of their disgust: a pink, bearded young man, framed against the bright blue sky, wearing a polo shirt and an expression of confusion and fear. A handful of other people were scattered around the base of the arch, but he was alone atop that spire, clearly in a place where polo-and-cargo-shorts-clad young men are not supposed to be.

“It’s going to be slippery as the devil when he tries to climb down from there,” one of the women said, her voice dripping with contempt. “I am not going to watch him try to climb down.” Her companion nodded in agreement.

A third woman walked up to them. “He’s stuck,” she said, shaking her head. “He told his dad he wanted a picture of himself on top of the arch, in the middle, but now he’s saying he can’t do it, he can’t find a way there.” As she was speaking, the man was tentatively trying to make his way forward, advancing a few steps, then retreating, then advancing again on a slightly different path.

The park’s “Don’t climb the rocks” warning poster sprang to mind. “It’s easy to go up, but hard to go down,” it says. “Rocks fall. People do, too!” I could envision the man in the same position as the poster’s cartoon example, gripping the side of the arch, staring at the ground far below him with wide, saucer-shaped eyes, fat drops of sweat flying from his forehead.

I asked the women if the man was in their party, thinking that their anger could be part of a reaction to seeing someone they love or care about risking serious injury or death. “No,” one of them replied emphatically, as in, “Hell no, we’re not related to that clown in any way whatsoever, and he deserves whatever is coming to him.” This set off another round of tongue clucking.

Now, to be fair to the women, I was only mildly concerned about the man’s fate. As long as he stayed where he was, he was safe; the danger would come if he, who appeared to be untrained in the rock-climbing arts, tried to pick his way down and took a wrong step or two. However, there were plenty of people around to help spot a safe path for him, and if they couldn’t, I was sure the rangers there had plenty of experience helping schlubs like him back away from mistakes like his.

However, I couldn’t quite understand the anger of the women. I suppose they were peeved that the man had stupidly endangered his life, and possibly worried that they would be subjected to some kind of gruesome spectacle just because he wanted a neat picture. But even if that is true, their vitriol still seemed a little bit out of line. Instead of being fearful for the man’s life, they were angry at him; their concern, if that’s what it was, had a distinctly punitive flavor. It felt almost like they wanted him to fall, so that he would learn his lesson.

I don’t know if the man descended safely or not; Tracy and I had, as she wrote, air-conditioned vehicles full of family members to return to. I’m assuming he was fine, since I saw no “Man dies in fall at Arches Park” headlines, though fatal falls may be so common that they don’t warrant anything more than a police-blotter-like mention in the Moab Times.

After the Grand Canyon, which Tracy documented in her post, we stopped at Sedona, Arizona, a far less cutthroat place than the Arches National Park, though no less alien, in terms of otherworldly landscapes.

Sedona is surrounded by shrub-covered mountains and large, distinctly shaped geologic formations, a burnt-orange world of massive boulders with whimsical names like “Snoopy Rock” and “Coffeepot Rock.” It feels repetitive to keep writing this throughout our trip, but it was, of course, beautiful.

What separates Sedona from the pack is its vibe, or, as some might say, its vibrations. My understanding of this is fuzzy, but the area is said to be rich with energy vortexes, places where there are swirling concentrations of unseen energy forces strong enough to twist tree stumps and nourish the human spirit, though the explanation of this concept likely depends on who is explaining it. Whatever is going on, the area does seem to draw more than its fair share of unconventional thinkers, and the city is replete with stores that cater to everyone from crystal-enthusiasts to people who need their auras photographed to UFO devotees.

I can’t speak to the veracity of the various claims about the area, but I can say that the eclectic collection of people gives the area an agreeably loose, “anything goes” kind of feel. Though the real estate is costly, the population is anything but snobby; judgmental attitudes are melted away by the glowing, purple and gold sunsets and free-wheeling theologies and mythologies.

Our traveling party did visit the site of a supposed vortex, and while I can’t claim to have felt anything mystical or supernatural, I did get to experience a wonderful hike to a mountaintop that boasts gorgeous views. And while I am, admittedly, skeptical, I do want to point out that Sedona seems to have a higher concentration of traffic circles than any other part of the country I’ve been to.

Or should I call them “traffic vortexes”?

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

(By Tracy)

I’m currently rumbling along Interstate 10 in California (California?!) as Dad’s passenger in the cab of the U-Haul. Tom is riding with Mom in the Escape, and Erika is driving with Michelle in the Accord.

I am amazed that we have really come this far. We are only about 150 miles from Los Angeles, and I still have not been able to wrap my head around the idea that we won’t be driving all this way back in a week or two and that California is actually our destination.

However, I’m getting ahead of my blog-self who last left off a few days ago in Colorado.

Now, I was told by Tom (who, as I said, is not currently with me and therefore cannot explain himself or argue otherwise) that he has a thing or two to write specifically about the Arches National Park. So, I’ll only describe that briefly, then move on, letting Tom fill in his details when the time comes.

The drive from Vail, Colorado to Moab, Utah on Tuesday night was not quite like any other drive I have done. At least two hours after the sun had completely set, we were still on the road. We were all tired, and I wasn’t thrilled to be a driver in the dark, but we were getting close and I was eager to get to the hotel and get to sleep. My parents had arrived at the hotel about half an hour before we did, and it was the last 20 miles or so that were simply bizarre.

At that point the road was only two-lanes wide, with the Accord’s headlights in my rearview mirror being the only lights I could see. The bizarre thing which happens in that kind of darkness is that there is absolutely no way to know what is “out there.” What I mean is, there could have been a herd of elephants sitting on the side of the road with bags packed, waiting to hitch a ride, and I would not have known.

(For those of you who may not know: my parents’ house, which I grew up in, is on one of the main streets in our town; my bedroom window faced the street for the first 15 years of my life. Without air conditioning, our windows would be wide open on the warm summer nights, and the steady sound of traffic going by became a soothing sound to me. Also, I did not have to worry about the scary monsters that come in the dark because I always kept the window shades open and had the light from the streetlights and headlights. So to me, driving in that pitch black into Moab was a little unsettling to say the least.)

Anyway, Wednesday morning came, and we headed out after breakfast to visit Arches National Park. The main attraction at this park – its various rock formations - is astounding. Cars drive along the main roads of the park, with their passengers looking out miles in any direction at the orangey / reddish rock that stands tall in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Although our Midwestern group tends to shy away from the heat and much prefers the air-conditioned comfort of our vehicles, we could not pass up the opportunity to park the car and hike up to one of the “window” arches. This arch was massive, spanning maybe 75 feet with a hole in the middle of around 30 feet. It stood about 25 feet tall. (Note: these are estimations from Dad, my most trusted estimator.)

Our moods shifted as we relaxed in the shade of the open “window” that was made in the large stone. We sat for a while in awe, especially after looking up and seeing the vast crack in the stone above us, stretching almost completely from one side of the 30 foot opening to the other. The whole park was truly amazing.

But like I said, I’ll let Tom tell the rest of that story.

The Arches were not the end of our excitement for Wednesday. The other half of the day would be spent finishing the six-hour drive to the Grand Canyon, where we would find our hotel for Wednesday night.

All was going smoothly, albeit a little behind schedule, until a couple hours after the sun had set. Again I found myself in the driver’s seat, this time with Michelle next to me. We were following the road to the park, which eventually became the road through the park. And again, I found myself driving through near pitch-black darkness, although this time I could barely make out trees on the sides of the roads.

After trying to call my parents on the cell phone and realizing that we had no signal, it dawned on us that there was the possibility of our GPS losing satellite reception. We scribbled down the next few steps in case that happened (yes, we did have a map, too, but a map does little good if you find yourself lost somewhere in the Grand Canyon).

We continued the drive. After a little time a car came up behind us (the only car we had seen in quite a while), which is when my imagination started going. I have seen very few horror movies in my day, primarily because my imagination for terrifying things is quite healthy as is. I asked Michelle what we would do if the person in the car behind us turned out to actually be a psycho killer, and she tried to calm my fears. I pulled aside to let the car pass, watching my back as directed at the start of this trip.

Shortly thereafter, we saw a yellow traffic sign with a picture of a large cat and the words, “Next 10 Miles.” New fears and scenarios came to life in my mind – a giant bobcat could jump out of the woods and (the possibilities grow here)

1. Cause us to get into an accident that would leave our cars un-drivable and leave us stranded who-knows-where with little resources beyond the cases of bottled water I insisted we keep stocked in our car at all times or

2. Attack the car from the outside, using its mighty fangs to tear through the roof and giant paws to crash through the window, leaving little of us for park rangers to find except maybe some rubber tires.

Of course we made our way to the hotel fully intact without any wild animal sightings. When we reached the hotel and got in contact with my parents, they asked us if we saw what we had been driving alongside most of the way – the Grand Canyon itself. (Probably better that I was not able to see how close we had been. Imagine the new scenarios, taking into account a drop of a couple hundred or thousand feet at the edge of the pitch-black road.)

The Grand Canyon was tremendous. I am not sure exactly what I was expecting, but I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. I knew it was big, but I didn’t realize how big it could be. It is amazingly huge, and imagining how it was formed left us bewildered. I was happy to see that the park isn’t commercialized (I imagined something perhaps like Niagara Falls), and it was great to enjoy a picnic in a quieter area of the park. In the few short hours that we were there, the weather varied from still, sunny and hot to breezy, rainy and warm, and hearing the thunder boom and echo from the other side of the canyon was unbelievable.

So as I wrap this entry up, Dad and I are just driving down from the mountains into a valley full of lights. Our altitude dropped from 1,500 feet above sea level to -2 feet. The street is now six-lanes wide, each block has a streetlight, and the glow of Palm Springs and the surrounding area brightens the night sky.

I love nature and find it to be awesome and breathtaking, but something tells me that I will sleep well tonight.

"There's More Than One Kind of Rich," Or: "One Person's Hole In The Ground Is Another Person's Hole In The Ground"

(By Tom)

I don’t really know if the stereotype about the Vail area (specifically, the town of Edwards and the “community” of Beaver Creek) being a hoity-toity haven for the super-rich ski set is accurate, because we visited in the summer, when there’s no snow (or obscenely wealthy people) on the slopes. I do know, however, that it seems to have about three times as many Starbucks per capita as the rest of the places we had seen to that point.

I can also say that the area is very pretty in the summertime, and provides an excellent backdrop for an invigorating bicycle ride (or, for my sisters Erika and Michelle, ziplining tour). Ultimately, though, at least in the summer, the place was about as remarkable as a hole in the ground.

Actually, I’d give a slight edge to the hole. For while the Vail area is, again, very pretty, it feels more like a higher-end outdoor shopping mall than anything, a little too heavy on the manufactured charm and a little too light on personality, with just the shuttered ski lifts and vacant, green ribbons of cleared land cutting through groves of pine trees to remind us of the region's true attractions.

The unmarked, unadorned natural hot spring we stopped at, on the other hand, had personality to spare. That was about all it had, but still.

Tracy’s parents had discovered the hot spring on a previous trip to Colorado, and after a stunningly dramatic jaunt down I-70 through Glenwood Canyon, we got off at Exit No. 345*, drove about half of a mile into the hills and pulled over to the side of the road, where we got out of our cars and plunged into the underbrush. After a hike of about 100 yards or so, we arrived at the hot spring, a six-by-six hole filled with murky, brown, bubbling hot water, complete with a sitting area made out of boulders, bleached-out, splintering plywood, and what looked to be a rubber floor mat from a car. A middle-aged man wearing an open, rainbow-colored shirt, canvas hat, and sunglasses sat cross-legged next to the spring, thumbing an iPhone and slouching in such a way that his hairy belly folded in on itself and spilled over the waistband of his swim trunks. As Tracy, her parents, and my sister Erika dipped their toes into the water, it occurred to me that we may have been disturbing the man’s solitude, but he just kept staring at his iPhone, maintaining eye contact with the machine through at least ten minutes of loud, boisterous hot-spring-oriented conversation among our party.

Though I declined to take off my shoes and socks and stick my own toes in, and though we were standing in the middle of nowhere in sweltering heat, and though the water was dotted with thick clumps of blackish-green algae, I couldn’t help but fall under the hot spring’s spell. Maybe it was the sulfur in the air, but there was something about this humble natural wonder, unfettered by modern amenities and almost untouched by commercial interests, an isolated little secret in the Colorado mountains.

The true hidden gem of the day, however, was even farther west, close to the Utah border: Rim Rock Drive, in the Colorado Monument National Park, just south of Grand Junction. The 23-mile-long road meanders through and over one of the most jaw-droppingly beautiful desert landscapes I’ve ever seen, rising and falling 2,000 feet through a collection of otherworldly rock formations and sparse, green shrubbery. I kept expecting to see Wile E. Coyote chasing the Road Runner with an ill-fated, rocket-powered contraption strapped to his back. Instead of that, however, all we saw and heard was nature, along with the occasional flash of lightning and the low but faintly ominous rumble of thunder in the distance.

*Actual exit number redacted to protect the hot spring's hidden location, though I'm sure you can find it in a guidebook if you really want to.

The Georgetown Loop

(Post by Tracy)

Monday morning we drove out of Denver and towards the little town of Silver Plume. We watched in awe as the altitude reading on the GPS went from 5,000 feet up to 11,000 feet.

Silver Plume looked like it has one main thing going for it: tourists come here to board the Georgetown Loop open-air train. The train makes its way along the mountains to the town of Georgetown. Along the way, tourists have the option of stopping for a tour of the former Lebanon Silver Mine.

At the opening of the mine, claustrophobia almost got the best of me. I forged on, though, following our tour guide all the way to the end, where we saw equipment that was abandoned on the day that the mine was closed with the passing of the Sherman Act. Amazingly, while the mining pulleys and excavation equipment looked historic, I can attest to the fact that shovels have not changed much since the 1890’s.

We also learned from our exceptional tour guide that, in a pinch, rubbing the residue from the Aspen tree’s bark on your skin is a natural sun-screen alternative. And while I’m at it, did you know that the Aspen tree is not really classified as a tree? Technically it is a “tree-like plant.” Now you’re ready to join your local Colorado Trivia Team.

After the train ride, we ate lunch in Georgetown at a nice local restaurant that did not have any fruit on the premises. In an effort to be healthy (and because neither baked beans nor coleslaw has ever been appealing to me) I asked our waitress if it was possible to substitute fruit as a side to my sandwich. She thought about it, said, “I don’t think we have any fruit,” but said she would write it down on the ticket and see what happens. A few moments later, she came back saying that there was no fruit in the kitchen. I gifted Tom an extra little side of baked beans.

We finished our meal. We bought ourselves ice cream. Mom befriended the owner of the local homemade-lotion-and-soaps-shop. We went on our way, hearing the train's whistle (two long, one short, one long) fade behind us.

3rd Celebrity Sighting

(Post by Tracy)

Since sometime in college, whenever I meet someone from Denver, I am almost always asked if I am related to the Bishop of Denver: Bishop Charles Chaput. (Answer: no relation that we know of.)

As we started to plan this trip, it fell into place that we would be spending Saturday in Boulder, Sunday in Denver and Monday near Vail. When Saturday night came, we were sitting in our Chautauqua cabin planning what we would do about Mass in the morning. Tom voiced his preference for evening Masses, and Dad pulled up the Cathedral’s website to check. Call it fate if you will: there was a 6:30 pm Sunday Mass at the Cathedral, being said by Bishop Chaput.

We arrived at the Cathedral for Mass Sunday evening after leaving Boulder that morning (delicious brunch at the Chautauqua to send us on our way) and leading ourselves on a short driving tour of the Denver area.

So we are all clear: I'm going to file Bishop Chaput as the 3rd celebrity that I have met on this trip. One reason I feel confident in calling this a celebrity sighting: both Mom and I snuck our cameras out from the tenth row of the Cathedral to sneak a picture of the bishop during the opening prayer.

When Mass was over, we joined the line to greet the bishop on the way out. Dad shook his hand first and said, “You and I share the same last name.” Bishop Chaput asked if our family was from North Dakota (not quite), and still told my dad, “It’s always nice to meet a cousin!” Since I had Tom set up as my paparazzi, we were able to snap a quick picture with “Bishop Sha-pew” before heading out.

We went to dinner at Benny’s (Mexican restaurant) and enjoyed a few pitchers of margaritas before calling it a night.

"Colorado: America's Natural Masterpiece," or: "Thank God We're Not In Kansas Anymore"

(By Tom this time)

Entering Colorado, the most striking thing (in a state full of striking things) is the color scheme: blues, whites, greens and browns, bold and brilliant. It’s a happy mix of all the shades one can find in a cartoon picture of a globe, true “Earth” tones; the perfect blend.

Fittingly, our time in Boulder (our first stop in Colorado) was spent visiting places where people search for (or think they’ve found) their own perfect blends.

The most obvious place to see this is at the Celestial Seasonings headquarters. The herbal tea powerhouse offers tours of its production facility, complete with a stop at the “Tea Shop & Emporium” (which should actually be, but sadly is not, a "shoppe") and free samples of as much of the stuff as you can put down. As we were reminded much more than once, the company’s process revolves around finding the perfect blend of herbs and flavors.

First, as an avowed fan of Morning Thunder, I will say that Celestial Seasonings does seem to accomplish this goal with regard to their teas. However, as to the tour itself, if it is a perfect blend of anything, it is of touchy-feely references to “all-natural goodness” and heavy doses of antiseptic corporatism. The tour guide was friendly, cheery, and forcefully, repeatedly insisted that nobody touch anything, photograph anything, or walk in front of her, ever. The tour video featured a smiling, sweater-wearing executive, whimsical artwork and a handful of vaguely chilling references to some all-controlling body called “The Hain Celestial Group." And while the company’s “blendmasters” are purportedly honor-bound to seek perfection in every batch of tea they make, according to the scenes I saw in the video, they do little more than spoon liquid into their mouths and nod approvingly.

But then, there were things like the freely flowing vats of herbal tea, and the “Mint Room,” where one can be exposed to near-narcotic levels of peppermint and spearmint. The company also seems to have a genuine interest in creating a working business model that provides consumers with a healthy (or, at least, harmless) product. And everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, myself included; in addition to a bladderful of sampled cups of Sleepytime Vanilla (a new flavor!), I walked out with a decorated mug and an armful of tea. So while the vibe may be more “board-pleasing-PR-campaign” than “flower-children-making-sweet-nectar-from-Mother-Nature’s-bounty,” maybe this is the blend Celestial Seasonings is going for.

The folks who built the Colorado Chautauqua in Boulder, where we spent Saturday evening and Sunday morning, were also going for a perfect blend, and they got much closer than Celestial Seasonings. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, a “Chautauqua movement” saw “Chautauquas,” or parks, springing up across the country as places for adults to educate themselves while enjoying both nature and culture. Constructed in 1898, Boulder’s Chautauqua (one of only three remaining in the country) features several quaint cottages, lots of green spaces, a restaurant, concert halls and hiking trails with access to the mountains in the backyard.

Our cottage was spacious and impeccably appointed. Meals were delicious. Our morning hike (our first close encounter with Colorado’s majestic wilderness) provided a workout and views that were both breathtaking in their own way. We even got to peek in on the tail end of a barbershop quartet "Harmony Festival." Though the park’s high-minded founders may have had visions of a more ambitious curriculum than that pursued by most of the modern-day vacationers who use the park, the Chautauqua, in many ways, represents an ideal mix of nature and culture, a truly perfect blend of the best Colorado has to offer.

Of course, perfection is in the eye of the beholder. Where I see perfection, others may see a collection of ratty old sheds surrounding a grassy expanse where old people can roam freely with their Pomeranians, listening to barbershop quartets.

Which leads to today's Trite Travelogue Moral: though Colorado may be a tempting place to seek it, and some may come close to finding it, there is no one true "perfect blend," whether you're striving to mix nature and culture or hibiscus and rosehip. Or, to be even more trite, your blend can be as perfect (or imperfect) as you want it to be.

Next stops: Denver, where we enjoy some gut-busting chili verde; Georgetown, where we find ourselves 1,200 feet underground and 9,000 feet above sea level in an abandoned mine; and northwest Colorado, where we try to keep our eyes on the road and not on the jaw-dropping views to be had from Rim Rock Drive.

The People You Meet on the Road

(Post by Tracy)

Almost two years to the day that I first moved in, our apartment was empty again. It looked strange and new without any of our stuff. It was a reminder that everything from here on out will look a little strange and a little new. All of our belongings were packed up in a rented truck, except for two suitcases that would accompany us on our road trip west to our new home: Los Angeles.

As we make the trip, and maybe even after we start to get settled, we want to share our stories with those who are interested in our new adventure; the plan is for Tom and me to take turns writing entries as we go.

Anyway, Tom and I turned in our apartment keys Tuesday morning, had a goodbye meal with friends in Chicago Tuesday night, and headed out Wednesday morning. Our first stop: St. Louis, Missouri.

Started off with a great dinner with great friends: John, Matt, and Matt’s girlfriend Catherine. After seeing the guys, Tom was about ready to quit our plans for L.A. and just relocate to St. Louis instead.

John was an excellent host and tour guide for our time there, taking us to breakfast the next day and then to see the Arch. Later in the day, John suggested that we stop at Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, where our trip started to get even more exciting.

We walked around the side of the building to read the menu and saw a two-man camera crew pointing professional-looking equipment at an older man in a yellow polo shirt and khaki pants. Standing in the St. Louis heat, directly in the sun, I had trouble focusing on anything other than the decision at hand: chocolate-dipped cone or a sundae? So it meant nothing to me when I heard John whispering loudly, “That’s Ted!” Recognizing him from the local commercials, John had identified a local celebrity. We assumed he was filming another commercial and were excited to chat with him, until our focus was shifted to a slightly more impressive celebrity – the host of the British Travel Channel show “World’s Greatest Motorcycle Rides.”

Step aside, Ted.

While not one of us knew his name until I just looked it up right now, Henry Cole (we think) was a cool guy. They were currently filming historic Route 66, having also left from Chicago with Los Angeles as their destination. It was funny to hear this Brit’s opinion of Los Angeles (“You gotta take it for what it is – then it’s great”) and his opinion of the London neighborhood where John stayed while studying abroad (“That’s posh!”) I asked to take a picture of him and his bike, and then he invited me to sit on the bike while he took my picture. Sample video for you to see our new friend Henry. So if anyone out there has a VCR or TiVo and gets the UK Travel Channel, let us know.

Now, travel in time with me, fast forwarding about 24 hours to Friday afternoon. Time again for a stop on our trip, a stop at a unique little town that history buffs and fans of classic computer games might know: Independence, Missouri (read: the start of the Oregon Trail).

We pulled up to the first good-looking gas station that we saw, and as I started the gas pump, I heard from over my shoulder, “Oh, wow! Y’all are from Wes-caw-sen??” The 60-ish man talking to us had walked up to our car, was dressed in red and white Kansas t-shirt and backwards hat, and had noticeably yellow, crooked teeth. He seemed extremely friendly. He asked about our trip and told us how he likes to go up to Wescawsen for good walleye fishing (“Get out there at 7:00 in the morning, catch all the walleye you can, drop the fish off at 9:00 and then go back out for more! Even though really that’s not allowed!”) He also insisted that I had the strong accent.

When the tank was full, I wrapped up the conversation and hopped back in the car, and he sent us off with what seemed like an innocent, “Take care and drive safely!”

I could tell that Tom was nervous about the old codger being so forward, but I figured we were on our way and we were fine. While Tom (with passenger Michelle in tow) pulled his car away, and Erika and I got readjusted in our seats in the Escape, he walked back up to the car. He leaned his face towards Erika’s face through the passenger window, and he leaned one arm on the open window. He wanted to let us know about the detour back to the highway, which was a friendly gesture, but he followed it up with more, “Take care,” “Drive safely,” and then “Watch your back.”

Watch your back?

He said it in the same friendly tone as “Take care,” which, while that should have made it seem less threatening, just made it more bizarre. We rolled the windows up and drove on.

We spent that night in Hays, Kansas. We made it there safely, with only one driving snafu: Tom became temporarily hypnotized by an evangelist van and followed it off the expressway. Luckily we were able to set him straight, find the next entrance ramp and continue on our way.

We spent today (Saturday) mostly driving from Hays to Boulder, Colorado. We did stop at a small museum in Hays that had some neat dinosaur exhibits where a mechanical T-rex scares small children (and Michelle). The drive was smooth, and I am very happy to say that we had no rain, no storms, and especially no tornadoes while in Kansas. (I am hearing about all the weather in Milwaukee and Chicago – frequently, as I am still getting the severe weather alert text messages to my phone – and am thinking good weather thoughts to all of you in that area!)

So that’s the first entry. Hope you enjoyed it. Take care, and watch your back!