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Oooodles of Snow

I've been negligent in updating my blog, so here is a combination post.

I left San Francisco, with it's beautiful weather, and headed to the Sierras for a few days snowboarding with friends. We stayed in Melanie's Aunt's cabin, a quaint little shack with a fireplace difficult to master, and skied for 3 days at the local Sierra Summit. I played the neurotic chef at night, making favorites like mulled wine and cheese fondue, while my friends looked on in surprised amusement before asking for seconds. I don't think they have ever bought a shallot in their life, but they are lovely people.

After a night in San Francisco at Lev's new pad, sleeping on my (Thermarest camping) pad, I drove north to Oregon, purchasing chains and driving over the pass in thick snow, arriving in Salem thoroughly exhausted. I helped James's business parter with their computers at the office of Wandering Aengus Ciderworks. I got a case of the best hard cider I have ever tasted as payment.

We went snowboarding at Hoodoo and Mt. Bachelor, in thick wet snow and the next day drier powder. I ate and drank my fill at Deschutes brewery, which was a wonderful place, and slept in a renovated/converted old Catholic school which is now a nice hotel.

James's sisters were arriving, so I spent a few days at Breitenbush hot springs (vegetarian hippy spa with naked outdoor rock pools). It was very peaceful and idyllic, and the sound of the rushing river, the snow-covered landscape, and the friendly and usually naked fellow guests was an unusual combination.

My trusty car broke down on the way back, so AAA towed it, and 5 days later I paid $750 for a replaced timing belt and a number of other things. The second it was fixed, I drove East at high speeds, as I felt I had exceeded my stay at James and McRae's, who had been invaded with too many house guests for too long.

I spent the night at a run-down Motel 6 in Idaho, and picked Lev up from Salt Lake City airport the next evening. Hungry, we stopped at a large supermarket in Provo, UT. Lev laughed at my hope for finding sushi, but I did discover "Precooked Sushi" in the frigde section, which was about as good as could be expected. My hopes of finding Cambazola (cheese) and good bread were in vain, so I snarfed the sushi in the car. We drove to Grand Junction, Colorado, and spent the night in a decent hotel, before driving to Copper Mountain Ski Resort.

I spent that day on skis, and hung out with Lev and Mike (Lev's friend) on the slopes. We ate well, spent the night at Kate and Mike's and went to Winter Park the next day. Winter Park was frustrating for a snowboarder, as there were so many flat spots I had to hop or unclip, but I found some beautiful runs up by the peak. My boots fit great, and I think it was the best technical day of my snowboarding life. Saturday morning (when I type this) we slept late and lounged, and made plans for going to a Rodeo, where we'll see mutton busting---kids riding sheep.

To California

California is like a mythical destination after leaving the East Coast, but I finally made it. My last few days were interesting, certainly more so than Missouri. I stopped at Meteorite Crater, which was impressive both at the crater, and the museum. The crater didn't seem too big until I looked for the 6 foot cut-out of an astronaut in the bottom of the crater, and realized the only way I could see it was through a telescope. The scale is amazing.

Hoover Dam was impressive, and I took a few photos at night, playing with my new mini-tripod, and getting a few 15-second exposure shots.

I made it to Las Vegas just before midnight, and spent a day wandering around the strip. I spent more money on the buffet than I did on the slots, which I was happy with. The Casinos were stunning and beautiful.

Driving across the country you also read great names. I drove through "Deaf Smith County" in Texas, passed "Zzyzx Road" and also "Dead Dog Road" (though the last one might be sleep deprived hallucination).

I've been bumming around San Francisco, which is a lovely place, with great beer and food, and a welcoming city. Can see why so many people like to call it home.

Accross America to Oklahoma City

I left NJ on Saturday the 15th. I woke up late, after a rather smashing time in the city with friends, packed, and after buying groceries to take me through 2 days of driving (yes, I am a food snob) and stopping off to see my Dad in his nursing home, I was finally on the road at 4 PM.

Starting a cross country road trip at 4 is a bit silly, but I drove off anyway, making it to somewhere in Ohio by midnight, staying at Motel 8. When I began the next morning, my GPS said 997 miles to my destination. Ouch. In one day.

I didn't stop, except to fill up my tank, and empty my own tank. It got rough about 450 miles to go, but the last 200 went pretty quickly, all things considered. Note to self and everybody else - don't ever drive 1000 miles in a day.

Oklahoma had just been hit by ice storms, but my friends place had power. I collapsed, slept late, and toured the Oklahoma City bombing memorial and museum the next day, which was well worth it. I also stopped by the OKC boathouse, which was a beautifully built new boathouse. It was bittersweet seeing it, after Rutgers just lost its men's team. structure. I felt happy for them, but awful since Rutgers crew has just been eviscerated by the Administration.

The whole area is a bit limited, culinary, but amazingly OKC is chock full of Vietnamese restaurants. I ate at Lido, a well known one, and was so hungry I took home an extra order - Vietnamese Curried Frog Legs, and watched Eraserhead alone in an eerie apartment. Strangest evening.

Local, but Funny

So I'm at a health food store with my mom, she's buying something and I'm walking the aisles, making a nuisance of myself when I come across the Neti Pot section. Neti Pots, for the unitiated, are vessels to help you get water into your nose, allowing you to clean your sinuses. Great if you have a cold and green things come out of your nose, or if you are into new age cleansing and want to keep it real.

In any case, they had lots of different packaging from the various retailers, but one caught my eye. For the adult Neti Pot, the picture was a sepia toned image of a well-featured women's face, though fairly unrelated to sticking warm saline up your nose.

Not the packaging for the kid's Neti Pot. Same brand, same product, different audiance, so different marketing. Gotta love this. Click on the image to see the kid smile as he really jams it up there.

The Highlands, the Lowlands (of NJ)

I didn't put much effort into Halloween this year, though I did go to the Rutgers Graduate Student Association and danced with a cute Argentinian (who I don't think is that interested in me, oh well). I put on one of my favorite hats from my collection, the ever useful "See You Jimmy" hat. Not a condom, but a hat that can transform anybody into an authentic Scot. You can see images of the hat or a picture of myself with cute but uninterested Argentinian wearing said hat.

Princeton - New Brunswick Tow Path

Only a decade before Railroad transportation took off, canals were at their peak, ferrying cargo between American cities. The boats were pulled, oddly enough, by horses, who would walk along the shore some distance ahead, pulling the boats in almost a straight line down the canal. There is such a canal between Trenton and New Brunswick, and running alongside it the entire way is a tow path created just for the horses that would tow the boats.

Once the railroad cost less than the towpath, they were abandoned as commercial roads, and at some point turned into a park and enjoyed by those wanting a slice of quiet nature, even in the middle of the bustle of NJ. The tow path is wide enough for two bikes abreast. Joggers, walkers, and bikers love it because you can travel 25 miles and cross less than a dozen roads, while passing quiet communities bypassed by the Parkway or Turnpike, almost forgotten in time.

Jordan Katz, a spry and mischievous guy (though you might never know it) took the train to Princeton from New Brunswick with me, hauling our aging Mountain Bikes with us. After asking directions from a Princetonian so daft I finally felt proud to graduate from Rutgers, we made it to Lake Carnegie, watched Rutgers crew race, spoke to a few friends, and began our long ride, imperceptibly sloping 50 feet over 24.9 miles downhill.

Jordan is such a funny guy he can get drunk at a wedding, take a few embarrassing pictures with the disposable cameras, and make the bride's mother laugh the whole time. After I dropped out of college the first time, he used to come into my room and ask me if I had 'found myself'.

As a lover of practical jokes, I had always wanted to sneak into Jordan's house when he and everyone else thought I was out of the country, and defecate in his cat's litter box. I desperately wanted to hear him explain how he dutifully took the cat and the cat litter box containing a man sized turd down to the veterinarian's office, where they both stared it at, pondering exactly how a small cat could have pooped out such an enormous, incomprehensible hunk of scat. I didn't, but I was always tempted.

We organized the trip weeks in advance, and had up to 6 people at one moment, but drunkenness and other excuses dwindled our numbers down to two. It was beautiful, and riding through towns that had neither fallen into ruin or gentrified or become developments I felt like this was the NJ that you can occasionally glimpse but seem never to know, driving 80 miles an hour around a state with the busiest road AND intersection in the world, with the highest population density of any state in the US.

I can't really point to anything special, other than the beautiful water, the occasional fisherman looking like an extra from a depression-era movie, and quiet. The leaves were supposed to be peaking that weekend or next, but due to the amazingly warm weather they didn't turn into brilliant colors for over a month. So we rode under trees waving their green branches in the wind.

I'm overjoyed I did it, and very sad for those who were slated to go but didn't, because while it was no singularly spectacular, it was one of those things in life where you don't think you'll ever have the chance to go again. At least not with the guy called the 'Kung-Fu Jew' throughout grade school.