Travels with Matty 2018

I was greeted in Santa Fe by an unprecedented heat wave. The national park and most good hiking areas are closed due to fire danger. There is a fire raging near Durango as evidence of what can happen. Tuesday morning we got right to it with a hike somewhere. My hosts dutifully explain where we are going each day and kindly ask things like, "Do you want to hike 10 miles at 14 miles today?" I remain neutral in all decisions and just let them dictate my life for a couple of days. The Tuesday hike is a hot one. I would jokingly compare it to the Bataan Death March, but at what point is that appropriate or acceptable. I don’t imagine it would have been joked about 70 years ago. But now it’s okay. We can tell jokes about the Spanish Inquisition, about the Salem Witch Trials, even Joan of Arc at the stake. How long until we hear 9/11 jokes? Holocaust jokes? I am slowly becoming a hiking afficionado. They used to all be similar walks in nature. Now, I rate them. Tuesday’s good hike w...

We hit the road at 5:07 am and turned on the radio to the news of the apparent suicide of Anthony Bourdain. The news hit me hard. I remember some years ago after "Kitchen Confidential" and before the tv showsthat  Bourdain published a mystery book and was in Portland flogging it at a mystery book store owned by a friend of Kathy’s and mine. He was totally gracious and entertaining, a rare combination. Kathy loved the book and was enamoured of the guy. There is a photo somewhere of a smiling Bourdain side by side with a beaming Kathy. He was late for the event because, I think, he got lost on the way. Rather than throw his assistant under the bus he took full responsibility himself. A small detail that made a large impression. When I began last year’s road trip I was thinking a lot about life, death and happiness. I didn’t think that this year’s road trip would begin the same way. If you were to design templates for the ideal life, Bourdain’s might well have been one of them. ...

Leaving Portland this morning my goal is to arrive in Salt Lake by dinner. I thought the time change gave me an extra hour so I could dawdle before departure. I mentioned this to a friend and she said: "Oh, are you driving west?" I don’t think she was being a wiseacre, but I’m not sure. In any case, it will be an early start.  I can think of three ways this trip will differ from last year’s. One is weather. Last years‘ fall, northern route made for pleasant, sometimes cool temperatures the whole time which led to a fair amount of camping. This year Precious and I will be in the south and are looking at temperatures in the 80’s and 90’s. Possibly the 100’s. Precious is hoping to spending less time in tents and more time in air-conditioned motels. I expect her to get her wish.  Another difference: Emma Peel, our trusty steed, powered by the cheating diesel engine designed and sold by the criminals at VW has been modified. The modification was much more extensive than I had real...

     Apparently this trip was scheduled to last exactly eight weeks. Why else would Matty drive twelve  hours (the first hour and a half in snow) in order to get home eight weeks to the day after we left? Not much new in the 'hood. The nearest homeless camp moved a couple of hundred yards up the road. The buildings under construction are four stories taller. And that's about it. The concierge could not come up with a single nugget of interest that we missed.     We're no worse for wear after eight weeks on the road.  Emma Peel performed flawlessly. Matty stayed healthy the entire trip and, except for some minor tummy trouble in Virginia, so did I.     We saw many interesting sites and some not so interesting ones. But, as I have written previously, it was the people who gave us shelter and the people we broke bread with who made the trip. Even the households with the overly friendly big dogs were fantastic. To all of them (you) we say thank...

     An hour west of Denver sits Dillon Lake where my Denver hosts have a condo they put on Airbnb. It was vacant this week so Matty and I spent two nights there. Breckinridge and Vail are close by, but it is not ski season so Matty rode his bike around the lake. At 9200 feet he suffered on the uphills. I even got winded going up the 35 steps to the condo. The place is absolutely gorgeous.     I thought Portland would be our next destination, but, apparently, Matty hadn't had his fill of lake beauty so we find ourselves in Fish Haven, Idaho, near where Idaho, Utah and Wyoming meet. More stunning beauty and the first sunrise of the trip. One last bike ride this afternoon, one last night here, and then Portland. We'll see if Matty wants to do the eleven and a half drive in one day or two.      Tomorrow will mark eight weeks on the road. It will take time to digest. Monday we will hit the ground running: Mail pickup, arrange for haircuts, get Emma...

     On August 14, 1960, John Kennedy paid a visit to Eleanor Roosevelt at Val-Kill, her private home in Hyde Park. They met one-on-one on that Sunday afternoon so he could ask for her endorsement for president. She was concerned about his commitment to civil rights and about the influence his father might have on a Kennedy administration. Apparently he said all the right things convincingly, because he got her endorsement and the rest, as they say... Here are some of the lyrics to the Simon and Garfunkle song that was originally titled Mrs. Roosevelt, but changed to Mrs. Robinson when used in The Graduate:                     Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon                     Going to the candidate's debate                     Laugh about it, shout about it               ...

    I wasn't really feeling the blog last night so I kind of gave Ike short shrift. Here's three things I learned about him.      He enjoyed driving an electric car that had a top speed of 19 miles an hour and a range of 13 (or maybe it was the other way around).     He made his bones as commander of Camp Colt which housed 10,000 soldiers near Gettysburg. His deft handling of the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 helped forge his reputation.      In 1919 he was part of a military convoy that traveled from Washington, DC, to San Francisco and took an agonizing 62 days. As president, his support of the transcontinental highway system shortened that time considerably.     I always feel better when I have shared useless information. Emma is packed and we are off to Denver. Up, up, and away. Precious