Musical Extravaganzas

Today's sunrise over Victorville











Back in Victorville, or should I say still in Victorville? Well, whatever, I’m here. The drive to and from takes from five and three quarter hours up to seven hours depending on how fast I drive, traffic, accidents, and route I take. No matter what, it is a hell of a drive... without cruise control and an auxiliary jack. I do have a radio tuner for the ole ipod, but constantly trying to find a station without too much static is annoying and quite frankly dangerous. Almost as bad as texting! So I have been plugging my ihome into my power converter which plugs into my 12 volt car thingy (used to be called a cigarette lighter, but cars don’t have those anymore). It works pretty good, unless the road is bumpy and the ipod goes flying off the port, and the sound would be better piped through the car speakers, but at least there isn’t static.

All that to say, I have been having musical extravaganzas on the way to and from Victorville. Well, except this last time. My ipod has been going wonky on me. It has decided to not play anything I have purchased from itunes for the last 6 months or so. Why? No idea! I’ve tried several things. I’ve reset, rebooted, restored, and so on, and restoring the ole ipod seems to work for awhile, and then it starts not playing songs again. I don’t get it. Frustrating, and I’ve looked on help comment boards and all that. So if this next round of reseting, rebooting, and restoring doesn’t work then I don’t know what to do.

Anyway, back to my musical extravaganzas. My first trip back home was the first and best of the experiences. (the ipod was working then) I had it play a few playlists I had and it played the new Linkin Park album probably 5 times, and then I switched it up to Natalie Merchant. It was great. I was singing and bopping along. All the while brainstorming an idea I have for part of the pitch to potential investors for the shop. I realized that by the time I was about 1.5 hours away from home, that the drive just flew by. It was great.

The next trip back down was pretty good too. Only the ipod was starting to act up and not play songs. I decided that the trip back home that I would just put it on shuffle. That’s always an adventure. Since my musical tastes are so varied, it can go from Chopin to Metallica to Jack Johnson to the soundtrack to Jurassic Park to a Shel Silverstein poem!

Which segues nicely to how much I love movie soundtracks. I have a ton of them. Majority of which are the orchestrations, not so much the pop culture soundtracks. Examples are: the already mentioned Jurassic Park, Lord of the Rings, Independence Day, Hook, Gladiator, Last of the Mohicans, Emma, Star Trek: First Contact, Schindler’s List, Dances with Wolves, I can go on... but I won’t. I have very few that are pop/bands like Forrest Gump, Mr. Holland’s Opus, 10 Things I Hate about You, etc.

Why movie soundtracks? I sort of equate them to modern symphonies. Nothing against composers of today. Movie soundtracks have to tell a story or “help” tell the story. So there are lots of rises and falls, and themes. Just like a Beethoven Symphony. I can listen to a good soundtrack and play the movie in my head, no need to actually watch it. Or play out my own life in movie form... in my head. (don’t worry, I’m not actually acting out my own life story in my room, that’s just creepy) I have soundtracks to movies I don’t even own on DVD. Shocking, I know. The good ones can evoke emotional and/or physical responses out of me. Some are motivational, others can help quiet the nervousness and anxiety. Others are good for just some quiet meditation time. I was going to say some are good to write blogs too, but I’m actually not listening to anything while I write about music. Interesting.

stinky yogurt

Another sunrise from Victorville. And as you can see a new design for the blog. What do you think? Now that I have the latest and greatest MacBook Pro (until it isn’t) I can now finally finish the remodel and upgrades to the blog. That’s right folks, the lonely traveler finally got herself a new laptop! I can’t stop smiling and petting it. It’s just so pretty, I can’t help it. That is one thing Apple is really really good at; making beautiful machines. I have no complaints. And so getting on with the first blog on the new machine... he needs a name. Hmm. Don’t know his personality yet, so the name may take awhile. Anyway, as I was saying:

So today while my co-worker was eating her yogurt for lunch in the work truck, I thought to myself, “why would I eat yogurt that smells like my armpit after a long days work outside?” And then I thought, “I should write that down, it’s kinda funny.” It must have been the heat talking, because it is nowhere near interesting or funny now. It’s true though, her yogurt really did smell like my armpit. Either I have really nice smelling sweaty armpits or that yogurt is kinda gross. I don’t mind my own smell most days but I’m going with her yogurt is gross this time. Back in Victorville in the summer heat wave. Only 104 today, and we had a thunderstorm roll in at 4pm... was gone and sunny again by 5pm.

It seems that several crew members bodies don’t handle the heat well. We survey early in the mornings before it gets into the mid 90’s, and later we record sites or do other paperwork to avoid overheating. I have not had any problems yet. And because we aren’t walking much anymore, I get pretty antsy once back at the hotel. If I was home or in a hotel that had a workout center, I’d run off my antsy-ness. But I can’t do that here. It is too hot to run outside, and this place is pretty sketchy, so I don’t want to run out here even if it was below 90 degrees. I can’t believe I’m saying this, I miss running. I ran every day over my last break. I had an evil side cramp but I didn’t care. I do a Pilates work-out from a DVD and work with my dumbbells here, but that doesn’t really do anything for my fidgety legs. I can’t wait to get home and run. I never thought that sentence would ever be written by me.

Another thing I have noticed, and I touched on it in the last entry, is my overall health. Or more to the point, the health of my lungs since I started this odyssey of running. One day I will write about my valley fever fungus. For the first time in a long time... probably since my high school athletic days, my lungs are strong and healthy. Healthier than my pre-valley fever days. That’s saying something. I can breathe very well at high elevations. I used to have trouble with that. But while in Cheyenne Wyoming which is at 6000 feet, I ran 5 days, and had no trouble breathing. No burning, coughing, or wheezing. I was actually quite shocked. Out here in the desert heat, surveying, I am doing just great. Not getting tired, or winded. I can trudge up slopes and not have to stop to catch my breath. Unlike last year, where I was practically panting and crawling up hills. If I had known how beneficial this running thing is back then, I would have forced myself to start it a lot sooner. However, hindsight and all that, and the fact that I wasn’t ready for that challenge then. I would have failed. The fact that I have kept it up, and am now enjoying it is proof that the time I started was the right time. It was the right moment, the right state of mind, and the fact that my desire and drive for change was at it’s strongest. There were lots of bad days, and there will be more bad days, but my motivations then worked to get me through them. And I hope that my new motivations (some are the same) will pull me through the bad days ahead.

I’ve been kind of down this week, and forcing myself to do the Pilates workouts and work on the projections for the shop. I’ve compensated by eating an entire package of double stuffed oreos. I finished them off today. They were delicious. I know why I’m down. The blah-ness of Victorville doesn’t help. So I keep my head up, keep looking forward, and keep working on achieving the goals I’ve set for myself. The sooner I bend and flex through that annoying DVD and plug away at numbers I don’t understand, the closer I get.

In other news: Our house has termites again, luckily we are still under warranty. Makes me wonder though how good of a job these people did in the first place. A cousin is getting married next weekend in Lake Tahoe, should be fun, and I don’t have to wear a dress!! And what else... I think that is it for now. Tomorrow is hump day, for me anyway. Day 5 in our 10-day work cycle. Woo hoo. Also means it is new pants day! Awesome! That fact that I am excited about new pants day is just sad.

Impressive but not impressed

Hello from Victorville. For those of you who don’t know where that is, let me enlighten you. I am in the Mojave Desert about an hour southeast of Lancaster and Palmdale and north of San Bernadino by about the same on Interstate 15. The cool thing about Victorville is... wait, it will come to me... hold on... I’ll think of something... It’s on the Historic Route 66. And that’s about it. Granted I haven’t really explored the place beyond Food 4 Less, the slightly skeezy hotel, and Starbucks. I just don’t understand the draw. Why does this place exist? No one can figure out why people live here. I think this was a stage stop back in the old days, then Route 66, and people just decided to stay? I wonder how many of them commute into the Inland Empire, LA, or other places. But then there are a lot of Desert Rats here. If you haven’t seen or met one yet, just wait... or come here. They are... interesting people, and that’s all I will say on that.

So why the hell am I here? Work! I’m playing archaeologist for perhaps the last time doing survey work. Yes, surveying in a desert in the summer. Yeah, real smart timing. So to avoid the heat (sort of) our day starts at 5am. The only good thing about that is that we are done by 1:30. However, I have a hard time eating lunch at 10:30 am when I’m still used to not eating breakfast till 11 am. We do get to watch the sunrise, which can be pretty spectacular.

But then it’s over and the sun comes out and it gets hot and we start to sweat and stink. And then the flies get really happy and the crew starts to get a little loopy. I must say though that we have been pretty lucky this rotation. We get out and back to our hotel rooms before the temperature reaches 100 degrees. The crew keep commenting how nice it has been. This is rotation 3 for them, only 1 for me. It’s 25 days vs. 5. My perspective of pretty sunrises and “I don’t mind the heat” attitude will most likely change by the time this project is finished... which could be a very long time off. Not sure I will last that long. The good thing about being able to choose for whom and for how long I work means I can say, “I’m out of here” and go home. But, I may try to ride this out for as long as possible so that I can get some money in the bank. I’m a bit poor. No surprise there, but it got scary there for a bit. Let’s just say I won’t see any of this first paycheck or probably the one after that. So mom’s crown molding project will have to wait a bit. Sorry mom.

My thoughts after being here 5 days and 6 nights? The crew I’m with is pretty cool. Just the usual whack jobs and social outcasts. The desert is the desert. Everything pokes you in the ass, the ants are vicious vicious evil creatures. People still think the desert is the largest trash can in the world. And I can finally keep up with Ms. Long legs speedy gonzales. Either she is getting older and finally slowing down or I really am in decent shape. Oh, and the hotel internet sucks balls, hence me spending my after work hours here in Starbucks. I have 5 blisters, one for each day I've been here so far. And down a pair of boots. I had to cut the inside lining to get the huge ball of soil out. And they were the good pair, hence the now 5 blisters. But they are small little things. No bleeding pustules or anything like that... yet.
How many surveyors can you spot?

Today was our first day of surveying all day. We had been surveying in the mornings and recording sites later in the day, and by that I mean between 11 and 1:30. But now we were told to just survey. So today we were walking in the right-of-way of transmission lines behind people’s backyards. Which means, treasure abounds. Ms. Long legs speedy gonzales found a Mini Mouse figurine. Humboldt cowboy and the Colorado kid came away with some glass for flint knapping, and I found a headless Burger King kids meal toy and these stylish glasses.

Don’t you think they make me look smarter? Really?

Ah shucks, thanks.

Roadtrip 2012: Sunset

And so the sun has started to set on our adventurous road trip this summer. On Tuesday we went out to Uncle D’s house and had a very good dinner and some of his homemade wine! By Thursday we were packing up the truck with our haul because mom and pop were leaving for home on Friday. We played around a bit though too.
Miss Princess got a ride in the wheelbarrow courtesy of Longboarder

Then Longboarder wanted a ride. It didn't quite work out.

So Longboarder gave First born a ride instead.

But then it was time to load up the truck.

Amazingly we fit almost everything. Only things that didn’t make it in were 2 coffee tables and a chair that Grandma claimed. Not sure we will get that one back. Mom and pop said they will be going back to Cheyenne in September so they can bring back the stuff that didn’t make it this time. The poor truck when everything was packed in was a bit back heavy and slightly lopsided.

It made it back to California though with no problems.

Frontier Days had started so First born and I went downtown to the park to try and get in to see Young Cowgirl in the Junior Barrel Races. We got all the way to the arena before we got turned away. We saw it on Cousin Sweety truck driver’s phone. She placed 3rd! After being turned away, First born and I walked around the booths and shops and went down Wild Horse Gulch. I got put in jail. I swear it wasn’t me. It’s a conspiracy!

We watched the pee-wee stampede. Hilarious!

Went over to the Indian Village and got fry bread. Yummy! And then went back to Grandma’s. Saturday was spent just lolly-gagging around and playing games with Grandma. She may be 90, but she still wins almost every time! Gosh darn her!

It was time to leave on Sunday. We said our tearful goodbye to Grandma and saw her off to church, and then we headed down to Denver Colorado to pick up Miss my car and Longboarder who were visiting their dad over the weekend. We stuffed the car, quite literally. The guy in the starbucks parking lot in Denver was quite impressed. We headed out west on I-70 through Colorado and Utah.
Colorado

Utah

First born drove the day shift this time and I tried to sleep. We got to see a tornado in Utah. But don't worry we were far away. I didn’t sleep much at all, so I watched a 4 hour BBC mini series called North & South (not about the civil war). I took over driving duties at the Nevada Utah border. I only made it to Reno before I was starting to fall asleep. I woke First born up and asked her to drive us to Sacramento California, and then I would take over again. She ended up driving the rest of the way home.

When we pulled into the driveway, we all couldn’t wait to get out of that darned car. It really was like being packed into a plane this time. Within 30 minutes of our arrival back home, Longboarder had unpacked, showered, and was out the door on his board. Pop showed up with the truck to unload, and mom showed up in the car to bring back her stuff we had loaded into the truck. Miss my car left with mom to the DMV because he had lost his license and wanted desperately to pick up his car and drive it. It didn’t matter that he had just spent 20 hours in a car. We were zombies that day. But we all kept moving and doing stuff. We ate dinner at mom and pops, nothing special, but it was delicious. But that may have been the zombies talking. I slept like a rock that night. I woke up the next morning and don’t think I moved a centimeter in my sleep. It was super easy making my bed that morning.

The trip was great. Seeing family I hadn’t seen in decades was awesome. So glad I did my side trip to Chicago to see my internet besties, and the trip to Minnesota to see my childhood bestie as well. But I am so glad to be home.

I will leave you with this picture of the windmill behind Grandma's bunkhouse.

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Roadtrip 2012: Dirty Laundry

So like I said earlier, almost everyone had left again and left those of us still here with a mountain of laundry. So today, (Monday) which is usually the wash day, right? We decided to do it the old fashion way! 1960's style!

First born and I remember helping Grandma with the laundry back in the day. She was adamant for us to stay away from the ringer! "You can lose an arm", she would say. We had asked Grandma months ago if she would let us have her old ringer washer. We want to use it in the store. She said sure, and that she actually has two. So we asked her neighbor who had her spare, if we could have that one too. She said, "of course, by all means"! So we pulled Grandma's up from her basement and crossed the pasture to her neighbors and pulled that one out of her basement. And we all stood around them and wondered, "Do they still work?" We just had to find out.

We cleaned them up, filled them with water, and turned them on! By golly, they just don't make them like they used too. Of course Grandma still had some blueing left. You put some blueing into the second rinse bin and it makes your whites brighter. Who knew? She also had to give us the lesson of not losing your arm in the ringer.

Grandma giving us our lesson before we begin. "Now pay attention!"

First born was delighted to finally get to use the ringer! She was practically giddy with excitement.

Hey, that's my underwear! Why is Grandma so happy about my underwear?

Even Longboarder got in on the action!

The peanut gallery

And ta da!

We washed about 7 loads of laundry in about 2 hours. The agitators are better, cycles are faster, and uses less water. Bloody brilliant! (actually, no blood was spilt) We got everything on the line, and then decided we deserved a treat and took pop to the Sierra Trading Post. He got two belts, I got a $5.00 pair of jeans, and First born got a $3.00 backpack (saved 97%) and $7.00 pair of jeans. We made out like bandits! But it also started to rain... and hail... and rain... and hail. Hope they got the laundry in! We got back and Grandma, Aunt P, mom, Longboarder, and Miss my car were soaked. They rescued the laundry, but paid the price of soggy shoes, wet denim, and tight curls (Grandma's perm).

By the time the rain stopped, Grandma almost had an island in her driveway!

So of course we had to get in it!

All in all, a wonderful day, and no one lost an arm! Hurray!

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Roadtrip 2012: Family reunions and crazy cousins

They start arriving

And so it begins. I came back from my mini (ultimate) road trip to find that my brother (Unfortunate middle child) and his boys Always Right and Chatterbox had beat me back to Cheyenne and had already moved into the camper trailer in Aunt P’s driveway. My parents (mom and pop) and First born’s oldest son (Miss my car) had also arrived. Pop’s clan had all arrived.

Does everyone have their life preservers on? We went down to Wellington Colorado again to Aunt J’s house to swim. We were soon laughing it up with Cousin Crazy (Aunt J’s youngest son) and his wife and daughter. His eldest couldn’t get out of work to make it.

Later that evening we all went out to Cousin B’s place for dinner and horse rides. Chatterbox fell into his element learning to rope and ride. We ate tons of food, and watched Cousin B’s daughter (young cowgirl) demonstrate barrel racing. Everyone got a horse ride, even the ones who were scared.

Cousin Crazy's lovely wife... she really is! And gosh darn it, she rode that horse!

Chatterbox almost gets roped!

Aunt P rides with style!

And I find a new friend with the barn cat

The reason we all gathered

It was time for Grandma’s 90th birthday celebration. Granted her actual birthday was in May, but I think we have all decided to celebrate all year long. All of Grandma’s 5 children were in attendance, plus all of us cousins. It was the first time all of us had been together at one time since 1994! All nine of us! And all but one of the greats (14). We celebrated the big event at the Terry Bison Ranch. We ate buffalo burgers, sang songs, told stories, and listened to Grandma play her accordion. First born and I later got her accordion out, and Grandma tried to teach us to play. That thing is hard! It’s exhausting, don’t know how she can do it. We saw llama’s, camels, a really fat tom turkey, and alpaca’s at a bison ranch, who knew?
This llama was really hungry.

Grandma arrives back home in style.

The next day the majority of us went out to Grandma’s house and just had fun. Playing hackie sack, airsoft guns, bow and arrow, and always chatting and laughing. If this family does one thing right, it’s laughing our asses off.

Cousin Crazy with a whip... this can't be good

Cousin Army with his middle girl LJLGG (looks just like great-grandma)

Miss Princess hamming it up

everyone leaves

It seems that just as quickly everybody came, they all left again. It wasn’t long enough. It never is. By end of Monday, almost everyone was back to their respective homes or on their way. Cousin Army, Cousin Crazy, my brother Unfortunate middle child, Aunt S and all their offspring were gone. Goodbyes are hard. Tears were shed, we're good at that. Hugs all around, and lots of "just one more picture". But we (mom and pop, First born, Longboarder, Miss my car, and I) just won’t leave. Bwahahahahaaa

*wrote most of this waiting for Miss my car in Starbucks. He needed wifi like his life depended on it. And once again I am stuck waiting for Miss My Car, only this time he is taking a 40 minute shower. He has no hair! What is he... nevermind, don’t answer that.

Stay tuned for the next adventure involves dirty socks and is a real hum-ringer! HA, I crack myself up sometimes.

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Road trip 2012: Pavement and Childhood Bestie

Hello Wisconsin!! The driving continues. Left Naperville Illinois around noon on Monday. It was suppose to take about 8 hours to get to Winsted Minnesota.

Wisconsin:

Sunset near Winsted Minnesota:

I did it in about 9. I rolled up to the house of toys and chaos around 9pm. I went to Minnesota to see CB (my Childhood Best friend). She has five adorable kids (big brother is 9, muscle man is 6, twins are 4, and little surprise is 3). I understood that being a single mom was difficult, but I now have a new admiration for you ladies. CB, you amaze me! Your kids are happy, healthy, extremely intelligent, funny, and loved, and it shows! So they are a bit loud (I’m being sarcastic) and crazy, but who cares.

Tuesday we all went to muscle man’s T-Ball practice and then headed to the Arboretum. Beautiful place!! At the last bathroom break, big brother, muscle man, and I went to look at the large map of the arboretum and the others didn’t know where we went when they all finished peeing. After waiting around for a while, thinking they were still in the restrooms, we soon realized they were nowhere in sight. Oops. Everyone else eventually went to the minivan of love and started driving around looking for us. Obviously we met up again and there was much rejoicing. Later that evening we all went to big brother’s baseball game. I have no idea which team won.
Big brother up to bat:

Wednesday morning we got back into the minivan of love and drove to Darwin Minnesota. All to see the largest ball of twine. That’s right, I told you in the last blog I was going to see it and I did! Here’s proof.

I left the crazy brood around 1pm that day, and started the drive back to Wyoming via South Dakota and Nebraska. South Dakota was pretty and I just had to stop here:

Crossed the Missouri River and watched the sun set over Nebraska.

I also happened to be driving right into the lightning storm. I was tired by 10pm and needed to stop for the night. There were no good hotels. I finally found a Holiday Inn but the room rate was exorbitant!
They recommended across the street. They had a room, half the price of Holiday Inn. And now I know why. Gross. Didn’t see any dead things, but that building just needs to be demolished. I charged the phone since Minnesota sucked the battery dry, charged the laptop, showered, and slept for about 3 hours. I had had enough. Was back on the road by 5 am. So I also watched the sun rise over Nebraska.

I was so very happy to see this sign:

I loved visiting the Internet Besties and CB and her kids. Everywhere I went was beautiful... in it’s own way, but I am happy to be back in Cheyenne Wyoming. It is now a decent hour of the morning to drop off my crap at Aunt P’s house and return the rental car. So my adventure at Starbucks this morning can end. Time to hang out with the relatives!!

One more thing. Actually two. Total mini trip miles driven is 2,232.
And you know you are back in Wyoming when the ladies room emblem has a cowboy hat.

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