Dialogue, cont.

Awhile back I made note of having read Jared Diamond's Collapse and also Guns Germs and Steel. I can see, as someone who once considered Anthropology, how many would see Diamond's arguments as simplifications of complex and variable histories. I wonder how much the author weighed this counter-argument, given the obvious evidence at the present moment. Even a robust and hopeful mind bows at the sobering signs in climate, energy and warmongering.
And I think that we are not so old a species, despite the (deer in the headlights) moments that have repeated themselves around the globe and through our short time here on the planet. One that lifts another cup to youth and fecundity as mountains and temples crumble around them.
Old and new in the Times

But Seriously

Disney and DieHard are great. Great myths. Now that Western culture has hoovered the world up and is 'spreadin' democracy' one oil-bearing nation at a time, perhaps we might remember a warning (9\11, Katrina, the Ross shelf, extinctions) in the not- so- distant past. The real one.

More than the rest of the Entire World combined?!?!?!

How could the world hate the U.S.?!?

BuffaloBeasts 50 Most Loathsome

Hee hee!

A Merry Christmas For Us

WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS WORK VISAS!

Yesterday morning, Jesse was given his work visa and permit, which will allow him to work in any profession in New Zealand through January 31 of 2009. We didn't let ourselves do anything more than hope it would all work out, and here we are now, sitting on the other side of our efforts, knowing that we can work here legally, living in our own apartment, proud owners of a couch, refrigerator, and some cookware, Wellington library card-holders, and any number of opportunities awaiting us in 2008. Mind you, it's cost us almost our entire savings of the past 5 years, but I feel like we're finally on our way to the futures we have wanted for ourselves. With jobs in sight, we can start saving once again, making our way toward a more progressive life in the place where we hope to live it out.

That said, we've been reminded of Peak Oil, and are getting on with thoughts on our 5-year plan once again. Or, I should say that I am finally in line for getting on with the 5-year plan. Or even further, we've taken our first step in this 5-year plan and are ready for whatever may be next. I see a primary next step being the acquiring of life skills that would be useful in this future we envision, and saving money from our jobs so that we can someday soon purchase land, build our house, all that good stuff. Jesse's seen the necessity of life changes as a result of Peak Oil in mind for several years now, but I've held off on getting too involved until this big first hurdle, this move, was conquered. It was a question whether it ever would take the first step, and now that we have, i feel ready for anything. Bring on the cobbling!

Read more about Peak Oil here.
(Survey says if that's not for you, try this)

Work!!!

Beth got her work permit and visa! We're promised Jesse's on Monday. All our deliveries and fixes and installations came through by Friday, and we dare say we have a working household now. It's only today, then, that I'm starting to let myself believe that we are set up for a year of life in Wellington, New Zealand, with income,with an interesting place to live, and with each other, mended many times over but still hanging on and a little giddy.

There was a big earthquake just north of us last night. We'll hope for some lasting power in this land of volcanoes and fault lines.

Very December

Well, it's sure not winter here. Not exactly summer either. But that's beside the point.

Dance let us down, Auckland was not quite It either.....

In a few days we'll have been a month in 'Welly' and (as I hear someone blaring CCR's House of the Rising Sun), and it's high time the dam broke. It's been tough-really tough. Tough of course in ways unforseen. Windy, lonely, and windier.

But now it seems a cusp is afoot. We're undergoing medical exams. Armed with x-rays. Undergone the roughly six weeks of cellular recombination and Kiwi roughage that makes a new person. We have contacts, a bank account, a coffee press and even friends. This is weird!

After weeks of walls, walls, walls. It appears that things may evolve. Bets has her choice in IT. Suitors are clamoring. In the next few days, she can make a choice on her career here in NZ, and we should land an apartment. This would automatically award her a work visa, begin Jesse's work visa award from Immigration, and preclude our address! Cowabunga!

There are alot of good reasons why this should take place. The fact that everyone takes off for the summer here, especially before Xmas, but likes to get something done beforehand. The fact that IT is in demand. The fact that we have worked so hard, for weeks, against a steep learning curve. The fact that we've had help and advice from really good people since here. And the fact that we had so much support from friends and family in the States.

In the interest of avoiding a jinx, I'll stop short of predicting success. But for the first moment in quite awhile, it looks rather dandy.

Regards,
J

When not otherwise involved, there's beer

This is Mata (maori: "raw") Manuka Honey Ale, a gold medal winner in 2007. Easy summer drinking.
Bennetts has been shortlisted as Betsy's favorite, which is also good because they brew in the Welly suburb of Island Bay. Not unrelated to the fact that they make a kicking Honey brew.
Emersons is perhaps the most celebrated Kiwi brewery, out of the southland of Dunedin. They import the hops from USA ("stonefruit, pine, citrus and geranium"and "sweet bisquity"). Their American Pale Ale brought a tear to my eye, I'm not ashamed to say.
This is James Cook Spruce Beer. Suprisingly clean, yummy and (newly) Xmas-y brew. Refreshing!!! And historical.

Bets and I've been touring Kiwi beers. This is Moa Noir. The Moa is a extinct flightless bird, and Noir is a mild, balanced and yummy (coffee and chocolate) beer that is pretty fine.

Of course there are clunkers here in Eden, which explains the month it took till I mentioned beer. All is forgiven. Cheers!

The streets of Wellington, signs

Pics, of late

On the rails, the Overlander (and Mt. Tongariro) into Wellington

Random as radon

Jesse and Lettuce

The cluttered apartment (Aitken at Mulgrave), Wellington

What better reminder than fires in California, diesel soot in Polynesia, and “bugger another” rain in Auckland to enjoy the days while you can?!?

Polynesians in Fiji (especially women) know how to laugh. But that require oxygen. They just need that container of catalytic converters, pronto please.

Indo-Fijians are apparently able businessman, but the lack of clean water can’t be helping the dismal beer and rum they’re turning out.

$2 in Kiwi Lettuce!

I've been reminded that experiencing a place as a tourist, a traveller, and a immigrant will give entirely different perspectives. I think we've had all of the above recently, and variations of each--middle class dodo, hobo, and unwanted unwashed everyone. Yet mostly since entering New Zealand it's been as potential emigres; the hat we've donned. And that has been a newfound profound and confounding new tangle.

Today appears to be the beginning of a stretch of 'fair' weather, the first in over two weeks since we've been here. And being as we are in such a city as Wellington, I aim to takes pictures of this lovely place. Earlier in the week, Beth and I took an afternoon away from the jobsearch and climbed Mt. Victoria(where apparently they filmed many scenes from Lord of the Rings) which is right in the city. We were greeted not by Orcs, per se, but by winds steady around 50+ miles an hour. And a view of the harbor, the straits, etc. It was great!

Now that fair weather has dawned, one of us has been made lame by muscle spasms. In a twist (sorry), it's not J but Beth who has been in bed now for over 15 hours, as well as uncomfortable pain. So our grandiose plans for enjoying ourselves all over town will have to be scaled back. Luckily we remain in a cozy quiet room near the 'beehive' (Parliament, etc) with a kitchenette and all we may want. I am grateful.

Beth will have all the care and sympathy that similar circumstances a dozen or so times a year would bring forth from her hubby. We'll live to bungee another day.

The Wonders of the Tea Hour(s)

Ah, tea time.

I thought it was a quaint, dainty, and annoying thing; an English custom taken on by many of its colonies with excess preciousness. But in fact, I have come to love tea time, and have an understanding of why it has caught on in so many places. Tea occurs twice daily, and most people seem to take both, at 10am and 4pm. Tea consists of three main items: tea or coffee, an indulgent pastry, and sitting. And why the hell not take a break with a big old piece of cake twice a day? I've found that I happen to meander into bakeries most often around these hours anyways, and now find myself among company. These people have built a tradition, basically a twice-a-day party, around what I've thus considered my daily hours of biggest weakness. Faaaantastic.

Consequently, there are coffee shops everywhere, literally stocked full with home-baked, luscious pastries. Even the delis have gorgeous bars, muffins, and cakes. It seems everyone is competing for the best pastries in town, and I am loving it. Nowhere else have I been with so many delicious options everywhere. My favorites so far are a vegan/organic coffeehouse called Cuba 178 (or something like that) on Cuba Street, with amazing cakes towering three layers high, including a great vegan chocolate cake, cheesecakes, and some kind of mystery coconut/passionfruit cake today, and mocha coffee milkshakes (thick shakes hereabouts). I think a milkshake qualifies as tea, don't you? Also, a cozy basement place downtown off Lambton Quay with melt-in-your mouth lemon muffins served with cream and yogurt on the side. It helps that the cafe mochas here taste like hot chocolate with a little coffee drizzled in, so I can actually order some kind of hot drink that I like, rather than just pretend that I'm participating in tea hour by taking the opportunity to wolf down yummy sweets.

New Zealand, At Long Last, 1.11.07

Flying in to New Zealand, Beth got all tearful finally seeing the land below. At last we were here. Conversely, Jesse elected to be concerned. Months and years of plans, hopes and expectations were to be put to the test. Little were we prepared for the struggles that awaited us. After one week in Auckland, we are quite discouraged and wondering how much longer we want to do this. Luckily(?) we take turns being bummed and\or resilient. Auckland is terribly expensive (think NYC or Frisco and then some on some items--gas is near $6 a gallon). Apparently it will be cheaper outside this city--even in Wellington, the capitol. We’ve been applying for jobs, searching for apartments, trying to decide which town to put ourselves in, all while dealing with really pricey edibles; rainy, cool weather; the inability to do any work or trade without a work visa; and an approaching high season.

Uncle Mike’s friend, Warren (a Kiwi) who is here with his family from Mexico, has given us hope in his and his family’s kindness and optimism, and hosted us for a warm dinner one evening.

Yet it's plain we’re simply on our own without anyone to really help and spending, spending our savings on what feels very futile. Dep't of Immigration is close to impregnable; you can’t talk to them by phone because they don’t answer. As yet no one will entertain giving us a job because we don’t have a work permit.

Political and economic news from the States is a worry, as well.

We’re taking the Overlander on the 12 hour voyage across the north island to Wellington over the weekend. Blown by the wind as we are, we hope for things to become clearer, and soon.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Things we miss: Family and Friends, good beer, exercise, free WIFI, cheap goods, and entertainments

Things that are better here: Air, courtesy, variety of vehicles, korean pancake snacks, tea time, pastries, cafe mochas

Things that are just plain weird: kebabs, pronounced like "babs", not "bobs", everywhere; slightly off takes on sports that we know: netball is women's basketball played in little skirts with a basketball net without a backboard, lower than the usual height we recognize, and cricket; hundreds of varieties of yogurt in the grocery, and not one box or bulk box of granola; palm trees with snowy mountains at 5000 feet; a nation healthier than most parts of the world, that is based on meat and dairy (but the women here don't seem to be as afraid as the thighs as others), magazine covers (think 80's mode "I'm Excited!").

Oakland to San Fran to Temecula to San Diego to LA to Fiji, 10.23.07

We really loved Oakland. Housesitting for Jesse's brother, Sean, was such a relief after months on the road, deciding between a tent and the futon in the van (down by the river), dealing with sketchy bathroom situations, and always driving and driving to the next place. Shower and kitchen at our disposal all the time, plus the wonders of San Francisco and Berkeley just a hop away, friends and new babies to visit (hola, Tharp and Amy L!). We got to spend a good few evenings with Sean after he returned from NYC, eating wonderful food and drinking lovely wines, and it was priceless to get to know him better. We really liked Berkeley - a farmer's market that was all organic, beautiful stuff; the best bubble tea I've had yet on the roadtrip, chicago-style deep-dish pizza, and free WIFI a-plenty, just not in any bars or restaurants that we could find. There's a true gap there for anyone willing to take it up, enterprisers... We hiked miles and miles up and down San Francisco, and I got back in touch with a friend I hadn’t seen for more than 10 years, who was as anything-goes as ever. San Fran is a great town, but we both seemed to prefer the sleepy streets of Oakland for living, despite its crime statistics (I think we were told 100 shooting deaths YTD, and counting). There's lots more to say about that area, including our first listing of the travel van for sale, but maybe Jesse will fill in the gaps.

Leaving San Fran, we camped one night at a beautiful beachside campground down the coast, and then spent the following night in Temecula, where we parked ourselves in a motel and wearily headed out to the wineries. Jess had some trepidation about the region that I either didn't listen to or simply wasn't told, but when I found that each winery charged like $12 for 5 samples, I had no choice but to sniff and walk away. Really, I don't know how wineries stay in business, giving away so much wine, but it's what we've gotten used to, and it was hard to accept paying for what we generally have gotten free. So Temecula was just a place to stop and relax. And not recommend to others. San Diego, on the other hand, was just fabulous, as always.

Our first stop was the fabulous Pizza Port, home of craft brews and lovely fat pizzas, where we marked time while Rommie worked late. We’d been told when originally making plans for San Diego that Mike wouldn't be in town that week, and we continue to hope that maybe with Mike's love of New Zealand, we can all finally commune there someday, where J & I can hopefully return the favor for all the time spent in their guest room! When we met up with Rommie at her and Mike’s apartment in Del Mar, she was eager to share some of their wedding beer with us after hearing about our brewery tours, and even tried to take us to one of the best breweries in the country called Artisan Brewery, which was closed. But Rommie saved the day by driving far out to this amazing brewery/taphouse, where we were able to taste a wide range of California beers, and find that Artisan brews were awesome. We sat around a fancy fire pit, chatting into the night. Good times. On Thursday morning, we got a call that my grandfather had passed away during the night, and that services would be held for him in Chicago on the following two days. Rommie had plans to be in Chicago anyhow over the weekend, but we had a hard time deciding what to do next. We’d been trying to sell the van since San Francisco through Craigslist, and our tickets had us leaving out of LA the upcoming Tuesday for overseas. The bites that had come in for the van had all fallen through so far, even one so far as the mechanic of a rather crazy, albeit enthusiastic, buyer, and we were looking at taking a great last-minute loss on the car by having to pawn it off on a dealer if we didn’t knuckle down over the weekend. Still, we considered that the events might be an omen to drive back to the Midwest, allowing Uncle Randy to sell the van and extending our date out because of bereavement, if the airline would allow it. But by the time we thought of this, there was truly no way that we could make it by road in time for any of the memorials, being held so soon. And even flying round trip would leave us with a van to sell with even less time and more complications. So we missed it, and were forced to swallow the sadness of missing both funerals for both of my grandparents in a matter of months (grandma passed away during a DICP performance in June). And then the van sold on Friday. It was ridiculous, like the buyers were sent directly by Poppa. They pulled up in a Prius, said they needed a beater to go down to Baja and kayak, lived less than a mile from Mike and Rommie, and payed our asking price (granted, it had been reduced at least three times). It was like they were us, extended. The sale took all day, what with the emissions tests and DMV requirements California requires of a sale, but it was done. And we were left with all our stuff.We met up with my dad over the weekend closer to LA and ate well some more, this time with cocktails more along the tropical lines, to celebrate the release of the car and moving forward with the adventure. The van sale was the next big milemarker since Setsugi, and things were feeling a little surreal again. Not to mention that we had way too much stuff that still needed to be dealt with. We’d sold a few things to the crazy woman who originally wanted to buy the van, a young guy took the bike and accessories (we actually ran into him again, riding the bike on the Mission Beach boardwalk in the city), handed off a ton of food to Dad, and gave just about everything else away with the van, but we still had to send three huge boxes back before we could get things down to a manageable carriage, or two huge bags each, which had to be further rearranged at the airport to meet weight standards.

Finally, we boarded the airplane to Fiji and there was no turning back. It brought a grins to our faces.

We landed at Nadi at 5am, a small airport on the western coast of Viti Levu, one of the two larger islands that make up Fiji. After some machinations with logistics, and after checking two of our heavier bags with the airport luggage service, we grabbed a taxi to take a look at a hotel we were considering for the last half of our stay on the island, closer to the airport and a sports bar where Jesse could see a game or two of the World Series with his beloved Rockies, the great underdogs. We were warned by the guidebooks that we wouldn't be impressed with the Nadi area, and the books were pretty much correct. The area is rather ghetto Polynesia, with everyone clambering to survive and (frequently to) make a buck off the tourists. Hopping a public bus to a bustling and squalid downtown Nadi Town, Jesse negotiated for a commuter van ride to our first residence, the Beachouse, about 2 hours down the south coast. We had decided to camp while at the Beachouse to save money, but it was pretty wet and puddley when we arrived, and also we were told we’d prepaid for one night in a private room via our online reservation. So we took the room for the night, to consider the camping idea for the following days. Of course, after a day of sitting in 90-degree sun, wading in the clear, warm waters beach that lined the lodging, kayaking at high tide (a complementary activity of the beachouse), eating free homemade scones and tea at 4pm, and falling asleep with nursed sunburns around 7pm, we woke up the next morning unwilling to give up our comfy digs, and renewed the small bure (standalone thatched hut-type room) for another two nights. We agreed to move on to another lodging after that, to keep costs down and be closer to where Jesse could potentially see some baseball. There's not a lot of TV channels in Fiji, but maybe we'd have some luck when we got back to Nadi.

So we spent the rest of the time at the Beachouse laying around in hammocks, doing a lot of reading and swimming, and even snorkeling nearby. The cocktails were outrageously priced, and only came in a can or bottle (2 kinds of Fjij beer, both gross), but the Beachouse hosted a free tea every afternoon with homemade scones and good coffee (according to J), and on top of the free breakfast of fruit, “muesli” (there is no granola in the south pacific) and white toast, along with our freeze-dried camping meals, we kept ourselves rather well-fed. I even started running again, with the help of over-the-counter arthritis medicines. Fiji is a very poor place, and that is reflected in the supplies available at the stores, in both their cost and variety. White bread is the standard, jam comes from a can, and orange juice is a tang-like powder. Anything "real" will cost you, and even the fruit, which is plentiful and affordable in the markets, was poorly represented at both places we stayed, with only bananas at the beachouse and seemingly canned at the high-end place we got a deal for during the last part of the week. That place was run by the Indo-Fijian crowd, and we were paying about ¼ of what the hotel normally charged. It was close to Nadi Town (maybe 3 miles or so), and even closer to the airport. It had a little gym in an open-air room, where we ran and Jesse lifted weights while we were chewed on by the Nadi brand mosquitos, little reddish guys that could hardly be seen. The hotel room was lavish and large, but the place itself was pretty isolated. We were able to get the local bus to town and walk to the supermarkets along the main stretch, where things were much more affordable, but still very expensive, than downtown Nadi. While there was pay email, overpriced amenities, and pretty bad food with the exception of a really good penne arrabiatta from the only night we attempted to eat at the restaurant buffet; we did some nice things while there, including getting caught in a rainstorm and finding Ed’s, a wonderful little decently priced bar halfway to town, Jesse getting a $5 almost-bald haircut, and my wandering around solo to watch airplanes taking off and landing at the local flight school and finding a good Australian liquor store, a relief from the crap liquors and beers we’d been ingesting so far. We also took a day trip to South Sea Island, the closest island of the Yasawas, and did a ton of independent snorkeling on the tiny place, seeing really neat underwater lands and all sorts of fish. That was wonderful. But Fiji was an exercise in patience, and we were ready to leave when November 1 came around. We even missed Halloween altogether (it's not celebrated in Fiji).

Our Itinerary

For anyone interested:

LAX to Nadi, Fiji (NAN)
Air Pacific #0811
Leave 11/23 11:30p, arrive 11/25 5:10am

Nadi, Fiji to Auckland, NZ
Air Pacific #0411
Leave 11/1 8:45a, arrive 11/1 12:50pm

Auckland, NZ to Sydney, AUS
Aerolineas #1182
Leave 1/29/08 7:10a, arrive 1/29 9am

Brisbane, AUS to Bangkok, Thailand
Thai Airways #0992
Leave 3/2/08 11:59p, arrive 3/3/08 6:10am

Bangkok, Thailand to Athens, Greece
Thai Airways #0946
Leave 4/3/08 12:35a, arrive 4/3 7:05a

London Heathrow to NYC JFK
Air India #0111
Leave 5/30/08 1:15p, arrive 5/29/08 (I think?) 4:55p

I Love the West Coast

ok, I know this is cheating - this pic was taken in San Diego when we were here in March 07. But we just got here today and I have to express love for this town. It's sleepy, beautiful, wide, balmy. Today, a little chilly, but generally, balmy. Really, I can't say enough great stuff about the west coast. From Vancouver through Portland, down to San Francisco and finally into San Diego (forget that LA ever existed here), I am in heaven. The people are odd, the food is amazing, the trees, water, and architecture are gorgeous. There are farmer's markets, rocky cliffs, and priuses and bicyclists by the thousands. I can't decide which town I most prefer, but will be debating those points herein, maybe. Today, we are in our final US destination, San Diego, before we head back to that cestpool, LA, for our flight next week, with a camping trip along the way with my dad.

shore, shattered

Well, we've found out once more that the gap between plans and reality (necessarily?) can be as breathtaking as the rims of the Grand Canyon. Comme Ci, comme Ca. Did I get that right?

Something was missing as we passed down the West Coast, and though Bets and I try valiantly with beer, gelato, and cold dips in clean water (no particular order) tumbling, tumbling provided the form of our sight seeing. The stars seem upside down as the Broncos implode and the Rockies ascend (Don't get me wrong, I'm right there with ya, m'boys). Fall trickled too; did not--fall as we've passed down the spine of the Pacific Rim.

Ah, well. Fate has had fortunate turns again, too. My brother Sean allowed us to house-sit his place in Oakland, a 'god-send' for we weary travellers, now flirting with 8000 elapsed. Always wanted to put those to verbs together---maybe I can do better.....
So anyway, we've lain in one spot for going on a week (Egad!) enjoying the sweet winds out here in the Bay area. Saw the peep shops and the qwazy hill streets, and the Blue Angels, and the Berkeley parks. Dunno what we'd have done without it.

Setsugi

'Beloved' , in Japanese. Or so I've thought for 9 years.
Been absent in blogging here, and other things because we lost a member of the family. For every time I had to explain what was a Cattahoula, I have a dozen memories about this fine dog. Holding onto the wheel, I've been remembering every one as we passed down many roads. She came with us for thousands of miles, back and forth across the land to visit family and friends, to hike down to the waterlines and scale cliffs, anywhere to be together. Always ready, she was our best goer.
6087 in digital read the odometer when we reached the Pacific, and where both happiness and sadness tipped the scales. We left her behind in the Olympics, after a few days digging in our heels and breathing in all that we had been.
I'm still picking up the pieces. (Talk about a life on the fly).
-Jesse

Vancouver, 9.24.07

Well, we've made it to Vancouver. It's amazing here, with 10,000 foot peaks jutting out of the oceans and coves and bays. Really reminds of New Zealand, actually.

So we hung out in towns in Montana for a few days: Livingston, where we found a fantastic In-n-Out burger stand with cheap veggie burgers and Wilkinson's Montana ice cream (graham cracker and huckleberry for me, a coffee shake for the hubbie), as well as a belgian-style microbrewery. Stuck around there for 2 nights, recovering from the threat of bears in an overpriced Econo Lodge* and catching up on our eating. A beautiful white horse seemed to have been abandoned in a dirt corral just next door to the hotel for our entire Livingston stay. I fed it carrots, and called the humane society when we left to see if someone could check in on its well-being. Next, we stopped in Bozeman, where we hoped to meet up with an old college acquaintance and dear friend of Claire's, but just couldn't work it out. After just one night there, which almost didn't happen because of the meager and expensive camper accomodations of the town, we had visited the town's huge local brewery, sampled all of its pastries, found that the dance school had moved well outside of the center of town, spent a number of hours using its amazing library and free internet, and successfully slept in the van streetside in the rain without having to pay anyone a cent. The next day, we tried to stay longer to make it to the evening when Nikki and Adam were free, but the road was calling. We made it as far as the Montana-Idaho border at Lolo Springs, where we were able to soak our dirty bones in some hot hot water and exercise in a pretty frigid outdoor pool in the middle of the mountains. Jesse powered on all the following day and night to the Washington-Canada border. We stayed at a national parks campground in our tent, on a very temperate evening while the wind blew harshly through the trees, sounding everything like rain, but it never was.

The campsite at the border:
Now, about this Washington-Canada border: I knew it was apple season, and didn't anticipate how excited I would get once the apple trees began showing themselves through the Okanagan valley in Washington. Deep red apples were dotting trees everywhere along the roadside, like cherries, but 5 times the size. Farmstand followed farmstand, and the orchards were harvesting apples into huge boxes, some piled 10 high, 20 wide, on the sides of the road. We stopped at a stand that allowed me to pick both a green and a red one from some trees behind its shed, with only a little bullying from my end, and J and I wolfed them down as we crossed the Canada border. I had to put the remnants into a cooler past the border, as the guard said a simple garbage can would not do. Past the border, the apple trees continued as we entered Osoyoos, and further into British Columbian wine and farm country. Here's what I have to say about all that:

First, do you all know that the U.S. dollar is now worth less than the Canadian dollar? Last time I was here, it was about $1.50 to each $1 canadian, but now it's about 92 U.S. cents to $1 canadian. Pretty ugly. Things were also kind of expensive outside of Vancouver, so we had to watch it a bit. Although the area of British Columbia that we traveled through is wine country, the wines were really nothing to speak of, except for a certain berry winery, which we discovered after visiting a few other wineries, a hot springs town, and a herbal farm. (We passed the cheese farms, because how much can we really commit to eating more cheese on the road?) The woman at said berry winery told us that they harvest all their berries from the wild, and that berries grow wild everywhere along the roadside. We had a great extended conversation while she got us drunk on samples, and now we have an option to work with them next spring and summer, if we are in the area again. Also, at this very same winery, Sugi got terribly attacked by another dog, the ward of the woman in the testing room. She survived with some minor flesh wounds, but it was a pretty vicious attack to her neck, and I got a little bit up trying to wrench that stupid dog off of her. Funny enough, she seemed rather roused emotionally by the attack, though she did take a couple days to get back to her old self, recovering from the excitement of it all. We spent that night in an amazing spot up North Vancouver, on the water, a cove, where the beach was littered with HUGE petrified trees, and the campground was full of very loud people. We had a huge hike the day after, where I found some of the berries along the trails, blackberry-types, and they were TASTY. And today, we are doing the rounds of Vancouver, eating very well and staying at a decent little motor hotel right downtown. Vancouver is pretty awesome, but I'm sure we'll have more to say in the upcoming posts.

*Note: all the hotels seem overpriced these days. When did the median nightly price go up to $100? ??

Pool Days, 9.19.07

We've been finding swimming pools wherever we go: at campgrounds, at hotels, motels, hot springs pools, YMCAs. The pools act for me as a sort of elixir, a reset button, taking us on to the next set of days and nights spent out in the world. I've taken to doing ballet exercises in the pool, and Jesse seems also to have found his way to some sort of anachronistic aerobic exercises in the pool. I think the water is serving as salvation from hours spent sitting in the car.

Tonight, we are at Lolo Hot Springs, on the border of Montana and Idaho, where we are camping right across the road from the pools. It's cold outside, but the indoor springs pool, a sort of wooden room with vaulted roof, was lovely and hot. Jesse saw that the springs had a 30% nitrous oxide content, and we're good and dizzy after a long soak. WiFi seems to be everywhere, so tuning in before we head deep into further woods through Washington and Canada. Look for us again around Vancouver, around Sunday. Oh, I am looking forward to Vancouver!

Expressing our Feeling

A belated yet toothy shout --to all those who opened their hearts and homes to these n'er -do-wells in the great Middle-west
Here's to you! Jacqui, Sandy, Tracy, Kara, Claire, Sam and Andy, Jim and Betty, Amie and Spencer, and Meg. LOVE!!!!!!!!!!

Pics from the first National Park

Yellowstoned

Wow!
What a place. No, not the Urbana Cornfest with Parliament headlining(the above wildlife).
Yellowstone National Park! We saw bisons, martens, bald and golden eagles, coyotes, fox, deer, elk, a moose, a bear, and a cougar. Two men were attacked by grizzlys in a week (they shared a room at the hospital!), which provided the purrfect distraction. The weather was just about perfect, too. Sixties and sunny to thirties at night. Bets, Sugi and I camped for a solid week in Wyoming. Every day was a deliciously slow learning curve on packing, sleeping in the outdoors, etc.

Buffalo Again, 9.11.07

Today, we are still in Buffalo, Wyoming, at the same campground. It's not that this is such a spectacular place, but this campground called Deer Park is ship-shape clean, has a pool and hot tub, not a lot of inhabitants, and a sink for washing dishes, which is pretty nice, and i know we're both pretty tired of driving. So we stayed another day. Funny enough, there are huge turkeys running wild around the grounds, aggressively competing with the deer also roaming about. We don't understand how so many tasty birds can be allowed to run free, but that's just how it is around here. We visited an old, old hotel and bar and restaurant that also is a western museum place, after trying to sell a couple pairs of antiquey shoes I've been carrying around at some antique stores in town. Long story short, the hotel owner was interested in the shoes and took them for the hotel museum in exchange for a few rounds for J and me at the bar. So now if you ever visit the Occidental Hotel in Buffalo, Wyoming, look for some little red and brown shoes donated by Beth and Jesse Williams.

As I am the designated cook of this little adventure, getting to know how to cook on the fly in the outdoors better and better. It's kinda fun, at least for now. No other fanfare to report for this lovely September 11 date. Tomorrow, we decide whether to fight the possible storms in Yellowstone or head another direction. It's not as easy to drive out of the weather in the mountains, alas.

Checking in from Checked Out

PPics will be coming soon!

Not much yet to say , as I've been fitting the bill of 'male, driver of nearly all the miles, etc. Bets and I were fortunate to have overstayed the Arctic air, and rain in our first motel room on Sunday. Spent the night in Wall (Drug!), South Dakotah staying out of the not quite freezing rain. The air is clean. Off to Wyoming!

-Jesse

Monday, 9.10.2007

Beth: After more than 2 weeks of visiting in the midwest, we finally drove away from our families and friends on Friday morning, fueled by a hearty breakfast made by Jesse's big sister, Tracy. We found a great campground that night in the northwestern reaches of Missouri, in a place called Big Lake, close to the Louis and Clark trail. Jesse made it all the way to the Badlands of South Dakota by Saturday night (he has driven all but 200 miles of this trip thus far, and i think we both like it that way), where we camped right inside the park and woke to moon-like scraggy peaks surrounding us, followed by a great hike through chalky white and red lands. I'm starting to be grateful that we're taking this trip through the U.S., because it reminds me of how much beauty and resource we are surrounded by, and how much I could love my country, if only I could agree with my countrymen. Jesse is committed to the blue highways (the back roads), and I am looking forward to the adventures of the coming weeks, as well as shaking off this feeling that i should be getting back to work sometime soon.
Here are some of my notes.

Notes on Missouri:

• Very small pickup trucks for sale. I mean tiny, with a little flatbed that goes up at an angle, like a toy. I want one. Mariah would, too.
• One can see just where a rainstorm might end in these flat lands, and drive that way to get out of it. It's nice to be able to modify a driving route based on trying to get out of a storm. I think it's like that in Illinois, as well.
• We got a little dog (pup) tent for Sugi, who tries and tries to get into our big tent whenever we're camping, from the time we leave our car. Thankfully she likes it, and we liked that it stopped her pacing and panting. Now we can all enjoy the outdoors in our own special ways.
  
• Mosquitos and mosquitos, but they don't bite as bad as in Ohio and Illinois. Carcasses all over the inside ceiling of the van after one night of battles.
• Crossed the Missouri river several times. How did that happen? I'm supposed to be the navigator, but I don't always do so well.
  
• Tales of okie noodling (look for the informative documentary at your local library!), as well as huge japanese carp jumping from Big Lake, knocking water skiers from their sport. We heard some heavy splashing at dusk and dawn - maybe it's not just a myth.
• Our first official night camping in the van. We should have chosen the tent because the mosquitos forced us to keep the windows closed and we about suffocated.
  

Notes, Nebraska:

• Government corn.
• Cranes flying like a silver school of fish overhead, while birds of prey tried to tear one from the group. We stopped to watch.
• Nebraska is like a little Idaho, with the rolling hills and green everywhere. Beautiful - I never knew.

South Dakota:

• Feels like we're in the clouds - they are so close we could touch them. as within the clouds, it has become very cold all of a sudden.
• Badlands and indian territory. Tons of poverty in this moonscape.
  
• I failed to capture any of the beauty of this state on film. Alas.
  

THIS IS OUR TRAVEL BLOG

This blog of Jesse's echos so many of our sentiments, in why we are leaving the U.S., in the issues that have had impact on us over the years, in the inspirations that have and do buoy us on our way. Thus, we will henceforth log our travel updates in this place, to share with all our friends and families. Feel free to read into the archives for some of our history, over which Jesse has diligently kept vigil for the past few years.

So true

“It needs to hurt like hell before you can have an intelligent discussion,” said David Shields, a Mexico City energy analyst who has written a book about Pemex.

From the NYT, OIL.

Pond

Scum ?

Beep beep

Beep beep

What a Ride

Over the Levee and through the ringer

The following are my favorite excerpts from Thomas Homer-Dixon's The Upside of Down.

Conventional economics is the dominant intellectual rationalization of today’s world order. As we’ve overextended the growth phase of our global adaptive cycle, this rationalization has become relentlessly more complex and rigid and progressively less tenable. Breakdown will, all at once, discredit this rationalization and create intellectual space for new ideas to flourish. But this space will be brutally competitive. We can boost the chances that humane alternatives will thrive by working them out in detail and disseminating them as widely as possible beforehand.

We all ask these questions when we’re young, till the obvious discomfort of adults around us makes us stop…Because we’re reluctant or unable to talk about moral or existential values—and these values remain largely unexplored—unitarian values fill the void. This is one reason why consumerism has developed such a firm grip on so many of us in the West. Without a coherent notion of what will give our lives meaning, we try to satisfy our need for meaning by buying ever more stuff. In the process, the mental muscle that allows us to think and talk about values in complex and sophisticated ways atrophies. Reduced to walking appetites, we lose resilience. We become hollow people with no character, substance, or core—like eggshells that can be shattered with one sharp shock.

(I)t’s first necessary to recognize growths role in our modern economies. We take the value of constant growth for granted in our day-to-day discussions of economic matters-in our newspapers and business magazines and in political discussions. That growth is a good thing is an unchallenged, almost sacrosanct assumption. One might even say we’re collectively fixated on maintaining growth. But this is a rather curious fixation because beyond a certain point-a point many of us passed long ago-the higher incomes that growth produces apparently don’t make us any happier.

When psychologists have questioned people over the years about how happy they are, they’ve found that people in rich countries are on average no happier that people were in the 1970’s are even the 1950’s. During the intervening decades we’ve become far richer. In the United States, personal income (in constant 1995 dollars) more than doubled between 1957 and 1998. But over this period the number of people who said they were “very happy” actually declined slightly. Notes the American psychologist David Myers, “We are twice as rich and no happier”. And when we look at happiness around the world, we find that happiness is correlated with income up to about $10,000 to $13,000 per person annually, but beyond this threshold the correlation vanishes.

Money, in economists’ terminology, produces “diminishing return” of happiness. Once our basic material needs are satisfied, it turns out, we don’t need more money to be happy, but we do need loving families, supportive social relationships, absorption in satisfying activity, a sense of purpose in our lives, novelty, and security from catastrophic threats to our income and health.

So, if above a relatively modest threshold, greater material wealth doesn’t make us much happier, why do those of us who are already well off in rich countries work hard to get more of it? Psychologists and behavioral economists have offered a range of answers to this question. Some say we’re stuck on a “hedonic treadmill”: our aspirations tend to exceed our income, and as our income rises, our aspirations rise in lockstep. Others stress that our happiness is partly a result of our relative social status because human beings naturally compare themselves with other people. We’re all trying to keep up with Mr. Jones next door. If our yardstick of comparison is income, a higher income makes us happier only if it goes up relative to Jones’s income. But because Jones is working as hard as we are, nobody gets ahead, and no one feels any happier. We are essentially in an unwinnable income race with other people…

In essence, then, the logical underpinning our economies works like this: if we’re discontented with what we have, we buy stuff: if we buy enough stuff, the economy grows; if the economy grows enough, technologically displace workers can find new jobs, there will be enough economic demand to keep the economy humming and to prevent wrenching political conflict. Modern capitalism’s stability-and increasingly globalism’s stability-requires the cultivation of material discontent, endlessly rising personal consumption, and the steady economic growth this consumption generates…Our economic role in this culture of consumerism is to be little more than walking appetites that serve the function of maintaining our economies throughput. Our psychological state is comparable to that of drug addicts needing a fix: buying things doesn’t really make us happy, except perhaps for a moment after the purchase. But we do it over and over anyway.

Why? There are many reasons. But a central and often overlooked one, I think, is that consumerism helps anesthetize us against the dread produced by empty lives-lives that modern capitalism and consumerism have themselves helped empty of meaning….(T)he flip side of addiction is denial. Our addiction to growth…can only be sustained if we deny growth’s often-negative effects. But these effects are real and can be deeply personal. They likely include rich societies’ epidemic of eating disorders like obesity, anorexia, and bulimia, and their soaring rates of clinical depression….Depending on how it’s measured, the illness has become three to ten times more common in the past fifty years.

(I)n capitalist democracy, playing by the rules means not starting fights over big issues like our society’s highly skewed distribution of wealth and power. Instead, it means focusing on achieving short-term material gains-such as bettering our contracts with our employers. Put simply, our economic elites have learned (20^th C)…to create a system of incentives, and a dynamic of economic growth, that diverts political conflict into manageable, largely nonpolitical channels. As long as the system delivers the goods…a rising material standard of living….no one is really motivated to challenge its foundations.

(A)bout 40 percent of the world’s population lacks sufficient water for basic sanitation and hygiene, and nearly one out of every five people has not enough to drink….Nearly half the world’s major fish stocks are now fished to their maximum limit, about 30 percent are overfished, and many have collapsed.

All of us, not just ancient astronomers or boneheaded academics, are highly conservative when it comes to our theories of reality. We don’t relinquish our core assumptions until the contrary evidence-what philosophers of science call “anomalous data”-is overwhelmingly abundant and relentlessly obvious. And often such conservatism is a good thing…..(b)ut sometimes we take this conservatism to extremes, and the result is the kind of cycles-within-cycles intellectual neuroticism that we see in Santucci’s great sphere. The contraption speaks of desperation….

One thing was clear to me now….our values must be compatible with the exigencies of the natural world in and depend on…The endless material growth of our economies is fundamentally inconsistent with the physical facts of life. Period. End of story. And a value system that makes endless growth the primary source of our social stability and spiritual well-being will destroy us.

We need a new approach to the great challenges we are confronting. Efforts at management are often important, even essential, but sometimes they aren’t going to give us a satisfactory solution. The alternative approach I advocate requires us to adapt what I’ve termed a prospective mind. We need to be comfortable with constant change, radical surprise, and even breakdown, because these are now the inevitable features of our world, and we must constantly anticipate a wide variety of futures. With a prospective mind we’ll be better able to turn surprise and breakdown, when they happen, to our advantage. In other words, we’ll be better able to achieve what I call catagenisis- the creative renewal of our technologies, institutions and societies in the aftermath of breakdown.

We have to do other things too, and advance planning for breakdown is undoubtedly the most important…In vigorous, wide-ranging, yet disciplined conversation among ourselves, we can develop scenarios of what kinds of breakdowns could occur. In this conversation, we shouldn’t be afraid to think “outside the box”—to try to imagine the unimaginable—because in a non-linear world under great pressure, we’re certain to make wrong predictions if we just extrapolate from current trends.

Moments of contingency are thus easily exploited for good or ill. Fear, hope, and greed are unleashed at the same time that social reality becomes fluid. This means that people’s motivation to change their circumstances soars just as their opportunities to accomplish change multiply. Whether the outcome of this powerful confluence is turmoil or renewal hinges-in large measure-on how the situation is framed.

People will want assurance. They will want an explanation of the disorder that has engulfed them.-an explanation that makes their world seem, once more, coherent and predictable, if not safe. Ruthless leaders can satisfy these desires and build their political power by prying open existing cleavages between ethnic and religious groups , classes, races, nations or cultures. First they define what it means to be a good person and in so doing identify the members of the we group. Then they define and identify the bad people who are members of the they group….Indeed, large numbers of people are already primed to see the world in terms of a Manichean division into good and evil…..In this stormy world, fundamentalist creeds can seem to provide a firm anchor. All such creeds claim privileged access to absolute truth, and all establish what’s right and wrong, provide strict rules of behavior, and identify friends and enemies. And because that truth comes from revelation not research, creeds justify the suspension of reason and deliberation—a kind of psychological denial that may be a balm for the bewildered but that’s truly an inept response to an ever more complex reality.

(Resilience) Events don’t have to turn out this way, because we really do have some ability to choose our future. But we have to recognize what kind of forces we’re up against, we have to have courage, and we have to be smart—not only at the time of the social earthquake and the moment of contingency that follows but also well in advance. Specifically, if we’re going to have the best chance of following a different and positive path, we must take four actions. First, we must reduce as much as we can the force of the underlying tectonic stresses in order to lower the risk of synchronous failure—that is, of catastrophic collapse that cascades across boundaries between technological, social and ecological systems. Second, we need to cultivate a prospective mind so we can better cope with surprise. Third, we must boost the overall resilience between critical systems like our energy and food supply networks And fourth, we need to prepare to turn breakdown to our advantage when it happens, because it will….Alas, humankind’s track record when it comes to proactive policy, especially in response to slow-creep problems, doesn’t inspire much confidence…Today, most of us are simply too deep in denial, and our political and economic systems are too hobbled by powerful vested interest for real change to happen in the absence of a sharp push or shock from outside. With colossal effort by the relatively small numbers of people today engaged in trying to do something about these problems, and perhaps with a good deal of luck..*&$(….so we’d better get ready for real social earthquakes.

This is where cultivating the prospective mind comes in…We can’t possibly flourish in a future filled with sharp nonlinearities and threshold effects—and somewhat paradoxically, we can’t hope to preserve at least some of what we hold dear—unless we’re comfortable with change, surprise and the essential transience of things, and unless we’re open to radically new ways of thinking about our world and about the way we should live our lives. We need to exercise our imaginations so that we can challenge the unchallengeable and conceive the inconceivable. , denying what’s happening around us, and refusing to countenance anything more than incremental adjustments to our course are just about the worst things we can do. These behaviors increase our rigidity and dangerously extend the growth phase of our adaptive cycle…

Of course, many of these recommendations fly in the face of the ideology of today’s globalized capitalism. In it’s most dogmatic formulation, this ideology says that larger scale, faster growth, less government, and more efficiency, connectivity and speed are always better. Slack is always waste. So resilience—even as an idea, let alone as a goal of public policy—isn’t found…..And because our leaders hardly ever think about resilience, , we keep doing things that make our lives progressively less resilient—we pile on more debt, build tract housing over our finest cropland, develop addictions to distant sources of energy, become so specialized that we can’t take care of ourselves when everyday technologies fail, and fill every nook and cranny of our days with so much junk information and pointless running around that we don’t have time to reflect on what we’re doing or where we’re going.

Wicked/Weird

http://blogs.zdnet.com/social/?p=91


It was only a matter of time really but, still, weird.

Kids in Nature

Treehuggers?

Want the best

for your Kids?

Call your travel agent! Baddum-cha!

And/Or learn to sail

Joni Mitchell + Ballet + Alberta (?)

"If I had a heart/I’d cry.” It is one of the most haunting melodies she has ever written.

“My heart is broken in the face of the stupidity of my species,” she said. “I can’t cry about it. In a way I’m inoculated. I’ve suffered this pain for so long. We were expelled from Eden. What keeps us out of Eden?” She thought about this for a moment before riffing on a Dylan line: “I tried to tell everybody, but I could not get it across.”

“Well, I’m being more specific now,” she allowed. “The West has packed the whole world on a runaway train. We are on the road to extincting ourselves as a species. That’s what I meant when I said that we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.”

Ben's Pool Epiphany

Even the smarvelous Ben Stein has the time to have thoughts about the wider meanings...

Bringing It All Back Home

Warming: "People in Latin America were most worried while U.S. citizens were least concerned"

And our thoughtful neighbors in the North Country?
Turns out they feel more reasonable than Americans, too.

An avalanche of evidence greeted with a smug shrug.
What the hell gives?!?!?

More Hogwash from a group calling themselves Environmental Defense

• Rank of 2006 as hottest year on record in the continental United States.

• Rank of America as top global warming polluter, emitting almost as much as the European Union, Russia and Japan combined.

• Percent increase of America's carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels since 1990.

• Percent increase of America's carbon dioxide emissions forecasted by 2020 if we do not cap pollution.

• Percent decrease in America's global warming pollution required by 2050 to prevent the worst consequences of global warming.

• Number of days by which the U.S. fire season has increased over the past 20 years - tied closely to increased temperatures and earlier snowmelt.

• Number of people who could be displaced globally by extreme droughts, sea level rise and flooding by 2080.

• Number of U.S. mayors (representing 55 million Americans) who have signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement pledging to meet or beat Kyoto goals in their communities.

• Number of federal bills passed by Congress to set a mandatory, economy-wide cap on America's global warming pollution.

• Number of times President Bush has mentioned "global warming" or "climate change" in his previous State of the Union speeches.

Hearts and Minds

“Suddenly we forgot that he was a dictator and that he killed thousands of people,” said Roula Haddad, 33, a Lebanese Christian. “All our hatred for him suddenly turned into sympathy, sympathy with someone who was treated unjustly by an occupation force and its collaborators.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/06/world/middleeast/06arabs.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

from Alternet

Conspiracy Fact: lowest gas prices of 2006 during election week …
January 5, 2007.
Joshua Holland: Just following up.

Now that we have the average gas prices for the final week of 2006 it's official: the lowest prices of the year came during the week of the midterms.
More specifically, in the thirteen short weeks between the year's high of $3.083 per gallon -- during the week of August 8 -- and Election Day, average gas prices dropped by almost 80 cents per gallon -- 26 percent -- and then they did a one-eighty the very next week and crept back up in all but one of the six weeks that followed that. Altogether they rose 14.1 cents, or a bit more than 6 percent, after the election.

Letter to America

-in the Washington Post:

America's Red Ink
Sunday, December 24, 2006; Page B06
The largest employer in the world announced on Dec. 15 that it lost about $450 billion in fiscal 2006. Its auditor found that its financial statements were unreliable and that its controls were inadequate for the 10th straight year. On top of that, the entity's total liabilities and unfunded commitments rose to about $50 trillion, up from $20 trillion in just six years.
If this announcement related to a private company, the news would have been on the front page of major newspapers. Unfortunately, such was not the case -- even though the entity is the U.S. government.
To put the figures in perspective, $50 trillion is $440,000 per American household and is more than nine times as much as the median household income.
The only way elected officials will be able to make the tough choices necessary to put our nation on a more prudent and sustainable long-term fiscal path is if opinion leaders state the facts and speak the truth to the American people.
The Government Accountability Office is working with the Concord Coalition, the Brookings Institution, the Heritage Foundation and others to help educate the public about the facts in a professional, nonpartisan way. We hope the media and other opinion leaders do their part to save the future for our children and grandchildren.
DAVID M. WALKER
Comptroller General of the United States
Government Accountability Office