Day One on the Road

Maybe I should actually start with yesterday though. It was kind of a handful. Packing! Packing was really challenging. Even when living in the smallest apartment ever, one can still accumulate a lot of stuff. And I had already shipped a lot. But there it all was, keyboard, stand and bench, large suitcase, small suitcase and miscellaneous other items. On top of the camping gear. Kevin helped a lot- carrying the heaviest boxes to the post office, carrying everything out to the car, and, finally, agreeing to ship a lot of other things that I decided would just not fit in the car. Yay Kevin! (I am missing him a lot right now....as they say, home is where the heart is, and I left mine in San Francisco...)

Anyway, the car is really packed in. So much stuff!!! However, as I guessed, Engineer Dad came through and we've gone through two more configurations of the car stuff. The current one looks good to me actually, but you never know! There may be a better way to do it. Right now though, it is really easy to get to just about everything, except the unnecessary stuff like the keyboard and framed Waterhouse print.

Last night a bunch of people came out to Little Shamrock to say goodbye - it was so great to see everyone. Much love! I had a really great time and it seemed like everyone else did as well. But saying goodbye was still difficult. I think in many ways it really hasn't hit me completely, the enormity of leaving. Being in a novel place (which Nevada certainly is) helps to take the edge off a bit.

(A brief aside - I tried to upload lots of great photos from the drive today, but the internet connection here is pretty weak and it was not happening. Next time I have more than one tiny bar though, they will be here!) Update 6/1/09 10:43 MST - Pictures added!

So Nevada. But backing up once again, our journey today began with a stop at Sports Basement for some camping gear (thanks Dad!)...I am now the owner of coral pink long johns. They are awesome. Maybe I will take a picture of them later.

After Sports Basement (a major landmark, of course, in San Francisco...), we headed over the Bay Bridge and continued on I-80 through Sacramento, where we then picked up Route 50 to Tahoe. (The car's navigation system did not like that at all. I think for almost an hour it insisted we get off the highway or make u-turns.) We stopped off to get some fresh cherries and peaches, almonds and pistachios, yum! Much later, Route 50 turned into a pretty gorgeous drive through forests and up to elevations of 7000 feet! We were driving right along the American River and what looked to be the location of an old forest fire, though with lots of new growth coming through. We even saw some salamanders on the rocks near the river, and pretty pink sweet pea blossoming there too.

The-little-car-that-could did great - got about 36 miles to the gallon today, though was really pushing 4000+ rpms as we went up the grades into the mountains. It doesn't actually look really steep, but you can really hear the engine working. As we started descending a bit, lovely Lake Tahoe came into view. You could also still see some snow up on the mountains there. It was one of the best drives I've taken and really fun too - lots of great curves in the road. From there we stopped briefly in South Lake Tahoe for some photos and fresh air, and continued on to Nevada.Things certainly changed once we crossed the line: Casinos! Oh my! Lots. Of. Casinos. Once through Carson City, Route 50 became a straightaway like nothing I've ever seen. Just rolling hills, little dots of green and tan (possibly tumbleweed? I'm not sure) and the occasional home/ranch/housing development/storage area. Also bull crossing signs. Or maybe long horn cows I guess. But it looks like a bull. Oh and a bear crossing sign!

What's most striking is the landscape along Route 50 so far. It's hard to describe....strange, but lovely in its own way I suppose, though still surreal, kind of alien. After a long drive continuing on Route 50 (the Loneliest Road), we came into Fallon, NV. Apparently there's not a lot between here and Ely which we really couldn't reach tonight, so here I am, in Fallon, NV. Again, casinos everywhere and the list of restaurants from the hotel had more fast food places than actual restaurants. We ended up eating at one of the casinos, Keno screens flashing behind us. It's hard to imagine living some place like this - it doesn't seem like there is a lot to it, though the landscape is pretty spectacular. (Okay, living in a place like San Francisco has probably biased me a bit to what entails a nice lifestyle, but not too much! I want to live on a farm out in rural New England, but this kind of place is something completely different. Maybe it's the whole sustainability thing, living in the desert and needing to pipe in so much.)

Tomorrow we will continue on to Ely and then to Great Basin. Again, it should be a surreal kind of drive with not a lot of human activity and mostly interesting/beautiful/strange landscapes. From there, we'll drive north through some forests in Utah to Salt Lake City and I guess see where that leaves us. I hope to check out one of the Pony Express stations that's not too far from here and do a bit of hiking around Great Basin if we have some time. We're starting early - breakfast at 7:30, getting some food and gas and then back on the Loneliest Road....

For now I'm thinking a bath or shower would be great and maybe I can catch the last two episodes of In Treatment on the Netflix I brought with me. Nothing like watching a good couples therapy session to relax....

car!

I bought the car! It's a 2007 Honda Civic Hybrid and I am SO happy with it. It's got navigation which has already been so great to have because my knowledge of city driving is limited and somewhat biased by Muni routes, not always the most expedient ways of getting around.

No pictures (yet) because I keep forgetting to take my camera. Kevin and I took a day trip on Sunday up to Half Moon Bay for some walking by the beaches there which was really nice. The car handles so well, even windy roads like Route 1. I am so excited for the long drives coming up - stretches of highway and mountainside curves.

I haven't done too much else moving or trip related. I got a lot of Tourbooks and Camping Books from AAA, and also picked up the newest edition of Road Trip USA, so far very interesting. I think it will be nice to have along the way. Otherwise, I've just been packing and shipping boxes home, keeping my eye on some nice apartment buildings and checking out cat toys so I can spoil Isis when she moves in with me.

As far as this whole transition thing goes, yuck. It's messy and I feel like I'm split between two coasts. The difficulty is hitting me harder than the positive-looking-forward stuff right now - leaving Kevin, leaving my classmates, school, professors, supervisors and colleagues, leaving my job, my neighborhood and even my apartment (aka The Box). My apartment is getting emptier - the bookcase is gone, most of my books, pretty vases and things. I took down my altar and I'm surprised at how much I miss having that little space there to remind me of the spiritual every day. I took down most of my pictures, too. It's more echo-y in here and I can hear my neighbors a lot more (which is a lot considering how much I could already hear them).

Kevin and I have loose plans right now, which is nice. I'm not looking forward to over two months apart though, and then who knows how many after that. He'll stay with me for part of August, and then leave for Europe et al. So I have August to look forward to, but mostly I am anticipating a huge loss. After over two years of being only 5 blocks apart, and another year or so of being a mile apart, 3,000 miles is going to hurt.

I haven't really thought about goodbyes too much yet. Well, I have, and I don't like it, so I'm not pushing myself to keep thinking on it more. But I guess it's there. It feels like the closer I get to the East coast, the harder is it to keep moving forward, the more I feel attached to the people here. I am really going to miss NCSPP and the committee and so many of my classmates. I've checked out some of the professional associations out there, but not for serious yet. I think it will be helpful though. The Jung Institute sounds great, lots of workshops and classes, and a classmate in my Jung class recommended a few other institutes for CIIS-esque coursework and such. Ugh, surprisingly I am missing that class! I had my last lecture on Thursday and can't make this week's because of the McWilliams salon. I'll hear the recording of it, but beside that, it was a great class. It really brought together everything I've been studying since college, maybe high school - all the philosophy, religion, psychology, history, culture, and probably more. It was an excellent way to end my graduate coursework, and the lecturers and my classmates were amazing. I do have Rick Tarnas' books to look forward to, to continue my education in that strain (Cosmos & Psyche and The Passion of the Western Mind - I read excerpts of these for his classes and was impressed by both his writing and lectures).

Okay, I lied earlier (I just realized). I have made some further plans for the road trip: reading, of course. So in addition to Cosmos & Psyche, I also have Hesse's The Glass Bead Game, recommended by one of my classmates in the Jung course. Annnnd probably a few crosswords and Sudokus as well. And Dad just mentioned bringing along Stevie's CDs to learn a bit of Polish; on top of that I have Pimsleur's Italian. I don't think we'll be bored with these in addition to all the sights. The car has an auxillary outlet, so my iPod just fits right in, providing us with 5415 songs - 16.3 days of music (thank you iTunes).

Hmmm, thinking about it now, I have also bought a Coleman propane stove. But that's it for now. Actually that might have been the last thing for the trip itself that I need to do, besides pack. I'm out of boxes for the time though, so it can wait. (My last paper ever for graduate school, on the other hand, cannot wait. So I am onto that task....)