I like the Mercedes diesel – it runs great, gets tettific mileage, and is powerful as hell. That being said, just try to get coolant for it. The BMW and VW dealer’s parts departments aren’t open on Saturday and the auto parts stores? Well, no. But after a bit of hunting, we found one that did have something that could work. And so, the diesel has oil and coolant and we’re planning on heading out tomorrow morning at 4am.

The drive to Las Vegas will take something like 12 hours. We’ll get there, have dinner with family, sleep, and get up early Monday in time to drive home and return the MH by 4pm.

And now I smell enchiladas.

So I found an urgent-care facility attached to a hospital and called a cab. What – I’m going to drive a motor home through an unfamiliar town looking for a hospital? No.

Now I’m sure that the place I found is a great facility filled with caring, competent people. But after spending three hours in their version of not-really-all-that-urgent, urgent care I truly no longer gave one bloody damn. I checked out after promising to see my family doctor.

The physician’s assistant who saw me said I shouldn’t be so impatient – it was Monday after all. I agreed that it was Monday but since they obviously knew the day of the week they should plan for it – it was their hospital not mine after all. But by that time I was telling it to the hall as the PA walked away.

The PA wanted to do an ultrasound since “lumpy” probably wasn’t a hernia (wrong non-mid-line location – say what?), and started using other words more scary than hernia. An ultrasound would have been fine. Well, mostly fine except that once I saw how this facility defined “urgent” I honestly just didn’t have the time – I want to be able to see my six-year-old daughter graduate high school.

I was never going to be able to do that if I waited for an ultrasound in a hospital in Eureka (especially since it meant being transferred from the urgent care division to the hospital and then back to urgent care after completion). And there was more paperwork to be done – someone would be in to see me.

No thank you very much. I live in a city with world-class medical facilities. I’m going to let a place that was obviously having problems understanding what urgent care really means do anything to me? Uh, no.

So I checked myself out, called a cab and went back to the hotel. We packed the motor home, I checked out, and we hit the road.

I’m begging you, please stop

After all the hospital nonsense we didn’t manage to get back on the road until after 1pm. We needed to make up some time if we were going to see some redwoods during daylight. And we were going to see those damn trees.

And eventually the kids started getting along great – they both fell asleep. After that I made wonderful time until we paused to look at those trees when darling daughter and son started up again. Ride or walk? Gondola or no gondola? Shuttle or no shuttle?

Are you kidding me? Put me on the shuttle to the tram, then in the gondola to the top. Spin me in a 360, let me glance at a few trees and stuff and then put me back in the gondola. At the base have the shuttle waiting for me to take me to the gift store and then the parking lot.

But no. They wanted to hike and look at trees, take photos in front of trees, and climb trees (luckily that last one was absolutely off limits by the state). So we hit the trails (yes, even I hiked a bit).

Okay, the trees and nice – very big and ancient and beautiful. Now can I go to a comfy hotel with a three-star restaurant and spa?

When my sister and I were growing up, our parents liked to travel. Our father liked to travel a lot (photo shoots in Africa, a road trip from Los Angeles to the tip of South America, trips around the world, you get the idea); our mother not so much. Oh the traveling was fine, she just wanted a Hilton at the end of the day rather than mosquito netting. I’m a lot like her – a Motel 6 is more than I care to rough it.

One of the great things about that traveling was that mom and dad rarely left my sister and me with relatives while they took off. The family traveled together (except for the Africa and South America trips that my father did with friends and I’m still a bit ticked off about missing). And they liked to travel by car. Of the three cars in the garage, one was always a sport wagon. And whenever the travel bug hit, my father would say let’s go. The car would be packed, and off we’d head to wherever look good. The mountains? Sure. The desert? Why not. Key West? Absolutely. Mexico City during Christmas? Pack the gifts. Acapulco for a month during school? Pack the books.

Looking back I can see just how wonderful those trips were. We saw – and came to really know – the spaces and people between airports. We didn’t fly from Los Angeles to Acapulco, we drove. We didn’t stay in a hotel while there, we rented an apartment. When you drive from Los Angeles to Acapulco you see people – how they live, what they do, how towns and cities vibrate with life.

When we drove from LA to Miami we visited towns and people across Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and Florida. We were able to stop and see things we’ve never seen and wouldn’t see if we weren’t there. The taste and aromas of Cajun food in little restaurants in the bayou are so much better than in an airport lounge.

Waking up at 6am in the middle of somewhere new, piling in the car and driving for an hour until you stop for breakfast, not at a Denny’s but at a local restaurant, offer your senses things that cannot be achieved any other way. Road trips are meaningful in so many areas for touching cultures, seeing the vast expanse of this nation, and really experiencing newness.

And that is what this series of blogs is about. A golden triangle road trip starting in San Diego, meandering up the coast of California and Oregon, then heading across Oregon and Idaho, and down through the desert back to San Diego. A few of the areas we’re going to see are Morro Bay State Park, California Coastal Nat’l. Monument, Silver Park Wilderness Area, Ventana Wilderness, Monterrey, Big Sur, Redwoods State Park, Half Moon Bay, Bodega Bay, Fort Bragg, Humboldt State Park, Redwoods Nat’l Park, Klamath Falls, Willamette National Forest, Crater of the Moon National Monument, and more. Or perhaps we won’t see half of those – or we’ll see places not on the list – it doesn’t matter. That’s the great thing about a road trip, you can change the itinerary on a whim. And whim plus kids will be the driving force on this trip.

I’ll be blogging at least daily. This may be a road trip but I’m still not roughing it. We’ve rented a small WiFi connected motor home to take us from inn to inn and so I’ll be posting to the blog, writing my newspaper column, and teaching two classes while we travel. It’s going to be interesting – but isn’t that what life should be? Feel free to add to the blogs, offer suggestions, helpful hints, and ways to get over the “are we there yet?” syndrome from the 14-year-old. The beat, and the motor home, will roll shortly.

Well, that time of year has finally arrived. Graduations are here and the faces look so brilliant. The eyes sparkle and the step has a pronounced bounce. These women and men have graduated!

Graduating is definitely a big deal. “Look at me, world! I graduated; I can do this!”

Watching the faces

This past week I sat through another graduation: the Alliant International University Class of 2011. Picture it: The parents, siblings, friends and relatives near and distant have taken their seats. There is a soft murmur as people talk while getting ready for “that moment” to arrive. And then it does.

The graduates march in to the music of “Pomp and Circumstance” with gowns waving, caps on, and all eyes on them, many tearing up.

Then come the faculty and administrators. Everyone is still standing as we go up the aisle – many parents with a slight “whew” in their eyes with those tears.

We take our seats on the dais and the speeches start. The welcoming speech, the commencement speech and more. The soon-to-be-graduates are restless, nervous, and excited. Who wouldn’t be?

I look out into the audience of former students and recognize so many. Some shoot me covert peace signs or smile and nod. I’m going to miss you.

Here’s a secret about the faculty sitting up there looking so dignified: many of us have been through these graduations ten, twenty, thirty times. And we still like going. We still get misty-eyed during those special moments when a student gives us a slight wave. And yes, occasionally, we may text someone or play a game on our phone if the speaker is droning on too long – just like those graduates are doing.

I like to look at the faces in the audience. Those of the students and their guests. I watch the faces because there on those faces are etched pride, hope, belief in the future and dreams come true.

And then it starts. The awards, the diplomas, the handshakes, the photos, the tears. There isn’t anything else quite like those ceremonies because it’s the culmination of years of dedicated hard work and sacrifice.

Graduating from a university is not an easy thing. According to Huffpost, quoting “a new study from Harvard and the Asian Development Bank, 6.7 percent of the world’s population are college degree-holders.” Did you get that? Only 6.7%. A bachelors degree is hard to get. A masters degree is much harder and a doctorate is unbelievably difficult. And it is always worth it. Always.

Success

I like graduations, they are wonderful success stories. There are, after all, many things that can hinder an education. Just a few of the obstacles that can get in the way of a complete education include poverty, health problems, lack of motivation, peer pressure, drugs, violence, unplanned pregnancy, and lack of a role model. Yet millions of people around the world are graduating this month. Millions more who raised these individuals are seeing their own hard work pay off.

Graduations are never taken lightly. The world of the graduate will never again be the same. Some of the people with whom great and wonderful friendships were forged will never be seen again. Many people will change careers while others will start new ones. Some are continuing with education while others are finally (finally!) finishing.

We all made a difference

Sometimes we hear about the impact a teacher had on a student. Well you know what? I have never met a teacher whose life was not changed by their students, either.

Here is something you might think about. At some point in the distant future you will think wistfully about a teacher. Perhaps that instructor smiled at you during a depressing morning; maybe she truly made algebra not just understandable, but so much fun that you made computer science your career. Might be that he taught you what good writing actually looked like; or she helped you further your own understanding of the cosmos. Maybe he just took the time to hear you.

This is the interesting part: that teacher you may think about years from now will have also thought about you. You have had an impact on your school and on your instructors. And for myself, I thank you. I am a better person for knowing you, for teaching you, for learning from you. To the graduating class at Alliant International University, and indeed every graduate around the world, you have my congratulations and my gratitude. Now the world is yours, treat it well.

never meanders

It blasts

through the

swamps hanging with Spanish moss

the occasional forests

and mile after endless mile of deserts

It blasts

through towns like

Las Cruces

Indio

Tucson

Lordsburg

Deming

El Paso

And the water places, the humid places

Baton Rouge

Pensacola

Lafayette

Gulfport

Biloxi

From

Santa Monica on the west &

Jacksonville on the east

There is life between the two    &

yet

I-10 is a staggeringly lonely place

In the previous post I said “it’s a generational thing.” Well that’s wrong. It’s too simplistic. Not that it was meant to be the final word on anything, of course, but even for me it wasn’t finished.  The “my stuff / your stuff” scenario plays out for probably countless reasons (don’t tell that to my 5th grade math teacher who was sure there was a finite count to everything…unless there wasn’t and that won’t be discussed until 6th grade so sit down Miles).

Starting with generational differences you need to add:

Macro and micro location – geography matters

Economics

Lifestyle

Family desire to trend particular lifestyles

Employment (where and / or if)

Culture

Gender (not your gender but reaction to your gender)

And the beat goes on….

Sometimes you have to wonder how we manage to interact and understand each other at all.  And yet, sometimes, we do.  We cross all those barriers, and many more, and communicate.  We talk, we fall in love, we conduct business, we make peace (not often enough), we pass on knowledge, warnings, advice, and laughter.  Not bad, all things considered.

Here is how it usually seems to play out:

Music: My music was great, my parent’s music goofy but maybe some okay, my kid’s music sounds like rattlesnakes giving birth

Clothes: My clothes were fun and stylish, my parent’s clothes are great for costumes, my kids clothes aren’t worth using for paint rags…and they cost too much

Cars: My cars were magnificent machines: “They don’t build ‘em like that anymore!” My parents cars are fun to tear up and make dune buggies from, my kids cars are just little pocket rockets that all look the same

Books: My books are artistic works of literary magnificence. My parents books were okay (at least most of them), my kids books are…what books?

Surfboards, skateboards, skis: My surfboards, skateboards, and skis were lovingly made by a human being who spent hours on them and made them perfect! My parents surfboards, skateboards (nah, my parents didn’t skateboard), and skis were okay, and my kids surfboards, skateboards and skis are just a bunch of overpriced, factory-made by the millions pieces of absolute junk

Guitars: My guitars were unparalleled instruments of musical creation. My parent’s instruments might be okay in a retro piece, my kids instruments are useless pieces of over-computerized, stamped-out, jokes

Television: My television shows were… well, okay mostly not worth watching. My parents TV shows were worth even less and my kid’s shows are just more junk. Now let me also say that every generation of TV viewers has their good and bad shows. Also, TV programs when you watch them new seem great and in rerun less so and reruns of the reruns years later even much, much less so. So this category might be a tie. Suffice it to say that we all watch junk with the occasional gem tossed in and leave it at that

Films: My films were sometimes great, my parent’s films were sometimes great, and my kid’s films are sometimes great. My father would not have agreed with this analysis. As far as he was concerned, any film that was made after Audrey Hepburn appeared with elbow-length gloves is trash. But he’s wrong; in fact, everyone is wrong. The best film ever made is from my generation: “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” is the single best film ever made. Period. End of argument. So there.

Well okay, I might be wrong about the film. It is hackneyed, contrived, full of stereotypes, over-wrought, over-energized, and over-played. Nonetheless, it can be hysterical, it is full of great actors giving good performances, the writing is spot-on and almost flawless, and you can’t help but be absorbed in it. So maybe I am right.

My generational differences

The differences between my son’s generation and mine hit me full-on a few days ago. We were sitting around the table having dinner and doing our evening check-ins and high and lows (everyone discuses a high point and a low point of their day). During this my son Ryan happened to mention that he needed a new flash drive for class. I said okay we can get one.

“When do you need it?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this when I picked you up from school / when we were out running around getting your glasses / when we picked up your sister / when we weren’t having dinner??????”

“I forgot,” he answered with the usual kid answer. I did the usual dad growl under my breath and wondered where I had left the Rolaids.

I drove to Best Buy down the hill to get a flash drive. It was during this drive that I happened to remember a very similar scene from years ago. Instead of Ryan, however, it was me at dinner with my parents and sister and instead of a flash drive it was poster board for a school project the next day.

At the time we lived in a town without an Office Depot or any other office supply store for that matter. The only place to get poster board, and the only place open was a drug store (which luckily did have poster board). I still remember the drive there with my father saying to me essentially the same things I said to Ryan (with the added bonus of my father swearing a blue streak; there’s nothing like the swearing of a former sailor when he gets wound up). But that was then. Now, we’re in the car.

Ryan may someday in the future be out with a child during an evening seeking something or other and during that run he may remember the night he and I went after a flash drive. I hope so; it may make him a little less annoyed and look at his own child with enlightened eyes as I looked at Ryan. Enlightened, and with more than a little love.

My daughter and the dog are busy running circles around the room while flinging Barbie in the air and playing catch. Sound of life? Okay, sure.

What do I do while all of this is going on? I start getting annoyed, of course, which leads me to begin saying dad-like things:
* Knock it off!
* Knock it off!
* Knock it off!
* Knock it off!
* I’m not kidding, knock it off!
* I’m not kidding, knock it off!
* I’m not kidding, knock it off!
* I’m not kidding, knock it off!
* I mean it!
* I mean it!
* I mean it!
* I mean it!

Now don’t think that I just keep saying these things without thinking about it. No, I pay attention to what is going on and definitely to those who are not paying attention to me.

Of course I don’t always expect them to pay attention to me, it is just that I would like them to pay attention when I want them to, not when it suits them. That rarely happens. Really rarely.

Dad-speak

So, where were we? Oh, yeah, dad-speak. Well by now my vocabulary has more or less sunk to the following level:
* Keep the ball off the house!
* I told you two to go play outside! Daddy has to work.
* I mean it, go play outside or in your room.
* No you can’t go on the roof to get the ball.
* I mean it, go play outside or in your room.

Naturally pretty soon I get mixed up and start saying the wrong thing to the wrong kid and then son and daughter look at me like I’m from outer space. Like they do so often anyway.

Has the Barbie pick-up game between daughter and puppy stopped yet?
No. So what do I do? I slowly start to get out of my chair. I think that this will get their attention, make them think that they are really in trouble, and they will leave (have you noticed that by now I have started thinking that the dog is just another kid out to bug me? Sometimes I almost do think that and yes, it is a bit weird).

“Daddy, sit down! You are getting in the way!”
“Getting in the way? This is my office!”
“Daddy!”
“Daddy nothing! You two scram.”
“But Daddy, can’t you see we’re playing?”

“Yes I can see that, but can’t you two see that I am trying to work?” (Yes, I’m still talking as if the dog understands every word. Give me a break, I’m a bit frustrated).

“We’re just playing.”
“Well play somewhere else.”
“We like playing here.” “Yeah, well why do you like playing here so much?”
“Because you’re here.”

She knew exactly what to say to get me to cave. She pulls out the emotional, cute, loving daughter thing and smiles.

Do you know what I did after she said that? I caved.

I turned off the computer, took off my shoes, and crawled down onto the floor with the two of them. As soon as I did that, it wasn’t hard to concentrate at all. I had simply been trying to concentrate on the wrong thing.

Driveway basketball

My favorite games to watch are soccer (because my kids play and that got me interested in Manchester United among other teams) and driveway basketball.
In driveway basketball there are no time-outs, no one is ejected from the game, there aren’t any referees, and scoring is mostly a haphazard guess. It’s sports in a more pure form. No companies, no sponsors with names on shirts, no agents, no hundred-million this and billion dollar that. Certainly no absurd stadiums. And no one ever gets locked out unless they’re being a poor sport and then usually a parent quickly takes care of it.

My home has a basketball hoop in a large portable stand in the driveway. When I was younger I never saw myself actually owning one of those. But I do. My son and I found one fairly nearby on craigslist.com and bought it and hauled it home.
That thing is like milk to an infant. As soon as we started to assemble it, his friends came over and the first game started the minute it was finished. Between my son and his friends and my daughter and her friends, (plus one goofy dog) I may have to put up a schedule with a sign-up sheet on it. And you know what?

That’s okay.

Now if the dog would just quit trying to catch the ball and slobbering all over it.

Have any weird dreams lately? I dreamed the other night that coach Pinot Noir was serving as head soccer trainer for Mariah Carey. I have no idea where any of that came from. A coach named after a wine? Mariah Cary playing soccer and being trained by him?

When I woke up I lay there in bed for a few minutes quietly wondering to myself just why on earth I had been dreaming that dream. But dreams can be like that. Often there may be very specific things that they can tell us (or so claim some Freudian psychiatrists), but sometimes no matter just how much you try to tear the dream apart, it finally comes back to nothing more than you just had a weird dream.

All this got me thinking about what other weird dreams may be out there. So, I started asking people what strange dreams they’ve had. It’s an interesting list.

Bizarre dreams

One person I asked told me all about his dream of sailing around the world in a small sailboat by himself and there was never any wind in the sails. Another man offered this as his weirdest dream: he was trudg-ing across the Sahara Desert. He walked over sand dune after sand dune after sand dune. The harsh, dry wind was blowing, the temperature was 125 degrees, he had no water and buzzards were circling overhead.

I worry about both of those guys.

My son, of course, used to dream of Santa Claus and sometimes his dreams got a bit confused. Such as the dream when Santa Claus met up with the Easter Bunny and the two of them went trick-or-treating for Halloween. It took him a long time to explain it and me even longer to understand. He’s older now and no longer dreams of Santa Claus; they lean more to Jaguars, surfboards and tunnels. So much for his dreams.

When I lived in Guadalajara, Mexico I had a neighbor who dreamed of flying. He said he could just fall off a building or cliff and start flying. He said that waking up and realizing he was just dreaming was always the saddest time for him.

Dreaming of food

A childhood friend of mine, when I mentioned that I was writing about dreams, shared some of his strange ones. Apparently, he dreams of food a great deal. I’m not sure why food plays such a large part of his dreamtime, but it does.

Anyway, in one of his dreams he was at a State Banquet. It was a very formal affair, with waiters in tux-edos, and an orchestra playing. He kept trying to get a dance with someone who also wanted to dance with him. But every time they approached each other to dance, there was a small earthquake and everyone fled the room, taking their dinner with them.

Now I suppose that one could say that the dream meant he was afraid of commitment, hated to dance, had problems finding the right partner, or was scared of earthquakes. Or perhaps it was some other much deeper psychological manifestation of something. I don’t know, I’m not a psychologist but if I recall correctly I did recommend he see one.

An aunt of mine said that her strangest dream was one in which she got married to a man she didn’t know and the minister performing the ceremony was her real husband. She wondered if the dream meant that she was subconsciously unhappy with her marriage. But then she wasn’t sure about that because her hus-band was there performing the ceremony. Unless what it all meant was that she was unhappy, wanted to get out of her marriage and into another, better one, but wanted that to be what her husband wanted as well. It was a very confusing conversation to say the least.

Anyway, we dream, we think about dreaming, and we dream again the next night. Some dreams we re-member, most we forget. Dreams are fascinating things, scary or happy or anything in-between. Here’s a question: Would you want to trade dreams with someone?