Typical Day on the Road
May 2008
May 1
After spending the day near Portland doing chores, we went to the airport in the evening to pick up another of our "adopted daughters", Cassia, who flew in from Massachusetts.
May 2
Performed at the Albany Library, or 5th or 6th time there. We were surprised to arrive and find a sign in front saying that the building is for sale. But Scott the librarian told us that arrangements have been made to move into larger quarters across the street.
May 3
Back to the Portland area. We holed up in the suburb of Milwaukie, where Kimberly lived for a time as a child. In fact, we drove right by where she lived, although she didn't recognize it. Zephyr and Cassia caught a bus into Portland to meet up with a couple of other friends and hang out at Powell's, the legendary "world's largest bookstore". When they came back in the evening, accompanied by their two friends, we all played laser tag at an excellent facility.
May 4
On into Vancouver, WA. Spent part of the day at Panera doing office work (What else does one do on a Sunday?), then worked out at a nice, spacious YMCA.
May 5
Drove farther north into Washington, stopping to do laundry, then to drop off a printing job at Office Depot, then grocery shopped at Trader Joe's, then ordered our new posters at Kinko's. Phew!
May 6
Began a little string of performances for the King Co. (Seattle area) Library System. We're part of a spring series called "Playing With Words", which we've been a part of a couple of times before, but the last time was 7 years ago. Today we performed at a school and a library in Tukwila.
May 7
Performed at two more King Co. Schools, sponsored by the library. And we picked up our new posters, which look great. Zephyr found out that he's been accepted to attend both sessions of Not Back To School Camp in Oregon this fall. He'd been concerned about being accepted to EITHER session, because for some reason they didn't receive his paperwork and he had to resubmit it. He's attended it for the last two years, and had a great time and met several friends -- including Cassia.
May 8
Last two shows for King Co. The first was at a school, and the last at Crossroads Mall -- yes, a mall -- in Bellevue. There is a library in the mall, but it's too small to have a performance space of its own, so we were on a little stage out by the food court. We always have grave reservations about performing in such a "bus station" atmosphere, but this show went quite well. The mall had microphones available, and even though we almost never use these critters (it's generally impractical as much as we move around) we had 5 of them set up in the front of the stage, and that helped. A pretty big, and quite responsive audience, including a couple of Kimberly's Twitter buddies.
This was Zephyr's last public performance with us -- he'll have two more at schools, and then he's planning to retire from the act.
May 9
An afternoon performance at Adams School in Seattle, located in the section of town called Ballard, which is the old Scandinavian neighborhood.
After the show, we walked to the nearby Chittenden Locks, where boats pass through on their way between the ocean and the lake. Since the lake has a higher water level, the locks serve as a transitional point -- the boats are enclosed between two sets of gates, and the water in that niche is raised or lowered as needed. Also here is the salmon "ladder", a large stair-like structure that helps salmon travel back and forth to and from their spawning grounds -- er, waters -- and there's a subterranean viewing chamber with windows through which you can watch them "climb the ladder".
May 10
We'd all considered catching a bus into Seattle today and exploring the city, but we slept in so late that we decided to scrap such grandiose plans. Zephyr and Cassia, however, did go into town in the afternoon, hoping to catch a concert. But they were unable to get tickets, and came back home early.
"Home" for today was Burien, where D & K spent the afternoon showing their computers the local library. This library had a display of books that were "Staff Picks" and one of these was the novel "Ella Minnow Pea" by Mark Dunn, Dennis' former college classmate whom we met up with recently in Albuquerque.
May 11
Mother's Day, and we took Mom to lunch at Zoopa, the soup-and-salad restaurant that is part of the same franchise as Fresh Choice, Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes -- at least one of which can be found in just about every part of the country.
Earlier in the day, she and Dennis took a bike ride along the Green River Trail through Tukwila and Kent, but we came back earlier than planned because the clouds began to threaten one of those fabled (and mostly mythical) Seattle rainstorms, which ended up being only a more common drizzle.
Tonight we put Cassia on a Boston-bound plane and started heading south, our time in Seattle done for this year.
May 12
Our 18th wedding anniversary, but we didn't do anything special to celebrate, because we're going to be doing something special in a few days -- namely, going to Hawaii. But this week, we need to focus on our new show, so we're holed up at a campground in Woodland, WA.
May 13
Still at the campground, catching up on business work, prop making, and rehearsing for the new show. (The latter we are doing in the game room.)
May 14
Ditto.
May 15
Pretty much the same as yesterday, except that Dennis biked into town to mail some posters for our summer performances (Kimberly did so yesterday). At the post office he encountered a young woman who was carrying around a baby wallaby and allowing people to pet it, which he did. She brings such animals to children at parties and other events, and is trying to break into the school market -- which, he warned her, is very difficult to break into just now.
Having been longtime residents of San Francisco, and having had many gay friends and colleagues, we were pleased to hear the news of the California Court's ruling legalizing gay marriage. But we don't expect it to last. San Francisco has always had the problem of being too far ahead of the times.
May 16
Checking out of the RV park in Woodland and heading toward Portland to prepare for our flight to Honolulu tomorrow. We plan to keep a detailed journal of our trip to Hawaii, as we did for Japan.
>> No RVs, No Socks Hawaii Journal (May 17-24)
May 25
We stayed up until 3:00 a.m. watching a movie on TV -- now we'll have to get accustomed to West Coast time again. But we still got up by 9:00 to partake of the Clarion's complimentary breakfast, which turned out to be a real breakfast, and not at all bad. Then we loaded our things into the RV (which was just as we'd left it, and the fridge not stinking quite as bad as we'd feared) and drove to the Hollywood section of Portland (so-named, we gather because of the grand old Hollywood movie theater. Or maybe it's the other way around) where there's a Panera and a Trader Joe's next to each other. So we were able to catch up on some computer work and some food shopping in one swoop.
May 26
Visited Kimberly's aunt and uncle on their farm in Junction City, OR. Then drove into Eugene, where we ferreted out the laundromat with wi-fi that we used the last time we were in town. We were able to do more Internet work, and at the same time clean the Hawaii sand out of our clothes -- well, most of it. We may be picking out a few grains for weeks to come.
May 27
Still in Eugene. Visited more of Kimberly's relatives, and Zephyr just had to, HAD to, see the new Indiana Jones movie.
May 28
Headed on down to Redding, CA., where gas was averaging about $4.35 for regular. Tried to get online, but all the wi-fi cafes closed by 3:00 or even 2:00. D & K took a bike ride on a trail along the Sacramento River, which in some places had some spectacular rapids that would be great for rafting. We biked across a relatively new biking/ walking bridge that stretches 416 feet across the river, a concrete span with no columns or cables anywhere in sight. It looked rather perilous, but we read the plaque about it and learned that in fact it's an innovative design with support cables inside the concrete, thereby eliminating the need for support columns, and sparing the rocky banks from any damage caused by engineering. We also crossed another bridge, the more classically constructed Diestelhorst Bridge, erected in 1914 for vehicular traffic, but now closed except to bikers and walkers. With a name like Diestelhorst, how can you resist crossing it?
May 29
A residency at a school in Orland, CA., which we've been to before. Today was Young Authors' Day, rewarding students for their literary efforts. In addition to us, several local authors were on hand, and we all presented workshops as well as our performance -- which, it happens, was Zephyr's last with our company. He'll be 18 soon, so he's now retired.
On to the Bay Area, where we tried to fill our gas tank at an Arco at night (at $4.11 per gallon, it was by far the best price around) but they wouldn't accept 50 dollar bills after 9:00 p.m. Given the current prices, we're surprised that stations still accept bills any SMALLER!
May 30
Returned to Castro Valley (familiar territory for both of us) and did some online work at the cafe we discovered the last time we were in town. Met some friends at Chipotle for dinner, then went to what used to be the Hayward Little Theatre, but is now called the Douglas Morrisson Theatre, to see "Urinetown". The production was directed by our friend Sue Ellen Nelsen, one of the Bay Area's best directors. (And as we've mentioned before, Dennis and Kimberly met while performing in one of her shows, so we have a long association with her.)
It was our first time to see this musical, which we've heard a great deal of praise for. But we were a bit disappointed (not with your work, Sue Ellen, but with the show itself). It's certainly a clever concept, a story about a city in which a greedy corporation controls all the bathrooms in town and demands payment for their use. And at times it really works -- the funniest moments are the choruses that parody and pay tribute to choruses from other popular musicals like "West Side Story" and "Les Miserables". But overall it's not as well developed as it could be. And sometimes the music doesn't do justice to the lyrics, which can be quite witty, but often get lost in the shuffle.
May 31
A very... well, interesting day, one might say. We started out in Lodi, where we decided first thing this morning to get our smog check done, since the vehicle registration is due. We found a place to get it done, but in the course of the test, the engine started dying. And then it ran very sluggishly, and we only could drive it about 10 mph, and it was chugging like a Model A.
So We pulled over to a fairly quiet street and called Good Sam's roadside assistance. About two hours later a mobile mechanic arrived, and spent a couple of hours diagnosing the problem, which he finally proclaimed to be the Electronic Conntrol Module, probably, but he said his shop couldn't repair it until Monday. In the meantime, we forked over $200.26 for his trouble. But rather than be towed to his shop tonight, we decided to stick around here and see if Pep Boys, just down the street, can do the job tomorrow -- no other repair facility around here is open on Sunday. And we really, really need to get to Reno and do some intensive preparation for our new show.
Meanwhile, Zephyr called some friends who are attending a homeschool event in Galt, just up the road, and they picked him up to go there and spend the night. Might as well -- we're not going anywhere.
The good news is that, miraculously, our RV checked out okay on the smog check before it checked out on us.