i'll be home for Christmas...

The day after I arrived in Cupertino, I took off again - this time for Tahoe via Walnut Creek.  I got my "new" car serviced by my trusted mechanic Mike, and learned from his shop that I had a damaged tire that could have blown out any time while we were driving, especially at high speeds or while the car was overloaded.  I am so thankful that didn't happen on Judy's and my mostly freeway speed trip across the country with an overloaded vehicle!  I went straight from the mechanic to a tire place and got two new tires, then proceeded to Libby's.  We ate dinner before heading out to Vanessa's school Christmas concert.  Vanessa plays flute in the 7th grade concert band.

vanessa playing flute in the center of this photo

vanessa, libby, tori

The next morning, I headed out at the same time Libby took off to take Tori to school, and drove straight to Sierra-at-Tahoe with clear roads and barely a trace of snow falling as I arrived.  I put on my boots, grabbed my board, got a pass and headed out to ride for a bit.

feels SO good to be home!

The wind picked up a bit and snow began to fall in earnest, and I ended up getting a bit cold, so I drove down into town and visited my former workplace, Emerald Bay Physical Therapy.  I dropped my stuff off at Lisa's and changed clothes before meeting Tiffany for dinner at Orchid's.

tiffany and me after thai dinner

The next morning I braved the storm and went back to Sierra.  I got a pass again, and borrowed John Rice's jacket to wear over Lisa's down vest, and was therefore able to keep warm.  I ran into Megan, one of the kids who used to compete in the same events I did, and ended up riding powder with her and her family.

saying hi to jim - he and i started teaching at sierra the same year

riding powder with megan

My car got stuck when I tried to leave AND highway 50 closed toward South Lake Tahoe, so it took me several hours to get back to Lisa's.  At least I got to spend most of it indoors in the lodge.

sierra's parking crew snowblowed out the berm left by the plows

Once I finally got back into town, Lisa and I just ended up spending a relaxing evening hanging out at her place.  I also made the decision to leave early the next morning in an attempt to beat the next wave of the storm - I had been told to expect a 6-12 hour window ending mid-morning.

lisa about to head out to ride more powder, me heading home

It turned out to be an excellent plan - I had mostly clear roads, only light snow which turned to light rain in lower elevations, and no one in front of or behind me through all of chain control.  Once I passed chain control areas, the precipitation increased until it became a solid steady rain with occasional bursts of torrential downpour.

sugar loaf in kyburz

I stopped at Pearl's place in El Dorado Hills to catch up and give my legs a stretch.  An hour or so later I stopped at the Vacaville Factory Outlets for some last-minute Christmas shopping.  The rain continued, or if anything, got worse, so that I drove through some flooding on the freeways in the last 20 miles of my drive.  I made it back safely, with plenty of time to organize and prep my room to accommodate a second person when cousin Queenie arrived the next day.

pearl and me in her kitchen

Christmas Eve was spent preparing the house for the arrival of Alan and family as well as Queenie.  After Queenie arrived we had dinner at the Anvicks' next door, until my parents headed up to SFO to pick up Alan, Elizabeth, and Enzo.  Queenie and I attended West Valley Presbyterian Church's Christmas Eve service with the Anvicks.  Once the Madison Ngs arrived, we borrowed a box of K'nex from the Anvicks, and Keith came over to demonstrate for Enzo.

enzo, mama, and keith playing with k'nex

Christmas morning, Enzo was up early, chomping at the bit to open his Christmas gifts.  We opened our stockings before breakfast, and the rest after breakfast.  We rounded out the day with a family Christmas picture and a delicious ham dinner.

enzo was pretty excited about a chocolate bar in  his stocking

me, mama, alan, elizabeth, enzo, bupa, and queenie

cross-country road trip version 2012, part 3

We woke up dark and early in Albuquerque - my alarm went off at 5 am and at that time in the morning all I could manage to say was, "GO!" to Judy - get her moving to get ready for the day.  I had the car all packed up and we were ready to roll by 5:35 am (that might be a record for Judy!).  We plowed on into clouds and fog, then snow sometime around the New Mexico-Arizona border.  Finally, sometime after noon, we rolled into Grand Canyon National Park.  It was snowing lightly, with some snow on the roads and lots of clouds and fog.  We went to the Visitor's Center on the South Rim and walked out to Mather Point to check out the view.  Despite the fog (and cold-cold temperatures), it was beautiful and completely worth the two hour detour.

iced over shrubbery

judy and me at the grand canyon

looking deep down into the snowy canyon

about the most expansive view we got

yep, bike rentals are still available!

We headed back toward Highway 40 and stopped for lunch in the quaint town of Williams at Pine Country Restaurant which was decorated with fun signs.

williams, az

fun signs

The rest of the day was spent driving with a purpose - the goal was to meet Debbie in Santa Clarita to watch the Hobbit (in 3D), early enough for Debbie to be at work by 8:00 the next morning, AND it is nearly a three hour movie!  Despite snow and pouring rain, we got there in time for a quick dinner of pho and enjoyed the movie before crashing for the night at Judy's place.

there was only one person besides debbie, judy, and me in the theater!

I slept in for a bit the next morning before heading back up to Northern California.  It was an uneventful, sunny drive, and I arrived at my parents's place before 3:00 pm.  Unpacking the car took the better part of an hour, followed by some sorting and rearranging of my stuff.  We then headed up to Newark for Chinese dinner with my mom's Taiko drumming friends.  I sorted and repacked a bunch of my belongings for temporary storage in the garage since we expected a houseful for Christmas and I was leaving again the next day.

taiko buddies carol jo, jen, and mama

cross-country road trip version 2012, part 2

We set off from Sand Springs after a delicious breakfast of homemade bread and apricot preserves, complemented by some bird-watching out the window as we ate and chatted.  Since we had no plans to meet people at our destination for the night, this was the day we took the most side trips.  The first one was in Elk City, OK - we decided to look for a place to eat lunch and took the exit for National Route 66 (Business 40) through town.  Although we didn't seen anyplace we wanted to stop and eat, we did end up stopping at the Historic Route 66 Museum.  We didn't pay to go in, but just took a few pictures outside.

judy posing by the national route 66 museum

Since there was no satisfactory lunch spot, we continued on into Texas, heading off onto Historic Route 66 again into Shamrock, TX.  We stopped and took pictures of an old abandoned house, spotted an old, photogenic Conoco gas station, and were about to give up on Shamrock for lunch spots when I spotted Mitchell's Family Restaurant.  We stopped for burgers, mine a "mini" burger with onion rings, Judy with a bacon cheeseburger and tater tots - evidence that everything is bigger in Texas!

abandoned broken down house in shamrock

conoco station in shamrock - looks like one in the movie cars!

EVERYTHING is bigger in texas!  the left hand burger is a MINI burger...

With happily full bellies (those were some TASTY onion rings!), we continued along Route 40/66.  Our next detour onto Historic Route 66 occurred in Groom, TX.  There, we drove by the Leaning Water Tower and progressed through the town to the landmark known as the World's Largest Cross.  Apparently, there are four crosses in the world that are actually larger, but the name has stuck.

leaning water tower

world's (not quite) largest cross

at the foot of the cross

i don't know what version of the bible only has 6 disciples, but we made it 8...

We left Groom and headed toward Amarillo.  At the eastern edge of Amarillo we passed the Big Texan.  We had passed billboards since Oklahoma advertising a FREE 72 oz steak!  The deal is that it's free IF you eat the whole thing - that's FOUR AND A HALF pounds of beef.  In my book, the idea of eating that in one meal is just disgusting!!

72 ounce steak FREE (if you eat the whole thing)

We made a quick stop at Walmart in Amarillo to get some blue and gold spray paint.  Why, you ask?  Well, our next destination was Cadillac Ranch just west of Amarillo.  We arrived just as the sun was setting, making for some dramatic photos of the ten Cadillacs nose down in the dirt.  As graffiti is encouraged, we put our artistic skills to work:

sunset at cadillac ranch

there was a reason for blue and gold spray paint!

judy did her artwork on the first car, then i used her camera bag as a tripod for this shot

We drove to Albuquerque to the motel I had reserved, arriving late and tired, but having thoroughly enjoyed our day.  After a delivered dinner, we went straight to bed in order to get up before the crack of dawn - the next day was the day to reach California...

cross-country road trip version 2012, part 1

1 overloaded car
2 people who successfully did NOT drive each other crazy (at least not worse than we started)
3 planned "random" detours
4 nights on the road
5 days of driving
6 plugged in electronic devices in the car
8 states traversed
100s of photos taken
over 2800 miles driven
countless good conversations, loads of music played on the stereo, many additional random stops, and lots of laughs...

As planned, I spent Friday packing and cleaning and running a couple of errands.  Judy arrived a little bit late, which worked out perfectly since I got stuck in traffic on the way to the airport - she got to the curb a few seconds after I did!  We fought traffic back to my place where I started the pizza dough, then took off for Stone Mountain.  We did NOT get to check out the sunset - traffic ensured that it was completely dark by the time we got to Stone Mountain, but we did enjoy the walk up it.

judy, dan k, me, marius at the top of stone mountain

The view was beautiful with all the city lights and the Christmas tree of lights at the top of the mountain.  We headed back down and stopped by the grocery store to get some last-minute pizza toppings, then went back to my place and had pizza and good conversation.  Judy enjoyed meeting my random group of friends, and I was glad for a chance to say goodbye!

after-dinner picture with sarah, dan k, me, dan c, judy, and marius

The next morning, I woke up pretty early while Judy slept till 11, making up for burning the midnight oil for the previous week back at home before coming to Atlanta.  I gradually packed the car and continued packing the stuff in the house, and began a final cleaning job on the house to prepare for the tenant.  Once Judy got up, she was EXTREMELY helpful in getting the rest of the cleaning done as well as a tiny bit of the last packing.  Finally, just after 2 pm we got on the road, only 4 hours later than I'd hoped.  I wasn't worried about it as that night's goal was Nashville - the shortest drive of the trip.

overstuffed car - it was better than it looks here, we actually COULD see out the rearview a bit!

ready to take off!

 We had a fairly uneventful drive with a few rain showers, only raining hard a couple of times.  We arrived at Tiffany's place in Nashville and went out to dinner with friends of hers who happened to be visiting from Kentucky.  Before and after dinner, it was a lot of fun to catch up with Tiffany - I hadn't seen her since living in Tahoe, and even then only when she was home visiting her family.

judy, me, and tiffany after dinner at j alexander's

After dinner we went next door to the Commodore and experienced a bit of a writer's round, something common in Nashville, where several artists will be on stage together and perform in rounds for a certain amount of time - each one presenting one song before moving on to the next.  We then took a drive with windows open down Honky Tonk Row, where every bar had a live band playing, and there were street acts as well.

three women performing at the commodore

honky tonk row, behind a horse and carriage, no less!

We did a drive-by of my old house in Nashville on Sweetbriar Avenue.  It was fun to see that it looks just like I remembered, even though I was 6 years old the last time I had seen it.

sweetbriar avenue house, with a "new" addition on the back 

That day, we checked a box on Judy's bucket list by eating lunch at a Cracker Barrel in Little Rock, AR.  Shortly after Little Rock we made our first planned "random" detour to a place called "Toad Suck" - Judy had friends who had told her of its existence, so we stopped by for some photos.

judy posing with a chocolate frog at toad suck ferry lock and dam

After that we pushed on to Sand Springs.  That day's drive we saw wet pavement every time we stopped, but only had a very brief and light rain shower while driving.  When we arrived, Aunt Kathy provided us with a delicious home-cooked dinner.  It was great to catch up with her, David, and Jeff once again.  We didn't get to see Jeff's boys as he decided it would be nice to have a dinner without constantly attending to their needs, so he left them with their mother.

me, jeff, aunt kathy, david

After a wonderful night's sleep, we hopped back in the car and headed off for the next stage of our adventure, but first the chocolate frog had to be dissected - it was a large shape of solid milk chocolate, too thick to break into pieces, so I borrowed a knife and cutting board from Aunt Kathy to chop it into manageable chunks.

chocolate frog a la harry potter, courtesy of debbie

freedom!!! (and i went to arabia...)

I'm free!  I'm free!  I have eight months ahead of me that do NOT include sitting in classes!!  I just finished my last final today.  My final practical was yesterday.

Before all the madness that was studying and test-taking this week, I enjoyed a dinner and white elephant Christmas party on Friday night with Emory's chapter of Graduate Christian Fellowship.

gcf Christmas party attendees from emory with two from georgia tech

This past Saturday, I went to Arabia!  Arabia Mountain, that is.  My "little," Moire, and I went hiking at Davidson-Arabia Nature Preserve.  The two peaks, Bradley Mountain and Arabia Mountain are sort of smaller versions of Stone Mountain, but much less visited, and much more quarried.  There are a couple endangered species of plants on the stark landscape there, and a sort of surreal beauty in the barrenness of the peaks.

goofy girls near the top of bradley mountain

prickly pear?

evidence of the quarry operations, you can see stone blocks in the background

stark landscape, but beautiful

odd gatherings of stone blocks - why did they do this?

they obviously got large chunks of stone here!

ruins of a granite industry building

The 360 views from both peaks were gorgeous, much less city and more trees visible than from Stone Mountain, possibly simply because Arabia and Bradley Mountains are not as high.

Today after my final, I had my last frozen yogurt run with my "big," Kim.  And after that I went climbing at Stone Summit - my third time ever, and only the second time since living here, the first was the day after my interview.  We had a decent-sized crew from the Emory wall - Marius, Craig, Karen, Lisa, Jia, and me.

kim and me at yogli mogli

stone summit is so big!  so many options, so little time!

Tomorrow's plan is a lot of packing, sorting, and a trip to a thrift store (to drop off a bag of stuff).  Then I'll pick up Judy from the airport, we'll get a group of people together and walk up Stone Mountain, and come back to my place for one last hurrah - home made pizza!  Then Saturday morning the road trip begins...