The Scenic Route, Part Two

If you have a choice of two things and can't decide, take both.

       -Gregory Corso

The Scenic Route, Part Two

I JUST WANT TO GET THERE.  I just want to get out of this car and into the snazzy The Opal hotel and show these guys the town that is one of my favorite cities on the whole planet and wash the stink of Modesto’s Chateau Six off of me and maybe do some laundry because we are all beginning to smell like the dog who was clean when we left Arizona but has become funkier and funkier the longer she sits in the back of the car next to the cooler, poor patient thing.  I chose The Opal because it is called The Opal and opal is my birth stone and I thought that was a good sign so I called them and sure enough they had a room not too expensive and AAA discount and fine with the dog and very friendly not snooty. 

The freeway is wide open and nothing is holding us back and everyone is in a good mood and talking about the Golden Gate Bridge and when are we going to cross it?  Somebody mentions Alcatraz and I’ve never done that and I’m totally into that idea since I’m traveling with a bunch of boys and I know they would really enjoy it.  The last time I did SF was on the way down to Arizona with my son then four years old and we did a four year old’s tour of San Francisco which included the Pez Museum, yes, there is a Pez Museum just outside of town, a little hole in the wall very cool place that you really must go to next time you are there (Pez Museum), and then tons of time spent at the Wharf specifically Pier 39 which is designed to entertain children and take all of your money while you are just relieved that you have found something for the kids to do while you sit down and eat an overpriced crepe with nutella.  Thank God for the Aquarium (Aquarium of the Bay) which doesn’t really cost all that much and you can walk through tunnels of jellyfish swimming all around you and above you and pet the rays and anemones and starfish in the tank upstairs if you aren’t too skittish and don’t mind getting wet just a little.

The outdated satellite navigation system which I want to update but it’s gonna cost ninety bucks so I keep putting it off does find the hotel but announces it just as we are passing it so we have to drive around the block a few times on a bunch of one way streets while it keeps telling us to turn the wrong direction according to the map.  The weather is cool and sunny and just what the doctor ordered as they wait in the car while I check in and oh what a relief to press the brass buzzer and be let into a proper lobby with nice antique furniture and opulent carpeting and plush sofas and potted plants and for a moment I remember what refined means again and I think of my great aunt, the one with the beautiful crystal goblets that I inherited and still use to this day even though I only drink grape juice and not sherry in them.  The dog is really gonna like this place.  Let’s stay for two nights.

It doesn’t even bother me that they are putting us in one of the pet rooms in the back of the hotel because seriously this is still miles and miles nicer than any Chateau Six I’ve been in and anything would be better than Modesto and even this pet room in the back of the motel is pretty swank although we don’t have a good view but that’s okay because it will be quieter and the kids just watch TV anyway and we won’t be spending that much time in the room because we want to see the sights.  The bathroom has mirrors all the way to the ceiling and it’s so old school it feels like we are in a time capsule and I could be Grace Kelly and he could be Cary Grant if Cary Grant had tattoos which I’m sure if he had he would have made them look very classy.  I wonder if they would have made Grace Kelly stay in a pet room if she had brought her dog. 

So I change out of my shorts and t-shirt and put on a nice dress from Anthropologie which looks more expensive than it was and some nice strappy black patent leather Tahari sandals to show off my cheap Vietnamese pedicure and a great big fancy ring that became mine only after everyone else in the family died.  I swear if anyone ever tries to steal it from me I will give them a black eye with it first.  Add to that some more jewelry that I collected when I worked for a fabulous jewelry designer in Seattle (Susan Goodwin Jewelry) because everyone knows it’s all in the accessories and everyone judges you by your shoes.  All this to wander through the halls looking for the laundry room because I’ll be damned if I’m gonna pay someone three whole dollars to wash a single pair of my underpants but I don’t want anyone to know what a cheapskate I’ve become.  Me.  Grace Kelly.  Cheapskate.

So anyway at some point we finally get everyone all cleaned up and head out to find the cable car which isn’t very far away but as we’re walking we realize we’re staying in a really nice hotel in a pretty bad part of town although it’s difficult to tell nowadays because it all looks pretty nasty.  I swear back in the 80’s it was a much cleaner, sparklier, brightly colored place and I think it’s because that was before everything happened like the AIDS epidemic and the internet and the dot com bubble and the crash and the big earthquake.  Even the Starbucks looks run down.  But this town is known for rising up from the dust it just keeps going and people keep arriving to replace the ones who leave and they’ll never ever finish painting the Golden Gate Bridge. 

Somehow we all manage to not fall off the cable car and the boys even get to ring the bell which is so cool and I don’t even think they realize what lucky little bastards they are just because everyone thinks they are so cute but after several days packed in a car with these wild animals their cuteness has temporarily worn off for us.  And we’ve nixed the guided tour to Alcatraz because we’ve found out that it costs a small fortune and in June all that happens is the seagulls crap on your head and it smells bad and after all it’s just an old abandoned prison how depressing.  We head straight for the Wharf and wade through the crowds to that Pier 39 where all the action is and look there’s a submarine and look there’s a museum of old arcade games (SF Mechanical Museum) and look there's Ghirardelli and look there’s a guy painted all silver pretending to be a robot and look let’s go to the Aquarium and two hours later we’re starving to death and he wants to get oysters on the half shell but I warn him that June has no R in it and the last time I ate raw oysters in a month with no R in it I ended up puking my head off in the restroom so let’s not.  And I don’t want to argue about it I swear it’s not just an old wives’ tale it’s true and I don’t know why it is but I’m not gonna ignore the rule because I think somebody wiser than me figured it out a long time ago so get the clam chowder and the pan-fried oysters instead and we’ll share. I don’t care what the kids want they can have hamburgers or pasta forget about them they have no idea what they are missing just eat your food and enjoy the sunset. What do you mean you are cold I told you to bring a jacket we’re not in the desert anymore so you should wear layers!

The dog is back in the hotel room relaxing in luxury when we finally stumble in around 11pm because it’s a Sunday night and the cable cars run late but not frequently. Oh my gawd hurry up brush your teeth get to bed it’s super late and we need to get up tomorrow so we can do lots of stuff it’s our last day in San Francisco and we want to do it all.  And as we lie there in our two separate queen sized beds surrounded by children and dog he announces to the room, “I guess I’m not really a city person” which of course I already knew because he lives out in the country on an acre of land with chickens and goats and I think to myself here I am again in my favorite city with somebody who doesn’t really want to be here, which was pretty much how it was a few years back when I asked my husband to take me to San Francisco for my 40^th birthday and he hemmed and hawed so much I ended up having to plan the whole thing myself and found a cool cheap hotel close to Union Square on the internet whose main attraction was that the whole place was painted lavender but when we got there they put us in one of the upper floor rooms that hadn’t been redecorated yet so it just looked like any other grungy hotel and instead of asking for a better room he just went into a snit that lasted for the first three days of our trip and he didn’t snap out of it until he saw the huge parade of people marching through the city protesting the war.  So I think to myself, “Why do I always come here with people who don’t like it?” and I try not to think about the 80’s when I came here with my first serious boyfriend and fell in love with the place and stayed in love with the place even after he broke up with me and I gently shove my boy over further because he is hogging the bed and I try to not think about what Grace Kelly and Cary Grant would be doing if they were staying in this room.  There certainly would be no kids and no dog and just one bed and they would not be sleeping, that’s for sure.

And I realize I'm not really much of a city person anymore either.  I miss my garden.

Stay tuned for Part Three…

Yeah.  It was just like this.

 Mesmerizing.

Original material © 2011 betsylolafalanadowling.blogspot.com, Brain Fuzz & Betsy Dowling, All Rights Reserved

Grace Kelly & Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief (1955): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048728/

Thank you for reading my blog.  Anybody need a writer?

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I need to get that sat-nav updated.

The Right Plant in the Right Place

Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?


- Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Among us gardeners you will often hear the refrain, “It’s all about the right plant in the right place.”  What we are saying here is you can have a fabulously successful garden that will give you fewer problems if you can just match the natural requirements of the plant with the conditions of the site where it will be planted, i.e. soil requirements, height and width of mature plant, sun, shade, and water needs, etc.  Gardening in the desert has been especially fascinating to me as I’ve learned about desert-adapted plants that prefer poor soils and actually thrive in extremely parched conditions. 

You know, the more I get involved in gardening, the more I personally relate to the plants.  I know it sounds a little kooky, but I couldn’t help but think of myself in plant terms when I moved (against my better judgment) from Seattle to Portland.  I was sooooooooo embarrassingly homesick and I felt like I had been torn up by my roots and transplanted in a strange garden where I wasn’t really thriving.  So when the marriage blew up and my heart was torn out of my chest and stomped on the ground, I decided what I really needed was to completely uproot myself and start over.  And somehow I ended up on another planet called Arizona.  But can this moss-covered third generation northwest native adapted to cool temperatures and heavy rainfall punctuated by occasional sun breaks and Ivar’s clam nectar survive and thrive in a desert environment…and for how long?

After nearly two years in the desert I still feel unsettled.  My friends in Washington say, “Come home!”  My friends in Arizona say, “Don’t go – we need you!”  My friends in Oregon and the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles say, “Make up your mind!”  Ha!  Make up your mind?  Dude, I’m a Libran.  When presented with a smorgasbord of opportunities I grab three plates and take a spoonful of each one.  (Have you ever seen me at a wedding reception buffet?  Stand back!) 

One thing is for sure:  I can’t work in 110 degree weather.  So it seemed like the best thing to do was go home for the summer.  See my friends and family.  Recharge my batteries.  Go for a swim in the lake.  Ride ferries.  And, like 75% of the rest of the folks who live in Arizona, I found a house sitter and split town just as it was heating up. 

Well, I gotta have my car and I gotta have my dog.  And usually, given the choice between flying and driving, I will choose the road trip and take the scenic route.  So now, for our mutual pain and pleasure, excuse me while I channel my inner Kerouac to relate the experience of driving home in a car stuffed with two adults, two children, and a three-legged dog.

The Scenic Route, Part One…

OH HELL NO I’m not going to begin at the beginning my God I can’t even remember the beginning.  Somewhere in Arizona we filled the cooler with ice and snacks and the tank with gas and cleaned the windows and we just started driving driving driving until we got to Joshua Tree and found some big rocks and let the boys run around and yelled at them to get down and don’t break your teeth and please I just want to get you to your father in one piece and stand here let me take your picture but watch out for rattlesnakes and hurry up get back in the car cuz we’ve got to get to the motel in Twentynine Palms cuz we’ve already paid for it godammit and they have a swimming pool and a hot tub and where’s the dog somebody please get the dog in the car and gimme a poop sack. 

Current Fascination aka Semi-Serious Non-Relationship and his nine year old Evil Angel of a son are our companions on this road trip from hell, this epic journey to the West, this coastal quest, this endurance test of our friendship and our parenting skills in this careening silver Subaru soon to reek of Sweetarts and salt water taffy and sweaty three legged dog where’s the dog get the dog in the car and gimme a poop sack.  First stupid night at Le Chateau Six in Twentynine Palms where pets are accepted no questions asked and no extra charge and we’ve already managed to lose the road atlas how can you lose a road atlas they are so huge?  It was right there on the bed last night I swear it was and you saw it too and we tore apart the whole room and all the bedding and it is totally gone how bizarre there must be a vortex here. 

Current Fascination has travelled to parts of Europe but not around this country much and he is so excited to get to Yosemite and see the geyser that goes off every hour and I cringe when I realize he thinks we’re going to Yellowstone poor guy already thinks he’s stupid even though he’s not but he says his parents raised him like a mushroom.  Kept him in the dark and fed him shit. 

I’m not his mama but I knew his mama and it breaks my heart every time he tells me stories about what really happened to him as a kid and I want to undo all the damage and start his life afresh and re-build his self-esteem but I’m not his mama and I’ve already got a kid and yet I have to break it to him that Yosemite does not have any geysers but there is a beautiful waterfall and lots of trees and huge rocks and maybe we’ll see a real live bear and please keep the dog in the car.  And I promise him that one day I will take him to Yellowstone and then we will go to Jellystone and see Yogi Bear and maybe Boo Boo too if we are lucky.  But first we need to go to France to see his grandmother before she dies.  He’s got the money and I’ve got the air miles.

When he told me all the places he wanted to see and said he would pay for the trip if I would do the driving but he could only take seven days off work I said no way buddy we gotta have at least ten days in case there are delays there are always delays on road trips especially with kids and dogs like my dog had diarrhea for four days on the way down to Arizona so please tell your boss you gotta have ten days and I promise I will get you there alive and home on time so you don’t get fired and why is your boss being a butthead about this when he doesn’t have enough work for you anyway?  Then he wanted to rent an RV and pull my car behind until I did the research and dude do you know how expensive that is and it would leave us no money for treats and adventures and museums and restaurants and I told him dude you are high maintenance and that got his attention thank God cuz Jeezus Christ I did not want to drive an RV pulling a frigging Subaru on that winding coastal highway.  We woulda been Those People, you know the ones you get stuck behind because they can’t go fast enough up the hill.  I’m not old enough to be Those People yet.

Driving up the east side of the Sierra Nevadas and it looks like there’s nothing out there but I know better cuz I’ve been here before a long time ago with some old boyfriend and there’s actually so much to see and do like tons of hot springs everywhere but we don’t have enough time for that so we bust a move to Mammoth Lakes where we can see the slopes and they even have snow and we can venture up to Mono Lake and float in the salty water and climb on the Tufa stacks and oh crap it just snowed at Yosemite and they closed Tioga Pass and we can’t get out of here until Saturday morning oh well the Chateau Six is pretty nice here and Mammoth is beautiful so let’s just enjoy it and stop bitching about everything I swear you are all such complainers keep it down in the back I swear you kids are so ungrateful we just gave you candy and you just want more more more and it’s never enough please clean up the back seat it looks like a homeless encampment put the wrappers in the trash bin and keep your toys in that box and why are there Cheetos everywhere and who spilled the water? 

Two nights in Mammoth and the lakes and the waterfall and the gondola ride and the pizza and the cable TV and we’re hitting ourselves cuz there’s no time to ski and I forgot to learn how to ski and anyway I don’t want to break a leg and we finally make it to Yosemite where there is snow everywhere and it’s stunningly gorgeous and there’s some absolutely insane guy skateboarding down the steep pass road at breakneck speed and I seriously think we’ve just witnessed someone committing suicide because how the hell is he gonna stop?  Twenty three bucks to get into the park but it’s worth it cuz it’s beautiful and we have to go this way anyway and then it’s a straight shot to San Francisco we should be there by four pm and let’s stop at this river and everyone have a pee and wow look at the scenery let’s take some pictures and run around in the snow and hurry up get back in the car where’s the dog somebody please get the dog in the car and gimme a poop sack.

Let’s just quickly go left here and we’ll just quickly take a look at Bridal Veil Falls and Half Dome yes it’s a big rock and no I don’t know what they did with the other half of it and oh shit why is there so much traffic here how do we get out of here I don’t want to get stuck in traffic go left here no they won’t let us through what the hell is going on why is there so much traffic it wasn’t like this twenty years ago why do they keep letting cars in it’s just getting worse this is crazy I have to go to the bathroom again just keep it idling and I’ll be right back but don’t leave me if it starts moving again.  Listen to the radio to see if we can find out what’s going on oh my God I can’t believe it’s like a parking lot has it really been three hours???  Just a second I’m getting a text message who is it from oh it’s my friend in Scottsdale what does he want?  He wants me to send him a naked picture? What is he talking about what is wrong with him is he drunk?  Dude, that is gross and obnoxious and disrespectful and just because I let you pay for dinner last Monday doesn’t mean you can treat me that way and I am stuck in a traffic jam in Yosemite godammit what the hell is wrong with people these days?  I am furious when we finally get out of there and demand my money back from the ranger who gives me a complaint form to fill out and godammit I will because they should stop letting people in when it gets that crowded and now we are behind schedule again and we have to stay at a really crappy Chateau Six in a really crappy part of Modesto because it’s the only thing available on such short notice and we are all exhausted but the boys are super excited when they find a dead cat under a bush next to the parking lot and I just want to get the hell out of there and away from Chateau Sixes and I get on my computer and manage to find a lovely boutique hotel in San Francisco that accepts dogs for ten dollars extra which always cracks me up because my dog is perfection and it is the kids they should be worried about.  The Opal Hotel SF

Push on to San Francisco oh my Gawd we are almost to the coast don’t stop for anything let’s just get there and find our hotel and go down to the Wharf and I really want seafood any kind of seafood and some clam chowder and we gotta ride a cable car but wait the dog needs to pee no don’t get out of the car just stay in the car this is just for the dog everybody stay in the car and somebody give me a poop sack.  Stop arguing and keep your hands to yourself I swear it is like you are reading from a script I swear I’m gonna invent a card game for road trips and call it Cliché and every time you guys say stop copying me and stop touching me and he’s crossing the line and stop looking at me I’m gonna hand you a Cliché card and you will have to read a new script and change the subject.  Now put that stick down I said put that stick down hello can you hear me?  Now get it out of his face put that stick down now or I will take it from you get it away from his eye and I know he is being obnoxious but you are as bad as he is so give me that goddam stick!  Now stop crying I did not hurt you, you hurt yourself cuz you were being uncooperative and I have a witness so don’t you dare say I hit you cuz it’s a lie and you know it and as God as my witness just get back in the car!

Stay tuned for Part Two…

Hunky Jesus!

Oh, sweet blasphemous San Francisco.

Original material © 2011 betsylolafalanadowling.blogspot.com, Brain Fuzz & Betsy Dowling, All Rights Reserved
Image of Hunky Jesus available at http://crushable.com/other-stuff/the-daily-wtf-hunk-jesus-calendar/

Youtube video of the eternal Judy Garland singing the Trolley Song in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037059/
Thank you for reading my blog. Please make checks payable to Betsy Dowling or make your donation through my Paypal account:  seattledowling@gmail.com (Hey, I'm not too proud to beg.  The kid needs oral surgery and braces and Daddy has still not won the lottery.)