01/08/2001
Well, we're almost home. I"m sending this from my sister's house in
Fresno, about 3 hours drive from Redwood City. The last travelogue you
received from us was from somewhere around Galveston, Texas, and we just
hit the wall. Too many new things, too much driving, too much cold
weather, everything starting to blur together - it all started to seem
like work, and not a vacation, so we decided to speed up our trip home
by a week or two after being on the road since mid-October.
We spent 5 days parked in front of Dave & Maryanne Hamel's house in
Scottsdale, AZ, which was relaxing. Cordula rented a car and spent 2
nights on her own in Sedona, getting her polarity reaffirmed inside of a
vortex or something like that. Sedona is an upscale tourist area known
for its spectactular desert scenery, arts, and for the purported
vortexs, which are said to be electromagnetic energy fields eminating
from the rock formations, which energize and inspire. I am happy to
report that Cordula returned safely and newly inspired.
In the meantime, Dave and I went to a Rangers-Coyotes hockey game, a
classic car auction, Home Depot, mideast and Indian restaurants, surfed
the web using his cable modem, and did other 21st century stuff.
Just to give you an idea how different the rest of the world is from
California and New York, we bought some scalped tickets for the hockey
game. We got 5th row seats for 20% UNDER face value, and a friendly
Phoenix cop told us about the official scalpers area, which was even
designated by yellow lines on the sidewalk across the street from the
arena.
Driving across Texas is a chore. It's big. It's nearly 900 miles
across on I-10. Post-Galveston, we stayed at the not very interesting
town of Seguin, just as an overnight stop and also the town of
Fredericksburg.
Fredericksburg, with a historical German population and culture, has
become a popular tourist center for reasons which are entirely unclear.
We will remember it for serving the worst restaurant meal we each have
ever had, anywhere in the world, and paying $35 for the privilege. It
is truly the only time that both Cordula and I have left nearly
everything on our plate - even their home-baked bread was terrible. The
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches we had back in the RV were much
better. We will also remember it for having only one part-time taxi,
driven by an 83 year old retired sailor, who told us stories about his 4
ex-wives and his days in the navy, as he drove us to and from our
culinary experience.
Fort Stockton, about halfway between San Antonio and El Paso, was one of
the more armpit-like places we've seen - bleak desert, with non-stop
winds, nothing much happening in the town, rundown from its heyday as an
oil boom town in the 1920's & 30's. The oddest thing was the owner of
the RV park we stayed in, who told me that she and her husband had
bought the place about 5 months earlier, after falling in love with the
area. To relocate to Fort Stockton, they sold their successful
waterfront business in San Diego, which sold fuel and supplies to
boaters. Ever seen the early '70's movie, "The Last Picture Show" with
Cybill Shepard? That was this town. Why anyone would move there from
San Diego generated a conversation between Cordula and myself that
lasted a good 100 miles on I-10.
El Paso is huge. It blends with Ciudad Juarez over the Mexican border
for a metro area of several million. It looks just like the towns in
Mexico we have visited on other vacations.
We did spent one night on our way to Phoenix in Las Cruces, New Mexico
which I had heard was an interesting town, but really was not, except
for a small historical district. And, on our way from Phoenix to Fresno,
we stopped overnight in San Dimas, California, in a surprisingly nice
county park.
So - another night or two in Fresno, then 3 hours north, and we are
home. It was a pretty exciting, interesting trip, and we look forward
to catching up in person with all of you. 3 months went by very, very
fast. Life is so short - we hope that all of you get to take 6 months
off and travel while you are still young and healthy.
- cordula and steve -