Help Me Get to Antarctica!

I've just entered a contest for a chance to win a trip to Antarctica with Quark Expeditions as a blogger.
You can help me win by voting for me. You have to register to vote but it's for a good cause!
You can also help me by telling your friends. Here are a few ways:

1. Share this link on Facebook or in an email to your friends:
   http://www.blogyourwaytoantarctica.com/blogs/view/340
2. Share this link on Twitter:
   http://echothis.info/12B
3. Or view my profile on Twitter @avoidingregret and RT my posting.

Here's a reprint of my essay entry, which you can also read on the voting page:

Seeking Grist for the Mill

A great storyteller said to me, "I'm a writer. I don't want to do; I want to observe." She explained that she wants to rewrite an ending she doesn't like - turning reality into fantasy. But I want to dive into reality, no matter how hard or unhappy it is, and convey that experience to people who are too scared, too responsible, too poor or too sheltered to do it themselves.

As a teenager, my biggest complaint was, "I have no life." My parents scoffed at it, and in retrospect I think it was because they had no lives too. My father worked two jobs; my mother did laundry. Neither had friends. They never traveled, and to this day my mother has never flown. My father still defines happiness as the absence of sadness. That's just existing.

After college, I moved to New York City, the most exciting place I could imagine at the time. I got a job in the music industry. I met celebrities and drank free liquor at parties. Still, I don't think I had much of a life.

After years of wondering what the point to everything was, I'm finally setting out to find out what LIFE is. I've just spent a month in the California desert and now I want to experience the extreme opposite: the bitter cold, wet environment that brings out a similar set of survival instincts among humans and animals alike. I want to tell people about it. And show them my photos.

I will not settle back into my old NYC lifestyle, away from nature, alone in a sea of humans barely living or needing to do anything to survive at all. In my attempts to live while avoiding regret, perhaps this could be the next adventure...

To help me become a blogger in Antarctica, vote here.
To become a fan on Facebook, click here.

Elegy for the Flightless Bird

It’s no surprise that while tooling around national parks, I come across a lot of retirees. For some reason, people spend their youth sitting cooped up in an office or changing diapers rather than really living while their bodies will allow them to. Once their careers fade away and their children grow up and move out, people reflect on their lifeless lives and hate themselves for what they are or what they’re not, and spend the rest of their time here on earth making up for the time that’s been lost.

One might say “Avoiding Regret” is a last-ditch effort by the quickly aging, whose Bucket List helps them figure out what they must do before they die. The problem is assuming that one’s Bucket List is or could even be finite – that you can conjure 10 or 20 activities (skydiving, making love under a waterfall, getting a mudbath, whatever) that, once completed, will allow you to die happy. In reality, if you’re really living, experiencing one of those adventures will make you think of two more to add to the list. And at that rate, if you don’t start on your ever-growing list until you’re 50 or 60, you will die with an overwhelming sense of regret – more so than if you’d never made your list at all.

I am young. I am not in very good shape or in very good health, and it’s probably only going to get worse as I get older. I’ve got to get my kicks while I can.

The last month has actually been relatively leisurely for me compared to the pace at which I normally take vacations or even NYC life, but I sure have crammed a lot in. Since I don’t know when I’ll be able to take a trip like this again (although I am looking), I wanted to end it with a bang. Taking advantage of North San Diego’s tremendous cliffs over the ocean, I took a flying leap.

I went paragliding.

a solo flight

Of all the aeronautic sports, paragliding is probably one of the least intimidating. Unlike hang gliding, there is no hard equipment or apparatus. Your wings are the soft parachute above you. Your seat is strapped to you like a backpack. Your steering mechanism consists of wires and two soft handles. You’re not being towed by a boat or a truck that can crash or go too fast or too slow. There’s no blazing hot fire above you or fat tourists next to you weighing your basket down. It’s just you and the wind.

And, in my case, the pilot strapped to my back.

Before I ever even heard of the Torrey Pines Gliderport, I was inspired to go paragliding after skydiving for my 30th birthday. In retrospect, I don’t know what led me to skydiving in the first place. I don’t like small planes. I get airsick. I have a fear of falling. I pass out under stressful conditions. But I wanted to do something big and splashy and invite some folks to join me, and it just seemed to fit the bill.

The event of it was fun and memorable – our caravan of cars driving from New York City to the Poconos full of snacks. When it came to the dive itself, the freefall felt more like an endurance test rather than an exhilarant. I wouldn’t call it fun per se. But when the parachute opens, dizzyingly righting you from horizontal to vertical, you get a nice, leisurely sail as you drop in altitude, peering over the mountains much like in a balloon.

I thought, if I can get that nice parachute drop without the whole falling-out-of-a-plane ordeal, now that would be fun.

So that’s pretty much what you get with paragliding, save for the whole jumping-off-a-cliff ordeal.

It’s a trickier science, too, because, like ballooning, you depend on the wind which is as unpredictable and fickle as anything. I first went to Torrey Pines on Sunday, immediately following some courage-inducing winetasting in Temecula, and was turned away because of lack of winds. “Um, we’re not taking anyone up that’s over 120 pounds,” the bleach-streaked girl said, sizing me up. I asked if I should wait. She said no. I asked if I should come back tomorrow. She said, “You can try.”

I put my name and number down but didn’t wait for them to call me about the winds. Monday morning at 8:56 a.m., four minutes before they officially open, I started calling to ask about the winds. “Yeah, they’re pretty slow…” a young man said in a slightly Mexican drawl. “We’re waiting for them to pick up. Maybe in another 45 minutes?”

I walked four miles in Balboa Park and called two hours later.

The girl from yesterday answered. “Um, yeah, there’s, like, no wind right now. We’re hoping it’ll pick up around noon? So yeah, maybe try again at, like, 1?”

Kiki

I really had nothing else to do, no greater goal than paragliding on Monday so I showed up shortly after 12. I put my name down and got ready for a long wait. A diet orange soda, a bag of Sun Chips, a surprisingly delicious chicken Caesar salad and a 19 year-old dog named Kiki (that ruthless beggar) kept me company while I ate on the sky blue-painted picnic table and watched the weathered and bleached pilots sit around and wait for something to do.

“Are you a pilot?” I suddenly realized a golf shirt-clad gentleman in his 50s was sitting to my right and addressing me.

I laughed, “No, I wish!” and he introduced himself as Greg. He explained that he’s a hang gliding pilot visiting from Austin, how much he loves flying in formation with the birds but how it’s a strain on his marriage, when he travels so much for work and his little time at home he spends as a pilot and not as a husband. So while on a business trip to La Jolla, he was hoping to rent some gear and get a flight in. He would have to wait longer than me for the winds to pick up enough for the heavy load of a hanglider.

We were joined by Walt, another 50-something who became a certified scuba diver only five years ago. He regrets not starting it sooner, and worries that his understanding wife won’t let him take on “another expensive hobby.” But he was trying paragliding anyway, taking his first flight tandem just like me. He probably knew that he’s running out of time. Maybe his list is growing too.

trying to catch the wind

After about an hour and a half of waiting, I started to see some pilots – locals and the gliderport pros too – testing the winds. One pilot got a good running start, caught a little bit of wind, and then lost it and sank over the cliff (presumably landing on the beach below). A few of them got their chutes up in the air enough to get whipped around as they tried to stand up straight, eventually losing the draft and deflating in a crinkly, tangled mess of wires.

The wind must have picked up imperceptibly because I saw the first tandem flight of the day to take off. That meant my turn would come soon. I could still back out. I didn’t have to do this just because I came twice and waited for two hours. I hadn’t even paid yet.

And then I saw a tiny older woman, maybe 65 or 70, 115 lbs (she declared though she looked lighter), feebly tip-toe over the red “Pilots Only” curb towards the field. She struggled to get her backpack on. Her feet did a crazy, erratic dance when the glider went up and the parachute wings were overhead. She stumbled forward, lifted her feet while the ground was still under them, and took off in flight.

I was not going to wait until I was that old. I may never make it that long.

It was my turn next, so I paid, signed and initialed pages upon pages of idemnifications, certified that I may die or break my legs and would not sue, and so on. I got fitted with a bright green helmet anchored with a digital camera that would record my flight (since they would not let me photograph it myself!). I walked onto the field, a little head wobbly, and handed my purse off to the counter girl who would watch it for me since I had come alone. Steve, my 50-something pilot, was gruff and of few words. He rattled off instructions which I forgot immediately, and strapped me in. As the glider lifted above us I stumbled like the old woman before me, and before I knew it, was letting the pilot behind me push me forward with his own run, sending my feet into a running stumble towards the end of the earth. Lucky for me, Steve was probably a good eight inches taller than me so my feet lifted before his did, letting him be the one to really take the leap for both of us.

A moment of panic set in. If something was going to go wrong, it would probably happen now, right after takeoff. Would we sink behind the cliff like the pilot I’d seen earlier?

Instead, we sailed straight out over the beach and hung a gentle right turn, getting a little lift off the wind and riding the ridge of the cliff north towards the golf course. It was beautiful, a bit cold, and surprisingly comfortable. You’re not hanging from anything. You’re just sitting down, having a nice little ride.

“You ever crash one of these things?” I asked Steve. I think I was trying to gauge my safety level as well as looking for a good dramatic story.

“Ha, nope. You wouldn’t be riding tandem with me if I had. We don’t let pilots who crash do tandem.”

So that means some pilots do crash…

Steve was confident enough to actually let me steer the glider for a good few minutes, speaking clear instructions into my ear – “a little up on the right” “now lean left” “pull really hard down on both” – and occasionally placing his hands on my forearms or elbows to guide me. It is a rare gift to see the direct effects of your actions on your movements, your direction, your speed and your altitude, and that is exhilarating. I felt in control, like I knew what to do even before Steve told me. Those few minutes as pilot (though still basically sitting in Steve’s lap) made the entire experience worthwhile, and more than just memorable.

We were in the air for about 20 minutes, and lifted to about 150 feet above the cliffline, about 500 feet above the beach. With winds barely gusting at about 10 mph, we picked up speed to about 25 mph and did some basic turning maneuvers – right, left, right into a figure eight – before heading back to the open field where we originally took off. Steve didn’t prepare me for the landing until he’d already started bringing the glider down, and only told me, “We’re just going to try to get you to stand.” I asked if it was a running landing and he said, “Nope, should just be a step or two.”

Panic set in again. The air is soft. The ground is hard. Would Steve be strong enough to land this thing gently without breaking my legs?

True to his word, Steve set me down from the sky on my own two feet, more gently than if I had stepped off a platform myself. I thought we’d bonded a little bit up there in the sky, with all the questions I’d asked him about flying and his honest and witty answers. But once we’d landed, it was over. Steve’s focus was back on the gear. And although I thanked him profusely and said all the niceties of meeting someone for the first time and sharing an aeronautic experience, Steve only looked down as he said, “You’re welcome.”

Some people aren’t meant for this earth. They’re meant to fly.

Since paragliding wasn’t that harrowing and was actually really fun and scenic, I’ve added hang gliding and parasailing to my list as well. And I’m not going to wait until I’m diagnosed with an incurable disease to start working on them.

Video of my first tandem flight (edited down to 10+ minutes, about half its original length), to watch click here:

Post by Sandi Hemmerlein.

To become a fan on Facebook, click here.

The Departure Begins

I didn't sleep well last night. Maybe it was the anxiety of packing, cleaning my room, and leaving the abode I'd called home for nearly a month. Maybe it was Vern's margaritas. Or maybe it was a gift from the universe, helping transition me out of the desert without feeling too attached.

I still got kind of choked up this morning.

If the universe was trying to make it easy for me to leave with a bad night's sleep, something else was trying to force me to stay. As I drove down 62W - through the "High Gusting Winds" warning signs - I had a particularly hard time driving through the wind. By the time I blinkered onto the 10W exit, I was gunning it, foot on pedal, pedal on floor, and still could only get to 60 mph. Rather than the natural shake and sway of the wind whipping from side to side, it felt like a wall that was pushing me from the front, if not pushing me backwards then doing a damn good job of slowing down my exit off the highway and out of the desert. Trucks passed me on the right. Compacts loomed in my rear view mirror. But I simply could not go any faster.

I eventually broke through the wind wall and began my journey down to San Diego, where I'm spending a couple nights before flying out on Tuesday. On the lesser-known De Portola wine trail in Temecula, the folks at the Frangiapani Estate Winery were having a slow Sunday morning and were so happy to see me. They didn't even keep track of my servings and just kept pouring more, asking me about my travels, inviting me to participate in their bocce tournament (for which no contestants showed up, despite their advance sign-ups). In a final gesture of hospitality, they set up a lunch for me using the food prepared for the bocce match-that-wasn't: herbed potatoes, chorizo burrito, blueberry muffin and a slice of orange. And, of course, more wine (and chocolate to accompany their delicious Late Harvest Zin).

Now how do I find a way to spend a month in Temecula? One could surely be inspired by its rolling hills, undulating white fences (some that hold no horses), and unique varietals. And one could sustain themselves on not only wine, but locally-grown and crafted cheese, berries, bread, and olive oil. I could think of a worse life.

The driving got easier throughout the day (perhaps thanks to the wine) but the rest of the day was not without sadness, wistfulness, or tears. Still, if I must leave, and I must return to New York, this is definitely the way to do it. And as I try to cram in some more experiences, hike some more trails, and meet some more people, I'll start dreaming about the next place in which to set up camp...

To become a fan on Facebook, click here.

One Last Night

My last night in Joshua Tree. I'm afraid once I leave I'll never sleep well again. In the cricket room, heat nor bugs nor wind nor coyote howl disturb my sleep - only the coming sun, first orange then yellow then white, snapping my eyes open without alarm, one morning after another.

I yawn sometimes when I drive, but generally, I feel rested. I rise early, water, hike, eat breakfast twice, and spend a full day touring, learning, trespassing, photographing until I return for sunset, exhausted. I retire after 15-18 hour days, satisfied. And I sleep, dream, with heat hanging over me, ceiling fan rattling, crickets chirping.

Today, on my last day, I attempted one last hike, twice, but at best got a hot, sunny walk in before one last meal and one last duet at the Route 62 Diner, this time singing in unison with Vern rather than the harmonies. The patty melt he made me oozed of tender loving care, carmelized onions soaking into the smashed beef patty, juices from both absorbed by the greasy crisp rye encasement. The cheese strung out from my teeth and held on tight. Not one fry was soggy.

I went to see Vern again nine hours later, this time for salt-rimmed margaritas and more singing, though our duet was drowned out by the karaoke singers hogging the spotlight. I started to feel really sad about leaving, even tearful. I would miss the little routine we had established over just a couple of weeks.

I too will miss the moon, glaring from behind leopard spotted clouds, the only patch in the sky. The free-floating skidding of driving too-fast on sand-filled roads. The subtle sway of a hammock under a dimming sun. The askance stare of a cottontail startled by my advance, still and trembling. The natural rhythm of moving through life, rising at day, breathing clearly.

I think most of all I'll miss the openness I've allowed myself. To go bowling with a stranger, tell my story and my number to any who ask, lay my soul on the line - these are precious experiences I don't remember having when I first moved to New York City. I recall a time much farther back, when I was released into the wild by my parents, who left me in my single Stillman Hall dorm room alone, refusing to join me down the hill for orientation as all the other parents did. I was forced to be open then; I had no choice.

I don't know if I want to be open in New York City, to the homeless, to the Moroccan guys who try to speak French to me, to the girlfriends of my male friends who try to figure out if I'm a threat. But I have to think I can bring some good experience from the California desert back with me, if not as a scar then as a souvenir. My tan will fade. I will gain the weight back. But what happens to my insides upon my return?

To become a fan on Facebook, click here.

A Calculated Month

I'm leaving Joshua Tree in less than two days. I'm starting to feel guilty for everything.

Should I not bother making friends now, at the last minute? Is it fair to bond and then leave them behind, as I left my New York friends? At least they knew I'd return.

Should I let the barista with the icy blue eyes charge me $3.00 for a $3.15 mocha and stop me from tipping?

Should I have spent more time at The Desert Lily, home of my artist residency, to let its rolling hills and fearless wildlife inspire me more? Are sunrise and sunset every day enough?

Should I have spent more time in Joshua Tree itself - either the park or the town - rather than gallavanting off to Yucca Valley for coffee every day or to Palm Springs for slushy cocktails and pooltime and bacon flights and Indian canyons and abandoned buildings?

Should I have planned to stay longer?

I have to believe that I came at the right time and I'm leaving at the right time, and that in one month I've lived more here than most of its residents live in a year, or perhaps even a lifetime. For me, a month is both a very long time and a very short time. What can I really come out of a month with? A lot of ideas, a lot of experiences, and maybe a couple visible changes, but I don't think any of us will really know what this trip leads to until after it happens. The story is still writing itself.

Because I thrive on lists and I too am a little obsessive-compulsive (something I should direct towards my dirty forks now and then), here's a little inventory of what I have gotten out of my three and a half weeks in the desert:

12 1/2 days alone
2 days at the pool
24 sunrises (I slept through one)
25 sunsets
1 full moon
2 night terrors
1 hour of light rain
1 lightning storm in 1 cloud
1 drama that was not my own
0 job interviews (besides that Minneapolis phoner...)
0 published stories
0 auditions
0 dates
1/6 date shake
1 size smaller
4 shades darker
1 missing hubcap
1 skinned knee
1 ruined pair of yoga pants
1 melted deodorant
1 broken toenail
2 pedicures
2 manicures
1 root touch-up
3 bottles of wine
5 live bands
6 movies
1/2 each of 2 books
1 baseball game
1 celebrity sighting
4 visits to Pizza Hut
4 ghost towns (not counting those surrounding The Salton Sea)
2 dry lakes
2 national parks (and 1 national forest)
3 state parks
21 hikes/nature walks (I think, so far)
21 1/2 hours watering plants (I think, so far)
15 miles per hour over the speed limit driven, on average
3490 miles clocked in on the odometer
110 degrees in the shade

And countless bunnies, lizards, flies, crickets, chipmunks, ground squirrels, quails, roadrunners, and coyote howls as well as windmills, gas pumps, cups of coffee, drinks of water, and stars in the sky.

Most importantly, no matter what my goals were or what goals I should or should not have had.....0 regrets.

Into the Wild

After decades of development, it's tough for any national park in the U.S. to really be wild. All the rock formations and mountains and lowlands have cute names and parking lots nearby. Most of the roads have been paved. And campground facilities including firepits, bathrooms and sometimes even showers have been installed with nearby picnic areas accessible regardless of how many wheels drive your car.

I've spent a lot of time in Joshua Tree National Park over the last month, but some of my most gratifying experiences were those that were the most remote. While at first I was frustrated by the lack of trailhead signs, trail markers and trail maps in JTNP, I've managed to navigate my way around largely without them, and now don't feel as dependent on them as I once was. As I proceed, I look for bigger challenges. More esoteric sightseeing. From the National Park Service I have moved on to the Bureau of Land Management and, today, to the Wildlands Conservancy. The properties they oversee aren't complete wilderness - like some of the off-limits areas of Joshua Tree -but it took some digging to find out about the sites, much less any guidance as to what I'd find once I got there.

When I arrived at Mission Creek Preserve, late from putting air in my tires which took longer than it should have, I started packing my water, phone and camera and switching from flip flops to sneakers as a ranger arrived. He got out of his truck, unlocked the gate, and before getting back into the driver's seat, took a look at me from behind his sunglasses. "Everything OK?" he asked.

"Yep, just got here! Going to take a walk..." I told him.

He looked suspicious. "OK...."

He'd driven through and re-locked the gate by the time I set out, heading for the backcountry board which usually tells you where you're going. "Want a ride?" the ranger offered.

I knew the Stone House was 1.6 miles away and thought I could save some time by hitching a ride up there and then walking back, so I accepted and hopped into the front seat once he'd cleared it of commercial paper towels and toilet tissue. The bathrooms maintained by the Wildlands are a lot nicer than those by the NPS. They have flushing toilets.

On our rough drive uphill, I asked the ranger, who introduced himself as Robert, "Don't many people come out here?" I'd asked the same question at Oasis Date Gardens when its workers were shocked that I wanted a tour.

"Oh yeah, some. I usually see one car..." Robert then explained that their other property - Whitewater - was more popular and had more to do, knowledge he'd acquired not only by working there, but by actually living there as well.


Along the way to the Stone House at the top of the hill, Robert pointed out a row of smaller stone houses and a painted-blue concrete pool, where, he explained, "Legend has it that Elvis and Frank Sinatra and all those Hollywood folks used to come out here and party." I remembered that another "Hollywood celebrity" had booked the entire Panamint Springs Resort in Death Valley the week after I departed.

Robert paused at a tortoise burrow along the side of the road. "See the hole?" I pretended I did but all I saw was what looked like a dried-up bush, a common roadside sight in the desert.

When Robert dropped me off at the top of the hill, he looked like he didn't want to leave me there. I was ready for some solitude and started walking around and taking pictures, leaving him with his truck at the summit while I started my easy walk down. When he passed me going back down the winding dirt road - hardly a trail but extremely walkable - he paused, gave me a thumbs up that looked like a question, and I waved and gave him a thumbs up back. I half expected to see him waiting for me back at the gate where we first met, but when I returned to my car, I was alone, pleased with the wilderness, and ready for more hiking.

A more experienced, energetic hiker could have walked to Whitewater from Mission Creek, but I chose to drive back down 62 to 10W, past the Whitewater Rock & Supply Company, and up a surprisingly paved road five miles to the preserve. This is an interesting area because the Conservancy is trying to bring it back to wilderness, having already demolished several "neglected" homes. You can see some stone foundations behind private fencing along the right side of the road as you approach the "official" entrance, which consists of a couple nice buildings (including a former trout farm?) and a ranger station. It doesn't look much like wildlands in Whitewater, with power lines and poles stretching out as far as the eye can see. But it sure is nice.

Like Mission Creek, Whitewater largely consists of dried up waterways, but whereas Mission Creek is running barely a trickle, Whitewater has a dry river that's still running as a pretty active, decent stream. "Crossing the river" - something you have to do to follow the stone-lined trail - consists of rock-hopping and walking across a tiny wood-slat footbridge.



I intended to set out on an easy three-mile loop trail, but true to form, I couldn't figure out exactly where it started or how far it went. I followed the famous Pacific Crest Trail for a while, as well as the California Riding and Hiking Trail, but the 10 o'clock hour brought a hot, bright sun blazing above, and with a depleted water supply and fatigued legs from a sandy scramble up a ridge, I turned back. For once, I didn't flay myself for it. I've proven myself enough to myself on this trip to give myself a break.

When I returned to the trailhead - and a rock inscribed with the distance to Canada and Mexico from there - I was greeted by two families splashing around in a kind of concrete pond, fed waterfall-style by runoff from a tributary of the river-turned-stream.

"It's very clean, all very natural," assured one mother, running one hand along the water's surface while the other hand adjusted her blue umbrella for shade.

Four or five kids had jumped into the water with their bathing suits, t-shirts or denim shorts, whatever they were already wearing. Another mother kept calling her boys back to slather more white lotion on their backs, not keeping them long enough to actually rub it in.



The water was knee-deep for them, though they sat, splashed, swam and submerged themselves in it. I poked a finger in, then a hand, marvelling at how cold it was. The boy with the black basketball shorts said to me, "It's not cold once you get in!" - the same line I'd often used on Edith, Michelle, and a number of strangers in the oceans and pools that I've visited.

I kicked off my sneakers and peeled off my sandy socks which had been worn on too many hikes already, pushed my cropped yoga pants up to my thighs, and sat on a rock, dangling my burned ankles in. It was numbingly cold, a real novelty for the desert, especially when chlorinated poolwater is as warm as bathwater. I stood up and scraped a toe against the slippery concrete bottom. Calf-deep and not nearly submerged enough, I crouched to let the water's surface reach my knees.

The sunblock mom, Jo Jo, kept beckoning me to come join her at the other end, but I was afraid she might try to slather me up too so I politely declined. With a shiver, I tiptoed out and dried my feet on the grass - grass! - collecting my half-empty water bottle and sneakers. I tried returning to my car barefoot but gave in on the dry, woodchip mulch and reapplied my dirty socks before hopping back to the driver's side where my flip flops waited for me.

What makes a place wild? If it is to be untouched by man, then can man bring an inhabited place back into the wild? With a place like Whitewater, whose human influence is so wonderful to enjoy, why would you want to?

That Really Lets the Air Out of My Tires.

Today when an exclamation point illuminated on my dashboard, I had to look it up to see what it meant. Not surprisingly given the dirt roads of the Joshua Tree Highlands and the gravel-ridden slopes of Afton Canyon, it was the tire pressure indicator. I'd spent so much time on this trip pressuring myself to be productive and see everything I possibly can in four weeks that I'd stripped my own tires of the pressure necessary to move me from place to place.

As soon as I saw the symbol in the manual matching the one on my dashboard this morning, I remembered seeing it once before: in Death Valley. I had driven down many a gravelly road to get to slot canyons and ghost towns and various other wonders that abused my barely hardy Toyota Prius to the point that nearly every warning indicator lit. With only one gas station nearby and most of my rough driving completed, I just ignored them and kept driving, returning the car with all its twinkly lights blazing, hoping that no one would notice.

I've never owned a car. I love driving but it's a different car every time: rented, new, borrowed, blue. And I rarely hold on to a car for longer than a weekend or a week, returning it safely to its rental company who are none the wiser about what I've put the poor machine through, especially in the California desert. Usually nothing happens to the car to require any action on my part: no flat tires, oil changes, or other repairs necessary. When I drove to Mohegan Sun after a snowstorm for an Irish Tenors concert (for work) and the windshield wiper fluid was out, I bought a jug of it at a grocery store in Whitestone and proceeded to dump it on the windshield when I couldn't figure out how to pop the hood.

This time, I had too much more driving to do to ignore the warning or fix it haphazardly. Adding air to tires seemed easy enough. I owned a bicycle pump as a kid.

Still, I called Maria for advice. Next to my dad, I hold Maria up to the highest standard of driving - not only because she's often been my personal chauffeur (bringing me to my parents' house, to my first boyfriend's house, to school dances, and all over an hour's radius outside of Syracuse) but because she drives for work and for pleasure, seeking solace in the open road as I do, whether alone or accompanied by me pointing and chatting beside her.

Maria didn't answer the phone. I left a voicemail that attempted not to instill panic in her. "Uh...just wondering how to add air to my tires...? No need to call me back...."

Next I called Edith. Until recently, Edith owned a Jeep that she almost never drove herself. So although she's not the most experienced car mechanic, she's a calm, rational person who is good at figuring things out. If she didn't know, she'd look it up online and report her findings to me.

Edith was at work, so not surprisingly, she didn't answer either.

I started to feel silly, convinced that I should be able to figure this out myself. I'd seen coin-operated air machines at gas stations before. I assumed that I should find one of those. But I was already at a 7-Eleven gas station and there was no air pump to be seen.

I called Eric, the primary driver of Edith's Jeep. He's owned at least a couple of cars in his life. He would know.

When I reached Eric, his advice was put simply: "Find a gas station and have the guy help you." When I protested, "But all the stations here are self-service...", Eric responded with, "Just find a machine and put 50 cents in it. I gotta go."

So I drove down to the Chevron in Morongo Valley. Air machine! Out of order!

Across the street to Circle K. Air machine! Working! Empty spot next to it! Unscrew caps from four mushy-looking tires. Discover one missing hubcap and imagine it rusting somewhere in the Mojave Preserve. Choice of two skinny black hoses, one for air and one for water. Push handle on one and get water dribble. Select other.

One quarter, two quarters, three...Whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr psssssssst....

Push silver pin cap into tire opening, and the pressure immediately pushes my hand away. Is this thing supposed to screw on? After a couple more attempts, I drop the hose to the ground, walk into the convenience store, and declare to the clerk, "I don't know how to properly operate the air."

He looked up at me with his hollow eyes, glaring bright white from a brown face, and said, "It should just turn on when you put the money in."

I said, "Yeah, I got that. It's the tire part I can't figure out."

One of the customers in the store - a black-haired woman wearing what looked like midnight blue scrubs - offered to come out and take a look. She started kicking my tires and rattling off PSIs and telling me not to fill them, they looked fine. "But the indicator light..." I pleaded.

She retorted with more numbers and said, "I used to do this for a living. You got a tire pressure gauge?"

"Uh...no?"

"Go on inside and ask the guy if he's got one."

I walk back in the convenience store, sheepish. "Do...you...have...a...tire...pressure...gauge?" as though I might use the wrong vocabulary.

I think he tried not cracking a smile. "Well I got one in my car. I can't fill your tires for ya but I can check the pressure!"

So the three of us marched back to the car, which was sitting silent and cooling in the shade of the Circle K. The air machine was quiet too, having used up its 75 cents worth of three minutes.

My companions began muttering to each other, arguing whether to fill or not to fill. I crawled on the ground to read the raised lettering on the back left tire that instructed its max fill: 44 PSI. All of the tires clocked in at about 30 PSI except the first one I'd been fiddling with, which was at 40. Apparently I did know how to get air in there. I just didn't know how much.

A quick zap to each tire and a double-check of the gauge and tragedy averted, mission accomplished, now break. We all went our separate ways as I called out "Thank you...!" like a naive city mouse visiting the desert for the first time.

Thank God for the kindness of strangers.

Maybe it was my imagination, but as I turned out of the Circle K back onto Twentynine Palms Highway, I felt a little lighter on the road. I'd been slowly sinking over the last three weeks and I was upright again, bounce anew, shock absorbent. And ready for another right turn onto the gravel-laden Mission Creek Road....

Post Script: Maria's advice, which arrived later via voicemail after I completed two hikes without cell service, was perfect, as predicted. For the sake of my knowledge and safety and her nerve, we have scheduled a lesson in vehicular maintenance for my next visit home...

On the NYC Waterfront: North Brother Island Revealed!

The City Concealed: North Brother Island Bird Sanctuary from Thirteen.org on Vimeo.

Signs from the Universe

When you could still smoke inside restaurants in New York State, Maria and I always joked as we were waiting for our food that the minute she lit up another cigarette, dinner would arrive.

And, like clockwork, it always did.



I've just booked my return trip home to New York, something that's released a wave of positive energy both on that coast and this one. I realized today, although I haven't gotten on a scale, that my clothes fit better and my body can move with ease and relatively without pain. I am very close to booking a new client starting the day after my return, picking up the slack where Ziggy Marley has left off. I booked an audition for two days after my return, which gives me an excuse to rent a car and drive to Neptune City (God only knows why it's in NJ) and explore the ruins of Asbury Park on the way back (with Edith in tow!). And today I (finally!) met someone with whom I could swap stories of ghost towns, abandoned houses, Mojave hiking trails and slot canyons. We talked for hours, swapping stories of crawling, climbing, digging, dirting our way through the desert.

Finally, I came back to The Desert Lily to witness the most amazing sunset of my trip thus far.

Things are good. I will make the most of the rest of my time here. But I am grateful to have an inkling of what I'm going to be doing with myself once I get back east.

Turning Yellow

The yellow traffic lights run slowly down the Twentynine Palms Highway. They hang low and linger, a silent cautionary tale of proceeding through them. But they do not turn red, no matter how far away you are, until you've passed underneath.

When you see the light turn yellow from green, the instinct is to either slam on the brakes or to speed on through the yellow as it turns red. But the thing to do here is just to keep the pressure on the gas as though there were no yellow light at all.