4th of july

the 4th of july presented us with a wide variety of choices.

we could go to philadelphia.

we could visit washington dc.

we could visit boston.

all wildly tempting with their richness in history especially as it relates to the founding of our nation.

the problem lay in my desire to avoid big cities. and in the reality that all of those cities would require multi-day visits to satisfy my history bug.

instead we opted for a more small town, traditional 4th.

and of course not being locals we did the only thing we could. we climbed in the car and drove around.

gettysburg would have been our first choice but lo and behold they held celebration on the 1st while we were galavanting around other parts of the state.

we finally settled on the town of fairfield, pa. with a population of a bit more than 600 souls.

it was the traffic sign that caught our eye. warning drivers of potentially heavy traffic due to the annual 4th of july picnic. how much traffic is a town of 600 going to generate i thought.

the gathering was held in a large park on the outskirts of town.

there were the usual suspects. bbq'd dogs, burgers and sausages. sno-cones. pop and kettle corn. there was a battle of local bands to raise money for breast cancer research.

at one end of the park was a rather large stream. teeming with children doing their best to catch the few bedraggled crayfish who had somehow failed to find adequate hiding places. cristian, as he has been apt to do on this trip, ran over and jumped right in. before long his new friends had taught him the ends and outs of catching crayfish.

i for my part pulled up a chair and spent the afternoon just being.

towards dusk the band battle was replaced by a patriotic song sing-a-long. while not a raging success i enjoyed listening to the large group of mostly seniors stumble their way through the songs. what they lacked in talent they made up for with heart.

the fireworks while not wrapped in the glitziness of some of the bigger displays i have seen were still exceptional.

across the street from the park was a large hill that in the winter passed for the towns ski resort. the fireworks were launched from the top of the hill. which in turn ensured that everyone had a great view of the celebration.

as we walked back to the car i remembered the sign warning of heavy traffic. i was reminded again of the difference between the big city and a small town when the heavy traffic took all of five minutes to negotiate before we hit the open road once more.

the return

we arrived back in la this evening after a final marathon of close to 42 hours in the car.

rather than camping or motel rooms, i just let cristian sleep while i drove and i took cat naps as needed.

we covered half of iowa, nebraska, wyoming, utah, arizona, nevada and finally once again california.

once we passed salt lake city there were several areas we drove through with active brush fires. so my lungs began to feel it even before we hit a major city.

las vegas was a rude awakening after so much time spent on the backroads of america. the air was so thick with smog i could cut it with a knife. it was even worse than on the drive out. and after so much time spent in uncrowded places the mass of humanity occupying the freeway near drove me out of my skin.

i discovered that i had forgotten how to drive in the big city. politely leaving space between my car and the one in front of me only gave every semi the idea that it was reserved for them and that i would back off. i was being cut off so often that i am surprised that my car was still in one peace.

the final stretch from barstow to la was even worse because the air quality mixed with the humidiy left much to be desired.

being back is taking quite a bit adjustment.

everyone is too loud.

everything moves too fast.

there are too many people.

on the positive side i saw jessica my doctor upon my return and thirty seven days off of the paxeva contributed to a net weight loss of 18 pounds. i feel so much better without the meds. and i will move from this place before i return to them. if i can be anxiety free somewhere else than that is where i need to be.

on the negative side there was not as much improvement in my lungs as i had hoped. breathing was easier obviously away from the bad air but when she listened to my lungs they were still constricted and wheezy. so my inhaler and i must remain tight for now.

of course there are many tales from the road still to share and they will find there way into these pages sooner or later.

34 and counting down

this morning begins day 34 of the 7 day road trip.

34 days........

i never expected or planned to be gone this long.

there have been many adventures both excellent and disapointing.

i have changed in ways i never imagined nor expected.

i have been inspired by some people i have met and left in fear for the future of the human race by others.

i have come to realize that what may good for others is not good for me. come hell or high water i have to leave los angeles for both my health and my sanity.

and cristian, cristian has changed more than i thought possible in such a short period of time. he has become more of a 13 year old. which as any parent knows can be a good thing and a bad thing. in my eyes it is all good because he appears to be enjoying life for the first time in a long, long time.

today is day 34 and we are only 3 to 4 days away from returning to la.

from returning to bad air made worse by raging brush fires less than 30 miles from my home.

from returning to all the stresses and issues that have contributed to my anxiety and panic disorder.

from returning to overpriced homes and over crowded freeways.

yet though as recently as a few days ago i dreaded this moment, i know now that i am ready. i refuse to take steps back. returning to medication and half living.

i know it will be hard but i also know that surrender is not an option. that i am stronger than i realize and that i will get my butt out of hell before the devil even knows i am there.

piece's of eight

in los angeles one is rarely exposed to the kindness of strangers.

a kind word is a myth.

a kind gesture seldom seen.

sharing amongst strangers is limited for the most part to four letter words and one finger gestures.

while rudeness can be found anywhere, i find that living in la has left me jaded and expecting the worst from people.

as often happens though when you come to expect the worst a stranger will remind you that kindness does exist still in this world.

we are in garrett, indiana at the moment. our plans for the area fell through and we found ourselves with extra time on our hands.

i am not a big movie theater person but cristian was dying to see pirates so to kill some time and surprise the kid we went to the movies.

in la two tickets for a movie will run you eight dollars a piece for a matinee and ten or more for an evening show. here in indiana it was ten total for the two of us.

than the problem arose. they were having problems with my debit card. after several tries i took my card back intending to head for the nearest atm which as luck would have it was down the street inside of the wal-mart. we hit the parking lot and the skies opened up. between the rain and the time i knew we would miss the beginning of the movie if we tried for the atm. as it was the last showing of the night we scrounged all of the change we could from the car and hoped that it was enough.

by the time we reentered the lobby we were soaked to the bone. cristian had all the ones and coins clutched between his dripping fingers. the kid at the box office helped him count it out and when it was all said and done we were a dollar short.

i figured we would have to run to wal-mart and miss the first few minutes of the movie. that was before the kid selling us the ticket reached into his own wallet and pulled out a dollar bill making up the difference. all he said when we thanked him was that he would hate for us to miss the beginning of the movie.

i did not get his name.

i do know that through his unsolicited gesture he made my son's night and restored a bit of my faith in the human race.

etiquette of the road

having spent the better part of the month on the road i have have had the misfortune to see some of america at its worst. not the towns or cities per se, though they have done their part, i am refering more to the individual citizens of our fair land.

eating lunch is not the place one wants to discover their fellow humans fascination for what they can pull out of their noses. it is bad enough, looking up from my sandwich to the site of a middle aged biker chick with her index finger buried knuckle deep in her nostril than to be exposed to her inspecting her discovery before she wipes it in on her significent other's vest. needless to say my burger lost its attraction after witnessing that scene.

then there was another biker who was staying at our campground in gettysburg. he was friendly enough. sat down where i was vainly attempting to get the wifi connection to last for more than ten minutes.

he chatted away and did not seem to require the occaisonal grunt so i he was not really bothering me. that was until he pulled out his canister of chewing tobacco. to each his own i thought and continued minding my own business. that was until he decided that the gravel at my feet was the best place for a natural spittoon and he started leaving nasty brown blobs around my feet.

come on people. i know our society is not one built upon the etiquette of other era's. we live in a kind of live and let live world. that does not mean though that we should just ignore the basics.

is it too much to ask for you to keep your knuckles out of your nose and your tobacco juice away from my feet.

please.........

yes, we have monuments and tshirts and keychains and .....

gettysburg is the good, the bad and the commercial of tourism all wrapped up into one gaudy package.

we began our extended tour on the 21st with a visit to downtown gettysburg. not surprisingly my first impression was of how disneyesque the area was. pristine building after pristine building. employee's dressed in period costumes. every store selling the same knick knacks from the same overseas sweatshop. just what you would expect from a "tourist destination".

some of the "junk" was more unique than others. many stores have various debris collected from the battlefield. pieces of cannonball's, grapeshot fragments, old bullets. boxes and boxes of the stuff. and all well overpriced.

instead of cartoon characters like mickey and donald the t-shirts all feature your favorite civil war general. anyone from lee to lincoln can be found.

further away from downtown near the national cemetary is where the tackiness is displayed proudly. circa 1890's houses have now become bastions of the bad tshirt and dull postcard. the fronts of most are haunted by the purveyors of gettysburg ghost tours. as featured on a&e or the history channel or the discovery channel or the local channel. every tour has been featured on some channel or another. it may have even reached the point where the tours outnumber the ghosts because i am sure that most of them have left the area in search of peace and quiet.

the big debate in the area is the possible development of a casino complex. the no's seem to carry a lot of weight with their concerns that a casino would take away from the history of the area. preserving historical areas is very important so there are places where future generation can go to learn. yet when the entire area is already commercialized what is left to be preserved.

it is rather ironic that the confederate army moved into the gettysburg area because of a rumor that they would be able to find much needed clothing and supplies. instead they found the turning point of the war and the beginning of the end for the confederacy. if they had only waited one hundred and forty years they would have been able to shop to their hearts content.

what the wifi

contrary to rumor we did not drive into the atlantic ocean. nor were we washed away in any of the recent storms that hit the east coast. we are alive and well i only wish i could say the same for the wifi connection.

blogging from the road becomes neigh on impossible when the wifi connection fails to cooperate.

for the past week or so the connection has been hit or miss at best. the campground we were staying at promised free wifi. it was free but despite the claim that my connection was good to very good i was barely able to check my email on a regular basis.

our new location though seems to have a much more consistent connection. if all goes according to plan i should be updating again in no time.