Cross-Country Road Trip! Days 2-7, Mile 1063: Family Time.

Okay, so we planned this trip around visiting O's brother, Rudy, in Massachusetts, but the start date of the trip was dictated by the 90th birthday party for my brother-in-law, Glenn Michel. Glenn is my sister Robin's husband. My sister died 10 years ago this year, just a few months after my mom passed.

Glenn is doing well at 90, and it was great seeing him and my nephew, my nieces, and my grandnephew and grandnieces, especially when we found out that my grandnephew and his wife are soon to have a child.

My sister, Catherine, and her husband David came as well. Unfortunately, my brother Burt was not able to make it, but at 87, I guess he has a good excuse.

After we left Las Vegas, we drove the 283 miles to Long Beach, where Glenn lives. Our hybrid averaged over 50 mpg, so we only had to gas up once at high CA prices.

The weather was beautiful and Catherine and David joined us on a short trip to Seal Beach, where O and her family used to visit when she was a kid. She has fond memories of sleeping on the beach with her family.

The beach is still beautiful. 

We strolled on the sand and the pier, then explored downtown Seal Beach. We stopped for cocktails and dinner at Walt's Wharf, a Seal Beach tradition.

Excellent martinis and grilled artichokes.

The house-smoked fish platter was delicious (albacore and salmon).

Glenn's birthday party was a lovely affair. It was great catching up with family we don't see as often as we'd like. The food was good, and the company was even better.

After the celebration, we headed south to Escondido to visit Teresa and Matthew. They are just beginning to enjoy being empty-nesters, and it was so good to see them living in a new way--peaceful and happy-- after the challenging years they've been through.

Matthew's mom died last month, and he spent nearly six weeks in England with his family before and after her death. So he was in a very tender place.

It was such a special time for the four of us to get together. We talked about life and death. We laughed. And we enjoyed each other's company on an even deeper level than before.

Of course, no trip to the San Diego area would be complete without a visit to Old Town. It's very touristy, of course, but there are some great shops and one of my favorite restaurants, the Old Town Mexican Cafe.

Great margaritas and fresh, handmade tortillas.

And some of the world's best carnitas. They offer three styles: shredded, chunky, and crispy.

Pro tip: order the crispy. The plate of porky goodness comes to you looking like a plate of hash browns--a flattened disc of shredded meat browned crisp on the outside and succulent and juicy on the inside. Accompaniments include onion, avocado, cilantro, and jalapeño. Wrapped in a warm, just-made tortilla and washed down with a generous pour of mezcal, it's a little morsel of heaven.

The weather was perfect--low 70s with a fresh ocean breeze--and full spring was everywhere--from the blooming coral trees to flowers in every hue.

On our last day, we drove down Point Loma to Sunset Cliffs. Again the weather was perfect.

The air was bright with the sharp salt scent of the sea.

Beautiful rock formations.

An aircraft carrier was leaving San Diego harbor with an escorting destroyer.

Sea birds abound.

T & M's cats kept us amused with their antics, especially 7-month-old Winston, a Russian Blue and, I firmly believe, part monkey and part liquid. He can flow into almost any position or nook or cranny.

It was a lovely visit, and we hated to leave.

But the road calls.

P.

Cross-Country Road Trip! Day 1, Mile 638: Viva Las Vegas!

 

This all started with O's desire to see her oldest brother, Rudy. He's getting on in years (as we all are) and his health is not the best. He lives in Massachusetts, so she hasn't seen him in quite a few years.

And while I took my first flight in two years last month to Hawaii, O still doesn't feel comfortable getting on a long flight.

Do you feel a road trip coming on? I do.

I did a cross-country in 1978, the year I turned 30, in a brand-new VW camper van. In August. With no air-conditioning. It was my honeymoon with my second wife. I still remember driving 500 miles straight, and I do mean straight, across Minnesota, 12-foot walls of corn hemming in the narrow corridor of road, the hot, humid air heavy with the smell of pig shit, with the windows wide open because it was even less bearable with them closed.

Fun times. So I'm hoping this trip will be different. We're driving a hybrid to mitigate the spiking price of gas. It isn't August. We have air-conditioning. And O and I have an almost forty-year bond that allows us to enjoy spending deep time together. 

We want to see as much of the country as we can, so we've planned a peregrination of prodigious proportions: a grand two-month circumnavigation starting in the southern tier from our daughter's place in Escondido through Phoenix, Socorro, Roswell, then, if we haven't been abducted by aliens, on to Amarillo, San Antonio, New Orleans, Savannah, and Charleston with many stops in between.

After that, we head up to Asheville and the Shenandoah Valley to D.C., visiting many Civil War battlefields on the way, culminating at Gettysburg. We'll stop in Philadelphia, NYC, and Boston, before ending the outbound portion of the trip in Adams, MA, where Rudy lives.

We'll come back in mid to late May through the northern tier when the weather, I hope, improves in that area. Ithaca, We'll drive through Cleveland, Pleasureville, Kentucky (where O's other brother lives), Indianapolis, St. Louis, Chicago, Wausau, Wisconsin (where my dad was born), Fargo (other than Alaska, North Dakota is the one state I've never visited), and finally Missoula where one of O's sisters lives.

The journey of 10,000 miles begins with a small (638 mile) drive to Las Vegas.

I hate this town. I love this town.

It's big. Everything is on a magnified scale, slightly larger than life. It's loud. Music blasting everywhere and the constant clatter and bong of the neon-lit, animated slots.

It's sensory overload on steroids. We noticed that Chinese tourist dollars are huge here. A large percentage of the casino patrons were of Asian descent, and the design of many of the slots reflect this. Many are dragon-themed, many have have Chinese ideograms and lucky imagery incorporated in their design.

The worst of American celebrity culture is on display here. Almost everything has some celebrity brand name associated with it. All the celebrity chefs, no matter how minor, have restaurants here; some have more than one.

And that brings me to why I love this town. First, it's an overload of eye-candy (of the eye-gouging sort, sure, but still), with people watching that puts Walmart to shame. It's also a convenient place to break up the grueling drive from Boise to Escondido, and we have found a laid-back, low-rise hotel that offers some respite from the horrors of the Strip (they advertising the largest martinis in town, which helps). but most of all, Vegas is a world-class food destination.

Gone are the days when casinos used $2.99 steak dinners to lure gamblers. Now patrons queue up to pay top dollar for top of the line cuisine and still are willing to dump the rest of their money at the tables.The place may be overrun by TV celebrity chefs, but there are also dozens of places run by exceptional chefs from all over the world. 

Including Japan and, increasingly, China. When we were here over New Year's, we wanted Peking duck, and we got it. However, the restaurant we really wanted to go to was fully booked. This time we made sure we had reservations, both for seating and for duck.

Mott 32 is a Chinese restaurant in the Venetian Hotel. It's named for the first Chinese grocery in NYC, which opened in 1851 at 32 Mott St. They offer a number of "tweaked traditional" dishes, most Cantonese.They also offer "42-day, applewood-smoked Peking duck." We weren't sure exactly what that meant, but it sure sounded good.

We started with (of course) a gin martini (me) and Grey Goose rocks (O). 

We dug the groovy light fixture.

We started with hot and sour soup dumplings. We agreed that they were the best soup dumplings we've ever had. The filling was pork and incredible fresh and savory ginger in a tasty broth. You dip them in an excellent Chinese vinegar that perfectly sets off the sweetness of the pork. The resulting combination of flavors is stunning. I may never be able to eat soup dumplings anywhere else.

The Peking duck absolutely matched the standard set by the dumplings. It was superb. The skin was crispy and dripping with fat, smoke, and savory spices.

The meat was also very succulent and flavorful. Definitely one of the best versions of PD we've ever had.

It was a lovely start to the trip and set a high bar for for the next few months.

P.

Visiting the Big Island 2: Hilo side

The first thing we saw on our way to Hilo was goats. There are lots of feral goats on the island, and some of them were waiting patiently at the side of the highway to greet us. I think they were pretty disappointed O wasn't with us.

As rocky and bare as the northwest of the island is, the northeast is wet and wild. The tradewinds bring plenty moisture, and the plant life is incredibly lush. It all changes in just a few miles, after a brief transitionary landscape of rolling grasslands that is home to the vast Parker Ranch.

Dozens of streams run down the hillsides.

I'm not sure what these trees are, but I love their shape.

As well as these huge banyans.

We checked into our AirB&B in the hills just north of Hilo town, then drove to a little hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurant for lunch with Emily's father's brother's ex-wife, who is a local. An odd connection, but she's still a family friend, and we had a great time talking with her about life on the island. She gave us excellent advice about our next adventure: a visit to Kilauea. We had heard it was best to go at night, but she suggested 3:00 am to avoid the crowds. She had just been there the morning before and told us that the volcano was definitely erupting. 

We were excited about seeing the eruption, though less so about getting up at 2:00 am for the fifty-minute drive to the crater. We decided that a 4:00 am arrival was just fine, and it was. 

Luckily, Katherine's directions were detailed and precise, and we were able to find parking and the trail to the crater in the dark without much trouble. The moon was still almost full, so that helped.

The first sign of the volcano was a deep red-orange glow in the sky. We followed it like a beacon to the viewing area, which was empty except for two other people.

Peering over the rim of the crater, we could see the blazing lava lake.

Fountains of molten rock were ceaselessly spewing into the smoky air. Everything was so quiet that we could hear the explosions of magma, like the heavy breathing of a large animal. In fact, it sounded almost exactly like the deep plosive exhale of a whale surfacing. 

We watched the eruption for about 45 minutes, mesmerized, then more people started arriving. Unfortunately they were talkers, completely disrupting the contemplative atmosphere.

As we walked back to the car, the stars were sharp and clear, even with the bright moonlight.

Because Hawaii is so far south, the Big Dipper and Polaris were low on the horizon.

While Scorpio was high enough for the entire tail to be visible over the trees.

And in the east, Venus was almost as bright as a second moon.

As the sun rose, we visited a large lava tube, the entrance shrouded with lush vegetation.

The tube was about 200 yards long and big enough to drive a car through.

Coming out the other end, we found ourselves in a lush tropical forest.

Tree ferns with huge fiddleheads.

A profusion of plant life.

We drove through the national park all the way to the coast, then found our way back to Hilo for breakfast.

Loco moco! Ken's House of Pancakes is a local tradition, and they make a fine version of this Hawaiian staple. For the uninitiated, that's rice topped with a beef patty, thick brown gravy, and two eggs. There are dozens of variations, many locals prefer Spam to beef, I particularly enjoyed a version featuring fried rice and crispy pork belly. 

The next day, we drove up the coast to see the sights. The scenic route was a twisty, often one-lane road along the shoreline featuring many small, picturesque coves.

Our goal was to find the trail to Akaka falls, which turned out to be easy.

The landscape was incredibly verdant.

The falls drop 442 feet and are surrounded by lush rainforest teeming with flowers and birds.

On the way back to Hilo, we decided to go for some goat therapy. The caramels weren't bad either.

We have the t-shirts to prove it.

In the afternoon, we booked a tour of one of Hawaii's many chocolate farm's, located in the hills overlooking Hilo bay.

Cacao grows well here.

Pods ripening on the trees.

The flesh around the beans is sweet and tasty. The beans themselves are edible raw, but until they're roasted, they don't taste much like chocolate.

The tour included a chocolate tasting, of course. Five different blends--including white, milk, and dark--all delicious.

It was John's last night, so we feasted on steak and wine at Steak and Wine, with a lovely view of Hilo bay. 

Martinis first, of course.

Next morning, we left for Kona early enough to watch the sunrise over Hilo bay.

On our way across the island, we had a view of the observatory (and a little snow) at the top of Mauna Kea. I planned to watch the sunset that night from the lookout at 9,400 feet on the west side of the mountain.

But first kalua pork loco loco at A-Bay's in Kona. So delicious.

I dropped John at the airport for his 11:50 flight, then headed down the coast to the southernmost tip of the island, also the southernmost point in the U.S. The point was incredibly windy, and there were windmill farms to take advantage of it.

After exploring the southeast of the island, I checked into the funky old Dolphin Bay Motel. The white Jeep was our trusty ride for the trip.

I got the last room they had, which happened to be a two-bedroom suite with kitchenette and second floor balcony. It was older, but quite nice.

I left for Mauna Kea in the late afternoon, well bundled-up against the high-altitude chill. At 9,400 feet, the view was spectacular. The summit is over 13,000 feet, but it was plenty cold and windy where I was, so I was happy not to go higher.

I hadn't really thought much about the wind chill, but it was bearable as long as the sun was shining.

I was able to shelter from most of the wind behind a sun-warmed rock and settled in to enjoy the view.

The sunset was worth the wait and the discomfort.

And so were the stars later. Eventually, though, the wind kept getting stronger and colder and I gave up, stumbling down the unlit path to the parking lot. 

Not before enjoying some spectacular starscapes, though. The stars around Orion were particularly brilliant.

Including the Pleiades.

Next morning, a friend joined me in the shower.

My flight home wasn't until 10:45 pm, so I spent the morning exploring the rolling hills in the north central section of the island, stopping for an early lunch at The Fish & The Hog, a restaurant John and I had seen  a few days before on our way to Hilo.

I started with an excellent piña colada.

Followed by a superb BBQ sampler plate. 

The crackseed sauce was the best. What's crackseed? I asked Mr. Google, who told me: "Crack seed is a category of snacks that originated in China. It is highly popular in many regions, such as Hawaii. Crack seed are preserved fruits that have been cracked or split with the seed or kernel partially exposed as a flavor enhancement." 

I drove to the far northwest corner of the island. That's Maui just across the water.

My flight (unfortunately not first class this time) included a layover in Phoenix. The flight from Phoenix to Boise took us over canyon country.

And so I retuned from a tropical paradise to the frozen north.

P.