The best danged trip

I have found the best excuse for going to California twice a year--Rosen Movement Intensives so I can get certified to teach. What a fabulous coincidence that the Rosen Center that I'm getting certified through is in Pacific Grove.

Courtney had already planned to be in Berkeley for Ruby's first birthday, so when the Intensive was scheduled oh so close to her birthday, viola! We had a trip in the making.

For days before take-off we watched the weather forecasts and then finally broke down and bought chains. For a man who loves warm weather and sunshine and fears and loathes the cold and snow, you can imagine how excited Courtney was about driving over mountain passes during a snow storm. But he did it!! Here he is on the first leg of the trip negotiating his way back from the rest stop bathroom through the snow and ice.




We have a great little routine we follow on our trips to California--a certain place we like to stay in Red Bluff, our favorite Thai restaurant, espresso stops at Pete's Coffee. So once we made it through the pouring blinding snow on the passes, and then the pounding rain in Northern California, the rest of the drive was a breeze.

One of my favorite places on the planet, as I have said previously, is the home of our dear buddies Margot and Allen, and by proxy our buddy Kerry.





Staying there is like one big slumber party. Allen's up early making coffee for the gang and reading the paper. Kerry's there for breakfast with us.



Here's the view from the kitchen windows looking out into the backyard....




and a close-up with the bird feeders....




and from the backyard looking toward the kitchen.




One of the big treats of this trip (and there were many) was that Maya and Ben and Maya's partner-in-crime Sarah were in Monterey at the same time as we were. Maya had finished her job at the Hilton Garden Inn (more on that later!) and had vacation time to spend before her new job started (aren't you dying to know what the new job's about?!?).

Sarah had never seen Monterey before and Maya hadn't been there since she was pregnant (3 years ago), so here was another trip destined to be. They loaded up Ben, the dvd player and his favorite movies and headed south just a couple of days ahead of us.

When Maya figured out that they could be on the Monterey Peninsula at the same time as us she asked for a time to get together with old friends of mine who had been in her life since she was Ben's age--Margot and Allen, Kerry, Pamela and Caren. Margot offered their house and everyone brought food and flowers and gifts--and most of all, their love.




It was such a precious time with Maya getting to catch up with my old buddies and share the news of her new life. These are friends that we didn't just know since Maya was a toddler, but that we lived with at times--in their driveway in our old Volvo wagon, in their yards in our school bus. And more recently they helped with Maya and Eder's wedding. Good friends.

Ben was just as happy as a clam--lots of attention and Margot had the best grandchildren toys, plus...




....cute little Annie who was such a sport. Yes, she's been raised around lots of children.




Here's the gang, below, including other significant members in our lives, Helen and David. Courtney was missing, though, because he'd gone south with his brother Steve to see their sister Nancy and her husband Sarge in Arroyo Grande. (Just to make their roadtrip even more special they came back by way of the Big Sur coast.)



A couple weeks before our trip, Helen (on the left) proposed a potluck dinner as a way to see our peace friends while we were in town. She suggested the new Peace Resource Center for the place to gather and we started emailing each other back and forth about the guest list. At some point our emails and phone calls crossed paths as we both proposed that the dinner be turned into a much-needed fundraiser for the Center. Helen dubbed it the Founders Day Dinner and put out the invitation!

When we started the Monterey Peace and Justice Center in 2004, it was housed in a tiny space in Pacific Grove. It was a sweet little upstairs location with a view of the bay and dirt cheap rent. We had a spill-over space next to us that we could rent for events, but the Center itself could only hold about 9 or 10 people at once.

After a couple of years we moved to a new location, in Monterey, in a downstairs space but still tiny and with a tiny rent. It was one step better but still not what we needed. Everyone's desire was to have a large enough Peace Center to have big events in--speakers, films, dinners, teach-ins, productions and fundraisers.

Last year it happened! Janet, on the Board of the Center, found a location in Seaside with storefront windows, a great big space for large gatherings, plus office space. It's fabulous and is being put to very good use. The only downside is the high monthly overhead. Dang!





Not surprisingly, the first thing I did when we got to the Center was cry. All I could think of was the Sonoma County Peace & Justice Center that I had so coveted over the years, and here it was! Just as big and beautiful, and full of people I love!




It was a wonderful wonderful evening, one of those I'll probably always remember. I only wish that I'd had much more time to talk with each person there. (The time flew by and I left wishing for more, but it was great.)

Courtney and I stood up and talked about what our lives are like in Corvallis and what we're involved in now. I made a pitch for people to financially support this precious entity they have in their midst and to constantly nurture it.

Then the director Karen took over and listed one by one the accomplishments of the Center over the last year. (When I was director we had three service learning students each year from CSUMB working with us. This year they have 14. And on and on like that. The Center and its influence has grown exponentially.)





The long and short of it is that we raised $1500 that evening--and had a great time doing it!





If anyone ever wants to make a contribution in my honor, please make it to the Peace Resource Center in Seaside, California. (Is it fair to be soliciting like that in my blog?!?)

Meanwhile, as I was busy learning anatomy and movement each day, Courtney was busy visiting dear friends. Two of them, Rosanna and Tasha, live in Carmel, so that's where he started.




Tasha has a fabulous little house in the Highlands where she spends a good deal of time in her gardens and, as you can see, it certainly pays off.



Courtney used to house-sit for Tasha when she was out of town and I got to stay there once. It's a sweet sweet place...



...and she's a very dear friend.




One significant piece of the trip plans was that Jer, Pamela and Ruby were coming to Carmel for the weekend to celebrate Ruby's birthday with us and Pamela's parents and Jer's mom. At the last minute the plans changed and we decided to go to Berkeley instead. (On Friday, I went to my Intensive class reluctant to ask my teacher Jane if I could skip class the next day to go see Ruby. It just so happened that Jane had just become a grandmother for the first time the night before, so....!)

On our way to Jer and Pamela's we stopped at the Emeryville Marketplace for lunch. If you haven't been you must go!! Ohmygosh, it's an enormous food court with aisles and aisles of vendors selling every kind of food you can imagine--Cajun, Soul Food, Crepes, Lebanese, Afghani, Sushi, Hawaiian, and on and on. We chose yummy Thai food and sat and watched the streams of customers from around the world. We're not in Corvallis any more, Toto.

Next stop was the palace of Ruby Alice. You can tell by this first picture that it takes her a few minutes to eye the situation and determine just how chummy she wants to get. (Also she's been well trained because of Jer's practice of Ruby-a-day photos and holds her pose until the camera clicks.)




But it doesn't take long for her to warm up to us and soon she set to work on the important stuff--a big bag full of colored tissue paper and other fun stuff.





Ruby's quite the independent and organized one-year-old. She pulled out one thing at a time--checked it out thoroughly, played with it, read it, looked it over, and then went in for the next.




I'm sorry that the other pictures from this series were too blurry to use. They showed a world of colored tissues covering the floor with their big black dog Hoyt laying in the middle of it all and Ruby methodically going for more. But this gives you an idea....




One thing we can safely say about Ruby is that not much gets past her. As soon as Pamela fired up the mixer Ruby wanted to see what was up.




Hmmmm? What can this mean?.....





....and an hour later here came the answer.





Don't we all wish we had a mom who would put a piece of warm, moist chocolate cake with chocolate frosting in front of us and just let us at it!?! Ruby was not much interested in eating the cake. Jer and Pamela tried putting little bits in her mouth, but she acted like Hey, you're messing with my art project! The dogs dutifully waited under the highchair for cake to fall their way and caught the pieces in mid-air. Total fun with very little clean-up involved.




An afternoon of playing with Ruby and visiting with Jer and Pamela, coffee with Frank and Margaret, tea with Caren, dinner with Lisa and Jerry, watching the Amgen Tour of California with Kerry and seeing her brand new office in downtown PG, visiting with Linda at Alpha Stationers, traditional dinner with Helen at Turtle Bay Taqueria, Thai dinner with Margot, Allen and Kerry, breakfast with Courtney's extended family in Berkeley--each one of these meetings with dear friends was so precious--and much too brief.

I hope my mind stays intact enough that I can always remember this trip and every detail of it. (Is that too much to ask?!?) It's safe to say it was one of the best times of my life. Kind of a week-long love fest. And then the fun of the road...





On the way down, in the snow storm (remember back then?) we couldn't see Mt Shasta at all, so on the way home I snapped dozens of photos--mostly from the moving car so they didn't turn out all that clear. But here's a few. That's not clouds hovering over the trees in the middle, but Mt Shasta.




And here's our favorite little town, Mt Shasta City, and you can see how close they are to the mountain. It literally looms over the town.



We love to stop there for breakfast at Lilly's and then go next door to Seven Suns for espresso before hitting the road again. Besides the great food, Lilly's gives you the real feeling of being in a small mountain town--big windows looking over the snow, the locals all know each other. And Seven Suns is owned and run by two Middle Eastern couples, best friends, who between them have seven sons.

A few years ago, when they first bought the place, we were passing through and met them while they were learning how to operate the espresso machine. So it was great to see the place full of locals and hopefully thriving. (Sevens Suns is the place I've mentioned before with the sign that says "Unsupervised children will be given an espresso....and a puppy.")




Back on the road again, heading north, and watching Mt Shasta in the rear-view mirror.




This very northern part of California is always fascinating to me and Courtney. It's wide wide open with just a tree here or there, cows here or there, a lonely farmhouse once every great while. Sparse in every way.

But there's also these signs of history and what might have been, like this barn shown below.



There was a movement long ago to secede from California. The people of that area (mostly ranchers and farmers) got nearly no help from Sacramento (and they were too far from Salem) as far as roads and services go. They decided to break away and form the State of Jefferson. They were stopping people on the highway and passing out pamphlets on their proposal. The day before they were supposed to put something into effect legally, the attack on Pearl Harbor happened. They scrapped their plans, declaring that the state of the Union was more important than roads.

So our last stop in California was at a rest stop by the Klamath River and there they had a great little information center, with stories about the State of Jefferson. The woman staffing the Center that day had grown up right in that area and she had great stories to tell. It made for the perfect ending of a fabulous trip.




So we end just as we started out: with Courtney making his way back from the rest stop bathroom, but this time under these enormous trees and without the snow.




Even though the Rosen Intensive was the impetus for this trip, you don't really see what a major component it was by these photos. (That's a whole 'nother story of love and blessings.)

Between the days of Rosen classes were all these precious little moments that I hope to hang onto--early morning coffee with Allen, a walk to Lover's Point with Margot, snuggling on Kerry's sofa to watch the bike race. Everything was a bit of a blur and a rush, to fit so much in to such a short time frame. But I need to be content with all the pleasure I had. (This seems to be a reoccuring theme in my life--I've been given enormous blessings, but"enough time" is not one of them.)

This trip reminded me that no matter how much I love my life in Corvallis--and I truly truly do--I also miss you old friends and organizing buddies in Monterey very much. So many thanks to Jane, my esteemed Rosen teacher, for creating a Rosen Center in Pacific Grove and offering the perfect excuse for another trip to California!

And thanks to everyone who made it all the way through this very long entry. You'll have to tune in again for the next installment--Maya and her new job, and Alison and her two great novels!

With love,

Valori