Blogs from Alameda, California, United States, North America

Here's our plan! Our trip will take 30 driving hours which we will split into 4 days. We will be going over 1,800 miles, half will be in California/Arizona and the other half in Mexico. Day 1: Alameda to San Bernardino: La Quinta Hotel (it's dog friendly!) Day 2: San Bernardino to Nogales Arizona: Candlewood Suites (Also dog friendly) Day 3: Nogales to Navajoa, Sonora, Mx: Best Western Del Rio (Only dog friendly hotel in Mexico...well...almost) Day 4: Navajoa to Sayulita, Nayarit: Casa Tarzan (Great little villa with a pool!) We have rented Casa Tarzan in Sayulita for 3 and a half months while we house hunt. Wish us luck!... read more

JIMMY DOOLITTLE Actually Jimmy did quite a few things during the 97 years that he scurried around the planet. He was born in 1896 at Alameda but raised for several years during his early youth up in Nome, Alaska where his dad was a gold prospector. When he came in need of education he moved with his mom down to Los Angeles to attend high school. When it came time for college he went up to Cal-Berkeley in pursuit of a mining degree, but it soon became evident that he was meant for other things. When America entered the Great War Jimmy dropped out of college and joined the Army Flying Service. It was part of the Signal Corps in those days. As an aviation pioneer he set a number of important speed and ... read more

Second day: we meant to leave at 8am but the black out drapes did a great job of keeping us sleep till 8:15. We found the only Starbucks in town in a casino where everyone smokes and you can get an espresso shot in your Mai Thai. Again, these are not our people. Things I've learned: 1.  Eastern Nevada is very beautiful with is valleys of blue-green sage and high snow capped mountains. 2.  Everyone drives a pickup truck.  Some of them with one of those orange day-glow flags on a invisible-splinter inducing fiberglass pole that you used to put on your Stingray Schwinn back in the 70's.   3.  Marilyn knows the words to more Ramones songs then I do.  Curses!!! On these kinds of drives music selections are unspeakably important.  We do have a ... read more

Off the phone with him half way round the world How funny the smell... Strange how these stories keep repeating themselves like a broken record. Awkward moments, fumbling... Pretending. Never changing. But this time I know better. Love- ultimately it's certain that it's uncertain-that's just the way life goes. You and your beautiful, awkward - distant eyes I do remember, Yet from our lifetimes ago. Sometimes it's like fresh lime and crimson plucked from no where Ghosts. And I am definitely shaken where I am most certainly stirred. My blood rushes and I bleed I remember I'm sorry I remember. I wish you the best in your life and journeys my dearest, and I off to mine... Dramatic escapes and destination to recall the notion "Love never said it had to be me." And with that ... read more

Soon I will be off to Perú and then Ecuador. It feels fitting as it was 10 years ago this September (the 5th to be precise) that I arrived in Ecuador for my first big adventure on my own and away from home. This will be my third trip to South America, but the first time that I go with no obligations, schedules to stick to, or rules to follow. There will be no school, which is fortunate because I don’t think that in my old age I could handle either the plaid skirt of my Ecuadorian Colegio or the freezing classrooms of my Chilean Universidad. No host families or permanent roommates, which, has both its positives (no drug snorting off the kitchen table) and negatives (no one to help me around a new city and ... read more