Be It Ever So Humble...

Ah, home.

We arrived last night at about 7 PM. Since it was my day to drive, Bruce got a nap. He unloaded Henry with a little help from N. while I had a Guiness Draught and put my feet up. We were just in time to watch the sunset from our bedroom patio doors.

It was nice to walk through the house and feel the familiar space. The dogs were overjoyed to see us and did their happy dances. The cats?

Cloudy: "Will you greet them or should I?"

Binky, while grooming his forepaw: "I greeted them last time. It's your turn."

Cloudy: "If I must..."

Binky: "But wait! It's dinner time. I think you should meow at the door. It's your turn. And besides, you have the loudest meow. I have a hard time sounding Siamese..."

Ah! Home Sweet Home!

Travelogue III: Two Bridges to Camp

Sunday, August 12, 2007: We woke up in Auburn, California, which is in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. We missed seeing the Sierra from I-80, because we made the drive from Reno to Auburn at night. I really regretted that, because the Sierra was formed by the building of California by suspect terranes, and I wanted to see some of the terranes. But, we were closer to where we needed to be and planned to take a drive through Oakland, Bruce's hometown, before proceeding on to Bolinas, where the COTE Cyote Tracks Camp was to to take place. The drive to Oakland started in the foothills of the Sierra and then we quickly descended into California's Central Valley, a unique landscape created by a change in subduction zones toward the end of the Mesozoic period. I-80 crosses the great Central Valley on the Sacramento river delta, which is actively building, and then proceeds through the Coast Range from Vacaville into Oakland. The Coast Ranges started by the subuction of island arcs in the Franciscan trench just off the coast of northern California, in Miocene time (26 to 20 million years BP). When the trench met the oceanic ridge where new crust was forming, the trench and ridge became inactive and the North American and Pacific plates met along a right lateral transform fault, the famous San Andreas Fault. When the fault swerves left, rocks jam up against thrust faults, and that forms the Coast Ranges in California. I say "forms" because the San Andreas is active: the North American plate is moving west and the Pacific plate is moving northwest, so there is still friction along the fault and the mountains are still rising.


Oakland, California is built on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay. The commercial district and the Port of Oakland (largest container port in the world) are on the flat shore, and the town rises into the Oakland Hills, part of the Coast Range. The area is faulted like nobody's business, and the Hayward fault runs through Oakland.

After negotiating Sunday noon traffic from I-80, our first stop in Oakland was Fenton's Creamery, because Bruce insisted that this was an Oakland tradition. The parking lot on Piedmont street was full so Bruce, a pro at parallel parking--"Hey, I'm an Oakland boy!"--parked up the curb on a narrow side street.


Bruce said that all rules are in abeyance when you go to Fenton's, so N. had the Jumbo Banana split for lunch. It contains three pounds (yes, pounds) of ice cream, but N. managed to eat most of it without help. The picture is proof that I am not exaggerating!

Bruce and I split a Jumbo Mocha Almond malt, which left room for us to split a tuna sandwich on San Francisco Sour Dough as well.
N. was not hungry for the rest of the day! :)
We had just enough time after Fenton's to drive around Bruce's childhood neighborhood. Up and down the hilly, narrow streets we went, and we saw Bruce's grandma Sarah's old house, his first house and his second house on Clarendon Crescent. I was glad Bruce was driving Henry--who seemed to be a "Supersize Red Truck." I realized then and there, that most people probably do not drive full-sized pick-ups with standard shifts if they live in the Bay Area.


Then it was time to drive N. out to Bolinas, which is on the coast, north of Sausalito. We alloted ourselves two hours to get him there. It was almost enough.

First, we had to cross the famous Bay Bridge from Oakland to San Francisco. They make you pay to get into San Francisco on any of the bridges, but you can get out for free! So we had to wait in line to pay our toll, being that we are outlanders and did not have the automatic toll reader. The picture was taken as we approached Treasure Island on the first part of the bridge.

Then we had to get off I-80 and wind around the city streets in San Francisco, on Highway 101. The approach to the Golden Gate Bridge is from Van Ness Avenue, but we had to twist and turn on a few other streets as well. Although there was no toll to cross the Golden Gate going north--they really do let you out of San Francisco for free--it was a Sunday afternoon and it took nearly an hour to get to and cross the bridge. I took the picture as we were stopped on the bridge approach.

We still had time for our five o'clock arrival at the Commonweal Gardens, but the directions we got did not say that staying on highway 101 meant twisting through the streets of Mill Valley. We ended up going straight where we should have turned and we saw the sawmill at Mill Valley, before stopping to get directions from a local who was walking her dog. That got up back to the intersection and we then stopped at a taco place to get more comprehensive directions. The girls there happily told us how to get there.
A short conversation:
Girl: "You'll think you are going nowhere, but keep with it. The people from Bolinas don't want people from here to find them. They take down signs. There will be no sign to Bolinas."
Me: "Why is that? Are they stuck up?"
Girl: "No, they are the original 'flower children hippies.' The authentic thing. They think the rest of us in Marin County are stuck up."
I was having my doubts at this point. What is this place I am taking my son to? I mean, I don't really know these "authentic hippies". But I said nothing to Bruce and N. and we pressed on.



After winding our way slowly and in traffic across the divide and around Mount Tamalpias, we finally made it to the camp. It was beautiful. Bolinas sits on a spit of land that juts out between Bolinas Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The camp was located among oaks, eucalyptus, and pine in a valley on the shore. No wonder the native "authentic hippies" don't want the tourists to find it! They'd be innundated.

We were a few minutes late, but when I tried to explain why, Rick--the guy from New Jersey who runs Coyote Tracks just said, "You're not late. Everybody seems to be arriving now." And I realized that they were running on a version of Jewish Standard Time. Perhaps called "Naturalist Standard Time?" Whatever. In any case, on time obviously meant "whenever everybody comes." Getting N. "registered" was really informal, too. It mean explaining to Rick how to do N.'s meds, loading his stuff onto a hand-cart and standing around smelling the eucalyptus while N. got started on making some rope. I was impressed by the gentle directions being given and the low-key but focussed approach by which N. was being taught. Finally, we just drifted away, since we were hungry and needed a campsite.

We drove on up Highway 1 to Olema, where we found the Olema Farm House. Very good pasta and not too bad of price considering that we were in Marin County. And then we went looking for a camp site and encountered the realities of the California lifestyle. In New Mexico, when you want to go camping you just drive onto the National Forest, find a campground, drive around it until you find an open spot, occupy the spot and pay at the self-pay station. This has been true any place we have camped in the intermountain west as well as other parts of the country. Not in California. There you must make resevations to camp weeks in advance and follow a complicated set of instructions to register and pay. California is over-crowded and over-regulated, and, as we discovered, over-priced. It cost $40.00 for a tent-site at the campground near Olema. For a tent-site! One night. They did provide wireless internet access and a shower, but who needs wireless if you are tent camping! It was pretty and a short drive from the coast, but still!

California: regulations up the whazoo! Traffic. And really expensive camping. Well. California. Nice place to visit but make a reservation. And expect to pay.

Posted from Sedillo, New Mexico! We are home.

Travelogue II: The Loneliest Road and Beyond

Saturday morning, August 11, 2007: The second day of our journey started in Salina, Utah. We woke early, ate a cold breakfast at the campsite, hiked up to the bathroom, packed and, after a stop for coffee at Burger King--hey, Starbucks has not quite made it to central Utah--we were on US 50, heading 39 miles to the Wasatch front. The Wasatch is a fault block mountain range that demarcates the beginning of the Basin and Range. Along the back of these mountains, the slope is gentle--this is the hinge side of the fault, and the valley has beautiful Mormon farms. They seem to produce mostly alfalfa here.

A quick trip nine miles south on I-15, and we are once again on US 50, America's Loneliest Highway. At Delta, Utah we will leave the farms and fields behind and embark across the Great Basin of Utah. Delta is named for the ancient feature it sits on, a delta made by a long-ago river as it slowed down and dropped it's sediments upon entering glacial lake Bonneville. The Great Salt Lake far to the north is only a remnant of that ancient lake, one that covered all of central and southwestern Utah and on into eastern Nevada.

The Great Basin of North America has no outlets for water. All rivers that enter here do not flow out again anywhere. Rather they peter out into sinks, where they form ephemeral lakes that evaporate in the dry desert air, leaving only salts. In this picture you can see one such playa lake. The range in the distance is in Nevada. The car driving past is one of only two that we saw the entire distance between Delta and the Nevada border. This land is hot, dry and empty. The ecological zone is cold desert and the index species is Artemesia tridentata, which is Big Sage. And yet, in it's emptiness, this land evokes a sense of grandeur and spaciousness that expands the soul. There is room here, room for something beyond the small and petty concerns that often crowd our lives.

And yet, there is also evidence of the human attempt at mastery of nature. We found an old witness post and survey marker near the road. This boundless place, too, has been mapped and bounded. But there is a certain timelessness as well. It takes long spaces of time for the desert to remove tracks, fence posts and otehr evidence of our presence.

The Utah stretch of the loneliest road was indeed the loneliest part. And small evidences of human presence in the Great Basin only serve to remind us of how awesome and vast is this place. How very fortunate we are

to live in a small window of time in which we can drive through this place in great comfort and so see it. It is not soon forgotten.

As we approached Nevada, we left the Great Basin behind and began to approach the Basin and Range Province proper. Up, up to the highway pass for a range, each marked by the elevation above sea level and by the presence of a weather station powered by solar panels and connected to the rest of earth by a satellite dish for uploading data.

Basin. Range. Basin. Range. It was about 60 miles and two Basins and Ranges until, in the third Basin, we came to Ely (Ee-lee), Nevada, where we fed Henry the Big Red truck a lunch of petro-chemicals and we had lunch, too. Ours was also organic, but of a different kind. It has been years since there was a Sinclair station anywhere near where I lived, so it was a real treat to see the friendly Apatosaurus in the hills of eastern Nevada. We ate right there at a picnic table outside the station. The sun was warm and the breeze persistent and cool. Next services, more than 100 miles. Basin. Range. Basin. Range.

From our experience on Saturday, it appears that America's Loneliest Highway is becoming somewhat popular. In the second range outside of Ely, we came upon two U-Hauls that would not pull into the pull-outs to let cars by, despite the fact that we could not pass them until the next basin. And we saw more traffic on US Highway 50 than we had in Utah.

Basin. Range. Basin. Range. As we approach western Nevada, we notice that with each range, we gain less height and that with each basin we descend further towards sea level. Our net altitude is going down.

Basin. Range. Basin. Range. As we descend to the Fallon Sink, we see the 'shoe tree' near a lonely bar. Lovers making up after a quarrel are supposed to throw their shoes into the tree. And then the endless salt flats and dunes that lead into Fallon, Nevada, home of a US Naval Air Station far from the sea. Salt flats and playa (ephemeral) lakes are good places to test airplanes because you can land on the flat.

Fallon itself has grown as the Navy has combined several different divisions of its "airdales" at the Fallon Air Station.

Finally, even as we are descending toward the Carson River, we are leaving the Basin and Range. The Carson River has an outlet from the Fallon Basin. And as we leave Fallon, we can see the Sierra Nevada ahead, way past Reno. The high Sierra are not part of the Basin and Range, and yet the rocks there are remnants of various island arc terranes that crashed into North America when the subduction zone was just east of where the mountains now stand. The island arcs were floating on dense oceanic crust that was subducted and recycled to come to light again as volcanic rock and glass. But the lighter continental crust of the islands themselves could not be subducted, but crashed into the country rock, causing thrust fault zones that lifted the ranges in the Basin and Range.

We planned to stay at Reno, and we stopped to eat at the Black Bear Diner in Sparks before finding a room for the night. But when we inquired at a modest place, the price was incredibly high. We were puzzled until a local told us about Hot August Nights--a street festival in Reno. So we got back into the truck and drove another two hours plus to Auburn, California, where we got the last room in town! (Yesterday in Susanville, which is 84 miles from Reno on the road to nowhere, the motel proprietor told us that during Hot August Nights in Reno, he fills up and has to send people four more hours to Oregon. Incredible). We took the room with only one bed and no extra towels. N. slept in his sleeping bag on the floor. We used our own towels. And considered ourselves lucky. Since we were nearly three hours further along than expected, we left instructions for a late wake-up call and fell into our beds. Sweet sleep!

Published from Vacaville, California

Travelogue I: Albuquerque to Utah

Friday, August 10, 2007: Woke up at 4:30 AM. Lots of running around, getting the last minute packing up of food and needed toiletries done. Breakfast was cereal and yogurt, with my last cup of home-brewed coffee.

On the road at 6:09 AM. I drove, radio tuned to NPR for a rare listen to Morning Edition. ABQ traffic heavy but normal. We took I-40 west to I-25 north. Off at Bernalillo on 550 north to the Four Corners region.


We drove through Bernalillo. Lots of development there. Talked about how Starbucks is taking over the world. "If you want to take over a country, you have to establish a presence," said N.

The road curves up to the north and then to west across the badlands around the Rio Puerco. White Mesa to the south at Zia Pueblo, home of the type specimen for a small purple daisy, Erigeron gypsophilia, an endangered flower first identified by Tim Lowery at UNM while I was his student. N. was fascinated by the idea of a flower that could live on gypsum. We talked about how adaptation works.

Up, up, up onto the Colorado Plateau. We seem to be driving up the edge of the earth. Past the purple, pinks and greens of the Jurassic Morrison Formation, the base of the Plateau here in NM. Up, up, up, finally driving on the red shales below the the towering cliffs of the Dakota Sandstone near Cuba. Then over the continental divide and into the Farmington Basin. Here we are driving past the uncomformity between the Cretaceous rocks and the younger Kirtland formation--coal and oil bearing sands and shales. We stop in Farmington for the bathroom and a snack. Lots of oil and gas company vehicles in the gas station parking lot and on the streets. Bloomfield, Farmington and Aztec have the boom and bust look of oil towns. We talk about the economic geology of oil production and distribution.

On the way to Four Corners we pass by Shiprock, a diatreme that is sacred to the Navajo. A diatreme is the frozen neck of a volcano exposed due to weathing of the cone around it over time.

We have traveled up through time this morning, from the rocks of the early Mesozoic period about three hundred million years ago through to the earliest Cretaceous. The volcanics are younger still, coming from activity as recent as a few thousand years ago as the continent stretches and thins in the Rio Grande Rift--and area where the continent is drifting apart due to differential movement on either side of the rift.

Four Corners, New Mexico-Arizona-Utah-Colorado. After taking a turn standing with one foot over the four corners, thus briefly residing in four states at once, we had lunch at 12:30 PM. Or was it 11:30 AM? Although all four states are in the Mountain Time Zone, Arizona does not follow Daylight Savings Time. So we gained an hour whenever we went into Arizona. All of this about boundaries provoked the following thoughts from N:

"The land over there in Utah and Colorado and New Mexico--it is all the same as the land here in Arizona where we are sitting to eat lunch. The rock formations are the same. And the sun is about at local noon. The boundaries--they are not really real.They are made by people. I guess they are made for reasons, but the land itself--it does not have these reasons. The state boundaries are for governments, right? It's so that people know who to pay taxes to and what sheriff to call? The time one--that's different. It is kind of real. Because the earth turns--it turns and that takes time--24 hours. So the dawn comes later in the west (of the US) than the east...but where exactly to put the difference? I guess that the railroads decided that. The actual place is not important...it's...it's ..."

"Abitrary," said Bruce. And that started a discussion of arbitrary that lasted well into Utah.

In the afternoon, we drove up through more of the Colorado Plateau in Utah. The route we took did not go through Monument Valley, but we could see the castle-like buttes and mesas away to the south as we drove across the Morrison formation near Bluff. There we climbed up onto the Bluff sandstone, which has it's type-section there in bluff--for which it is named.

From Bluff Utah to Blanding, we played peek-a-boo with the colorful Morrison and the overlying sandstones as the road came up and down into canyons formed by the rivers in the Dakota Sandstone. After Monticello, Utah, things got really interesting as the Entrada formation appeared. The Entrada is a resistant, colorful rock underlaid by a muddy shale that erodes easily, so there are formations like church rock.

Approaching Arches National Monument, things got really interesting as we entered the La Sal Anticlinal Valley, and later the Spanish Trail Anticlinal Valley. What happened in these places is that salt, which flows under pressure, was pushed in between the rock units with the Entrada on top. The salt formed an arch, which made the rocks above fold over it into an anticline. Then the salt was dissolved out by water and the anticline collapsed making a valley with the oldest rocks visible in the middle and the youngest on the edges. The Entrada formation has two members that weather differently and viola! You get arches, like this picture of Window Rock.

We took a rest stop in Moab and loaded up with gas, having come nearly 400 miles from Albuquerque. At Moab, we crossed the Colorado river, where we stopped to put our feet in the water and get a little muddy.

N. was feeling anxious to continue driving and at the same time, he wanted to stop at the river. But he did go down to get his picture taken there. The last time I stopped there, in 1999, the river was low and relatively clear. This time it was high and fast and carried a lot of the sediments that give it the colors for which it was named.

Then we drove past the actual entrance to arches, and began to climb out of the anticlinal valley toward I-70.

At this point we began driving out of the Colorado Plateau highlands toward the Wasatch front. In the process, we crossed the beatiful Green River (of Flaming Gorge fame) at the town of Green River, and then up across the San Rafael Swell, a structural feature similar to an anticline, but with a gentle slope on one side and a steep on on the other. The San Rafael Swell gives a wonderful view of the Cretaceous in Utah. The towering dune sandstones of the Navajo and Wingate sandstones, both deposited by wind, show sweeping cross-bedding. Further, we crossed into the earliest Paleocene (Cenezoic rocks), and saw the contact that identifies the unconformity between the two eras. It is more visible in the four corners, though, where you can put your finger across the period of the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. The picture above is of Castle Valley seen from the crest of the San Rafael Swell.

It was getting late and we attempting to get all the way to the junction between I-70 and I15, when we noticed that highway 50 crossed I-70 at Salina, Utah, as we began the climb to the Wasatch front. A quick consultation of the map indicated that we could knock off about 70 miles by cutting across 50, around the north of the mountains to the front. So we did a little backtracking and then saw a pleasant campground right at Salina. We were tired, hungry and cranky, so we pulled in and got a tent site for the night.

Shabbat dinner of cold chicken and bread and wine under the stars completed our day. A needed oasis appeared in the desert after 550 miles of driving!

Oops! I downloaded another picture of Four Corners. Same as the first picture, too. And in real time we are in Susanville and we need to get going if we are to reach the coast today! We have to pick N. up by Noon tomorrow, PDT. And we need to stop at Lassen County Courthouse to get information about our land here. So...you get another picture! I don't have time to figure out how to delete it.

One of these days, I'll learn to really use Blogger.

Published from Susanville, CA

Live from Susanville, California

Shalom from Susanville, California!
We are still traveling, but tonight is the first night that I have both the energy and the internet connection to give a short update. More detailed travelogue to follow.

On the first day of our journey, my true love said to me: Exactly how many times were we in Arizona today?

I lost count.
That's because we ate lunch at the Four Corners monument. We started out in New Mexico, we then entered Arizona on the way to Four Corners, but the access road was in New Mexico. We parked in Colorado, stood in all four states at once, then ate our lunch in Arizona. We crossed back into New Mexico to leave--the access road again--then back into Arizona, then into Colorado to get the road we wanted into Utah. The rest of the day was spent driving through south-eastern Utah to get to I-70. The picture of Church Rock (above right) was taken as we were stopped for road construction south of Arches National Park on our way to Moab. If you have to be stopped for a while, this was the place (with apologies to Brigham Young). We slept in Utah, too.



On the second day of our journey, my true love said to me: How many ranges did we cross?

I lost count again.
This was the day of America's Loneliest Road. We started in Salina, Utah, where we camped at a wonderful little camp park. At Delta, Utah, we began our trek across the Great Basin and the Basin and Range Geologic provinces on Highway 50, America's loneliest road. And we drove. And we drove. And we drove. Basin. Range. Basin. Range. Basin. Range. Basin Range. I guess that's why they call it the Basin and Range. We had lunch in Ely (pronounced "ee-lee"), Nevada, and dinner in Reno. But it was "Hot August Nights" in Reno, and the few open hotel rooms came with price tags so jacked-up, that we'd have paid over a hundred bucks for a Motel 6. And the KOA was full. On to California! Another two hours to Auburn, where we got the last room in town. N. had to sleep on the floor--but, hey, we were supposed to be camping! The picture (above, left) is of the road sign for America's loneliest road as you leave Ely, Nevada for points west.


On the third day of our journey, my true love said to me:
How many bridges did we cross?

I lost count. Again!
California has rivers. And bays. And Golden Gates. And marshes. And lagoons. But I do remember the trip from Oakland over to Bolinas. We crossed two famous bridges within sight of each other over the span of two hours. The Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate bridge. Two hours? Yep. You have to wait in line to pay a toll to get to San Francisco on the Bay Bridge. (They let you out for free). And access to the Golden Gate is by city streets in "the City by the Bay." So it was bumper to bumper. And we were driving Henry, the standard shift pick-up truck on the hills of San Francisco. It got kind of exciting a time or two. The picture shows Henry's beautiful red front end approaching the first tower of the Golden Gate. We dropped N. off at COTE Camp, Coyote Tracks, in Bolinas' Commonweal Gardens. The we stopped for the night between Bolinas and Petaluma, California.



On the fourth day of our journey, my true love said to me: How many gravestones do you think there are?

I didn't even try to count. As we drove through wine country on our way to I-5 north, we made three stops: for breakfast, at the Veteran's Home Cemetery, and at Cakebread Winery. The cemetery was the most important. Bruce's Mom and Dad share a grave at the Veteran's Cemetery in Yountville, California--in the hear of wine country, just north of Napa. It is an incredibly beautiful place to be buried. We then stopped by to visit Jack Cakebread, a friend of Bruce's before he became a vintner. And we tasted some wine. Then it was on to I-5, picked up south of Redding, and on up to Oregon, to see Bruce's brother R. The picture (above left) is of the graves in the Veteran's Cemetery marching into the hills of wine country.



On the fifth day of our journey, my true love said to me:
How many hours of sleep have we lost?

I was too tired to calculate. R. has a beautiful 1920's house that is a diamond in the rough. It has lovely glass-doored built-ins in the dining room. It has original latch-front cabinets and beadwork in the kitchen and bath. But in order to use the bathroom or sleep in the bedroom, it was vital that we clean them. Really. R., who is legally blind, is in the midst of having the lenses of both eyes replaced. They do one lense and then three weeks later, the other. He will have the best vision in the family when it is finished, but he needed a great deal of help with his house on Tuesday. We took him to get a new vacuum, supplies and sundries, and then pitched in on more cleaning on Tuesday. It was not what I expected, but we did have fun together. The picture is of R. standing on his new porch with Xena, his best friend.



On the sixth day of our journey, my true love said to me: How many mountain pictures have you shot?

Ahem! I lost count.

There has been the Jemez, the Nacemiento, Ute Mountain,the La Sal Anticline, the Wasatch Front, the ranges of the Basin and Range, the Sierra, the Coast Range, the Klamath, Mt. Shasta and the High Cascades. But the last so far (this WILL change), is the Lassen Volcanic Field. Today we drove down from Medford, Oregon to Lassen county, in Eastern California, to look at some land Bruce and R. inherited from their mother. The picture is of Lassen Peak, an active volcano, taken today as we drove past on the way to Susanville.

Wow. We have travelled a lot of miles thus far! And we still have to go back to Oakland to visit with a friend, pick up N. from camp and then go home! Maybe tomorrow's question should be: When do we stop driving.

I thought this would be a short post. You know? This is just highlights. Just to whet the appetite for the play-by-play. That will come later. Maybe. But now, dinner in the motel room. A walk out for ice cream. And sweet sleep, nature's balm!

California, Here We Come...This Blog is On Vacation

This blog is going on vacation.

We are doing laundry and packing. We are getting instructions ready for the housesitters.
On Friday, Bruce and I are taking N. out to California for his Coyote Tracks camp experience.

But we are not going the most direct route. We did that going to southern California in 2004 for a family wedding.

Instead, we are taking the northern route. We will drive up to the Four Corners monument. I am ashamed to say that N. has never been there! We will drive on up from there through Moab, Utah and Arches National Monument. Or we will cut through Canyonlands National Park.






From there, it's over the mountains to I-15 and from there to America's Loneliest Road to Ely, Nevada and then across that state to Reno, where we will meet up with I-80.






I am very excited about this, because I have never driven across the Basin and Range country in Nevada. My previous experience with I-80 was from Illinois to Salt Lake City, where we then went north to Idaho for field work.

We will drive into Oakland and San Francisco to visit Bruce's friends and family. On Sunday, we will drive across the Golden Gate to take N. to the camp, which is located at Commonweal Gardens near Bolinas.

While N. is at camp, Bruce and I plan to drive up to Oregon to visit his brother and then over to Susanville to see some land Bruce inherited from his parents.

We will be camping on the road and I am not planning to take the computer. We will be back in about 10 days.

As the "govenator" says: I'll be back. Somewhere around the 20th!

Countless Reasons to Homeschool! COH # 84

Nerdmom over at Nerd Family is counting blessings despite a little stomach bug at her house.
Best wishes for a speedy recovery to Nerddad and the Newest Nerdling, too!

And she got the Carnival of Homeschooling # 84-- Reasons to Homeschool edition up on time despite nursing, and Nerds with stomach aches.

Homeschool moms are made of the sternest stuff!
So go on over and count the blessings of homeschooling and discover reasons in common.
And best of all, Nerdmom is decidely "pro-nerd." That really touches the heart of this science geek.