When we got back from a month on the road I was burned out. I was fried. I was toast. I was fried toast with a side of exhaustion and a liberal sprinkling of totally done. I had no reserve. I was running on fumes.
Like I said, I was burned out.
And then my little sister packed up and left town 4 days after I got home. And one of my best friends David Lazaroff, left a couple of days later.
And suddenly I was fried toast with a side of exhaustion and a liberal sprinkling of totally done with a side salad of sadness.
That is a menu you just don't want to be.
Before the burnout, in less road weary and more optimistic times, Dave and I had booked a trip to go see his parents a week after we got back from our month away. It had seemed like a good idea at the time.
But a week after we got home, I was a numb ball of tired numbness, and I *did not* want to leave my house. Not for nothing or no one. It was just starting to hit me that two of my most favorite people in the world had left Austin for good, and that the town I loved would never quite be the same. It made me doubly exhausted when I tried to imagine living without them and how rightfully tired I was from our trip.
I tried to blog about how I felt, but I ended up talking about the heat instead, because in addition to all the tiredness and sadness, it was a zillion degrees outside. You kind of become a prisoner to air conditioned spaces when it's that hot and you have a little bean to look after.
So, let's recap. I was tired, sad, a little lonely and fucking hot.
And then we went to visit Dave's parents.
Which, remember, I was not really looking forward to.
And now, here I sit, in Casper, Wyoming -- a rested, relaxed and decidedly happier Elizabeth than I was a week ago.
We slept. We swam. We took walks on the beaches. We had long leisurely breakfasts, and delicious dinners with multiple family members in attendance. We napped. We talked. We recharged. It was really quite delightful.
So, I'm here to say it loud and proud. I was wrong. Universe, feel free to do the in-your-face dance whenever you want.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Monday, July 13, 2009
Home is Hot Hot Hot
Hotter than it's been since the 1850's. It's been over 100 degrees almost every day since we've been home. That's so hot, that you find excuses *not* to leave the house, especially with a six month old baby. Walks in the early morning, sure. Anything else, it better be important.
In times like these, I thank the universe for air conditioning.
Heat. When it's hot, hot hot theres not much more to talk about that how hot it is.
Except how you're just trying to stay cool.
In times like these, I thank the universe for air conditioning.
Heat. When it's hot, hot hot theres not much more to talk about that how hot it is.
Except how you're just trying to stay cool.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Happy 4th of July
Gone one month with best
Sister, baby and my guy
Home, 4th of July
-- Post From My iPhone
Thursday, July 2, 2009
A Baby Bus Tale Most Foul...Part Two
I'll pick off where we left off yesterday. Dave is in California. Katherine, Lisel and I are in Boulder, CO waiting for the baby bus to get fixed.
I would really love to tell you about the place we stayed, but the non-sequitor might take too long. I’ll just let you know that it was a little independent hotel called the Boulder Outlook Hotel. It claims to be a an environmentally friendly, zero waste facility. I had dreams of staying at a forward thinking, yet affordable, hippie haven. In reality it’s just an old La Quinta. They splashed some funky colored paint on the outside stuck some “recycling” trashcans in the room and called it green. They did however recycle their key cards, which were so busted and beat-up that they barely worked.
And the “elevator” was one of those wheelchair lifters.
But I digress.
So we went to Boulder, but by the time we got there Stewart Beesly from Valley Dodge (who we dearly love) had figured out that there was something much more sinister at work in the Baby Bus. It wasn’t just the master cylinder that was rotten.
It was the entire brake system that was bad.
Rubber parts degraded.
Everything needed to be replaced.
Oy.
And it wasn’t going to be done by Tuesday.
But that was really no problem, because we had a contingency plan.
If the Baby Bus wasn’t finished, we would simply rent a mini-van and drive to El Paso in that.
Stewart Beesly (who we dearly love) hooked us up with a free mini-van rental.
We rested up a couple of days in Boulder, did some hiking, drove to El Paso via La Veta and the Great Sand Dunes and met up with Dave in El Paso. We played El Paso, Alburquerque and Red River, NM.
And we had a plan.
Katherine, Lisel and I would hang in the lovely mountain town of Red River while Dave drove up to Boulder on Monday and retrieved the Baby Bus. Then he would drive back to Red River on Tuesday where he’d get us. From there we would all make our way to Lovington, NM for the next gig.
Except that the Baby Bus wasn’t done on Monday. Stewart Beesly (who we dearly love) had one part, one sensor, that wasn’t working, and had to order it from national, and they weren’t going to know when that part was coming in until Tuesday morning.
This is when I lost it.
Because we had like three contingency plans.
And they all sucked.
The problem was that we had to return the rental van to Boulder. Sure we could return it to Austin if we wanted to pay a fee of “at least a thousand dollars” (the words of the Enterprise employee we talked to). Considering the money we were spending on getting the entire brake system replaced…well this was not really an option.
The other contingency plans were as follows:
1. We drive the rental van to the next three gigs, ending up in Austin. During our week off Dave would drive up to Boulder, return the van, pick up the Baby Bus, and drive home. That’s 16 hours up, and 16 hours back. Essentially a 32 hour-long haul.
a. He might hire someone to drive with him
2. We drive the rental van to Lovington, NM and Woodward, OK. After the Woodward gig, Dave would drive to Boulder, where he would drop of the van and fly back to Austin.
a. Katherine the baby and I would take the big bus home
b. Dave would meet up with us in Austin and go play a gig that night in Gruene, TX
c. We would pick the baby bus up in a couple of weeks on our way home from Casper, Wyoming
.
3. We would hire someone to do the 32 hour haul to Boulder and back.
Like I said, all options fell squarely in the category of “sucky.”
And I was kind of over the whole thing. I was tired of going with the flow. I was sick of creating plans A, B, C and D. There was no more cool left in my soul.
Sure, I was resigned to one of the above scenarios. But I was pissed.
And then on Tuesday morning, Stewart Beesly (who we dearly love) rang us up and told us that the part was in, and he was going to try like hell to install it and make sure it worked by the end of the day.
If he could get the bus running by the end of the day on Tuesday then Dave could drive up to Boulder on Tuesday night, return the van and pick up the Baby Bus on Wednesday morning. We could drive it to Lovington, Woodward, OK and then home! No sucky backtracking, vacation stealing, long-haul driving contingency plans!
My hopes were not high.
Dave, ever the optimist, had trusted in Stewart all along. I, on the other hand, had been trying desperately to quash his fool hopes with what I believed were the cold hard facts of the situation. It was never gonna happen. We were destined to be Baby-Busless for the foreseeable future.
It’s a story as old as time. Just when you’ve given up hope that the storm will end, there’s a break in the clouds. And so it was with this tale of traveling travail.
Stewart Beesly (who we dearly love) came through.
After we got the word, Dave was granted the right to do the “In Your Face” dance, which involves the party in the right dancing around the party in the wrong singing “In Your Face, In Your Face.”
I enjoyed every minute.
So here we are, in the Baby Bus…finally! I have to send a shout out to my sister Katherine, who had been the most roll-with-it, fun, enjoyable road buddy ever. She’s not a road dog by nature, but you’d never have known it on this trip. Nothing that happened soured her mood, and she was up for the entire adventure. She even did most of the driving. Soon she’ll be moving to Athens, Georgia, and I know that I’m going to miss her more than I’ve ever missed anyone, ever. But this trip and memories we made on it…above and beyond baby.
Best Sister Ever
So that’s how it all went down. Our summertime adventure. Our road story. Our Tale of a Baby Bus Most Foul.
I would really love to tell you about the place we stayed, but the non-sequitor might take too long. I’ll just let you know that it was a little independent hotel called the Boulder Outlook Hotel. It claims to be a an environmentally friendly, zero waste facility. I had dreams of staying at a forward thinking, yet affordable, hippie haven. In reality it’s just an old La Quinta. They splashed some funky colored paint on the outside stuck some “recycling” trashcans in the room and called it green. They did however recycle their key cards, which were so busted and beat-up that they barely worked.
And the “elevator” was one of those wheelchair lifters.
But I digress.
So we went to Boulder, but by the time we got there Stewart Beesly from Valley Dodge (who we dearly love) had figured out that there was something much more sinister at work in the Baby Bus. It wasn’t just the master cylinder that was rotten.
It was the entire brake system that was bad.
Rubber parts degraded.
Everything needed to be replaced.
Oy.
And it wasn’t going to be done by Tuesday.
But that was really no problem, because we had a contingency plan.
If the Baby Bus wasn’t finished, we would simply rent a mini-van and drive to El Paso in that.
Stewart Beesly (who we dearly love) hooked us up with a free mini-van rental.
We rested up a couple of days in Boulder, did some hiking, drove to El Paso via La Veta and the Great Sand Dunes and met up with Dave in El Paso. We played El Paso, Alburquerque and Red River, NM.
And we had a plan.
Katherine, Lisel and I would hang in the lovely mountain town of Red River while Dave drove up to Boulder on Monday and retrieved the Baby Bus. Then he would drive back to Red River on Tuesday where he’d get us. From there we would all make our way to Lovington, NM for the next gig.
Except that the Baby Bus wasn’t done on Monday. Stewart Beesly (who we dearly love) had one part, one sensor, that wasn’t working, and had to order it from national, and they weren’t going to know when that part was coming in until Tuesday morning.
This is when I lost it.
Because we had like three contingency plans.
And they all sucked.
The problem was that we had to return the rental van to Boulder. Sure we could return it to Austin if we wanted to pay a fee of “at least a thousand dollars” (the words of the Enterprise employee we talked to). Considering the money we were spending on getting the entire brake system replaced…well this was not really an option.
The other contingency plans were as follows:
1. We drive the rental van to the next three gigs, ending up in Austin. During our week off Dave would drive up to Boulder, return the van, pick up the Baby Bus, and drive home. That’s 16 hours up, and 16 hours back. Essentially a 32 hour-long haul.
a. He might hire someone to drive with him
2. We drive the rental van to Lovington, NM and Woodward, OK. After the Woodward gig, Dave would drive to Boulder, where he would drop of the van and fly back to Austin.
a. Katherine the baby and I would take the big bus home
b. Dave would meet up with us in Austin and go play a gig that night in Gruene, TX
c. We would pick the baby bus up in a couple of weeks on our way home from Casper, Wyoming
.
3. We would hire someone to do the 32 hour haul to Boulder and back.
Like I said, all options fell squarely in the category of “sucky.”
And I was kind of over the whole thing. I was tired of going with the flow. I was sick of creating plans A, B, C and D. There was no more cool left in my soul.
Sure, I was resigned to one of the above scenarios. But I was pissed.
And then on Tuesday morning, Stewart Beesly (who we dearly love) rang us up and told us that the part was in, and he was going to try like hell to install it and make sure it worked by the end of the day.
If he could get the bus running by the end of the day on Tuesday then Dave could drive up to Boulder on Tuesday night, return the van and pick up the Baby Bus on Wednesday morning. We could drive it to Lovington, Woodward, OK and then home! No sucky backtracking, vacation stealing, long-haul driving contingency plans!
My hopes were not high.
Dave, ever the optimist, had trusted in Stewart all along. I, on the other hand, had been trying desperately to quash his fool hopes with what I believed were the cold hard facts of the situation. It was never gonna happen. We were destined to be Baby-Busless for the foreseeable future.
It’s a story as old as time. Just when you’ve given up hope that the storm will end, there’s a break in the clouds. And so it was with this tale of traveling travail.
Stewart Beesly (who we dearly love) came through.
After we got the word, Dave was granted the right to do the “In Your Face” dance, which involves the party in the right dancing around the party in the wrong singing “In Your Face, In Your Face.”
I enjoyed every minute.
So here we are, in the Baby Bus…finally! I have to send a shout out to my sister Katherine, who had been the most roll-with-it, fun, enjoyable road buddy ever. She’s not a road dog by nature, but you’d never have known it on this trip. Nothing that happened soured her mood, and she was up for the entire adventure. She even did most of the driving. Soon she’ll be moving to Athens, Georgia, and I know that I’m going to miss her more than I’ve ever missed anyone, ever. But this trip and memories we made on it…above and beyond baby.
Best Sister EverSo that’s how it all went down. Our summertime adventure. Our road story. Our Tale of a Baby Bus Most Foul.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
A Baby Bus Tale Most Foul...Part One
I’m writing from the Baby Bus. I sit here on the back bench, amongst the pillows, bags and comforters, watching the breathtaking vistas of northern New Mexico zip past me as we make our way from Trinidad, Colorado to Santa Rosa, New Mexico.
It’s the first time I’ve sat in the Baby Bus since we were in Tulsa.
Yeah, that would be almost a month ago.
Geez.
I’ve totally been putting off writing this post. I mean, I hinted at it earlier and totally meant to fill the internet in on what was going down but I was…not exactly ashamed…well maybe there was a little shame there…more precisely though, I was kinda of wigged out.
But when you’re on the road, there’s very little room for the wigging. You have gigs to play, miles to cover, a baby to take care of -- and freak-outs slow you down. Better to come up with contingency plans and roll with whatever the universe throws at you.
Which is what we all did. But had I told this story when we were in the middle of it…well it might just have brought on the noise, and by noise I mean the sound of me weeping and cursing our decision to bring the Baby Bus out on this tour at all.
I’ll admit, I had a little breakdown, but I think I avoided the big one.
Because once again, the brakes on the Baby Bus took a huge crap.
Remember when the brakes went out right before we were supposed to go play a gig in Dallas? Well, we got them fixed of course. We took them to a Freightliner place in town and they drained the gunky fluid, replaced the master cylinder and told us they were fixed.
And we believed them.
So we decided to bring the bus out on this tour. Our plan was admittedly a little insane to begin with. But there were going to be a series of gigs in the New Mexico/Colorado region – weekend shows with weekday breaks in between-- and we figured rather than go home only to turn around and come back out, that we would stay out here and enjoy the mountains and high plains that we love so much. Hell, we planned on camping because - hello! - the Baby Bus is the perfect camping mobile.
And then the brakes went out.
Or more accurately, they started acting totally funky in a “I could go out any second” way. My dad was driving from Denver to Boulder when he felt the brakes go all mushy. At some point he was able to push the brake pedal all the way down to the floor.
That’s just never a good thing.
Luckily there was a Dodge place in town (thank you Valley Dodge!) where he could take it. They looked at it and declared the master cylinder to be faulty. They’d replace that (which was under warranty from the Austin Freightliner repair shop) and only charge us for labor – a couple hundred bucks!
We were like, seriously psyched that that was all it was.
At the time, Dave and I were on that three-day run of insanity. The plan was for my folks to pick up the fixed Baby Bus on Saturday the 20th and drive it to Denver on Sunday the 21st where they would meet us and Katherine and hand off the baby. Then they’d travel home to Austin, Dave would head out to San Diego to visit his folks for a couple more days, and Katherine, Lisel and I would have a girls camping trip, hitting some Hot Springs and Great Sand Dunes on our way to El Paso.
Except that the brakes were still mushy on Saturday.
No problem, since we’d come up with a contingency plan.
In the event that the bus wasn’t fixed in time, Katherine, Lisel and I would simply take a cab to Boulder, and hang out for a couple of days. If the baby bus got fixed by Tuesday afternoon -- which we assumed it would -- we’d retreive it and drive it to El Paso.
So we went to Boulder.
Tomorrow: What happens (or doesn't happen) in Boulder...
It’s the first time I’ve sat in the Baby Bus since we were in Tulsa.
Yeah, that would be almost a month ago.
Geez.
I’ve totally been putting off writing this post. I mean, I hinted at it earlier and totally meant to fill the internet in on what was going down but I was…not exactly ashamed…well maybe there was a little shame there…more precisely though, I was kinda of wigged out.
But when you’re on the road, there’s very little room for the wigging. You have gigs to play, miles to cover, a baby to take care of -- and freak-outs slow you down. Better to come up with contingency plans and roll with whatever the universe throws at you.
Which is what we all did. But had I told this story when we were in the middle of it…well it might just have brought on the noise, and by noise I mean the sound of me weeping and cursing our decision to bring the Baby Bus out on this tour at all.
I’ll admit, I had a little breakdown, but I think I avoided the big one.
Because once again, the brakes on the Baby Bus took a huge crap.
Remember when the brakes went out right before we were supposed to go play a gig in Dallas? Well, we got them fixed of course. We took them to a Freightliner place in town and they drained the gunky fluid, replaced the master cylinder and told us they were fixed.
And we believed them.
So we decided to bring the bus out on this tour. Our plan was admittedly a little insane to begin with. But there were going to be a series of gigs in the New Mexico/Colorado region – weekend shows with weekday breaks in between-- and we figured rather than go home only to turn around and come back out, that we would stay out here and enjoy the mountains and high plains that we love so much. Hell, we planned on camping because - hello! - the Baby Bus is the perfect camping mobile.
And then the brakes went out.
Or more accurately, they started acting totally funky in a “I could go out any second” way. My dad was driving from Denver to Boulder when he felt the brakes go all mushy. At some point he was able to push the brake pedal all the way down to the floor.
That’s just never a good thing.
Luckily there was a Dodge place in town (thank you Valley Dodge!) where he could take it. They looked at it and declared the master cylinder to be faulty. They’d replace that (which was under warranty from the Austin Freightliner repair shop) and only charge us for labor – a couple hundred bucks!
We were like, seriously psyched that that was all it was.
At the time, Dave and I were on that three-day run of insanity. The plan was for my folks to pick up the fixed Baby Bus on Saturday the 20th and drive it to Denver on Sunday the 21st where they would meet us and Katherine and hand off the baby. Then they’d travel home to Austin, Dave would head out to San Diego to visit his folks for a couple more days, and Katherine, Lisel and I would have a girls camping trip, hitting some Hot Springs and Great Sand Dunes on our way to El Paso.
Except that the brakes were still mushy on Saturday.
No problem, since we’d come up with a contingency plan.
In the event that the bus wasn’t fixed in time, Katherine, Lisel and I would simply take a cab to Boulder, and hang out for a couple of days. If the baby bus got fixed by Tuesday afternoon -- which we assumed it would -- we’d retreive it and drive it to El Paso.
So we went to Boulder.
Tomorrow: What happens (or doesn't happen) in Boulder...
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