Blog Archives

The Road to Vail-Day 3

5/31/2012

Waking Up in Colorado

We had again driven longer than I had planned the night before, which put us just a few hours away from Vail.

Denver was much more industrial than I had remembered.

From the Interstate there were no real photo worthy views and I was not about to get side-tracked.

As we climbed up into the Rockies, I remembered how much I love the high-country. How much being up in elevation speaks to me.

I do love mountains.

We had to pass through one long tunnel before arriving.

Vail-We Made It

After being in the car so much, I just wanted to get to our hotel room, unload and explore.

It was exciting being there the day before and seeing it before the crowds. But the village was relatively empty.

We were both starving and sushi looked to hit the spot.

There was no one there but us. It was just shy of 5 o'clock after all.

I thought we might explore a bit more, but we were both exhausted and there would be plenty to see and do in the next few days, better to rest now.

1 Comment

The Road to Vail-Day 2

5/31/2012

1 Comment

Food on the Road

Between all the foodie magazines I end up buying and the many food TV shows with the likes of Anthony Bourdain, there are always food joints that I have heard of and will go to if I am ever in the area, but usually I don't remember where it was or its name or...

And we end up eating some pretty miserable fare.

Today was not going to be one of those days, we would be in Kansas City around lunch and I had heard great things about their BBQ. And having been in the South for the last year, I was becoming a connoisseur of smoked meats, something I hadn't ever imagined, given how rarely I used to eat beef or pork.

After a little research it seemed like Danny Edwards Famous Kansas City Barbecue might be just the spot for us.

We got there a little before noon. It wasn't the "authentic" sort of BBQ joint I was hoping for. It had all the trappings of a tourist destination, but if the food was good, who cares.

And it was good.

Not great, but definitely very good. I think that I've had my fill of plates stacked high with meat and am looking forward to lighter, greener fare.

Let's just call this a last hurrah and head to Sunflower Mountain.

Not the US Cavalry Museum and Not a High-Point

I was getting sleepy and needed to stretch my legs. When I saw a sign for the US Cavalry museum, I thought that might be interesting and educational, so we pulled off the freeway. When I realized it was on an active military base, I decided to turn around.

I just didn't feel like explaining the unicycle strapped to the roof, the plethora of hula hoops or the unicorn mask perched on top of the water bottle, not to mention what a task and time suck it could be if they ended up wanting to search the vehicle.

So we ended up climbing to the top of the hill that was on the other side of the freeway and checking out some ridiculously huge cannons. This one could shoot a missile that was 11" in diameter some 5O miles away. We were in the middle of Kansas, why or what might they be shooting at was beyond me.

At least Skye had a fun time climbing it.

Not In Kansas Anymore

Actually we were just barely.

After being on another tiny out in the middle of nowhere dirt roads, we missed the turn to the "summit" of Mt. Sunflower.

It was hard to tell where the highest point was but I saw in the distance what looked like it might be something and it sort of looked like it could be the highest spot in the nearby area.

We turned back and sure enough it was.

After not seeing a car or a person for over an hour, a black jeep rolled in behind us. It was the owner of the property. He had seen us miss the turn and had headed after us to make sure we didn't get lost.

Now that was a first in our high point collecting.

He told us that we were in Colorado before we turned around and came back and that vandals had destroyed the sign showing the correct turn and he was sorry about that but glad that we had figured it out and had made it to Mt. Sunflower, the highest point in Kansas.

When in Kansas...

The Unicorn in me decided to come out and play on Mt. Sunflower as the sun was setting.

A little shy at first

Straddling the Line

Again we were on a desolate road with no map and no cell service with the sun going down.

So we headed north on this straight dirt road that in theory would eventually hit I-70.

It did.

But not before we saw a lot of things empty farm land and things unexpected.

1 Comment

Going West on a Memorial Day

5/30/2012

0 Comments

Our Family Circus Hits the Road

There have been several reasons we've made the decisions we have in the last couple of years. One was so that we would be together more as a family. And that has certainly been the case. We have spent a lot more time together in much tighter living parameters.

Amazingly and thankfully, this has for the most part been a good thing, and our bonds have grown stronger.

Another reason was to travel more, to not be so tied down to a place. That we've done less of.

So with the summer coming on hard and strong in Atlanta and Cindy's job getting so busy, we barely see her, I decided it was a good time to move on. It might be important to add that Skye was getting a little home-sick for her LA friends, so why not get back there in time to celebrate her 14th birthday.

I must admit, I was missing the mountains and ocean of the state I grew up in.

Looking for Directions and Diversions

We've driven across the country a few times in the last couple of years. Straight and direct, more or less has been our route, the I-10, I-20, and I-40 have taken us through the Southern states and we collected a lot of high-points along the way.

When I read about the Teva Mountain Games taking place in Vail, it gave me a good reason for a new route that had a couple of very doable high-points along the way.

Taum Sauk Mountain here we come.

Memorial Day- A Moving Experience

Memorial Day is always a hard holiday for me. I have always been against war. particularly those fought for the wrong reasons, by the wrong people. I'm not one for nationalism, patriotism or American exceptionalism. It probably didn't help matters, that we had just finished listening to the Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, a few hours before.

And yet I enjoy many of the benefits of being an American, of being on the right side of history as far as the school books are concerned. I can see a very potential hypocrisy in this and it makes me confused and conflicted.

So many men and women have died fighting American wars. I don't want to dishonor them and yet I don't want to glorify or support war. I have friends and family in the military and coming from every sort of political angle and argument. And I am typically very willing and I dare say able to articulate my views and hopefully I am receptive to others ideas and opinions.

But on days such Memorial Day and Veteran's Day, that are so much about paying respect to those who have served, been injured or killed, I take the day off in regards to my political stance. I am neutral on those days. I zip my lips and mind my own business.

But the sight of those flags waving in the wind had us making a quick detour. So glad that we did.

The flags flying are a beautiful and sad reminder of this very complicated and controversial situation.

A High Point Can Be Hard to Find

We wanted to get to the Missouri high-point before it got dark and it was getting close.

The description I read on-line described a 3-mile hike. When we got to the parking lot with maybe an hour and a half of daylight, I decided to grab the bikes and ride to the destination it the trail wasn't too rough.

The trail head sign that said 1.2 miles made sense, more or less.

After about 10 minutes of bouncing around downhill and considering that even if we made it to the high-point while the sun was still up, we would probably end up hiking back up the hill in the dark. I decided we would stop and try again the next morning.

On the way back I read the back-side of the sign at the trail head, that showed that the High-point was 130 ft from where we had started, around 1000 ft from the parking lot.

It's a good thing we turned back when we did.

Getting Down from High Places

One of the great things about collecting high-points, is that it gets you off the beaten path. It takes you to parts of the country you would have no other reason to go to. So you end up seeing all kinds of amazing sights along the way.

The GPS device in our phones weren't connecting and the road atlas wasn't detailed enough to show us the remote roads we were on. I knew how to get to the Missouri high-point, but I wasn't sure how to get back on the road towards Vail.

We ended up on a curvy roller-coaster of a country road for what seemed like hours, actually it was hours, before getting back to the main Interstate. We saw thousands and thousands of fire-flies twinkling from the outskirts of the dark forest that enveloped us.

We drove a lot longer and further than I had planned, making the next day a little shorter and the hotel bed even more inviting.

0 Comments

Until Next Time

5/30/2012

2 Comments

The Inman Empire

I loved Inman Park from the start. It was a stone's throw from Downtown and a hop-skip and a jump to Decatur. It was a nice blend of urbaness, local-community, with good eats and drink abounding and a host to many festivals and events.

Savi Urban Market aka home of the Sea Salt Chocolate Chip Cookie, was around a hundred yards from the condo. They were a wonderful shop that supported local foods and vendors, hosted wine and beer tastings, have a great little deli area, where Skye would eat everyday if she could.

Closer Still

Barcelona, the restaurant we ended up on a very regular basis was actually in the condo-complex building.

I began to associate the smell of a wood burning oven to leaving the house in the early evening, an interesting juxtapose to living in suburban Atlanta, I would say.

One Last Trip to the Farmers Market

We finally made it over to the East Lake Farmers market. We had already been to two markets that week and were about to embark on our road trip so we were checking things out more than actually shopping.

Although we did pick up a really cute ELF T-shirt that Skye has been wearing whilst on the road.

It was a very small, very local market. One in its infancy encompassing many of the goals and ideals I support.

The Beer Scene

I had growlers from Ale Yeah and Hop City and would sometimes get refills from Savi.

But oftentimes I would be lazy and just pick up a six-pack of the local favorite, Sweet Water. One of their seasonals, Road Trip seemed like a good one to knock back as I packed.

Some Things I Won't Miss

I never did like the post-industrial style of our condos and I usually do like that kind of thing design, but it just didn't work in this case and I think it made people feel like they were living in a prison complex, just my take.

The Green Belt was a concept that I love and what Atlanta has achieved with it thus far is wonderful. The reality of living with them as they finish building it, with the trucks and noise and dust and....well it was unfortunate that we never got to utilize the trail that would connect us to Piedmont Park and beyond after so many month of "beep, beep, beep" of construction trucks backing up and "clunk, clunk, clunk" jack hammers breaking up hard-packed dirt and concrete.

Parting the Modern Way, Yes Cindy is on the phone with me while Skye has the window down waving and yelling good-bye. Living in stereo

2 Comments

X-3 Sports

5/30/2012

2 Comments

Missing X-3, Moving On, Moving Back

My feelings about our local gym, have not changed since I wrote about it in my blog posts, Georgia Sprint Spartan Race-Team X3- Sports or Nagged by Naga, so please check those out. It's just a click away.

On Saturday, Skye took her last class,(for now).

On Sunday, we all ambled over to buy some "souvenirs", aka X-3 fitness apparel. Lynsey ran out of the BJJ class that going on to wish us good-bye and Tony, who was instructing the class joined her, piling on some more X-3 swag(Thanks again.)

It was the first time Cindy and Tony had met, which still strikes me as odd but shows how even with all the melding that we've done in the last year, modern day life can be and more times than not is incredibly compartmentalized.

Saying good-bye was getting real and becoming harder.

On Monday, we were packed and hit the road, onto the next phase of our adventure.

On Tuesday, X-3 opened it's new Mid-town facility. I had really hoped to have been there for that and reading on Facebook about it, with posts asking who was going to be training there or that a friend of mine would be teaching a new kick-boxing class, hit me like when I would talk to friends and family on the phone about what was going on back home when I was on the other side of the country in college.

Cindy has more than once asked if I'm going to miss it in Atlanta and specifically X-3.

Of course I am. I could practically roll out of bed and be there. Classes with Soneca were so small, especially in the beginning, that it was like having private instruction. Skye could go to classes on her own. It was incredible.I finally started doing yoga consistently. I only wish that I had taken more classes.

That Whole Reality Thing

For the first time in over 20 years of being in IATSE, (International Alliance for Theatrical Stage Employees, the union I belong to) I ran out of the hours needed to cover my benefits. This wasn't as dire as it sounds because I am covered under Cindy's plan. She's in IA as well.

However, it did bring about that reminder that I did still do need to work, even though we have restructured our life so that neither one of us have to like we used to. So I ended decorating a TV pilot when Cindy was in between her jobs and could take over the home-schooling duties.

I only went to the gym once when I was working.

It would be easy, to fall back into the cycle we had just broken. I could work all the time and chances are as likely that Cindy would get a job that was not in Atlanta as it would be that she were to get one that wasn't, just like when were based in Los Angeles.

So in the same way that I was sure we would be back in LA, I just didn't know when and for how long; I know that we will be back to Atlanta and X-3 and Circus Arts.

I just don't know when or for how long.

And Now A Word From Our Sponsors....

I am sort of dating myself with that title, and am curious as to who remembers that common phrase from the not-so-distant past.

Kit, one of the X-3 staff, that I train BJJ with and got to know and became friends with introduced me to Thaiman Thai Oil, a product he made. I tried it one day during class and have been harassing him for a bottle ever since.

Finally and just in time he made up a batch. It has been a life-saver on this road trip. I rub it into my lower back before getting on the road and like magic, I am good for the next few hours.

Parting Shots

The new gym looks pretty awesome. One more reason to make it back to Atlanta.

To my X-3 friends and family, "Big hugs, thanks for everything and it's not good-bye but see you later"

2 Comments

The Day the Circus Left Town

5/25/2012

1 Comment

A Bitter-Sweetness

We found Circus Arts Institute pretty early on in our Atlanta experience.

I wanted Skye to be able to continue her "PE" classes, as it were.

So I managed to find a place where she/we could continue studying aerial arts.

The Circus Arts Institute became much more than that.

They became family.

Wednesday night was our last night at class, on this particular journey. I feel that we have not seen the last of Atlanta or our circus family here.

I made a few music mixes for the class, one of them included the Eartha Kitt song, the Day the Circus Left Town, so I decided to use it as the title to my blog post.

How clever.

Then I found out that Eric Clapton also wrote a song entitled Circus Left Town about the day with his son before he died, beautiful song, but so sad.

No More Tears

Enough of the bitter aspect of our nomad life, and what did that video have to do with us or the circus class or Atlanta or anything really.

Check out the pics and videos of our time at the Circus Arts Institute.

We had never been on the Spanish Web before arriving in Atlanta.

It's not my favorite apparatus, but Skye has certainly taken to it.

I should probably learn to endure its cruel pain more because it can be a pretty macho and bad-ass.

The videos speak for themselves, for the most part.

Hoopalicious

Fellow hooper and circus gal, Katina aka the Happy Hooper made this amazing hula hoop for Skye.

The two of them took turns dazzling us with their skills and the newest hoop to our growing collection of circular toys.

We had a great time playing and learning new skills.

Yet another reason to return to Atlanta.

1 Comment

A Wilde Night with Goats

5/25/2012

0 Comments

On Being Earnest

Actually it ended up not being so wild and no goats were harmed at the A WILDE NIGHT: After-Party at the Goat Farm.

Not because it wasn't a great party, but more because Cindy and I were already exhausted. I had purchased the tickets the week before, not knowing our schedule.

I figure that we both love events hosted at the Goat Farm, it was to benefit Georgia Shakespeare and I have always been a huge fan of Oscar Wilde, who much to my dismay didn't show up.

We must stop meeting like this

One of our wonderful teachers, Jacosa from Circus Arts was performing which was an unexpected treat.

We ran into her the other day at the Sweetwater Festival where she was at the Circus Camp booth but she merely handing out flyers, so it was fun to see her up on the trapeze.

We're All the News Now

I didn't realize until later that I managed to capture the fire-breather twice, once on my phone and then on this other spectators phone, pretty interesting.

I don't often think too much about the risks involved in fire-eating and breathing, but the other day I found out one of our circus arts alum had burned her lung playing with fire.

But it sure looks cool.

I mean hot, I mean....

And The Band Played On

Blair Crimmins & The Hookers were rocking the room with a vaudeville and ragtime kind of flavor and we would have probably kicked up our heels and joined in with the dancing, but as I mentioned we were exhausted and our feet were already wanting to go home.

We gave in and headed home after not so long, but it was fun time while there.

0 Comments

Atlanta Streets Alive 2012

5/23/2012

0 Comments

Atlanta Streets Alive 2012

I attended this event last year.

It was held downtown, in June. It was around twenty degrees hotter with probably 1/5 the vendors and activities and 1/10 the attendees.

I rode down there by myself, Cindy and Skye were up in Nashville. I didn't know anybody, so I did my best to make it interesting, but it was really hot and there was no shade in sight and almost nothing going on.

Location,Location, Location

This year, Atlanta Streets Alive was held right on Highland, our street. The weather was perfect. We had several friends who were participating in the event and several more who were attending. We were also invited to a pool party taking place a few hundred yards from the event. Unfortunately Cindy had to leave by 4 which gave us 2 hours, which I thought would be plenty of time.

I was wrong....

Too Much To See and Do

We hopped on our bikes and headed out.

We didn't get a hundred yards from the apartment when I spotted one of our friends from Circus Arts Institute playing in a crazy mash-up game of kickball/dodgeball . She invited us to play, but Cindy, not realizing Skye and I had stopped, was already a block ahead of us.

We sped through the crowd to catch up to her.
Meanwhile I got a call from another one of our buddies that we met in our Circus class but hadn't seen in a while who was a the festival but happened to be at the end where we would be ending up.

I figured we would pedal to where the Bike Parade was starting and then check out the various booths on the way. back.

What Atlanta festival would be complete without Kelly’s Seed and Feed Marching Abominable Band.

And imagine that, one of our pals from circus class was in the band.

The street closure went further than I realized. With the crowds making cycling a slalom challenge and significantly slowing us down, we realized we were already in a time crunch.

People Power

"Atlanta Streets Alive was inspired by the ciclovia in Bogotá, Colombia, where city streets are closed to car traffic to allow people to participate in all kinds of free health and community-oriented events." A concept which I think is great and I wish would happen more often and in more cities.

One thing I'm going to miss about Atlanta is the size and accessibility. In Los Angeles, an event like this would be bound to get complicated, crowded and expensive. We have been incredibly fortunate to have been welcomed into several ":communities" ranging from the home-school crowd, to "burners" and of course our circus friends and X3-Sports family, not to mention all of those in the film business.

Things Seen and Not Seen

We had to race by booths with hula hoops, cross-fitters, Zumba dancers, as well as more than a few corn-hole set-ups.

Atlanta has a ton of festivals and events. One that I'll be sad to be missing is the Red Bull Soapbox Race.

At least I got to check out one the soapbox racers at their stand as well as a pretty cool bicycle DJ set-up.

Unicorn Sighthings

I've always had a thing for unicorns. I know that might sound a bit odd and perhaps that would be deserved, but I like a lot of what they represent.

On that note, what started as a funny facebook comment has evolved into yet another one of my hobbies/past-times; that is unicorn sightings and there have been plenty while I've been in Atlanta.

Did you spot it in one of the videos?

Silks, Circles and Raw Foods

The folks from Kinetic Hive set up their aerial rig and were doing demos and performances.

"Kinetic Hive is a space for workshops, classes, and events that is dedicated to community, collaborative learning, physicality, participatory fun, inspiring each other, and play."

I stumbled on the Hive towards the end of our stay, right before I started working on Revolution. We were able to make it to a couple of acro-yoga classes and Skye went to a hooping class, but unfortunately with our schedule and such we weren't able to get over there nearly as much as I wanted. It's a mere five-minute walk from the condo and has a great energy and ridiculously diverse offerings in workshops and classes and meet-ups. Maybe next time.

Our friend, Ladell Hill was there with Chuice samples. I got hooked on Chuice the first time I ever tried it and now drink it everyday. Another thing I'll miss when we leave. He'll ship it to me wherever I end up, but it's not like walking down the street and getting it minutes after they've made up a batch; talk about local and fresh.

We saw more circus folk and then Cindy had to leave to get going to Chattanooga.

Skye and I were just about to head over to the pool party when Cindy called to tell me I accidentally grabbed her car keys.

Oops

0 Comments

Lakers Let Down

5/20/2012

0 Comments

Time Zone Blues

One of the things that has been a pain lately, and all things considered barely rating beyond a nag, is that being here in the Eastern time zone, Laker games typically air at around 10:30 at night.

So last night after a long week and going out for a quick drink with Cindy so we could hang out together in the neighborhood a final time, we got back and settled in on the coach to watch Game 4, Lakers vs. OKC, which might as well be Game 7, because if we can't put it together to win on our home court after winning the night before, it is highly unlikely that we will win three in a row; two on the road and one back at home.

It's possible but highly unlikely.

I fell asleep during the half-time break. We were in the lead and looking good. I woke up to the post-game wrap-up.

Half-asleep I realized they managed to blow it again.(Notice how we were in the lead, but they managed to blow it)

It wasn't until this morning that I checked out the highlights on-line that I saw how lame and how typical it was for the Lakers to give another game away.

And the finger pointing was happening pretty quickly.

If they don't win the next three, which I don't think they will, not that they can't or shouldn't, they just probably won't.

They lost game one which can be written off to being tired and the Thunder having a nice break. Then they gifted the next one by two points in the last 30 seconds. But they dictated the tempo and style of the game.
They won the next game at home, just barely, but they did avoid being swept.
And then there was last night. The Lakers led by nine at the start of the fourth quarter and by 11 with 7:45 remaining, but couldn't hold on down the stretch for the second time in the series.

So when/if they don't win the team will be exploded.

I can't imagine the coach, Mike Brown will be around. I heard a rumor that Phil Jackson is missing coaching. Pau will probably be sent off. Kobe is "a Laker for life" Bynum still has the stuff to build a team around, just not the maturity which LA, a city not known for its patience, has already grown tired of.

Monday will probably determine whether our road trip is spent looking for places to camp or places that have access to the game.

After many years as a Laker fan, I'm prepared for either one, the Hollywood version or the LA version.

0 Comments

Group-oops

5/18/2012

0 Comments

My Groupon Affair

The first time I really heard much about Groupon was among the moms hanging out at various home-school functions that Skye was doing.

It seemed like a great idea, but i I don't often use regular coupons because they're usually for things that I wouldn't typically get or with conditions not worth the savings. So I pretty much blew of the concept.

However.....

Relatives of Groupon

I was at a restaurant and saw an ad on one of those little stand up displays on the table that said I could get $15 off just by downloading this certain App and then saying I was eating at the restaurant. That seemed simple and innocent enough. So I did and it worked.

Maybe I should re-think this whole coupon concept.

I joined Groupon, Scoutmob, Active.com, and LivingSocial, and probably a couple others that I've forgotten about. And I have legitimately saved money buying things I normally would and going to places I wanted to go at the time I wanted to be there.

I have also ended up at restaurants at odd hours, sometimes dragging Cindy and Skye along for an evening out when we were all pretty tired and would have stayed in if it weren't the last day to use the money saving coupon I had already paid for. And we ended up at a couple events that I was just marginally interested in, which I did end up enjoying and was glad to have went.

But for the most part, I had a pretty good track record. That is until I went on a Groupon shopping spree.

It's not that I made purchases I wouldn't normally use, its more what changed in our living situation. I started working practically non-stop on Revolution and as soon as I was finished Cindy started working practically non-stop on her job and our time in Atlanta was coming to an end.

So, now with a week and a half before we hit the road with no ultimate destination and not much of an itinerary, I have a couple's retreat to a local spa, some sushi dinners, and a scuba diving certification class to cram in and test for, (when I called a couple of weeks ago they told me the certification typically takes 4-6 weeks of weekly classes and additional practice dives. I told them I was living by the month's end. They were kind enough to do accommodate me with 3 four-hour one-on-one intensive classes with me doing extra studying out of class, plus a referral letter so that I could do my final open-water exam where ever I ended up.)

Add to this equation, the fact that Cindy's job has her in Alabama and Tennessee much of this month.

Needless to say this has added to the already complicated "moving"/ nomadic living adventure/process.

The pitfalls of being frugal.

0 Comments

<<Previous

The Road to Vail-Day 3

The Road to Vail-Day 2

Going West on a Memorial Day

Until Next Time

X-3 Sports

The Day the Circus Left Town

A Wilde Night with Goats

Atlanta Streets Alive 2012

Lakers Let Down

Group-oops

Author

Archives

Categories