With my last blog, I had a series of posts about various Farmer's Markets around Los Angeles. Now that we've hit the road, it will be fun and interesting to check out how they compare to one's in other parts of the country..
There are several differences I've noticed between the farmer's markets in California, (while visiting Cindy in San Francisco I made a point to hit the scene up there) and the couple I've been to in Atlanta. One is size. In California even the smallest markets on off days are bigger than the ones here in Georgia. I guess going hand in hand with the size aspect is quantity and variety. In Cali, there are tons of variety and tons of quantity. In Atlanta it's much more hit or miss, so it becomes crucial to get there early before they sell out. The vendors tend to be running smaller farms and they seem to have more familiarity with the day to day workings of the farm. In a way it feels more authentic and I'm sure in many cases it is. That all said, let's check out the Decatur Farmer's Market which we went to yesterday(Wednesday).

This is by far the most tents that have been at this market. There were a lot of tomatoes and kale. Unfortunately, we already had our share of tomatoes and I don't know much about kale, although that is likely to change. We did pick up some delicious tamales, as well as some eggs, corn and arugula.

The hand made signs, the clothes pins and the meager amounts of produce are quaint and adorable. (not a word I use often)
We bought all the cobs of corn from the only vendor that had any, seven. He said that the squirrels got to the rest of them.

King of Pops is an Atlanta tradition, yummy. They're hard to resist and I often don't.

IThe Metro Dash is a race that is a series of 30 obstacles laid out in a parking lot. It is a sprint, around 600 meters in total.
I was a bit nervous about this race, nervous in the way that I am about 5k's and 10k's and stairclimbs. I have no doubt about finishing. It's more about how fast to go. In most of the races I do, finishing in one piece makes for a success, the time is almost irrelevant. They don't even keep time in the Tough Mudder. But for shorter events, it is very much about the time, so pacing isn't geared at just finishing, it is about finishing with a good time.

I did not pace this well.
I have not been training much as of late and have been in a weird emotional state. My confidence has been lagging. I started out and did 90 percent of the course at what could be seen as a jog or warm-up. When I rounded the corner and realized I had 3 obstacles left, I turned it up, but by then it was far too late. I  crossed the finish line at 10 minutes and 13 seconds, which sounds fast because most of my races take over two hours, but the winning times were in just over 6 minutes. More importantly, I did not feel like I gave it my all. So rather than feeling really good about finishing a race, I left the event pissed off at myself, which is kind of lame and unfortunate. But it did strengthen my resolve to get back to serious training. It did throw off my day though.

To try to get back on track I decided to go to an outdoor festival in downtown Atlanta, Atlanta Streets Alive.

"Imagine a street full of people of all ages and backgrounds, walking, biking, creating and laughing, together. A street temporarily closed to cars, but open to people. Imagine residents safely enjoying their city, socializing with neighbors, and engaging in healthy activities. Imagine if all of this were free, with absolutely no barriers to participation. By the people, for the people. Sound good yet?"

That's how the website read. I was ready for that. What I got after bicycling in the 90+ degree heat with a ton of humidity was was something else though, particularly the "street full of people"

The streets were all blocked off, although one of the police helping to manage the event had no idea what was going on, when asked if there was a festival she answered, "No, it's something for bikes and scooters"  There wasn't much in the way of entertainment or activities. The few booths and such that were there, were spread out over mile or so and in spite of their good intentions were lack luster at best.  I stopped by to offer support and engage.

One booth GreenPlate was aimed at using less plastic which I'm all for. I was the only one visiting the stand so it was like preaching to the choir. There was a booth for ZipCar, a car-sharing service that I had read about and was interested in, so I picked their brains a bit which I think was good for all parties involved. I think I will be joining up at some point. I have a goal to have only one car for our family, which is what we have right now. ZipCar could be a cost-effective way of maintaining this goal/lifestyle without much sacrifice.  I avoided the fixie bike booth because I didn't want the temptation. And somehow I missed the stilt-walkers which was one of the main reasons I biked on over. All in all it was good to get out on my bike and it changed my mood so....

Sunday morning found us in Gallup, New Mexico, repacking the car because it had gotten just too messy and unorganized to ignore.  We were starting out later and more westerly than I would have liked but that was our lot at this point. This part of the trip, through New Mexico, the Texas pan handle and Oklahoma is incredibly flat and devoid of visual stimulation and variety, the doldrums of our cross-country trip. When we stopped for dinner just the other side of Oklahoma City we had to decide whether to continue our “camping” trip and stop or to buckle up, buckle down and hit the road again. We opted for the latter and made our destination the Ozarks, still several hours away.  We had already been driving non-stop for almost 12 hours, but we figured we could go late, wake up early the next morning and hit another high point in Arkansas, maybe manage one in Alabama and be in Atlanta Monday night, one day ahead of schedule.

We rolled into a funky motel, several miles off the interstate deep in the Ozarks around 1 a.m. We were on the road a few hours later just halfway between 6 and 7 in the morning. In around and hour, we were on empty, no cell phone service, with no idea where exactly the Arkansas high point was, I mean we knew it was Magazine Mountain, it just turned out that Magazine Mountain was the name of the entire state park not the exact high point. We passed a road that we thought led to the trail head because we were, aforementioned,   on empty. A few miles on we reached a gas station, that didn’t open til 10. I could not bear to wait 2 ½ hours so we pressed on, hoping that there would be an open gas station before we ran out. Miles and miles passed with nothing but trees and the occasional road kill. We did pass a turtle in the middle of the road that hadn’t been hit yet, but we couldn’t stop to help him across the road because of our own fuel distress.

Finally after making up and over Magazine Mountain and out of the park we pulled into Johnny’s One Stop and refueled. Skye was ready to skip the Arkansas highpoint and head straight to Atlanta.  Of course I would not hear of such a thing, mostly because I had no intention of making this diversion again. So be headed back up the mountain, picking up the turtle, who still was in the middle of the road waiting to get squashed  and dropping him off on the other side of the road. We went all the way back to the trail head we passed earlier, only to drive down a rut filled road to find that was definitely not the way to the high point. Back in the car back up the hill, I mean mountain, to the ranger station and solid intel on the location of the high point. Up at Signal Hill, not Magazine Mountain was our goal.

After parking it was less than ½ a mile to get to the highpoint. There was no view but there was a very nice sign that left no doubt that we were indeed at the highest elevation in Arkansas.  There was even a GPS button or whatever it is officially known as cemented in place as well.  The hike itself took less than ½ hour, but the whole affair cost us many hours, worth it in the long run certainly, but we would pay for it later on.

There's a "high-point" in every one of the fifty states and of course there's a club and website devoted to those who seek them out High-pointers- Summits of the States. Skye and I started out, very much on a whim, to see them. Our first was in Florida, at 345 ft it is the lowest of the high.

We were able with very little effort to "collect" several of these summits while traveling around the East coast. The West coast however is a completely different endeavor. When I read that Arizona was the easiest of the West Coast summits to reach, I thought it would be a good introduction.

Rising above the rest of Arizona at 12,633 ft, Humprhey's Peak is just outside of Flagstaff. The hike up is just under 5 miles. I figured it would take between 2-3 hours to get up and a couple to get down, maybe 5 hours. It took us 9 hours to make the entire trip. The trail was steep and had more roots and rocks on it than any that I've ever climbed. Only with extreme vigilance could one make it up and down with ankles in tact. That with the altitude would have made for a tough enough climb and that was just the first 4 miles. The last 3/4 mile was a scramble above the treeline through a boulder-field that was just barely marked. If there weren't several other groups making the trek, it would have been extremely difficult to find. 

The views were pretty incredible, but it was extremely hazy, probably a lot to do with the wildfires in the eastern part of the state. I had finally had the foresight to bring binoculars only to not be able to see much of anything.

Getting down the hill was not nearly as easy as we thought and toward the end Skye was completely fried. She went through a range of emotions in the last mile or so, shedding tears of frustration, pain, sadness, confusion but in the end she was "crying with tears of joy" as she put it when we saw the meadow that meant we were finally finished.

Finally, I have finished packing up the house, moving into both of our storage units and loading up the car to the brink of capacity and have hit the road. It has taken months to sort out all the details and get this task accomplished. But it is now done. I didn't get much sleep so the first day on the road was rough and we got off to a later start than I would have preferred, but now I am in our tent(with Wi-Fi) in Flagstaff and am ready to turn in.
Tomorrow we start the day with .an attempt to bag another High-point, Humphrey's Peak. At   12633 ft it will be by far our highest high point yet. It should take the better part of the day. And then back on the road heading East to.....

Skye and I went to the Santa Monica Drive-In at the Pier to see the Season 4 Premiere of Whale Wars. We both love the show and since we don’t have TV in the house, this was perfect timing. Plus we would get to see Captain Paul Watson up close and in person.

It’s funny to me the idea of Paul Watson as in “eco-terrorist”.   The whole point of “terrorism” is to instill fear, terror in order to push an agenda, usually political in nature.  Very often the relative randomness and attack on innocent bystanders is what makes it so terrifying and horrible.  There must be a better term to use for who he is and what the Sea Shepherds are doing.  Perhaps more in the lines of “civil disobedience” .

Regardless, we had a great time, scored a couple of promotional “Whale Wars” beach towels and did indeed get to see Paul Watson both before and after the event.  I have never seen Skye as star struck before. Part of it certainly is her age, but there is another part that really is drawn to the animal-rights activism that the show promotes and glorifies.

Captain Paul Watson and some of the crew. It was hard to get a good photo. For starters we were too far away, plus with him in a white suit and white hair against a white background,

Last week was an odd one to say the least. Not odd in the memorable way, it was strange in that the Tough Mudder event was over and done with. It lived up to all my fears and expectations. But now I was facing a much more foreboding task, monumental in its banality, in its inevitability and sense of futility. I couldn’t finish the job last time and had to escape across the country for a break.  Now we were back to packing up what was still left at the house. It’s amazing how much we acquired over the years; what we get, cling to, store, cart around.  I am left to figure out what to keep and store, whether to take it to the larger storage facility in the valley or in the closer, more secure and convenient yet drastically smaller unit near the Marina, what we might use in Atlanta, where we know we’ll be until the end of July and then…?. With what we don’t keep, I need to get rid of somehow, hopefully give it away, then recycle and as a final option, the trash, I gave up trying to sell the stuff awhile ago.

Keep in mind the other reason why we came back to Los Angeles was so that Skye could see her friends, have her West Coast birthday party(a small affair with only a few of her friends) and try to enjoy some of the LA stuff before heading away for who knows how long. So I'll be juggling all that plus my role as home school teacher.

And then of course, there is my physical state which is pretty beat up even a week later.

So several days into this I still feel like there’s a ton to do, that I’ve already accomplished a lot, that I have plenty of time to finish and I can’t figure out how it’s all going to ever get done.