Jet-Setting on a Budget in the New Economy

By the time we had finally unwound and were settling in to camp life up in the High Sierras, it was time to go. And go we did. We took our time, sort of, to pack up camp and head south to LA.

Cindy would leave Monday for a multi-month job in NOLA. Skye and I would be leaving even earlier, as in 3 a.m. for a whirlwind orthodontist trip to Atlanta.

But before we could embark on those journeys we had to delve into our LA storage unit, which always conjures up yucky memories and misadventures into heaps of banality.

We hit the local farmer's market to get some homegrown fortitude to help endure the storage blues. I had intended to do an interesting compare and contrast blog entry about farmers markets, but have since realized that I am far too behind to tackle that, so.....

On That Note, Off to Atlanta

A Very Expensive Orthodontist Appointment
I would say we have a lot of loose ends in Atlanta, but that implies that things could and would be tied up and honestly I'm not so sure of that. In fact, it is highly likely that we will be setting roots there, so it would be jumping the gun a bit to even begin to sever ties with this second home of ours, even though Louisiana is starting to make GA a little jealous and uneasy.

Trails in the City
I slipped out before Skye woke up and ran a few miles. So much easier at near sea-level elevations and hills instead of mountains.

And to be on familiar territory, so to speak.

Actually in the past decade, this may be my most familiar of runs, although the jog around the LSU lakes was certainly beginning to edge it out.

Coming Home to the Circus

In our typical topsy-turvy take on things, the circus is the constant and we are routinely running back to it as opposed to the more common "running-away-with-the-circus" theme.

It was great to see familiar faces and get to play on equipment and apparatus that felt familiar in a funny sort of way.

There's a theme going on here.  Yes the nomadic lifestyle is begining to wear on us. This is looking to be the final leg in this particular journey I think, that said, this leg might be a stretch.

We'll see.....

We made a trip to our Atlanta mailbox, stuffed with all sorts of stuff from my local union, but no sign of the license tags for the trailer I was hoping to find there. DMV bureaucracy seems to be a constant across the country. 

As does, unemployment benefits, something I decided not to deal with on this particular trip, for better or for worse.

I got checked up at the dermatologist, something I've taken much more seriously since having a life-threatening melanoma cut out of my leg a few years back.

There was a lot we didn't get done, a lot of friends I wish we could have seen, but for being there for only a day and a half we got a lot done.

And just like that we were saying goodbye to Atlanta and drudging through TSA security and jamming ourselves into seats to fly back to LA for more obligations and adventures.

Home is Where the Hearts Are

It's kind of weird saying good-bye to a hotel room that's become more of a home than anywhere in the last year.

On The Road Again, and Again and Again

Four years ago, Skye and I embarked on a once-in-a-lifetime, father/daughter road trip across the US. We took around three weeks to drive across from LA to Atlanta and back to visit Cindy who was working on a job there.
Since then we've gone back and forth more times than I can remember. And we've made the journey in a leisurely manner as well as like bat-out-of-hell depending on any number of things.

This time around was certainly one of the more brisk crossings and little went according to plan.

My job finished shooting on Friday July 12, Skye was starting a Shakespeare camp on Monday July 15th in Mammoth Lakes, CA, a 32 hour drive from where we were staying in Baton Rouge.

Cindy was due to start a show in New Orleans in the next few weeks, although there is as of this point no definite start date.To lighten our load we boxed up and stored a goodly amount of our "stuff" in NOLA.  So now we have some of my work stuff stored in Atlanta, a mix of personal and work stuff in New Orleans, the lion's share of our stuff in storage in the San Fernando Valley, and our day to day living stuff as well as more of my work stuff, camping supplies, circus accoutrements, and Burning Man gear jam packed in and on top of the Rav4 as well as in a little trailer we're hauling. 

We have a mailing address in Marina del Rey and Atlanta and we are currently residing in a tent in a campground in Mammoth Lakes a mile or so away from Skye's Shakespeare endeavor.

Cindy still doesn't know when she's starting her show.  But we do know that the Monday after the Friday that Skye's 2-week camp comes to an end, her and I are flying to Atlanta for an orthodontist appointment.

We also know that I am signed up to run the Spartan Beast in Monterrey CA, August 10th and that after that Skye and I will camp for a few days up at Crater Lake before I drop her off at my mom's house in Oregon so that I can drop down to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada to be part of the Burning Man experience. We also know that the three of us will all reunite in Ohio for my neice's wedding September 7.

Also I'm supposed to be finishing up my course to get certified as a personal trainer by the end of July, (I see yet another extension coming) I'm training to run my first ultra-run at Burning Man, a barely-qualifiying 50K and I have mandatory saftey training class to take in LA for my IATSE Local 44 card.

2000 Miles Three Days No Problem

I wanted to get on the road by 4:30 or 5 am.

That didn't happen. We headed out of Baton Rouge around 11:30. We did however put in our "minimum" day of 12 hours, not quite making it out of Texas, finally succumbing to exhaustion somewhere between Wichita Falls and Amarillo Texas.

The next day was our "Big Day" and I pushed our limits, landing us on a ridiculously crowded Las Vegas Strip just shy of midnight on a Saturday. Did i mention we were pulling an 8' trailer?

Somehow I navigated us through cut-throat traffic that consisted of extended cab/limo humvees, town cars, cabs out on their money night as well as newbie tourists from all over the globe with their regional driving cultures to somehow slide into a Mobile 6 just off the Strip that happened to have a cancellation for a room with two beds.

Running Out of Gas

There have been many times when the empty light has struck fear in my heart on these long journeys.

Sometimes its due to daydreaming and not paying attention and other times it happens because gas stations are closed or I believe that a decent sized town would have a gas station and for some bizarre reason doesn't.

But I have never run out of gas.

Until the Highway 168, just north of Death Valley.

We fueled up in Las Vegas and somewhere along the 95 I napped while Cindy took the wheel. When I woke up we were in the middle of nowhere (could have been the same place as when I had fallen asleep) and the gas gauge read 1/4 tank.

We didn't pass any gas stations as crossed the California-Nevada state line and turned onto Highway 168 where we were greeted with the No Gas for 58 Miles sign.

It was literally around 100 yards after that when the empty light came on.

I was concerned but knew that in the past I had driven more than 58 miles after the light came on.

I wasn't hauling a trailer which makes a huge difference particularly when going up steep hills which we would run into shortly.

Worse than the hills though was the fork in the road, that didn't have any signs indicating which direction was the aforementioned gas.

We went the way our GPS told us which ended up being the wrong way.

I did my best to not use the brakes and coast downhill even though it was ridiculously windy and narrow.  Again the trailer made things more challenging.

We finally sputtered to a stop going up hill.

Luckily there was some one driving right behind us who were kind enough to give us a lift.  Unfortunately there was only room for two, so I found a comfortable place to lie down under a pine tree while Cindy and Skye went off for help.

A couple of hours later they returned with gas and we were back in action.

We pulled into Mammoth as the sun was setting. Even though we would be camping for the next couple of weeks, we had the foresight to book a hotel for our first night, which turned out to be a wonderful thing.

Our Tucson History
,
Cindy and I worked on Tank Girl together way back in 1994. The majority of it shot in Tucson, actually a bit south of Tucson in an old copper mine. We were working mostly on exteriors during a summer where for over 35 days it hit 105F each and every day.

It was a tough show and I saw very little of Tucson. My days would consist of waking up before the sun, driving to said copper mine, working for 13-14 hours and then heading back as the sunset to shower and fall fast asleep. Cindy was able to see a little bit more of the town and ended many a day with the art dept at the Cup, a restaurant in the old town of Tucson.

Many years later, Skye and I drove through Tucson and went to the Biosphere and checked out the Ostrich farm/tourist attraction of Rooster Cogburn. The Biosphere was educational and pretty amazing and couldn't be more PC. The Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Farm was a goofy, crazy roadside attraction guilty pleasure.

Guess which one we returned to?



Gem show

The Mountain

Photo-Ops A Go Go

The Ostrich are certainly the main event at Rooster Cogburn, however before you get to them you have to go through a gauntlet of feedings of furry friends in some of the strangest and most contrived situations.

You start with feeding little donkeys, and then deer and goats and then some more goast and then...

I'm just gonna throw up a bunch of pictures and let the viewer sort it out, part out of laziness, part out of running out of time, and part out of the whole picture worth a thousand words.

Ostrich
and Other Birds

It's sometimes amazing that ostrich are actually birds. They look more like dinosaurs.

Feeding them takes a bit of nerves and I got my hand nipped when I tried to hand feed one out of a cup.

After playing with the raptors for a bit, we moved into the Lorakeet house with our little cups of nectar. Cindy was their favorite and got swarmed like she was Tippi from The Birds.

Relearning How to Run...... Again

I haven't run regularly in at least 9 months and even then it was sporadic.

I don't consider my self a "runner". I like being able to run for long distances. And when I do run, I like the effect it has on the other physical things I do.

But getting out there day after day and putting in the miles, plodding along, step after step, well it's never been one of my favorite things.

I thoroughly enjoy running on the beach or on mountain trails, but Atlanta didn't have the first and the second would always involve a goodly amount of driving and planning.

Bare Footin'

I had decided to ditch my running shoes after reading Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. It was a little strange at first and you definitely have to start off slow to strengthen all the supporting muscles that have for years been bound up and "protected" by shoes.

I had done that and the last time I had been running at all consistently, I had finally "gotten it" . When I was gliding along with my Vibram Five-Fingers, I could practically see the ground with my feet.

Agony of  deFeet

I thought it would probably be a good idea to get in at least one run at elevation before the day of the 10k.

My lungs were heaving within a minute. You'd think I was a smoker, who'd never run a day in his life. Within a hundred yards of starting up the trail, I slammed my left foot into a rock.

It felt like I had broken my toe. I hobbled onward and finally the pain subsided and my normal gait returned.  Twist went my ankle on the other foot.  I bounced forward and limped as I continued running, now on the other side.  This practice run was looking to deep six my 10k plans.

I focused on running naturally. I started to remember my mid-sole strike. My feet started to feel the trail. And I remembered how much I loved running in nature. I was going to take it easy and do around 30 minutes. I ended up being out for 45 and would have done twice that if I had water and Skye wasn't waiting for me.

Runners Take Your Mark

It was a brisk 48F when we started the race, sunny and absolutely gorgeous.

There were a lot of serious runners and athletes out there. This was not a "fun" run.

I looked around for the slacker or walkers that usually outnumber the people looking for to win, place in there age group or best a personal record.  Not too many of those types could be found.

As we started the race, we immediately started uphill and my lungs protested like they did before. I pushed on, but people were passing me almost effortlessly. I would find out later that pretty much everyone out there was from Colorado and used to the high altitude.

I was not, so when we ran into a bottle neck as the whole race funneled onto a trail meant for one person, I was more than a little relieved.

The whole race came to a grinding halt.

When we started moving again it was uphill, almost straight up. There were more than a few times when I was practically crawling. It was that steep.

The End Is Near

After the initial climb, the race spread out. Even so there we many places where only one person could fit on the trail. There was always a little pressure not to slow people down that were behind you.

The views were incredible, and even as winded as I was, I couldn't stop smiling.

So happy to be up in the mountains, running.

The Sound of Running
When I used to wear running shoes, you could hear me coming from a mile away. My feet literally were pounding the pavement, or whatever surface I was on. With the switch to barefoot or minimal shoes, I had to shorten my stride, increase the my foot turnover and land more softly, forcing my legs to take the impact of landing rather than my shoe.

Now my feet would fall softly onto the path, barely making a sound. Meanwhile the runners all around me sounded like a herd of galloping horses.  At one point I was sandwiched between to female runners on a narrow downhill section of the trail. I couldn't believe how much louder their footsteps were than mine.

My breathing was another matter. I was huffy and puffy like I was going to have a heart attack. I felt like Darth Vader and when things really bunched I felt like a creepy stalker breathing heavy into the phone.  I was getting self-conscious because no one else seemed to be gasping for air like I was.

I used to pass so many people on down hills. I would stride out, practically leaping down the trail, my big legs and hips acting like shock absorbers.  You can't do that when you're barefoot. Now rather than reducing the number of footfalls, I am adding to it dramatically. My feet are spinning to try to keep up with my body.

It takes more effort and is lot more tiring but much safer and better for my body. When I feel my ankle turn even the slightest, my weight transfers almost instantly to the other foot. Before I would have crumbled and had a messed up ankle.

I finished in  1:42:55 ,around 42 minutes behind the winner. I was happy to make it under the two hours I had given myself. It was a tough run. The hardest 10k I had ever done. But in the end I felt incredible.

I miss the mountains already.