Homecoming

Even though he won't remember a thing, we have proof the baby enjoyed his first road trip.
Especially the view.

We're back home. I think we were all happy to be home for about a day and then we started missing our trip. Everyone asked me how it was possible to travel with three kids including an infant in a van for four weeks. I can hardly understand it myself, but it was wonderful. It was a lot of work. Especially on nights when we camped. But most of the work, the loading and unloading of our gear, the setting up, the breaking down, the cooking, the cleaning was handled by Mr. Rosen. I was on baby watch. And baby feed. The breastaurant was open 24 hours. So while I wasn't on duty for any of the heavy lifting, I did put three pounds on our baby and that counts for a lot. By the end of the trip none of his clothes fit for which I take personal pride. These aren't lowfat knockers.

After Utah we met some friends in Salida, Colorado, friends who are also moving to Israel albeit three months before us. Their eldest daughter is the one that my son has been friends with since birth. They played beautifully as did their middle daughter and our middle daughter and as it happens they have a three months old. We are perfectly paired.

And then it was the final haul to New Mexico where we returned the Bear Proof Vehicle to its rightful owners and enjoyed some quality times with the Rosens. We realized early on in the trip, after the first exhausting night of camping, that this trip was not about us. It was about the kids - creating some family lore for them. Filling their summer with idyllic childhood experiences. Letting them explore. Making them watch hour after hour of classic Loony Tunes in the van.

Some of the highlights:

• Cooling off in the creek at Lithia Park in Ashland
• Kayaking on the Oregon Coast
• The Wolf and the Bear food cart
• Seeing my 5th grade teacher Mr. Marshall at the Saturday Market in Portland
• Eating wild strawberries
• Mt Hood
• The hour that Mr. Rosen and I had in the morning on our anniversary after three kids inexplicably went back to sleep
• White water rafting in Bend
• Deserted hot springs in Eastern Oregon (deserted everything in Eastern Oregon)
• My daughter's knock knock jokes (this merits its own post)
• Monsoon rains in Utah
• Two terrified kids snuggled into the same sleeping bag during a lightening storm overhead
• Double rainbows
• The river walk in Escalante National Monument
• Picking apples in Capitol Reef National Park
• Denny's
• Rooftop margaritas with my brother in law and sister in law
• My niece's fifth birthday at the alien themed roller rink in Santa Fe (where the baby had a blowout so big it almost dripped into my skates).
• Friends and family we saw along the way - Danny and Tara, Danny and Rachel, Sue, John and Jessie, Jenn and David, Holly and Rob, Sim and Jen, Shirley and Ran, Yitz and Patricia, Saba and Savta. You guys made this trip unbelievable.

abedi abedi abedi, that's all folks.

Home Tour

Driveway


Bedroom


Bathroom


Kitchen


Laundry Room


Front Porch


Balcony


Kiva Koffeehouse


This strikingly beautiful two bedroom / one bath sits above Calf Creek and boasts 360 degree views of Utah's dramatic Escalante Grand Staircase National Monument. The property features an open floor plan, chef's kitchen with all of the latest amenities and a separate open air laundry area. While the master bedroom is extremely roomy with a lot of natural light, the second "loft - style" bedroom offer a cozy respite from the elements. Best of all, the large bathroom offers panoramic vistas for a relaxing, often exhilarating, experience. The neighborhood rates very high on the walkability scale and is only a short ride to your morning coffee. Move quickly! This property may only last another 65 million years.

Bending

A little stumptown coffee froth to show our love for Bend, Oregon - home to 80,000 ridiculously fit people who run, bike, kayak, raft, ski and swim 365 days a year. A little intimidating for this postpartum mama. We stayed with friends whom we hadn't seen in six years and, in fact, getting together required a little bending from both sides - a story for another time. Our three and their three were six peas in a pod. They played outside with the neighborhood kids (something that never happens in our neighborhood), they biked, the made up games, they splashed, they even went rafting. One of our friends in a rafting guide and took our son down the Dechutes river through Big Eddy rapids. The pictures are hilarious - a lot of terror. And jubilation at the end. We were sad to leave them.

After a night camping in Eastern Oregon at a beautiful hotsprings we drove straight through southern Idaho and found ourselves latenight at Denny's and the Western Inn. Yehaw! We're off to some National Parks for the next few days. Be back sunburned soon.

Bear Proof Vehicle

Mr. Rosen and I have found ourselves in some hairy situations over the years in our various adventures. While camping in Spain we woke up surrounded by giant cows who tried to steal our breakfast. We once took a ride from a trucker in Turkey who wouldn't let us out where we wanted and started driving east to the Syrian border. In India Mr. Rosen almost got in a fist fight with a bus driver who claimed we didn't have valid bus tickets and threatened to kick us off. Good times. But our near encounter with a family of bears on Thursday night trumps all.

I was in the tent trying to nurse the baby to sleep and our daughter was already out. Mr. Rosen was in the van singing good-night songs to our son who was sleeping in the pop up roof. I'm half listening to him sing and half dozing off myself when I hear some moaning off in the distance. In fact it's the same moaning I'd heard the night before but this time I am hearing it at pretty regular intervals and I'm hearing it in a lot of different directions. I know instinctively that it's a bear. Probably a whole family of bears. It's a friggin bear country jamboree by the sounds coming out of the forest. Mr. Rosen continues to sing and I'm strategizing about how to haul ass out of this tent with my infant and sleeping four-year-old in the event of a bear attack. Plus I can never remember if it's with bears that you're supposed to make a lot of noise and look big or if that's with lions and with bears you're supposed to play dead. I'm also thinking that this chubby baby would seem like a nice scooby snack to a black bear. I'm thinking a lot things. Like maybe we shouldn't have camped so close to that wild strawberry patch. Like why the hell I am in the tent and Mr. Rosen is in the bear proof vehicle.

Finally Mr. Rosen emerges from the van and I call him over.

Me: Can you hear that noise?
Him: It's probably a coyote. don't worry about it.
Me. No. Stop and listen for a second.
Pause
Him: Huh. I think that's a bear.
Me: No shit it's a fucking bear.
Pause
Him: Maybe more than one bear.
Me: Like Yogi and Boo Boo?
Him: Plus the Berenstein Bears.
Me: What should we do?
Him: I'll start by putting our food away.
Me: Good plan.

So for the next ten minutes I watch from the tent as Mr. Rosen runs back and forth to the van about thirty times putting away all of our food and garbage. Then he comes back to the tent and says he thinks we should all sleep in the van. The big kids will be in the back (the back seats fold down to a full bed), me and the baby in the pop-up and he'll find a spot in the hull somewhere. He then moves our sleeping son in his sleeping bag to the back of the van. Then my daughter from the tent to the van. Then he takes mine and the baby's sleeping bags and positions them in the pop-up. Next he places the baby up there and I climb in along side him. Finally he sets up his own little space and we all huddle together in our armored fortress.

The next morning, our ninth wedding anniversary, there are no signs of a bear visitation but a guy from the forest service confirms that the place is teeming with black bears. So we packed up and moved on to Bend, a beautiful city further south with no bears but teeming with exercise fanatics, which makes me and my postpartum body wish we were still in bear country.

Conversation

Mt Hood from Trillium Lake

Him: Do people die from the lava on Mt Hood?
Me: No sweetie. Mt Hood isn't an active volcano anymore. It stopped spitting out lava a long time ago.
Him: Then why do people die there every year?
Me: Nobody dies there. Who told you that?
Him: Danny told me that people die on Mt Hood every year.
Me: thanks Danny... Yes, people try to climb Mt Hood every year and sometime a few of them die up on the mountain.
Him: Why?
Me: Sometimes there are storms and people slip on ice or they fall a really long way and hit their heads or it's too cold.
Him: Why do people climb it if you can die?
Me: Some people really like to climb mountains. They like to climb all the way to the top and then say they climbed to the top.
Him: Why?
Me: Because they're stupid.

The end.