Completed circle

Landed at Los Angeles Monday, May 13, 2013, and officially completed circling the globe as I was in California last August. The trip was just just six days short of seven months. Of course I'm still traveling, we'll see how long before I settle. It was easy to move, but difficult to leave paradise. I felt at home there and had settled in effortlessly making some really nice connections. I expect I will return. Santa Monica was a good stopping point. There I am at the Santa Monica Pier end of Route 66, a nostalgic spot not only because of the many cross country trips my family made driving Rt66, but because of the carousel on the pier. There were apartments (now only offices) around the second level of the building housing the carousel, and I had put my name on the list for living there. At that time I was told it could be a ten-year wait. Of couse I left for New York City - experience has always trumped home. I forgot that carousel dream until getting to Rhode Island and finding five wonderful carousels in that tiny state - you can visit all of them in one afternoon, which I did and made an artist book to reflect on my connection to that whole experience. Continuing my tourist ways I visited The Getty Museum, well worth a trip. Wandered the old Hancock Park with the LaBrea Tar Pits still bubbling away. Also walked around the UCLA campus curious about all the changes of the last 50 years. And past my old rooming house where I met my good friend Judy whose home I am enjoying right now while she and her husband are out of town for the weekend attending a wedding. This is the start of my house-sitting phase. I have two more "sits" lined up. Does anyone else need a house/pet sitter? Let  me know before I settle down again. This lovely home is in the desert near Indio and Route 66. It's about 80 degrees this morning as I sit out on the terrace watching the golfers go by in their carts. I thought the idea was to walk the links for exercise. Guess not, and it seems they all have their own carts too. Judy and I did some fun tourist attractions here in her neighborhood. First we saw the Sunnylands Center and Gardens. Sunnylands was the home of the Annenbergs and known as the Camp David of the West. It can be viewed on certain days and only with advanced tickets. But the center and gardens are fabulous, laid out like an impressionist painting with wonderful strokes of green and touches of bright color using all native plants, or plants compatible with this hot, dry climate. There are lots of palms here in the desert, this is the heart of the date industry, but I just might have to start drawing cacti. Again the surreal shapes and outragous textures are wonderful. There is a huge saguaro cactus down the street I plan to start with. Anyway, our second stop was the Desert Pueblo Museum. We got  there just in time for the last tour and it was such a delight. This place is the Watts Towers of the desert built of salvaged materials over a twenty year period by Cabot Yerxas whose family emigrated from Denmark in late 1800's. He was born on a Sioux reservation, a start of what was a fantastic life - he traveled everywhere.

Tourist, Travel Notes

As you can see from photo I'm taking it easy in fantastic location. The Pacific Northwest is surley the summer ideal and I am enjoying it while I contemplate my travels. Here are a few random memories.

The light in various places: filtered through the cloth roofs over the shops in the marketplace in Marrakech, a mile high sky at the equator with the clouds enveloping Mount Kenya, then at sea level sky near the equator in Hawaii, the long twilight sky on the south island in New Zealand, the smog of Delhi,  and at all the stops along the way I marveled at the daylight, and the night skys. In Sorrento, Australia the power for the entire town went out on a clear warm night. Ah, marvelous view of milky way and the southern cross. Then of course the eire light during the solar eclipse seen from the Great Barrier Reef.

When foreign visitors tour the Taj Mahal we pay quite a bit more admission and enter through a separate gate, which is fine. But when you actually enter the masoleum they stand in a long line while I was ushered in skipping ahead of all the Indian visitors. That was very awkward feeling. But my most ackward experience was in the Albert Hall Museum in Jaipur, India which was full of school groups, around 8-9 years old. I was viewed as a freak there, an old white woman on her own. There were lots of stares and giggles. I apparently was even scarier when I tried to talk to them.

The drivers on Australian Greyhound buses carry their own tool boxes. There are vast territories without service and they must be able to do repairs on the run. Each time there is a change of drivers they gather up their paper work and personal toolbox, some very large/heavy.

The trolley stops in front of the Honolulu Museum of Art, the driver rings the bell, the guide talks into little microphone, a row of tourists turn and lean to right as if correographed as they take their pictures. The bell rings and as quickly as you read this the trolley moves on.

Man on public bus speaking loudly on cell, complaining about how crowded and slow it is. Meanwhile driver is trying to tell him he's blocking the back door from closing so we can't move.

Lessons in patience. Waiting here, waiting there. Travel is a lot of waiting. Waiting in airports and on planes, waiting in bus stations, bus stops and on buses, waiting in restaurants. I think I'm learning this lesson. One needs to be patient to enjoy travel; slow down and see all the wonders of this immense world. Just looking at the sky helps me be patient.

Not having an actual home is complicated. I'm using both my sisters for mailing addresses,  but when I meet someone and am asked where I'm from I don't have an easy answer. Honolulu is last residence, but only four months doesn't really count. I guess I feel more like saying "the United States" as I would when traveling.

Happy May Day

Today is also Lei Day in Honolulu, with a big celebration at Kapiolani Park. Music, food, crafts, art and fantastic lei competition. Here are a few of my recent flower photos as well as a few shots from the lei festival. Wish I could send along the wonderful scent, sometimes it just stops me in my tracks and I have to stop and smell the flowers. Those big trumpet flowers that did have a lovely scent are incredibly poisonous I am told, even just a deep inhale can make a person violently sick. Oh, but they are lovely.