There and back again. (or, "a papa's journal of a mamagathering")

I started the day out on friday with one last, chaotic day of Mighty Forest camp. We netted some really damn big crayfish in that little pond! At the end of camp, we ceremoniously released them. By the time I got back home, Jen had things pretty ready to go, although the young 'uns were being less than cooperative. With various complaints emanating from the back of the van, we hit the road. On highway 152, the road hit back with a traffic jam that didn't let up for miles. On I-5, it hit back harder with the van stalling. We briefly contemplated turning around at that point, but I knew that Jen had been looking forward to this trip (one of the rare times where she was getting to do something for herself) so we elected to continue. After all, we had already been on the road for a couple of hours. I slowed down a bit, and we stuck to the outside lane where we could quickly drift onto the shoulder in the event of another stall. The new Gillian Welch cd helped me keep our speed down. Ahead of us, the moon rose. I told the boys that it was watching over us. I put on a cd by Bohren & der Club of Gore, who play languid, spooky nocturnal jazz (sort of similar to some of the music on Twin Peaks), and it set the mood perfectly as the sky darkened - a long stretch of highway cutting a beeline across the central valley, with scrub and farmland receding into the distance on either side. Occasionally we could see old, wooden farmhouses or strange piles of cast off equipment in the gloom of oncoming night. Sometimes dust devils danced along the median, illuminated by the lights of passing cars. The kids, being kids, didn't appreciate it at all, and asked the stereotypical questions that kids always ask on road trips. "Are we there yet are we there yet?" In fact, early on, while we were still on 152, Nathan, upon seeing Casa de Fruta (sort of a glorified fruit stand with a bit of nearby forest) asked, "is that Los Angeles?" Lexy kept asking if we were closer to home or closer to L.A.
Finally, after a rather nervewracking drive through the Grapevine, we descended into the L.A. basin and wound our way towards the hotel near LAX. By this time all of the kids were asleep. I quickly discovered that our room was on the 12th floor, all the way at the back. There were no luggage trolleys in evidence. The air conditioning didn't appear to be working either. I grumpily made a rather large number of trips back and forth with our stuff as Jen watched the sleeping kids. I even more grumpily discovered that there was no in-room refrigerator. We made the best of it, even though we had to call down and remind them to bring up the roll-away bed that they had promised. Oh, and we also had to let them know that the wine and fruit plate in our room were not ours. Finally, we sweatily went to bed in our less than airconditioned room. The air quality can best be described as "swamplike". We did have a pretty good view of the airport though. The Dickens thought this was pretty cool (or at least she would the following day, since she was carried into the room asleep).

to be continued...

cds I listened to while all of a sudden being back at work: Jarboe "Thirteen Masks" and "Anhedoniac", Beautiful People Limited "Three Mixes by Michael Gira", and M. Gira "The Somniloquist"