Red Sky At Night

 Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

I was actually starting to hate taking vacations. I know, I know, it’s weird, but it never failed. Five whole work days off, flight out on Saturday, return flight on Sunday. And once they were booked, I would start planning diligently. (Secretly I thought the planning part was what I loved best).

As the vacation approached, I would get more and more excited. All the things I was looking forward too, the amazing restaurants I had found, the awesome museums, the spectacular hikes, the photos I couldn’t wait to take. Then the vacation would be there. Of course, the flight would always seem too long, and the baggage claim took forever, but finally would come the moment where I deposited my bags on the bed of my hotel room and I would hit the city for my first dinner out (always something simple, since I would be tired from traveling.)

The thing that never failed though, the one constant of every vacation I had taken since I could first afford them on my mediocre salary, was what happened the morning after my first night in a cozy down comforter bed in a brand-new city. I would, inevitably, wake up with a stuffy head, sneezing, achy, and fevery body. I would wake up sick.

My theory was it had to do with stress. Work was so fucking over the top, on all the time, bullshit that when I actually got the chance to relax my body would just give in to all the illness it had been saving up over the months. It never failed. Every vacation would be spent a sniffling mess in a hotel room in some city far away from home. Oh yes, I would still drag myself out to see the sights, as long as I had plenty of Kleenex in tow.

This year, though, I knew it was going to be different. Now, I didn’t have any actual plan to make it different, but I hoped really hard. I also took a lot of vitamin C and drank a lot of Elderberry tea.

The flight to Hawaii actually wasn’t too long, and the thickly perfumed air that greeted me in the terminal felt restorative. I went to bed that night on a pillow of cool down; I was filled with excitement for the days of hiking, and snorkeling, and body surfing I had planned for the days ahead. But of course, when I awoke the next morning, I could barely raise myself out of bed. My body was weak, my muscles were aching, and I was seized with heated chills.

I lied in bed for two days, barely able to touch the fresh squeezed pineapple mango juice and coconut mochi cakes I had picked up at the farm stand on the way to my hotel. It was the third day (I think) when I awoke to the most amazing sight. My bedroom was lit up a deep red. I thought for a moment I might have actually relocated to Mars. Slowly I pulled myself out of bed, and with still aching muscles I pulled open the blinds to find the most spectacular red sunset I had even seen. I couldn’t explain it, but at that moment I knew the rest of the vacation would be alright.

 

Measure Twice

 

Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

Thankfully it only came once a month, that much we had figured out. The first month had been a surprise. We were fast asleep in our little dilapidated ranch house. We’d moved in 19 days before, and had just barely started fixing the old place up. There was so much to do! I hadn’t even gotten around to admitting to myself how much there was to do (let alone to my dear spouse Anne, whose arm I had to twist into all sorts of unnatural shapes to get her to agree to going in on this place with me. Let me tell you, her “money pit” jokes never get old.) But I digress.

We closed on the house, which was more ruin than house, set squarely in the middle of 12 acres of gnarly apple orchard in the middle of Potter Valley. By early summer we were all moved in, and ready to start renovations. By the time we hit mid-June, we were well on our way. The wood floors and plaster walls on the main level had been stripped bare, and we were working our way up the stairs with the sledge hammer.

It had been another dusty day, just like the 18 before. The summer heat hadn’t quite set in, but with all the hard work during the day we welcomed the cool evening breeze that came in through he holes where the windows had been (before we ripped them out). We’d been soundly asleep when a strange noise woke us up. It was an unworldly cry, echoing though the acres of trees that surrounded us. We tried to ignore it, but the noise kept growing and growing until it was right outside our window. I leaped up from the bed and looked out, but all I could see was effervescent shapes looming about in the darkness and fog that had formed in the soggy bottom of the orchard grasses. Needless to say, we didn’t sleep well that night.

It was a month later, to the exact date, when it happened again. Another long day, this time spent stripping the tile from the upstairs bathroom, and another night were we tumbled exhaustedly into bed, only to be woken up at midnight by those forlorn cries and strange shapes looming in the dark, circling around our house.

The next morning Anne demanded I go to the hardware store and build shutters to close the still gaping windows. Although whatever it was didn’t seem to want to get into the house, Anne didn’t want to take any chances. I did as I was told, of course, but it seemed our haste was unnecessary, the next night was quiet. In fact, we didn’t have another visit from our strange little howling ghosts for another month. But then, just as we were starting to get comfortable again the noise returned. I ran to secure the shutters, only to find I had cut them too short. There was a perceptible gap between the wood. As Anne and I stared through at the strangely crying shadows beyond, a face emerged in the darkness.

“Why hello there,” a voice said, “I’m sorry, didn’t mean to scare you, I thought this place was empty. I turn my peacocks out here once a month as a little treat, to graze on the grubs. I’m Gary, by the way, I live at the ranch next door.

“Oh, hi,” I replied, opening the shutters a crack, “nice to meet you neighbor.”

An Ounce of Prevention

 

Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

I decided not to bring my umbrella. I know, its England, and its December, but I figured if I brought my umbrella, then we were sure to have rain, where as if I didn’t, then perhaps we would get lucky.

“What do you mean you didn’t bring an umbrella!” Missy exclaimed as we walked out of Terminal One of the Heathrow Airport into a wall of water pouring from the dark clouds above the late December day.

“I already told you about my theory.” I replied as I stuck my hand out from underneath the taxi stand overhang.

“Well, that’s fucking stupid,” she replied, “you obviously got it backwards. If you had brought the umbrella, then it wouldn’t have rained, thus making your carrying of it all the way from California useless, but because you didn’t bring it, we are now cursed an entire trip of nothing but rain!”

I couldn’t do anything but shrug. She might’ve had a point.

I’d always wanted to visit London during the Holidays. After years of seeing amazing light displays and festive holiday windows on my Insta feed, I’d finally saved up enough money. The only thing that remained was to find a travel partner, and I managed to entice my best friend since 4^th grade into coming along, with tales of spectacular parks all dressed up in red and yellow leaves, and streets sparkling in pure white snow. Now, though, it looked like we would not be having a white Christmas, so much as a wet Christmas.

We’d been in London for 3 days, a time that had been defined by cozy cafes, fascinating museums, and a constant barrage of water from the sky. As we emerged from our cozy little B&B, all stuffed full of fried eggs with a side of beans and rich black tea, Missy rolled her eyes at me.

“Oh look Liv, it’s raining again!”

“Yes, but how cute have we looked romping through the puddles in our wellies?” I replied as I jumped into a rather large one that had formed in the gutter.

“Ug,” she sighed, “can you at least promise you’ll buy an umbrella today? It’s the only way to break our curse.”

“Fine,” I replied, “whatever will make you happy.” By this point I was pretty convinced that giving in and buying an umbrella would only seal our fate for the rest of the trip.

The morning was spent at Tate Modern, where we found the only thing that reveled the artwork was the architecture of the building itself. By noon it was still pouring outside, so we decided to grab a coffee and a bite at the little café. As we finished our meal I ducked out, claiming a need for the restroom, but I had something else in mind.

When I returned, Missy had apparently steeled herself against the weather and was ready to head outside again, but as we walked through the front doors, we saw our world had changed, instead of a soggy grey landscape, we were greeted with the soft white world of the season’s first snow.

“Well, how about that” I said as discreetly hid my brand-new gift shop umbrella deep inside my purse.

A Penny Saved

 

Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

April was pretty sure family vacations were the worst part of being an only child. Sure, all her friends with siblings complained endlessly about being stuck with their brothers and sisters for a week, but then they came back from vacation with stories about how their older brother taught them how to do the pizza wedge on the bunny slope for the first time (whatever that was), or how they built an epic sandcastle with their little sister. Yeah, family vacations as on only child really sucked, which was why she wasn’t thrilled when her parents told her they would be taking one in a week.

By the time dinner came around, she had formulated a plan.

“Dad?” she asked as she pushed her mashed potatoes around the plate, “do they have wishing wells in Scotland?”

“Sure hone, I bet we can find a wishing-well.”

She smiled, but she didn’t dare tell her dad her secret plan.

After dinner snuck a hammer up to her room, and with the door securely closed, she pulled her piggy bank down from the top shelf. With a great thwack it broke open.

“Sorry piggy.” She whispered as she scooped up the coins and deposited them into her suitcase.

The flight was long, and the drive from the airport was boring, but as they approached town she grew excited, because out in the field in front of the bed and breakfast stood a well.

“Is that the wishing well?” she asked, pointing out the window.

“Why yes, honey, I think it is.”

After check-in, she ventured out to the well, her pockets filled with as many coins as they could hold. She held her breath and tossed them in one by one, making the same wish each time, but nothing happened.

It became her routine throughout the week-long vacation. Every day they would go out and look at lame churches, and statues, and museums; and each night she would run out to the well, but she was beginning to doubt her plan would work.

On the very last night of vacation, she made one more walk out to the garden, clutching the last coin she had left, a penny from the year she was born. She approached the well, closed her eyes, and wished as hard as she could as she tossed the penny in, but instead of the familiar plunk of water, she heard a different sound, a sort of cry.

She ran back inside, screaming “Dad, there’s someone in the well!”

Back out in the garden, she stood impatiently next to her father as he raised the bucket from the bottom of the well, but instead of a little brother or sister, a fuzzy head with a big wet nose appeared.

“It’s a puppy!” she exclaimed.

“So it is,” her dad replied, turning towards the Inn Keeper who had appeared in the garden, “is this your little guy.”

“Nope,” the Inn Keeper shrugged.

“Hmm,” her said, turning back towards April, “what do you think we should name him?”

“Does that mean I get to keep him?” she squealed.

“Well, I suppose so.”

“I think he should be called Penny.”

An Apple a Day

 Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

I liked to consider myself a world traveler, saving up my precious two-weeks-of-vacation-a-year to bum about Europe, but this year we had a wedding to go to, and that wedding was in Toronto. So, I figured this was the perfect excuse to do some touristing closer to home. First stop? New York City!

New York City is many things, The Big Apple, The City So Nice They Named It Twice, The Empire City, and of course, The City That Never Sleeps. Now I don’t know about apples and empires, but that last one I learned all too well.

Our plane landed at La Guardia at 5:47 PM. We skipped baggage claim thanks to our awesome travel-light powers honed from our backpacking trips in Europe. We were in an impossibly long line for a taxi by 6:00 PM, which moved amazingly fast. By 7:30 we had checked into our hotel and were back out on the street to scrounge up some dinner. After dinner we made our way back to our hotel, but even though it was nearly 10 PM, we were still on West Coast time, so we decided to have a little night cap, or two, or three.

It was an Irish Pub. It was on the same block as our hotel. There was a group of guys dressed as super heroes sidled up to the long wooden bar. There was a second story balcony with a couple of awesome tables overlooking the street below. It was people watching paradise.

Do you know how late bars in New York City stay open? I’m not really sure either, but the bar was still going strong by the time we stumbled back to our hotel. I don’t know what we were thinking, but by the end of the night, I really wasn’t thinking anything at all.

My alarm went off at 7 AM. I wanted nothing more than to down an entire bottle of ice-cold water, turn the pillow to the cold side, and pull the duvet over my head. Unfortunately, we had to be on the 8:30 AM ferry to Liberty Island.  I was really starting to hate the me that planned this vacation.

Somehow, we made it into clothes and out the door. We rushed down the quite sidewalk and into the stairwell into the Subway. I saw the ticket machine across the platform and made a beeline for it, completely ignoring the neon pink pile of puke? Yup, it was puke, and I stepped right in it. This was the last thing my already angry tummy needed.

I’m still not sure how I made it through the subway ride, but the fresh sea air and morning sun on the top deck of the ferry started to clear my head. It was only 8:41 am, and that evil vacation planner (me) had packed the day full of activities, but right at that moment the view of that iconic skyline put a pause on the imminent upheaval brewing in my stomach.   

A Bad Workman

 Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

When I pulled into the driveway, I saw the lights in the house were still blazing. I’d left in such a hurry yesterday I didn’t even turn them off. They were so bright in the misty morning, they must have been quite the site, lighting up the neighborhood all night, what with the lack of blinds on the windows and all. Oh well, hopefully it didn’t bother the neighbors too much, goodness knows I was already making quite the impression, screaming, squealing tires, burning lights, and such.

I’d ended up at my parent’s place after my rather hasty retreat from my brand new (to me) house the night before. I told them I just wanted to drop in and see how they were, I didn’t need to provide much more of an excuse than that, they were always happy to have a visit from their only child. They wanted me to stay for dinner, of course, and I happily accepted, of course. Then I had a few too many glasses of wine and had to stay the night. I may or may not have done that on purpose.

But now here I was, back at my extremely well-lit place, red wine hangover in tow (oh tannins, why do you hate me so?). I dragged my pounding head to the front door, unlocked it, and stood in the Pepto Bismol pink foyer (I could really have used some Pepto Bismol right at that very moment). Everything was quiet, just as it should be. Slowly I made my way into the house and down the hallway. The floorboards creaked with every other step. Stupid old house.

Finally, I made it into the kitchen. I picked up the sledgehammer I had discarded on the floor the night before, and with my heart starting to race and peered around the corner. Staring back at me from the other side of the dingy grey plaster wall I had been demoing just 24 hours before, was the creepy ragdoll, still holding a rusty knife. I almost turned and ran right back out of the house (I could just live in my parent’s house forever, right?), but then I saw it, a yellowed slip of paper tucked into the doll’s other hand. I was frozen with indecision. One the one hand, I could run right out the front door and never come back to the house with the creepy knife wielding doll (never mind I had just spent every cent I had saved for the last ten years to buy the place), on the other hand, I did have a sledgehammer, and there was a mysterious note.

Slowly I crept across the floor, sledgehammer poised ready behind me, and snatched the note from the doll’s creepy little hand. I ran back into the foyer and carefully unfolded the note. Inside, in red ink (or at least I hope it was ink), the note read:

“Hi, I’m Billy, I killed the last family that lived here. Good luck!”

Many Hands

 

Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

It was a hot day, and a big climb, but we were promised glistening pools of water, fed by sparkling waterfalls that tumbled into fern lined canyons. It would be worth it, the guides said, the most beautiful place on the whole river, just make sure you take plenty of water to drink.

I took it slow, brining up the rear with the guide assigned to follow the stragglers (which was me, it was always me). She was nice though. Kira was her name, she couldn’t have been more than 25, tall and lanky like an elk, with feet like a mountain goat, it was as if she had been raised scaling these red rocks in the desert heat. And yet here she was, poking slowly up with me, pulling my ass up the trickier parts, and all the while making pleasant small talk. It was what made a good wilderness guide, I supposed.

I tried not to feel badly about slowing the group down as we summited yet another ledge. I stood there for a moment, hiding in a sliver of shade provided by the outcropping of the next rock shelf hanging above us.

“Only a few more left before we enter the slot canyon,” Kira said chirpily

I unscrewed the cap from my Nalgene and took a swig of my desert warmed water.

“Okay,” I replied, “let’s do this.”

Sure enough, after a few more scrambles up what felt like sheer rock faces, we turned the corner into a mercifully shaded canyon. The space was narrow, with just enough room for a trail  that was perched over a creek flowing down the slot far below. I walked slowly on, conscious of the consequences of a missed step, though I was also savoring the relative cool of the canyon.

“Hey Jenny!” Kira bubbled up behind me.

“Yeah?” I replied, turning carefully to face her.

“Check out the wall of the canyon on the other side of the creek.”

I looked over, to the sheer red wall of rock across the dizzying depths of the niche carved by the bubbling creek far below us. I studied the wall, but couldn’t figure out what I was missing. Was this another geology lesson? Did she want me to appreciate the difference in the layers of rock (that frankly all looked the same to me, but apparently were slowly built up over eons).

“The hands,” she said, apparently picking up on my confusion, “do you see them?”

And then I did, outlines of hands, hundreds of them, decorated the wall.

“But how?” I replied.

“The Anasazi Indians. We think it was some kind of ritual, or perhaps just showing off for their friends, they would leap over the slot, their hands covered in paint, and leave the prints before bouncing off the wall safely back to the trail.”

“Well fuck that shit,” I replied. And we both stood there in silence, marveling about the people who were here before us, and this canyon they called home.