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Introduction

In this section I have posted (and will continue to post) copies of my email travel journals and updates, which I have been sending to friends and family during the course of my travels this year across the United States and to Europe, mainly Italy. They are numbered in the same order as they were emailed, for easy cross-reference, and have been edited to omit irrelevant matter pertaining to the original venue in which they were issued.

U.S. Tour Issue #1, February 17, 2003

Welcome to the first installment of notes on my travels for the year, starting with my US driving tour.

As most of you know, February 14th was the beginning of this journey. That morning the movers came to my apartment and got virtually all my worldly possessions moved into an 8x10x8 storage unit in San Francisco. I had been packing, sorting, shredding, sorting, donating and selling for weeks, and was rather amazed that it took just over four hours for the movers to wrap up the furniture and haul it out of the apartment and stack it up in the storage unit. It took me the rest of the afternoon to finish cleaning up the apartment, reorganizing my luggage, hauling out the trash, and stuffing my trunk with luggage and important files.

The bike was shipped a few days earlier to New York, where my US Tour ends and the Italy/Europe tour begins. Several boxes of books and summer clothes were also on their way to Italy, to my friend Paula's place.

The first leg of my journey that Friday was a short one, just about a 45-minute drive out of San Francisco south along the Peninsula to my cousin Taum's place in Foster City. Which is probably as it should be, since I lived with Taum and his family for the first week I moved to the West Coast 9 years ago, awaiting the arrival of my belongings from the East Coast. Full circle. They treated me to some delicious take-out Chinese food and a wonderful night's sleep.

The second leg of the journey on Saturday was longer, but uneventful, and a familiar one. A five and a half hour drive down I-5 to Los Angeles and Burbank. No rain, never really sunny but not really cloudy either, just kinda hazy. Fruit trees were in bloom, the hills were very green, and the traffic was not a problem. I didn't feel any grand sense of departure, sadness or excitement, perhaps because this was a road I'd traveled before, nothing truly new. I still find it hard to believe that I no longer have a permanent home, that I won't be seeing San Francisco or my friends and family there for the rest of the year, maybe longer.

Last night I got to see Rachel (high school friend) and one other member of her wind quintet, Calico Winds, perform in a freelance gig in Antelope Valley, a ballet performance of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. It was a very interesting and energetic ballet, lots of unusual movements and intriguing dance patterns. I enjoyed it. Tonight I get to see the whole quintet at one of their own performances. I am looking forward to it. These past weeks of packing have left me a bit culturally deprived and it will be nice to relax and listen to some music.

Burbank: I've been here before, on business... back in my legal days. But I only got to see a small stretch from the airport to the client's business place, through some rather dubious neighborhoods that I don't even know if they were truly part of Burbank or not. Rachel's place, however, is in a lovely residential neighborhood, right down the street from the Los Angeles Equestrian Center. The bike lanes on the roads double as horse lanes, and there were people out riding their horses. Many, I'm sure, were headed to Griffin Park, which is also near Rachel's apartment. All quite different than my prior experiences with the Los Angeles area, and much more to my liking. We went for a short hike this morning in another park, with a long climb up for some great views of the surrounding cityscape, with the mountains dimly visible in the cloudy haze of the day.

Tomorrow morning I drive to Flagstaff, Arizona, about a 7-hour drive. I will rest my head in a Days Inn for a couple of nights, and drive up to see the Grand Canyon during the intervening day. I've never been, and I'm really looking forward to it. Haven't gotten the latest weather forecast for the area yet, but I haven't heard of any major storm fronts moving that way, so I hope that the weather will be sunny. I've got my digital camera, so I'll probably send a few pictures with the next dispatch.

Happy trails!

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