The quick summary, Brooklyn, NY

07)27(05 its 1107pm

Since I have been so occupied and or so far from the orbit of the laptop and writing I want to do a quicker, if not less artful summary of where we are, and where we are going. Sometimes it can be simple!

Basically we landed in New York last week (read next post) and it was overwhelming and magnificent and exciting. We headed to Philadelphia around July 14th, where we got the one night run through with Kate's cousin, Alex, who was wonderful and put us up in his splendid apartment.

The rest of the time in New York, and I know this sounds sad, but, the rest of the time we were looking for suits and gifts and tying down last minute details for exactly how we would be flying to Portland this Friday, the 29th to attend two (2) weddings of two of my best friends.

We took a break from the city and headed to upstate New York, where we explored the Catskills, Ithaca, Baldwinsville, and the Adirondacks for a week, before returning this evening to Brooklyn.

Its been a beautiful week, its been an amazing month really, and I have a lot to say, but sometimes I get long winded and right now I just wanted to sum it up for those of you who are following the travels.

Plus, I have a feeling I may have trouble writing it all down while flying to Portland and all that craziness. But I DO look forward to it immensely, and aim to write epic accounts of it all.

Thanks for stopping by, there are more pictures up on the pics page.

TAKE CARE AND LOVE FROM ACROSS AMERICA!

Luke & Kate
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Professional Campers

Thoughts On NYC

07)23(05 its 536pm

As if held away by the persistent wind, the thought of New York City and its grandeur is finally passive. For days in anticipation and in all of the minutes inside of its rusty stomach, and in shell shocked exit from its fingertips my thoughts have been captured by this amazing place, the only place of its kind, anywhere that I have seen.

We rolled down the New Jersey turnpike in perfect summer traveling families in minivan weather, stopping to tell toll booth attendants that we didn't have any cash to pay the tolls with every ten minutes or so. We were still warm and glowing and excited and rested from our stay in DC, all of its museums, the comfort of Marilyn's apartment, the rediscovery of the runaway kitty. I felt oddly at home on the east coast, and its cities, as if it was an accident that I had lived my whole life never seeing them. Baltimore, Philadelphia, DC, Boston, Chicago, all of these places had identities to me, strong ideas because of the endless hours of rapturous baseball watching I did growing up.

Also, we were out of the SOUTH. The south still in retrospect is so different and vivid from anything that the West or East coasts can even offer, and yet, I was happy to leave again, to not be stuck deep down there with the swamps and alligators and fried food and evangelicals and baptists and humidity. I think Kate and I began to feel that its embrace from New Mexico to Georgia had become an accepted part of our lives. While we were in the south we got used to the big deep darkness that sits around there waiting to awake, and we got used to the warm pie crust of friendliness that sits on its windows daring you to enjoy, and any Metropolitan sense of us was becoming obscured, nearly forgotten.

And then one night, mid July, we paid the last toll (or rather, couldn't pay) on the New Jersey Turnpike and saw a massive and eery glow to the left of us, somewhere out over the water, the island of Manhattan, more grand and glorious than I would have ventured to guess or place in my mind.

New York City. Enough has been said about it being the capitol of the world, and yet, from my perspective, growing up in the peace and grooviness of Northern California, I want to be redundant a bit.

First off, as I walked the streets of Manhattan, whose skyscrapers really do tower over you like some holy and profane anomaly of beauty and power, I couldn't think of a single idol or person I admired, artist or not, who hadn't experienced or been experienced by New York City. When I say been experienced by, i mean that this city is an influence, sometimes THE influence for many a serious novelist, artist, musician, businessman, anything you want to name, the city is influential on the heart because it promises so much. It promises that someday you will turn a corner and walk right into your fate, your inspiration, your answers. It seems to cast a spell over what seems possible, and it wakes you up how much of it is real.

I know that I am venturing into newagespeak here, but that is fair, because that is how New York affected me.

Sarah and Richel, our friends from Portland and beyond, live in Brooklyn and they agreed to put up with us for a little while sleeping on our mattress on their floor. I might add that they very graciously agreed to put up with us and in fact made us feel very welcome. Its good because I was excited to see them too, to see how their lives are going in New York and to live it with them for a bit. Its good because they were instrumental in our having any sense of sanity attached to our exploration of the city, setting us up with maps, books, bookmaps, itineraries, and then on top of it all, taking the time to walk us around in their sparse free time. They would call us during our day from work to see how we were doing, wandering around the neighborhoods, and then meet with us in the evenings to take us to amazing cheap restaurants in cool neighborhoods that we never would have found on our own.

The day after we arrived Kate, Richel and myself walked through Central Park, which is on a sunny Sunday, a spectacle unto itself. In one field, the size of maybe two softball fields in a normal crowded city, five, I kid you not, five softball games were going on, when someone hit a fly ball into the infield of the other game it was no big thing. Any section of the park that was open to the sun was crammed tight with all shades of skin as New Yorkers rushed out to lie down in the grass, relishing the little patch of earth they were on as country folk would relish an acre or two. Merry go rounds sang '40's jazz tunes and street performers flipped down flights of stairs, musicians played top notch jazz in echoey bridge underpasses and miniature sailboats brushed past eachother serious and competitive, artists painted people staring at the lily ponds, lines of overheated underclothed folks waited for a chance to buy ice cream, and all the while the towers of Manhattan peeked over the trees like a mischievous school kid playing peeping tom. All of this reverence for simple things, all of this humanity, playing itself out in simple elegance and profundity, simply a sunny day but not so simple in New York, I felt that I was feeling what every person felt in some way, because we were connected to this city.

Now I know why Henry Miller's paragraphs go on for four or five pages at a time, sometimes more. He is my favorite New York writer and a secret ally when walking down the streets of Manhattan, and he seems ready to burst every time he describes the city. So do I in a way. It shook me awake in some ways.

Times Square

New York City (!)

Washington DC Continued

07)08(05 its 337pm

Suffice to say we never planned on being anywhere, let alone Washington, DC for as long as we have. We've shattered our record of four straight nights in Austin, TX by staying a whopping 14 nights. Wow. I didn't even expect it to add up to that much.

I think we were really tired. I think we had to have been so tired to stay in one place for so long. Thanks go endlessly to Marilyn for the use of the apartment. We feel whole, rested and inspired again.

I think that this part of the trip was a completely anonymous fog to us, and now we are here, entering it blindly. We were supposed to know where to live by now, supposed to be working somewhere by now, supposed to, basically, have it ALL figured out.

We don't. But you know, I feel that there is something of a revelation on its way for me. I really do.

Also, the realization that we had these two weddings, two of my best friends are getting married within a week of each other in Portland, OR, we had to get to these weddings and we kind of freaked out. Right in the middle of the trip, granted, we were supposed to be long back to the west coast by then, but we had to really change plans, or at least a way around the whole concept. So its ended up being, see our friends and the places to be on the East Coast, fly back to Portland, fly back to East Coast, find temporary work, live happily ever after.

It sounds pretty crazy, I know.

Well, the time spent in Washington has been fast for us, flowing by way too fast, but to sum it up in a way I will say that we've seen so many pieces of art, exhibitions, galleries, historical monuments and sites that it is as if we didn't stop traveling at all.

We're heading to New York tomorrow, it turns out, we will be skipping Philadelphia for the moment.

Washington, DC

We are here in Washington, at the end of an extended break here. It has been nice to be in one place, to do normal things, make dinners indoors, take showers, walk to a coffee shop that is ours. It has been really exciting to be in DC, an amazing city, doing so many things. I have a lot of pictures and a lot of writing to put up soon, but for now I just wanted to check in. Tomorrow we will be heading for Philadelphia, assuming all goes well. We will be definitely sad to go...