Harris Ranch

All is well with our world......



John's sitting at the dining table writing a response to an e-mail from his daughter in West Hollywood. Jessica, plus half of John's siblings, have been expecting us to pass through SO CAL Since mid-November. Being now the beginning of December and we are less then 300 miles from home. Last night we parked at Harris Ranch on Hwy 5. So, at this rate, if we average 200 miles a day we may make Sayulita by December 10TH. To give a little perspective on rate of travel, we have several friends who live in BC Canada and will drive form Vancouver to Sayulita in 6 days. It takes us two days to drive to LA! I'm sure we will pick up the pace, we are very much like our camper, slow and bumpy to start but once on the road everything settles into a nice smooth rhythm.



We are not speed demons on or off the road. Not only do we cruise between 50 and 55 down the freeways, we can go faster but because our camper and tow car are weighted down with cases of wine, books and our entire kitchen; we choose to take it slow for safety reasons. In preparing for this trip It takes us days and weeks to clean our small home, hours to decide what pots and pans to bring and we prune the trees in the backyard and hit the used book store the day before we plan on leaving.



Every year we think we will be on top of it, do a little bit each month so this last minute hip hop dance we do doesn't happen. Next years WE WILL be more organized. Sure.....




In our defense, John was summoned for jury duty and he did promise Sam he would help out with the Subaru business while Sam had some major oral surgery done. The weather has also been really enjoyable in Sonoma County. Cold mornings and evenings but clear sunny days have made it perfect for my girlfriends and I to walk our dogs along the creek, watch the geese fly south and have one more opportunity to meet with my dad and help him set up his new laptop.



Today we will make LA and then soon we will be parked in our favorite campground in Mexico, surrounded by friends, the sound of the waves, and the smell of the ocean.



We have a blog spot that we will post our where abouts, photo's and other tid-bits.




Hope all is well and peace reigns.



Love,
Michele

Many Days

We flew into Luxor on Saturday. After three days in Cairo; the warm wind and swaying of palms is a lovely change. Sunday was one of those travel days that the experience is so personal it is impossible to relay, at least for me.

Memphis (ancient capital of Egypt) is not much more then a ruin the size of a football field. There are a few scattered pieces of sculpture but nothing to show this was once the great city of the Pharaohs. The bus ride out was what I wanted; mud brick homes, women selling carrots on the side of the highway, donkeys, camels and the humans that use them as their only source of transportation were far more colorful and interesting then the limestone fragment of Ramses II.

Our next stop was to Saqqara the home of the oldest pyramid in Egypt. It is step shape; more like the pyramids of Mexico then the great ones of Giza. Driving through lush vegetation of papyrus, date palms and the reeds along the smaller canals of the Nile lulled me into believing that I was in a tropical Africa. The sudden, and I mean one side of the road green and verdant and the other a vast open dessert is no exaggeration, took me a back. The line between life and sure death CAN be drawn in the sand.

Dzojer's step pyramid is situated in the Sahara; which means desert in ancient Arabic, hence it is redundant to say Sahara desert. something I've always done. The sand dunes undulate and the camel riders sit on the crest of a hill looking like something out of 1001 Arabian Nights. If you take there photo, which is why they are there, you must pay the baksheesh/tip/bribe..... It is 75 degrees at 8 in the morning and no shade to be found.

By 1 in the afternoon we are on the plateau that over looks the last remaining monument of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. It is a zoo of tour buses, postcard hawkers, stands to pay for a ride in the desert on a donkey or camel. Below, quiet, brown on brown stand the Pyramids. The sky is huge; bugger then life, bigger then Wyoming, Colorado and Montana sky combined. AWESOME!!!!!!!

So in one day I have to absorb all of this and it is not possible.

Our boat is an oasis. The call to prayer is heard from afar. The speakers hung on the minarets of mosques in the back waters of little towns drone and echo off the Nile. Dry, parched, no green except for the reeds on the bank of the river I sail with the feeling that these views are as ancient as any monument. This is a different world, mind set, sense of how life works. Most people are openly warm towards us; we are the infidels and you see that and also that their warmth towards us is genuine. The men, not all, but many have a permanent bruise on there forehead from the years of kneeling and touching the ground above their brow five times a day ever sense they can remember. I believe it may hold them to this place. It is so in the art of these ancient people; there is this steadfast static unmoving quality.

I love the sailing. Spending time on the open deck and taking in the full moon and knowing people have traveled this water for over 5,000 years. It suits me, the hot dry climate, the eggplant, rice and dates. I'm also keenly aware that I enjoy it because I can leave it. I am free to view with out taking part. My mom and I have been blocked by a group of men from entering an elevator that we pushed the button for. The chef refused to make eye contact and had to use every ounce of energy to serve this foreign, unveiled woman. He glowed and openly smiled and spoke to the man next in line behind me. I have never felt so invisible. What a feeling of humility and loss and yet there is something moving about this place.

This is our last night in Aswan. We flew early this morning over the high dam to view the temple of Abu Simbel. Again, how do I describe the monumental feet of the original design, construction and art AND the ability for us to move a mountain 240 meters up hill as not to loose it when the waters flooded the valley and gave Egypt a chance to enter the modern world.

Back to Cairo tomorrow for another two nights and then on to Paris.

Home is just around the corner. I can smell John's BBQ in the back yard and here Frida and Figaro's excitement when I pull in to the drive.

Unwinding & Unraveling

After our two weeks in Egypt we
are back in Paris and soon
will be home and sleeping in
our own beds. Having this
buffer between Egypt and
home was smart. A place to
decompress. Paris has so much to
offer, a city to get lost in
and be able to mull over
our adventure.

On arrival back to our
hotel near  the Cluney,
Maxine and I threw our suitcases
up into our room and headed
straight for the
Louvre and the wing of
Egyptian antiquities,
like we did't get enough
IN Egypt. It didn't take us
long to realize we preferred
seeing the Temple at Luxor
with it's missing
avenue of Sphinx's then
seeing the avenue
of Sphinx's with out the temple. We opted
to spend the rest of the afternoon in the
Italian paining and sculpture rooms.
Familiar and yet removed from our
latest sojourn.

My thoughts are all staccato, a mix of awe, sadness,
unanswered questions and a wish to delve deeper in that
Patriarchal Muslim world. Here are some of them:

I now have had a glimpse of what it feels like to be the
minority and shunned. My love for travel has led me to
believe I posses something like super human powers. I can
jump in and learn a language, the basics anyway, master the
transportation system, meet and make friends with the baker
and butcher, know the layout of the city and it's major
points of interest with in two days of arriving somewhere.
However, in Cairo, I kept myself barricaded in the confines of our
hotel complex. Like a dog with it's tail between it's legs
this city unnerved me. Our room over looked the Nile and
also a major round about. Maxine and I would sit on the
balcony and try to count the number of women we would see
walking this busy area of the city. Men would come and go
in groups or alone, wearing their long cotton galabeas. We
could count two women in a half an hour period walk through
the square, dressed in long black robes and wearing the
veil. I just couldn't get around the idea that the most
populated city in Africa doesn't share it's public space
with the female population.

I didn't know how to over come it. I knew I wasn't going to
be stoned in the streets for wearing my long skirt and
white blouse but I knew I didn't fit. The language eluded
me, my vocabulary consists of good morning, no, yes and
thank you. It wasn't street talk. There was no room for us
unless we were with a tour group.

Our last night there we decided to take the Camel by the
hump and Maxine and I walked out of the hotel and along the
rivers promenade. (We had planned to meet up with Sahar but
that fell through)Not a woman in sight. Men sat on the park
benches or yelled there lively conversations across the
street to their friends. They noticed us, everyone took us
in. Our outing was brief and in contrast to our past two
days in Paris, we might as well have been walking on the
moon.

Paris, ALL can be seen on the streets. Park benches are
used by the elderly to sit and watch the new world, young
couples wishing they had a more private place to rendezvous
sit with there arms and legs intertwined, students smoking
their cigarettes are deep in to discussion. The whole world
is on parade in Paris.

With all that said, I'm in love with the Nile and the shear
beauty of the place. I also met some wonderful people.
Hossom and Sahar could easily lure me into renting an
apartment in the suburbs of Cairo and buying a nice silk
veil to cover my hair.

Hossom met Maxine and I on our arrival into Cairo. His job
is to make sure Westerner's who are meeting up for a group
tour arrive intact. He has a smile and laugh that would
melt the ice off a polar bears chin. On our ride to the
hotel he pointed out landmarks and talked about the good
and bad things in Cairo. Make a deal with the taxi driver
before you get in it, don't go out at night alone. We would
see him through out our stay, checking in on us and making
sure our Smithsonian group was enjoying themselves and were
comfortable. He was at the hotel at 4 in the morning to
help get us out to the airport. While we were waiting to go
through security I asked him if he ever visited the US; I
knew he had been to Europe, Germany for training in the
tourist trade. Still smiling but with sad eyes he said,
"Oh, I think now is very hard to come to your country."
Right, young Egyptian man flying into New York or San
Francisco, no problem. He gave us his business card and
jotted down his e-mail address. "Please, you must come back
again."

Sahar was our Egyptologist while we were with the
Smithsonian group. She is a single mother of two. Her
husband died when they were young. One day on the boat she
gave a short informal talk about the history of Islam, if
that doesn't sound like an impossibility, both the informal
and the short. Sahar was gentle with us and tried to point
out all the similarities of the Muslim faith to Judaism and
Christianity. At one point she said she was Sunni Muslim,
that she did not wear the veil until she was 45 because she
wasn't ready. She opened herself up on such a personal
level it brought me to tears. She has gone to Mecca and
believes that all gods are one in the same. Her face is
radiant and she is stunningly beautiful. I would go back to
Egypt just to have a meal with this woman.

As I try to gain some perspective of what we have seen and
experienced I realize that visiting the Pyramids was
meeting a great historical figure. Right up there with
Julius Cesar, Gandhi, Napoleon and Joan of Arc the Pyramids
are famous and have been given a prominent place in our
history. I met the pyramids and they are well worth all the
hype.

In  Gabriel Garcia Marquez's book "Love in the Time of
Cholera" the two main characters are on a river in South
America and they wish they could just keep sailing, never
wanting to disembark, feeling safe and self contained in
their love and untouched by the earthly world. There were
periods of that want while we sailed from Luxor to Aswan. I
made myself get up before sunrise and climb up to the top
open deck and watch this deep red sun rise up out of the
Nile. Knowing that for thousands of years people have lived
on this river and have watched the sun rise and set on it.
It was a feeling of being part of a continuous flow. We
come from water.......

On the shuttle bus that took us out to the plane in Cairo
there was a young European woman who was quietly falling
apart. She was letting the tears flow in a silent cascade
down her cheeks. There was a tremor, the big bang was
taking place in her solar plexus and leaving in it's wake a
black hole. Her heart was breaking and it sucked me in; I
was back in Florence, 20 years old, at the Santa Maria
Novella train station leaving for Milan to fly home. For me
it was the loss of a place that I didn't think I would ever
see again. I'm guessing hers was about the loss of a lover.
The fear and sarrow was so pure. It then struck me, that I
may not ever come back to the Nile. I handed the young
woman a kleenex and I slipped my sunglasses on.