Take me back to Tulsa...

Yes, once again I have to admit it – I think we like being in a routine. The first two and a half weeks (Sept. 5-23) in Tulsa were amazingly productive for both of us. Musically, William has continued learning vast amounts of guitar music and has made a lot of technical progress as well. I was fortunate enough to be able to perform on piano twice; once by myself, for the Piano Study Club, and once playing a duet with my former teacher, Gloria Johnson, for the Wednesday Morning Musicale. Both of these groups have been in existence since (at least) the 1920s...! I was also able to have a lesson with another former teacher, Aldo Mancinelli from Millikin University, which was unbelievably helpful as I am currently working on a set of pieces by Charles Griffes called Roman Sketches and Mr. M is one of the few people to have recorded his music. Castlerock also got a chance to perform; I had contacted Tulsa folk guru Scott Aycock a while back and he kindly invited us to open for Austin band MilkDrive at a House Concerts Unlimited event in the Brady Heights neighborhood north of downtown. BEAUTIFUL houses...

I continued swimming and running, this time at the St. Francis Health Zone near our house, although the pool was closed for a week for maintenance so I didn't get in as much swimming as I wanted to. We've explored our neighborhood a bit – it rained off and on for almost 2 weeks so we stayed indoors more than we really wanted to. William and my dad have both been cooking up a storm and of course we've been to a few restaurants – I'm happy to report that Tulsa finally has a few good vegetarian places. Be Le Vegetarian is very good, featuring standard Chinese style dishes with fake meat, and the Palace Cafe (nouveau American) is excellent; they just came out with an entirely separate vegetarian menu for dinner so that everyone can be happy with the choices. There's also Chimi's for good basic Mexican with lots of options and the India Palace lunch buffet is just as good as anything we could find in California. And, of course, Double Shot coffee, which is superb.

Museums: the exhibits at Philbrook right now are okay, but not fascinating. I did re-discover a painting that I've always liked and hadn't seen in a while and I'm now trying to track down reproductions of Alexander Hogue paintings...without much success, I might add. Gilcrease, on the other hand, had two temporary exhibitions that we found to be extremely interesting: one is an overview of the Cherokee Nation delegation to England in 1762, while the Cherokees were still living in Georgia, and the other is an exhibit of Thomas Gilcrease's extensive collection of paintings and documents, including a letter from Christopher Columbus' son Diego. We both like the museums here but Gilcrease's permanent collection – all Western art – is unusual and exceptional when compared with the standard museum offerings and we've enjoyed ourselves very much every time we've been there.

We did make one short trip here that we weren't really planning on: William discovered that there's a little-known classical guitar builder who lives in Bartlesville, and we drove up to see him on Monday the 21^st. We weren't really in the mood to go but I wanted to get out of Tulsa for a few hours so we went...and drove along happily right up until the southern edge of Bartlesville, when it started pouring. Then it started hailing. We decided to get to the house in the hopes that there would be a tree to park under, and there was, so we took a few deep breaths and ran up to the porch. Johnny Walker is kind, patient, and easygoing, and we were in his shop for about an hour so William could try his guitars and look at the wood he had available. When we got back into the car, it had stopped raining so we figured the storm had blown over – and it had, but it had thoughtfully blown due south and we got to drive home through torrential rain. We made it fine...after all, it was just a normal Oklahoma sprinkle...but I was VERY glad to pull into the garage when it was over.

I suppose the last two months have really been the opposite of traveling, but it's been wonderful to be able to spend time with our families for a few weeks instead of trying to pack everything into a few days. The most unusual thing that I've noticed about all of this is that since we don't have a 'home' to go back to, we're not missing our normal daily routine and we're not worrying about pets/plants/etc. that someone else is taking care of. On the other hand, I've spent more time than I really should have trying to design a garden for a place I've never seen...

Heading west

We left Pittsburgh on Tuesday, September 1^st, just as the temperature dropped and fall arrived. Unexpectedly, it was nice to be back in the car after nearly a month in one place – we admired the hills of western Pennsylvania and a tiny corner of West Virginia, and then the countryside flattened out in Indiana and we knew we were back in the Midwest. We spent that night in Indianapolis with Fiona, a friend of mine from college, and her fiance Doug. There were fresh vegetables from their CSA box, home-brewed beer, and a nostalgic evening spent with the Millikin University yearbooks trying to remember who exactly did what when. Also, their guest-room bed is a WATERBED...I'm sure we can find a reason to go back to Indianapolis sometime...!

We continued west the next morning, after I admired the beautiful garden and fishpond one last time, and found ourselves in Champaign-Urbana, IL for lunch. We stumbled upon Seven Saints and really enjoyed it, especially since they had vegetarian substitutes for all the burger choices, Fever Tree ginger ale and a wide beer selection as well. I only got slightly lost in Champaign-Urbana – I never knew the layout of the place very well and of course it's been 14 years since I was there last – and decided against looking for the parts that I recognized in favor of taking the obvious road back to the highway. We arrived at the Starved Rock Inn around 3, had a nap, and drove down to Starved Rock State Park to look around a bit. Starved Rock is the very first place I went camping, back in 1993 (!), and I went there often with friends during college. We went up on one of the bluffs overlooking the Illinois River, found the lodge and the visitor's center, and determined that there were in fact vegetarian options for the next day before going back to our room to fall over.

The next day, we hiked. We started with 4 hours in Starved Rock, which has had a large number of boardwalks and stairs installed to preserve the sandstone. The farther away you get from the lodge, the more actual hiking on trails you can do, so we climbed all the stairs we could find and then made our way down into the canyons that are set back a little from the river. There was hardly anyone else around at that point (we congratulated ourselves several times on getting there before the Labor Day crowds) and we contemplated the mossy rocks and late-summer waterfalls in relative peace. After a short break, we headed down the road to Matthiessen State Park. I had only been here once before, in 1995, and it seemed completely different than what I remembered although that may have been only that we went a different way around the main area of the park. We didn't get to see everything – it had already been a long day – but we went down into the Lower Dell and squelched along in the mud until we got to the waterfall. All of our previous self-congratulating on our perfect timing to avoid crowds came to a halt at this point: there weren't many people there, but one of them had brought an iPod with speakers for the express purpose of blasting classic rock music during his hike. Needless to say, music carries well in a stone canyon, and we did manage to enjoy ourselves through the wailing guitars but it took a lot of deep breathing and gritted teeth not to ask this guy what the *^&$%!!! he was thinking. On the way back to the Inn we got some dinner and soothed our nerves with root beer floats, and that made everything better.

Friday morning we got ourselves on the road by 10 and headed south through fields of corn, corn, soybeans, and corn. I believe I'll skip the extended musings on industrial-scale agriculture...better writers than myself have tackled that extensively, and I (theoretically) have a whole other blog for that kind of thing. So – there was lots of corn, and then we got to Decatur. We stopped at The Old Book Barn which hasn't changed much since the last time I was there, and had lunch at Carlos O'Kelly's, where we badly confused the waiter in our attempts to find out whether there was lard in the refried beans. Hmph. We drove by Millikin...I should have spent more time there or at least parked and walked around a bit, but I really wanted to get on with the drive and I was pretty much ready to stop wallowing in nostalgia at that point. So, we drove by and headed southwest on 48 where there was – surprise! – more corn. Eventually we got into St. Louis, where we met our friend Samir and had a pleasant walk around Forest Park and part of the Washington University campus. We collected his lovely girlfriend Heather and found some excellent Ethiopian food at Meskerem, and then retreated to Samir's place for beer and an impromptu classical guitar and Irish music performance at midnight or so. About 4 hours later, we were woken up by lightning flashes and a stupendous thunderstorm...we didn't get much sleep, but we did say before we left that we were hoping for some really good thunderstorms along the way...be careful what you wish for.

Finally, it was Saturday and time to head for Tulsa. We had brunch at Momo's and got back to Samir's just as the rain stopped, so we loaded up the car without getting soaked and pointed ourselves southwest once again. We arrived around 6:30, my dad had made his amazing shrimp creole for dinner, and we prepared once again to get into a nice productive routine. We'll be in Tulsa until early October...

Central Illinois

Sandstone cliffs at Starved Rock State Park

Before...

...during...

...and after walking under a waterfall

Lower Dells, Matthiessen State Park

Settling in

After 2 ½ months of traveling, the last thing we planned on was getting back into a routine. That, however, is what we found ourselves doing in Pittsburgh, and it was wonderful. We were there for 3 weeks (August 10 - Sept. 1), and both of us got quite a lot of practicing done. We went to the library fairly often; William got music books and scores and I caught up on my fiction and fantasy reading. I got a pass to the local gym and spent a lot of time swimming and running on the treadmill. William digitized some of his parents' record collection and bought a few guitar records from the neighborhood record store, and he also transcribed a Telemann violin piece for guitar. On the Irish side of things, we had 'band practice' most nights and worked on both tunes and songs. William had sent his Hamilton flute to Ireland in May for repairs, it finally arrived and he spent a lot of time getting re-accustomed to it. We did some cooking, we spent time with William's parents and his brother and sister, and we walked around the neighborhood. Not quite the events of an epic journey...but at this point I think we really needed a break.

We did manage to do some non-routine things, though. William's sister Maria plays Ultimate Frisbee and we went to watch one of her games; his brother participated in the 20 Song in 24 Hours project and we attended the listening party for that. We saw some of William's old friends and visited his grandparents in Ohio. I went to Phipps Conservatory with William's mom and we both went to Fallingwater and Ohiopyle State Park with William's dad. William and his dad also followed through on the much-discussed plan of bringing the clavichord up from the basement, replacing the broken strings, and getting the thing more or less in tune; we gave an impromptu performance of the Vivaldi Sonata in A Major for Guitar and Continuo one night and it went over fairly well given that we hadn't played it in months and the clavichord refused to hold the tuning on the high notes for more than a couple minutes.

William's parents live about a mile from downtown Squirrel Hill and we walked there fairly often for lunch or a snack. There were a surprising number of vegetarian items available, and one all-vegetarian place that had pizza and sandwiches. We tried: Tango Cafe (excellent coffee as well), Milky Way, Te Cafe, Coffee Tree, 61C Cafe, Mineo's, Bangkok Balcony, Pamela's, Aladdin's, Uncle Sam's and Gullifty's (for dessert). Another place that we tried and would love to go back to is Blue Dust, near the Waterfront shopping area – along with the excellent food, most of which is made on-site, they have the largest selection of beer I've ever seen. The East End Food Co-op has good coffee and a nice selection of local products, and the farmer's market at Phipps is small but has a wide variety of produce, meat, and cheese.

So, day after day there was practicing and reading and food...and suddenly it was August 31 and we had to run around the house finding everything and making sure it would all go back into the spaces it came out of. In a way, it was nice to be back on the road, but (surprisingly) I really think there is something to be said for a nice steady routine.

Western Pennsylvania

Glass art exhibition at Phipps Conservatory, Pittsburgh

A famous house built over a waterfall (very strict photo policy at this place...)

Ohiopyle State Park

Cucumber Falls at Ohiopyle

Monday, August 10th: Blacksburg, VA to Pittsburgh, PA.

New River Gorge Bridge

New River

Not again...

Visual aid: we were stuck on 79 *just* beyond the fork...

Traffic in front of us.

Traffic behind us.

Clouds, just south of Pittsburgh.

Entering Pittsburgh - finally!

Country roads, take me home...eventually...

The trip from Blacksburg to Pittsburgh (August 10) was supposed to be about 5 hours of relatively easy driving, with plenty of time to stop and look at anything that might be interesting along the way. We got going about 9 am or so and had no problem whatsoever getting out of Blacksburg and into the rolling mountains of West Virginia. Our first stop was Tamarack, which was much more interesting than what I was expecting from the description. It's a large building featuring handmade goods from artists and craftsmen all over West Virgina – candles, jewelry, blankets, pottery, furniture, clothes, and so on. There are artist studios right in the center so you can watch people at work and it's very obvious that the entire project is centered around promoting the artisans instead of simply making a few bucks off of tourists. I nearly bought a few pieces from Linn Pottery but I decided that I could wait on that, given our current storage limitations.

Our next stop was the New River Gorge – we walked down to the lower viewing deck, which was still a long way above the river, and looked at the rapids and the bridge that we had just crossed. When we got back to the car, having just experienced two pleasant and interesting stops, the decision was made to take a short detour west to Gauley Bridge and see if the Gauley River was as interesting as the New River. It was a lovely country road...until we ended up going down a steep incline behind half of a large manufactured house on a flatbed truck that was going about 15 mph and scraping bits of the roof off the house every time it went under a tree. Finally, they turned off onto a different road and we got to Gauley Bridge to find that there wasn't much to look at there except for the waterfall that we didn't see until we were past it and it was too late to stop. Not wanting to get even more tied up with a further detour, we headed back towards the main road hoping to avoid more oversized truckloads. Which we did – but there was road construction along the way and we got to sit for 20 minutes or so waiting for things to clear up. We finally got back to relative civilization, got gas and had some lunch, and headed north to Pittsburgh determined not to stop for anything short of an emergency.

About an hour or so later, we ran into the worst rainstorm I have ever driven in. Everyone slowed down and most people put on their flashing hazard lights, which was the only thing I could see in front of me for several minutes. We crawled up one mountain and down another until the rain lightened up and traffic went back to normal; of course I was pleased that there were no accidents and that everyone seemed to be driving carefully and responsibly. Just as I was congratulating myself on getting through the storm and calculating how long it would take to get to Pittsburgh, we got to the point just south of Morgantown where 79 and 68 split off from each other...and traffic came to a halt. For about two hours total, due to a jacknifed semi ahead of us. The first hour was bad enough, watching all the southbound cars zooming over the overpass in front of us and next to us across the median, but then something else happened behind us (we never did find out what) and traffic backed up in the other direction too. Police cars and ambulances went by, people walked their dogs, and we forlornly wished we'd gotten stuck about 100 yards behind where we were so we could have gotten on 68 and gone east.

Eventually, traffic started moving and it turned out that we were only about ½ mile behind where the truck had stopped. We were supposed to be in Pittsburgh by 7 so we could meet up with William's grandparents who had just flown in after a weeklong cruise, but we knew there was no way we would get there in time (it was about 6:30 pm when we got past the accident) and so we called to tell his parents that we would just go straight to the house. The rest of the trip was moderately uneventful – we were slowed down a bit by yet another storm with dark and ominous clouds but not nearly as much rain as before, and we got to William's family's house about 7:45. We were so relieved that our long day was finally over...we were going to have some dinner and relax...and then William's brother Steve met us outside with the delightful news that the power was out.

The three of us spent most of the evening on the front porch, watching the rain and scowling at the (working) streetlights on the other side of the street, and when the rest of the family got home with the news that the grandparents were fine but their luggage had gotten lost, we decided that we should just give up and go to bed.

After all of that, the remainder of our visit has been marvelous, and I'll get to that in the next post.