A low-riding Volvo from New Jersey to Philadelphia…

…drove to Kooser State Park in Pennsylvania on June 7…

…through Ohio to Shades State Park, Indiana on June 9…

… to a campsite off the Mississippi in Illinois on June 10 …

… then Great River Bluffs State Park in Minnesota on June 11 …

… outside of Bob’s Diner on June 12, we check in on low riding-ness …

… still low. Continue to Vermillion State Recreation Area, June 12 …

… and then see some Presidents on June 15th …

… and also Crazy Horse …

… but before all that, we got to see The House on the Rock’s Infinity Room …

… which looks like this from the outside …

… but not backwards, forwards, cross the Utah Salt Flats …

… and into Sonoma county …

I wake up in a smelly motel room. Time to talk awake, and take a walk. I start on the sidewalk.

Then I take to the road. My destination, a big statue, stands 40 feet tall in the distance.

Walk walk walk.

Stand proud, giant hobo. I wonder who would have put the fellow here.

A plaque sits on the hobo’s pedestal…

… and leaves me more confused. It reads:

Hobo Joe
Built by and
stands in memory of
Marvin Ransdale
(1928-1988)
by
his good friend
Ramon Gillum
July, 1989

Did Marvin build it in his own memory? Did Ramon build it for Marvin? Perhaps they build it together, but come July, 1989 only Ramon was around to remember Marvin’s contribution? I’m not sure.

But the hobo lives near a meat processing plant.

I begin looping back to the hotel, and meet an owl guide.

He reveals to me the mysteries of waste and tools left out by citizens of Buckeye.

Done with waste, I continue with the drive thru to the motel.

Before I acknowledge the tinyness of myself, my travel companions, and the park, we walk the cholla cactus trail. The cholla are the first locals we encounter on our trip through Joshua Tree.

I have to mention the holiness of these plants as well. When walking through a forest, you brush up against plants all the time. But this is not the forest, and these plants demand respect.

Look but don’t touch.

Walk slowly.

We drive on, leaving behind the cholla, and getting closer to my discovery of tinyness. After more space, we come upon fields of rocks. We can walk among them.

And climb among them.

We can stand and sit on them.

It’s the rocks that make me re-remember how tiny I am.

Not only am I tiny. Everyone is tiny.

Dan is in the next one too, look close.

Dan is hypothetically in the next 2 images. (This one from the Orange County Register)

(next image from NASA’s Visible Earth)

The rocks offer me anamnesis of scale, and allow us to play on top of them. But in exchange they demand a respect very different from the cholla cactus. A respect not so different from a wet city sidewalk. We must be careful with where we place ourselves, or else our selves get stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Or between two rocks, in this case.

But we’re careful, and today no one gets stuck between any rocks or hard places.

In Los Angeles, I climb the hill on Occidental College campus. At the top I meet a stranger who tells me to take a photo of these birds because they’re a rare site. For his whole life he’s lived near the hill we stand on, so I believe him. Click for the full size, they (the birds) are tiny.

Sunrise, 2010 Feb 11

I wake up early from a dream. It’s a bit chilly, and I know I won’t fall back asleep. I decide to climb the hill again and see the sunrise. I’ve not been awake for sunrise since… late August I think. Maybe early September.

The moon is waning, nearly new. I recall the full moon very well, and I’m surprised at how half a moon cycle has nearly passed. It’s felt like so long since then, but it’s not even been two weeks.

My perception (or my perception of my perception) of time has been miscalibrated for a while now. Or rather, newly calibrated. A week passes and the state of mind I have feels like my whole life has been that state of mind. I can’t tell if I’ve achieved a better understanding of my emotions, or if I’m just terribly confused about the rate time passes.

One of things I always find appealing about travel is how it dilates time. Removing myself from my routine places and activities changes something in my brain’s understanding of time. Perhaps our perception of time is based upon how much work our brain is doing, and the brain has to do more work to process the unfamiliar. This theory goes against the character in Catch 22 who lays in a hospital bed unmoving and bored. His claim is that being bored feels like a lot of time is passing. He’s attempting to reach immortality through time dilation through boredom.

Having woken from a dream, I wonder: how do dreams fit into this understanding time and the (un)familiar?

Anyway, this is all just to say, I saw the moon nearly new.

Another pre-sunrise image. It’s interesting to compare the difference of the city after sunset and before sunrise. More lights after sunset. The horizon has a brighter orange glow. You get the sense that things are receding. Before sunrise the sounds are less and so are the sights.

Ok, this one’s not a tree.

Here is Dan at the breakfast table:

Sara, pondering her soon-to-be-cut hair.

And Kevin reaching for his soon-to-be-shoed foot.

Today you could see outside. It’s like this, but lighter.

A store with lots of living friends. Bunnies. Don’t touch.

Birdies. Can you see them?

If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.

I particularly like that he uses powers of two to solve the dilemma.

Start of day, in the bathroom window:

On-way to mid-day (keep in mind above quotation if your patient enough to watch):

Mid-day, Union Square:

End of day, dinner: