kamping in america

LB admiring knox's handiwork

after trying unsuccessfully to talk knox into a camping adventure with bob in bryce canyon, utah, i insisted that we stay at the KOA on our way from denver to dallas. the bryce canyon marriott was nice enough, but for $26, the KOA was definitely more my scene. of course, it was only after we got in and set up (knox put the tent up in record time by himself (quite an improvement over our april trip to joshua tree, where we almost killed each other in the 45 minutes it took to get it standing!)) that we discovered why it was such a good deal... location, location, location! and not simply the fact that the texas panhandle is hardly prime camping real estate. no, the amarillo KOA is special: it sits on a barren lot nestled between the amarillo airport, which is surprisingly active despite the small size of the city, a pornography studio, where the magic actually happens (knox kept waiting for the lost porn actress to arrive at our tent looking for a place to "crash"), and a texas state prison. according to the very helpful material posted at the campground entrance, campers are advised to call KOA security should the prison siren sound. but i don't know, if the state prison security isn't up to snuff, i can't imagine the KOA peeps are going to make much of a show.

but the night air was brisk and we were happy not to be in the pathfinder, so it didn't take long for us to come to terms with our situation. plus, there was a lovely older german couple in the site next to ours, and they didn't seem to be worried about escaped cons or wandering porn stars. but just as we settled in, zipped up our bags, and turned out the lantern, we discovered one last snag: the campground is practically sliced in half by the railroad, which is also surprisingly active – the train came barreling through our campground no fewer than 8 times that night. apparently, this campground was originally built in the 50s on what used to be route 66, and access to the railway travelers was key. not so essential anymore, i reckon.

but given that you pay $89.95 + tax a night for roadside hotels with cigarette holes in the sheets and dead bugs smeared across the walls (the best western in el paso, tx comes to mind), i'd say this wasn't too bad a deal.

bye bye bob

knox drowns his sorrows in a coors at the biker bar down the street from the coors brewery in golden, colorado

on september 3, 2008, bob the cat began his year-long stay in denver with our pal janet. i was pretty determined to take bob to france with us this year – and thought knox was too – until one day last spring when janet called to check in, and all that changed. knox hung up and came in to tell me that janet had offered to give our little kitty a home. i later learned that there are two very distinct versions of the conversation that took place that fateful afternoon...

knox's version:
J: what will you do with bob while you're gone?
K: well, you know, we missed him so much last time that we're thinking of taking him along this time.
J: oh? but i'd really like to take him for the year.
K: really? well, i don't know... we missed him so...
J: oh please! i promise to take good care of him, and you know it would be better for him... cats die at 30,000 feet!
K: well, maybe you're right. let me check with leslie about this and we'll get back to you.
J: oh, swell! thanks knox, you won't regret it.

janet's version runs a little more like this:
J: what will you do with bob while you're gone?
K: well, we're taking him with us, no doubt about it. cats don't live forever, and we just can't bear to miss any more of his precious little life.
J: of course, i understand, and they say that cats do just fine in airplanes. it's funny though, i was thinking that if you needed a place for him, i might be able to take him in...
K: really?? oh, this is perfect! we'll just drive through denver on our way to texas and drop him off. and bonus, we'll get to hang with you for a few days.
J: uhh... um, okay. but don't you want to talk to leslie?
K: nah, she'll be fine with it. done and done. how does september 1 sound for you?

bob on a new perch, denver, co

untitled, 9 (american road trip, utah)

on the road again!


we stupidly drove right past bryce canyon, but this wasn't bad either


we're a long way from rice paddy out here...

bye bye 16th street

can you believe this? there are no words...

this is a little better, though not much

not much to say about the six days of mad packing that served as the intermission to our six-week summer vacation... except that it was nuts. unpacking from two months in viet nam, packing for a year in paris, a road trip, and a week at the beach, and boxing up the rest to put into storage... all this while still essentially unable to construct a coherent thought... honestly, it is nothing short of a miracle that knox and i made it to paris with underwear! i would not have been surprised to open my suitcase here to discover it filled with sheets, cutlery, or our george foreman grill.

we packed for almost one solid week much to the dismay of bob the cat, who wanted nothing to do with any of it. he knew something was up, probably knew it involved his riding in a car (cats, i have learned, do NOT like to road trip), and attempted to escape by blending in to his surroundings...

"they'll never find me in here!"

many of you already know that bob's favorite song is "twinkle twinkle little star" and that he comes running whenever he hears it. he really does - it's incredible. but not this time. he's not so easily duped! it broke our hearts to take him out of his little kitty eden, but it had to be done.

anyway, thanks to all those who helped us pack up (that's you, jacob) and who came out to wish us bon voyage. we were sad to leave l.a. behind us, but we'll be back eventually... if only to visit our storage facility.

untitled, 8 (a day in hoi an)

"local da nang"

from ha noi we flew to da nang, where we spoiled ourselves with a few days at furama, a very nice resort on china beach. although i think it was among the first 5-star resorts built in viet nam and could probably stand a few updates here and there, i highly recommend it. aside from one day trip to hoi an to have a couple of suits made for knox, we spent most of our four days in the central region hanging out on the beach. and for good reason:

i've been to some fine beaches in my day - shoot, i spent the last four years in southern california - but i've never been this enchanted. this very spot, under this very sun, floating in this very water, next to this very guy...

...who was in heaven, by the way. he got one look at the ocean and was like: "what dengue fever?? can i have one of those great big blue cocktails with an umbrella and some pineapple?!" i should have known...

my only complaint is that it truly felt as though we'd left viet nam at furama, and after two months spent trying to immerse myself, it made me a little antsy to be so forcefully removed. the food was mostly western (and boring, sadly), there was no rice wine or bia hoi, no karaoke, no sitting around chatting over tea, no real recognition even that i could converse in vietnamese. the separation was really driven home though by the invisible but imposing wall between the resort beach and the local beach, where one afternoon a tragedy of sorts occurred. knox wouldn't let me go stare (which is what all the locals were doing - i would've fit right in!), so we couldn't tell what had happened, though in the end we surmised that someone had drowned. and when knox went to inquire with the beach staff at our resort, some of whom we'd already confirmed spoke fine english, all he got was a stone-faced refusal to answer. some pretended not to know what crowd of upset beach goers he was referring to, looking the other direction down the beach, while others just played the language card: "sorry, my english no good. you beach here." or more disturbing, "you no worry. they local da nang. you no problem."

"local da nang," as though this somehow meant that we could not understand or did not experience the same sorts of tragedies, as though grief and pain were not universal... or stranger still, as though this was meant to reassure us that the ocean was only dangerous on that side of the beach, that somehow our privilege protected us (doesn't it though?). it was weird. and it reminded me that though i love traveling, i hate to be the tourist. particularly in the developing world, where you are constantly questioning your motives, asking yourself why you are there and what good you're actually doing there, if your money really benefits "local da nang" or just the global conglomeration developing the hell out of what used to be local da nang.

i'll say this - it sure is hard to work on your tan when you're worrying about expropriation and the flows of global capital.  

untitled, 7 (still in ha noi)

monument to vietnamese martyrs

old quarter pagoda, detail

eastern gate to the old quarter

lesson learned

where to begin after such a long pause... with a sheepish confession perhaps: as i once learned never to "drink and dial," so too have i now learned never to "drink and blog." the first lesson came in 2003, after an embarrassing post-happy hour message left on knox's cell phone in which i try to wax poetic on the slippery nature of time by slurring (and i can quote myself here because knox has replayed this gem for me at least 65 times): "wow... i cannot stand time... sometimes..." deep, les.

lesson number two came just weeks ago, in the form of a number of bemused but not at all amused reactions to the robert downey jr. post. i had no idea i was being held to such standards. i had no idea anyone was actually reading this thing... but i guess that's fair. i have heard you, fair readers, and vow never to post such nonsense again.

but just as the truly mortifying "time" message lived on until knox got rid of his cell phone service, so too will i keep ole' RDJr. up as a reminder of what happens when red wine is introduced to the already delicate cocktail of anti-anxiety pills (i never fly over an ocean without them), serious jetlag, and an internet connection.

lesson learned.

so with that behind us, let me back up five weeks and start filling in some holes. as of our last post in viet nam, we were in ha noi, where knox was fighting off dengue fever and i was stuffing myself with enough che and tofu to last me a year. it was fabulous. knox was so taken by the paris of the orient that he's decided we're moving back should he not find a job this year. he's even said that he will get his own motorbike, which i think is a fine idea, though i think we'll need find to room in the suitcase for an appropriately sized helmet...


what do you think? a little small, no?

in the posts that follow, i'll fill you in on our travels – from hong kong to paris via l.a., florida, and texas – which have only just come to an end.

reality bites, or robert downey jr. is a "loose card"

a full 24 hours in l.a., and we've accomplished nothing. it looks like typhoon nuri took a detour through our apartment, leaving cat hair, dusty old boxes, library books, and sandy, glorious beach clothes in its wake. i discovered today that this 6-day-pack-up-after-returning-from-nam plan was totally ridiculous as knox and i cannot be trusted to get anything of significance done - we got down to work at 3, only to lie down "for a sec" at 4 and wake up again at 6, when he left to do the laundry and i tackled our closet. my chore was a simple one - make a goodwill pile of my old clothes. this naturally required trying on a whole slew of "potential paris" outfits and vintage pieces that i don't wear but will not throw out because they are vintage (and thus rad!)... it took waaaay too long. knox returned from the laundromat to find me staring out the window and slightly frazzled, dressed only in my bra, a high-waisted gloria vanderbilt jean skirt, and one boot. our room was covered in my clothes (most of which, i've disovered, must go!), but he took it in stride. he just smiled at me (in that "i-love-you-but-you're-nuts" way), hung the laundry out back, then lit the fire for our steaks. how did i land such a man??

so, as day 1 of the packing fun winds to its unsuccessful close and i slip into a food, wine, and jetlag stupor, i leave you with this gem: knox, leaning in from the kitchen (where he is doing the dishes - how did i get so lucky?!?) asks: "would you rather hang out with jack black, ben stiller, or robert downey jr.?" and not missing a beat, i reply, "robert downey jr., not cuz he's hot (though he is) but because he is a loose card."

knox: "wild card? loose cannon? i don't get it, big dan" (he quotes from "oh brother"). what's classic here is that as he corrects my infelicity of expression, he realizes he's failed to rezip his fly from his last potty break. natch.

so much for keeping you posted...

greetings from santa monica, california! knox and i have made it home safely from our little jaunt in asia, in spite of typhoon nuri's rumblings through the region. her bark was a lot worse than her bite, in the end, and by the time we flew through hong kong, she'd long gone. the airport was still way out of whack from the day before (everything from schools to the stock exchange was closed in HK on friday), so we suffered some hefty delays. but i'll take 10 hours extra travel time over flying through 100mph winds any day!

last we left you, we'd just landed in ha noi after our trip to ha long bay. knox had just begun classifying all the bia hois in town (according to price, carbonation, and quality of available bar food) when he was struck down by what we've determined was either dengue fever, SARS, or a new and freakish combination of the two (okay, so really, it was just a simple respiratory funk). he had a couple of feverish days laying low but it didn't stop him from having che (and confirming it was AWESOME), or from hanging out in the circa-1970 cuban "victory" hotel pool, or from paying his respects to uncle ho. i fed him plenty of rice porridge (the vina-equivalent to chicken noodle soup) and left him to rest while i went out for fried tofu with shrimp paste and "young rice" ice cream popsicles.

it's just hit me that i will not be eating rice noodles or fish sauce or fried tofu or gloopy goodness for some time to come... i don't even think we'll make it to little sai gon before we leave los angeles - BUMMER.

wow, judging by how long it took me to compose that last sentence, i think i might need to sign off now. i'm pretty rocked by jetlag. and thanks to the fact that my flight bounced and rolled the whole way over the pacific, my body thinks it's on a boat... in an earthquake. i think that means it's time for bed... or a beer... but definitely not time to blog.

i'll be back soon to post some pics and give the scoop on da nang. then we have to get serious about packing up this apartment - we are out of here on august 31. yikes.