Texas to Alaska, Part II/Baby, a Book, & a Church Part I

As the days grow longer here on Finn Alley, the girls slip into a routine of Haley at homeschool,  with an emphasis on Russian and math – how her brain works – and Kiki and I starting mornings with a walk across town to Mt. Edgecumbe pre-school. Our newest arrival, Quinn Mary Jo Anguria Jones, just does her best to make sense of the movements of her older sisters, and make sense of these darkening days.

Alas we did make it across the second half of the country. We had Quinn in Seattle, returned home to Sitka, and got ourselves established for the spring and summer. Rachel and I swore to each other we’d allow our family to catch its breath, and just be for a moment.

One book, one cabin, one Presbyterian church more, and one Silver Squid less, and we’re asking what happened to that pledge of peace.

For find an answer, one must return to where all answers reside, which is – of course – the Texas panhandle. To a far-off RV park called Camelot Village, where we sat on a concrete pad, safe inside the battlements. Trying to figure out where, in the throes of Covid, where we were going to have this child. A moment that seems ages ago – LBQ. Life before Quinn.*

We had been provided with a pad inside the battlements of Camelot Village RV Park – on the outskirts of the university town of Lubbock, Texas – just across from a small gated swimming pool the girls couldn’t get enough of, and a laundromat that we couldn’t get enough of. We washed just about everything we owned, having paid the price for our swoop down south with damp, dirty clothes. As the clothes revolved in the washer, I read all manner of dog-eared mystery books, right there alongside The Alchemist and The Prophet and other traveller pit-stop standbys, and thought about what the future might hold.

By now we had hit our stride in the Silver Squid, pulling over to the side of the road to boil water for Piney Pasta, Rachel’s disgusting, addictive childhood favorite consisting of butter and tomato paste and fusilli pasta. The girls retreating to their twin beds in the front each evening, sliding shut the accordion doors. Rachel and I unfolding our camp chairs, pouring a drink, picking out constellations as we reviewed Covid rates to the west, and planned our next life move. Starting an episode of Ozark, if only to feel better about our own predicament of being pregnant in an unsure world – I mean, at least we weren’t running from cartels.

During the days we did homeschool on the picnic table, or – when it rained – in the Squid. We scored a couple foldable kids chairs at Cabelas, across the avenue from Camelot. As the girls sat in them, glueing their fingers and comparing peelings, we tried to envision how this new kiddo might change our lives. Perhaps e should stay on the road in this tin can, staying nimble for the next few years. Looking over at Haley, making neat rows with her perfect cut-outs, it was clear this girl needed routine.

And we missed Alaska. We missed our home.

So there within the walls of Camelot Village, we set goals: have this baby in Seattle, return to Sitka, and then, seal the deal with some very, very good Tex-Mex.

That happened in the town of Muleshoe, to the northwest of Lubbock, not far from Clovis New Mexico. At Leal’s Cafe, started in 1957. And OMG, the smile on Kiki’s face when enchiladas glopped with hot cheese arrived – one you could see from space. And Haley – you always know when she’s excited by the way she stands up in the booth when food arrives. They were both wearing their cowGIRL boots, and fit right in. 

As my friend Karl pointed out the other night, we won’t be able to order these girls around much longer, to tell them where they’re going and when, what they’re eating. (Not that we could ever really order Haley around.) Might as well enjoy showing them the beauty of melted cheese, and other wonders of life on the road, when we can. Or doing things like visiting the gravestone of Billy the Kidd at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, strangely surrounded by people he shot, bizarrely enclosed by wrought-iron bars, and littered with empty Jack Daniels bottles. Or stay in an RV park on the outskirts of Santa Fe, ringed with agrarian-themed art installations – the sky an unearthly cerulean blue, torn open by a pink that matched the dresses of these two little beings chased from the darkness into a setting sun.

In that particular park we were given a spot on the fringe, oriented to the west, so we could look out over the scrub brush. That first evening the girls came alive with  the evening, and cut hard to the dimming light, while Rachel and I followed quietly behind. The vision of the two of them running from us kicked up a new and not entirely welcome heartache. The path they ran snaked through the low scrub plain, and they grew smaller and smaller until I shouted after them to stop. Haley, leading the way, turned for a moment. Seeing it was nothing – just adults again, with their wanton ways – she charged forth, talcum puffs exploding from her sandals.

I thought of Colorado, who I still consider my first kiddo. When he came home with me from the rescue in Keene, New Hampshire, 15 years ago, shortly before I started this blog, we arrived at the cabin at the top of Alstead hill. I removed his leash, and watched as he took off into the high grass. Wondering if he’d ever come back. Then Haley’s birth, Colorado insisting on his role as the kiddo, as the photo shows. What else is life other than continual catch and release?

From Santa Fe we turned slightly north, where we began a very chill week with my godmother, following her kind invite. Parking the Airstream behind her adobe house, and letting the girls roam free. Kindness glowed from her, as she taught the girls the different types of cactuses in the draws, which ones bloomed after the rains, which ones needed more, or less water. They planted an aspen together. They made pancakes, with Kiki wearing a Russian kerchief fashioned from a shirt. 

This  family moment finding us at just the right moment. Cooking steaks on the hibachi grill, long, slow stories drawing us together in the evenings, all of us awash in the pleasure of just being together during such fraught times.

Then more good news – the Harrell House Bug Museum had stayed open, situated in a little shopping mall in Santa Fe. Kiki, who was just getting over her Parisian love affair with her dead bee, thrilled to the place, eager to have bugs the size of figs crawl up her wrist. We learned much more than we ever needed to know about cockroaches and spiders and even a turtle, who somehow snuck her way into a bug museum.  

A great day by the river comes back to me now, with a friend of Deborah’s who raises goats. She lived way up in the mountains, at the end of a long dirt road that appeared to be constantly washing out. She had named her ten or so goats. The girls fascinated by the strange creatures, eager to have one of their own to milk and feed, despite their slit eyes and sharp hooves and long beards and closed expressions. 

We also had a moment to wash the Squid, which had been battered by the desert winds, picking up a scrim of yellow. The girls were careful with water-usage, using ladders to climb high and sponge the old girl off. Haley in her cowgirl boots and tie-dye shirt could have been on some New Mexico commune, fifty years back.

From Santa Fe we took a day-trip to Bandelier National Park, where I got in trouble with a woman from Ukraine for trying to speak Russian to her. Pleasant! Also we saw crocodiles and suns carved into the rock, the girls climbing and descending ladders leading to all sorts of little caves still coated in ash from the fires – perfect for children to imagine a life inside.   

From Santa Fe we went north up into the hills, toward Taos. Through Harvest Hosts we stayed in a wine vineyard, with petroglyphs carved into the surrounding stones. The girls spent endless hours in a labyrinth, walking to the center and back out again. Rachel and I drank wine, figuring and re-figuring our next stop. Haley was dying to see Mount Rushmore. She had also been learning about geothermal springs at Yellowstone. The clock was ticking on the one in the oven, who my mother-in-law referred to as “Watermelon,” for reasons unclear.

We knew we needed to make Seattle for an appointment in about a week and a half. There was that. We had a date with Rachel’s mother in the Grand Canyon, to further discuss the upcoming child’s name and hang – and we also wanted to see friends in Wyoming, and Idaho.

So after an impromptu visit to the meteor crater east of Flagstaff, then another quick outside visit with friends in Flagstaff, we weaved the Silver Squid through the gorgeous mountains north of town to Sedona, a majestic, over-touristed spot with a very clean, very strict RV park, mostly patronized by fancy older folks who set up picket fences outside their RVs. The girls geared up in their hiking boots and started climbing, both game for the pink rock, eager to get views over the plains, so unlike anything we had ever experienced in Alaska. 

Grand Canyon was lovely – crowds for sure, but seeing Donna made the kids happy.While they were definitely getting sunned out – they had never experienced so much of the yellow stuff, save for Italy, perhaps – getting some Nonna time allowed us all to take a breath. I hiked down to the Colorado River and up in a day, a wake-up for me how out of shape I was, though that could have been the sun as well. (There is an intriguing placard showing a person throwing up from sun exposure in awesome graphic detail – photo off to the side there.)

We headed north, stopping at Jacob’s Inn to get the best cookies ever made – I wish I could find the photo of Rachel biting into a “cookie in a cloud,” an ecstatic expression that disappeared a moment later when Kiki fell off a rock.

Following a quick turn in Arizona’s Petrified Forest, in which Rachel and I advanced a theory that aliens chainsawed the old growth trees with lasers to power their spaceships – thus the perfectly cut petrified wood, better than any Stihl could do – we headed due north along the border of Idaho and Wyoming. We found our Alaska friends in Victor, and what a relief that – once more, the girls were thrilled with having other kiddos to hang around with, especially considering that the other kiddos had a teepee to play in. We all took a kayak trip along the Snake, and fished with crickets. Had a big trout on for a moment, until he broke the line. The area beautiful, though polarized, it seemed, split between folks retreating to their second homes during Covid, and people who actually lived in the area.

Yellowstone was a surprise – quite literally, the worst traffic jams of our trip. Cars backed up, with rangers in black shades pointing the way. It could have been New York City – except New York City, by so many accounts, had been emptied of a third of its population. Apparently, everyone had decided to go into the wild, and here they were, reconvened in the world’s most famous national park.

Just off the road we managed a lunch of Reeses Peanut Butter Cups washed down by the Madison River. The sugar dissolving, picking teeth for last ridges of chocolate, watching as the river tugged the moss in the current. Trying to recall, in the sugar rush, as best I could, the last lines of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road.”

Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery. 

Once again, watching the girls play along the edge of the river, splashing in their cowgirl boots, I was overcome by a hum of sadness, layers deeper than the monotone of the traffic behind us. I watched the girls splash in the shallows, laughing when the water overflowed their boots. Thinking of the weight that would one day fall on their shoulders – cellphones, money, social pressure – when they charged into the world without us. A diesel rig rushed behind in a rumble. I wanted to lift up that road like a ribbon and shake it free of cars and just live here with my family, far from cell signals and internal combustion. Far from the idea of college and leaving your family. 

We piled back into the Blue Moose. At an intersection Yellowstone Rangers directed lines of traffic south, back to West Yellowstone, making our trip across the park impossible. This time we drove south, alongside this water that ran so clear, a reminder of the number of other rivers, and how beautiful they once were. We hit another jam. Long lines of vehicles inching forward, waiting to turn, like lemmings waiting to jump. It was an unhappy day, feeling like some part of larger scourge.

But then we started singing Alabama again, Kiki fiddling with two fists because she’s never actually seen someone play a violin. And me, in my own head, realizing that the lines I had also grown up with were rooted in a culture built on barbarity. And yet here we were, a family, singing about a culture my own father had derived from, crossing the country west toward a place we called home.

In other words, our roadtrip was kind of coming to an end. Life knocked. Rachel and I both spidey-sensed it. It didn’t take much discussion, as we hauled gathered speed west, to decide to just ball it through, to Seattle, where we would hunker down with our friends who also had two kiddos, and last out this nightmare. The kids were so eager for friends. Airstream life was grand, but the girls needed stability. J&D had generously offered us their apartment, and we’d nest a bit, and bring this new kiddo into the world. That was the plan. 

Turned out to not be the case. The girls were newcomers in the neighborhood, an unknown entity for sure. Playing with other kids, out of the question.

The Kennedy compound wasn’t called a “compound” for nothing. It’s six acres protected by water at the front, and fences in the back. Yes, I’ll march with you, but don’t think of coming back to where I actually live. 

But such thoughts aren’t helpful. If we weren’t welcome in the neighborhood, that was on us ,parachuting in during Covid. Our truck and RV took up parking spots. Chatter abounded on the neighborhood chatboard, questioning if we were living in the RV. Farther south in Ballard, we had the tires of our truck slashed, our antenna bent. We actually found the guy who did it – a Russian, whose boss ended up paying $650 for the new tires, after we signed a paper saying we wouldn’t sue.

Bright spots in the Emerald City, think, think. John taking us to his climbing gym, where the girls went straight up, fearless. Getting out and hiking, amazing Indian food in Issaquah, playing on the beach on the other side of the tracks. Those days so fine in my memory, sharpened by the waiting for this new life inside Rachel, trying to make a home in that basement, trying to convince our kids that life was normal and they were healthy and kind and nothing was wrong with them. I will always remember our friends, and how they made a home for us in a difficult moment. 

Which only got more difficult when the labor pains began. At Swedish First Hill everyone was remarkably chill. We geared up for a marathon, Rach in acute pain, which turned out to be back labor, the worst. At the hospital, after about 24 hours, we discovered the kiddo had wrapped herself in the cord. Each time R contracted the kiddo’s heart rate would drop precipitously. I thought of jiu-jitsu, what it felt like to have pressure on the carotid artery, apparently what our new child was experiencing, and it made me nearly to choke each time those heartbeats dropped.

Our doctor, who resembled nothing more than a sheep with glasses with his curly white hair, offered up a frank conversation, at the end of which we decided against trying for a natural birth – a so-called V-back. “I’ve already had one emergency C-section today, and I’d rather not have another.”

The nurses got it all prepped, the obscene needle into Rachel’s back, the garish lights of the operating theater. I rose above the curtain to watch as this purple alien came out of Rachel, the doctor holding her cone-head by the neck and she gripped the air and screamed.

Following the trauma we were rewarded with two days in the hospital, just in that room, with sweet Quinn, playing Wingspan, enjoying the quiet, thanks to Donna taking the kiddos. 

Through all this we rented the Silver Squid and the Blue Moose to make some $, plugging the water machine with tokens at the car wash, the girls being genuinely helpful, squealing with delight as suds teemed about. Getting the RV all set for folks to take her out and about. She was earning her keep, and so was the truck. Not only had these contraptions taken us across the country safely, but now they were supporting us. We were thankful for the hunks of metal – and also for Turo and Outdoorsy, though the one-third cut seems excessive?

In the end we did use “watermelon” in Quinn’s name, though in Italian. Quinn Anguria Mary Jo Jones came home from the hospital on October 1st, and we started packing for the flight back to Baranof Island.

We arrived back to shortening days, and it quickly became clear that – as if our life wasn’t already chaotic enough – we needed to both pour a concrete pad and install a woodstove, so that Santa Claus could make it down the chimney. Otherwise, as Haley logically pointed out, no presents. Along with that, we needed five chickens and a puppy. Because that’s how we do.

We poured the pad. We got the chickens. We got the dog, a mini-Aussie we called Bandit, and man does he live up to his name. We lit up our first fire, and the girls promptly starting fighting for Mom’s attention.

In short, we stepped back into the rhythm we had been missing – beach-cruising, games by the fire, collecting seaweed for the garden. A cold snap gave us some ice-skating. It was just very nice to be home.

As for the book and the church – that will have to be next time. It’s coming. Thanks, as always, for making it to the end. B