A City of Angels

Crepes from the Farmer's Market at the Grove

lovely roses at The Grove

Los Angeles: March 23-25

Home, sweet, home. Well, not really – but it was great to return to an old stomping ground of mine while I was in a film semester program back in my college days. Check out LAFSC if you want to have a really awesome experience and still graduate on time:) After showing Jake around my old block in West Hollywood we stopped by the Farmer’s Market and the Grove for some delicious (and expensive) crepes. If you can see by the photo we had to keep it pretty simple to not feel ridiculous about the price. We were lucky enough to get a text from our host, Jeff Boodie (good friend from Eastern Mennonite University), who invited us onto the Dreamworks studio lot (where he worked) for lunch. It was quite different from my experience working on the 20th Century Fox lot back in the day. Much smaller but beautiful, friendly and fun. Ping pong in the courtyard and delicious foods all around. After lunch and a tour Jake and I were given a drawn out map to find Boodie’s house in the hills. It was quite an adventure tracking it down but an awesome place. Treehouse like with a great view and immersed in nature.

Our home in Hollywood Hills for a few days - with our buddy Jeff Boodie

The trek to the house

Later that night we visited another one of my old haunts, The Bourgeois Pig on Franklin St. Its still an excellent place to escape and they have even developed their lounge area into a midnight forest, complete with a full moon. If you are living near Hollywood, do yourself a favor and track this place down. Also get the Moroccan Mint Tea. We were lucky to get some coveted sun the next morning and explored Venice Beach and it’s oddities as well as Manhattan Beach and it’s suave little self. It was there, as the rain clouds returned, that we made the rash decision to try and catch a matinee of Battle:LA – since we were in LA. We would not recommend this unless you are desperate on redbox – though it is entertaining and fun to see the blocks that you had just walked. To follow this FAIL we decided to have a winner dinner – In’n'out. Jake’s very first time. He was very passionate about looking up all the different secret orders while we waited for our burgers. Ask him sometime – he loves to tell you about 4×4′s, Flying Dutchmans and Protein-style Burgers.

Venice Beach

Art on the beach - yes.

Skatepark

Always nice to see these.

Jake doing tricks at the skate park - minus the skateboard.

Jake's first time at in-n-out!

We had a great time hanging out with Boodie – some solid conversation (as you can only expect with him) and just great to catch up here on the west side. He even had a “Dear America” to share. This guy is one of the most motivated people we know – you will see him making waves in the near future.

Good words to share J.Boodie

On our final morning we got to have coffee at Peet’s with Jake’s Uncle Peter. He just happened to be in town for work at the same time as us! He gave us some great tips for driving up the coast and warned us about the Rt 1 rock slide – advice we should have paid more attention to….(this will be continued in our next post). Great to see a familiar face before we started to finally head NORTH.

Jake's Uncle Pete was in town!

The Sunshine State

Before we forget Florida as we continue to head west – here is a little summary of our week and a half of adventures there in late February.

Orlando:

Jake recovering from the first leg of our trip.

We were not headed to any major theme parks so we spent a lot of time laying by the pool and reading. A good time to sort of catch our breathe and process the trip we had started and were about to really jump into more fully. The most memorable things about Orlando:

- just being in the city where my mother lived as a child while her father pastored in the area

- tracking down a good spot to watch the final launch of the Discovery Shuttle. We were pretty far away, watching from the side of a highway bridge, but the community of folks gathered all around was pretty incredible. Jake sat in my dad’s truck with NASA on the radio and was giving play by plays to everyone on our side of the road. We even met a traveling couple who had spent a lot of time exploring Alaska and were encouraging about our venture there. They also wrote a “Dear America“.

Our little taste of Discovery

- mangrove kayaking in Cocoa Beach with Tim of Fin’s Expeditions. First of all my mom surprised us – our cousins and two friends from Lancaster were there! They were on a cruise and they organized this secret little kayak trip without Jake, Shelly and I knowing. It was great to explore the waters with them and then have mahi tacos on the beach with them after. The kayak guide, Tim, was also really awesome. He spent most of his life as a deep sea diver for NASA, recovering booster tanks from all the shuttles. He was so laid back and encouraged Jake and I to visit him again and we could stay with him and go on night boat rides.

Surprise kayaking crew!

Tim, our wonderful mangrove kayaking guide

- the world’s tallest Sky Coaster: My mom, sister Shelly and I did this. It’s like bungee jumping but you swing when you get to the bottom. You think you aren’t afraid but once they start pulling you up….it’s pretty ridiculous. Going up was scarier than the actual drop. The drop just freezes you. You aren’t thinking, you’re just falling. Great fun.

Siesta Key:

This place is gorgeous. We were so blessed to get to stay with my parents in a cute little bungalow a stone’s throw from the beach (dad found it on craigslist). My sister, Shelly, my adorable nephew, Kye and my brother, Ryan joined us. We were sad Josh (my other brother), Truely (his girlfriend) and Austin (Shelly’s husband) couldn’t be there as well!

the ladies and their little man

Our beloved nephew, Kye

We had amazing weather all week long, a calm clear sea, a plethora of pelicans and white, soft sand. Memorables:

- At sunset every night a crowd gathered to watch and just as the circle slipped quietly into the sea a hidden trumpet would play taps from a window of a hotel on the beach. The whole crowd would finish it off with clapping and cheers.

Sunset!

- On Sunday nights the community comes out to the beach at sunset for a drum circle, dancing and glowing hula hooping. I think it’s good for a community to dance together once a week out in the open. Want to try it Lancaster?

Drum circle on Siesta Key

Glowing hula hoops

- Our neighbor, Kay, a traveling nurse was so friendly and often stopped by to chat. She even joined us for a spontaneous jam session where we wrote the infamous “beach song“. Kay wrote a “Dear America” too. This woman has been through a lot. Just in the past two years, her husband died suddenly in a freak accident, her mom died a few months after, her gorgeous house burnt to the ground. When her home was burning there was a few feet of snow on the ground (in Arkansas). She kept running frantically in and out of the house to save what she could, her husband’s urn, a wedding photo, her mother’s china. She couldn’t get to the photo of her parent’s or their family’s “hall of fame” where all their life photos hung on the wall as a monument to their journey. She was barefoot as she ran in and out and then finally threw on shoes. By the time the fire trucks came and they got her to the hospital her shoes had fused to her frozen feet and they had to cut the shoes off. It’s amazing what you just don’t know about people and what they have been through. Kay is a beautiful, fun woman who walks her two dogs in high heels and owns over 100 pairs of shoes. I admire her push for life and to keep on. She’s got her big girl panties on and it’s a good reminder to us all, that if she can do it, so can we.

Kay

- Pine Craft – the amish/ mennonite community in Sarasota. Best soft pretzel of my life.

- Finding out it was 10 degrees in Homer, Alaska, where we are heading:)

Arcadia:

My half sister and her family live and work among the orange groves of Arcadia. It was so fun to go visit them and their home. The orange blossoms smelled glorious, the pomelo’s were surprisingly sweet, the kittens piled on your lap, the kids took us on a horse ride and we took the pontoon boat out as the sun went down. This family is really amazing. We always have such a good time with them. I also loved their “Dear America” messages! As we left that night we yelled the messages as loud as we could back and forth with them as we drove off down the road. Everything was ‘terrible’ fun as little Kendra would say (she also made my mom, sister and I sweet little potholders and cards)! Looking forward to seeing them all again, hopefully someday soon.

Twila, Kendra, Mom and I eating a pomelo from their tree

Getting ready to ride Emily's horse, Flicka

Kittens piled on my lap, at their own doing.

the delicious orange groves

An afternoon adventure on the pontoon

Kendra

Gulf coast camping

Last night we stayed here. IDEAL camping scenario. Beautiful park, perfect weather, small campground, awesome bathrooms, easy access to the beach.

Tonight it is thunderstorming in Alabama but here we are, pitched our tent near Orange Beach at the Gulf Shores State Park. We took a quick walk through some alligator land and barely escaped a downfall. Our tent is holding up and we found ourselves in a coffeeshop with free wi-fi..too bad it closes in ten minutes.

Though its very dreary now I bet this place is gorgeous when the sun comes out (hopefully tomorrow).

Rain or shine we really do love the Gulf Coast. It’s so beautiful! I’m sure we will return someday. Lordy I hope we keep dry tonight! Love to all.

Departure

The odometer as we leave Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Lordy get us and this car all the way to Florida and then to Alaska:)

p.s. for facebookers

we’re on facebook now: http://www.facebook.com/kingsofsmallthings

we were encouraged by some folks do this – so we did it. end of story.

the trees outlive us.

Found this poem I wrote in 2008 – and I think it’s resonating with this trek we’re preparing for. What’s the story?

If we canceled everything and stayed home – what’s the bigger story? If we traveled the world and stuffed ourselves full of all its glory – what’s the bigger story? If we lose it all – in the end – what’s the bigger story? What are we in the middle of – no matter our current location? I think we all have the same questions.  What’s the meat? What’s the heart? Here’s the poem.

the tools

I have all the tools. right here. within me. surrounding me.
a million stories fighting between my ears, encircling each other and always changing, growing, moving.
this is pregnancy. or at least the talk of.
am i ready for children?
Am I ready to let the natural take its course, to open myself to the flow of words and lives and all the crazy, to let it come to the written world, to be given a permanence that will outlast my flesh body.

story story.
what stories.
which ones.
how?
when…
right now.
later.
never.

we can leave things behind. memories of us. ideas. inspirations and devils.
there are things to tell. worthy things. mixed up in stupid things.
can i separate them?
i have hardly come to tell the difference in my daily stream of thought.
the time i give to both.
a worship of simple and of sacred.

there are stories only i can tell. only you can tell.
born of our raw heart and years alive.
born of our mortality and short existence.

what is worthy?
what does it look like?
a children’s poem or a dark tragedy?
a comic line or a brave memento?

all perhaps.

we are strange in our ways.
and this is not our choice.
we know little of the what and the why.
we make up tales and theories, dig up numbers and charts.
forgetting we are floating amongst stars.
forgetting the trees outlive us.
we explain the ocean, divorce, religion.
we control our datebooks and closets.

i came from dust.
or perhaps a rib.
this earth, my home.
but no, o no, not for long.

so what is worthy to tell?
what can i explain, express, reveal?

what will live on pages and what will never be born?

we shall see.
i hope.
a meaning lives amongst these words.

May you know when to speak, when to listen.

New Iron and Wine song: Biting your Tail

Listened to these words a lot today – some good wisdom for the journey – what is now and what is to come. O Lordy – I pray you help us to listen, to stop talking/moving/shaking/PLANNING and listen. That’s the hardest.

Some favorite lines from Iron & Wine’s latest – Biting your Tail:

may your eyes be wide and seeing

may you learn from the view where you’re kneeling

may you get what they fail to mention
may your love be your only religion
preach it to us all

may your hands be strong and willing
may you know when to speak and to listen
may you find every friend that you’re missing

may you end up bruised and purple
know the pieces the shape of a circle
round and round you go
biting your tail

we’re the journey and the wind is whipping

someday we may all want nothing
and all together we’ll get whats coming
someday all say the world was something
that we just couldn’t change

may your words be well worth stealing
put your hand on your heart while singing

Walk Through Every Open Door?

This past week was full of inner turmoil for Jake and I as we had to make a fast decision about when we would start our journey. We were offered ranch jobs for the winter season in Wyoming…but they wanted us out there in a few weeks! An open door! This is what we had asked for (open doors) - but was it too soon? Is every door that opens the right one to walk through right then and there? These questions stirred us as we struggled to make a decision. We had been planning to leave closer to March and I am still just starting to tell co-workers. I’m not ready to leave work – too many projects in the balance. We don’t have our house ready (finding management and tying up some loose ends).

The stars just were not aligning even though we knew Wyoming would, of course, be an awesome adventure (did I mention Jake would have been a snowmobile, cross-country skiing and snow-shoeing guide)! We are adventurers and love surprise (good surprises anyway) so this was a hard one to walk away from. I never thought we would have passed that up. We have responsibility here at home though and we want to leave feeling good about the transition, at peace with everyone and everything involved. Maybe we are growing up? And maybe Wyoming will open it’s doors for us again in the next year or so, when it feels just right.

And so, after a week of internal tug of war, we decided it just wasn’t the right timing.

We also decided we are ready to start our trip in February, instead of March. For now, we want to start by heading south (repeat: February) unless something else opens up by then.

We also didn’t know my parents will be in Florida all of February so we will have a stop off for a week! For some reason its really nice to have at least some sort of destination to start towards:) After Florida we’ll start our pilgrimage west and then north. At least, that’s the sketch for now. We’ll see what happens.

Love, Carrie

The latest…

Departure planned for either January or March/April 2011.

Headed to….your guess is as good as ours.

Upcoming event! An art show for our adventure! Check it out here. Saturday, Nov. 27.

Where will we go?

The world? The west coast? Your backyard?

The only thing we know is the time we’ll go. We’re setting aside money from our paychecks, preparing mentally and prayerfully and have our eyes and hearts wide open. We’re not going just to go. We’re not moving just to move. We are preparing for something. Taking a first step outside of normal routine, an intentional unlocking of the secure little life we’ve found ourselves in.

We’re not ready, never will be ready but that’s ok. We’re not responsible for how the path unfolds – we’ll do what we can, know and believe and see how the adventure tells itself.