We sprinted from Phoenix to Glendale today. There was rain in Phoenix but it cleared quickly and we had a scenic, smooth ride most of the way. We stopped for lunch in La Quinta - nice place - and then barrelled on home. Got in at around three-thirty and unloaded the car. Lynette had a long chat with her friend Yvonne shortly after we walked in the door. We are glad to be home. Claire won't be coming tonight as she has a cold. We're settling in and trying to get the cat to recognize us.

The Final Turn

We left Albuquerque this morning, planning to head straight through Flagstaff and on to Kingman, Arizona. But the weather report called for snow in that neck of the woods, so we took a left and dropped down along the Rio Grande almost all the way to Las Cruces, close to the Mexican border. We took a short cut to I-10 via a little road that led to Dening, New Mexico, where we had lunch at the local hot spot, and then headed west. We made it through Tuscon and all the way to Phoenix, where we are now, settled for the night at the Hampton Inn. We just finished some Chinese food in our room and watched the end of "Monster In Law" with Jane Fonda and Jennifer Lopez. The fun never stops!

The landscape down the Rio Grande and along the I-10 was spectacular - mesas and rock formations that poke out of the ground and reach hights in the hundreds of feet, and we're already at nearly 5000 feet above sea level; beautiful expanses of wide open prairie and rocky terrain; mountains in the distance that look like strange sculptures. All in all a feast for the eyes. New Mexico seems like a very nice place. Albuquerque is compact and nice looking - I'd like to go back some time and spend a couple of days. We hoped to get back to Santa Fe, but it wasn't in the cards. Next time.

We're excited about getting home. We spoke to Claire today - she had a bad cold, but she's going to come up to Glendale in the early evening. Can't wait to see her.

This drive had been interesting and mostly fun (apart from the two days when we were both under the weather). Now it's time to get back to real life, such as it is, and figure out what 2009 will be about for us.

Happy New Year from Albuquerque, NM

We're still on our way home, spending tonight here in Albuquerque. We left Oklahoma City this morning and drove most of the day through very nice weather. Not much news from the road...just drive and watch the scenery go by. It was pretty but mostly flat - a winterscape, with bare trees and brown fields. Cows in pastures.

Our route - Interstate 40 - parallels the old route 66 for much of the way. The old route is in bad shape in most places - drivable at many points, but nearly gone in others. The most interesting thing to me was to see the abandoned buildings - gas stations, cafes, motels, et al - that were the charm and the appeal of the route in its heyday (or so I've been led to believe from movies and books). Now they look like scenes from the Depression.

The good news is that Lynette and I both feel a lot better today than we did yesterday - the bug seems to have passed. Now we are pushing to get home, which we hope will be on Sunday. We will try to make it to Kingman, AZ, tomorrow, and from there straight to Glendale. Can't wait to see our dear family and friends.

I finished "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" and have begun a novel from last year titled "The Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England," a satire. So far it's good enough. I'll let you know what I think when I'm finished with it. The "Yiddish Policemen" book was good. I'll try to post a critique when I have some time.

That's it for now...

Dan

Memphis and Little Rock

We left Henderson at close to three in the afternoon yesterday, and drove mostly in the dark to Memphis. We were both feeling a little punk, so we had a bowl of soup in the hotel restaurant and stayed in for the night. Today we spent a few hours along the main drags of Memphis, saw the clubs on Beale Street, visited the Peabody Hotel and saw the ducks, and had lunch at the Rendezvous, a very good rib joint. Then we hit the road and drove here, to Little Rock. It's now about five-thirty, and we're going to stroll the avenues and boulevards here, hoping to find an appealing place to have dinner. Tomorrow we will go to the Clinton Library, and then back on the road, heading to Oklahoma City.

Best to all,

Dan

End of December - Heading Home

I've been here in Henderson, KY, for eight days now. I came in last Sunday to attend the funeral of Lynette's mom, Helen Mathews. The funeral was very moving; we loved Helen very much and we are all sorry that she is gone. It was nice to see flowers and notes from many of Helen's California friends.

Lynette has been busy, along with her sister Amy and brother Gary, tying up some of the loose ends from her mom's affairs. Now, we are ready to head home. Our plan is to drive the car we bought for Helen back to California.

We plan quick visits to Memphis and Little Rock (the Clinton Library), then a straight shot across Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle to New Mexico, where we'll stop for a night in Santa Fe. We were there many years ago and would like to see it again. Then on through Arizona to Glendale, CA. If we are able to leave today I expect to be home on Saturday or Sunday.

But there is a hitch - Lynette came down with serious stomach flu, or something like it, in the middle of the night last night. Her sister and brother-in-law Alan are also suffering from this bug. I hope it leaves me alone! The question is, when will we be able to hit the road?

I hate to see Lynette feeling so ill. She is almost never sick, and has seen me through so many colds and flus and injuries. As I write this, at almost one o'clock in the afternoon, it looks like we won't be getting to Memphis any time too soon.

When I got here on Sunday, the temperature was nine degrees Farenheit, and it held at that level through the funeral the next day. But then it warmed up a lot the day after that, reaching a toasty 56 degrees, one degree short of the record for that day. It has been about the same for the last five or six days - shirtsleeve weather for the folks here. It was actually warmer here than in Southern California for a couple of days.

I'm looking forward to the trip home. The little car - a spiffy 2008 Toyota Corolla - is fun to drive, and it gets about 33 miles to a gallon of gas. I have made a few music discs for the journey - some Mozart, some Stones/Beatles/Kinks, and a couple of mixes of old stuff. Between that and NPR, when I can find it, we should be in good shape.

I went to Wal-Mart yesterday, at Lynette's behest, and bought snacks - crackers, cookies, chips (low-cal, low fat for all of these, of course) for the road. The last time Lynette and I drove across the US was in 1977. We had fun then and hope to enjoy this one, too.

It's been a nice visit, not withstanding the reason for my coming here. It was nice to see Clay and LeighAnne (Lynette's nephew and neice) and their families, and it was also nice to spend a little time with Gary and his partner, Eika. Eika and I had a day to ourselves last week when Lynette, Amy and Gary were busy at their mother's house, and we drove to Evansville to look around and have lunch. We walked around the downtown area and found some interesting buildings to look at, and dined at a Chinese restaurant. We also visited the casino and walked along the riverbank. It was a breezy, cool but comfortable day, and we had a good time.

That night, Amy and Alan, Gary, and Lynette and I went to dinner in Evansville at a very nice place called BoneFish. A good time was had by all.

I've been reading a novel titled "The Yiddish Policeman's Union," a very funny book by Michael Chabon. I haven't read anything else of his. I may check out his "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay," which won a Pulitzer prize recently. The one I'm reading now is an inventive, satirical imagining of a Jewish settlement in Alaska. Suffice it to say that it cracks me up. I recommend it.

I'll try to post reports from the road. Meanwhile, I wish everyone who reads this a happy new year!

End of November Notes

This has been a very busy, often crazy month. Lynette has been in Kentucky since early October, helping her sister Amy in looking after their mother, who is very sick and has been in the hospital most of the time. Lynette and Amy, and Amy's daughter Leigh Ann, take turns spending the night with their mother, either in the hospital or at her house on the few days when she is at home. It is a grueling routine that has nearly exhausted all of them. Claire went back a few weeks ago to help out, which they all appreciated.

I travelled to Kentucky in the middle of the month to spend a week with Lynette...we had a few nice times together, and I was able to run a few errands and help them out a little. It was very cold there - in the mid-twenties at night.

Emily was in Kentucky for a few days, too, and our visits overlapped, so I got to spend some time with her, which was very nice. She and her friend Abigail will be visiting us in California in mid-December. Lynette is coming home next week, which I am looking forward to very much.

Jackie and Martin are in London, on their annual visit, seeing Martin's family and friends and doing some touring. I hope they are having a good time.

Jayne and Bernie went to see their son Kirk and his family in Tucson for Thanksgiving.

I came home from Kentucky a week ago today, and then flew to Reno the next day to spend some time with my brother Alan and his family. They live nearby, in rural Walker, California, and like to spend a few days in Reno each year. Their daughter Sally is a student at the University of Nevada at Reno; she took us on a tour of the campus, which is quite impressive. Their other daughter, Molly, is taking college classes online from their home in Walker. I enjoyed my time with all of them, including Al and Priscilla and Al's daughter Romi, who came to Reno with her husband John for a couple of days while we were there. Romi is expecting her first child in February.

My brother Mike and his wife Kim, and their sons David and Aaron, spent the holiday with Kim's parents at Avila Beach, at a time share her parents have there. Mike said they had a very nice time.

Last night Joe and Marsha Grieco called and invited me to go to dinner with them, which I did. We went to El Portal, a very nice Mexican restaurant in Pasadena. It was nice to spend time with them, as always. They told me that their friend Brian Doyle Murray reported that his father-in-law came across this blog and read about the lunch I had with them a few weeks ago; I was delighted to see that I have a real reader out there. Brian's wife Tina is a lovely, charming lady, and I hope her dad checks in here now and then.

I am half-way through John Updike's latest, the Widows of Eastwick. It is fun to read, as Updike usually is. I just finished a book about William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the time they spent together in the English Lake District before Wordsworth got married to Mary Hutchinson. Coleridge was very unhappy in his marriage, had a crush on Wordsworth's sister-in-law-to-be, Sara Hutchinson, and spent as much time as he could away from his family and with the Wordsworths and Hutchinsons. William's sister Dorothy kept a very comprehensive journal during this time, and it was the source of much of the material in the book. I found it very interesting.

I am excited about Lynette coming home, and Emily's visit, and Jackie and Jayne's return from their holiday trips.

Yesterday was my birthday

I had a great day. I drove down to Laguna Niguel, to the Ritz-Carlton hotel there, where Charlie and Nancy Walker had a nice birthday lunch for me. We sat at a lovely table overlooking the ocean. Charlie ordered a bottle of champaigne and they toasted by birthday. It was a delightful couple of hours.

Then I drove to my sister Jackie's house, where she and her husband Martin hosted a birthday party for me. It was also an early Thanksgiving dinner; they will be in England on the actual day, and my sister Jayne and her husband will also be away, so Jackie made turkey and dressing and had all the usual Thanksgiving stuff.

The guests included Jayne and her husband Bernie, my daughter Claire and her friend Tami, my niece Jill and her son Dane, our friend Jean, my nephew Kenn and his family, my niece Tiffany, her partner Caroline and their two-year-old son Elijah.

After dinner they put some candles on a pumkin pie for me to blow out (with help from Elijah), and then they all gave me birthday presents. There was much good cheer and family affection. My brother Mike called from his home near San Luis Obispo to wish me a happy birthday. On the way home I returned a call to my other brother, Alan, who had called from his home in the eastern Sierras with birthday wishes. All together a very good day.

The day before, Saturday, my friends Joe and Marsha took me to a museum in Santa Monica to see an exhibit of paintings by the watercolorist Milfred Zornes. It was an impressive and most enjoyable show. We were joined by the Grieco's friends Brian Doyle Murray and his wife Tina (I have also known Brian for many years, through the Griecos); it was good to see them. We had a nice lunch on the patio of a comfortable restaurant adjacent to the museum. It was a beautiful, clear, balmy day, and lunch on the patio was a treat.

And today I had another birthday lunch, with my friends Richard Del Belso and Erika Callahan. I had worked with them both for many years when I was at Warner Bros., and have enjoyed seeing them frequently since then. Our lunch was at Nippon, a Japanese restaurant near WB that we had been to many times over the years. We were all very happy that Barak Obama won the election last week, and had a good time catching up with each other and sharing our opinions about lots of stuff - movies, tv shows, et cetera. Both Richard and Erika had been to London recently and agreed that it was fun if also very expensive.

I am excited today because my daughter Emily will be coming to town early in December, and her friend Abigail will be coming with her. I will also be seeing Emily later this week, as I am going to Kentucky on Saturday, to join Lynette, who is there to help care for her ailing mother. Emily is also going to Kentucky, this Friday. Lynette's mom's chemotherapy seems to be having some good effect, as she is feeling a little stronger. We are all glad about that. I will be there for a week. Lynette has been there for about a month now, and plans to be there for at least a few more weeks, depending on how things go with her mom.

That's about it for today.

Dan