winter actuality

about the actuality, one must write. I can only recall daddy's winter stories about the snow and frigidness and how greatly they influenced people and nature. The zeal he used to tell them put me in his boots, made me step against the fierce wind, kept me for hours above the ice-hole I had dug in to catch some fish, spurred me to feed the animals… this is the actuality of missing a winter, or missing winter all together

Canyon Reign

at Bryce I descended all the way to the bottom of the canyon, this being a different type than Zion where you are already on the bottom. in Bryce you're on the top, like at Grand Canyon. for a moment it was just me, all others either didn't have the go to reach the bottom or had done it before me. once there, at the foundation of the tall walls and columns, the silence was indeed heavy, the fear hard to avoid... I feared an animal, mountain lion, could jump on me from above, right at my neck, and that was the end. maybe you could fight it face to face but if it grabs your neck you're his meal. then I even feared a powerful hawk could descend right on my head and with two quick beak strikes would have access to my multicultural brain. certain is, there were many places to hide, difficult to keep an eye, I sweated also, had to watch my steps first then the above and behind. this tells you I didn't quite enjoy it, but back up where all the tourists were, I posed into a winner and told my wife how brave I felt down there, being alone, how I enjoyed it and felt I could go on and on thru the canyon if it wasn't for her and the coming darkness.

back to Romania 08/23/16 - 09/09/16

I must say about this, I must. It turned out, 2 days after I returned to Los Angeles, that this had been the last trip with daddy. With daddy. It will never be another one. With daddy in all forms of possibilities: laughing, goofing around, holding me in his arms, storytelling new things about his childhood or just repeating the same ones (which case the enjoyment was the same), asking me about America, and last but not least asking me when I was going to come back so we can go fishing together and be around each other as he was turning older and older, with the answer alway being: I'll do my best, dad. I did my bullshit instead. forgive me forgive me, please forgive me...

July 11 and 12 along the west coast

a little outing to San Fran. with the return on the Coast, side by side. to relax, particularly, regardless of the long hours of driving. but that's relaxing to me, I meditate somehow caved in my seat. little arguments made it thru on the Coast, put out with a nice dinner right after the Coast in Paso Robles.

WESTLANDIA - a drive into the old, ghost, desert West

Randsburg, CA. Perhaps the most unknown little gem in CA
Death Valley



America is great. And the road-trip belongs to her. So we entered Nevada after Death Valley, and first was a ghost town, Rhyolite, so short lived that one can't say he grew up in it. Only about 15 years at max of agitated history, 1905 to 1920, time during which the city grew fast and furious, its development soon to include all the amenities required by civilization: school, hospital, newspaper, opera house, stock exchange. At peak not more than 5000 folks enjoyed (or not) living there. Fascinating times whichever way you look at it.
Goldfield, NV, once the largest town in Nevada with daily stage coach service to Tonopah, later daily train connection to the same Tonopah.

Tonopah, NV
Highway 6, NV, on the way to Area 51 (for the ufo lovers) just past Tonopah. 20 miles into the drive and thank god we see the sign warning of the 163 miles up to the next gas station. Made a u-turn, back to Tonopah, in the end barely making it to Rachel before AleInn closed up for the day.

Pioche, NV. True gem just like the theater itself. On some end of the city there is the Boothill Cemetery

Ely, NV. On the Loneliest Road of America, Highway 50, which turned out to be not lonely at all, that title went to Highway 6. Ely has the Hotel Nevada with casinos and hunting trophies, empty streets, wind and tumbleweeds making up the traffic on the city's streets, and a flair of early, unchanged America.
Sand Mountain, Fallon, NV. A huge dune out of the blue. The same Highway 50 leading to the Lake Tahoe and Reno metro area.
Virginia City, NV. Well taken care of, full of historic facts and evidence of 19th century mining prosperity, a bit touristy too.



CA highway 395, Mono Lake. This entire route parallel to the Sierras is a one of a kind drive.

The Dreamer (a balloon above the world)

The Dreamer was found in Ashland, Oregon, in the last day of 2015. It was an accident; nor we were looking for it, nor we had a purpose for the flying globe replica. The Dreamer caught our imagination in a store living its last days, it was the end of a life for someone, all things must go. One day in Los Angeles we boarded The Dreamer to go to the Ocean. We took Beverly boulevard then we continued on Santa Monica - we flew as if we drove. People looked at us like they had seen the newest electric car. Later, on a sunless beach we landed.