Happy Columbus Day! One day out of the year which would seem to be a harbinger of a successful journey (though perhaps not success in arriving at the destination you had thought you reached. If we took Columbus as our example we might end up in South Carolina and start asking the “Bostonians” there where we could get some tickets to Fenway Park). Today we got no further east than Sawtelle Boulevard, where we stopped for some sushi rolls for lunch after taking our son to the doctor. He developed a fever the day after his revels at the book launch party (so, apparently, did Tamra’s brother’s seven year old daughter, whom the eighteen-month old Felix developed a strong liking for). It only took the pediatrician about three seconds to determine he had the beginnings of ear infections in both ears. Given Felix’s usual ability to make a rapid recovery (he performed the same trick on the eve of a planned trip to Yosemite, which we subsequently cancelled) we have plans to light out for Vegas tomorrow.
We picked up our white Dodge mini-van this morning without incident. Seems somehow appropriate that we will be driving a mini van manufactured by an American company — the company that, in fact, invented the mini van. When I was young we owned a Dodge Ram van. It was a pre-cupholder vehicle, piss yellow and fecal brown, and not a car to be adored. But it was quite functional, carrying firewood on several occasions and once bringing a Sunfish back from Alabama. I almost flipped it on two separate occasions in perfectly sunny and dry conditions (the accidents I have had have all occurred in ideal conditions). I guess it is ok to be back in a Dodge, though I wonder what Fiat is going to make of them. The cover story in the Time Magazine this week, which I read while waiting for my son’s prescription to be filled, was on the decline of the city of Detroit. Apparently Time Magazine has bought a house there (for $99,000) and is “embedding” their reporters and photographers there for a period of several months to try to make sense of the place and what its decline means, as well as to try and figure out what can be done to save it. This is neither here nor there as far as our trip is concerned. I’m just trying to entertain you a bit in case you tuned in for some stories from along the road and were disappointed at our lack of progress.
Tune in again tomorrow!
TRH
