busted flat in salt lake

as dad and i blearily walked to our rain-soaked car yesterday (monday) morning for the drive to the airport (for him) and tahoe (for me), my heart SANK. ugh. a flat - front right tire. about time. we got about 50k miles out of them. went over to the firestone store and bought two new front tires. thank goodness john "no big deal" mele was there to help me handle it.

then took dad to the airport and i was off - across northern utah and nevada. it was a LOOONG drive. driving way to fast and getting way too slap happy (um..some of you may have heard from me during that trip. i was getting a little loopy. And called a few folks). was only able to take the two following pics: the salt flats in utah. breathtakingly bizarre. and the mountains of nevada. breathtakingly vast. though i accidentally caught this tractor trailer in the pic.




at one of the rest areas, i had a lovely conversation with an older gentleman in a cowboy hat. he saw my plates and asked "are you really from massachusetts?" i said, "yep." and he said "i had a buddy in vietnam who was from around there. i used to love to listen to him talk. you don't have the accent, though." (people usually tell me this. it used to be a point of pride, but now i kind of wish i'd given in to the dialect of my childhood - "idear" and "bubblah" and all that). we chatted for a while. he lives about 100 miles from an already remote town off of I-80 in nevada. 100 people in the town. but plots are being sold all the time - lots of people from california trying to get away from...other people. i think this is a little too extreme for me, though. i need to be able to walk to the corner store. i need to have a corner store.

finally - TAHOE! got my butt kicked at poker last night (hey, it was my first time playing!), and then went for two beautiful walks this morning. first up a huge hill (ouch), then through some meadows and forest. here's a pic of marit balancing stealthily on her favorite woodland beam.

and this one's of me - gleeful to be a) NOT in a car b) OUTSIDE! c) Exercising!

hm...maybe i can take some yoga classes while I'm here. hm...........




it is so wonderful to see marit here. (She moved from boston in april, and is my best friend leia's evil twin....i mean...sister). most of her friends are in similar situations - seasonal workers in their 20s, enjoying the outdoorsy atmosphere, but many of them are feeling stuck career-wise. they're talking about moving to san fran. hm...