Places I've been sleeping

It's been a rough three weeks of travel, though not unwelcome. Various obligations have dragged me up and down the California coast, as well as eastward in the name of surprise parties. In the last 21 days, I've laid my head in:

My childhood home
A suburban chain hotel room with water-damaged ceilings
A New Jersey daybed
A Brooklyn air mattress
A San Francisco Victorian

The month of July began in Palm Springs, my third visit in six months, at Madeleine and Sandy's request. They plotted a course from the Grand Canyon to Los Angeles and, noting that my hometown was along the way, asked me to join them. This plan was followed by a request from my Dad, who offered to front me some airfare if I agreed to surprise my Aunt Carol in New York for her birthday. Then Bobby asked me to join him in San Francisco following his week-long business trip. Finally home again, with no more plane rides on the near horizon, I present my last three weeks in pictures:

Palm Springs


Palm Springs on a summer morning


Madeleine and Sandy


Sandy and me on a break from swimming


Sandy and Grillmaster B


Water rat in natural habitat


Nightswimming deserves a quiet night


Stripesies at breakfast


From the mouth of a dinosaur

New York


Three-thousand-mile breakfast date


Three-thousand-mile breakfast


Bryant Park at lunchtime


The road to Putnam County


Aunt Florie with iced coffee


Great-Aunt Dorothy with kisses


Family assembled


Cousins on a staircase


Reluctant tourist at the theatre


Gertrude Stein in Bryant Park


Besties on the train, with wine in sippy cups


NJ Penn Station


Brooklyn Subway graffiti


Williamsburg phenomena


Album cover with parents


Jets to the future


Brief return to Portland

San Francisco


Reunited with Bobby and burritos at 11 p.m.


Truth on the sidewalk


Castro Street Parklet


A slice of the Northwest in California


The last good Chinese food for who knows how long


Tortilleria in the Mission


Cactus-flavored tortillas, made by hand


More burritos


Back in Portland to stay