Its About The Ratio of Things. Or: Chicago, Love of My Life, Part II

Lately I have been thinking of amounts, sizes, lengths, weights and all sorts of other figures.   The three past weeks were our last in Chicago. It has been 10 months, 7 days, 13 hours and 21 minutes. Its a long time if you think almost adults like us just take a break and hang out in a cool city. Its not much if you think how much more there is to see and learn about this great place. Its nothing if you consider the size of the country around it. But it is just enough for us to call it home and to feel sorry, even a bit anxious to leave it behind. 
We have said goodbye to our lovely Chicago. We said goodbye to the river and the construction workers (glad we will not be here when you start on another skyscraper to fully block our view on it). Goodbye to our favorite breakfast places and big America portions.
For me its is leaving a home behind again. Or going back to another home. I wonder if this is what they mean when they talk about globetrotters. But I am not trotting, I have a home in three countries now, with all the stuff you need to call a place home. You know, people, places, languages, things. 
Goodbye to all the neighborhoods. The shops where they are so friendly. Goodbye to the friendly people on the streets who compliment you on your clothes. Even my six years old skirt that I had planned to donate to the Salvation Army received such a loud scream of I-LOVE-YOUR-SKIRT!!! from a lady last Monday that it was immediately ranked higher again to things that are packed to go.
Yes, things. Another thing that has been constantly on my mind, and, all over our Chicago home. Whereas it may well be disputable how many homes one needs, it is now definitely clear that one does not need as much stuff as I have. Packing started immediately after unpacking from the road trip. I took my time to say goodbye to many great things in my closet and bookshelf, and office, and even bathroom. We took four paper bags to the Salvation Army, and I managed to stay tough with my politics of dealing with old running socks that had taken me through about 800 kilometers and eight races since September.
Goodbye, Lake Michigan. I loved the dozens of miles of your trails. Goodbye greenshitters (the geese on the lakeshore and I developed such a deep relationship I nicknamed them. I am sure they had one for me, too.) Goodbye, Chicago winds and rains. I love you for helping me get tough on myself and fulfill my promise of the half marathon.
Well the socks had to go but I could almost not believe how on earth I still had about 90 kilograms of stuff left. A big question mark. Ok, also a rhetoric question. At the latest at the check-in desk where the lovely ladies kindly recommended they would rather upgrade us than make us paid for the extra luggage I made another promise. I will from now on only travel with one piece of luggage and always look effortlessly chic when I waltz through the security with just my purse (and not two laptop computers in my fourth suitcase). The latter is connected to some other promises but I have to go now, maybe we will find the Chicago-sweater here that we still need. It is 13.58 and we are boarding Swiss soon. 
I love you Chicago. Bye-bye!

Home For The Fourth

It is 38 degrees Celsius outside our Chicago home. Crazy. Unlike most of our American neighbors who are barbecuing on the terrace or at Lake Michigan behind the house we are staying in tonight. But the garland featuring little stars and stripes is hanging and we have bought like fifty hot dog buns for our guests to arrive later this evening. After eating on the road for the past three weeks (sometimes literally so) it feels good to do some good old cooking again. It also feels good to be inside our own four walls. Besides the shelter for heat, they also offer peace and quiet and protect me from other people. I have always thought of myself as a particularly sociable person but turns out with age, I am quite a Monk (you know the TV series where this detective has all kinds of complicated phobias, needs everything clean and quiet). I will obviously need to work on that but the reason I have thought of Monk often over the past couple of days is that we spent some very nice time in his home town San Francisco. This is actually how I knew the city before we arrived there. Of course the TV producers would always make sure they shoot on sunny, clear days, which is why it hit me as a complete surprise that this place at the Pacific suffers from severe fog-overs for most of the time. As the city is naturally air-conditioned this way, the temperatures are half of what they are here in Chicago, and we could enjoy walking up and down the 43 (!) hills of SF, even wearing a jumper. 

Do you see what I mean? The world famous Golden Gate Bridge (when you can see it).

The world famous cable cars that drag hundreds up those killer hills are the city`s most attractive ways of transportation. With 6 bucks a ride probably also the most lucrative one. The manually operating heavy-wrestlers on the cars fill`em up with dozens of tourists at a time, we calculated that one car makes about four rides an hour... They start at six in the morning and this is when we took our ride with a cable car. The only time you can get a seat. 

SF has a huge Chinese community and it shows

Alcatraz actually is a rock, there is no earth or water on the island

Sitting there in the fog Alcatraz is still spooky, even though it has not been used as a prison for a long time.

The last day of our whole trip San Francisco treated us to a sunny view on the beautiful red bridge. Actually, the color is called international orange and the strait of the bay Golden Gate. 

The moon is almost full again, our road trip is over. Chicago is only one loaded flight away.

Three Fairylands

When Anti, Mannu and I were little, every Sunday morning we would curl up on the living room sofa-bed and watch cartoons. The last show in the children`s program was always The San Diego Zoo and I remember how impressed I was by the work of the staff and the wide open fields all the beautiful animals seemed to have. Last week one of my dreams came true and we spent a day at the San Diego Zoo. It turned out to be just as nice as I remembered from the TV show although much smaller and darker. I guess one of the perks of being little is that everything else seems so big and light. The weather in San Diego was so hot that most of the inhabitants chose to quietly hang out in the shade or take a nap, and Clerg and I got ourselves major sunburns (well, I got a major one) but we spent a lovely day in a Sunday morning of mine from twenty five years ago. 

From San Diego we drove to Anaheim, Los Angeles. The roads were a nightmare but our goal another dream come true. The happiest place on Earth is Disneyland, and it was! If you let yourself be the child you once were and do not mock on the all-American keep-smiling, the work put into the precise processes of this old amusement park makes it so much more than just an entertainment. The make-up of the hot-dog aunties is flawless, the attractions work like a clockwork and it is all awfully cute. We spent there the whole morning, and after a couple of hours of an afternoon nap, went back to witness the cartoon parade and the mother of all fireworks. 

The last of the three fairylands was not so plastic any more but it was just as colorful. The Yosemite National Park in California is surrounded by vast cherry, apple, avocado, strawberry and garlic fields and its massive rock walls protect pinewoods and green waters, full of magic. It felt good to be back in the nature after Hollywood`s busy traffic. We looped around Yosemite`s valley trails for hours and hung out at a little, almost private pond with a couple of ducks and deers. It smelled like the Engadine and Nõmme altogether.

What Images Do Not Tell

Before we hit the road for mainly just driving through the Grand Canyon (which was definitely big, albeit perhaps not as grand) to get to San Diego (which should happen tomorrow afternoon), we stayed in a small city called Page in Arizona. This little dusty town south of Lake Powell is closely tied to the Navajo Nation, the largest Native American tribe in the US and its main attractions are the mystical canyons around its grounds. The local Natives are making a lucrative business out of the red sand and its natural treasures - the most impressive canyons cannot be accessed unless one is a part of a guided tour, and those tours must make fortunes. So Clerg had booked us on one of them through the Antilope Canyon. Together with what seemed at least a hundred tourists we were registered, counted and piled up on one of our Chief Leonard`s self-made pick-ups like a cattle of sheep. I prayed the whole half an hour journey, jumping a meter high up and down on the wooden bench in the open truck, where the seat belts were just a decoration.

At the canyon opening, Leonard tried to line us up, we were 15 in his group. It is funny how people who choose a group activity usually end up being the least suitable for such. There was the Italian lady who could not stop instantly verbalizing what ever she saw or heard to her husband and son (Oh, look, sand! Oh, look, its red!), there were the three French idiots carrying expensive cameras and probably still a load of alcohol in them from the night before, and the two Englishmen who did not bother following Leonard and who Leonard got pretty upset with, having to lecture on them in front of everyone else. In addition to all this, the canyon that in the photographs had looked big, calm and serene, in reality was very narrow and packed with dozens of other groups just like ours. I had been to much more serene places I must admit.

But then, on our way back through the S-shaped canyon walls, Clerg and I happened to be in front, quite ahead of our group, and somehow, for a minute, we were the only ones to witness the midday sun beams break through the canyon ceiling. For this moment, we could feel what the websites keep promising to tourists: the serenity and calm of the Antilope Canyon. The wooden benches on the way back did not seem that bad anymore. Baaaa.....

Visiting The Navajo Nation

The Monument Valley lies somewhere in between Utah and Arizona, which means different time zones. We got confused, and as a result overslept the next morning. But this was only a minor problem because our hotel The View was actually in the best spot to watch the sun rise, so we stood on our balcony, eyes half shut, and watched it go up and light the whole valley on our feet. The Navajo Nation people still live there and the hotel, too, is a big part of the social infrastructure. The land is sacred and protected, tourists` dirty feet are only allowed to step on a few trails. Because our trip just happens to be in the hottest time of the year, there is not much left to do but to try hike very early, sleep or drive during the day and go out just before the sun sets again. So we quickly grabbed our backpacks and set out to hike on the Wildcat trail that goes around the Mittons-butte that you see right below here. As soon as we stepped out, we were accompanied by an early local. As if it was the most usual thing to do he lead us the whole two hours,  obviously knowing the trail by heart and carefully marking each and every stone on the sandy path. Surely his presence scared off all other wildlife but his care and companionship totally made our morning. As a gratitude from our side, he happily accepted our offer of a half a liter of water in the end. It was clear that it was not his first time drinking directly off a bottle.

The Mittons. Käpikud

Our friend and path guide at sunrise 

View on the Monument Valley from our balcony at The View 

A Red Rock Wonderland

We have now spent three nights in the Arches National Park in Moab. This Red Rock Wonderland, as they call it over here in the high desert in Utah truly deserves the name. One feels very small in what millions of years of erosion and other complicated geological things have done to nature and very lucky to be able to see it with one`s own eyes. Surely, millions of others feel that way too, so what we call idiot management on our road trip requires more advanced measures than just fast legs to escape the fellow tourists who are loud, constantly arguing, congesting the park roads and stepping out of trails killing the life in the red sand. So we proceeded to level 2 and set the alarm clocks to 4.30 on both mornings to see the sun rise behind those magnificent stone creatures. This was worth a million. The views were breathtaking and temperatures moderate (those days, a nightly low of something above 20 degrees is a walk in the park). When we left the park after three hours, others were only baking their waffles in one of the numerous motels of Moab and by the time they got to wander on the paths in temperatures close to 40, we were sound asleep in our air-conditioned room again.

One of the two Arches called Windows

Both Windows

First morning`s score: One rabbit

The Delicate Arch, probably the most famous one

This morning`s elegant Landscape Arch

The chubby Pinetree Arch

This morning`s catch was four rabbits and three chipmunks. Here is an especially cute one  doing his morning things in the middle of the empty parking lot.

On the Road: Zion and Bryce

It is our fourth day on the road. We have traded Chicago heights for the heights around America`s south west. It feels good to be in the nature, although hiking in the US national parks is different than in the Swiss Alps or Estonian wetlands, where you hardly ever meet another person on the trails. However, the breathtaking views compensate for the idiots on the way and if one is fit and fast enough, one can hike away from them. Especially cool are the numerous wild life all over the places. Of course one can ask if they are really wild anymore, now that they are almost ready to attack people to get food out of them, but they make great posing models as you can see below.

On the road to Zion

A Zion squirrel, naughty and arrogant.

Bryce Canyon Amphitheater

A Bryce chipmunk. We think she is pregnant.

Amazing, heh?