It’s been two months since my last post, but I’ve been wanting to get at least one more done before I really set this project aside. It’s a sad commentary on my work life that it’s taken me this long to find enough time to sit down for a few hours and get this together. But, the final chapter needed to be written, so here goes…
Our hiking done, the next two-and-a-half weeks were a whirlwind journey home. Come along for the ride if you will…
Day One: July 5, 2022
After abandoning our second attempt to hike to Preikestolen, Jessica and I boarded a shuttle bus back to Stavanger. We were literally the only people on the bus other than the driver, who we had a bit of a chat with. Between Stavanger and the Lysefjord, the most direct route goes under the fjords through the Ryfast Tunnel, which was briefly the longest undersea tunnel, and is still the deepest. To keep drivers from getting too bored or sleepy on the long, straight, unchanging route, there are all sorts of glowing bits and neon lights to entertain…
We spent the rest of the day tootling around Stavanger, a small city, but actually the fourth largest in Norway. It was cute, quaint, quiet, but given our general exhaustion, we didn’t see much beyond a couple of cafes, the little lake that separates the bus station from the downtown, and a tiny bit of the waterfront. We caught up on email, played some games, and just generally chilled a bit.
I did enjoy this statue of a goat-herding boy, given our recent encounter with the goats in Aurland, and our occasional shared fantasy of becoming goat herders in the Italian Alps. (Though, given the recent elections there, that’s not really as good an “escape from a fascist government” idea as it seemed a few months ago.)
Like in Bergen, there were memorials around to the victims of the Oslo Pride shooting a week or so earlier…
And, most oddly, there was a (slightly falling apart) stairway tiled with a quote by Howard Zinn, one of the historians who most shaped my thinking in high school and beyond. A little unusual given that he’s most famous for his work on US history (and the quote is in English), but still…cool.
We ended our day in Stavanger at dinner with one of Jessica’s colleagues, an academic named Tanu who studies what she calls “Childism.” She took us to a great restaurant and made us order an even better dessert. It was fun to hear about her life in Norway, and how it was adjusting to living there after growing up in South Asia and then living in Germany. And it was fun eating dessert too. (We all have priorities, right?)
Day Two: July 6, 2022
Train back to Oslo. Games were played. We were happy to see that our luggage was where we had left it (despite the hotel employee giving us a sketchy, “I wouldn’t leave anything here that long…sometimes things get taken,” which sounded a bit like, “I’m gonna call my friend Oskar when you leave and suggest he come take your things…”).
Day Three: July 7, 2022
While we didn’t actually travel anywhere today, much of the day was travel-focused. You see, we had to spend a good chunk of our one day back in Oslo making sure I could get back to the US (despite me telling Jess that I’d just rather stay in Norway…or really anywhere that didn’t involve being in the US or back at work). You see, the problem with getting me home went as follows:
- Jessica had gotten her flight paid for by the Fulbright Commission and it was booked 8 months earlier. But, for the past 6+ months, we had been monitoring flight prices trying to get me onto her flight (or one with similar times) for a reasonable price. That was not to be. So, eventually, in May sometime, we had booked me on a flight that was a few hours different from hers, but only slightly ridiculously expensive, not terribly ridiculously expensive.
- That flight happened to be on SAS. The problem being…SAS pilots went on strike just a few days before my flight was set to leave.
- And they wouldn’t officially cancel the flight until 24 hours before it was set to depart (because they were hoping the pilots might just concede).
- At that point, SAS basically said, book your own alternative travel and we’ll pay you back for it if it’s a similar price. (Are those instructions vague enough for you?) So Jessica and I spent hours scouring the internet for ways to get me home. Some of them were epic 48 hour journeys with flights through Hungary, Turkey, Spain, and more. Some took me out to Houston and then back to our destination in North Carolina. Others to Washington, D.C. and then on a bus south.
- Finally, we found a reasonable option, and I booked two separate flights, one on Norse Atlantic to Fort Lauderdale, and then a separate flight from there to Charlotte (on American). That’s right. Norse Atlantic. What? You’ve never heard of them? Oh. That’s because they started flying only two weeks before I booked that flight! Nevertheless, their “longboat” (yes, that’s what they call their planes) did get me to Florida, so…yay?
Day Four: July 8, 2022
After a long and arduous day of travel (via Florida for me, by way of London for Jessica), we both arrived in Charlotte, NC. Without SIM cards that worked in the US, it was a bit hard to communicate about getting picked up: Jess resorted to some customer assistance folks at the baggage claim, while I borrowed a phone from a stranger waiting to get picked up outside the airport. When Christine didn’t answer her phone and I left a long message, my stranger-benefactors were nice enough to call her back about 5 minutes later and then yelled for me to come over and talk to Christine since they had managed to reach her. They were awesome. Thank you strangers.
Day Five: July 9, 2022
We took a lovely walk around the neighborhood with Christine, Mike, and Bodhi (and had an awesome breakfast!) before hopping in the car and heading off to Raleigh.
What? You thought we’d stay in one place for more than 12 hours? Ha!
Day Six: July 10, 2022
For real this time, we spent a whole day in one place! In fact, we were in Raleigh visiting Jessica’s sister, brother-in-law, and nephews for a whole 48 hours! It was super fun to see them, as always. You can see below that they had fun too.
Day Seven: July 11, 2022
Back in the car, we cruised west on I-40 to Asheville to see Jessica’s parents there. We also reconnected with our long-forsaken kittens, a bag full of winter clothes and books, and a stack of forwarded mail.
Day Eight: July 12, 2022
Another whole day without travel! We took a nice hike with Sue and Mark and celebrated Mark’s birthday with a pretty awesome tapas-y dinner. Yum.
Day Nine: July 13, 2022
Back in the car, we headed to St. Louis. The cats were thrilled to be heading west again…can’t you tell?
Day Ten: July 14, 2022
A nice visit with my family, a severely disappointing Cardinals game (the Cards mustered up 5 hits and no runs in a loss to the Dodgers). Yes…another non-travel day!
Day Eleven: July 15, 2022
But wait! There’s more! We spent a whole second day in St. Louis. What?!?!
In the morning we were with the Thibaults. (This is the fifth time we saw them in the course of the last 13 months…so great! St. Louis, July 2021 – Bonn, October 2021 – St. Louis, December 2021 – Bonn, May 2022 – St. Louis, July 2022. Wow! I think they win most frequent blog appearance.) We played with the kids at a maker space and then went to a cool new food hall called City Foundry. A good time was had.
Afterwards we went to an awesome exhibit at the Missouri History Museum all about the “St. Louis Sound.” This covered everything from ragtime to punk with stops through jazz, blues, R&B, hip hop, and more along the way. There was also a lot of love shown for KDHX, the community radio station I used to work at. One mention of the station was an exhibit of some of the artifacts of one of the DJs, Gabriel. I used to listen to his show (on from midnight to 3am) sometimes just because I liked his name (and his wide ranging tastes were up my alley as well). The exhibit came with a playlist of dozens of songs from all eras of St. Louis’s musical history. You can check it out by clicking here. And you can learn more about the exhibit by clicking this link. Highly recommended if you are passing through St. Louis before it closes in January 2023.
And, of course, no visit to St. Louis is complete without Ted Drewes. Best frozen custard this side of the solar system.
Day Twelve: July 16, 2022
Back in the car for the 6 hour drive up to Valparaiso, IN to visit my brother, sister-in-law, and niece. We were really sad to miss them in January due to my bout of maybe-COVID, so we wanted to go spend a few days with them.
Day Thirteen and Fourteen: July 17 and 18, 2022
Another two non-travel days! We spent the time just chillin’ with the family. Unfortunately, this visit was COVID-disrupted too. My niece Rosa had just had a pretty serious exposure from a friend who tested positive a day after they’d been together. Jesse and Darlene were maybe exposed too. Rosa had some kind of inconclusive tests, while Jesse and Darlene were consistently negative. Nevertheless there was a lot of “do we, don’t we” masking going on and a fair bit of “let’s just hang out in the backyard” as well. Fortunately, by the last day it seemed pretty evident that everyone was COVID-free. We had fun playing Quacks of Quedlinburg and teaching Jesse and Rosa how to play Space Station Phoenix. Rosa picked it up super-quick and we played a game online over the next few days as well. (Aside: If you’re interested, you can play Space Station Phoenix on Board Game Arena, but at least one person playing has to be a “premium” member…I’m happy to play anyone anytime.)
It was really nice to get to see the Indiana Cohns after not having seen them for a year, and even less the year before that. Jesse really is my favorite brother. I mean, he’s my only brother, but he’s a darn good one!
Day Fifteen: July 19, 2022
Back in the car for the final push towards home. Shortly after leaving Valpo, we got on I-80 West, which we followed for the next 2,200 miles. We joked that the directions were, “Get on 80 West. When you hit the ocean, turn left. Turn right at the Safeway in Santa Cruz, and then you’re home.”
The cats definitely had a range of feelings about being in the car for so long. Mostly terror, but occasionally mild curiosity, all with a big dose of discomfort.
We made it to the exciting town of North Platte, NE. Yippee.
Day Sixteen: July 20, 2022
We timed our drive the next day just right. We took a 90-minute or so lunch break in Laramie, WY at the home of our friend Grant, who provided some excellent nachos. The last time we saw him was the last time we’d driven across the country on I-80, when we were moving to Santa Cruz 8 years earlier! It was fun to reconnect, however briefly, and his kids were both fun to chat with. (Sadly, his partner, Anya is working in Denver, so we didn’t get to see her.) I stupidly got exactly zero photos of Grant, but I did take this one of his kid, Aleksei, which I thought kind of summed up how awesome a parent Grant is and how cool his kids are.
We ended our day at a hotel in Salt Lake City. We planned to stop there partly because it’s a good one-day-drive distance from Santa Cruz, but also because, thanks to Christine (see the beginning of this blog), we knew the absolute best place to eat there. The Red Iguana has the best mole in town. Maybe the best north of the Rio Grande. I don’t know. But it’s pretty awesome. Best hotel room takeout I’ve had in a while.
Day Seventeen: July 21, 2022
388 days after leaving last June, we returned to Santa Cruz. Things were mostly as we’d left them, but not 100%. Our tenants (a new UCSC prof and his family) had left a bunch of random trash and such around the house (a case of beer, some diapers, etc.), along with hooks on all the cabinets to prevent prying children (they had a toddler). Some of our furniture also wasn’t where it was supposed to be. But, weirdest of all was the “toilet” sign that had been affixed to our bathroom door. Now, to put this in context, our house is small. 800 square feet. There are literally only two doors inside the house: one to the office and one to the bathroom. (Our bedroom doesn’t even have a door because it couldn’t open given the location of our dressers.) So, there’s not a lot of mystery about where the bathroom is. We’ve never had anyone get lost looking for it. In other words, it definitely didn’t need a sign. So, when we removed it, we were only slightly surporised to find a large hole in the door underneath. At about shoulder height, it sure looks like someone punched the door. (Our tenant later claimed that they accidentally bumped it with something while moving in.) Long story short, they did pay us back for it, but it was a bit of a hassle.
We were also reunited with all our clothing after having traveled with about a week’s worth of clothes for the past year. It had all been in mothballs, so took several days to air out.
Getting home also meant saying goodbye to some things. Like Jessica’s many phone numbers that had accululated as we swapped SIM cards over the course of the year. So sad to be reduced to just one! And, my 40 liter backpack. It had been my travel companion for a dozen years. Just big enough to take for a summer-long trip or a hut-to-hut hike, but not so big that it was heavy or uncomfortable. Alas, after having been repaired once while we were in London, more and more of it began to fail, especially the seal around the zipper on this pocket…
I can’t honestly say I’m happy to be home. I mean, Santa Cruz is a nice place and all, but the last year was just freakin’ fantastic. Jessica and I frequently discussed our mutual feeling that we could probably travel full time and be just fine. Home shmome.
But, regardless, here we are. I miss the mountains, but the ocean is beautiful. My new 25min drive is a major downgrade from my old 6min bike ride commute, but the route takes me up through the redwoods every day. Downsides, upsides. It’s been wonderful to see so many of our friends in the Bay Area again…
…and we constantly recalculate just how soon we can retire.
Oh…and the cats were glad to be out of the car.
The Future of the Travel Babble
More adventures another day, but not for a long time I assume. My new job is keeping me ridiculously busy, but perhaps next summer I’ll have some time to write about Peru, where Jessica will be continuing her research in July. Something to look forward to. Until then…
Sad that the adventure is over – for now.
Thanks for sharing your amazing travels! Welcome back!
Also your brother’s shirt is [fire emoji].