Like a rubber band stretched too far, we sprang back from the Pacific toward home. All of us were feeling that tug to be back in place, our proper place, and we’d reached the part of the trip in which we felt slightly less gracious about each other’s shortcomings. My estimation of the trip’s success plummeted, as the force and frequency of the fighting escalated, until I finally hit my travel rock-bottom: “This was the worst idea. I will never go anywhere with y’all again.” (If you’ve been following our travels, this may sound familiar.) After my rant, there was silence in the car, although I could still hear faint protestations in the very back, as two siblings quietly continued to trade abuse. When we pulled into our Palm Springs hotel, which was straight from a Mad Men set, I barely registered the toothy grin and winking chit-chat of the host as he described the heated pool and Friday night drink specials. “We’ll just eat our leftover bagels,” I pronounced gloomily, “and go to bed.”

The next day, I reclined on an over-sized, orange bed by the pool watching two brightly restored military planes hum above my head. Towering palms dipped forward slightly to frame an otherwise uninterrupted sky, and in and out of the fronds darted tiny, gray hummingbirds. I wondered why I could so easily judge the whole trip a failure as soon as some moments proved less perfect than others. Did it all mean too much to me, or did I give it the wrong meaning, or both?

We’d been capping-off Jane’s philosophy class by listening to Tim Keller’s The Reason for God. Keller had described how we make idols of very good gifts, things that ought to be thoroughly enjoyed, by finding our identity in them. If we lose that good thing, or fail at it, or it fails us, we lose our sense of self and self-worth. Only Christ, he contended, is reliable enough to build an identity upon. Keller said Jonathan Edwards called Jesus our sola bona, our only good. I’d stopped the audiobook and told the kids how I freaked out when I got close to marriage because I was afraid that Brandon wouldn’t meet all my knight-in-shining-armor expectations for a husband. I almost wrecked the whole thing, and it wasn’t until I acknowledged that he couldn’t and shouldn’t be my “everything,” that I was able to marry. As I considered what a slow-learner I am, a large figure shadowed my blue sky. Brandon leaned down, smiling, and presented a coffee with one hand and bagel with the other.

From Palm Springs, we drove to Tucson to see the giants in the Saguaro National Park. A rodeo family took us on a guided horseback tour, and then we ate at one of those steakhouses where servers named Maverick cut off men’s ties and hang them from the ceiling.

Our last stop, before picking up the repaired RV, was El Paso.  Brandon grew up there, but none of us had ever seen it. A mounting urgency to reach home convinced us that a drive-by would suffice. El Paso has doubled in size since he moved away, but the towering Franklin Mountains, which divide the city in more than geographical ways, and the view of Mexico: dusty hills dotted by tiny houses behind a trickling river and a tall fence, was just as Brandon had described. We rode past his boyhood haunts, while he told about shaking scorpions out of his towels and catching big air on homemade skateboard ramps and chasing the family’s enormous (and fast) Afghan hound. We imagined Aunt Melissa’s terrified face as a grocery cart, which the neighborhood kids had convinced her to ride, sailed down the street powered by a bedsheet full of wind. We tried to think of them, Melissa, Brandon, and Jason, smaller, younger, and more carefree. As we struggled to envision those former incarnations, my stomach twisted with the uncomfortable foreboding that is always present these days. Our family is changing.

Back in Lubbock, many of our friends were inexplicably trading holiday celebrations for mourning rituals. We were driving home through the desert, but I kept thinking of our time in the ocean. Sorrow really does roll over a person like “sea billows.” Sometimes it is the steady rocking motion of the tide: constant news headlines that are terrifying, but still distant and somewhat unreal. And sometimes it is a powerful breaker crashing directly overhead. “The thing that I dreaded is upon me.”

I thought of a toddler I once knew, cruising the furniture in my living room with more self-assurance than a new walker ought to possess. That boy is tall now, with a deep baritone voice and a compelling confidence in the sola bona. Under a recent Instagram photo from his dad’s hospital bed, he wrote, “Whatever happens to my [earthly] father, I know that my Father in heaven has it all under control. I love both my fathers. Very, very much.” Corrected and instructed, I grabbed some extra Kleenex and went out to meet the next change.

Los Angeles experienced a couple of days of winter while we were there; the wind blew and the temperature dipped into the low 60s. Then it was over, and we drove along the coast to San Diego in sunshine and blue sky. We didn’t have a lot of time in San Diego, so we pow-wowed over the best strategy for seeing as much as possible. We managed to fit in Old Town, Balboa Park, Coronado Island, and Cabrillo National Monument. We had a lovely time, even though the tide pools at Point Loma weren’t quite visible and our car was robbed in the Old Town parking lot. (As we cancelled debit cards and researched identity theft, we tried to remember this was learning, too.) Our problem was two touristy temptations: Legoland and San Diego Zoo. Both required a whole day and a lot of cash. We finally decided we should look for something to do outdoors, like a boat ride or fishing or surfing. Turns out, it’s cheaper to get a surfing lesson than to go to a theme park.

I was a little nervous about the idea. I’d encountered the Pacific Ocean years before as a college student. Along with a bunch of other Gulf of Mexico innocents, I’d attempted to body surf at Zuma Beach and nearly drowned. I still recalled burning lungs and black-spotty vision as I tumbled around in a sandy washing machine unable to tell up from down. But Brandon found a surfing school with high ratings on tripadvisor. From the looks of the instructors, he was sure we’d have a memorable California experience, whether we learned to surf or not.

Surfing was some of the most fun I’ve had with our family EVER. The World-Famous Willis Brothers were delightfully gnarly, and we spent several hours enjoying the ocean. While we were still practicing in the sand, a sun-burned Australian strolled up to greet us. His name was Robbie Page, and he said he was getting a lesson next. Back at our KOA cabin, still giggly with post-surfing euphoria, we googled the lot of them. They really were famous surfers!

As a P.S., I have to mention that this was not our only encounter with interesting characters in San Diego. Jim and Marilyn, a retired couple working the information counter at Coronado Island visitor center entertained us with stories of their youth. They’d both been Navy kids, who graduated from high school together on Coronado, but it was thirty years later before they met again and married. Jim claimed to have kissed Marilyn Monroe (on the lips, added his wife) following a dare when the actress was filming Some Like it Hot at Hotel del Coronado. He also told about going fishing with President Truman when Jim’s father was Truman’s Key West pastor in the early 1950s. When he was about ten, our storyteller said he was given permission to answer a telephone that was always present with the president. “When you answer, “ Truman instructed, “you must ask who it is and why he is calling.” The earnest boy insisted on following protocol even when an expletive shouting General MacArthur demanded to speak to the president immediately. Truman took the call, muttering under his breath, “That fellow needs to go.” A few weeks later, MacArthur was relieved of his command.

in homage to the hip venice neighborhood we invaded for a few days while getting to know los angeles, this post contains no capital letters. i found a cute little vacation house close to the beach to rent on vrbo.com. we’ve been renting this way since our trip to washington, d.c. a few years ago. that time, we stayed in an old row house apartment in the eastern market for much cheaper than a hotel, and we tasted real neighborhood life in another city. also, we could do laundry and cook our own meals. this is not as economical as an rv park, but there are perks. this time, the perks included strolling down chic abbot kinney blvd, window shopping, and munching expensive doughnuts. the shops all had one-word names printed in interesting fonts above the doorways, and they were packed with hipsters, casually forking over their lifesavings for vintage t-shirts. poor jane almost blended-in, but she was saddled with a large family unit and a dog that clearly lacked a boutique pedigree.

neighborhood art

peter picked a number of lemons from the tree in our yard. hopefully, i won’t find them rotten in the glove compartment when we get home.

jane, rocking onto electric avenue

fancy doughnuts

we had a great time exploring the beach, santa monica pier, olvera street, getty center, la brea tar pits, and warner brothers studios, but i have to admit, a good deal of our time was spent gawking. we fully embraced our cheesy tourist impulses. it started innocently enough. while sitting in traffic on the way to the pier, i glanced to my right and found myself eyeball to eyeball with tim robbins, celebrity.
“brandon, i whispered, “i think i see a celebrity.”
brandon, generally focused on avoiding a wreck (we narrowly escaped twice), cut his eyes to the right long enough to confirm my suspicions.
“you do. you do see a celebrity.”
by now the kids were interested, though only a couple of them knew whom we were spying.
“he doesn’t look very rich,” someone observed.
“does he know about smoking being bad for you?” wondered another concerned youth.
finally the light changed and our star moved on, smirking and trailing a little cloud of smoke. “maybe it wasn’t him,” i second-guessed as the euphoria of the moment wore off. “maybe he doesn’t even live in los angeles. let’s check on-line; the internet knows all.”
we checked. tim robbins does live in l.a., and he is a smoker. after that, our eyes were peeled for glory.

we were delighted to see another actor or two during our tour of warner brothers studios. our by-day tour guide was a by-night assistant producer full of fun stories about movies and tv. (mary jane is laughing all through the upside-down-kiss scene in spiderman because his nose was stuffed with tissues to keep him from drowning in the manufactured rainstorm.) peter had watched the first episode of the new supergirl tv show, so he was excited to visit the set of her underground lair. we couldn’t take pictures there, which only added to its air of exclusivity!

president barlett’s desk from west wing, available to rent from wb prop building

or maybe some mr. smiths from matrix?

central perk set

trying out special effects

brandon took the little girls to a show at el capitan theatre while the rest of us went on the studio tour.

chinese theatre and hollywood stars

am i the only person who didn’t know that there is a really large and active oil field under the city of los angeles? that’s what preserved the thousands of ancient bones still being unearthed at la brea tarpits–asphalt–not tar. a great former fourth-grade math teacher scooped us up as we walked into the museum and enthusiastically led us through a tour of the museum and research facility. we forgot about celebrities (mostly), and spent the rest of our time in l.a. trying to identify disguised oil derricks like this one next to beverly hills high school:

what’s outside at the getty center is a striking as art on the inside.

vexed and masked

we like our baby jesus hip and peaced-out

on the beach in santa monica, we ran into some former lubbockites and found we had friends in common!

seaweed-topped hotdogs at santa monica pier

nacho libre masks and tasty mexican food on olvera street

the boys in a burbank parking lot, trying to get boo radley (or youtube stars, rhett and link) to come out. pete spent a good chunk of time snooping out the address online.

they did not succeed. this is what we did instead of going to view the largest section of berlin wall outside germany. sigh.

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Standing on a corner in Winslow, AZ (Apparently, “Take It Easy” was written in Flagstaff, but the name didn’t have as nice a ring as Winslow.)

Finding out what all the hype is about on The Strip.

Petrified wood in the Painted Desert

Hoover Dam

I have a reputation in my family as a Disney hater. I know, I know. For the moment, I’ll skip my philosophical misgivings and just complain about the Packaged Trip, which is guilty by association. Ignore the one gargantuan price-tag and gaze upon all the savings and ease of the all-inclusive. It’s just not my style. I’m always sure I can come up with a cheaper option, for one thing, and I don’t like to be told what to do, for another.

However, the loss of my secure little RV home-on-the-road did a number on my confidence. I signed up for the Grand Canyon Railroad Experience, Rails to Rim Plus. The salesperson assured me I had scored a significant AAA discount. Here’s hoping.

Hotel rooms, buffet meals, train rides, gift shop vouchers, live-action entertainment. It was great fun. I just sat back and enjoyed myself.

When we said we were from Lubbock, our troubadour led some Buddy Holly songs.

Also, there was a conga line.

And gambling.

And a train robbery.

The consequence of the Packaged Trip was having to listen to the kids describe both the California condor and Cut-throat Kitchen (Food Network was playing on hotel room TV) as “uh-mazing” all in the same breath. Ditto for Grand Canyon vistas and seconds (or thirds, BECAUSE I CAN!) in the buffet line. With that stirring review, I’ll just post the pics and give this recommendation: Visit in bad weather, if you get the chance. The play of light and fog that we enjoyed on our stormy-day visit was much more dramatic than on the clear, sunny day.

What has always bothered me about Walt Disney’s philosophy was his desire to whitewash the ugly realities of life. For instance, when making The Jungle Book movie, Disney told the screenwriters not to read the actual Kipling book because he considered it too dark. It’s an impulse I struggle against in myself, I must confess.

Real life keeps butting in on my idyllic vacation. As we drove through one gorgeous mountain, canyon, or desert region after another, we listened to several historic novels that record the behavior of the men and women and children who took up residence in these places over the years. It marred the view to hear some of the accounts. And that’s just history. As horror stories from Beirut and Paris flooded my news feed, I wondered, “Can I just pretend it isn’t happening for a few more days? Do the kids really have to bear this right now?”

Out of the car speaker came an answer from Walk Across the Sea, an audiobook that was concluding. The narrator is a young girl who’s witnessed the expulsion of Chinese immigrants from her California seaside town in the late 1800s. She’s still sorting through the experience as she addresses her newborn baby brother:

“There are astonishing things in this world, Andrew John, and beyond what we can see are things more astonishing still. In the magnifying glass there is a whole secret world. Snowflakes like tatted doilies. Fantastical creatures in a drop of pond water. Jungles in a patch of moss. We are living in a place where there is mystery all around. Mystery inside, in the cells of our blood, mystery outside, in the stars. Mystery before we are born, mystery after we die. Mystery so deep it busts clean out of the charts we try to pin it in.

Terrible things can happen in this world, things you can’t explain away. It’s not safe here. I can’t promise you’ll be safe.

But there are miracles, too. Like you. And love. And glories, well beyond our knowing.”

Lake Mead at sunset

My search for a “safe” slot canyon brought us to Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada.

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The days leading up to our southwest tour were packed with activity. Things got so busy that Brandon flagged me down coming out of the gym early one morning with coffee and a bagel in order to update our schedule. One of us had been sleeping when the other left or arrived home for two straight days. Nice as our break in Lubbock had been, I was looking forward to being squashed up together in the RV again.

Actually leaving town proved just as difficult as usual. I told everyone we’d go by 9, secretly hoping for noon. It was ten after twelve when we pulled out of Aunt Rebecca’s driveway, but we still had to stop at Aunt Melissa’s barn to rifle through boxes for winter coats and a math book. Then we remembered the frozen meals the big kids had cooked up in an effort to eat more economically on this trip. Back to Bec’s. Before we hit the city limits, a burning electrical odor filled the RV. Brandon determined the problem would not result in fiery death, just a lack of air conditioning, so we ventured on, holding our breath now. Even the weather seemed to conspire against us; a dust storm was blowing in from the west, and the RV struggled against it at barely 60 mph.

Then, about an hour from our first stop in Albuquerque, the RV really disappointed us. The warning code for engine trouble, which plagued us at the end of our last trip, began to flash. We hobbled into town, crushed. This would not be an overnight fix. I tried to recall details of the various cancellation policies I’d agreed to between New Mexico and California. Could the RV even make it, if we turned around for home?

Relief in the midst of our distress came in the form of Chelsea and Josh Collins. They’re old friends from Lubbock who moved to Albuquerque. We’d made plans to spend the night with them and hang out the next day. They immediately invited us to extend our stay while we figured out what to do—no small gesture considering they have young children of their own and live in somewhat tight quarters. Also, they helped raise our kids for several years, so there were no illusions as to what it’s like to bunk with a bunch of Mulkeys.

At sunset, Chelsea showed us why the mountains behind her house are called the  Sandias. Sandia means watermelon.

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Life appeared more hopeful in the morning. We’d just retired our old family van before leaving Lubbock, planning to replace it after our travels. Now Brandon decided we should leave the RV in Albuquerque for repairs (the German engine that so wooed him now required a replacement part from Germany), shop for a new car, and keep traveling. While Chelsea entertained the younger kids, I spent the day changing reservations, and Brandon tutored the boys in the art of purchasing a vehicle.

At the ABQ BioPark, we tried out the new Bug-arium and learned, to our delighted horror, that the Tarantula Hawk wasp is the NM state insect. We’d just been reading a gruesome description of its habits at breakfast. Read all the gory details here:

http://www.wired.com/2015/07/absurd-creature-of-the-week-tarantula-hawk/

Chelsea was such a beloved babysitter that my neighbors still recall the weeping and wailing that followed her move to Albuquerque. Now Jane babysat for Chelsea and Josh’s kids, so we parents could go out to dinner one night.  It felt very circle-of-life-ish!

We also got to eat supper with Brandon’s Aunt Anne and his cousin, Matthew. We loved meeting his new fiance, Amanda.

I’m grateful for Brandon’s cool-headed approach to problems. He never seemed very panicked by the potential implosion of our trip. “It’s an adventure,” he reasoned, as he cheerfully arranged eight people, a dog, and all their possessions in a shiny Chevy Traverse. The fella is practically Gandalf, absent beard and pipe.