Like millions of Americans vaccinated against COVID-19, we’ve already sprinted away from the stuck-at-home cocoon brought on by the virus.
 
The first big thing we did might not seem like much, but it was A Very Big Deal to us.
 
We left our house for more than a day.  
 
Pre-pandemic, we’d been talking about taking some sort of road trip for well over a year, but then the global
pause happened.
 
Now, the initial challenge was to decide where to go because there are so many choices. Southern Oregon boasts several pristine lakes just a few hours from our town, and there’s also what locals call “The Coast”—at least half a dozen picture-perfect beaches that take around the same amount of time to reach.
 
Ultimately, we headed to Union Creek Resort, only 73 miles and less than a 90-minute drive away from home, with most of the route well-marked and maintained by the Oregon Department of Transportation.  
 
I only knew about this redwood refuge because my hairdresser recommended it. Indeed, when the Hubster told someone else where we were going, she replied that while she knew it well, the region remains one of this state’s best-kept secrets.

This unincorporated outpost inside the Rogue National Forest is also listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, and just as many of today’s tourists haven’t heard of Union Creek, it was the same in the early 1900s. Back then, these woods and trails were secret stomping grounds for Teddy Roosevelt, John Muir and Jack London.

As terrific as it all sounded, leaving after so many months still made me anxious.
 
Still, after being pretty much here in our town for over a year—the Hubster accurately says grocery shopping is now his social life—we understood the dire need to both mingle and skedaddle. I also knew that if we postponed, I’d blink and six months would pass.

But calling Union Creek a resort is a misnomer.

There are no luxe spa services, golf courses or restaurants on site or nearby. The main lodge has a smattering of rooms, but mostly there are rustic cabins, some built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s.

Since I was in the mix, we opted for an updated model with a heater; tiny-but-full kitchen and bath, and queen-sized bed. There was still space to lay my yoga mat, and the shower provided plenty of hot water.

It was cold and rainy, but none of that really mattered.

We took a couple of easy hikes, really more like strolls, in the mist.

One remarkable walk was the Natural Bridge, a five-minute drive from our cabin located along the upper reaches of the Rogue River and surrounded by many hundreds of ancient trees. Stately trunks cling to cliffs above rushing water that literally disappears underground into a 250-foot lava tube. Then, all of the water slowly reappears at the surface further down the river.

Like every vacation, there were downsides.

We missed Sadie and Hank, but also knew they were in the hands of a loving and capable dog sitter.

Also, I’m a news junkie, so not having a reliable internet connection was a drag.  But we found a good signal a dozen miles away in the town of Prospect, where The Hubster ate what he says was the best hamburger of his life accompanied by perfectly cooked crinkle fries.

Will we go back to Union Creek Resort?

Absolutely.

Our reservation has already been made.

Where have you traveled since the pandemic started to wane?
​
P.S. To see part of our stunning Natural Bridge walk, copy and paste this link to your browser. Turn up the volume, too! https://www.facebook.com/larry.grant.798/videos/4675419789169782

Every now and then, a mistake can turn into magic.    
 
Chocolate chip cookie aficionados, for instance, probably know that dietician and food lecturer Ruth Wakefield invented the famous dessert by accident.  Intending to whip up a batch of chocolate butter drop cookies, she was out of baker’s chocolate, so chopped up some semi-sweet chocolate to take its place.  But instead of the chocolate dispersing throughout the cookie, the pieces retained their original form—and voila, the world’s first Toll House cookie was born. 
 
On a way more somber note, Scottish lab technician Alexander Fleming returned from a two-week vacation to find an odd fluffy mold growing on a culture plate of bacteria.  Closer inspection of the mystery glob showed that it was preventing the growth of the bacteria, and thus, life-saving penicillin was born.   Other accidents have led to the creation of Bakelite; the microwave oven, and even Slinky, perhaps the most popular baby boomer toy ever.
 
I’d never personally experienced this sort of alchemy—until last month.
 
That’s when I saw a Facebook post about a women-only writing retreat in Guatemala. 
 
Taking place on the shores of Lake Atitlan (thought to be one of the most beautiful and pristine bodies of water in the world, it’s surrounded by Mayan villages, three volcanoes and lush jungle-covered mountains), the workshop would be run by Joyce Maynard, one of my longtime favorite writers.  Maynard is almost exactly a year older than me, and her terrific memoir essays are regularly seen in The New York Times.  And, oh yeah, she has also penned a slew of NYT best-selling books, both fiction and nonfiction. 
 
Maynard has been conducting this annual workshop—under 20 participants at a time—for nearly two decades, so I knew it would not only be well organized, but amazing.  It was also very expensive.   
 
This year, though, the workshop announcement had a new caveat.
 
Thanks to an anonymous donor, Maynard was offering two partial scholarships to two women over the age of 40, making it possible for others who might not have the financial resources to take part.  So, quickly and before I lost my nerve,
I sent in the required letter about myself, and a sample of my writing (thanks to Girl Clown Dancing, there were a lot
of choices).
 
Two days later, I re-read the post—and found I’d made a really big mistake.
 
To get a cross-section of ages, the scholarships were only being offered to women under 40 years old, not the opposite.
 
I posted back that I was terribly sorry for the error, and that perhaps another time, Maynard would consider offering funding to folks in my age category.  She wrote right back, replying she was sorry she had disappointed me, and hoped that I understood her reasoning. I told her that of course I did (and, I did), and once again, apologized for my error. 
 
Then, a few days later, Maynard’s assistant called.
 
Some other funding had been found, not as much as the other scholarships, but enough to pay my travel costs and lodging.  Was I interested in going?
 
Uh--yes.
 
At this writing, my airfare has been booked, and being the researcher I am, I’ve also printed out articles about the charming village of San Marcos La Laguna, where the retreat will take place.  Maynard has provided a great packing list, too, along with many other travel tips and the workshop schedule, which will run for a full and glorious nine days. 
 
In order to be considered, I also had to pen an original memoir essay, which will be workshopped by Maynard.  (So did every other participant; I’m looking forward to sitting in while those are also critiqued.) And there’s more: the opportunity to take yoga classes; get a massage or two, eat native dishes, and of course, go shopping (I'm especially looking forward to visiting the women's cooperative weaving store). 
 
Even though I’ve been around the world, I’m an anxious traveler.  But in the last week or so, that initial nervousness is starting to be replaced by a giddy excitement.  In fact, my gut tells me that this journey promises to rank right up there with a few other major life-changing ones--traveling to China to bring my daughter home, and filming BOTSO, my documentary film, in and around Tbilisi, in the Republic of Georgia. 
 
And as a friend says, when you can, always take the plunge.
 
My plane departs in a few days.
 
To the lake, I go!
 
Have you ever been to a retreat?  Or, what are your favorite travel memories?  I look forward to your comments
and stories! 
 
P.S.  Just in time for this year’s retreat, Joyce Maynard has written a terrific Facebook post on how the workshop—and her love for Guatemala—came to be.  www.facebook.com/joyce.maynard.14/posts/10156938100718056

 
​My daughter and I have just returned from another planet.
 
To be clear, NASA didn’t recruit a weary Clown Mother and her teenage Clown Daughter to see how long they could survive on a space station without killing each other. 
 
But, we have recently spent nearly a week together in New York City, and coming from a sweet California beach town, where the noises of the night are coyotes and the wind, not sirens and folks shouting outside our windows, it really is another universe.
 
Here, in the place where jeans are called dungarees; frosting is icing, and purses are pocketbooks, we walked at least 50 blocks every day.  We also climbed many flights of stairs and ate astonishingly good food.  And we bought Metrocards, which allowed us to ride buses and subways to pretty much wherever we wanted to go.  We also found out that nothing is ever north or south, but uptown, downtown and crosstown.
 
We got really good at crossing streets in spite of red lights, too, and silently ducking into restaurants when we were desperate for a bathroom.  At one point, after yet another amazing dinner, this one in Chinatown, a double decker bus full of out-of-towners flew by.  One of my friends waved and said, “Hello tourists!  Look at the real New Yorkers down here!"

 
In fact, I have lived and worked in The Big Apple.
 
I was in my early 20s, and I’d finally snagged my journalism degree.  I knew what I wanted to do, which was write for a national magazine (I’d already sold my first piece to Seventeen).  There was, of course, no Internet, and since all of the publications I wanted to be a part of were in Manhattan, I simply left California and relocated there.
 
I stayed for nearly four years, working first as a secretary, but eventually landed writing and editing positions with a couple of small magazines, including the now defunct, in-house publication for CBS.    
 
But because I had nothing to compare the experience to, I didn’t know until much later that those were some of New York City’s toughest times. 
 
Streets were dirty; bag ladies were everywhere, and subway cars often broke down.  No one smiled or looked each other in the eye for fear of being followed. I also remember the huge cockroaches in the first place I lived, a tiny studio in the East Village, at the edge of Alphabet City.  And I recall, too, going to a neighborhood bodega and right there at the cash register, seeing rat traps for sale. 
 
In short, New York City was a super hard and mostly lonely place to live in, and I survived not because I was particularly brave, but because I was very young and very naïve.        
 
Things seemed different now.
 
Yes, it’s still a tough place to make one’s way, but one thing that made this visit so enjoyable was how friendly
everyone was.
 
Whether that’s because of a different mayor (Ed Koch was in charge then; now it’s Bill de Blasio), or different priorities (keep the streets clean, find beds for the homeless), I don’t know.  However, I absolutely believe that the extraordinary group trauma of 9/11 also left New Yorkers with a new sense of vulnerability, and consequently, has made it a kinder place.
 
We found this, in little ways, everywhere.
 
There was our first morning in Manhattan, when the bus was the best way to reach our destination. 
 
When it pulled up, we offered our Metrocards to the driver, who gruffly—although not unkindly—told us that “you have to pay outside.”  Huh?  Exiting apologetically, we saw a machine in which to insert our cards for bus fare.  We asked a bystander to show us what to do, and—something that never would have happened years before—she looked directly at us, then demonstrated what needed to be done.
 
Then there was the night we washed our clothes.
 
The friend whose apartment we were lucky enough to stay at doesn’t have a washer and dryer, and there’s no laundry room either (these amenities are not common, especially in older buildings).  So, we did what our friend does: walked four blocks to Baby Girl’s Bubbles & Cleaners (www.babygirlsbubbles.com).   
 
Once inside, we discovered that coins wouldn’t work.
 
Instead, the attendant on duty (a job that simply isn’t seen here) asked us how much wash we had.  We showed her our small bag, and she explained that “that’s about five dollars.”  She patiently led us over to a machine, which, after we put in our money, spit out what looked like a credit card.  We then used the card to do both our wash (28 minutes) and drying (24 minutes). 
 
Shopping for groceries was an adventure as well.
 
Half a block downtown from Baby Girl’s is Best Market—a lot like Whole Foods, but a whole lot better (http://bestmarket.com/stores/harlem/#.VyDwmPkrLIU).  We saw all kinds of bagels prepared in all sorts of ways; several varieties of pizzas, wraps and sandwiches, and even a counter for hot barbecue and traditional sides.  That’s just the street level.  Downstairs, the place was packed to the gills with produce, dairy and baking needs.  (Because it doesn’t take much to amuse me, I was especially fascinated by a miniature escalator made expressly for grocery carts to travel upstairs to the cash registers.)  Oh, and here, too, folks were friendly.            
  
And of course, there’s the eating out.     
 
I didn’t worry about gaining weight because of all of the walking.  (In fact, unlike my town, it’s rare to see morbidly obese people here.)   So I indulged in taro and egg custard ice cream from the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory (www.chinatownicecreamfactory.com); inhaled dim sum at the oldest New York restaurant of its kind in the same neighborhood (http://nomwah.com/), and near Columbia University, gobbled up one of the best bagels ever at Absolute Bagel (http://www.yelp.com/biz/absolute-bagels-new-york). 
 
There was also wonderful chicken pot pie from Serendipity (www.serendipity3.com); heavenly matzo ball soup and monstrous pastrami sandwiches at the Carnegie Deli (http://carnegiedeli.com), and The Best Blueberry Cheesecake Ever from Junior’s in Brooklyn (www.juniorscheesecake.com).
 
I mustn’t forget the cupcakes at the original Magnolia Bakery on Bleeker Street (www.magnoliabakery.com), or my stroll through the Grand Central Market, which can only be described as the ultimate destination for foodies lucky enough to be on a champagne budget (www.thekitchn.com/a-tour-of-grand-central-market-77027). Our final meal was an exquisite spread at a Mediterranean restaurant in the heart of Greenwich Village (http://memeonhudson.com).   
 
Looking back on our visit, I came away with two big things.
 
One, living in Manhattan is ridiculously expensive. 
 
Rents are ludicrous ($3,500 per month for a small one-bedroom apartment is the norm; I paid $350 for my huge place that had a view of the Statue of Liberty), as is entertainment and just about every other living expense.  But for those who are young, and especially for those who are young with money to burn, it’s a virtual playground for the senses.
 
Two, I keep thinking of that famous song about New York City, appropriately titled New York, New York. 
 
Everything about this tune is spot on.  But for me, the best part is the lyric that goes, “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.  It’s up to you, New York, New York!”  
 
I know that’s true, because once upon a time, this California girl clown had a pretty good run in The City That Never Sleeps.  I’m also of the mindset that every just-out-of-school person with the will and moxie should try and do the same. 
 
That being said, I’m very happy to be back in our little town, and especially happy that my washing machine is a few steps from my kitchen. 
 
But I also think this was a journey my daughter won’t soon forget. 
 
Just a few hours into our flight home, she turned to me and said, “Mom? Mom?  I have something to tell you.
 
“I am missing New York right now.”    
 
Have you lived and/or visited New York City?  I look forward to hearing your stories about The Big Apple!    

It has happened again.

My husband and daughter have run away from home.

Just in case the thought may have crossed your mind, nope, they haven’t left to join a traveling Big Top.  And to be fair, I know precisely where they are; how long they’ll be gone, and even what their highway route was, and will be, coming back. 

There’s this, too: although our daughter wasn’t exactly thrilled to go on this journey, my better half was itching, bad, to hightail it out of our little town as soon as possible.  In fact, this is the third summer that he, with a vanload of other teenagers besides our kid, has driven off to a place that he looks forward to, really, really, really looks forward to going to, all year long.  (He also knows that I don’t take his get-me-outta-here attitude personally, so, we’re good.)     

They’re in South Dakota.

At this time of year, The Mount Rushmore State is hot, really hot.  It’s humid, really humid.  It also rains, a lot.  And the cherry topping the cake right now?  It’s tornado season. 

But maybe, if they were there for only a few days to see the historic monument that the state’s nickname refers to, or camp in the majestic Black Hills National Forest, or even spend some time at Wall Drug—the largest drug store in the world, honeymooners can still get a free cup of coffee and donut there—those Mother Nature inconveniences wouldn’t be that big of a deal.

But no one in this group is very interested in being that kind of tourist.

Instead, they’re all living barracks style, with many other strangers, in the town of Fort Thompson, ranked by the U.S. Census as the poorest town in the poorest county in the United States.  This hardscrabble region is also the site of the Crow Creek Indian Reservation, home to about 1,800 Lakota Sioux natives.  So, it’s here, and for a few more weeks now, where the two people I love most in the world are volunteers on a long-term Habitat of Humanity project.   

Yes, they’re building houses, but doing a lot more, too. 

Among other tasks, they make hundreds of pancakes every Sunday for a community breakfast; cart away debris and hand out sandwiches after massive thunderstorms, and cook and deliver food to those who are housebound.  Each year, too, my daughter has galloped across the plains on horses who are direct descendants of war ponies, and last summer, she learned to bottle feed a newborn calf.   As it turns out, she’s also a natural equestrian, riding bareback most of the time with only a halter, so she might even be called on to be a real cowgirl on a real cattle drive. 

To be brutally honest, the initial attraction of South Dakota wasn’t born out of altruism, at least for me.

Rather, it was to find a long term, community service project that my high school daughter could take part in.  It had to be domestic because our budget can’t accommodate a fancy overseas trip.  And, it also had to be something that would show potential colleges that she could be both committed and consistent to one project over a period of several years, something that admissions officers now look for, especially with kids like mine who aren’t straight A  students. 

The fact that Crow Creek is under the Habitat for Humanity umbrella made the idea that much more attractive.    

But something unexpected, and magical, happened to my husband along the way.

“It’s the Ikce Oyate, which means ‘ordinary people’ in the Lakota language, who keep drawing me back,” he says. “Simply put, they’re a people who define the word ‘disenfranchised’—a people whose life experience is wrought with the despair of the belief that no one cares. 

 “Well, I care!  And the students who travel there with me have learned to care.

 “We, too, are Ikce Oyate, and we love our brothers and sisters.”  

That's a pretty powerful statement—and perhaps my husband has this sort of passion because his great grandmother was a full-blooded Shawnee native. 

He has never known her name, and he has never even seen a photo of her, but he still remembers, with perfect clarity, his father’s instructions about her.  

Never, ever, he repeatedly told my spouse as a child,  tell anyone he had “Indian blood” for fear of being turned down to buy a house; attend a school of his choosing, or even get a bank loan (it’s reprehensible that every one of these scenarios was commonplace mere decades ago). 

So, maybe, serving at Crow Creek provides a means for my husband to not only connect with his past, but in a tiny way, the work here makes up for the shame his family carried around not so long ago.  

But I have also come to believe that my partner’s desire to serve the Lakota goes much deeper. 

More, it has to do with what’s in his very core (and one of the many reasons I adore him).  And that is this:  the honest desire to serve—after all, he is a teacher by profession and has been for decades—and the immense satisfaction he receives from giving to others.    

For now, I’m in charge of the home front. 

We have three big dogs to feed and brush and love; there’s a house and yard to sweep and dust and water, and without fail, bills to pay. I usually pick up some extra cash writing at this time of year as well, something, of course, that wouldn’t happen if I went to Crow Creek.  And, to be perfectly candid here, it’s also my time to see some over-the-top romantic movies, and dine at a few serious foodie restaurants that my husband is, at best, lukewarm about visiting.  

Still, every year, despite the heat and humidity and tornadoes, and despite the fact that I’d be sleeping in a bunk bed and living out of a suitcase for a month, there’s something about this journey that is slowly calling to me.

Maybe, next summer, I’ll be hiring a house sitter. 

What sorts of community service projects have you done, and which ones have especially touched your heart?  I hope to hear from you! 

p.s. To find out more about this very special Habitat for Humanity project, visit www.dacokatipis.org.