last week of summer!

so we basically finished shooting for darin's movie "mystery my country." carolann is the star and emily is also a big player. we found this beautiful barn last sunday based on mom's suggestion:

darin doing some directing while stan is cinematographer:

the next day addie and i drove down to santa rosa in the convertible for a little road trip and some girly fun:out on the town in santa rosa. out to sebastopol the next day with nichole, we went to grateful bagel:

addie cruising on gravenstein highway, beautiful land and peaceful sweet people everywhere:
home tuesday night, mary was visiting with the other girls and her pregnant belly was getting pet on my bed: later we all played hoopla (joey, emily, doniella, carolann, stan and me) and jamie vancamp stopped by with his lovely norwegian girlfriend ida. we made braids in our hair; doniella can do fancy ones like this:

wednesday we went to the river out by swansboro and at night we did more movie shooting. in this scene carolann's character is pregnant and she sings a song at a gathering with her lover played by jordan lichens. here is darin directing:

and me doing one of my many IMPORTANT moviemaking roles: brittany allison and carolann in the kitchen being total cuties:
and stanny getting some belly love, he was obsessed with this:then the real madness ensued.the boys had to cross dress for a very weird movie scene. they got surprisingly and hilariously into it, here's stan and jordan mingle triyng on my clothes: zack was the best. he was so proud to be a woman. he and jamie vc looked like sisters in their fancy red frocks:
all the boys in their scene:
and the girls laughing at them: (note rebecca's wig)yesterday we went to the river again. mikie came to town and it was an absolutely perfect river day. this is my favorite spot on the american river and there are lots of nice rocks to jump off and the water sparkles and refreshes. SO PERFECT!
stan, me, paul and christina:

here are some videos of some VERY FANCY OLYMPIC QUALITY JUMPWORK by mikie beatty and stanny okumura. for your viewing pleasure. what i really love is the look of the water at the moment of impact. ahhhhhhh----summer's joys!

i had a dream last nite that involved everybody and the grand canyon. not so much havasu falls, basically in my mind i invented an area of the canyon that we were never at. here's my dream.

we were all exploring up some little side canyon that had some relatively famous massive boulders balanced on some rocks or something up ahead. the hike was tough and it was a difficult climb up some weird clifflike wall things to get around the last corner to view the massive boulders. well, actually there was just one boulder that was really very famous, with a few other smaller ones that were just added bonuses. anyways, there was this big group of guys, irritating dudes like my age overflowing with testosterone, and they went up the cliffs before us. there was literally like 40 of them, and they were all yelling and being loud and you could see the canyon walls shaking and dust coming off them. we yelled at them to stop yelling...how ironic...telling them they were going to shake the boulder loose. they went out of sight around the corner, but we could still hear them. at this point, me and matt started back, getting scared. then it started shaking really bad like an earthquake, and we turned around the see that massive boulder like some indiana jones scene toppling down the canyon. we started running fast as we could, but then it was upon us. the boulder was right behind us, and we were running in lightning bolt patterns like we were dodging bullets. it was like the boulder was chasing us, me and matt. finally we did some sweet fancy footwork and got behind it, and it rolled away.
the aftermath is unknown, left to the hazy abyss of dream head. i dont know if anyone in our family died, but i think all those kids did.
it was crazy.

Sign the Guest Book

Go to Havasutribe.com and sign their guest book if you get a chance. I read a ton of messages and people were so kind on it. I wrote kind of a long one, you will see it if you go there.

Honestly, let's plan for May 08 or something...what do you say? I can't wait to go back, but also... I know it has to be with YOU all!

#2-
business hugs....

I mean....my birthday is coming up and I want to either have a karaoke party or go on a hike. Who is up for a hike??? Anyone? Stan's last day in town is the 7th so that worries me that an overnight trip may not be as fun as a going away/birthday party, because of course I want Stan to be hanging out, if he can.

Yay! I can't wait to move! My best friend besides Art in this town is this lively little computer....sad, but true.

apples and dirt

This morning while walking down some random street I spotted a dirt road leading off the main road between two city blocks. It ran down the backsides of houses. It was narrow and filled with bushes. I couldn't help but recharter my course to make my way down it, the mysterious unkempt alleyway. Here's my little story about the adventure.

Timidly committing to my new course, in the first hundred feet I was brought along a rickety fence and some chipped-up house walls. Branches were reaching over me like sad hands. I plucked a leaf to remind myself that Living is a real thing and my eyeballs are actually revealing a palpable reality. Its amazing, y'know? It's why I have to touch everything, like droopy branches.
Wildflowers cluttered the bottom of the fence. Purples and oranges and blossoms shot in every direction like fireworks, catching your peripherals, ink splotches in the sunlight. A slit in the wooden fence just barely obscured my vision from the backyard beyond. Flowers bloomed like the apocalypse. I walked past them, and something up ahead snagged my eye: blackberries. I made a beeline for them..red ones and blue ones.. oh how I love picking blackberries, almost as much as I love picking apples, and maybe a little more than I love picking the apricot things in Heather's backyard. Approaching the blackberry bushes I had my doubts about whether or not I was gonna find a single ripe fruit. I scoured. Negative. I looked for over-ripe blackberries even, which are a little bit dry but intensely sweet and crunchy. None. Only cobwebs on dead berries and bright red sours were available. Alack the day. So I turned back to my dirt road and continued on. Behind me the road's entrance was narrowing between the houses. I didn't really know where I was going, but so is usual. You just go. Better to have been lost and found than never to have been lost at all.
An apple tree! My heart skipped. I'd spotted an apple tree. And not only that, this particular apple tree was hailing ripe fruits like Christmas morning. A river of splatted apples and flies paved my way to the overhanging branches, branches filled with perky red apples. Pairs and bunches and clusters of them! I felt like a schoolboy giddy with a jackpot, ready to steal every red apple from this neglected tree. I looked around for an aid, a tool of some kind to use. God himself knew I was coming, and so he conveniently placed a six foot metal rod on the ground in front of me. I picked it up and like Arthur's sword and I raised it above my head and started knocking apples down. One by one apples were tumbled to the dirt floor. I developed a system: bop around and the ripe ones fall. A couple of tries and I had mastered the art of "bop-swoop-catch," bopping an apple and catching it in mid-air. Bop, swoop, catch! Bop, swoop, catch! Bop, bop, swoop, MISS, splat. Hmm. I gathered about four apples, and a fifth for chomping. Oh my triumph, king of the apple tree! I took my spoils and wrapped them up in the daily newspaper I'd grabbed from the coffee shop. Thank you tree, I chomped away as I looked at the branches and then at the crystal-white meat of my apple. Satisfied, I turned happily back to the road. Ahead of me a car drove by for a split second. Apples and newspaper under one arm, I tossed Excalibur to the dirt and trotted the rest of the way back to the open street.
Emerging onto pavement again, I felt like I had been in another dimension or something for the past 25 minutes, (a whole nother dimension..)
Well what a thing, the simple adventure of a single abandoned dirt road. And now I have apples to show for it.

Love you guys.

Mikie

cats and cans

hardened street cats

navajo falls destroyed?

Hey guys. Since we're still on the Havasupai topic, check this out. Apparently--at least according to one guy who was there--Navajo Falls was completely destroyed. Here's his picture and accompanying text:


"This is where Navajo falls was. This is the aftermath. The village is upstream of this, everything else like the campground and other falls are downstream. The perspective is way off since you can't really put a person in it. However, the path to the campgrounds was practically destroyed along all ways and is treacherous. www.havasupaiflood.com"

This photo can be found on his Facebook profile, here: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31443976&id=29007392&l=9f3f0.

He also has a video on YouTube and some other stuff. He has a website called havasupaiflood.com, where he talks extensively about his trip and experiences there, and what happened to Navajo Falls. So it's this business that worries me more than anything else. This guy seems legit, but don't you think this would have made *major* news if it were true? And his description of "why" and "how" on his website sound accurate. If it's really gone as he says it is, we were quite lucky to have seen it. I guess only time (and a return trip!) will tell.

Maybe I'm just paranoid.

UPDATE: This guy's blog (http://tyler-isupa.blogspot.com/) talks about his experiences, and he has before and after pictures of Navajo Falls. I guess it wasn't obliterated, but the whole area above it was, and so now no water is getting to it. There are new falls above it that divert the water. Wonder if the tribe will try to reroute the river to go back over Navajo, or use the new falls as a tourist-inducing device. This will be really interesting to see what happens over the coming months.

this makes me want to cry

I say we go back next year again just to support these people and hike the mess no matter what the trail is. Read this article.

Evacuated tribe members return to Canyon mess

PEACH SPRINGS - The Havasupai people are returning to their village of Supai at the bottom of Havasu Canyon today.

Their homes are intact but the canyon, a place of remarkable beauty within the greater Grand Canyon, is a mess.

The blue-green water is thick with mud.

The trails leading to the village are not passable.

The bridges crossing Havasu Creek are washed out, and the waterfalls they lead to are unrecognizable.

"It's devastating," said Drusilla Clarke, speaking for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. "My grandparents lived down there. It's going to be really hard for the people."

The best news on Tuesday was that 11 hikers, unaccounted for since rainwaters flooded the village over the weekend, were safe.

In fact, the tourists were taken out in the first evacuation Sunday, and in the chaos, their names were left off the checklist of people leaving Supai.

Ultimately, more than 250 were evacuated because of the flooding.

On Tuesday afternoon, the 62-mile road from Route 66 to the rim overlooking Havasu Canyon reopened. The Red Cross also announced it would close its shelter this morning when residents would be allowed home.

Those events added to the general relief that nobody was hurt or killed in the storm.

But the mood was far from joyous. The beauty of that part of the Grand Canyon is an important part of the tribe's identity, and tourists coming to visit it are an important part of its economy.

Billy Jack, with the Havasupai tourism office, said camping revenue alone generates $2 million for the tribe annually, and that, at best, it will be six months to a year before the area gets anywhere close to normal.

"I'm afraid it looks pretty grave," Jack said. "The whole area's unstable, especially toward the falls. "The tourist dollars are really critical."

The BIA, Coconino County sheriff's officials and tribal leaders were hesitant to guess when the village will become viable again as a tourist destination. Most of their knowledge of the damage comes from aerial tours and photographs.

"We were completely focused on how to get people out," said Sgt. Aaron Dick of the Coconino County Sheriff's Department. "Now, we need to get in on foot to see what it looks like."

The remoteness of Havasu Canyon, more than 250 miles from Phoenix, will also make repairing it a challenge.

Getting workers and supplies to the rim of the Grand Canyon will be difficult; getting them to the bottom even more so. The only way to the village, one of the only places in the country where mail is still delivered by mule, is a 9-mile hike or a 10-minute helicopter ride.

Some tribal leaders returned to the village on Tuesday. Although it remained off-limits to journalists, pictures of the devastation began to circulate by e-mail.

The roots of trees along Havasu Creek in the village were left exposed by water.

Mud was everywhere. But perhaps most significantly, parts of the trail leading from the village to the falls were simply gone.

"Pretty much everything was damaged," Clarke said.

Normally, 450 people live in the village in the western side of the Grand Canyon.

Approximately one-third of them stayed in the homes to protect their animals and their village despite strong warnings that they should leave.

This commitment to their land is who the Havasupai are.

"We are the guardians of the Grand Canyon," Fernando Manakaja said. "If we're not there, who's going to take care of it?"

so..

Supai Village Safety and our new beloved waterfall

Oh Havasu Falls.

Well, what a crazy deal. Hopefully by now you have all read about it in the news. It was on the front page of the Union (the Nevada City paper) as there were some locals on a river trip and hike. The floods came about from a dam breaking and from many relentless hours of hard rain over all the weekend. The campground is destroyed, as well as both bridges and the hike back to town. Someone said they woke up to that mist, you know the mist that was formerly only near Havasu Falls, like a shroud through the whole campground. A boy scout troop was trapped in trees at the lower campground for hours, clinging for dear life and praying alot- they were saved by a couple who roped nets together with carabiners and safely crossed each boy while they held on. I read that whole boulders, trees, and dead animals were rushing down Havasu Creek-turned-raging-river. 3 houses washed away from the village. The rains continued through all Saturday night, parts of Sunday and Monday. I think that ledge we sat on may be gone for good.

I looked up the weather for Supai and see that the rain is gone now and things hopefully will dry out quick. I thought it might be nice if we could send emails and/or letters (when and if they get the mail operating again) to some of the villagers and natives, sending them well wishes and letting them know how much our family treasured our beautiful experience there. They have got some negative feedback from a few hikers that were down there during the flood yet others said that the natives were of great help and saved people's lives, stringing rope together to help campers cross the river and holding on tight. I think they should be viewed as not only a great people but heroic and brave.

I can't wait to find out if Havasu will still be up and running next year. At least all the people are safe and the trash has been awashed clean away to some deeper place.

"green" homes

just to clarify WHY green homes are good. and when i say green i mean building houses that use alternative materials, such as clay, straw, stone, adobe, recycled materials, and natural local materials that minimize transportation, and just generally more mindful building practices.

here are some obvious benefits:

1. toxin free
2. healthier -less mold and mildew-less doctor visits
3. 40 to 50 % less energy usage than standard homes - significantly lower bills
4. use of wind, sun, biomass, and geothermal energy (sustainable)
5. water conservation
6. drought-tolerant and durable, less repairs
7. use of rapidly renewable resources (unlike lumber)
8. less waste in building process
9. natural ventilation
10. value of home rising as market demand for greener home rises - soon will also cost less to insure
11. more comfortable, more aestetically pleasing and more unique than standard homes on market

here is one expert's list of goals of building green, or as he calls it "sustainable architecture":

1. think small
2. heat with the sun
3. keep your cool
4. use renewable energy
5. conserve water
6. use local materials
7. use natural materials
8. save our forests
9. use recycled materials
10. build to last
11. grow your food
12. store your food
13. share facilities

if you are interested in this guy, kelly hart, or his lovely home and his wife and their llamas and all their good ideas about sustainability, check out here:
www.greenhomebuilding.com

their home is 2 bedroom, 2 story, 1230 square feet. it is indeed possible to make a livable, lovely, homey house in an earth friendly way. we need to BREAK THE MOLD> no more ugly cookie cutter houses. no more fake synthetic stuff like my disgusting kitchen floor. no more wasteful use of lumber. no more mindless thoughtless careless living.

in our future community, hybrid houses are welcome. but attention to simple guidelines about sustainability will be necessary and also beneficial for all. that is one of the points i think of our village, to quiet our impact on this wondrous planet and to live in harmony and respect with the earth at least to the best of our ability. we are alive, we have needs, we obviously can't be perfect. but we can do our best and try to find a better way to live and have fun doing it. check out mudgirls for inspiration; they are women who build natural structures: www.mudgirls.ca
and also check out dancing rabbit, a rad community in missouri of 30 individuals who are living somewhat (though way more new agey) like i envision for us. www.dancingrabbit.org

Houses made from earth

Heather's blog is much lovelier than this one. So read quickly and go to hers below! It covers similar territory. I just got very inspired by these little houses. This is a moon-cocoon. Or eco-dome. Here are some features.

1. Built from local earth-filled Superadobe coils (soil-cement or lime-stabilized earth).
2. Tree free.
3. Maximum use of space through alternative options.
4. Self-contained single unit (potential for a guest house or studio apartment) or double unit (larger family residence).
5. Can be repeated and joined together to form larger homes and courtyard houses.
6. Can be built by a team of 3-5 persons.
7. Designed with the sun, shade and wind in mind for passive cooling and heating.
8. Wind-scoop can be combined with a rated furnace unit, depending on local code approval. Solar energy and radiant heating may be incorporated.
9. Interior furniture can be built-in with same material.

Price: $2,400 for a single unit (400 sq. ft. approx), $3,200 for double unit (800 sq. ft. approx.)

"At the California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture (Cal-Earth), a school founded by the Iranian-born designer, Nader Khalili in 1986, students can learn about building simple "tree-free" projects that use just the basics - earth and water. Khalili developed a patented system called Superadobe, a technique of stacking sand bags layered with barbed wire to form a structure - preferably the most basic ancient forms of domes, beehives, vaults, and arches.

One of his basic buildings is the Eco-Dome, a small 400 square foot (interior space) series of domes built with Superadobe.

The Cal-Earth website has info on purchasing Stock Plans of the Eco-Dome and the Earth One 3-bedroom home."


Here is part of the process. It actually looks very simple! You could build a home like this and add beautiful wood kitchen counters (the only wood that may be so vey necessary) and cover the roof with grass and make a hobbit hut!
This photo below shows how strong the arches are! It's the same concept as the stucture of an egg shell or beehive. These are all from calearth.org.
It's do-able. I do wonder about showers and toilets though!

let's make our own village

i really want to do it.

i am so inspired by the havasupai village. ours can be more foresty though. we can buy a hundred acres or so, built a few little houses near each other in a neighborhood connected by soft footpaths, and then leave the rest of the land wild and free for hiking and exploring and picnicking and swimming in water holes. and maybe even horseback riding!?

we can build cob or straw bale houses like these:

with doorways like this:

we will all park on the outskirts and for the most part our village will be auto-free. nature gave us strong healthy legs for a reason! and we can have horses and bicycles and wheelbarrows for groceries. the roads connecting our dwellings can either be cobbled or graded dirt roads or simple little trails like so

we can have a community center with a kitchen where we make shared meals a few times a week and play music. we can have a barn for barn dances and festivities and hay rides and camp outs. we can stargaze and paint and play soccer and whistle and pet kittens and pick peaches.

our garden! our garden will be massive. it will be an immensely satisfying group effort. we will grow tomatoes, basil, squash, corn, peppers, onions, zuchini, soy beans, cilantro, carrots, peas, and eggplant. not to mention plum trees, pears, apples, apricots. a greenhouse for lemon trees and other exotic beauties. herbs in tidy little rows. wild blackberries for pies and jam.

a trip into town will provide the other necessities. don't get me wrong. we won't be cut off from society, not in the least. we will be positive and shining examples of love and community the right way! not exclusive, non-judmental, not dogmatic or hierarchical or domineering. just simple and safe and respectful. we won't be too hippy-dippy. we will have jobs in the outside world, internet access, netflix, and even an incredible music recording studio.

case in point: orange twin records. anyone heard of them? neutral milk hotel's label. they started a "pedestrian based eco-village" known as orange twin conservation community, outside athens georgia. i bet they have great peach trees over there. i don't know how it's going. i couldn't get much info online. but there are lots of groups doing stuff like this. i just wanted to add that you don't have to be too removed from reality to live this way.

we'll have an amazing communal library and there will be a book club for anyone interested. let's have an outdoor amphitheater with a big screen to show rad movies sometimes. we'll have singing and dancing and full moon night-swims. oh, the good things that we shall do.

i want to be a doer, not a dreamer. i am serious about this you guys, if anyone wants to join me. in a couple years, we need to buy land so for now we can just start thinking about how this actually works. i have been looking into it and i know it is possible. it is easiest to do if you are all friends and family, and not a membership type of thing. it is weird to start from scratch, much different than our much-respected friends down in the grand canyon, but it is a possibility and i think it is a good path.

Hava supa life

Hi my dear family friends. Sorry about yesterday. I am off my rocker, but shite, what the heck am I supposed to be feeling after a week of such beauty with true friends and then coming home to "hurry hurry" alone alone aloneness? I have to get out of this town, though I love the land so and the strangers here. I miss my true-est openminded buddies, from birth to high school, from high school til now. That's you Mom, Dad, Heather, Matty, Mikie, Joey, Darin, Doniella, Suze, Carol Ann, Rebecca, Colleen, Eva, Mary, Ruebi, Mandy, Sarah M., Sarah N., Amy, Jenny, Stan O. now sweet Phil, Emma, Candice, Kaitlyn, etc etc etc the list goes so on.

So anyhoo, Havasu. It really was the trip of a lifetime. I have been on lots of adventures, as you all know recently London and Paris and have been on so many road trips and travels to everywhere....but this one really hit the nail on the head. I know it's not just a passing whim because few of my travels have left me so influenced by such strong feelings afterwards. I don't wanna live away from you. I don't want to try to make people like me or understand that being nice isn't being uncool. I don't want to try to promote kindness and plain old cheery friendliness like I feel I have to in this town. I feel like the poster girl for effing niceness in this town, trying SOOO hard just to have a friendly dorky conversation with people my age here. Been tryin almost 4 years now. SO LAME. I just want to be around other people like me where I don't have to try to be cool or slowly EARN my way under anyone's skin just to make them like me. I want to be close to the people most like me, people not quite so calm and artistically grown up. People not afraid to dance at bar jukeboxes, lay in empty streets, watch meteor showers together, hike together, compare cellulite, scream with happiness when people walk into a room, get collectively drunk, trip down the midnight streets towards Gil's, spin like fools under the stars, learn everything they can and talk about it, encourage hope and knowledge, teach others, talk LOUDER THAN ANYONE, be complete and utter idiotic dorks. Family, insane family, you are my lifeblood, I am so lucky!
I have been SO missing the trueness that our family luckily has the wherewithall and the childlikeness and the compassion to hold onto. We are rare, you all are so rare, and I appreciate you all beyond any words, beyond life and death. We were given by God or the universe or whatever higher power you believe in, a strong grip on the childlike geeky idiotic passion of life. You are my favorite friends forever, and that includes all the friends not just the siblings, you are all a part of the non-snobbery, the compassion heart, the wake-up-early-just-to-be-alive gang.

A beautiful motley crew we are, ragged with the hope of life. Ragged with bleary smiles of what we are grateful for presently and the sweet sweet sadness of the things we cannot hold forever but that we can always treasure. Even this life is that!
I loved the caravan ride there. I loved changing seats, perusing for snacks in air-conditioned shops safe from the hot heat, yelling outside of In 'n' Out, the boys running up mountains, broken down Bristlecone moments, pee sunsets, trippy Hoover Dam, driving fast fast fast and then slow slow slow, the dumb argument at the motel, setting our alarms for 2:30, 3:00, 4:00 am- taking hours to get ourselves over the hilltop down into that beautiful canyon. I loved jumping in, walking on canyon dust, seeing the village, laughing like idiots with you all. Amy breaking the ice to get us into that Circle Dance.

Someday let's all buy that 150 acres and build our little habitats. They will be beautiful. We GOT TO MAKE OUR OWN VILLAGE TOO! Our own tribe under the starlight!

I can't wait until next year

as I sit here glaring impatiently at a slowly rising percentage rate on the status of my Flickr upload, I can't help but marvel a little bit over the fact that 48 hours ago I was nestled in a sleeping bag deep in the canyon walls of the Havasupai reservation with twelve other amazing individuals. 24 hours later I'd be driving into Fresno for a 2 1/2 hour sleep. 24 hours previous I had never climbed the pour-overs of a chocolate jungle waterfall. I mean, between the stars and mule poop, is there a single moment that took place over the past six or seven days that any of us had experienced before? Dad may be exempt, but maybe not. From the moment we pulled out of Heather's driveway and made our own way up the morning route to the Sierras, adventures from not even my wildest dreams and nightmares ensued that have shook me like a tree of apples with too much fruit, I can only hope to remember how sweet it all tastes.
There's something to be said about returning, about coming back to "regular" life, daydreaming about the luxuries of having no food but dehydrated rice and packaged tuna, no water but a faucet sticking phallically from of a canyon's rock wall, no shelter except from rainproof tents rolled up on our backs.
I have some really vivid images in my head. In fact, for the first time in a while I think I can remember every single thing that happened to us this week, from the first 3am to the last one, I've got every second ingrained into my mind's eye like black dots after looking at the sun too long. There are the haunting things like a rushing brown muddy cascade or the smell of burnt horseflesh and feces, and there are fantastical things like the Milky Way's stars over a canyon silhouette, or a line of Indians dancing in Hopi garb to drums, and there are gorgeous things like blue-green pools and a pretty girl with hair tied like an Indian princess, or unexpected things like a rainforest spring or the stupefying beauty of Navajo Falls, or scary things like leaving Dad alone at 4 am in the Grand Canyon or standing at the edge of a 190 foot waterfall, or exhausting things like packing a tent at 2 am or not sleeping because of heat and bugs, or edible things like pasta and tuna with sauce, peaches, oatmeal, instant coffee, clif bars, Matt's honey-trail-mix-bars, Stan's fry bread, Candice's cookie crumbs, Art's homemade jerky, Dad's pudding, Baja Fresh and McDonald's chicken wraps... i could keep going. There's too much, and no point in writing it since I'm not planning on forgettng any of it.
The hike we did this week was definitive. It was an unbelievable journey.
Matt, you pointed out down there that this wasn't a vacation, it was an adventure. And you were so correct, in my tiredness I had lost the point - we aren't tourists we're explorers. Thank you guys, for the adventures of last week, I can't seem to get off the high of it. It's funny how simply being in nature makes you feel so good, like it reminds you of some obvious truth that everybody seems to have twisted slightly askew.. at least that's what it does to me. So thank you all again, Dad, Addie, Heather, Matt, Joey, Candice, Art, Darin, Amy, Emily, Stan, Joey, Phil, Candice, Art, Addie, Matt, Amy, Dad, Heather, Emily, Darin, Phil, Stan and Darin. Am I forgetting anyone? What an f**g awesome week. Seriously. I can't wait until next year, let's start planning, now.
And sorry I got ornery.
I love you all
-Mikie

thank you family

first of all, thank you momma for taking care of our houses and cats while we were gone! i don't know what i would have done without you. it is so nice to come home to happy loveable cats and empty sinks and watered plants and clean catboxes. next time, though, you're coming with us! we'll figure out a way and you will relish the experience along with the rest of us. thanks for listening to my stories while i ate my raley's sandwich today and taking me shopping; you are so fun and you are the sweetest.

the rest of you, addie, art, amy, matt, stan, phil, mikie, candice, dad, joey, emily and of course, darin: i love you so much and miss being around you ALL together at once! my heart is bursting with joy that we DID IT, we hiked to havasu falls finally like i have always lazily dreamed of, and that everything was more blessed and beautiful than i could have possibly imagined. now my daydreams and my strange delirious car dreams and lucid dreams are full of waterfalls and red dirt roads and horses and clouds and beetles and dogs and pools and moss and canyons and rocks and roads and yucca and limestone and all of you.

i have uploaded my pictures to flickr and i have seen everyone's except addie's and art's and amy's and matt's. can't wait to examine them in great heart-heaving detail, i am just still in a whirlwind of love for our trip and i want to tell everyone i meet all about it.

thanks for being the greatest family on earth. let's plan another adventure!

Last minute stuff and weather

hi friends. It's me. Adie. The google internet-research queen of them all. I have literally spent hours and hours, probably topping 30 or so, straight on this here internet, reading about Havasu Falls, reading blogs, researching mileage, different routes, areas surrounding, motels, the weather.

Which brings me to this square little factoid. I'm kind of a big deal..................... jk..... I mean, I know what I am talking about (fact wise- not random things happening-wise).

So,......the weather.
The little city that sits 2 miles from our campground is called Supai. It could also be called by Havasupai, like in the old days, but nowadays that mixes it up with Lake Havasu city and others, so the nation calls it SUPAI. Look it up on wikipedia if you don't believe me. It is the only city in America that still gets its mail by mule. It has been inhabited by the Havasupai Indians for, they blindly estimate I am sure, over 800 years. Now there are about 500 people living in that reservation city.

Anyhoo, why do you care about all this.? Weather....... I had a crunk of a time trying to get the right weather at first. I went to 3 internet weather places and finally researched on a map to see that I needed to look up Supai to find the weather. Otherwise the weather places get it mixed up with the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and Lake Havasu and what not.
Here are 3 weather stations to look at the weather via. Check Supai, AZ. It is the city we will hike 8 miles to before going another 2 to our camps.

Weather.com
accuweather.com
wunderground.com

So.....from what I gather, we are gonna have a less than horrific heat-time this year! It may even be mild, if you call 90 degrees mild, which I do after the initial scare of people telling me it would 105 at midnight! So it looks like there is very very likely going to be some rain and monsoon, and it is going to be nice other than that. Not too hot, 62 degrees at night...etc.

I suggest we all bring lots of black plastic trash sacks to shield ourselves from wetness, and maybe a few of those absorbent towels "camp towels" they weigh nothing.

Also..........do you believe in magic? Cause this trip is going to be a dose of it!Keep in MIND that when we are on Highway 266 we are going to drive through a ghost town called Gold Point and I just read alot about it somewhere (maybe a newspaper?). It is AWESOME. We should stop and get a beer at the local bar because I read how they always dress old tyme. Even if we just stop off for a few minutes, it will be worth it.

Oh,......so here's the route.......Me and Heather went over this for a while online.

395 to BIG PINE. Turn left at CA 168- go 37.6 miles
Slight right at CA-266 go 4.6 miles to Nevada and then keep going on that highway 40 miles
Turn right on US 95 go all the way down thru Las Vegas
to US 93 (it turns into it) which you follow into Kingman, AZ where we will spend the night.

TO get to the motel
Take the I-40/ US 93 exit South toward Phoenix, Flagstaff
Merge onto I-40 Purple Heart Trail 3.7 miles
Take exit 53 (AZ-66/ Andy Devine Ave) toward Kingman Airport go .2 miles
Turn right at E. Andy Devine go .2 miles to the motel.


okokok gots to go pack and go to the bachelorette party!

love you all, can't tom waits

adie

i meant to do my work today but a brown bird sang in the apple tree

this week is killing me with social sweetness and everything i love about summer.

here's how it's gone down:

SUNDAY:
mom, nancy and ellie came to my work for lunch. i had to rush out of there early, promising to come back later to roll my silverware off the clock, in order to meet them at the theater to see "MAMA MIA!!!" my new favorite. i am kind of obsessed. you might not have thought so in the first ten or fifteen minutes or so. addie and art met us there and i was looking at ade like, you gotta be kidding me. well it didn't take long to just get fully enchanted by the rad girly loveliness and exuberance. maybe that it what sparked my girlfriend-love-week.

we came back that night and played with our new screen. darin and stan are making a video for a coal beautiere song called the spark. as you can see, things went swimmingly:

mom and i were the cheerleaders.


okay, next night. MONDAY:

all my girlfriends came over with the bridesmaid dresses we are wearing for rebecca's wedding. they are slinky pieces of "apricot-sandalwood" colored fabric that we each wrap around us in various styles. we got crazy pretending to be jane austen heroines and crying out "wickham! willoughby!" and then when stan arrived we made him do a photo shoot of us.

here is our girly pop band shot in front of green screen: that night stan, martin, doniella and carolann all slept in my backyard under the stars. so the next day was

TUESDAY:

stan and carolann went for a run to get some produce at savemart for a big scramble breakfast which doniella helped cook. this is what i woke up to. jan came over too, she rode her bike into town from swansboro! i am surrounded by people in the BEST shape! (inspiration? nahhh...) anyway, so we all decided to go to that beautiful river spot you have to hike to by mosquito bridge.

it was amazing. after jumping and swimming in the gorgeous sunshine, we made our way upriver to the cave. here is martin peeking out:i just like this action shot, hiking in bathing suits.doniella and i both went back downriver IN the water, through little waterslides and rapids on our behinds. it was so fun, like being five years old. we kept yelling "WOO HOOO!" just out of sheer joy and rapture. migsy!

we all went to fresh mex and had mexican popsicles and the got ready to drive to grass valley in two carfulls to go to the show addie was putting on at coffeetown. FEVER DREAM! woo hoo!

emily has a rad new song on which she plays the autoharp. the audience was sufficiently impressed with this duo. they were pretty amazing and all their songs that night had a strong sociopolitical message. it was fun to have mom there too. on to WEDNESDAY!

i worked in the morning but we had all gotten the idea to have a barbecue after i was off work. so we planned it at my house, and when i got home from work jan (stan's mom) was already there cutting up delicious farmer's market veggies for cucumber salad and for grilling. only we quickly realized, we have no barbecue!!! so we called up dad, and joey went to pick up his bbq while doniella and i went to the store for more supplies. another fun night eating and drinking, family friendly style! the men played botchy ball while the women cooked. just kidding, see above, mikie was a pretty savvy bbqer. emily's brother and his friend evan joined us!

parents showed up! cross generational fun! sylvan was overjoyed to see nana sue.
even doniella's dad, jim, came by!
the night ended with a nice mellow hang out with the ladies. look at these foxes! bandini got pretty worn out, here he is with his momma.

THURSDAY!

another river trip, this time to lotus. more swimming, singing, and yarnspinning. darin is playing the tiny backpacking guitar that stan found in the trash and fixed up.

we all came home and created another feast. black beans/falafel wraps, a giant salad, avocado and tomato and cucumber and all sorts of yumminess. here's the kitchen crew:
mikie took this, big surprise.

brittany allison is a real darling.
oh, oh oh, summer fun, summer fun.

now it's friday and we had another busy day with movie making. carolann is the star and emily is a major role as well. darin and stan got over an hour's worth of good footage today, and they are becoming real experts at creative shots using such high tech equipment as wheelchairs and roller blades and black food coloring.

the future looks bright!

happy new moon!