A drive, a sit, some views...

We left Colorado and took three days to drive across Utah and Nevada. An unthinkable amount of time for many of my friends across Europe and Asia, but nothing too out of the ordinary in our vast land of meandering highways and road wary travelers. We topped over Monarch Pass in Colorado and were treated to some early leave changes. Leaving Colorado at this time, one misses the beautiful change from summer to fall. Visible in many subtle ways inner and outer, it is most startling and apparent in the leaves. I grew up in Northern California, which doesn't really have four distinct seasons, and here I was headed to SoCal, which has even less of such a cycle-- it seems to go from pleasantly cool to a tad hot. I didn't learn to appreciate the magic of a four season adventure until I went to Japan, and every day seems to celebrate and acknowledge what one is moving from and towards... and complete food, dress, holidays, activities, and other such things to go along with it!

Skirting the Vegas traffic in that strange oasis, and then driving through some of the desert and having to solve some unexpected problems of a flat tire and loose front windshield (!). The later happened at the Nevada/California border, in a kind of surreal play-town with no reality attached to it (by the parking lot of Whiskey Pete's). I went to a "fashion center" where small ice creams sold for $6 with the hopeless goal of finding some Painter's Tape to at least hold everything through those hot desert winds until we could find a windshield repair place (a compassionate eavesdropper helped us out by giving some all-purpose duct tape, which saved the day).

And then the scenery finally improved going up California past Fresno, the incredible agricultural center of the entire region, and just around Yosemite National Park, to the California Vipassana Center (CVC). We spent 3-4 days here, wondering how bad Hurricane Rita was going to hit the Texas coast, and purifying minds in the process. A nice stay and a wonderful prep for Los Angeles!

Here is a picture of the meditation hall at CVC...