Thought I’d share some of the road photos from our trip last weekend. We started in L.A. and went north up the I-5 (see previous posts), ending the two-day journey in Sisters, Oregon. The travelers were: my husband, Hari Bhajan Singh, who singlehandedly did all the driving for the two days; my son, Sat Sangeet Singh, who we picked up in San Francisco and then got stuck in a massive traffic jam for an hour; and our two pooches, Yoshi and Ria, who are always eager to get in the car and see where it takes them.

I thought of a great road poem by Gary Snyder that is one of my favorites–I spend a lot of time in New Mexico and Madras is only a few miles from Sisters and where I grew up in Redmond, so there’s some resonance with the places and also the space of leaving behind a life that wasn’t mine to go and do “what is to be done.”

More from Oregon and the journey back south to come. Enjoy and Be at Peace!

I Went into the Maverick Bar
Gary Snyder

I went into the Maverick Bar
In Farmington, New Mexico.
And drank double shots of bourbon
backed with beer.
My long hair was tucked up under a cap
I’d left the earring in the car.

Two cowboys did horseplay
by the pool tables,
A waitress asked us
where are you from?
a country-and-western band began to play
“We don’t smoke Marijuana in Muskokie”
And with the next song,
a couple began to dance.

They held each other like in High School dances
in the fifties;
I recalled when I worked in the woods
and the bars of Madras, Oregon.
That short-haired joy and roughness—
America—your stupidity.
I could almost love you again.

We left—onto the freeway shoulders—
under the tough old stars—
In the shadow of bluffs
I came back to myself,
To the real work, to
“What is to be done.”

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It gets a little cozy in the back of the car.

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Hari Bhajan Singh & the not-too-sure-about-this-ledge pups.

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At the edge of Crater Lake.

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Our number one rated rest stop located in Southern Oregon.

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Loved this road.