pedestrian saga

(Hi. I wrote the following at the end of June, shortly after returning from a 10-day tour of Indiana and Ohio with Scott. I saved this draft intending to continue writing about all our other adventures on the road in loving detail. With kick-ass prose! Words worthy of the experience, expressive of my deep gratitude to everyone I met along the way! And photos too! Welcome to my world of good intentions gone nowhere. The land where blog posts go to die. [RIP, reports on my 2004 L.A. Sewer Tour, my passionate 2005 reunion with The Passenger, last fall's landmark Hardesty Mountain climb...] Anyway, please enjoy this narrative fragment and check out my pretty extensive photo collection for other pieces of the story, like meeting my first niece for the first time, consummating my Troupe Taleeba fandom, and more.)

Last week Scott and I went on a tour of Indiana and Ohio, during which we had the pleasure of reuniting with familiar souls and getting acquainted with new folks too. Naughty Northwest Airlines waffled on their scheduled red-eye out of PDX, so we missed our first day of vacation just trying to get there (and it was to include a blueberry pancake brunch by Grammie—no six-dollar meal voucher is gonna replace that!) My dear friend Kelly improvised a very late airport pickup, and Grammie sent us off with homemade gingersnaps instead (while Grandpa supplied the fresh fruit and reading material in the form of a garden supply catalog and an Earthjustice pamphlet).

First stop was Bloomington, home of my alma mater IU and Scott’s friends Sandy and Ben. I hadn’t been back to Bloomington since I graduated and moved away west. Even when I lived there I apparently had my head in a textbook, a movie, or a cloud all the time, because I’d never really experienced two of Scott’s favorite haunts—Bloomington Bagel Company and Sahara Mart—and they were right under my nose.

In this way, the day in Bloomington, strolling around the southeast corner of campus and meandering between 2nd Street and Kirkwood Avenue, was a delightful mix of nostalgia and discovery. Scott, Ben, and Sandy indulged me in a walk past the two nondescript 2nd Street apartments I inhabited as a student on our way to visit Sahara Mart. Seeing the apartments gave me a “You’ve come a long way, baby” kind of feeling; meeting the mart was more like “How could I have missed this? What the hell was wrong with me?” The olive bar and the brew sanctuary totally lived up to Scott’s hype, and at checkout, between the tin of Illy caffé and the tub of rose-petal lemon-peel kalamatas, I implored the owner Javad to relocate to Corvallis. (And I wasn’t kidding. Dude’s elevated groceries to a fine art.)

On campus I was briefly amused by the bizarre statue of Mr. IU, Herman B Wells, (erected after my time), and I relished the opportunity to enter new Memorial Union territory on Scott’s special tour of the tower toilet. My companions again indulged my nostalgia with a pass through Ballantine Hall, practically my second home as a student.

Other Bloomington highlights: smoothies at Soma (bicycle art in the stairwell up to Laughing Planet), dinner at Shanti (loony wait staff), breakfast at the BBC (bagel-making espionage), all preceded by Sandy’s wonderful waffle brunch. Most memorable moment: chillin’ to the mesmerizing light show of candles, fireflies, and stars (even a shooting star!) on Ben and Sandy’s deck.

On to the outskirts of Columbus, Ohio, where my mum’s family convened in honor of cousin James’s high school graduation. I’ve enjoyed following James through the years, watching him come into his own as a talented volleyball player, social activist, rock star…

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 7:15 pm and is filed under Adventures, Muckamuck. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.