Mab of Dream

This morning, Frenchie took me, Anna, Georgia and the kids to the 5 and Diner. Now THAT looked American! There's one, smaller, but the same otherwise in Cannock, which is called the American Diner. It's in a silver trailer (like a very, very big caravan) and looks very 1950s. The one in Vegas is a lot bigger, but in all other respects the same.

Georgia and I have an on-going thing about what Americans biscuits are. It's easy to translate British biscuits, they are what Americans call cookies, but American biscuits? When Georgia was here, she, me and Mum went through our freezer and decided that they were Yorkshire puddings. Now, at the 5 and Diner, Georgia ordered biscuits to show me. I looked when they arrived on her plate and they look like dumplings rather than Yorkshire pud, but they are smaller than dumplings and you don't eat them in stew. She had them for breakfast, covered in gravy. I had me a cheese omelette, because that's what I was craving, but I wish I had tried biscuits while I was over there. Next time.

Afterwards, Frenchie drove us into Red Rock Canyon. WOW! WOW! I'd been eyeing those mountains for days and here I was, not only in them, but with Frenchie, Anna and Georgia (and the kids) too. (I'd felt sorry for Shonna having to work before, but this day, I could have cried for her, because she had all three of us there but had to go off and sell truss. I remembered how frustrating that was when Georgia was in Wolverhampton and this would be triple that.)

The canyon was beautiful enough from inside the car, with Frenchie telling us that all this had once been at the bottom of an ocean, hence the sand, but when he pulled up and let us go out to play! WOW! I've never seen a sky so huge, not even in Somerset, then far out on the horizon, there's the most amazing mountains ever. The highest mountains I've seen before were either Snowdonia or the Highlands up by Fort William. I've been meaning to check on those heights, so, let's see:

Mt Wilson (Red Rocks) = Ranging to 7000ft above sea level
Y Wyddfa (Snowdonia) = 3,550ft above sea level
Ben Nevis (Highlands) = 4,418ft above sea level

I KNEW they were taller! I looked at them and tried to imagine myself in Llanberis, then looked again. I hadn't realized that they were half again taller, but you can imagine how this little earth sign felt looking up at those mountains. I did briefly think that Shonna's going to be so disappointed when she finally ends up in Gwynydd, having this to compare and contrast too. Though my Welsh mountains feel different. Red Rocks were... red... the Welsh ones are much, much darker.

Stephane drove us to the Visitor's Centre and sent us ahead with Elen. I'd started to get William out for him, but he decided to stay with the minivan (Stephane, not William. William didn't have much choice in the matter!). Inside, there was an area to walk through and get the history of the desert and a shop. I immediately made for the history, while Georgia and Anna made for the shop. Elen came running after me, so I lifted her up so she could see the exhibits, read very, very fast and then told her the stories.

Someone asked me something and I couldn't tell a word they were saying. I apologized, telling them that I only spoke English and they looked very hurt. I'm assuming then that they asked me in English, but, in truth, it did sound like another language and the accoustics made it hard to hear properly. I muttered something about having Americans in the shop who might be able to help, then noticed I was missing one Elen. I went legging it around the corner, without a bye or leave, after saying, 'Wee-ar's me babby!?' Just to convince them that I didn't speak English either.

But Elen was at an exhibit just out of view. We had a discussion about not running off where Auntie Jo can't see you, then a discussion about it being boring talking to people, then another about finding Daddy, Auntie Georgia and Auntie Anna. Actually that bit was funny. She started saying she didn't want to talk to those people (as in the ones who'd asked me something), then her eyes opened wide and she said, 'Where's Anna?' with a big gasp, like it was really important that we find them NOW. She's looking around in a fake panic and I'm trying not to laugh at her. Still I got her hand and we went to find the others.

Once in the shop, she charged off to stand next to Georgia. I waited until Georgia had seen her and was canting at her, then started looking through the books. I had my eye on one about the Nevada Test Site. I picked it up and flicked through in a want and covet state of mind, then decided to be sensible after the million books I'd bought the night before. Plus when was I going to have time to read it? I put it back. (A few days later, I picked up the same book at Hoover Dam and came so close to buying it. Then, on the last day, I was up in the mountains when a bloke pointed out the spot of the test site to me and there I was staring at it, while he gave me the history. I REALLY wanted that book then. I'm either going to have to find it on the internet or beg and bribe one of the Vegas Grovers to get it for me. I should have just bought the thing first time I saw it.)

I was engrossed in the book when I heard a woman with an 'I do declay-yar' accent saying 'come on now'. So I put the book down and went to leave, until I realized it wasn't Georgia telling me to come on. It was someone with her accent. Georgia was still in the back of the shop. So I went back there and looked around with them for a bit. Elen wanted some totem stones. She picked up about half a dozen, and, when I looked at them, they were really expensive. I got them out of her hands and put them back. If I remember rightly, she also wanted a scorpion teddy bear, which I was about to say, 'Ok, you can have that', when Auntie Georgia told her to calm down and stop grabbing things off shelves (nicely! That the essense anyway, though Georgia did it so well that even I stopped messing with things on shelves). I think she did end up with a book.

Anna was two steps ahead of us, so I don't know what she treated herself to. I bought a history of Red Rock Canyon and a history of Las Vegas, plus a map of the Indian nations for FT Kate, and what I thought was a postcard of a desert fox. (I collect foxes.) Georgia bought some coyote things. Later on, I discovered that my fox was really a coyote, but Georgia had gone back home without her stuff, so I gave her my coyote postcard. Shonna was going to post it on for her.

Outside, I started in the direction of the minivan, but Anna said that Stephane had told us to look around. There's cool! :-D We did. There was a little walled off bit, which had an example in it off all the desert foliage and with little plaques telling us about them, plus descriptions of all the desert wildlife. I remember more Georgia reading them aloud, than me reading them myself. I could listen to her accent all day.

I did a lot of staring at Anna and Georgia to check they were real, then staring at the mountains to check that they were still there, then looking across the canyon to the far mountains. It was all so beautiful. You know that scene in 'American Beauty' where he says that there's so much beauty in the world that it's hard to take it all in? That's what it felt like. So uncommonly stunning.

Hold on, I've found the quote:

And that's the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and... this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video's a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember... and I need to remember... Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in...

...there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst... And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life... You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry... you will someday.

I kept getting lost in the beauty and the fact that I was there, not only that moment, but the entire of the weekend catching up with me. Like I'd finally breathed out, having been scared to do so in case it was all a dream, only to find myself still in it. Goddess only knows what Anna made of me. Georgia at least had seen me on Wulfruna's patch, so could smile at me in the full knowledge of what I was used to and where I was now; while Shonna and the others had longer to work out that I wasn't always this floaty and gobsmacked. Poor Anna just got me walking around in a daze a lot!



I do have to remember to be sociable. Somewhere in between the fact that I live most of my life inside my own head, coupled with the deafness, I tend to lose my surroundings and/or the people there. Red Rocks was one of the times when I became so ungrounded, insofar as I wanted to capture it, hold it, be there, so much that it was like a quiet, enjoyable desperation. Later on, Anna said to me that she hadn't brought her camera, because she knew so many others would be taking pictures that she didn't need to. It gave her an opportunity to just be there, looking at it. I realized then that I was doing exactly what I sometimes smile at others doing - so desperately trying to picture it all that I'm not actually living it. I put my camera down and just looked, and looked, and looked. I came down a level, quietened inside and had a smile in my soul which must have been plastered all over my face.

I didn't realize how hot it was until we reached a temperature thingie. I know the exact temperatures, because I took a picture of the gage:

188.8 F in the tortoise thing (unless that one's broken)
72.8 F in the shade of the Yucca tree
109.1 F on the ground

I read that and Pixie's voice in my head told me to put on some suntan cream, but I ignored her. I didn't burn though. In fact, I went brown rather than red throughout this trip, which is surprising for me. No-one's seen it since I got back though, as it's been autumn in Britain and very cold, so I've been well covered up.

We paused at a track leading down, with the most unobscured view yet of the mountains and desert. We all stopped dead and looked at it. I looked across at Anna and she was just staring and I thought 'remember this moment'. And I have. Not so much the beauty, though that was there in spades, but the moment, how it felt. I looked to Georgia to find her looking at me with a strange smile on her face. I smiled back and she smiled harder, then looked away. First Elen and I went a little way down the track, so our photo could be taken with all that behind us, then came back picking up stones for everyone, and putting them in the fold of her dress. Then Anna went down for a picture, with Elen going halfway with her for more stones. She ended up dropping the stones and Auntie Anna bent with her to pick them all up again. Did all of those stones make it back home? Or are they still in the minivan? From the photo evidence, I think Auntie Anna made her choose her favourites:



We found a Joshua Tree, so I ran to be photographed with it, as I had the album. I didn't realize how spiky they are! Poor Elen came running to join me and got scratched to buggery. There were tears and Auntie Georgia's pocketbook (that's handbag to the uninitiated) was rumaged in for medical supplies. In the end, I think it was sympathy and the magical kissing better that sorted that.

We had done a curcuit around the visitor's centre and were heading towards the minivan, when we saw Stephane coming towards us. Poor bloke, it must have been a boring visit for him, sitting there waiting on us. We drove then on a curcuit of Red Rocks Canyon itself, which was well cool, because I hadn't known we were going to be doing that!

We stopped at many of the viewpoints along the way, all stunning in different ways. The first showed a long deep cwm (I can't think of the English word for it, let alone the American!), with tracks running down and long the bottom. Looking up, I could see a massive profile of a native American man's face and couldn't work out if it had been carved as such (ala Mount Rushmore) or if I was just seeing things. What do you think?

Georgia came and showed me an eagle, carved from rock, that she could make out on top of a mountain. I could see it too, then Anna came over and had it pointed out to her. After that, Anna and I stood looking out over the cwm together. She said something about it being beautiful and I agreed.

At the next stop, the car beside us was playing classical music. I recognized it at the time, but I've forgotten what it was now. Was it Mozart or Strauss? Stephane said that he was tempted to put on his marching music to drown it out! LOL To me, it added to it. The whole place looked like a scene from a film anyway, so having classical music gave it a soundtrack. The rocks here were white and red, just stratas of them, not fading into one another, just white stopped, red started, like some giant had levelled mountain halfway up and plonked another on top of it.

We drove a bit around then, until reaching the next stop. From there we were looking back towards Vegas in the distance, which really gave us perspective on how close we were. There was also a tree which just screamed photo opportunity, so we did.




The kids were still strapped into the minivan though, and getting antsy, so I had to run up and sit with them, sending Frenchie down for his photo opportunity.

The next stop took us into another valley, up the top of Red Rock Canyon. There the mountains were very different, more like billions of monoliths stacked together, going up for miles. This is where Anna spoke her words of wisdom to me about living the moment, not trying to capture it; and so I did, looking around me and just drinking it all in. This is where I quietened again after the sheer amazingness of the past few days. Wise wench is our Anna.

It helped that we were there for a little while, as there was a toilet, so Georgia and Elen went visiting it. Someone had dropped fag butts, so I collected them up and took them to the bin, which was beside the loo. Georgia made me jump ten miles when she suddenly appeared from nowhere beside me there! LOL

There were no more scheduled stops after that until we were back to the bottom of the canyon, but such scenery to drive though. I finally sussed how Americans can drive for miles, as Stephane showed me the cruise control. All he had to do was steer the car, because there's only a brake pedal-wise, all else is automatic, plus there's those wide open roads, with no-one on it (except for the idjut who Stephane pulled over to let by. They were going so fast that there was no way they could be taking in the scenery. I assumed they were going home, until Stephane pointed out that this was purely a scenic route - it led to where we started and therefore didn't take anyone home.) Driving in America isn't the feat of concentration and stamina that it is in Britain.

We turned into the road which led back to the visitor's Centre and then to Vegas, when suddenly we saw the burro. Thanks to Caroline, I knew that a burro was a donkey (I only have two sentences in Spanish memorized: El burro est rapdio and quieres talmo algo). In Red Rocks, the burro are wild, which I loved to see. You just don't think of donkeys running wild and so the barest thought got me grinning. Stephane had hoped earlier that we'd see them and here they were. He ended up turning the minivan around so we could get pictures. He also stopped us at a carpark with a view over the canyon as we'd just toured. That was amazing, seeing it all together.



It really was time to go back now. We were all thirsty, the kids were antsy (especially Elen, who seemed determined to unstrap herself from her seat) and Shonna was due back soon. I think that Shonna was already back by the time we got in, though not long on it. I seem to have a vision of her getting up from by her computer with a huge grin on her face of welcome. Hugs all round and drinks!

We got ourselves changed and Anna and Georgia kept disappearing. I must have missed the bit where they said that they were going to pack, because the first it hit me that they were going was when suitcases starting appearing downstairs. I went upstairs to find Georgia trying to force her case shut. I'd always known that they were leaving this day, but I was doing so much living in the moment that it hadn't entirely occurred to me that they really were going. :-(

We set off then in two cars, me, Shonna, Anna, Georgia, Frenchie, Elen and William, to eat at Mike's on the North-west of Vegas. It was like a pub but very big, more the like of a Wetherspoons, but twice the size. I spotted some Newcy Brown behind the bar and told Shonna on it, so she could tell Brianne if I didn't see her. Brianne had said that the thing she missed most about Britain was the Newcy Brown, so I'd brought her a bottle with me. Shonna explained that Brianne's specific complaint was that Vegas Newcy Brown didn't taste the same as British Newcy Brown, so that was still a kindness me bringing it.

I nipped for a fag up the bar and found that the Atlanta Braves were losing. I went up to Georgia and told her I had distressing news, then held her hand and hugged her as I delivered it. She survived. I also got canting with a bloke up the bar from Haight-Astbury, which is where Shonna was born. He just started canting at me! LOL I loved the meal, but it was also sad, because Anna and Georgia were going. :-(

Stephane took the children back, while the rest of us climbed into the minivan and drove to the airport. Shonna produced a tape with some brilliant music on, which I must have sent her ages ago. We had it on high, singing away, but it must have been very loud in the back, because Anna asked us to turn it down. Unfortunately, low enough to stand in the back was too low for me to hear in the front. I think Shonna turned it off.

We drove via the Strip, for one last look for the two leaving, and picked on the very macho blokes in their souped up cars. So low they were practically on the floor, and reeving like maniacs to move the two inches in traffic. We were all, 'Oh! What men they are! Oh! My heart! Get them for me! Please!' LOL We were also stuck fast in traffic and needed to be at the airport. I had a word with Elen of the Ways and visualized someone letting us out, as no bugger had for ages. Within a minute, we were let out and en route again.

Georgia's plane was something like two hours after Anna's, but as they had to check in an hour or so early, that meant a lot of time for Anna to be sitting on her own crying. It was one of those awful moments for Shonna and I where we were having to say goodbye to Anna, then having to say goodbye to Georgia knowing that we could have kept the latter for another hour more. But all of us not wanting Anna to be sitting on her own when she could have company. It was up to Georgia, as she would have to be the one sitting alone in the end. She opted to go with Anna.

I managed not to cry hugging them both goodbye, though Anna sobbed on me and Georgia was very close. I think that I only didn't cry because I was trying to be strong for them, though that hadn't stopped me at the last minute when I'd said goodbye to Georgia in Birmingham (knowing I'd see her again in 3 months) or saying goodbye to Kate (knowing I'd see her in ten days). Shonna and I hugged them to bits, then drove away in the minivan.

It was a subdued atmosphere in there, until Shonna reached down, put the music full blast and we both screamed along to 'Ol' Welsh Soul' all the way down the Strip. :-D Now THAT was surreal! Rev Hammer... singing about the old Dolgellau Road... and here's me, Welsh blood, Welsh soul, singing along whilst driving down the Las Vegas Strip! Talk about juxtaposition of scenery! Straight after that, Shonna put on 'Vegas Two Times' by the Stereophonics, and by the time she was showing me Crazy Horse, I'm like Anna and Georgia who?? :-D THAT WAS FUCKING AMAZING! 'Vegas Two Times' while actually IN Vegas. Bear in mind that the last time I heard that song, I was driving into Hay on bloody Wye! LOL This was followed by 'Is Yesterday, Tomorrow, Today?' and I thought my heart would burst. :-D

Stephane must have expected two upset wenches coming home to him, instead he got us on a right high, rescued by Rev Hammer and the Stereophonics, though it was still sad to let them go. I still wish I'd been more awake on the Sunday night.

After that, the kids abed, Stephane, Shonna and I watched the film version of 'Mists of Avalon'. I was expecting something really tacky, as that's how it had been described to me. I was looking out for 'Goddess bless', but it wasn't there. Because I was expecting utter tat (but I've never minded that), I was pleasantly surprised by a good film! Juliana Margulies was perfect as Morgaine. It was based on Marion Zimmer Bradley's book (and therefore indirectly Mallory), so the history was out, but the story itself was great.

It also stirred up that thing that's always below the surface. That thing which I pushed deep inside after Jenni tried to push me off a cliff because of the whole Morgana/Gwenhwyfar thing, then the Y Gwir Erbyn Ar Y Byd. I went outside for a fag, while Stephane went abed and Shonna made a brew. I got thinking... well... more I got feeling, and nearly accepted it. Once inside, looking at Shonna as the HPS I should have had instead of Karen (lucky the newbies now who have got Shonna), I half asked questions and she half answered them. Unspoken a lot got said about Gwyar and me.

We canted again until relatively late and went to bed knackered. The idea being that if I was up early enough we'd go on plan A, which was me going to work with Shonna in the morning; but she took one look at me and said that it's ok, I could lie in. I think I decided there and then that I'd be up. I set my bodyclock and went abed.