1. The drive from Eugene to Kellogg (or Kellogg to Eugene) is a much more arduous task for me now than when I was younger, even, as today, with good traffic. When I was younger, I used to try to make good time, but now the only thought I have about making good time is the truth: I won't make good time and it doesn't matter.
I stopped several times en route to Kellogg today. I think I took four naps. I bought lattes along the way. I had fed myself so well in Eugene that all I ate on the road today were a couple scones.
I arrived home safely after traveling for about eleven hours.
I was tired, but satisfied that I didn't push myself, didn't try to make good time, and put safety first with my napping stops, whether in rest areas or parking lots.
2. On my drive from Kellogg to Eugene last Thursday, I almost finished Erik Larson's inspiring and deeply troubling book, Devil in the White City. The inspiring storyline covered the many tribulations that confronted the developers of the Chicago World's Fair which, against many odds, opened in May of 1893 and closed in October. The deeply troubling storyline was the story of H. H. Holmes a seducer, swindler, con man, and psychopathic serial killer.
I finished the book in Eugene, and for my trip home I wanted to listen to a book with a different tone, not such grisly subject matter, and something I had neglected over the years.
Aha!
I found just the right materials to download: over 70 hours of Stephen Fry reading novels and stories by Arthur Conan Doyle about Sherlock Holmes and his accomplice, Dr. John Watson.
Stephen Fry reads this material most impressively, bringing to life a wide variety of characters, women and men, characters native to the UK, speaking in a variety of accents, and characters from outside the UK from India, the Middle East, the USA, and elsewhere.
Fry expertly captures the contrasts between Holmes and Watson and between Holmes and the various officers of the Scotland Yard he consults with.
Back in 1979-80, during my first year of graduate school, I competed three courses toward completing a concentration on Victorian English Literature.
I enjoyed that curse of study most of all for the Victorian writers' mastery of the English language and for the often ornate writing style they employed.
Arthur Conan Doyle writes in this Victorian style and at times it was akin to having music playing in the Camry.
Now I enjoy reading books by American writers employing the more plain speaking and less ornate style of our ways of speaking and writing.
But I get a special charge out of the Victorian style -- its heightened vocabulary the elaborate architecture of sentences -- and while my drive as long today, I loved having those hundreds of miles filled by the voice of Stephen Fry bringing the eloquence, imagination, knowledge, and affection of Arthur Conan Doyle to life.
3. I only spent five nights in Eugene, but that was about three nights too many for Copper. When I'm away, Copper often protests my absence by voiding his bowels outside the litter pan.
When I returned last night, Copper immediately began to loudly meow orders to me to come into the part of the house where he lives.
Well, Copper had to wait a while, I brought my travel luggage into the house. I was very hungry and ate the dinner Debbie had ready for me. I chatted for a while with Debbie.
Finally, I joined Copper in the bedroom and his demanding meows turned into contented purring as I pet him, rubbed his underside, and simply rested my hand motionless on his torso.
I could sense the frustration he'd felt while I was away melt and Copper's contentment grew when I put the newly laundered bedspread on the bed, turned back the covers, and it was time for us to spend the night together.
I love taking trips.
I don't love my travels being so difficult for Copper.
He's pretty much a one human cat, I think.
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