Maddy's Travels

Teresa, Celeste and “Moi” - we met thirty years ago working in the costume shop of the Minnesota Opera.  “T” and I reunited last year after 20-some years and now Celeste re-joined the gang.  I left Manchester, New Hampshire in April snow and met up with my gals at the Las Vegas airport (minus the lip gloss airport security deemed a threat to our country).

 

I’d never been to Vegas before.  We had cocktails at the top of the “Eiffel Tower”.  Next morning after breakfasting at the “Two Gals” (not “Three Gals”) Diner we headed off to the Grand Canyon with visions of Thelma and Louise and the cute cowboys we would meet en route.  Instead of cowboys, we ended up discussing how often we had to pee.  Teresa honored us with a very smelly you-know-what concurrently with the chapter in a book she bought for a friend “A Pictorial History of the Outhouse”.  She read aloud to us the chapter about “Le Petomane”, a man who thrilled audiences in Paris from 1895-1914 farting entire songs.

​

We arrived at the canyon after dark.  If they’d had the decency to light it up at night, we would have seen it then.  So the “aha” moment was delayed until the next morning.  And it was grand.  We hiked the Rim Trail - aka the easy one, though it was at places precipitously close to the edge. In between “ahas” and “I have to pees” we caught up on the years - Teresa working in the movie world on the west coast and Celeste a costumer on the east coast working in film and TV production.

​

Must have been those days in the costume shop or the influence of the “vortex” that prompted us all to buy matching hot cherry pink pants with sheer inserted gaudets to wear on our “Pink Jeep Tour” of the Red Rocks of Sedona.  What a vortex is remains unclear, but Sedona, Arizona is full of them - something about energy and magnetic  particles and crystals and people flock there to find them.  For me, it remained more of a joke.  If Celeste complained about a restaurant not having green tea, or my driving, I could simply say “go to your vortex”.  That expression will now remain embedded in my vocabulary.

​

Sedona truly was a magical place.  We did our morning yoga outdoors facing the towering rocks with names - “Teapot”, “Camel”, “Chimney”, “Geronimo”.  We hiked, sat in the hot tub and I gave my friends haircuts.  Teresa says I could pay for my trip by putting up a sign, “vacationing hairstylist on the premises - available 5-7”.

We left Sedona (good-bye Red Rocks) to visit Bonita and Phil, artist friends of Teresa in Kingman, Arizona.  It was a long drive, “T” read aloud short stories by Elliot Pearlman.  From the beautiful red rocks we arrive at the “flats of hell” (as Bonita called them) -  dust devils swirling like mini tornadoes, tumble weed blowing across the road.  Why would ANYONE live here?  We turn down a dirt road and head towards the hills, being thankful it is just a rental car we are torturing.  Their artist spread is a peaceful refuge - solar powered, great picture windows, vividly colored paintings to contrast the desert colors.  These are the friends “T” bought the book about outhouses for.  I must say, however, that sitting in the outhouse viewing the mountains is quite conducive.

​

By the next day, I find myself in the Las Vegas airport.  I put a dollar in a slot machine - can’t leave Vegas without having done so.

​

I arrive home to more early spring snow.  “Stay in your vortex”,  I say to myself.