I've even gotten my hours switched from nights to days. I think that has been a large part of the help--seeing the sunshine, green trees and grass, and it snowed really nicely on Mon/Tuesday. I'd say about 5 inches. Just enough to be beautiful but not cause too many problems. The last of it has melted today.

***

I love the PBS Drama Downton Abbey so much, and since it's only on once a week--and that's just not enough--that I remembered something about a Forsyte Saga when I was in high school, so I looked it up on Netflix and was able to stream the whole first part of the series. The second part is DVD only (Netflix you f*ckers; I wish I could quit you). So maybe I'll rent it from the library or something. But my point is this:  The Forsyte Saga is a thousand times better than Downton Abbey. Less soap-opery-ish.  Not that I have stopped loving Downton Abbey, TFS is just better. And all three books, because they started out as books written in 1922 (in very formal, flowery language that I'm really enjoying), but they are FREE for e-book on Amazon. *faint* I'm about 40% through it, and it's just a delicious story. The mini-series didn't follow it exactly, but it's all right, because they both stand alone so well. So big thumbs up. If you have an e-reader and you love the Victorians, go, now, get your free Forsyte Saga. Love love it.

***

My husband came home from work Friday night (he works out of town), and he picked us up a couple of Ancho Chile burritos from Q'doba (because I've lost the urge to cook). We watched a few shows, and by 8pm I was in bed with the Forsytes and passed out by 9pm.

I got up at 8:30, microwaved a cup of leftover coffee from the night before as I made a fresh pot (impatient, I know.), and had a bowl of cereal.  I settled in to watch the Whitney Houston funeral. And, for the record, I would just like to say, was the best funeral/home-going service I have ever seen. Well done Cissie Houston.

My husband was still sleeping, I didn't expect him up before noon because he is usually in a sleep deficeit when he's done for the week and needs to "catch up" on his sleep.

Around 11am, I started feeling rather...unwell. It got worse and worse. Finally, I put Miss Paige down (on my lap 70% of the time if I'm sitting), ran to the bathroom, didn't make it, grabbed a trashcan next to the dining room table that we throw mail into, and hurled my guts out, twice. WTH?

Then the lower GI started, then more stomach, then lower GI, you know how it goes. And then it stopped, and I was just a lump of yucky-feeling-ness. At about 6pm, I thought I could probably eat some soup, so I sent my husband out to süp for tomato bisque and a grilled cheese. I was ravenous and I gobbled everything up and it stayed down. I refuse to believe that I had food poisoning for the third time since September....but everything points to that. Just weird. So yesterday felt like a wasted day.

Feeling much better today. May even hit the bookstore.Target

If you ever visit me in Reno, I'll take you there, too.

It's soup, sandwiches, salads, and a few desserts. The tomato bisque is like crack to me. I'm not kidding. They have usually eight fresh soups made every day, I always get the tomato bisque. I took my FIL there two nights in a row when they were here last fall. The second night we both had chicken tortilla (excellent, als0), but when I go there? It's always going to be for the tomato bisque.

The sandwiches are very good. Their grilled cheese "4 stars." The turkey cheese pesto "3 stars", the steak baguette "4 stars". And that's all I've had so far. I lurve the steak baguette. And everything comes with a nice little salad with cranberries, bleu cheese, and champagne vinaigrette, and a mini-cookie. Usually the cookies are oatmeal raisin and very chewy. I put the whole thing in my mouth just as my client asked me a question, and that cookie was like a dog biscuit. I'm not kidding, it was like a Milkbone. LOL We had a good laugh about it, and she had to ask the question again.

So I started on her project today. So billable hours started this morning. :-)

I have another client lunch meeting today and I'll probably buy her lunch, too. Yeah, I made a mistake there, too. What can I say? This week has not been a good week for me emotionally (why? I don't know. Do I need a reason?), and I did a couple of stupid things and PO'd both clients. We're going to a different restaurant today, one the client chose. 

It also snowed today, so this will be interesting driving around. Fortunately I'm going, I think, a whole four miles.

And I sold some gold jewelry yesterday to pay for these lunches since I have not been paid for a client from December. (Long story, but any day now would be nice. You know, before things start getting turned off.).  I sold my gold wedding ring from my first marriage--just a plain gold band--I actually bought it at a pawn shop as a second ring to wear if I was going somewhere that I thought I could be robbed. Yeah, I've lived in those kind of places. So no sentientality there. Also, a gold chain I've never worn given to me by my father with a pendant on it. I kept the pendant, but, as a rule, I do not wear gold. I just really, really love silver and platinum, although I have been branching out into brass. I like brass. I wish I had more gold, I'd sell that, too. Oh well. I had a panic attack on the way over there, but I still got out of my car and marched inside, reminded of a very classy friend of mine who had sold some of her jewelery because it was just sitting around, held my head up high and went in.

The panic attack continued for a while, and didn't really abate until I was home snuggled under a blanket. And asleep. I did what I needed to do, then I needed to take care of myself.

 ***

Update:  Client was delightful and not angry at all, and refused to let me buy her lunch; we went Dutch. We hung out for 3 hours, of which perhaps 30 minutes of that was actual "work," (I'm helping her with her website as well as some editorial work.). Lunch was extremely good at the Great Basin Brewery Co. I had a small order of their fish and chips, substituting chicken corn chowder for the chips. It sounded good to my client so she had the same. It was pretty fabulous. Not just the food, but the company, too.

I woke up at 5:00am, hungry and cold. We had gone to bed with the heater off because the daytime weather has been so nice. At night it gets in the 30s or lower. So at 5am, I got up, came downstairs, turned on the heat, and had a bowl of cereal.

I watched Morning Joe for a while and surfed the net. Then about 7am, I was still hungry, so I had a jalapeno bagel, toasted, with cream cheese on the side and a tiny bit of TJ's organic, reduced sugar apricot jam. Yum.

At 8am, I felt like I could go back to sleep, so I went upstairs and got back in bed with my husband. I set my alarm for 11am. (He had the day off for President's Day.) When it went off, I turned it off, rolled over, and went back to sleep. At 4:30pm, R asked me if I was "going to get up?" No, no I wasn't. I rolled over and slept until 7:30pm. So nearly 24 hours of sleeping.

I had a similar thing happen to me after I took ONE Remeron last year. I was out of it for about seven days in total. (It was prescribed to me for insomnia. *snort* I was so loopy I fell off the toilet [day 2] and cut my chin on a cabinet).  I started thinking about why I could have slept so much. Yes, I had a sleep deficit, but not 24 hours worth.

And then I remembered: I had taken the Vitamin D last night. So I started snooping around on the net, because for most of this week, I'd felt better than I had for a long time. More alert, more energy, less depressed.

And I discovered that too much Vitamin D can make you sleepy. In fact, on this web page, at the end of the second paragraph it says, "However, fatigue, weakness and sleepiness are also symptoms of taking too much vitamin D."

Huh. And it's not the only website that mentions this.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that perhaps my Vitamin D is back up to normal levels. I need to go into the doc for some other things, so while I'm there I'll talk to him about this and maybe get my level checked.

I feel exhausted, even though I slept so much. I feel like I could sleep some more, really. This is not good. Aside from interfering with my life, that's just not right.

If you're reading this, have you had any side effects from Vitamin D? Either too low or too high? I'd be interested to hear of your experiences. Leave a comment or email me. Thanks.

There have been some issues, a few setbacks, and a learning curve, but for the most part I think it's going pretty well.

Paige:  She was the one-year-old who had just had 11 kittens in October and then been spayed. Whew. I believe she is part Oriental because she shares those habits that Mr. Charley had--herding, busy, plays with toys--she loves ropes, strings, and the fuzzy rabbit fur rat that hangs from our bedroom door--actually, we had to replace it after she ripped all the fur off the first one. She's also tall and long, with big pointy ears and a narrow face like an Oriental. She is a real firecracker, we call her Paige, P, PeeWee (she's not that big), Tiny P, fireball, spitfire, and sparkplug. And she is extremely affectionate. Although she doesn't like to be picked up, cuddled or kissed, she LOVES laps. She stays on my lap while I'm working on my laptop for hours. Literally. I often have to put her down so I can go potty. I've started putting my am coffee in a thermos so I won't have to disturb her by getting up. She also  likes to flop over on her back for belly rubs.

She goes wherever I go about 90% of the time. If I stay up late, she gets on the couch or my lap and takes a nap, then goes up to bed when I do, where she either lies on my legs or sprawls lengthwise against me. She has the cutest little meow that reminds me of a "meep" noise that little zebra finches make. She only meeps when she wants something. Twice a day we play with the rope until one of us tuckers out. She loves it. If she thinks I'm ignorning her, she'll get up high where she can put her front paws on me and look me plaintively in the face and "meep," i.e., play with me, feed me, lap, or whatever. She's a gem of a kitty. I adore her.

She loves Pascal. And he seems to like her--they play together and chase each other around. It's really hysterical. But if they are together with me? Then Pascal is very jealous, so we're working on that. He did get up on the bed with me this morning (and both new cats), and ask to cuddle (meh eh? He's a talking cat.), and he purred and lay with me about 30 minutes. That was a huge step.

He only goes outside for about 5 minutes at a time, now for two reasons:  It's cold even without the snow, and he's got to know what's going on inside at all times. He spends a lot of time in the second bedroom. I try to make time for him, but sometimes he is just angry. Lately I've been closing the bathroom door when he comes in (they all want to come in when one of us is in the bathroom. Just nosey), and he seems to like that as he purrs quite a bit and stays on my lap.

Sassy:  She is our problem child. I don't know what her story is, but I belive that she may have come from a one-cat house, although she likes other cats, with one owner, and where she wore a diamond tiara. She is a fussy little princess. She also likes to pee on my bathroom rugs. Or towels, whatever is on my bathroom floor. She also makes a huge mess in the litterbox. And she vomits. A lot. I have found vomit on my desk, kitchen table (did I not mention her love of all things up high?), stairs, bathtub, bed (including at least two craps taken on the bed, days apart), the carpet, the kitchen, ad nauseum. She was very friendly at first, sat on my lap a lot, but now she seems to spend all her time upstairs on the bed sleeping. When I put my hand out to pet her, she flinches. I'm not sure what her background is, either, and frankly, I don't want to think about it. Eventually she lets me pet her, and she gives my hand a good wash.

I've tried cuddling her, playing with her, tossing a jingle ball for her, but she gets irritated and wants to be left alone. When R is here, she follows him around and meows, loudly. Hell, when the cable guy was here, she did the same thing. Like she was begging him, "get me outta here!"

We've talked about taking her back to the SPCA, but we know she isn't guaranteed another home, so we hesitate. We hope she will eventually figure out her role here in the house and that we adopted her because we want to care for her and love her. Right now? It's hard to love something that barfs that much. *ugh* (We are considering changing her food, but short of locking her in the bedroom, how do we keep the other cats out of it? Paige has already put on a lot of weight, so I've cut back on their kibble. No wet fud.)

All three cats seem to get along providing there are no human witnesses, although Paige and Sassy get along very well.

R, Pascal, and I all miss Mr. Charley. Sometimes I look out the window and I think I've just seen him run by, or I remember the good times from last sumer, when he would lay out in a pool of sunshine, dazedly happy and relaxed. Paige's high-pitched meep reminds me of his very girly soprano meow. I know they would've gotten along great.

R and I grieved very openly and loudly the first week that Mr. Charley was gone, but we didn't think about a grieving time for Pascal. He was looking for Charley for days afterward, but there was no way to explain to him that he was gone. We never gave thought to grieving time for Pascal. And so there is some regret at adopting new cats so quickly--although I had wanted to for a long time but didn't want to expose them to FIV--although they were a great comfort to me (us) in easing the loss of Mr. Charley, it was too soon for Pascal--animals, even house cats, are more complex than we give them credit for.

So although there is a little disharmony in the house, it is slowly getting better. Pascal knows that he is still loved, and the two new kitties (I hope) know they are loved, too. It was a good decision for us. And Paige? She's just an amazing kitty. I adore her. I hope that in the weeks and months to come, that she and Pascal can be more of friends.  Sassy and Pascal will never be friends--she's just that way. But they tolerate each other. And for now, that's good enough. There's nothing like opening the bathroom door and having three black and white tuxeoded kitties all staring at you. It's a real trip. :D

I love Downton Abbey for so many reasons. I'll list them.

• Lady Cora, the matriarch, reminds me of my mother, both in physical and personality traits. She was tall and slim, opinionated, and mostly full of common sense, too. At least until she got to her late 50s.


• Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess is the role she was born to play and has played throughout her life. She's just marvelous. Manipulating, conniving, and smiling in your face pit viper. Love. Her.


• The clothes. Come on, the clothes, both men and women, are wonderful. The women's clothes are so wispy and opaque, and I want all their dinner and party dresses. For the men, last Sunday Lord Grantham had on a new type of suit, "a tuxedo, which everyone in London was wearing for more casual gatherings." HA! More casual? *swoon*


• The castle and grounds--I visited Blenheim Palace in the 80s during one of two trips I made to Europe in that decade, and I really loved it--the majesty, the furniture, the art, the grounds, my goodness. Such decadence. Of course, it was really only good from the inside looking out, even staff were slightly elevated in status by working for the gentry.


• The many social changes being made. The transition from the Victorian to the Edwardian era; handmade to mechanized, candles and gas lamps to electricity; telephones; questioning of religious dogma; advances in medicine; a new and more deadly type of war using machines and guns and gas; the changing roles for women.


• Uh, England, HELLO? I love all things Brit, Welsh, Scot, or Irish. (The "sun never sets on the British Empire??)

Regardless, the early 19th century was a time of huge changes, especially in social mores and customs. And to a large part, along with the drama, intrigue, and secrets, this it what Downton Abbey is about. Until the last Emmy awards, when it came away with four Emmys, I had never heard of it. But I have a Netflix streaming account and it was available. I watched the whole first season in a few days, just a few weeks before season II started in January. I have my DVR set to record it, but still want to be home by 9pm in case the DVR flips out, as they sometimes do. I LOVE it.

My favorite character? Mr. Bates. When Lord Grantham stopped the car that was going to take him away after he was fired (for having a limp), I put my hands over my mouth and burst into tears. What a fabulous moment.  I have high hopes, like so many others I'm sure, for Mr. Bates and Anna (this would be the start of the spoiler part****warning***), getting together. What a sweet couple. I had a feeling Mrs. Bates would die, and I think O'Brien knows something about it, or was involved in some way. It's going to get worse before it gets better for Anna and Mr. Bates.

Mary will marry Carlise and be very unhappy. She may squirt out a kid or two.

Matthew will recover from his spinal injury (oh come on? you really didn't see that coming?)

Mary will pine for him, and they may have an affair resulting in a child even though he will marry Lavinia and become/remain the heir (although I think we've not seen the last of Patrick Crawley).

But here's the thing that I think is going to happen soon:  Daisy married William only because he was dying--he wanted her to have his pension, but she doesn't want it because it feels immoral to her. I think she and the housekeeper (damn, what is her name? *I looked it up, it's Mrs. Hughes.) will conspire to give William's pension to Ethel, the wayward parlormaid with a baby and a dead baby-daddy. She'll probably move to london and assume William's last name. Problem solved for both. Guilt assuaged, needs met.

As for the preview from last night when Lady Cora becomes ill...not too sure what's going on there. Guess I'll have to tune in. So fun and exciting!

Why?

The holidays (i.e., Christmas and New Years), are over and all the bright, shiny, glittery, colorful, lit-up or sparkly is taken down. It's over. Back to regular dull everyday. And in my work life, it generally meant no more 3-day weekends until May. That was always a long-ass haul.

In Southern California, where I spent the bulk of my life, it also meant the beginning of the "grey weather." Rain usually started in January, picking up in February and March. Often, though, it just meant grey skies, naked trees, damp, "Storm Watch! Water is falling from the sky!" warnings from the talking heads on TV. And bad drivers. In LA, to a large percentage of the population, rain means "speed up."I always liked the rain, it was a change from the linked monotony of similar days of weather, sunny or grey--those are the only two choices in California.

In Nevada, January still means putting all the shiny away, but it usually also meant that there was snow on the ground. Snow that started in November or December, and more to come for January. I enjoyed winter in Reno last year a great deal. There's something magical--yes, that corny--about snowfall. About being tucked away, warm and safe, hot coffee in hand, a kitty on the lap, and the sweet powdery hush of snowfall. Snowdays are the perfect days to just "be."

And this year? Nothing. Zip. Very, very moderate snowfall last week that lasted less than 24-hours; a tiny bit of rain yesterday, and nothing but sunny, sunny, sunny, sunny on the horizon. Blah. Boring.

I want the snow. A big, fat, everyone-off-the-roads snowfall. And with the snowfall comes the feeling that the world has slowed down for just a moment, that I'll have an opportunity to catch up or even get ahead, because while it's snowing, there's nowhere else that I'd rather be than home, and although I'm here every day anyway, because I work here, too, snow somehow just makes it feel special. Every snowflake is whispering to me, "don't come outside; stay where you are; keep writing--you can do it."

I'm waiting on you, snow. It's February. Valentine's Day will soon be upon us, don't let me down. It's a new year, how about a nice cleansing snow? I'll be here.

FOR TODAY …  January 29, 2012

Outside My Window… Darkness, cold, and not a drop of snow.

I am thinking… About getting a NV driver license. That's right, I've held on to my CA license. For some reason, I just haven't wanted to give it up. Thinking about it.

From the kitchen… Dinners and lunches for R for the coming week:  Seven bean/rice/cheese/chicken burritos;  four containers of roasted potatoes with dill with baked chicken breasts w/barbecue sauce. Salad fixings.

I am wearing… Blue drawstring pants, a black short-sleeved cotton button-down shirt, no shoes, no bra.

I am creating… Time. I must manage my time better.

I am going… to meet a new client for lunch tomorrow. Cool.

I am reading… PLAYED by Barbara Freethy on Kindle. The first book of hers, TAKEN, intrigued me because she had re-released it as an ebook when the paper edition went out of print , along with the rest of her backlist, and has sold several million copies of her work. And one of her books was a #1 NY Times Bestseller. Since this is my biz, I wanted to support her. And the books are good, even though romance is not my genre. There is some mystery/detecting work in there, but they're just fun.

I am hoping… That nothing has gone awry with one of my clients. We've been trying to reach him for several weeks. I hope he is all right.

I am hearing… The heater blowing. Thank G*d. Guess who got cold? (Besides me. hee hee.)

Around the house… Needs tidying and a vaccuum, but it will get done when it gets done.

One of my favorite things… Kitties. Kittes everywhere.

A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week… Work, work, work, work, work. Take some stuff to the SPCA store. Get to bed early.

With thanks to the Simple Woman's Daybook.

After we left Badwater, we headed southeast toward Baker, CA. And by this time it was dark. And as I am wont to do like a baby in a car seat, is put my seat back and pass right out. Something about the rhythym of the car and the blackness out the window, and I fall asleep like I've been drugged.

I woke up a few hours later in the parking lot of a Bob's Big Boy with big appetites. We like Bob's. We used to go to the one in SoCal in Burbank all the time--24 hours. When I worked nights, we could get there in about 20 minutes from North Long Beach (aka "Compton."), where I lived. I once saw Drew Carey there, and there's a booth where the Beatles once sat, complete with commemorative plaque.

We hadn't eaten in about six hours, and we were huuuungry.

After we ate, we headed west to Orange County to visit R's folks in Huntington Beach. We arrived there about midnight. For some reason that could never be explained to me satisfactorily, my in-laws had the guest bedroom, and we were to sleep in their bedroom. I asked R why, and he said it was something about sheets, which made no sense, but whatever. We had a place to sleep. They have a tubular waterbed--tubes filled with water the length of the bed, and it was very warm and comfortable. Evidently it's great for people with fibromyalgia as it's easy on the joints.

We woke up late, schmoozed with my FIL for a while, then I begged to be taken to see the ocean and we went out. MIL was still in bed. So while we were out, we stopped at a chicken place we love--I'd like to re-create their chicken, it is SO good (lemon / garlic with lot's of paprika). Then we drove by the beach. Since R's mom wanted to open gifts that night, we couldn't stay long. I wanted to go for a walk, but the sun was going down (yes, we slept that late).

The mountains in the center are Catalina Island. I stepped out of the van and the very palpable and pungent smell of the ocean on that part of the coast ambushed my nose. The smell is composed of salt, kelp, and oil / tar (lot's of oil wells in Huntington Beach, and they stink. When I was growing up, we used to define bad odors as "smells like Long Beach." Lot's of oil/tar there, too.). The fragrance memory of that scent brought memories of my teens to the forefront of my thoughts--summer days when my friend Tammy and I used to bike to the beach almost every day, body surf, lay out, and work on our "tans." Well, Tammy did. I just got more freckly and burned. I spent most of my time in the water anyway. We also put "Sun-In" or lemon juice  in our hair to lighten it. Did you ever do that?

Anyway, then we went back to the in-laws, opened gifts, chatted, and then we all returned to our bedrooms, three of us with laptops, one with a book, and at 9am the next morning, we got up and left, heading back to Death Valley. The best visit I've ever had with my in-laws. :-D

It was a long drive to DV, and we were headed for Mosaic Canyon. We stopped at one point in DV off of the 190 to use their bathroom facilities, and as I stood outside, by myself, there was no sound. I could hear my heartbeat. Not even the wind was blowing. And I could see coyote and other tracks in the sand near the bathrooms.  It felt serene and scary at the same time. Part of me was suddenly hoping that the van--which had never given us one moment of doubt--would start.

At any rate, we get to Mosaic Canyon, and it's a 2 1/4 mile drive up an unpaved, rocky road, that had dried ruts in it from when it had rained, flash-flooded, and then dried. We almost turned around. But we made it.

Imagine my surprise that it was a 1/4 mile hike, uphill, just to get to the mouth of the slot canyon. But I sucked it up, perservered, and hiked that hill because dammit, I wanted to see that canyon. I was huffing and puffing--have no doubt--I have been having some issues going on with my lungs--I'm still on a steroid inhaler and am constantly clearing my throat and/or losing my voice (maybe a trip back to the doctor?), but the rest of me was fine. R. was a little ahead of me, and I had him take my picture at the entrance to the canyon. Behind me is the parking lot and more of DV desert.

And after that, the digital camera battery died. *groan*  So we punted and went with my BlackBerry camera, which, of course, I had with me despite there being no signal. R was much faster than me, so he charged ahead taking photos. I got about halfway through the Canyon before it became clear that more serious climbing was needed, and my bad knee just can't do it. So I had R snap my pic...

And he went on as I picked my way back to the car, trying not to fall on my ass (loose gravel). R. took a while showing up, and I started to panic thinking I'd have to hike up there and drag his body back down that canyon....but at last he appeared. And the following are the photos he took. They start after the first picture of me at the entrance to the canyon, to the turn around point, and then back down.

If you get a chance to go to Death Valley, I highly recommend it. I'm looking forward to going back.

If I don't find it soon, I'll start emailing the photos.

Cheers

With flash.

Without flash. It's really hard to get a perspective on just how big this place (and Death Valley in general) is, but if you look just over R's shoulder, you'll see two little black dots. Those are people.

It's blurry, and I took 3 snaps and none of them came out, so on full zoom, I got this little sign way up the side of this cliff--it says "Sea Level".

R. decided he wanted to walk out to the salt flats, and I got bored, so I walked down to the actual water area, which is a salt water that comes up through very porous limestone. It got it's name, actually, because a mapper who came through there had a horse who refused to drink the water and he put "bad water" on his map. It stuck.

So R and his iron legs took off toward the salt flats, and I was wandering around, looking at the water, which is evidently home to a snail and aquactic bugs and plants, reading the Nat'l Park signs posted. And I got bored. 

So I decided this was a good time to implement my New Year's direction to move my body more. And I started walking, down the boardwalk, and onto the salt-encrusted ground.

There were these cool holes in the ground where water seeped out into the limestone below. They reminded me of boiling mud pots at the Salton Sea, only dried up.

I just kept walking, keeping an even pace, and kept going even when my back started hurting. I could no longer see R, he was waaaaaaaay out there on the salt flats, and it was starting to feel like I wasn't getting any closer; the people at the edge of the flats weren't getting any bigger. Then suddenly I was there, and people were passing me going back to the parking lot because by now it was dark, and I saw R coming in off the flat so I waited for him. He was very surprised to see me so far from the car (nearly as surprised as I was). And I got him to take my picture.

I could almost be anywhere, really.

So I had him do it again. See that little white dot over my left shoulder? That's the headlight of the car parked next to us. I have no idea how far we walked, but the trip back seemed to take forever. R slowed his pace to stay by me, and we remarked on the "potholes," the salt, the elevation, the beauty, the quiet and how lucky we were to be there. Then we were at the boardwalk and up the stairs and back to our car. I spent some time trying to get the salt off my shoes before I got into the van, but it was not successful.

The blacktop parking lot had white salt tracks running parallel to every parking space where people had walked out onto the flats and then brought it back to their car. It was kind of funny.

So I hiked/walked. In Death Valley. *proud*