Tornados, RV parks and the City of New Orleans

We are in Scottsdale, Arizona visiting my Mom who has recently moved here after 30 years in San Diego. She moved here because San Diego wasn’t hot enough for her and when you have arthritis, deep penetrating desert warmth is what you would sell your best milking cow - or your condo in San Diego - for.

(“Your best milking cow…” Where did that farm analogy come from? Clearly I have been spending a little too much time in rural areas and watching re-runs of The Walton’s.)

It has been uncharacteristically cold and rainy since we arrived in Scottsdale and tonight there is a severe weather warning with the chance of tornados. I have a new relationship with tornados now that we don’t have a root cellar to climb down into from the RV. And - let’s call it like it is – tornados have homing devices for RV’s and trailer parks. Growing up in Minnesota I am all too familiar with the sirens that ring out signaling a tornado warning and the importance of getting into the basement ASAP. When I was a kid I would consol myself knowing that we would be safe because we were in the basement and besides, the tornados would go for the trailer parks and who cared about those people anyway? I didn’t even know anyone who lived in a trailer park. Needless to say, I have a different view of the situation now.

At 10 pm tonight the tornado warning was down graded to mere Flash Floods so we felt comfortable hitting the road and packed up the three bags of clean laundry we had done at Mom’s place, along with the 14 new books we checked out from her local public library called, exotically, The Arabian Branch. We bundled Simon up in his spaceman pajamas, loaded Josh down with bags, and headed out in Mom’s car to the cheap hotel we are staying at a 20 minute drive down the freeway. We aren’t staying at an RV park because, according to Steve at the OK Corral RV Park, “We booked up months ago cause of the car show.” I was kind of waiting for him to add, “Asshole” to the end of that sentence or at least, “duh.” Like I was supposed to know about The Car Show? My question is, “What are RV drivers doing at a CAR show? Traitors.”

So here we are – 10:30 pm on a Thursday night at the Bell Motel located next to the Self Storage facility along side Highway 17 in a torrential rain storm. Mom's car is parked alongs side the Big Pig. As we walked in our room the carpet was all squishy from the rain seeping in under the door.

Simon is having trouble falling asleep because he is scared of tornados, Josh is hiding under the covers playing on his I Touch, Evan just disappeared to the hotel office in search of the free popcorn. We have been moving around so much these past 3 weeks since we left Santa Monica (Anaheim, Big Bear, Joshua Tree, Kingman, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon) I am feeling like a micro waved bag of popcorn after about two and a half minutes on high – we have been bopping around so much.

Simon has just crawled into bed with me bringing with him his three stuffed animals. A bear, a panda and a turtle. These are the mainstays. The beds change, the cities change but he still has his spaceman pajamas, his stuffed animals, and the song I sing. His song. City of New Orleans by Steve Goodman. I have sung this song to him - yes, all three verses - most every night since he was 2. He is now 8. 6 years x 365 days = 2190 times singing City of New Orleans.

I normally don’t hear the words I sing anymore. Tonight I did. Appropriately, a song about travel. 926 miles worth of travel from Chicago to New Orleans. “Mama’s with their babes asleep rocking to the gentle beat…and the rhythm of the rails is all they feel.” I suppose after 7 months on the road we do have a rhythm. Sometimes it is the tapping of the keys on the computer, sometimes it is the packing and repacking, but mostly it is the constant movement. Simon is now asleep lying against me as I type. His steady breathing is a comfort to me just as my singing the same song to him each night nomatter where we are is to him.

“Goodnight America, how are ya? Don’t ya know me; I’m your native son. I’m a train they call The City of New Orleans. I’ll have gone five hundred miles before the days done. ”