Peruvian Halloween

With Turkey day nearly upon us, we have little time to spare before the report about our amazing Peruvian Halloween festivities turns from very late to very irrelevant.

Since we left the country for unfamiliar territory mid-October, Melissa and Lana had the foresight to stage an early trick-or-treat session in my in-laws' Lindon neighborhood before we left. Don and Lana's neighbors were really great sports to allow our girls to shake them down for candy (that we had given them beforehand) ten days before the actual holiday.

Much to our delight, though, we learned that Peruvians also celebrate Halloween, and it appears to essentially have been co-opted from the American holiday and adapted to work for them. The kids here also dress in costumes, and our girls were giddy to find some basic ones in the market that, at $5 each, seemed like a real steal.

Trick-or-treating also happens, although I never once heard the actual words exchanged between the kids and the extorted adults among the chatter. I guess they skipped that part and let their bags do the talking. The only big difference was that, rather than go door-to-door through the neighborhoods, kids actually make the trick-or-treating ritual happen at the retail businesses in the town center. So, off we went, from the barbershop, to the pharmacy, to the mobile phone store, to the lingerie shop, to the appliance store, then the plasticeria (my favorite name ever for a store that sells cheap plastic crap!)










After investing a few initial awkward minutes in this new routine, the girls seemed completely in their element. They were ecstatic, raking in the candy and mixing it up with all of the local kids.

On Candy Patrol

Melee in the bric-a-brac store.

Trick-or-Treating at...the pharmacy???

....and what could go better with prescription drugs? Hooch!
Off to the liquor store, then!

 Then, once we had completed our circuit through the town business district, we parked it on the stairs outside the cathedral to soak up the chaos of the town plaza and count candy. It was sublime.

The team after the big game.

Another thing that was a different that night was that folks were gearing up to celebrate All Saints Day (1 November) and Day of the Dead (2 November). Specifically, the bakeries had made this special once-a-year sweat bread for the occasion, shaped and decorated like either swaddled babies or horses. So, having been informed about this tradition, we made sure to have the girls pick out their favorite loaf for the next day's enjoyment. Cheapskate that I am, I had fully expected to be the one stuck eating all of this bread once it was no longer a novelty (Mom-nivore). However, after a session of clobbering each other over the head with it, I was surprised to see that the girls actually enjoyed consuming the bread. So I only ended up having to eat about 3/4 of it instead.









It was a Halloween like none other, never to be forgotten...although I must say I was a little bitter that there weren't any Reeses to swipe from the girls' bags that night after bedtime. Doesn't anyone look out for the parents around here???

Home Sweet Home!

La Valle Sagrado from above our house

Things always seem to work out...eventually.

Before we left the States, I had spent a lot of time on line trying to find a house to rent once we arrived in the Sacred Valley. Once here, though, the worry continued as we made phone calls and drove from town to town in a rental car looking at posted bulletin board classified notices in each town square. Finally I stayed up late one night going through all of the online Peruvian classified ads and made a comprehensive list of every single house listing available. Most did not seem like very good choices, but they were choices nonetheless. After all, although we loved staying at La Capilla Lodge, we can't afford to live in a hotel for five months.

The next day, we sat down and started making phone calls. Rhomina, our awesome innkeeper and semi-voluntary consigliere, offered to help us make them. We sat down and went through the list, crossing off options as our options narrowed.

We landed a few appointments, but things were not looking too promising. After we called the last number Rhomina looked at us and said, “I know of a house nearby, but I think it is too small for you.” Little did she know that we were looking for something simple.

“What??,” we said. “Small sounds perfect!”. She said that she hesitated to tell us about the home because she wasn't sure it was available and didn't want us to get our hopes up. I am not sure why she waited so long to tell us about it, but perhaps she just forgot about the home until that moment. Or, maybe, it may have been that she was waiting to be sure we weren't crazy, since living in the home would make us neighbors. (They may now regret showing us the house, as we have since pestered them with all sorts of questions about the area, phones, internet, the market, the taxis, etc. and they have now threatened to impose a limit of only two questions per day on us, and I don't blame them for it.) Anyway, we threw on our shoes and headed out that minute to take a look at this new prospect.

We walked down a small trail that led to an even smaller trail heading up the hill past tiny fields and houses. So far it seemed perfect. On the way she stopped by the owner's house and found out that the home was still available, so the owner joined us with the key. We arrived at a little door that entered into a walled garden. As she opened the door it was immediately clear that this was going to be our home.

The smell. Flowers and blooming trees welcomed us into this little oasis among the fields and forests. It has this perfect little yard and the girls already looked right at home running around on the grass and climbing on the rocks. The kitchen was big, fully stocked, and inviting. Beyond the spacious kitchen, there are two rooms: one is a roomy bedroom that was fully furnished and connected to a beautiful bathroom with a big walk-in shower, then there is another room that is up a few stairs and it has a little fireplace in it (it will double well as a guest room for anyone that would like to come visit. Hint. Hint.). I wanted to cry. It was all perfect.

We were so emotional about the house, we didn't even care that there was no clothes washer, although with three kids that love both playing in dirt and displaying on their shirts a portion of each course of every meal, we sure should have been worried. Luckily, though, Rhomina negotiated on our behalf, persuading the owners to agree to install a washing machine if we paid the first two months up front to cover the costs. So not only did we get the most awesome fully-furnished house with the most amazing garden, pressurized hot water, but we also got a new washing machine to boot. We have it all. (Although Travis has determined that you can only say “have it all” if there is a dishwasher. After only 10 days he has determined that doing dishes is for the birds...)

Travis at the keyboard now, interjecting to brag on Melissa for a paragraph. As it happens, overconfidence in my iron stomach has usually led me to comfortably hit the local menu wherever we travel and drink the tap water fairly carelessly. This trip, though, my relaxed approach to G.I. tract concerns came home to roost fairly swiftly, and sent me on a number of middle-of-the-night scrambles to head on the eve of our big move to the new house. With me bedridden, and with only the aid of a rickety wheelbarrow, Melissa hauled all of our luggage over rough and rocky terrain from the hotel to our new pad. It was truly a humbling experience to be of so little help when there was so much to do, but I'm so grateful that my girl is such a trooper. Must be her spartan pioneer heritage.

Welcome to our new home:

We have been loving the house so much, we haven't felt much need to leave. Each day we try to do school with the girls, read books, hike up the trails that are right outside our door, and venture into town to stroll around and hit the market. It feels so good to slow down. We haven't had very good internet access, though, which has allowed us to disconnect and unplug (the grandparents might not agree, as they have been waiting patiently to Skype with us.) It has been great to just spend time as a family without all the distractions we left back in the States. This was exactly why we came here and we just laugh at how well it has all come together.

Walled garden area

Our hiking mountain in the background

Now settled into our new digs, we want this mellow vibe to last. Hopefully we won't soon be posting cryptic S.O.S. messages begging for someone to free us from all this “family time”. Can you get sick of the people you love the most?

Flying South for the Winter

If you aren't already aware, Melissa and I are famous for packing heavy for every adventure. We definitely need our camping gear, but what if we get a chance to do some rock climbing? And what about the possibility of winter mountaineering with our three year old? Or scuba diving? Or a jungle trek on the back of an anaconda? Did you remember to pack the anaconda saddle and bridle? You get the picture.

Carry-on Caravan

Lola doing some last-minute window shopping.

So, although we tried to show some restraint in our packing, what with the gear, school stuff, pharmacy, and taco seasoning in tow, we managed to stuff each piece of luggage to the maximum allowable weight limit. In other words, keep an eye out for the occasional FedEx parcel headed your direction as we return whatever excess crap we don't jettison here. I suppose we'll need to make space for trinkets and alpaca wool products. One thing I can certainly say is that the SLC Sky Caps were a real godsend.

Harper and Lola overcome with the magic of flight.

The months of planning and weeks of packing all paid off the instant our wide-eyed girls took their seats in the airplane. I had the joy of reliving the wonderment of my first flight, this time through their eyes. It was absolutely exhilarating for them, at least for the first few minutes, that is. Once the novelty of jetting through the clouds wore off, though, the girls moved swiftly to the gadgets around their seats. I remember how bored I ended up on that first flight to Orlando and my mom trying to keep us pressurized with Dentyne and entertained with playing cards but, this time, over the next thirteen hours, I sure was glad for all of the new on-board technological distractions there for our nippers.

Vagrant Camp, Lima International Airport

One observation that we made in planning this trip was that air traffic to Latin America seems pretty Gringo-centric, in that flights tend to leave and arrive in the States at really convenient times, but at very inconvenient ones down south. For our part, we touched down in Lima just before midnight. This challenge was compounded by the fact that most Lima-Cusco flights happen early in the morning to avoid dangerous thermodynamics that prevail when landing at 10,500 ft later in the day. Given these two tough flight times, we decided to try and make lemonade out of lemons by spending the night in the Lima airport like war refugees and save ourselves the hassle and expense of venturing into Lima. In younger years, Melissa and I have both lived the adventure of trying to get some shuteye while being shoved around European train stations all night by over-diligent train cops. But, this time, we were fortunate to find ourselves in a spot where sleeping in the terminal was not only allowed, but actually pretty popular with the locals. So, although the two of us ended up with a lousy night's sleep, we managed to duck into a darker corner of the airport and set up some fine accommodations for the girls atop our splayed-out luggage:

Harper's recent journal entry seems to have described the hazy, sleep-deprived scene perfectly:

“Ahhhhh!!”The next morning I heard screeching and whoke up. “What is it?” I said in confushon. I opened my eyes and saw that it was just people walking (pulling their luggage). “Mom, your sleeping on a chairrr! Oh yes, we're at the airport!” I said. Then I noticed that Norah, my sister, was awake, to. We both giggled.

“Where are we?” Norah and me said at the same time. We giggled again.

“Oh ya, we're at the airport,” I said.

“Why did you say that?” Norah asked.

“I forgot we were at the airport. Did you hear the screeching?”

“Yes, and I whoke up and notised that you were awake.”

“No wonder” I said.

“Harper!!!!” and finaly my other sister Clover had to wake up and she jumped on me a lot.

The third and final leg of the flight was fairly uneventful, and we landed in Cusco to a milder tout scene than I was expecting. Rather than a horde of locals fighting over who got to overcharge us to haul our luggage around, two fairly polite guys sidled in next to us at the baggage carousel and helped us to an awaiting taxi driver, whether we liked it or not. Not surprisingly, though, what I considered to be a generous tip for their unsolicited five minutes of standing around with us at the baggage carousel and one minute of pushing a cart didn't satisfy them. I suspect that no amount of baksheesh would have met their approval but, as one who works for gratuities, the shakedown still gave me The Guilts.

Anyway, we managed to squeeze all of our stuff into the minivan taxi and we began our hair-raising adventure through the streets of Cusco and beyond to the Sacred Valley of the Incas, about an hour away. For those of you who haven't had the joy of a second- or third-world taxi experience, picture Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, except, rather than bouncing through verdant rural English villages, imagine a dusty, high-speed, white-knuckle game of “chicken” with every wheeled vehicle imaginable, folks of every size and shape, and every domestic animal ever domesticated, including the chickens themselves. Sadly, though, despite my enthusiasm for it, the sleep-deprived Pearce girls were so catatonic that they could hardly appreciate the magnitude of the adventure. For my part, although I did manage to enjoy the ride immensely, I spent the time trying to keep the girls upright in their seats to maintain their airway. It sure is great to again be back outside the States to slather myself in the sloppy chaos that is Peru.

Zombies in the back seat...

The farm life of a single mother, by Melissa.

With most of our belongings in storage, we headed to Escalante towing a gigantic snow mobile trailer full of stuff. Wait, what? How is it possible that we have so much stuff?? We have things spread all over town in every storage space we can commandeer. Yet still, I ended up pulling up to the farm house with my in-law's trailer full of stuff. Luckily the trailer also came with in-laws to help me unload it, then I spent the next few weeks settling in to the new crib with some help from my folks while Travis was on the water.

We had already come down a few weeks before to get a few things in order. We plowed and tilled the garden space after I went crazy on the entire weed patch with a blowtorch (which felt quite powerful, but left me very smokey by the end of the project). Grandma and the girls helped me prepare the bed for planting and Travis found us a truck full of turkey $h!t to give us those extra nutrients and flavors. Then we planted plants and seeds. All that remained was a sprinkler, a timer, and some prayers. Weeks later we showed up to a lot of weeds. When the weeds were cleared, a garden appeared!! I must have a little bit of Grandma June making my thumb greenish.

I quickly found growing food to be a lot of fun, but growing weeds...not so much. At first the girls found it to be an exciting adventure to go help mom pick weeds, but that faded quickly as you can expect. My mom gave me some good advice to weed one row a day, which worked really well...for about a week. Towards the end, I decided that the weeds just gave the place character. I could still get to the food and things were still growing.

Next year I will learn how to use everything from the garden. I spent most of harvest time threatening people to come and pick stuff. The old ladies across the street were easily convinced that if they would just cooperate and eat my veggies, then we wouldn't have any trouble. Now if Grandma June could only help me can and preserve everything next time...

We quickly grew accustomed to small town living on a farm. We got chickens, which the girls named Snowflake, Oreo, Rosie, Bandit, and Mangy, and the girls proved to be pretty amazing chicken catchers. They would let the chickens out then spend the next half hour chasing them through the pasture and around in the barn until they caught them all. Repeat. I am not sure what Clover's technique was, but she would be out in the coop for a long time and more than a few times I would find her with a chicken just laying in her lap. Each time I would check to see if the chicken was alive because this was not normal behavior. When asked what she was doing she would give cryptic clues like, “ I wasn't holding the chicken by it's tail, mama” and “chickens like to be upside down.” Still, the chickens stuck around and seemed happy to have the girls hang with them and maul them.

The cows are another story. Travis has determined that cows are the dumbest animal to walk the earth, but I thought the cows were entertaining. We had two mostly grown calves that were very curious and playful. Someone in town owned them and we let them graze in our field. If you were in the pasture, they had to be in your business. I spent 15 minutes thoroughly entertained by the interaction between my dad and the cows. He was trying to burn some branches and the cows would not leave him alone. They took his newspaper out of his hand and ate it, then tried for his hat. After a while my dad gave up and sat in a chair he had brought out, only to have the cows surround him with their faces right in his.

Pioneer Day Parade

Tour of Utah

Lola pedals on her own!

We had a lot of fun living the small town life. We met some great friends who welcomed us right into the community and we had some great adventures: swimming in the reservoir, hiking in the desert, playing at calf creek, and living the dream in one of the best little towns ever. I am hoping it will work out to go back again next summer. We were just getting settled in when our time ended, plus I don't want to have to move all that stuff again!!

First Stop: Escalante (more re-cap)

What does it take to run away from it all? Is “dropping out” a luxury reserved only for beatniks, bums, and the independently wealthy? In spite of our non-trust fund status, we decided to find a way to make it work. A fellow river guide and former VW resident used to freely pronounce his formula for financial independence: “Cut costs, increase income!” Well, walking away from my square job certainly went the wrong direction in this respect! But taking on a full river season certainly had the potential to fill the coffers with cash tips, and Western was, as always, really great to find room in the launch schedule for an aging has-been river guide. They even offered Melissa a couple trips to boot!

So, increasing income was something we could pull off for a few months, but how to cut costs? Well, why not rent out our house and go homeless during the river season? Sounds like super responsible parenting, right? Actually, the kismet of the plan was that Melissa has always dreamed of moving to the Liston family farm house in Escalante, which tends to sit vacant most of the year anyway. So, with my profoundly kind in-laws allowing us to move into the home, we managed to hit a small flock of birds with one stone: a little rental income from our Sugarhouse home, greatly reduced housing costs in Escalante, a far shorter commute to Grand Canyon, and a dream come true in the country for Melissa. Costs cut? Check.

On 8 June 2014, we moved the last of our stuff out of our beloved home on Elm Avenue, only a few days after Harper and Norah ended their school year and joined the freakish ranks of the home-schooled. Notwithstanding the move out of town, our hearts remained very much with our dear friends in the neighborhood and congregation. My folks were also very kind to help us move our stuff south, since I had to rig a trip the next day and wouldn't be any help to Melissa. In fact, this theme of not being much help around the farm became my hallmark for the next four months, as I spent most of my time away from home and family working in The Ditch. It was awful being away from Melissa and the girls, but the season was plenty fun, lucrative, and, fortunately, injury-free. With the season now behind us, I get to cash in and spend lots of time with my people!

I will yield and allow Melissa to chime in here about their time in Escalante this summer if she wants, because it was a great experience for both her and the girls. Having been away so much, I'm not exactly sure how they spent every minute, but I do know that there were many fun excursions in the desert, child prodigy bicycle mastery, harrowing adventures with cows and chickens, and Melissa's corn ended up higher than any other garden in town. Not bad for a city-slicker! One thing I can say from my experience in Escalante this summer is that I couldn't have imagined living in a more friendly town and around such kind and welcoming neighbors. It was really comforting to know how loved and cared for Melissa and the girls were while I was away from them. Thanks, Escalante!

Introduction: You're doing what?!?

If you are reading this blog, the assumption is that you are, at least for now, an interested friend or an otherwise obligated family member trying to keep up with us. Sorry if I get verbose, but while this blog is meant to be a way to stay in touch with the folks back home, it is also intended to be a trip log and a chapter in our family history. So, if you get bored with my rambling, you may want to dial down to simply following our occasional Facebook posts.

While this may be rehash for some, it might be helpful to you newcomers to recap the decisions and events that have taken us to South America for the next few months. I guess this whole story might find its origins in us having been spoiled by a dream job in Grand Canyon that allowed us so much flexibility and freedom in the off-season for so many years. Simply put, no other job seems to compare to floating on a boat for money. Backing away from that career and diving into public sector real estate development for the past eight years has been really rewarding, and might be so again someday, but I think we both knew deep down that nine-to-five work wasn't something that will make us happy in the long term. With my work keeping me away from home so much, we found that the only times I was around were those stressful hours in the morning rush and the often more stressful hours getting the girls to bed at night. The father that I was to our girls was not the guy I wanted them to remember, and my SLC property management position, although challenging and stimulating, was proving to be a dead-end career path. We have a number entrepreneurial ideas and prospects we have wanted to pursue but, with us so deep entrenched in the daily grind, there never seemed to be any time to put them through any sort of informed analysis or scrutiny. We decided that we needed to change our trajectory before I missed some of the most meaningful experiences of our girls' childhood and ended up a career bureaucrat. So we came up with a plan that we named “The Hard Reset”. God and budget willing, this plan puts us on a family adventure for the next year or so, taking us from Salt Lake to Escalante, to Peru, and who knows where else, while we work through how to begin the next chapter, career-wise.

Unconventional? Selfish? Reckless? Guilty as charged, I suppose. But, one day, our girls will be grown and may not want as much to do with us. Now is our time to start putting more energy into our family, because every minute we have is lived on borrowed breath. I hope this doesn't sound fatalistic but, having lost two of our best friends over the past three years, this point has been driven home in technicolor. Both Jim and Jonathan left wonderful partners and beautiful daughters in very sudden and tragic ways. If this is somehow to also be my fate (or hers, gulp), hopefully we will have locked up a mountain of cherished memories and experiences together. Meanwhile, we will keep taking our vitamins and wearing our life jackets!