about the Vanderbilt family

as the last post ended my family was looking forward to a week long camping trip.
(continued from the last post)

Five days earlier…

We arrived in Salt Lake City mid afternoon. We had left Puerto Rico that morning, and were not looking forward to the four-hour ride to Moab ahead. After collecting our luggage, and browsing around the airport shops for a bit, we piled into a grey Escalade rental. At this point I suggested food. You’ll find that the two skinny people in our group are always the most hungry. Go figure.

The group decided not to go into Salt Lake and add more time onto the trip. We would stop somewhere along the way. We caught rush hour, and were stuck on the freeway for a while, before we saw any food exits. Finally, we saw a sign for a Chilli’s and some Italian restaurant called Ottavio’s. We chose the latter, but only because we couldn’t find the Chilli’s.

Inside the restaurant, when we asked for a table the waiter asked for a name.

“Izquierdo.” Said my mother.
“Izq… what???” Says the host
“Um… just José” She answered back

After that we decided we needed to figure out how we wanted to be called for the remainder of the trip. It would make things simpler, and we wouldn’t have people butchering our last name for the remainder of the trip. My mom’s older sister suggested we use Vanderbilt as our last name for the duration of the trip. Everyone seemed okay with it, so it was decided. I was a little concerned at the beginning, but decided it would be hilarious.

We spent the whole of the trip referring to ourselves as the Vanderbilt’s. It was hilarious. We would go to public places, and just start saying things like “We Vanderbilt’s, blah, blah, blah.” Or “as Vanderbilt’s we should act like blah, blah, blah.”

Towards the end of the trip, my mother asked me what the big deal was with that last name. I found out the reason no one had questioned the name was because, most of them had never heard of the Vanderbilt’s. Those of us who had, thought it was really funny, that they had chosen this name unknowingly.

It didn’t matter, though. We couldn’t have picked a more appropriate name for us during a camping trip. We did many unVanderbilty things that week. Then again, I’m sure there were another many things we did that made us seem like true Vanderbilt’s.

The Vanderbilts go camping...

As our journey down the Canyon began, I was a little skeptical about the trip. I wondered how my family members would survive a five-day camping trip. I mean these people consider anything less than a four star hotel with a pillow menu, “roughing it.” Yet there we were, my mother, her siblings, my 65-year old grandmother and myself, loading up and ready to spend a week sans running water, electricity, or cell phones. We would be spending the week on a paddleboat, cruising down the Colorado River until we reached the Cataract Canyon rapids.

The night before we had met with our guides for a briefing. One of the guides looked like a crazy guru wild nature man. He was Polynesian, with dark skin and slanted eyes. He had a beard that came down to his chest, single white hairs sprinkled about the black. The other guide was blond and fair skinned. He had blue skinned and an enormous beard also. He looked like the Unabomber. Neither of them had shaved in months, they looked like cool people, but I’m a hippie.

When my aunt saw them, she whispered, “JR, are you sure this is a serious company?” My uncle JR was the one who had planned the trip. He had chosen the same rafting company he had used on a previous trip. He had insisted that we needed a five-day trip, to get the full experience.

Now, I’m used to traveling in comfort. As I mentioned we all are. However, having recently graduated from college, I’ve definitely had to travel on a student budget, requiring some less than stellar accommodations. Also, I was looking forward to getting away from all the craziness that has been my life for the last couple of months.

Still the idea of using a metal box as a community crapper for five days, was a little more than I could handle. Furthermore, I was sure various members of my family would have a meltdown….

(to be continued)

Have you ever eaten the perfect peach?

Have you ever bitten into a juicy luscious ripe peach?
Have you ever smelled the aroma of a perfect peach?
Have your senses ever been completely taken over by it?
Have you experienced the ecstasy of that first bite?
Have you ever had that precious nectar spill down your chin and mouth?
Have you ever tasted the sweet tartness of its flavor?
Have you ever taken it greedily into your mouth, hoping you could save every drop?
Have you ever sucked at it till it was dry?
Have you ever liked your fingers with delight after it was done?

It’s really hard to find a perfect peach in Puerto Rico. We don’t have great weather for them. My mother bought some today, and I ate one before I wrote this. The peach was okay, it was a little dry and clearly it had been picked before it was ready. When this happens they don’t ever get that incredible depth in flavor that ripe peaches have. The peach was fine. It’s hard for me to dislike a peach. But this peach was a little disappointing, and I remembered a peach I had a few weeks ago. I was in San Francisco, at the time, and I had one of those perfect peaches at my college roommate’s house. California has great peaches… Sigh….