Girls Weekend 24, October 23, 2021

After a somewhat restful sleep, we were both up this morning by 6:30. I say “somewhat” because while our king-sized beds are quite comfy, with lovely, crisp sheets and nice, firm mattresses, this place is kind of noisy. Yes, I know. I live on College Avenue, and what with all the fire trucks, ambulances, people out and about, and now drag racing going on (ugh!), my home is not exactly a mecca of peaceful tranquility at night, but my brain has catalogued and subsequently dismissed those sounds, and I almost always sleep through them. However, here, there are two huge dogs, a Rottweiler and some kind of Akita mix, penned up in the yard next to us, right outside my window. They are outside 24/7 and NEVER in the house, which makes me sad. They do not bark constantly, but there are definitely sessions of loud talking between the two of them during the night. And they bay at any sirens. I do NOT hear the sirens (refer to the College Ave statement), but I do hear the baying, and the barking at whatever nocturnal creature ventures into their lair. Meanwhile, Lori has been awakened a couple of times on each of the two nights we’ve been here so far, by a very loud cricket that has taken up lodging in our bathroom. We cannot find him, and when she gets up out of bed to go locate him, he of course stops chirping. In general, though, we have been resting pretty well here.

 We had an extremely leisurely morning. We thought we were supposed to be at our first appointment at noon but found out that we were scheduled for 3:00 instead. We spent the morning in the normal fashion, enjoying coffee, breakfast a la carte, researching, journaling, and sorting pictures. This is a bit easier said than done in this apartment. This Airbnb leaves something to be desired, for sure. It’s certainly nice enough—it is clean and neat. The decorative touches are sparse and somewhat pallid, but that’s OK. There are several plastic plants…I hate plastic plants, but I wouldn’t call them offensive. Outside there is a nice courtyard and a security gate, and we have a designated parking spot for our car. All good things. However, the aforementioned comfortable beds and the copious clothing drawer and closet space are pretty much the end of the available acceptable furnishings. Where this place takes a nosedive is in the furniture department. The furniture, in a word, sucks. It is utilitarian and broadly uncomfortable, and there is not nearly enough of it.

 In the living room there is a 44” relatively new color TV…OK, but the remote control is crap and seems to only be remote without controlling anything. Directly under the TV is a nice-sized desk accompanied by a chair that could be mistaken for a rock, it’s so hard. The desk is actually very conveniently placed, as my laptop lives there, and I have connected it to the television through my HDMI cable (without which I never leave the house) and this way we can stream TV shows and watch them on the big screen. It is far less frustrating to have to get up to pause the show from my laptop than it is to wrestle and have my fingers cramp up from trying to press buttons on the from-hell remote (and no, it’s not the batteries, although if it were, we would have to replace them ourselves. More on that in a bit.)

 There are four more items in the living room (aside from the fake plants): an armless futon, an almost worthless small round end table (maybe 12” in diameter), an armless faux leather chair and a small faux leather hassock. That’s it. No coffee table or serviceable end tables, no place to rest drinks or “nesting” accessories—you know, phones, tablets, knitting, books, whatever you’ve brought with which to surround yourself. The chair is OK, it’s pretty sturdy, and with your feet up on the hassock even somewhat comfy. And at least it’s wide enough to catch your arms on the seat after you have fruitlessly searched for sides to the chair, found none, and then just allowed them to fall at your sides. But the futon? Oh, boy. The futon is likely one of the most uncomfortable seating places I have experienced outside of a train station or surgical waiting room. The wooden frame is built so that a huge hard beam goes right down the center of the structure, therefore meaning that if you sit in the middle, you have a wooden rod through your butt crack. And with no tables or TV trays or ottomans or anything to help you get settled, you’re left sitting up very much like an attentive student in class. This is NOT relaxing.

 Lori came up with a solution yesterday. She went and got the ironing board, arranged it to be close to the ground, and voila! A coffee table. She looks hilarious sitting there working on her tablet, perched on the end of the torturous futon, looking very much like Peanuts’ Schroeder in mid-recital.

Added to all of this, the kitchen is under-stocked with supplies. There are only huge soup spoons but no regular sized spoons (so we are saving every plastic spoon we come across), no measuring spoons, no larger serving bowls, a teeny trial sized bottle of dishwashing liquid, and one roll of paper towels. There are no additional garbage bags, and the trash can is the kind that holds small bags. We filled it in one day. The bathroom does have a few rolls of toilet paper, but it’s single ply and a corn cob would feel nicer. There is one tiny cake of soap, no facial tissues, and a bottle of hand soap that was only ¼ full. On the desk in the living room is a sign that informs us that the provided supplies “may not be enough for your entire stay and you may need to purchase additional supplies.” You think?? Therefore, at about 11:30 am, after taking inventory of all of this, we returned to the grocery store to buy the items that should have been provided by GOOD hosts. After returning and putting it all away, we left again, on our way to the Integratron to enjoy a sound bath, one of the most unique experiences we have ever had.

 

The Integratron (in-TEG-ra-TRON) is located in Landers, California, about an hour drive from our Airbnb. It was created by George Van Tassel (1910-1978), who claimed that the structure is based on the design of Moses’ Tabernacle, the writings of Nikola Tesla, and telepathic directions from extraterrestrials. George, who was an aeronautical engineer, was spending a lot of time in a friend’s abandoned rooms, hewn out under a giant rock in the California desert (another story I won’t go into right now) when he was awakened by a visitor named Solganda. Solganda, who was 700 years old (but only looked to be about 28, according to van Tassel), was a Venutian (i.e., an alien from Venus) and took van Tassel onto his spacecraft. During the visit, van Tassel was informed that Earthlings’ reliance on metal building materials was interfering with radio frequencies and disrupting interplanetary “thought transfers.” Solganda also handed van Tassel a secret formula that he could use to build a remarkable machine. This device would generate electrostatic energy to suspend the laws of gravity, extend human life, and facilitate high-speed time travel.

 This happened in August of 1953. Van Tassel spent the next 18 years constructing the Integratron, a one-of-a-kind 38-foot high, 55-foot diameter, all wood dome built on an intersection of powerful geomagnetic forces that, when focused by the unique geometry of the building, concentrate and amplify the earth’s magnetic field. Magnetometers read a significant spike in the earth’s magnetic field in the center of the Integratron. Van Tassel dropped dead of a heart attack when his plans were 95% completed. Since no one else knew the secret formula, the structure was never completed to perform its main function.

 In 2000, the Integratron was purchased by three sisters who had been part of the restoration and maintenance of the structure and property for more than 30 years. They worked to restore and preserve the structure while sharing its amazing acoustical properties with the world via the Integratron Sound Bath, which appears to have been a brilliant idea. A sound bath, as described on the Integratron website, is “an unforgettable sound experience for those who seek deep relaxation, rejuvenation, and introspection. All Sound Baths are 60-minute sonic healing sessions that consist of: a brief introduction to the Integratron and its history and sound qualities, 35 minutes of 20 quartz crystal singing bowls played live, and the balance of the hour to integrate the sound and relax in the sound chamber to ambient music. You will be resting comfortably in the deeply resonant, multi-wave sound chamber while a sequence of quartz crystal singing bowls are played.  Each bowl is keyed to the energy centers or chakras of the body, where sound is nutrition for the nervous system. The results are waves of peace, heightened awareness, and relaxation of the mind and body.”

Lori and I of course had to experience this. So, we and about 25 other peace and relaxation seekers entered the Integratron at the appointed time, removed our shoes on the lower level and climbed the stairs to the second level, a large open, gorgeous circular space capped by the dome. We were given clean sheets which we spread over mats on the floor and lay down to enjoy our sound bath. A middle-aged, desert hippie with a long braid, who was a retired massage therapist and who had been taught to play quartz bowls by his grandmother, sat surrounded by about 15 or 20 white bowls of varying sizes, tuned to different notes. Think running your finger around the rim of wine glasses filled with different levels of water, but on steroids, and with mallets. We were told we would be elevated or sunken to different depths of consciousness and able to connect with our bodies and interplanetary rhythms. I took that to mean I would get a great nap, which indeed is what happened. The sounds emanating from the bowls was surprisingly loud and did indeed seem to sink into our minds and bodies. Lori did not go to sleep, and therefore might be able to tell you more about the 25 minutes of bowl playing. We both definitely found it to be an amazing, unique, and wonderful experience.

 

The grounds surrounding the Integratron were fun. There were several different seating areas, including a grouping of hammocks, some couches, some chairs, a couple of firepits, and several unisex bathrooms labeled “Mars”, “Venus”, and “Peace”.


There was a lot of very interesting “yard art” made from all kinds of fun things, including old, rusted garden implements, wooden items, old washboards, etc. These things had been incorporated into fountains and landscaping. We loved it. When we finally left if was 5:30 pm. We wanted to get to JTNP to experience the sunset, which was at 6:01, so we had to hustle to get into the park and find good observation spots.

We entered the park through the west entrance this time, drove in for a while, and just decided to pull over at a spot where the colors from the sunset appeared to be good. I (of course) climbed some rocks while Lori stayed at ground level, and we photographed a lot of the surrounding area. The changing colors were so gorgeous as darkness descended. We decided to stick around to look at the stars and spent another hour in the park. By this time, it was very dark and quite chilly, so after trying some artsy photo shots using “light bathing”, which is basically using the car’s headlights to illuminate the landscape, we called it a day and drove the 45 minutes back to our apartment.

 

I went to work on Friday’s journal entry while Lori worked on her pictures. After our long day of relaxing sound bathing followed by lots of fresh desert air, Lori could barely keep her eyes open. No TV watching for us tonight! Lori went to bed and straight to sleep, and I followed as soon as the journal entry for the previous day was completed. I was careful to close the bathroom door before I went to bed in an effort to mute Lori’s cricket buddy and we both experienced our first night of straight-through sleep with no dog barking or cricket chirping. We did, however, forget to toss the states. Oops!

 

Many of you have been asking for pictures, so here is a link to google photos album I created, with a selection from the myriad photos we have taken. I hope you enjoy them! https://photos.app.goo.gl/AumPddB8y7isDRMA7