I came back here with the basic outline of an idea that I wanted to try and convince Molly and Samantha about. When I woke up this morning, I had no idea how I was going to sell it to them, but knew I had to try. I haven’t been completely forthcoming about all the traveling I’ve been doing, but I’m going to have to tell them.

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been able to travel both backward and forward in time. My trips to the future are short, and as long as they’re within a couple weeks of the date I’m “tethered” to, they are not terribly uncomfortable. But, if I travel more than a year or so into the future, it becomes very difficult. Painful. There’s a barely sub-audible “screeching” that I can’t quite hear, but which tears around inside my head, and is so disconcerting that snapping back to the time from which I departed is a blessed relief.

Though I haven’t exactly gotten used to the discomfort, I’ve become increasingly able to stand it, and on a couple occasions, actually stay put in the future for a couple hours. Let me just say this:

The future is not pretty.

At least not the one I’ve been to. War and economic collapse have ravaged that future. Even in the U.S., times are very tough, more difficult than at any time in our country’s history. And that future, which is not necessarily the one we here are on track to suffer, is not far off. Not far off at all.

There are so many different theories about how time travel is possible, and what form it would take if it were to somehow occur. I’ve personally experienced two types of travel myself, three if you count traveling to the future. When I went back to the 70s, it was clearly a different timeline that I traveled. Nothing that happened there had any effect on today, here. But my trip to 1933 Indiana clearly had effect here, and it appears to be the same (or a very, very close – almost identical) timeline. My trips to the terrible future I’ve seen may well be one of a myriad of possible futures. I’ve traveled seven times to the future, and my destinations all seem to be the same timeline. But, I refuse to accept that that one is the only possible timeline for this world. I just think it happens to be the one I am locked into traveling to.

Don’t get me wrong. All life doesn’t end. Armageddon doesn’t seem to occur. Life still goes on, it’s just really, really dark and depressing, when compared to world we live in, even today. I think that if I wanted to, I could stay anchored here in 2009, but I don’t want to. I don’t want my family to stay here. I want us all to go back to the past from which I came. America in the late 1930s is an interesting time and place, we will know what to expect from life here, and most important, it’s a long way from the dark future I’ve seen.

My goal coming back here was to take Molly and Samantha back with me. I have seen some evidence that I am successful in that.

More, later.

Dan’s mother, Samantha arrived last night, her driver, Christopher dropping her off, bringing her bags in the house and after politely refusing to stay for dinner, left. I’d heard of Christopher, but had never met him. Dan told us that he’d grown up with the family, his mother had been a long-time employee and when she passed away while Christopher was in high school, he’d stayed living with them, finishing high school and then going into the military for 4 years. He’d been Samantha’s driver and personal assistant since getting out of the Army, some 8 years ago, but I don’t know much more.

Samantha looks great, and says she feels the same. Dan, Rich and I walked outside when we heard her Mercedes pull up, tires crunching on the driveway, and she didn’t wait for Christopher to open her door, but instead did it herself and got out of the car. I got to her first, and hugged her, feeling her surprisingly strong embrace in response. When she let me go, I was surprised to see her eyes moist as they looked straight into mine. She seemed to catch herself then, and stepped over to hug Rich.

“Hello traveler,” she said, a small smile on her face, incongruous to her voice, which was ever so slightly choked. I didn’t really know what to make of all this, I’m assuming she’s been reading the blog and has gotten caught up in the story, as so many readers have. Many of the emails we get are touching, and it never fails to surprise us that so many complete strangers really care about what’s happening to us. I guess Samantha is one of the many who read, but don’t write.

When Rich and Dan’s mother’s embrace ended, I caught a fleeting look pass between the two of them, on Samantha’s face an expression more questioning that Rich’s.

“Uh, you know, your son’s here too, Mom,” Dan said, laughingly breaking the suddenly tense silence.

“Oh, you,” Samantha laughed, reaching toward Dan as he approached her. “I just saw you a couple months ago,” Samantha replied, “these two I haven’t seen for ages.”

“I know, I know,” Dan replied teasingly, “you always loved them better. I understand.” Samantha kissed her only son, stroking his head as if he were still her 10 year old boy.

She reached up with her other hand and held his head then in both hands and looked at Dan. “You look more like your father every day, my sweet. So handsome.”

This clearly embarrassed Dan greatly, but he still smiled, face red. I saved our friend by saying “I don’t know where Sam is, Samantha,” looking back toward the house.

“That’s alright,” she responded, “she’s probably taking a walk in the woods. Such a beautiful day!” Samantha looked around, seeming to marvel at the setting. “So beautiful here.”

“You know, I think you’re right,” I said, “she told me she was going for a walk.” We all turned to go in the house, and I glanced at Rich, who seemed lost in thought, clearly preoccupied with something that seemed to come up when Dan’s mother arrived and stepped out of her car. I lagged back to match Rich’s pace as Dan and his mother walked toward the house and he pointed out some of his handiwork. Dan was so proud of “Mobius Manor,” and for good reason. It was beautiful.

“What’s the matter, hon?” I asked Rich.

My husband didn’t reply for a few seconds, but then his concern seemed to melt away and he smiled slightly. “Nothing, my love. Everything’s fine. I promise you.” He sealed the promise with a bigger smile as he put his arm around my waist and pulled me closer for a kiss. “Everything’s fine.”

Fortunately, I’d taken to wearing sturdier shoes than the 2008 knowledge worker usually wore, not because I knew I’d be thrust into a veritable wilderness without warning at some point, but because I tried to wear clothes that wouldn’t look completely out of place. The last thing I wanted to do was find myself in 1933 wearing a pair of running shorts, Michael Jordan t-shirt and Nikes. So, it was usually chinos, a plain shirt and heavier shoes. That turned out to be a really, really good idea.

It was pretty clearly morning when I appeared in in the scrub that would become Mira Mesa in the early summer of 1933,  so with go-bag in hand, I set off for what would become Kearny Mesa, figuring I could “dead reckon” my way to San Diego, going from one landmark I knew was here in 1933 to the next. First stop, Montgomery Field.

What I didn’t know at the time, was that there was no Montgomery Field in 1933. A lot of my life (lives) have revolved around aviation. My Navy days in my second run through the early middle part of my life had me in the air a lot, and in my first trip through the 80s and 90s, I flew recreationally. If fact, I still hold a Single Engine Land Pilot’s License, though I’d be crazy to fly until I become completely capable of staving off a time shift. Anyway, I had assumed that with San Diego’s great aviation tradition, Montgomery Field existed in 1933. I was wrong.

I was also uninformed about what DID exist in the area in 1933. As I headed south-southwest toward what would become Kearny Mesa, I came out of the low spot in the scrub that I’d appered in, and began to see a HUGE building ahead of me. It was a long, long way off, but was clearly immense. I had absolutely no idea what this building was, until about 20 minutes later, when a massive shape started to emerge from it. It was an airship hanger. My military aviation memory then kicked in, and I realized that I was looking at Miramar Naval Air Station, home to the Navy’s airship program. Obviously, the program didn’t exist in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, but here, now, in all it’s gigantic glory was an airship and its hangar. It was breathtaking.

Since the airship program was on the cutting edge of military aviation at the time, I decided to take a very circuitous route and avoid the area altogether. I really didn’t have a good answer to why I was out here, slightly strangely dressed with a couple pieces of futuristic technology in my bag. Getting to my initial destination, which I decided would be Coronado, took a bit longer, but the extra steps were worth not having to answer questions.

More tomorrow.

I returned here three days ago, traveling from 1936. I did indeed travel to 1933, met my Grandfather, and somehow survived the experience of being tossed into the past. The fact that I had been warned and prepared for the trip was what saved me. I’m not sure I would have lived through the experience. Don’t get me wrong, 1930s America is a civilized place, there’s simply not the safety nets or systems to keep someone from slipping through the significantly large cracks in the society of that day.

My expectation was, if I traveled to the past at all, was that I would feel myself slipping into the “mist” as I call it, a “fuzzing out” of reality and a slow sharpening back in when I arrive at the new point in time and space. That’s what it’s like. I feel subtly disconnected with reality, a kind of depersonalization a few seconds before the light starts to dim and everything around me becomes increasingly more indistinct. When my entire world seems to be the inside of a cloud, shadows start to show themselves, then shapes, and then the world returns to clarity in a few seconds. I’m not sure what it looks like from someone else’s perspective, since I haven’t talked with anyone who has seen me disappear or appear. I expected to return to the physical world near Belton, a short walk away from my grandparents’ house.

I was wrong.

On that day in December, I was driving to work and had just gotten off the 15 in Mira Mesa, when I started to feel the “mist” coming on. I swung into a parking lot, speed-dialed Molly’s cell, jumped out of the car, opened the back driver-side door and grabbed my leather go-bag, a leather, 1950s vintage briefcase that I hoped would pass for the proper period piece in the 30s (it did, by the way). I started to tell Molly that “this is it,” – I was feeling like this was a big trip, but before I could get the words out, the world went away. When it returned, I wasn’t anywhere near Belton, but seemed to be somewhere close to the spot in Mira Mesa where I had disappeared. I was in a field of scrub brush near San Diego, California, and without the benefit of landmarks, couldn’t tell exactly where, but it somehow felt close to the place I’d been in 2008. I had traveled many years into the past, but not far at all in terms of geography.

I realized immediately that I had a long trip to Belton, Indiana ahead of me. The only problem was, I’d left my car in 2008.

I’m not here indefinitely. Dan tells me just over 2 weeks, so I’ve got to be judicious with my time. Over the next few days, I’m going to try and give you a brief account of what I went through in 1933, and share some things I feel compelled to tell you about. I have to warn you, it’s not all good news.

More tomorrow.

I smiled and said “Looks like you found her.” The look on Rich’s face was wonderful, a combination of surprise and relief. He bounded up onto the porch and grabbed me in a hug. My husband was home. For a short time, anyway. Dan quietly made his exit, and we spent a few moments alone, not talking, just hugging, before going inside to find Samantha.

*     *     *

It’s late at night, two days after Rich’s return, and I’m the last one still awake at this place that Dan calls “Mobius Manor” I’m not sure exactly what it’s for, but Rich was insistent with Dan that he build it for him. It’s very nice, not exactly my taste, a log-cabin type style, but nice and comfortable. The setting is beautiful, in the middle of the woods, on a piece of property that Dan tells us the Rich who left the time capsule in 1952 purchased through a trust. Who is in control of the trust, I’m not sure, and no one’s talking. Both Rich and Dan claim they don’t know who is calling the financial shots, and I have to tell you, this concerns me a little. No, actually it concerns me a lot. I thought there were a lot of unanswered questions before, but that was just the beginning. This thing is getting deeper and deeper, and the only people who seem to know anything about it aren’t here. Richard Girrard obviously knows the whole story, but not the 50 year old Rich that’s here. The Rich he’ll become knows it, but he doesn’t exist in 2009, so I don’t have access to him. I guess that I, like everyone else here, has to wait for time itself to reveal the story.

In two days, Dan’s mother, also named Samantha (we named our Sam after her) will be here. We haven’t seen her in a number of years, but there are always Christmas and birthday cards. We used to see her often, but once Samantha got to about age 3, things seemed to change. She was still as attentive, just from a distance, by phone and later, email. Her husband, a successful attorney in Chicago, had died that year, so we attributed her withdrawl to that. Dan had no explanation, either.

Dan swears he hasn’t told his mother what’s going on with us, but I suppose it’s possible that she’s reading this blog. Samantha does email, but at her age, I’d frankly, be surprised if she was all that web savvy. Maybe I’m wrong. When Dan told us last night about his mother coming, it was obvious he didn’t know why. Samantha and I were shocked, as was Rich at first. We had just finished dinner, and were having some wine. All of us were in extremely happy spirits, but Rich’s mood changed when the information sunk in. He wasn’t upset, you could just tell that he was considering something complicated.

What would Dan’s mother have to do with that?

Anyway, Rich snapped out of it 15 minutes later, and our conversation turned lively again, as my husband told us about his adventures in the thirties. He’s got several notebooks of information – notes, stories, and information. It’s been 3 years (for Rich) since he typed on a keyboard, but he said he’d do a blog post in the morning. I told him how much the audience of The Time Traveler Blog had grown, and how many emails we’d gotten, and Rich was floored. He was a little uneasy about the story being so widely known, but both Dan and I assured him the number of cranks were few. He loosened up about it at that point.

Hopefully, more from Rich tomorrow.